Ep 79 - Inspiring Public Speaking for Introverts with Julia Beauchamp Kraft

Are you an introvert who struggles with public speaking? 

Whether it's presenting in front of a large group, talking to a team at work, or even making your case one-on-one, if you find speaking in public nerve-wracking and stress-inducing, you can learn to be a confident, inspiring speaker.

In this episode, guest Julia Beauchamp Kraft shares inspiring tips and advice to help introverts become successful public speakers. Listen now and learn how to overcome your fears, become more confident, and start enjoying public speaking.

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Julia Beauchamp Kraft is an authentic expression and public speaking coach who specializes in helping introverted women overcome public speaking nerves. Through her signature program, “Fully Expressed”, Julia teaches quiet, shy women how to cultivate authentic confidence in the spotlight. Over the past 8 years, Julia has trained thousands of professionals and entrepreneurs about public speaking best practices and skills including companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Salesforce. But, it wasn’t until the start of the pandemic that she created The Fully Expressed program as the world of public speaking completely changed.

Books mentioned in this episode:
The Introvert Advantage - Marti Olsen Laney

Contact Julia:

Website: https://speaktoinspire.com/

The Quiet Confidence Master Class: https://www.speaktoinspire.com/introvertwebinar

Socials:  Instagram |  Facebook |  Linkedin

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Contact the Host of the Quiet and Strong Podcast:

David Hall

Author, Speaker, Educator, Podcaster

quietandstrong.com
Gobio.link/quietandstrong
david [at] quietandstrong.com

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Minding Your Time: Time Management, Productivity, and Success, Especially for Introverts

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Transcript

00;00;00;07 - 00;00;38;24
Julia Beecham Kraft
Your humanity is part of the inspiration. There's a there's a misconception. Back to that question you asked me at the beginning. And a misconception is that perfection is what people are looking for and audiences looking for. It's just not true. An audience is looking for your humanity, hoping that you let them see you. It's in the moments that you screw up or you think that you screwed up that often are the most memorable.

00;00;40;08 - 00;01;02;14
David Hall
Hello and welcome to The Quietest, a strong podcast, especially for introverts. I'm your host, David Hall, and the creator of Quiet and Strong com It's a weekly podcast dedicated to understanding the strengths and needs of introverts. Introversion is not something to fix, but to be embraced normally will air each episode on a Monday. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform.

00;01;02;26 - 00;01;38;14
David Hall
Leave a review, tell a friend, help get the word out there. Julia Beecham Kraft is an authentic expression and public speaking coach who specializes in helping introverted women overcome public speaking nerves through her signature program fully expressed. Julia teaches quiet, shy women how to cultivate authentic confidence in the spotlight. Over the past eight years, Julia has trained thousands of professionals and entrepreneurs about public speaking, best practices and skills, including companies like LinkedIn, Twitter and Salesforce.

00;01;38;27 - 00;02;11;05
David Hall
But it wasn't until the start of the pandemic that she created the fully expressed program. As the world of public speaking completely changed. Three years of experience, she saw that some people were able to implement public speaking skills right away, and others really struggled and even seemed traumatized by the public speaking workshop itself. She realized that most of the people struggling were women, and all of them had a long history of performance anxiety, public speaking, nerves and an intense fear of the audience's judgment.

00;02;11;23 - 00;02;40;18
David Hall
Being an introverted woman herself. She understood those challenges and created a program designed specifically for the more sensitive, empathic woman who has a desire to be heard but is struggling with public speaking PTSD. This work empowers introverted women to get out of overwhelm and burnout. Unpack old conditioning this keeping them stuck and discover their full range of expression as confident communicators.

00;02;40;25 - 00;02;45;06
David Hall
All right. Well, welcome to the Quiet and Strong podcast. Julia, so great to have you.

00;02;45;22 - 00;02;47;29
Julia Beecham Kraft
Thank you, David. It's a pleasure to be here.

