Can’t Speak Confidently? These Myths Might Be Holding You Back

If I had a dime every time that someone said, "Oh, the reason why I'm having difficulty communicating is because I'm not a good storyteller. I don't know how many dimes I would have. It is very often, I hear people say this." And the reason why is because in social media and pop culture, storytelling has become a buzzword for communicating, for speaking well, for conducting with someone, for resonating with someone. I'm Dr. Grace Lee and you're listening to the Career Revisionist Podcast for executives, team leaders, people and managers, and ambitious professionals from all backgrounds. It's for those among us who can't stay stagnant and admire anyone who demonstrates exponential growth. We challenge ourselves to step out of our comfort zone and into higher levels of leadership. And we are determined to rise confidently in our industry so that we can make our greatest contribution using our knowledge and expertise. We have worked hard to become great at what we do, but only so we can achieve the goals that give our lives meaning and purpose. And while we persevere through a college education to get us here with our technical skills, we understand that to get to the next level where we desire to be, it requires a different kind of skills. We're not comfortable with failure because we experience satisfaction when we are advancing. And while some of us work well under pressure, all of us perform the best when we are part of a winning team. And instead of just hoping to achieve what's important to us, we choose to become a more optimized version of ourselves to make it happen. We're not just A players. We are A+ players and we are the source of consistent output that makes positive advancements in the world around us. Do you find it hard to speak with confidence in front of your C-suite executives, even when you know you have the expert knowledge? When I think about how difficult it is to express and share one's ideas and thoughts, it blows my mind. Right? When I think about way back then when I was in my PhD and I was to share my ideas and to share my knowledge, I knew that I had expert knowledge because it was my research. But I remember the very first time I spoke in a stage with only 100 people in the audience and I froze. I didn't know what to say even though I had scripted. And so what I had to do was I had to understand why is speaking with confidence so difficult. As soon as I got that, then I can speak confidently no matter who is in my audience. And I can even speak impromptu right on the spot. So in this video, I want to share with you is why is speaking with confidence so difficult? And when you understand this, on the other side of that difficulty is your ease with speaking with confidence. You see, there are 10 reasons why speaking with confidence in front of your C-suite is so difficult. The first reason why it's so hard is because there is some belief that you must be bored with some advantage. As soon as you believe that advantage in the communicating fluently and articulating clearly has there's a skill that you're born with, then that creates the cognitive dissonance. Because if you feel, if you believe that any part of you believes that you're born with it and you realize that I'm not born with it, now that creates a dissonance that if I'm not born with it, then it is very impossible or very difficult for me to speak that way. So be careful what you believe because that what you believe is that what you will exhibit. When you look at the characteristics of great speakers and how they became successful and you really got to know them just like I shared with you earlier, it's not possible to be born with this way. Everybody is born the same way. We are born without teeth, we are born without speech, we are born not even knowing our own name, not even to able to say hi to our parents. That's how we are all born. And this is the development of a skill set. Communication is a skill set. Speaking is a skill set confidence is also comes behind a skill set. And now you might argue, well confidence is not a skill. Well sure, confidence is not a skill. But if you think about how does confidence come about, it comes about as a result of having developed skill. Now think about a time where you were unskilled at something and later you became skilled at it. Before you would develop that skill in it, didn't you laugh at confidence? And when you became skilled in it, didn't you become more confident? So confidence comes afterwards. We don't have that up front, but it can be developed. And as long as you believe that we must be born with some advantage in order to speak confidently, then it's going to create the anxiety, it's going to create the belief that will hold you back from being able to do so. The second reason why speaking with confidence is so difficult is because you want the audience to like you. Now I get it, you're in the boardroom, the C-Sweetens front of you, and they have an expectation of what you're going to deliver. And everyone in that boardroom understands the purpose of your presentation or the purpose of your of your, of your, of your atonery. And I can understand that because there's a lot hanging on your presentation that yeah, you want them to like you. Now your audience liking you, the C-Sweet liking you is sufficient to be able to achieve your ends. It's sufficient for them to for you to be able to get by it, but it's not necessary. It's sufficient, but not necessary. Because get this, it is possible for a C-Sweet executive to listen to your idea, to listen to your proposal and say, you know, there's something I'm not liking about it, but I can see it's merit. I don't like what you just said there, but I can see where you you arrived at that conclusion. Now that is a possibility. And as long as you seek them liking you, you're seeking something very disempowering, you're seeking something in which you don't have control over. Having someone like you, making someone like you, and now the focus becomes, I want them to like me. So be careful if you set that as a goal that you need them to like you. The third reason why speaking with confidence is so difficult is because you see yourself as shy and integrated. I don't know how many times I've heard this before. Talking to me and someone talks to me and they say, you know, I would love to be more outgoing. I need to be able to articulate myself. I need to express myself, you know, but my problem is I'm introverted. And that is they labeled that they wear. It's the identity that they have. Now as long as you believe that you are shy and introverted, that's how other people will see you. You see, the principle is that people don't see you through their eyes. They see you through yours. So how do you see yourself? How you see yourself is how you exhibit yourself. And in turn, that's how they're going to see you. And I don't believe there's such a thing as