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Hey, it's Q&A Thursday and today's question is from Samantha and she asks "I feel really
nervous and awkward when I'm at events or talking with people in general and I want
to be more confident to help my business and sales and just generally personally to be
more confident in who I am." So her question is how can I be more confident. It's a great
question because especially as business owners we need to come across as confident in order
to do many of the things required of us such as selling, talking to suppliers, dealing
with stuff - that's a lot on a business owner and it takes confidence to present yourself
well and get things done.So the first thing is confidence is really about the way you
physically present yourself to the world and then how that makes you feel inside because
confidence is about what you're feeling inside. So the first thing is - and I want you to
do this with me now - put your back straight, your shoulders back, and your chest should
be projecting forward, not down to the ground. So good posture, head up, and a smile on your
face and then be present to what's going on around you. Now you hear a lot of personal
development coaches talk about being present and when I first started to hear the term
I'm like "What the hell do they mean?" All that really means is presence is the energy
that's coming out of your body and out of your heart as to how you're feeling about
the moment that you're in right now so if you're not feeling confident, you're feeling
nervous or awkward, generally your posture is a little slumped over and the energy is
[inaudible 1:53] internally within you. A confident person opens themselves up and is
projecting the energy out so that you feel that energy whenever they come towards you
or they walk into a room. That's why confident people are so attractive because they're projecting
out this energy out of themselves that says "Hey, I'm here and I'm interested in what's
going on and I'm like alive to the situation."So the way to go about doing this - how do you
get presence - you basically need to start thinking about every day what would a confident
person do and how to be present with anyone that's in your sphere. So what I started to
do was practice with people that I normally wouldn't really notice. And I mean that sounds
kind of bad -- actually now that I say it out loud - but think about it, when you order
your coffee or you hand money to a street car or public transport conductor, anyone
sort of in a role where you're busy going somewhere. You don't really take that much
notice of that person, they're just kind of there, you need to like interact with them
to get something to be in your way but you don't really take that much notice. So what
I started to do is when I would get my morning coffee I would look the person in the eye
and say "Thank you" and give them a big smile and if there was something that I could have
some sort of different interaction other than the transaction that we're taking so maybe
I would say something like "Have a great day" and look them in the eye so they really knew
that I meant "Have a great day" not it's just something I say every time I come across someone
or it's something I say a lot.So that's how to start being present - start small, start
talking to people that aren't a threat to your confidence, someone who's small transactions,
small interactions, look them in the eye, smile, have great posture, and give out energy
that you want to be there, that you're interested, that what's happening right now in front of
you is what you're paying attention to, not what's happening down the road in five, ten
minutes, an hour that's going on in your life and not looking at your phone all the time
so that it's distracting from what you're doing.That's another thing that's taking away
the way we are present in this world is mobile devices where we're standing in line and we're
just not taking notice of what's going on around us anymore. So I hope that helps, that's
certainly how I've developed my confidence over the time. And a little networking event
tip that really helped me - when I go to networking events I do a little bit of a mantra before
I go to just feel good about myself, I think about how would someone confident in a networking
event feel and I think about a time where I've hosted an event myself and people have
looked to me to be a leader in the room and to make sure everyone's having a good time
and having myself like the host of the event. And when I harness the thought of how it feels
to be a host of an event you carry with you more confidence when you go into a networking
event to start talking and meeting people that are complete strangers. So try that - pretend
you're the host at the next networking event that you go to, see if that helps with your
confidence. Thanks so much and I'll talk to you next week. I'm Trudy Murphy and you can
find me at trudymurphy.com and leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you, sign up
for my email list. I do Q&A tips every Thursday and other great business blog posts so come
on over to trudymurphy.com and I'll talk to you soon.