00;02;49;01 - 00;03;10;09
David Hall
All right. Julia is going to get into public speaking, especially for introverts and especially for introverted women. So very excited. That's a big topic for us. Introverts and excited to have Julia on the show. But first of all, Julia, tell us about yourself and your journey through discovering that you were an introvert and now you're a coach for public speaking, for introverts.

00;03;10;29 - 00;03;36;01
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah. You know, I think that growing up, my dad had a really big influence on me in terms of this. He's really introverted and my mother is definitely more extroverted and he was really into personality tests. So I remember him doing the Myers-Briggs test, and I think he even took a course into an understanding that and that he paid for me to get the full test.

00;03;36;01 - 00;03;44;28
Julia Beecham Kraft
And and so we talked about me being an introvert. I was a I am an AI and FP. Is that. Is that right?

00;03;44;29 - 00;03;46;16
David Hall
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

00;03;47;08 - 00;04;07;20
Julia Beecham Kraft
So we would talk about how I'm introverted. And then, of course, my mother did the test and she's extroverted and we talked about what that meant. Now, in high school, I don't think I had the awareness of really how that would impact me for my life, because I was really shy. I didn't have necessarily a lot of friends.

00;04;07;20 - 00;04;34;26
Julia Beecham Kraft
I was into theater at that time. I was a theater geek, and that was my way to be seen and be expressed. But I didn't realize that, you know, there was anything necessarily different about me. And then, you know, as I grew up and I started my own business, which I know we'll talk about today, and I was doing a lot of speaking, you know, before COVID, I was doing a lot of corporate trainings, too.

00;04;34;26 - 00;05;01;13
Julia Beecham Kraft
So these day long events that I would travel like one to sometimes 3 hours to teach an eight hour, nine hour training and then drive back. I mean, that would be exhausting for anybody, but for somebody that's more introverted, it was deeply exhausting. Deeply. I really had to recover. Like I didn't want to talk to anybody for a while and I had to really understand what's going on here.

00;05;02;08 - 00;05;37;06
Julia Beecham Kraft
My other the other trainers in the training company I was working for weren't having that experience. They could just bounce back. So I got to know more about what gave me energy and what took away my energy, and especially in terms of public speaking. And that's why my business has evolved to work with introverts, because I think it's it's a group of people that definitely get misused by the public speaking training world, just like not understood and not really supported in the way that I think would serve them.

00;05;38;18 - 00;05;55;18
David Hall
Yeah, absolutely. So that's that's cool that your dad early on was looking at the Myers-Briggs with you. You might not have been ready for that information. Right. And you definitely discovered some needs that you had as an introvert. But at what point as you're speaking, did you start to call it that and realize how to embrace it?

00;05;56;13 - 00;06;20;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
It's a great, great question. You know, I think it was actually during COVID in the last 2 to 3 years. I have a book and the book from Martin Olson, Lainey, introvert, advantage. And my dad gave me that at some point and I picked it up. I don't even remember why I picked it up, but it was on my shelf and I picked it up and I was like, Wow.

00;06;20;18 - 00;06;32;19
Julia Beecham Kraft
I hadn't thought of myself fully this way or hadn't fully accepted and embraced the fact that this is natural for me. Right. And that also it's okay. Right. It's a strength.

00;06;33;11 - 00;06;57;13
David Hall
Yeah, absolutely. And that's a great book. I also read that one, the introvert advantage. Marti Olson, Laney. So yeah, yeah, that's a good one. You know, again, we're going to talk about public speaking and so often people say, oh, introverts can't be public speakers are great public speakers. But the truth is we can be we can be amazing, but there's some things we have to know about and we're going to get into that.

00;06;57;19 - 00;07;04;18
David Hall
But before we do, is there a couple myths that you've come across, that introvert myths that you want to bust today?

00;07;05;23 - 00;07;35;14
Julia Beecham Kraft
Well, I think that one right there, that introverts can be good public speakers, because I want to bust that. The reality is like this can be data. It's data that's difficult to gather. Most of the the most respected public speakers and leaders and actors and actresses are more introverted. Like, I remember back in theater school, I started acting in college, not the musical theater kids.