someone who is shy and introverted because if you think about it, there are moments in your life where you're shy and there's the moments in your life where you're not. There's moments in your life where you are introverted and there are moments in your life where you are not. So be careful what you are believing because that what you believe about yourself is the most important thing to create the empowerment you need to speak with confidence. The fourth reason why speaking with confidence is so hard is because you focus on learning for the sake of knowledge. Now I get it. When you were in school, elementary school, grade school, all the way high school in college, the purpose of learning was to know something. The purpose of learning was to have knowledge around a subject matter expertise, to learn about something and therefore to prove your knowledge. But having you ever noticed that in this phase throughout the years that we've gained knowledge through reading books, through taking classes, we're knowledgeable. But have you ever experienced a type of time where you are very knowledgeable about something but for some reason it's hard for you to open up opportunities to exercise and apply that knowledge or have you ever noticed that you're very knowledgeable about something but for some reason you find yourself in a situation or a very dynamic circumstance and it's really difficult to know how to navigate it. And the reason why is because knowledge only goes so far if you learn for the sake of knowing about it, it only goes so far. You learn about it, that's one layer, but the most important thing is to learn to apply it, to learn how to do something or to learn how to create an outcome. That's doing. Learning for the sake of knowledge is the first step, that's accumulating information. But do you know what to do with the information? Do you know when to apply it? How to apply it? And why to apply that aspect of it? And so instead of learning for the sake of knowledge, what if you would learn for the sake of mastery? And in that sense your education is more intentional. There is a principle that goes, don't let your education get in the way of your expertise. Don't let your education get involved in it, don't get your education, hold you back from it. And this is what I strongly believe because if you really learn to master a thing, you can apply your knowledge effectively and it's not knowledge that gives you the power in the impact is the application of which does. So if you're listening to this and you're realizing, yes, this is really important, right? Points 1 through 3, 4 and maybe you're noticing that you have all four of them and it's holding you back from being confident and communicating with your C suite or your high levels. And you're realizing, you know, I would like to overcome these things but I don't know where to start and I don't know where to start. I don't know where to go next and I'd love for someone to hold me, hold me by my hand and really to tell me, this is what you do and this is how you take the steps and this is the strategy. Well, if you are serious about committing to your own personal growth, which leads to your professional development that I invite you to work with me. Below this video, there is a link, the very first link that you'll see and that is an application to speak with one of my trusted career advisors. And if you, it's the right fit for us and it's the right fit for you as well, then you're going to be invited to join a group of elite professionals executives just like you. And every single week I provide hands-on training, practical real-time, real-world training on how do you develop the skill of communication and to do so in a way that is authentic, it's confident and you're getting that buy-in, you're having the impact that you want to have. So only if you're serious about this, I develop in the skill. These are the skills that they don't teach you in school and it is the onus is on you to develop those skills but it is a learnable skill. So that's you, put the link below and I look forward to meeting you on the inside. The fifth reason why speaking with confidence is so hard is because you over and emphasize the need to be a good storyteller. If I had a dime every time that someone said, oh, the reason why I'm having difficulty communicating is because I'm not a good storyteller. It is very often I hear people say this. And the reason why is because in social media and pop culture, storytelling has become a buzzword for communicating, for speaking well, for conducting with someone, for resonating with someone. But if you really think about it, storytelling is one aspect of being able to communicate fluently, but it's not everything. And I can't emphasize enough that if you told a story and you told the story well, but you were unable to link why that story is important, they'll still be unable to resonate with what you said. So it's not just about storytelling. Be careful of how much emphasis and how much way to put on storytelling. What's more important in an executive setting, in a boardroom setting, especially with your C-suite executives, because they don't have time to hear all your stories. What's more important is the narrative around the values that they have as a collective C-suite executive. And that is a skill set that can be learned if you understand the strategy of communication. Now storytelling is fun, and there's no reason why you're communicating in the boardroom can't be fun for you. But what goes deeper than just storytelling alone is to be able to connect the values through your narrative. The sixth reason why communicating with confidence is so difficult is because you are incongruent with your desired image for confidence. Now it's facep. It is a worthy desire to be confident in our communications. But do you know what that looks like for you? Do you know what it means to you? Do you know precisely what needs to happen in order for you to be confident, to feel confident, to be others to perceive you that way as well? So that clarity is important. And oftentimes what I hear is that people generally are clear about that. But then there are actions, who they are, and the way they show up. And their belief systems and philosophies don't quite produce those bills. And there's that incongruency. Conguency is important. Conguency means that I know the outcome I want to achieve. And it could be my presence. It could be the way I show up. It could be the way I come across. I know that outcome for me. But inside internally, I need to have the communication. I need to have the vision. I need to have the right makeup of Huayang and my belief systems in order to produce that outcome. As long as one of those is incongruent, it's really difficult to produce that outcome. Because if there's something that's incongruent from the inside, success comes from the inside out. What gets produced on the outside will be different from what