I want you to think about the last time that you over explained something.
Maybe it was in a meeting.
Maybe somebody asked for your opinion.
Maybe you were introducing yourself, answering a question, or trying to sound prepared.
And somewhere in the middle of your answer, You had already made your point.
You're still talking, but you made your point and, for some reason Unbeknownst to you, you kept talking.
You added more detail and more detail, and you added disclaimers and then a little.
Does that make sense at the end?
To just really hand over your authority with a cherry on top?
And so today we are going to fix that, my friends.
We're talking about quiet confidence and How to command respect without talking too much.
Because as I've said before, confidence is not always the loudest person in the room.
It's not the most dominant voice.
Sometimes confidence is the person who says the right thing clearly and then knows when to stop.
So today I'm going to show you how to do that with a very simple framework that you can use in meetings and conversations and interviews and social settings.
And even in moments when you feel nervous.
This is part of enriching and boosting your social fluency in social settings and in work settings.
And by the end, you are going to have a practical tool for sounding more self-assured without becoming louder, more aggressive or less like yourself.
Because authenticity is something that we really treasure here in Exploring Academy.
And we boost that authenticity for each and every one of you.
All right, so let's start with the pain point.
Have you ever been in a conversation or in a meeting or any type of social interaction where you felt yourself trying to prove that you belonged?
Maybe somebody asked you a question and then, instead of just simply answering, you gave them the answer, the back story, the context, the emotional footnotes, the stream of consciousness, three disclaimers and then a tiny apology at the end for maybe talking too much And maybe somewhere halfway through you could feel yourself losing the room.
People were losing interest.
They were looking away.
They started looking at their phones or their watches.
And this is not because you weren't smart, and it's not because your point was bad, but because your nervous system started treating the conversation almost like a courtroom where, instead of communicating, you started defending.
And this, my friends, is the quiet person's trap.
Sometimes quieter thoughtful, reflective people believe that they have to compensate for not being naturally loud by over explaining when they finally do speak.
But here is the truth talking more does not automate, automatically make you sound more confident.
In fact sometimes, the more we talk, the more we dilute our authority, which is not the outcome we want.
Quiet confidence is not about withholding information.
It's about choosing, being deliberate, being thoughtful.
So it's the difference between speaking to fill space and airtime and speaking to shape the space.
That's the difference.
Okay, so reply in the interactive chat with a number from one to five to this question.
How often do you over-explain when you feel nervous?
One means almost never, and five means, oh, no, this webinar has entered my home.
Okay, I'll give you a couple minutes, okay.
So I'm seeing a lot of four and fives.
A lot of four and fives.
Yeah, so over explaining oh, and I see somebody here says they're an extrovert and they over explain.
Yeah absolutely, this is not just for people who are the quiet person's trap.
Right, this is the extrovert's trap too in some ways because, Like I said, you find the need to defend yourself like you're in a courtroom.
But communication is not about that.
We're not trying to just fill space to take up air time.
We want to shape the space.
We want to shape the conversation.
Okay, so these are great data points.
So you know, I love a reframe because when we want to make a change it comes from that inner monologue.
First right
It comes from a place inside saying, I want to do better.
I want to be better.
I want to communicate better.
And it also comes from a place where I'm enough, because you're saying I'm enough, yet I also want to improve on X Y, Z.
Those things can both exist.
Those things can both be true.
You can think of yourself as enough, which is a very important thing.
Yet you can also think that there is room to grow, room to improve, which is also a very healthy mindset to be in.
Okay.
So the reframe that we're going to do is not how do i talk more so that people respect me.
The better question to ask is how do i send a stronger signal when i speak?
Because respect does not come from volume alone.
Respect comes from signals, right?
What do I mean by that?
A strong signal means that people can understand your point, feel how steady you are and sense that you're not scrambling for approval.
Why does this matter?
Because people often read confidence through a combination of warmth and competence, which we talked about in another webinar from this same series on charisma and magnetism.