00;07;35;14 - 00;08;09;03
Julia Beecham Kraft
The musical theater kids were extroverted, though the this the serious actors. Right? Very introverted. You know, we'd go off and study our scripts and Michael researched the character and and practice in the mirror by ourselves. And then you come into the performance space or the rehearsal space and it's a different mode that you go into. Then you're in that connection mode, but it's from that introverted sort of like marinating in it first.

00;08;09;03 - 00;08;45;02
Julia Beecham Kraft
Whereas again, the musical theater people, they're just like up and doing and everything. So it is the same with lots of big leaders like Abraham Lincoln, for example, is notoriously an introvert. So many, so many politicians and leaders and actor and Meryl Streep is a great example. So that would be a great misconception. To bust right here at the beginning is that there's actually incredible strengths in introverts ability to like I said, marinate or to really find something deep within to then share with the world.

00;08;45;20 - 00;09;06;27
David Hall
Yeah, absolutely. And there's a lot of misconceptions, but a big piece of being an introvert is being a deep thinker. Yes. And a myth that goes along with that is that we don't like people or we don't need connection, which isn't true. We just might need different doses of connections or different doses of things. But, you know, what makes those people great is, is their deep thinking ability.

00;09;06;27 - 00;09;19;08
David Hall
And, you know, you mentioned Meryl Streep. Someone might say, oh, no, she can't be an introvert. She's a great actress or whatever. And it's like, well, you know, do you really know what an introvert is? Maybe it's that introversion that's making her the great actress, you know?

00;09;19;09 - 00;09;37;20
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yes. Yes. In that that's been my experience with actors and actresses and performers. You know, the great artists that goes off and is discovering themselves and finding things and then sort of comes forward and shares it with the world. And that tends to be the introvert. Yeah.

00;09;38;18 - 00;09;57;05
David Hall
Absolutely. And you know, I think with actors, actresses, I think a lot of writers are probably introverts because, you know, you have this great imagination and you're really creating some great things with your deep thinking. Mm hmm. Would you say you have an introverted superpower?

00;09;57;05 - 00;10;32;20
Julia Beecham Kraft
For sure. I think one of my introverted superpowers, especially as a speaker, is to be really tuned in to the room and to the people that I'm connecting with. I'm tuned in on a nonverbal level as opposed to, you know, verbally. Extroverts are very good at tuning in and connecting on that verbal level. I think introverts are better at connecting on the nonverbal level, which actually makes you a great public speaker because you can really feed off the energy of the room or respond to the energy of the room.

00;10;33;00 - 00;10;53;07
Julia Beecham Kraft
You know, I'm an only child. And so I grew up going out with my parents and their friends. Like I'd be at the end of the bar with my Shirley Temple, watching my parents friends and observing their body language and of course, being totally bored by their conversation. So I'm just observing, observing them, observing people in the room.

00;10;53;17 - 00;11;18;24
Julia Beecham Kraft
I did so much observing as a kid and I got really good at reading people from their nonverbal communication and understanding what was happening on the inside. And that's really what's happening when you're watching somebody say on a stage or even listening to somebody on a podcast right now, you're picking up on all of the unconscious nonverbal communication.

00;11;19;10 - 00;11;50;26
Julia Beecham Kraft
We don't know that we're picking up on those things, but it's really what we're getting or why we would be turned on or turned off by somebody like been drawn in or not interested. It comes from that unconscious nonverbal communication. So I think that that's become my superpower as neural to decode that nonverbal communication and then verbalize that to my clients so they know how to shift their nonverbal communication for better success.

00;11;51;28 - 00;11;54;21
David Hall
So as an introvert, how did you get into public speaking?

00;11;55;14 - 00;12;20;08
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, well, like I said, I've been a theater geek since I was young. I remember writing a play. This was when I was maybe ten years old, writing a play, and then asking my father to help me put on a production in our dining room. And, you know, and had my my friends, my girlfriends play all the characters and things like that.

