00:00:00
people that are supremely confident when
00:00:02
they enter the room
00:00:04
they feel comfortable in that room
00:00:07
they don't hesitate to look around their
00:00:11
gestures are smooth
00:00:14
but they're very broad and that has to
00:00:17
do with confidence and for a lot of
00:00:20
people this is very difficult
00:00:25
i remember the great actress helen
00:00:28
mirren saying one of the most difficult
00:00:30
things to learn as an actress is how to
00:00:33
walk onto a scene i've thought about
00:00:35
that even in my career how early on the
00:00:38
difficulty of mastering that how do you
00:00:41
walk onto a crime scene how do you walk
00:00:44
into the public and demonstrate that i
00:00:48
am confident and so forth we can all
00:00:51
work a little bit
00:00:52
on our non-verbal so we come across as
00:00:56
more confident
00:00:58
[Music]
00:01:02
when we talk about confidence it's so
00:01:05
many things it has to do with our
00:01:08
posture the way we present how we look
00:01:11
where's our chin where are the eyes
00:01:14
looking and gazing our gestures are
00:01:17
loose but they're smoother as we walk
00:01:20
about
00:01:21
we walk as though we are on a mission
00:01:25
i'm walking out to shake your hand or
00:01:28
i'm walking out to a podium or i'm
00:01:30
walking to where i'm going to sit so the
00:01:32
less confident we are the less eye
00:01:35
contact we make the less confident we
00:01:37
are the more reluctant we are to look
00:01:40
about you know when i look at someone i
00:01:42
admire like colin powell when he walks
00:01:45
onto a stage even before he speaks he
00:01:48
has total command of the room and he
00:01:51
does that because he brings two things
00:01:54
into this equation one is a tremendous
00:01:58
amount of knowledge and experience plus
00:02:01
he has shaped and defined himself into a
00:02:05
statesman we've got to think of america
00:02:07
as a family where every member of the
00:02:08
family cares about every other member of
00:02:10
the family i think sometimes people
00:02:12
mistake
00:02:13
machismo or theatrical displays of power
00:02:18
as confidence confidence can be very
00:02:21
quiet jane goodall hears this ethologist
00:02:25
very meek very mild and yet wherever she
00:02:28
goes she commands the room one of the
00:02:30
things you notice is they sort of have
00:02:33
this command of themselves and in doing
00:02:36
so that command
00:02:38
transmits outward
00:02:41
the other thing that confident people
00:02:43
realize is the temporal aspect of
00:02:47
leadership if you're in charge you're in
00:02:49
charge of time i'm going to take my time
00:02:52
to walk out i'm going to take my time to
00:02:55
answer your question i will answer it
00:02:58
in the pace manner and tone that i
00:03:01
choose and in doing that we are
00:03:04
demonstrating that we are confident
00:03:08
and in control
00:03:09
[Music]
00:03:12
where do we get that confident voice
00:03:14
where do we get those confident gestures
00:03:17
this is what's called socialization we
00:03:19
notice the principal who acts this way
00:03:22
we like this leader because of this or
00:03:25
that trait so i try to model their
00:03:28
behaviors and say this is a shortcut and
00:03:32
if i have to work on my vocabulary
00:03:35
that's what high status people do if i
00:03:37
have to change my gestures to to fit in
00:03:40
in this society and then
00:03:42
that's what i'm going to have to do that
00:03:44
doesn't mean it changes me
00:03:46
completely it just means that this is
00:03:49
what is required of me and this is what
00:03:51
i want to achieve at this moment in time
00:03:54
i think of cary grant here's an
00:03:57
individual born in the uk grew up very
00:04:00
poor and as he said in his biography i
00:04:04
became cary grant i adopted all the
00:04:08
behaviors that i saw from high status
00:04:11
individuals just think about that but
00:04:14
make up your mind and it is difficult to
00:04:17
prescribe this but one of the easiest
00:04:19
things that we can do you know if you're
00:04:21
a woman maybe you want to model yourself
00:04:24
on the actress kate blanchette or some
00:04:27
other actor and say you know when
00:04:30
they're being interviewed how do they
00:04:31
look they look so confident they look
00:04:34
interesting they have such a command
00:04:36
presence you know we're not born this
00:04:39
way these are things that we have to
00:04:41
develop and say how do i want to be
00:04:43
perceived and what can i do to achieve