Warmth tells people I'm safe to engage with.
Competence is telling people I can be trusted to contribute.
And that quiet confidence that we're looking at lives right at the intersection of those two things.
It's not cold authority.
It's not detached superiority.
It's not about people-pleasing friendliness where your own point disappears.
It's actually warmth. warm steadiness and calm clarity and really the ability to say here's what i think without needing to wrap it in bubble wrap and protect it by hedging and tiptoeing and walking on eggshells and maybe apologizing okay so instead of making you instead today the goal is not to try to make you louder the goal is to make your communication cleaner so here is our framework for today quiet easy to remember really on point this is what it stands for so quality over quantity say the useful thing don't say everything you is unhurried pacing sometimes people rush through their points it could be because of social anxiety it could be because they don't feel like they deserve to speak and take up space maybe they feel like people are going to over speak like speak over them or interrupt them and so they feel like they need to hurry up but we want to slow down enough to sound grounded okay i is having those pauses intentional pauses want you to think of silence as your friend it can support your message eye contact is really important and so is the energy that you bring so people process your words but before they do that they're going to feel your presence what vibe are you giving off and it doesn't mean that you need to make intense unblinking eye contact please do not turn into a haunted portrait on people but it does mean having this connected and calm attention and you can look away and avert your gaze every once in a while But really think about making eye contact and what your energy is.
And then T is for thoughtful endings, right?
This is where a lot of people actually lose their authority.
Why?
Because they make a really strong point and then they keep talking, and talking, and talking until their point gets weaker and then people will forget the point you made, or if there ever even was one, they'll forget it, right.
But the quiet confidence that we're looking for is about knowing when to stop.
So, in a nutshell, the TLDR of this is quality over quantity, unhurried pacing, intentional pauses, eye contact energy, the vibe you bring, and thoughtful endings okay.
So one of the fastest ways to sound more quietly confident is to use lead with the thing that's useful.
It doesn't have to be the disclaimer.
It doesn't have to be the apology, not the entire thinking process that you know you're hemming and hawing over.
But it's the useful thing.
For example, instead of saying I'm not sure this makes sense, but I was kind of thinking maybe we could possibly.
But obviously I'm open to whatever everyone thinks.
Right can say.
My recommendation is that we simplify the next step, that's it okay, and then you can add context after, but you want to lead with the point.
This is especially powerful for thoughtful people, because thoughtful people often want to show all the reasoning that led them to that answer, so they're sharing all of their thought processes along the way.
And reasoning is valuable.
But if you lead with all the reasoning, then people are going to get lost and they're not going to know where you're going.
So the quiet confidence is really saying in so many words.
I trust myself enough to start with the point, so i have a bunch of sentence starters here for you that you can use.
My recommendation is the main thing i'm noticing is, i would suggest the clearest step is what matters most here is these are simple.
Yes, they don't have to be fancy, but what do they do?
They immediately create authority because you're not asking permission to have a point.
So In the interactive chat, what is the one phrase that you're going to use this week out of these phrases?
Think about what you're going to use, commit to using it, and then type it in the chat.
Okay, great.
These are really good, good answers.
And I see some of you have even written your own.
That's wonderful.
Do you see?
It's so much better to start with the useful thing.
All right, the pause.
Pausing is super important.
For a lot of people, silence is absolutely terrifying. because a pause can feel like an emergency.
You ask yourself, do they think I don't know?
Do they think I'm awkward?
Am I going to appear like an imposter?
Should i fill this space?
Should i say something anything?
Perhaps a 14 document, 14 minute documentary about my thought process?
But the thing that we have to remember, my friends, is that a pause is not a failure, because a pause can make you sound more confident, it can help you have thought processing time and it gives people time to process what you're sharing as well.
The key with this is to make the pause look intentional.
It's not a hesitation, and for that you really have to embody the understanding that the pause is your friend.
So let me think about that for a second.
That's a really good question.
I want to answer it clearly.