00;12;20;22 - 00;12;48;04
Julia Beecham Kraft
I think for me it was it was a way for me to get myself out of myself. Right. So I spent hours in the basement, like imagining things as a kid. And then finally when I had a play or a performance, I, you know, I got to live it out. And so it was something that I craved. And I went to theater camps and then I then I went to theater school, right.

00;12;48;04 - 00;13;13;15
Julia Beecham Kraft
And studied acting. And after after college, of course, I thought I'd be an actress. I started auditioning and everything, but I realized really quickly, probably in part because of my introversion, that auditioning all the time and getting rejected and, you know, all that whole theater lifestyle was just not for me. I wanted to be able to make an impact and I wanted to be able to take good care of my energy.

00;13;14;23 - 00;13;35;27
Julia Beecham Kraft
And so I decided to become a yoga teacher. At that time, I really loved yoga and I made a career out of that, which allowed me flexibility to, you know, have time to myself and then go be with a group of people and then have time to myself and be with a group of people. So I would say being a yoga teacher was my first experience with being a speaker because I was speaking as myself.

00;13;36;08 - 00;13;58;12
Julia Beecham Kraft
It wasn't a character anymore like it was when I was younger and plays. It really was myself and I got an opportunity as I, you know, I got more comfortable. I got an opportunity to be more of a thought leader and talk to people about their stressors and how to relax and how to feel good about themselves and their life in these very intimate environments of classes.

00;13;59;28 - 00;14;32;28
Julia Beecham Kraft
And then I started working with other yoga teachers on their voices and their confidence from my background in acting and and from my experience finding my confidence by teaching classes. And that very quickly grew into the business that I have today because I just really enjoyed helping people find their voice. And so then I started speaking about speaking to bigger audiences and, and really it's been a progression of me challenging myself because it's been nerve wracking and scary for me.

00;14;32;28 - 00;14;53;20
Julia Beecham Kraft
Every time that I've gotten in front of an audience. It's not like I'm a natural at this or like, you know, it comes easily necessarily. I've had to continue to grow and continue to challenge myself as I follow this like mission of of being out there more for myself and also, you know, supporting others.

00;14;54;27 - 00;15;13;21
David Hall
Absolutely. That's a great story. And it just made me think, you know, we're definitely talking about, you know, probably most people are thinking about a speech, but you started out by talking with your class. Right? Right. So it could be it could be as a teacher or in a group meeting or any form of communication, we can apply all these things too, right?

00;15;14;00 - 00;15;35;29
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up, because I always talk about this, especially for introverts. Public speaking has a pretty wide range of what that means. We usually think of public speaking as a many on one experience, like there's a big audience and one speaker that actually, especially these days, was Zoom everything, you know, everything on Zoom. That's actually pretty rare these days.

00;15;36;11 - 00;15;57;24
Julia Beecham Kraft
The real teaching that introverts do are doing of nerves and fears and anxieties can be a one on one conversation with somebody that intimidates them. It can be a small group meeting that they get to lead. It can be speaking up in a larger meeting. Sometimes even turning on your video in a meeting can be a triggering experience.

00;15;57;24 - 00;16;12;10
Julia Beecham Kraft
You know, and it can also be social situations, whether that's networking or or a party, right. Dating. I've heard it all these are all part of public speaking in diverse style.

00;16;13;29 - 00;16;34;16
David Hall
Right? Right. So as you're doing this, you know, you you kind of determined that you were seeing that there was introverts that were struggling and also introverted women that were struggling. What's the difference between someone doing public speaking for an introvert versus a extrovert?

00;16;34;16 - 00;17;06;04
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. Well, it's not that extroverts will automatically make natural public speakers. I just want to say that extroverts might be louder. They might be more willing to just go up and say something, but that doesn't mean they're going to be effective or have something that really is worthwhile to share. You know, I think extroverts do tend to go more towards the small talk or the sarcasm to just speak basically because they get energy from that.