00:04:46
that
00:04:47
[Music]
00:04:50
are there better behaviors that you can
00:04:52
do here's a simple one how many of you
00:04:55
somebody says where'd they go and you go
00:04:56
like this and as it turns out this is
00:04:59
one of the most hated signs around the
00:05:01
world and yet if we just go like this he
00:05:04
went that way we're already perceived
00:05:07
differently little things i tell the
00:05:10
story often of when i first came into
00:05:12
law enforcement they said well you know
00:05:14
you you've got to get out there and make
00:05:15
some arrests and the first time i went
00:05:17
out there and my voice just
00:05:20
went really high stop you're under
00:05:22
arrest
00:05:22
that sounds horrible and you have to
00:05:26
work at having that command presence
00:05:29
where you say stop right there
00:05:32
don't move
00:05:33
that's almost theatrical yeah but it's
00:05:36
what is needed
00:05:40
so let's do this exercise i want you to
00:05:43
say no
00:05:44
just go ahead say it out loud
00:05:47
all right now let's do it right
00:05:49
say it as i say it
00:05:51
no
00:05:53
no
00:05:54
no
00:05:56
do you see the difference between the
00:05:57
way you said it and this way did you
00:06:00
notice that your voice kept getting
00:06:02
deeper
00:06:03
but did you also notice that the finger
00:06:06
became wider and wider
00:06:09
the more confident you became
00:06:12
the wider your fingers were spreading
00:06:14
there's a big difference between saying
00:06:16
no stop and going no stop
00:06:21
this
00:06:22
potentiates the message
00:06:25
but to get to this we actually have to
00:06:27
practice it so let's do it again
00:06:31
no
00:06:32
now go out there and teach your children
00:06:34
how to do that
00:06:36
i love sometimes
00:06:38
selfies in the mirror one of my pet
00:06:40
peeves is what we hear every day with
00:06:42
what's called up talk up talk is where
00:06:46
someone says something and then they end
00:06:49
making it sound like a question mark so
00:06:51
so it sounds like this four score and
00:06:53
seven years ago four score and seven
00:06:56
years ago our fathers
00:06:59
brought forth on this continent our
00:07:02
fathers brought forth upon this
00:07:04
continent
00:07:06
a new nation my company has done
00:07:08
research on this and we've asked ceos
00:07:11
and we've asked executives and some will
00:07:13
say well you know i've gotten used to it
00:07:15
and so forth but when we asked them does
00:07:18
it really matter they also yeah we'd
00:07:21
rather not see it i get pushback from
00:07:23
people that say well you know this is
00:07:25
just the way that i speak
00:07:27
and no doubt
00:07:29
but don't expect the same results
00:07:36
we choose to go to the moon in this
00:07:38
decade and do the other things not
00:07:40
because they are easy but because they
00:07:43
are hard
00:07:44
because that goal
00:07:46
will serve to organize and measure the
00:07:48
best
00:07:49
of our energies and skills
00:07:54
the cadence in our speech is extremely
00:07:56
powerful for a couple of reasons one we
00:08:00
know that when people machine gun a
00:08:02
statement when they talk very fast we
00:08:04
are less likely to listen to them over a
00:08:07
long period of time but when we talk
00:08:10
in cadence we are sort of held still
00:08:14
listening to
00:08:16
what will come next and i'll give you an
00:08:18
example
00:08:19
of from that great speech
00:08:21
martin luther king gave as you notice
00:08:24
with a cadence i have a dream
00:08:27
i have a dream and then he pauses
00:08:30
that one day
00:08:32
and then he goes on
00:08:34
and churchill used the same thing
00:08:37
churchill's notes literally would create
00:08:40
spaces for how long he would pause
00:08:44
from stephen
00:08:46
in the baltic
00:08:47
to trieste in the adriatic
00:08:50
an iron curtain has descended across the
00:08:52
continent these pauses
00:08:55
make people listen and one of the things
00:08:58
that we teach is if you want people to
00:09:01
listen to you
00:09:02
use cadence to get their attention hold
00:09:06
their attention but then look forward to
00:09:09
what that next set of words will be it
00:09:12
lets them know at a subconscious level
00:09:15
this is the person in charge and we know
00:09:17
that they're in charge because they have
00:09:20
temporal control
00:09:22
over this they're not in a hurry
00:09:24
[Music]
00:09:27
so you know a lot of times people say to
00:09:29
me well is does confidence look like
00:09:33