I'm going to pause for a moment because there are two parts to that, or the answer is twofold.
Okay.
These phrases buy you some time without making you seem hesitant or unsure.
Practice these phrases, add them to your toolkit, make them your own and have them in your back pocket, so that, instead of pulling out a filler um ah hmm uh, or an apology, oh.
So sorry, but you have some intentional pauses for you at your disposal.
Okay.
So imagine somebody asks you, what do you think we should do next?
Instead of just jumping in without missing a beat, take a breath, okay?
Take a beat and say I think the clearest step is to choose one priority and to commit to it, or whatever you want to answer the question with.
The thing about this is that when you pause, you will prevent yourself from rushing in, and you want it to be in that half second moment that you're willing to take before you speak.
You have that confidence that you're exuding and you're sure of yourself.
Okay, so Eye contact and energy.
This is the presence before the words.
So quiet confidence is not about you to perform dominance.
It's not about power posing in the conference room like you're about to challenge somebody to a duel or a face-off.
It's not about your body apologizing for your presence.
You are allowed to take up space to speak and to share your thoughts, so i want you to do the three-point presence check.
First, feel your feet grounded.
I had a phenomenal drama teacher back in middle school and i still remember her and she always told us, in order to calm nerves, before going on stage, to do a grounding exercise, meditation.
And it wasn't necessarily a meditation, but I think of it that way now, looking back all these years later.
Feet grounded.
And I still carry that with me to this day, to my own practice, with my own students, with my own clients.
Ground your feet.
It doesn't matter if you're sitting or you're standing, but what it does is it anchors your voice and your body.
So it's really important feel the floor, feel the surface that you're standing or sitting on.
Then I want you to relax your face.
Many of us hold tension in our jaw.
There might be a forced smile that we're plastering to our face, anxious eyebrows, furrowing eyebrows, but the composure really starts here.
And then attention connected.
So connect with the person in front of you.
Not trying to scan the room for approval, but look at somebody and if you don't know them, imagine you know them.
Imagine you're friends.
Find a friendly face right, can look at somebody while making your point and then glance briefly away while thinking, and then return to them when you finish your sentence.
Or if you are not on stage but you're in a meeting, look at somebody, make eye contact, make your point and then continue on right.
This kind kind of quiet confidence is saying i'm with you, i'm still with myself too.
That's the balance that we want to strive All right.
Now we come to thoughtful endings, right.
This is one of the most underrated parts of quiet confidence, because a lot of people know how to start a point, but they don't know how to end one.
So they might make a strong point and then they just keep going and going and going and going and going and it's like okay, hold up, can you just catch your breath right?
So they might add another example, an anecdote, a disclaimer, a softener, a hedge, but yeah, i don't know, maybe that's just me kind of thing and then out window, their authority goes.
So i want you to think about a strong ending as a clean way to end.
It's not abrupt.
So here are some endings that you can use.
That's the main point.
That would be my recommendation.
I'd start there.
That's the direction I would take.
I'll pause there and let someone else jump in.
And then really think about also lowering your intonation at the end of your sentence and make sure that your voice doesn't trail off.
Like don't swallow that final syllable or word.
Really end on a strong note.
I had experience doing anchoring when I was starting out in my career.
It was for a new kind of news channel web-based, and in my training I noticed that my voice was trailing off, so the last sentence or the last syllable was not always heard, and just emphasizing that final syllable, that final sound phoneme word, drove the point home so much more.
So i want you to remember about think about landing landing okay, land the ending, because this is how people will understand that you've finalized what you want to say.
It's not abrupt.
Very important, very important, okay.
So here's a tool for you that you can take into your next social interaction, and it's the three sentence quiet confidence drill.
So the first thing is point.
So my point is, or my main point is, and then you have a support.
So the reason is this is because blah blah blah, sentence three you want to stop.
That's the main thing i'd focus on.
That's how we're going to resolve this issue.
Okay, so let's see an example.
My main point is that we should simplify the onboarding process.