your desired image was. So congruency is a key to having outcomes being that. The seventh reason why communicating with confidence is so hard is because you have a belief that practice makes perfect. How many of you heard that heard that before? It's all over the internet. We were told that way as kids. Practice makes perfect. You got to practice. You got to keep practicing. And what most of the time, executives, the reason why executives have difficulty communicating is not for the lack of practice. The constantly practicing, a lot of my clients are writing notes and a lot of my clients have come to my classes saying, "I've written down a script, I've rehearsed it until it hurts." And I memorized it for some reason. I still don't have the confidence and it's noticeable that I don't have the confidence. So it's not for the sake of practice. It's not for the lack of practice. And here's the thing, practice does not make perfect. It does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. So be careful what you are practicing. If you're practicing something and there's a belief inside you that gets internalized, that gets solidified, that goes deeper, then what you're practicing that becomes permanent. And if the permanence of that situation creates incongruence with your image of confidence, if what you've been practicing creates some sort of belief system that makes it difficult to create confidence, then can you see how that practice making permanent will then prevent you? That very active practicing will prevent you from achieving the result of confident communications. So practice does not make perfect. It makes permanent. Now the eighth reason why communicating with confidence is so hard is because you compare yourself with great speakers you admire. And this is a tough one. Oftentimes, this is another one I hear very often is, "Oh, I wish I could speak like so and so." There's somebody in my office, there's a C-suite who's so fluent who has the charisma, who has an awesome, a wonderful, broad vocabulary. And I wish I could be more like them. I need to be more like them if only I could speak like them. And oftentimes I hear this within my community, my classes and my clients. And the reason why it makes communication very difficult is because as long as you admire somebody, a great speaker, in neither of these what happens at the same time of that admiration is there is a congruent thought that gets implanted that, "Well, I'm not like them." Well, they are better than, "Well, they are much better than me." And that puts you lower and that puts them higher. And so you look up to them. And as a result of that dynamic, whether you're aware of it or not, because as a result of that dynamic, there is this fear of what will they think of me? I want them to, they'd better like me. I better do something. I better prove myself to them because I don't want to lose their respect. I don't want to lose my relationship with them. I don't want to lose their respect of me and the way they regard me as a professional. And you see, that emotional milieu makes it very difficult to communicate with confidence. That makeup of that emotional qualities of it, the fear of losing them, the fear of what they might think of you, as a result of admiring them, that creates an emotional milieu of chemicals that makes it even difficult to remember what you wanted to say, to convey confident authentically. And for you to have that impact effect on them, right? So this is the eighth reason why it's so difficult. The ninth reason why communicating with confidence is so hard is because you link feeling confident with absolute positive outcomes. So what do I mean by that? Well, have you ever said to yourself, well, if they liked my presentation, then I'll feel confident. If I get in the buy-in, then I'm going to be confident. And have you have experienced that too? Your confidence goes up when things go your way. And your confidence goes down, it takes a hit, when things don't quite work out the way you want them to. And so if you notice this, the waxing and waning, the ebbs and flows of your confidence, that means that your confidence, feeling confidence, is directly linked to positive outcomes only. Confidence is there when outcomes are positive. And so this becomes a very dangerous and also a very exhausting experience, a rollercoaster type of experience, when your confidence is existential, when it is based on things that happen outside of you, that you don't have control over anyway. And also this produces a cycling effect of even more difficulty to communicate with confidence. If you already know that you don't have control over things outside of you, and outcomes can go either way, absolute outcomes can go either way, positive or negative. And it's only if it's positive that you're confident. And so that creates more anxiety and more anxiety over, well, I don't know how my confidence is going to be doing. I'll be better if I'll be confident, if things go my way, but I don't know what I'm going to do with things don't. So this one is dangerous. And this one, I might say, is oftentimes left undetected and most people are unaware that this is what's blocking them for being confident. We are on number 10 now. The 10th reason why speaking with confidence is so difficult is because you practice scripts instead of self-governance. Now this goes back to a few points ago where I mentioned that I have a lot of clients who told me, you know, I practice a lot. I practice. I write out my scripts and I practice until it hurts. Now if that's you, if you've written a script before and you tried to memorize it before, and that's your practice, then you're missing out on a very key transformer to thing. And that is self-governance. Self-governance refers to, I know who I am. I know what's important to me, and I know my mission objective as I head out for this presentation. And as a result of having that clarity, I'm going to show up present. And I'm going to show up poised. And I'm going to show up to serve to my highest level. And yes, does it mean that you don't feel emotion? No, not absolutely not. You might feel emotions. And does it mean that everyone's going to like you and agree with your suggestions? Absolutely not. Sometimes people might like you. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you're going to have a C-suite executive who poaks holes in your recommendation. And sometimes you're going to have a standing ovation. But the outcomes don't dictate-- dictate how confident you feel. The outcomes don't dictate how you show on. And not a self-governance. So practice that instead of practicing scripts. Scripts only take you so far. And oftentimes from my experience serving other clients is that practicing scripts and writing outward scripts, that acted self-create more anxiety for fear of forgetting what you wrote in the script. So those are the 10 reasons why speaking with confidence is to all. [MUSIC PLAYING]