you know chest out shoulders back chin
00:09:36
up
00:09:37
yeah that looks pretty good but you know
00:09:39
a lot of times confidence is just
00:09:41
sitting comfortably in a chair
00:09:44
and that may have more to do with how
00:09:47
much space you control it may have to do
00:09:50
with the gestures that you use you
00:09:52
probably notice that i use a lot of
00:09:55
steepling i tend to interlace my fingers
00:09:58
and so forth
00:10:00
these are gestures that contribute to
00:10:04
that communication that i'm trying to
00:10:06
get across that i am confident about
00:10:08
what i'm talking about so it's not just
00:10:11
about puffing your chest out or
00:10:13
certainly not about talking louder or
00:10:16
anything it's about controlling my
00:10:18
environment but making sure that what
00:10:20
i'm transmitting at all times is
00:10:23
confidence and that means i'm prepared
00:10:25
i'm ready to answer i'm going to answer
00:10:27
you now i'm going to answer you
00:10:29
effectively and i'm gonna make sure that
00:10:31
you understand what i said i'm here to
00:10:34
convey i'm not here to convince
00:10:37
a lot of times people who are lacking
00:10:40
confidence are trying to convince you of
00:10:42
something hey if i'm confident i just
00:10:45
say it once it's this way and that's it
00:10:48
i convey the information rather than sit
00:10:51
there and try to beat it into you by
00:10:54
repeating it ten different ways compare
00:10:56
the gestures i'm about to
00:10:58
do it's about temporal movement
00:11:01
controlling time so the person in charge
00:11:04
has the time to look up at their own
00:11:07
pace the gestures are smooth there's no
00:11:10
hesitation there's no quick movements
00:11:13
there's no jitteriness there doesn't
00:11:15
have to be
00:11:16
i'm in charge
00:11:18
when i feel less confident i feel like i
00:11:21
have to be in a hurry that i've got to
00:11:23
look up and i've got to answer right
00:11:25
away and there's a lot of preening
00:11:27
behaviors and these are detracting from
00:11:30
me
00:11:32
[Music]
00:11:34
i was really shy a few years ago
00:11:38
probably this is changing a little bit
00:11:40
people are horrified to speak in public
00:11:42
i used to be horrified to speak in
00:11:44
public i still get nervous to speak in
00:11:47
public but here's some tricks i found
00:11:50
that you might find useful
00:11:53
the first one is don't hesitate ever to
00:11:57
to say you know what this is scary be
00:11:59
honest with yourself this is unnatural
00:12:02
number two take refuge and knowing that
00:12:06
if i sit down and study this material i
00:12:09
will know it better than my audience the
00:12:11
third thing i always do is i rehearse
00:12:15
really helps so that the first time you
00:12:17
hear it in a forum it doesn't scare you
00:12:20
when it's time to do the presentation
00:12:23
one of the things i like to do is to
00:12:25
warm up i find a good solid wall and i
00:12:28
will just lean into it like i'm holding
00:12:31
this
00:12:32
wall up pressing against it just as if i
00:12:36
were doing a push-up and one of the
00:12:37
things that that does is it releases a
00:12:40
lot of muscular tension and because i'm
00:12:43
doing it very wide it makes me feel more
00:12:47
powerful and i need to walk on that
00:12:49
stage as though it's mine
00:12:52
with full confidence it is only then
00:12:56
that i look at my audience and then i
00:12:58
just take a second to get myself
00:13:01
together and to begin with practice
00:13:05
obviously you're going to get better and
00:13:07
better and better
00:13:09
[Music]
00:13:12
let's face it people are not born
00:13:15
confident they're just not
00:13:18
we can become confident
00:13:20
with the assistance of our parents who
00:13:22
encourage us we can become confident
00:13:25
through our own achievements
00:13:27
we can become confident by
00:13:30
going beyond our boundaries but
00:13:33
confidence is something that we can grow
00:13:36
we can nurture i mean i have seen people
00:13:39
in wheelchairs that are supremely
00:13:41
confident i have seen elderly people in
00:13:44
their 90s who are very confident i've
00:13:48
seen children who are holding a violin
00:13:51
with such confidence if you want to be
00:13:54
confident
00:13:55
know your material
00:13:57
know the information hone that skill
00:13:59
work at it have that mastery of things
00:14:04
and of self and that's how you will come
00:14:07
across as confident no matter what your
00:14:09
station in in life is
00:14:13
[Music]