487-Solo-Confidence.mp3: this mp3 audio file (opens in new tab)was automatically transcribed by Sonix (opens in new tab)with the best speech-to-text algorithms. (opens in new tab)This transcript may contain errors.
Carol Cox:
If you’ve ever said to yourself, I would love to do more speaking, but I need to feel more confident first, or I’m going to pitch myself for that conference or that keynote or that TEDx talk after I have a little more experience. And I understand this. Of course, you want to feel prepared before you get in front of a room full of people or step onto stage. You want to have a clear idea of your message and your content. But I think a lot of the confidence advice women receive has the order backward. It assumes that confidence is something we build privately inside ourselves, by ourselves, and then bring with us when we finally step forward. This advice says become confident first and then speak. But what I’ve seen in my own life, and in more than a decade of coaching women, is that public speaking is not something you do after you become confident. It’s one of the essential ways that confidence is created. And over time. Speaking changes much more than your content and your delivery. It changes how you see yourself and who you believe you can become. Hi, and welcome to the Speaking Your Brand podcast. I’m your host, Carol Cox. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about three ways you can develop true confidence. Not the fake it till you make it power posing type of confidence. Now I love a good power pose as much as anyone else, but I’m going to share three ways that you can truly embody your message.
Carol Cox:
And I’m going to share some of my own experiences that have helped me to do this over my career. At the end, I’m going to share with you the one thing that I did that has increased my confidence more than anything else, and I was very surprised about it. And you probably will be too. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome here at Speaking Your Brand, we work with women entrepreneurs, professionals and leaders to identify your thought leadership message, craft your signature talk, and build your platform. Our mission is to amplify women’s voices and to see more women in positions of influence on stages in the media, in business, in politics, and more. I invite you to take our free Speaker archetype quiz. It’s fun. It only takes a few minutes, ten multiple choice questions, and then you’ll get your results right away to see which of the four speaker archetypes you are so that you can lean into your natural communication strengths. And I include recommendations for what else you can do. You can take that quiz at speaking yourbrand.com/quiz. Now let’s get on with the show. Have you ever finished a speaking engagement? Walked off stage, took a deep breath and thought to yourself, where was I? For the past 45 minutes or an hour, it felt like an out of body experience. I know I had that happen to me quite a number of times earlier in my speaking career, and I have realized since then where that sensation comes from is that as high achieving women, we tend to spend most of our lives and most of our time in our heads.
Carol Cox:
We’re very intellectual, cerebral. We like to think through ideas. We like to think through the research and what we’re going to share with our audiences. And absolutely we should. But we forget that we have bodies. And so we’re not used to practicing with our bodies. We’re not used to being in touch with our bodies and connecting the content that’s in our head with how our body is going to, for the lack of a better word, perform it on stage. I don’t mean perform it in an inauthentic way or in a, in a way that is so rehearsed that it becomes a blockage to you truly connecting with the audience. Instead, I mean performing and realizing that we have a body. Think about when you see actors or comedians or even artists like Taylor Swift perform. They’re not just saying words. They are truly taking their message and embodying it throughout themselves. You can see it in the way that they move in their gestures and their facial expressions. A lot of times when I’m at conferences and groups and I see people speaking, their content may be good, but they seem so disconnected from it. There’s no facial expression. Their face doesn’t light up there.
Carol Cox:
They don’t increase their vocal variation. When they get excited, they don’t pause and slow down. A certain emotional parts of the story that they’re sharing, or to let a lesson really sink in for the audience. That’s what I mean by the disconnect between the content that’s in their head and how they’re expressing it in their body. So what can you do to increase this connection? So what can you do to increase this connection? The first thing is to just do it. Just get on the stage. Just say yes to the opportunity. I remember years ago, I was listening to a podcast and the host was interviewing Whitney Cummings, who is a stand up comedian. At one point he said to her, imagine that. I want to learn stand up comedy. What should I do? And he expected Whitney to reply something like, go watch some YouTube videos, get a book about stand up comedy, start writing some jokes, and practice it with your family and friends. But that is not what she said. And what she said shocked him and scared him. You could hear it in his voice. She said to him, tonight, as soon as we’re done wrapping up here with this podcast recording, go to an open mic night and do some stand up. And he said to her, well, wait a minute, I don’t have any jokes. I don’t, I don’t I’ve never done this before. And she said, exactly.