The reason is that many people are dropping off when there are too many steps.
That is the main thing that I would focus on.
What does this do?
It gives you clarity.
It gives the listener structure. and it prevents you from over explaining.
It contains it.
If people want more information, they will surely ask you for it.
Always remember that.
You can always add more.
So I want to close with an identity shift, because the intrapersonal work that we do here as well is just as important as the interpersonal work with our communication and social fluency.
So I want you to remember that quiet confidence is not just a communication tactic.
It is part of your identity.
It's the identity of somebody who no longer believes that they have to rush over-explain hedge, apologize or perform in order to garner respect.
So the new identity is and this could be a variation of this variation on the theme is i'm becoming somebody who speaks with clarity, not urgency.
Remember that clarity, not urgency.
That is such a powerful shift because urgency is about.
Please approve of me quickly and your clarity is.
Here's what I mean.
Right?
Urgency is, oh, okay, hold on.
Let me prove that I belong here.
Whereas clarity is, I'm already here.
This is exactly what we practice inside Exploring Academy.
Okay.
These skills are not learned by watching one video or participating in one webinar and just magically becoming a different person.
These become part of your communication when you actually practice and repeat.
It's like getting in your reps at the gym.
You're not going to immediately get stronger just by one gym session, just by doing 10 reps of, you know, 10 bench presses going to get stronger in the consistency, in the repetition.
And that's exactly what we do in our live webinars, in our interactive chat prompts, in our worksheets and our challenges in our real world practice, in our live ama ask me anything coaching sessions.
So I invite you to come into Exploring Academy, where you get all of that and more, because social fluency is more important now than it ever was before.
And it's not about memorizing scripts.
And it's not about having AI do everything.
AI is super helpful.
We love AI, but we also love human to human interaction and being able to communicate face-to-face and face-to-face virtually as well right,
And it's about...
Being the kind of person who can easily enter a conversation with confidence steadiness, being able to think clearly in the moment, in high tension situations, in emotionally charged situations, in calm situations, in all types of situations and communication contexts.
And it's about communicating in a way that feels authentic to how you communicate and also respected.
So your action step is to complete the quiet confidence worksheet which I'm going to show you in just a second.
And I want you to choose one sentence starter. and one clean ending.
And I want you to practice those this week and into the weekend.
And then I want you to share one answer inside Exploring Academy so that we can support each other and learn from each other.
That is the beauty of a community of practice.
And I want to leave you with this.
You do not need to talk more to be taken seriously okay i want you to speak with more signal and this is exactly what the quiet confidence gives you so let's take a look at worksheet that i have for you and in the community you'll also see the sample answers so that you can compare it to your own thoughts and your own answers and then also you might have something completely different and I want you to share that in the community because it's really helpful to have different varying perspectives that's what really enriches the community as well and it's not an echo chamber right we're all sharing our unique worldviews our unique experiences our unique perspectives and this is really powerful we come together in a community of practice to share that with each other all right so my friends this is the worksheet that you have inside exploring academy and i want you to take a look at it okay so we've got our lovely quiet confidence builder here you're going to think about your current communication right where do you over explain most think about your default patterns especially when you feel nervous like when I feel nervous I tend to what maybe apologize or rush or over explain or use too many disclaimers and then use the framework that I taught here today for your quiet reset and then your three sentence practice so your main point is your support is your stop is like the main thing i'm going to focus on is this all right and then what is our shifting identity Okay, so I've given you some options here, and you can choose your own, or you can choose one from this list, like clarity, not urgency, steadiness, not panic, confidence, not compensation.
So come into the academy, share your answers, fill out this worksheet.
And then, of course, you can rewatch this webinar, and you can.
You have access to the slides as well, the worksheet, the replay, and the community of professionals and people who want to become more socially fluent at work and in life.
So that is a wrap on our charisma and magnetic personality communication module.
You can find all of the materials inside the community under daily practice.
And I can't wait to see you in the next one.
Happy exploring everybody.
