There are some people around us who just seem like they are born with natural confidence. You know what I'm talking about, they're s...
There are some people around us who just seem like they are born with natural confidence.
You know what I'm talking about, they're super smooth super confident they always know the right thing to say. Think about, President Obama, he just seems like a smooth guy, think of one of his famous 'Yes We Can' rally speeches. His oratorical skills what do you notice, about how he speaks, he's powerful, he's decisive, he speaks slowly and almost never stumbles or stutters. His points are clear and they're to the point, like he's the epitome of confidence. When it comes to a speaker on stage, so when you look at somebody like him it's very easy to assume that he has some innate ability that he was born with.
Its like either you have it, or you don't. But the truth is that confidence is also a skill, that is built by practice over a lifetime.
When you see a comedian telling this hilarious three-minute joke with the perfect punchline. It seems like they just came up with that right there, but the truth is they've practiced that joke hundreds of times in tiny comedy clubs, way before you ever saw it. Everything down to those perfect pauses and those off-the-cuff laughs, every single thing has been practiced and perfected. In fact, they've done it so many times that they know it's going to land a huge laugh. So their delivery just oozes natural self-confidence.
What I like to do is peel back the curtain go behind the scenes and realize that confidence is something you actually can control, if you know how.
Here is a simple example of how you can control your confidence in less than 20 seconds, let's take something you routinely do. Let's say, what you did this weekend and how you can change the way you say it. I want you to channel your inner super confident person, it could be Barack Obama, it could be Susan Sarandon, it could be Narendra Modi, it could be whoever you want, don't focus on who it is. Don't even worry about what you say, instead focus on changing how you say it.
Sit up straight, speak slowly and imagine what you're saying. It is incredibly important because the people listening want to hear it.
For an example, you went for a movie with your family & friends, You go on describing the experience (in a crouched body posture) as,
A little before and after, yeah I can't even remember, I mean, I think it was pretty good, it was actually pretty crazy, but I just went to a movie and saw some friends, you know the usual I guess.
Now let's compare the same explanatory with this one (in an upright body posture),
We had a great weekend, I was with the kids on Saturday, then Michelle and I caught a Broadway show. Finished the night at that new sake bar downtown.
Now what you can notice from the first one is, all that we're doing here is to work on our delivery. So what happened in the 'before' and 'after' example, is that obvious difference is the way he sounded way more confident, but it also goes a lot deeper by speaking this way. To put it another way, he made an external change to how he sat, how he spoke and he was actually be able to influence my internal state. Sitting up straight, and changing how he spoke, made it feel more confident.
The external, influences the internal. This is a totally different way of looking at things, behavior first, attitude second. Remember, nobody sees inside of you they don't see how confident you are, how much work you spent practicing it. All they see is the way you answer a question, or the way you sit when you're talking to them.
So when it comes to confidence, confidence can actually come from the outside in, not just from the inside out, which is what everybody tells you. So instead of waiting for it to just magically appear, where's my confidence, where is it we're actually changing our behavior, is something everyone can do.
By doing that, we are letting the confidence follow the external, which influences the internal. Once you master this concept, you can apply it to a lot more than just how you speak and how you sit. A couple of examples more like,
What are you wearing today. Oh, something a little more upscale, I wonder how you'll feel when I started dressing better. People would say something like, "Wow, you look great!" Guess what it made me feel great. What are you gonna order today, when you go out to eat something healthy.
I wonder if that might affect the way you think about yourself, how are you going to introduce yourself. What if someone says, "I'm Mike I work at insurance company". Boring right, yes that is boring. I don't want to talk to you anymore Mike.
But what if Mike self-reflects this, and he says, "I'm Mike, you know when people call up their insurance company and they find that one person who's amazing on the phone that's me". Now that is a total transformation your takeaway.
Today is to identify three things that you can change that would make you feel more confident, write them down, leave a comment, stick them to your desk, start changing your behavior and watch that confidence followed.
No comments