Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety
The Influential Introvert: A podcast for professionals with performance anxiety. If you’re a business owner or leader who wants to speak confidently in front of a room, online, and in social situations without becoming a sweaty, stressed out mess, follow this show.
Learn the essential verbal and non-verbal skills necessary to elevate your presence and charisma and capture people’s attention. Equally important, you’ll learn to manage your mind and body so you feel less anxious and more confident speaking up, being decisive, and connecting with others.
Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety
You've Changed. Let's Honor That.
To move forward, sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is pause and take stock of how far you’ve come.
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I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel, a communication and mindset coach. My work is about helping people like you share your voice, strengthen your relationships, and have more fun.
As an American expat living in the U.K., I value curiosity, courage, and joy. A few things I love: wandering European streets in search of the best vegetarian meal, practicing Italian, and helping my clients design lives that feel rich and meaningful.
If you're ready to have conversations that open doors – in your career, your relationships, and your life – let’s talk.
Does the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation?
I made something to help you.
Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.
Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.
https://sarahmikutel.com/reset
Can you think of a moment recently where you handled something much better than you would have a year ago or 10 or 20 years ago? You have come a long way and it's important to honor that. A few episodes ago I shared why slowing down to savor your wins helps make positive change stick. Reflection is a big part of this and something that I practice with my clients, because without pausing to reflect, it's easy to miss how much has shifted for you. I will hear a client casually mention that they asked for help or spoke up in a meeting and I will stop them right there and say wait, can we pause for a moment and recognize that this would have totally derailed you a few weeks ago? And then they do pause and a big smile crosses their face and they say oh yeah, I didn't even realize that. And this is because internal shifts happen so slowly that we don't recognize them while they're happening. It's like the season's changing Summer is slipping into autumn and you don't notice the leaves turning one by one. But then one morning you are walking through a forest of red and orange and gold, at least where I'm from.
Speaker 1:Lasting transformation rarely arrives in one big dramatic moment. It tends to show up through small, deliberate choices that stretch you just a little beyond your comfort zone. I had one of those moments recently and how I reacted would have completely shocked 20-year-old me. It happened at the Elms, a 1901 French chateau in Newport, rhode Island, and my family and I were outside standing under a very leafy turnaround in the driveway, and this is where horses and carriages once circled to drop off food and supplies and staff. And we are here because we are on the servant's tour and the guide tells us that this outdoor space was designed so that wealthy owners never had to see the help come and go. So if they were up looking out their windows, all they would see was this green canopy of leaves, and then everything else was happening underneath, and they used to say that their house ran as if by magic effortless, invisible. They joked about their estate being run by elves.
Speaker 1:As we move into the mansion itself, my dad has to bow out, and this is because the servants lived at the very top of a winding staircase that never seems to end, and with his upcoming knee surgery, this climb was just not feasible. So he goes and waits for us in the cafe on this huge sprawling ground of this estate and when my mom and I catch up with him later he is still wearing his visitor's badge for the tour. So I volunteered to go and hand it back. And then I say to my mom I'll ask if they'll refund his ticket, since he wasn't able to participate in the tour. And my mom said it's okay, you don't have to. I doubt that they'll give the money back anyway and I can tell she doesn't want me to have to step into this potential conflict. But I'm happy to.
Speaker 1:And years ago I would have talked myself out of it. I would have worried that I would upset somebody or embarrass myself or been seen as a difficult person would upset somebody or embarrass myself or been seen as a difficult person. But this time I walked right back into the front lobby and I explained the situation. I was kind, I was calm, I was honest, I didn't make a big deal about it. I also didn't shrink and after a short back and forth and two rounds of let me check with my supervisor, with different people, they gave us the $25 refund. No drama, no spiraling.
Speaker 1:This was a win for introverts who make the ask and for anyone practicing courage in small everyday ways, because this wasn't just about the $25. The bigger win was choosing to step into potential discomfort for a purpose. It was about practicing something that used to feel terrifying, so voicing a request, entering a moment of possible tension and realizing that it didn't really bother me at all. But this was because I have put myself in situations like this and created my own exposure therapy over the years and also worked on my mindset and those small, repeated acts of courage, these tiny stretches. This is what rewires our brain and gets us to think of the world and ourselves in a different way, and it's what builds confidence. This willingness to feel awkward or to be told no, it's doing the thing that scares you until it doesn't. To my knowledge, we don't have magical elves that can do this for us, on our behalf. We need to put in the work and we need to pay attention when we do, we have to notice when we choose.
Speaker 1:We make a conscious choice to choose a healthy challenge over autopilot, especially when life gets hard, and I call this a Hercules moment, when we come to a fork in the road and we decide we are going to take the path of integrity, even though it might not feel great. In the moment we're stepping into discomfort. We're choosing to become a better version of ourselves, choosing that integrity path instead of a path that is more based on impulse and feeling good in the short term. And when I say feeling good, I mean this is also avoidance tactics and ways that we numb out or shut down because we don't want to deal with something that's emotionally hard in the moment, including asking for a refund or asking for support in any kind of way. And this is what Hercules did I spoke about this on the podcast before he came across two women, vice and virtue, and he chose the virtuous path.
Speaker 1:He wouldn't have become Hercules as we know it if he didn't choose the path that made him strong, if he didn't choose the path that made him strong. So a Hercules moment is coming to a crossroads and taking the path of integrity over impulse. And while we don't have elves to help us, the Stoics said that we have something else an inner wisdom, a daimon, a divine spark to help guide our actions. If we choose to slow down and pay attention to that voice, and when we do, and we choose that path of integrity and continuously choose right action, and that's all the small steps moving us forward. This adds up to a mountain of proof of what we're capable of. So pay attention to the evidence, pay attention to when you've done the hard thing and celebrate that and honor how far you've come. This is what's going to support you in whatever comes next. That's all for now. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week, wherever you are.