This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 443.
How to make others confident in themselves with these six English phrases.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 10 million times.
We believe in connection, not perfection.
With your American hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
Coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Today, you'll get six phrases that you can use to empower others, which will give them the confidence they need to do good work.
And as a result, they'll like you more.
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Hey, Michelle.
How are you doing today?
Hey, Lindsay.
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm good.
It's a lovely Tuesday.
The Christmas season is upon us and getting busy.
But again, we are back podcasting for our listeners as always.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So I want to start by saying thank you to the people who reviewed us in iTunes.
So thank you to Relax Poor from Thailand.
Michelle, who else reviewed us?
Yes.
Thank you so much to Mom Special from India.
Thank you to Frat Quintero from Colombia.
And thank you to Mabel Pinto from Chile. and Rodrigo Lunamu from Mexico.
And someone from China.
I'm sorry I can't read your name, but thank you so much.
That's great.
Someone from China in the iTunes store on November 27th.
Thank you.
And then Ninfa01927 from Brazil.
Guys, these reviews are awesome.
They keep us going.
They keep us motivated.
So we want to hear from you if you haven't left your review.
Yeah.
So please go on over to the iTunes store and review All Ears English.
Thanks, guys.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
Michelle, what are we talking about today?
What's the topic of the day?
Okay, well, today we are talking about charisma.
Oh, I love that word.
What does that even mean?
It's such a sexy term, isn't it?
Charisma.
It is.
I like it.
Well, it's kind of like that spark, right?
Spark.
Yes.
That spark that makes people like you or feel connected with you, right?
Which is what we're all about.
I love it.
That's a really good way to say it, Michelle.
Makes people like you, right?
That's what we want, right?
If we're really honest with ourselves, what we really want is to be liked and to connect with people, right.
Because I've noticed in my life, if there's ever a season where I'm feeling kind of down, it's always when I'm lacking those connections.
Like I'm not going deep enough with my friends or in relationships, right?
So we just want to be liked, right?
It's such a basic human need, right?
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so we're going to be talking a lot about charisma in 2016.
We're going to be talking more about it.
But for today, one aspect of a charismatic person or someone who's well-liked or who connects with people is confidence.
But that's such a vague term, confidence.
Right, Michelle?
Right.
Yeah.
So today I want to talk not about how to be confident yourself, but how to show others that you're confident in them.
Right?
Right.
Right.
Definitely.
Okay, good.
I'm excited.
Yeah, because that's a huge part of a charismatic person is not just that they can do anything they want.
It's also that they show others how to be leaders themselves and how to be confident in themselves.
Yeah, definitely.
Right.
Yeah.
If you can make someone else feel good about themselves.
Wow.
Huge, huge, huge.
It's like the key to success in life.
Definitely.
I don't know, but I'm guessing, right?
I think it is.
I think it is.
I think it is.
I think so, too.
I guess.
I think.
Right.
So our listeners are today.
We're getting the key to success in life.
So, you know, it's the opposite of micromanaging.
Right.
So when someone is a leader in an organization or even in a family, if you micromanage, what do you do, Michelle?
Basically, the phrase I'm thinking of is breathing down someone's neck.
Ooh, good one.
Yeah.
I mean, think of it literally.
If somebody's breathing down your neck, they won't leave you alone, right?
So to micromanage someone is to, for example, in the workplace.
I said we'd talk about work a little bit today.
Mm-hmm.
It's when your boss might say, you know, kind of supervise you on every single step of the way.
Instead of giving you one big task and kind of you know checking in once in a while.
They have to know everything that's going on.
Yeah.
Micromanaging happens often at work, I think.
So breathing down someone's neck.
I like that.
So I can picture a boss standing above someone behind them and literally breathing down their neck.
That's a really good descriptive language, Michelle.
I like it.
I like it.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So I think we should show our listeners how to do this today at work, specifically how to show their colleagues, or even the people under them at work, that they are confident in them.
Right.
So the question is, how can we do that in English?
I mean, so we have a bunch of phrases today that we want to throw out for our listeners.
So what would be the first one, Michelle?
The first one is, I know you can handle this.
Yeah.
And I like the feeling you put into that.
I know you can handle it.
It's very short, right?
I know you can handle this.
Very cool.
Very cool.
We'll see you next time.
Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash charisma and you'll be on the priority invitation list.
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That's allearsenglish.com forward slash C-H-A-R-I-S-M-A.
See you there.
You know, another one is you have the skills to manage this project, right?
Very just straightforward.
You have the skills that you need for this.
Okay.
Yeah, definitely.
What's another?
Okay, the next one could be I'm fully confident in you, or like i'm 100 confident in you, exactly.
Another one could be i know you can do it right.
Again, i i know putting the emphasis on i know you can do it, i know you can handle this.
Another one
And another one is this is right up your alley.
I like that.
Yeah, that's a good one.
I mean, to be right up someone's alley.
It's kind of an idiom here.
It's.
It's exactly the thing that you're going to do.
Well, because you know this, this area, this discipline.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And then another one that I hear less frequently but is also good is this is in your wheelhouse.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I haven't actually heard that one.
That's a new one for me.
Really?
Interesting.
Yeah, we're learning stuff here.
Thank you, Lindsay.
Yeah.
So I don't personally use this, but I've heard...
People in the older generation use this, actually.