Carol Cox:
You have to be in the room. You have to do the thing. That is the only way you’re going to get better at it. And then she said, do it tonight and then go back tomorrow night and then go back the night after. You have to keep doing it. The repetition is what builds the muscle memory, and that repetition is what’s going to build the confidence. I remember back 20 years ago when I was first invited to come on the TV news as a political analyst, and I had never been on TV before. And back then we didn’t have Zoom and podcast video and YouTube. So I had very little experience being on camera. But I said yes because I knew that I would figure it out and that the only way to figure it out and to get better was to go and do the thing. I walked into that new studio on a Sunday morning. It was a 30 minute political talk show. That was my very first experience. I walked in there, went to the studio with myself, the anchorwoman, a current congressman and two political reporters. So it was the five of us around this table. My heart was beating so fast, I literally thought it was going to jump out of my chest. I could hear the the humming in my ears, but I told myself, Carol, they invited you here for a reason. This is your opportunity, especially as a young woman, to have a public voice and to have a political voice.
Carol Cox:
And so I knew I was there for a bigger reason. I held my own. And I definitely got better the more that I did it. And then I went back three months later or six months later, and I got better. But it wasn’t until ten years later, in 2016, when I was hired on to be the exclusive analyst for the NBC affiliate in Orlando, that my confidence truly developed because I had to go in every week, sometimes several times a week. So I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare in advance. I didn’t have a lot of time to rehearse my head what I was going to say. I had to embody that confidence. And that repetition is what made all the difference. Notice what’s missing from my examples of saying yes to going to open mic night, going on TV, going on to stage notes or a script. No notes, no script. Trust me, you don’t need them. I know it feels good. It’s like that safety blanket. It’s that crutch that we use. And slides can be useful for that for sure. But when you try to memorize or script what you’re going to say, you end up losing that connection with the audience. Because when you’re trying to remember that next sentence that you had written in your script, you lose that connection between your mind, your voice, and your body.
Carol Cox:
And trust me, your audience can tell. Now, they may not consciously be able to tell, but because we have mirror neurons and the science shows this. As we’re listening and watching someone else, we’re picking up on the cues that they’re giving us through their body language and their facial expressions. This is why I love the in-person workshops and retreats that we do, because the women who attend them, many of them who have come to rely on a script or notes, realize through the intentional exercises that we put them through, through their repeated practice on the stage, with our coaching and feedback, they leave realizing they don’t need notes anymore. And that is one of the biggest takeaways that they get from it. And by the way, if you would like to learn about our next in-person retreat, go to speaking yourbrand.com slash. That was strategy number one. Say yes. Just do it and just do it again. The repetition is going to build the muscle memory. Strategy number two is to experiment with different formats and lengths of time. If you’ve worked with us, you have your signature talk that we created with you during that one on one VIP day. Or perhaps you have a presentation that you deliver often that is great. You’re going to get comfortable with that material and you’re going to be able to embody it more. But now I want you to take that standard presentation, that standard length of time that you have, and experiment with different formats.
Carol Cox:
For example, if there’s a conference that you have your eye on, some of them have ten minute Ted style talks or story driven talks that they offer. Sign up for one of those. Take your tactical presentation and put it into a story format instead. You could also sign up for events like Pechakucha, ignite, disrupt HR. Those are all also idea driven, story driven short talks. So that’s a great exercise to do so that you’re trying different things not only with your content but also with the delivery. If you’re comfortable giving 30 minute to 45 minute talks and you haven’t done workshops, then put on some workshops, partner with local organisations or associations in your community. They bring their audience, their members and you deliver the content. Conversely, and I know this is true for many of you, if you’re very comfortable with teaching and training, you do a lot of workshops already. Challenge yourself with a keynote. A keynote is different than a workshop or a training. A workshop is very applied. The people in the audience are learning what you’re sharing with them, and they’re thinking about how they can implement it right away. Keynotes, on the other hand, are there to get the audience to think differently. It’s not about implementing tactics, it’s about shifting their mindset and even their identity. I have done all of these different types of talks over my career, and I have enjoyed all of them, and I’ve learned so much from their different mediums and their different constraints.