I've heard people in their 50s and 60s using this before, which is really interesting.
But it's your area of expertise.
This is right in your wheelhouse.
This is something you can do better than anyone.
Yeah, definitely.
Okay.
So I love these.
So guys, these are the phrases that you want to use when you want to go ahead and hand off a project to someone and just try to instill confidence in them so that they can be confident in themselves.
That is so important.
You know, I know what it feels like when you're working with someone who doesn't trust you.
It feels horrible.
Yeah.
You want to feel like someone has confidence in you and they respect your opinion and they know that you can do it.
And that gives you confidence in yourself, right?
Yeah, Michelle.
And I think this also extends into just our lives, not just at work.
You know, I remember when I was traveling in Latin America, I was traveling with a friend of mine, and she was actually a native Spanish speaker.
But she didn't instill any confidence in me.
I was trying to learn Spanish, but I was a beginner.
So it was a hard time to go to Latin America as a total beginner speaker.
But I was trying.
I went and I wanted to speak, right?
To practice.
But...
Every time we got into a taxi she would say be quiet, don't say anything, because if they know that you're American they'll scam us, they'll charge us too much.
So she wanted to speak every time in the taxis to the taxi drivers to get us a lower price.
For the taxi ride or the hotel or whatever it was or bartering in a market.
And that's fine if it's a few times, but it happened every time and it really undermined my sense of self.
I started to feel like, oh my God, I can't do that.
I can't speak Spanish.
I can't.
Because literally I had no chance to practice.
But then when we ended up going our own separate ways...
I had to do everything for myself.
And it was so much better.
I actually learned Spanish in that case.
Well, that's good.
Yeah.
If you have somebody who's kind of helping you every step of the way yeah, it can feel comforting at first.
Right to have that.
But yeah, it can get in your way and not give you the ability to make decisions on your own and to express yourself on your own.
Yeah.
Yeah, you really can start to doubt yourself unless you're really, really strong.
It's very easy to doubt yourself if others doubt you.
And I think it's dangerous actually.
Yeah yeah, very interesting lindsay, is it interesting?
Yeah no, it is interesting.
Okay, all right michelle, let's do a little conversation here.
So in this case michelle, you are the boss and i am a manager and you are bossing me around here.
So oh okay, here we go.
All right, here we go.
So, Lindsay, can I have a word with you?
Sure, Ms.
Kaplan.
What's up?
Well Lindsay, as you know, we have this new account with the Australian English School and I think this project is right up your alley.
They'll need some marketing and design help from us.
Oh, great.
Yes, I do love to work on marketing and positioning.
Great.
I'm 100% confident in you with this project.
So that's why I'm asking you to lead the project.
Oh, what an honor.
You know, I mean, if you think I'm the right person for the job.
Yes, I know you can handle this.
So why don't you get started and touch base with me next month on it?
All right.
Sounds great.
I'll keep you updated.
Very nice, very nice, good job, very nice.
Well, thank you.
You have instilled such confidence in me.
You're welcome.
You know, I try, you're a good boss, thank you awesome, So I love that phrase that you use.
This is kind of a side point getting off on a tangent here.
But just for our listeners here, I like this phrase that you used to touch base, right?
Yeah, touch base.
Good.
So that means to check in, right?
To, you know, update me, let me know what's going on next month.
Exactly.
That's really used very frequently, I think.
That phrase annoys the heck out of me, but it's really frequently in common.
Yeah, it just annoys me.
I think it sounds so cheesy.
It sounds like such a cliche.
That's funny.
I think, yeah, I never thought about it like that.
So anyways, Michelle, what did we use here to help our listeners out with these phrases?
What did we say?
Let's see.
Okay.
So the first thing I said to you, I introduced the project and then I said I think this project is right up your alley.
Exactly.
It's right up your alley.
It's exactly what you're going to do well, right?
What you can do.
So it's good for you.
Another thing that you said is I'm 100% confident in you with this project.
And then I said, yeah, I know you can handle this.
Exactly.
I know you can handle this.
Good.
So you really kind of kept reiterating the fact that you were giving me this project because you knew that I would be the best at it.
So I'm sure I'll get the job done.
All right.
All right.
So, Michelle, any final tips?
I mean maybe we should just recap these phrases for our listeners, just to go through them one more time, so that they have them in their back pockets and they're ready to use at work.
So first one, I know you can handle this.
What's the next one, Michelle?
The next one is you have the skills to manage this project.
Good.
The next one is I'm fully confident in you or I'm 100% confident in you.
Nice.
And the next one is I know you can do it.
Good.
I already feel more empowered now.
Yeah, good.
Me too.
This is another one is this is right up your alley, right?
This is right up your alley.
Nice.
And then we have this is in your wheelhouse.
Yeah.
So a less common one may be used by a slightly older generation.
But guys, now that you know these phrases, the key is to start listening for them.
Right.
You don't have to use all of them.
Just use one or two and you will increase your charisma at work.
You know the people at your workplace will like you more.
And again, that's what we want.
We want to connect with people and we want to be liked.
If we're honest with ourselves, that's pretty much what we want.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Awesome.
All right, guys.
So give these phrases a try.
Come back to our blog and let us know how it went for you.
All right.
We can't wait to hear.
Awesome.
All right.
Thank you so much.
All right, Michelle.
Thanks for hanging out today.
Thanks.
Bye.
Bye.
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