Carol Cox:
Putting together a Pechakucha, which is exactly 20 slides, exactly 20s per slide, exactly six minutes and 40s, we’ll teach you a lot about how to have a strong through line and a concise message, different than be able to put on a two hour workshop where there you need to make sure that you’re keeping the audience engaged and you’re keeping the pace moving throughout the two hours. So that’s strategy number two. To build your confidence is to experiment with different formats and lengths of time. Strategy number three, consider launching your own podcast. Now, I know you may be thinking, oh, it’s so much work. I don’t know how to edit my podcast. I get it. It’s easier now than ever because there are great tools out there like Riverside and the script that make it really easy to just record, record yourself or record yourself with another guest. So don’t let the technical part put you off from starting a podcast. Why am I saying to have a podcast? To build your confidence. I believe that it is the regularity of having to record every single week, which I’ve been doing since February of 2017. Nine and a half years now has made me such a better speaker and not only a better speaker, when I know what I’m going to be saying when I have a planned presentation, but more importantly at impromptu speaking, put me on TV, put me on a panel, put me in front of an audience and hand me something to talk about, and I’ll be able to do it because I do this every single week, and I’ve done this every single week for years now.
Carol Cox:
Maybe you’re not ready to start a podcast right now. I get it. Then find places to be a guest on a podcast. You can have your notes, talking points, things that you want to make sure to cover, but let yourself truly hear the questions that the host is asking and answer them naturally and conversationally, not through written notes. Challenge yourself to do six podcast interviews in the next three months. That was strategy number three. Launch your own podcast, or at least regularly guest on other people’s podcasts. I mentioned at the beginning that there was one thing that surprised me more than anything else that boosted my confidence as a public speaker, and it has nothing to do with public speaking itself. And that was taking an improv class back at the beginning of 2020. Diane Diaz, our lead speaking coach here, is Speaking Your brand, and I took an eight week improv class together at Sak Comedy Lab, a local place here in Orlando. We decided to take it because we have been encouraged by women we know who have done improv, suggesting that we would get a lot out of it.
Carol Cox:
And they were right. But it was so hard, especially for women like us who like to have things planned, not in the sense of having a script memorized, but we like to know what we’re going to be doing. We have a slide deck, we have an outline. We know what the topic is. We know what we’re going to be presenting on. Improv is the opposite of that. You are not told in advance what’s going to happen. You don’t know what the other players on the stage are going to be saying or going to be doing. That is the whole point of improv. We drove there every Monday night for eight weeks and we said to ourselves, why are we doing this? But at the end, when we had our showcase, we surprised ourselves by how much we had learned about how to be in our bodies and how to not fear. Not having the answer or not knowing what was going to happen next, or not knowing what someone else was going to do next. By the time I took this improv class in 2020, I had been a public speaker for decades, since I was in high school on the speech and debate team, and then in college doing model United Nations, plus all the conferences I spoke at earlier on in my career. I had plenty of speaking experience. I was comfortable on stage and doing workshops, but I was still so much in my own head.
Carol Cox:
Improv changed that in eight weeks. I highly recommend finding a local improv class in your community in person, not online. And once you do, reach out and let me know how the experience was for you. At our in-person workshops and retreats, we do some improv exercises for exactly this reason, and the women groan, and they don’t want to do it for the very same reason that Diane and I didn’t want to do it, but they realized afterwards how beneficial it was, and they even start to like it. Much to their chagrin. If you’ve struggled with calling yourself a speaker, if you’ve been hesitant to put the word speaker in your LinkedIn profile or on your website bio, these strategies will help you to embrace that identity. Number one, say yes. Just do it and repeat. Number two, experiment with different formats and lengths of time. Number three, launch your own podcast or definitely be a guest on other people’s podcasts. And bonus number four, take an improv class. I want to see more women with a public presence and a public voice at conferences, on stages, on TV and in the media, on boards and in businesses and in politics and In government, and I firmly believe that the path to gender equality runs through public speaking, runs through women having the clarity, the confidence and the courage to give voice to their ideas.
Carol Cox:
And I want that for you, too. If you would like to join us in Orlando for our three day speaking retreat happening in February 2027, go to speaking yourbrand.com/live for the dates, the location, the pricing, and more. During those three days, you’re going to craft your signature stage segments, those performance bits that are going to make the difference for you to be a memorable, referable speaker that will get you booked. You’re going to get practice time on our stage with coaching and feedback. Those fun activities and exercises to get you more comfortable without your notes and in your body. And on the third day, we have a professional videography team who comes in to film you, presenting your signature stage segments, and you’re going to get the raw video files, an edited version and a one minute speaker reel plus photography. So you have the assets you need to show event organizers exactly what you can do. I would love to have you join us. Go to speaking yourbrand.com, fill out the application form, and then we’ll have a Zoom call to chat about what your goals are. Answer your questions and make sure our retreat is the best fit for you. On our next episode, you get to hear from three women who’ve attended our in-person retreats before. You’ll hear what the experience was like for them at our retreat and where they are now. Until next time. Thanks for listening.
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