00;17;06;04 - 00;17;46;00
Julia Beecham Kraft
You know, they they feed off of that, whereas an introvert will tend to go up in front of an audience then even if they're nervous, if they do find their voice in their flow, they'll often say something that inspires the audience, that leaves them with a wow, you know, a memorable feeling, right? So what I noticed when I was teaching a lot of public speaking trainings, when I worked for some of the best public speaking training companies in the Bay Area, and I, I noticed that some people that were coming to my trainings would be able to implement the best practices that I was giving them, like what to do with your hands or eye

00;17;46;00 - 00;18;24;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
contact or contents, techniques, etc. They were able to implement it right away in front of the audience. And then there were other people that would get up in front of the audience of the workshop and phrase, you know, stumbling over their words, sweating, just sort of break down and stumble through and be really beating themselves up. When I check in with them afterwards would be so self-critical, and sometimes I'd even see those people leave the workshop deflated, you know, feeling like, Oh, and I've talked to people like that afterwards.

00;18;24;17 - 00;18;41;15
Julia Beecham Kraft
And then they say, Yeah, like I really wasn't able to take anything from that. They weren't able to implement it after the workshop either. And as I saw this pattern, I really wanted to be a better teacher, basically, like I wanted to serve my students better. And I started to explore what is it about this group of people?

00;18;41;15 - 00;19;19;10
Julia Beecham Kraft
Well, they are more introverted and I actually relate to them intended to be more empathetic or empathic people, more sensitive people, sometimes you could say more quiet or shy people. And they tended to have they tended to be more anxious, just their temperament. They tended to get more anxious about things, be more perfectionistic, more self-critical. So those are the challenges that either bring out more interviews with public speaking or, you know, is triggered by the introversion right around public speaking.

00;19;20;09 - 00;19;23;13
Julia Beecham Kraft
And those are the people I started to help with my business.

00;19;24;24 - 00;19;31;26
David Hall
Very nice. And then what was it that you saw that the needs might differ for women and introverted?

00;19;31;26 - 00;19;32;09
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right.

00;19;32;15 - 00;19;33;13
David Hall
Like you talk about?

00;19;34;06 - 00;19;58;19
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, great question. You know, I also was teaching women in leadership conferences or trainings, so I started to hear about the unique challenges of professional women, which I think is very similar for entrepreneurs. Actually, startup founders, it's really the same thing. Women are often in a male dominated environment. That's not 100% true because there's women owned businesses, of course.

00;19;58;19 - 00;20;29;03
Julia Beecham Kraft
But I often had women in these workshops that worked in tech because I'm here in the Bay Area or worked in the financial industry or in taxes or something that was very left brain oriented engineers, you know, that kind of thing. It very left brain information ready, which it generally tends to be a male dominated industry. And interesting isn't I mean, there's no reason initially why that should be.

00;20;29;03 - 00;21;00;06
Julia Beecham Kraft
But it just tends to be. And then the women that are in those environments are put in a very challenging situation where there's there's bias, there's gender bias that happens. And we don't really talk about it. Even if we do talk about it, it is hard to unravel it. But what the story that I have heard from these women for years is they'll be in a meeting with all men and it's like a boys club and they're speaking sort of their own language.

00;21;01;15 - 00;21;33;09
Julia Beecham Kraft
There's no room for the woman with her own style to to get her voice heard. If she does speak up often, she's talked over or or interrupted, which is really too bad. And maybe even someone else will take credit for her idea that she said more quietly. So all of this, if you are already having introversion and perfectionism and self criticism and fears and nerves, all of these added pressures, I mean, just make it impossible to have success with communication and public speaking.

00;21;34;09 - 00;21;36;02
David Hall
So how do you help people with that?

00;21;37;00 - 00;22;04;25
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. Well, first of all, the first step is always to calm your nervous system and to know how to do that. A lot of the women that I work with really just have never learned how to manage their own nervous system, which I think is an introverted skill. You know, extroverts need to learn how to do this, too, but introverts will tend to be more impacted by their environment.

00;22;05;07 - 00;22;08;11
Julia Beecham Kraft
Do you agree with that, David? Like really impacted by your environment?

00;22;09;10 - 00;22;10;09
David Hall
Yeah, absolutely.

00;22;10;25 - 00;22;11;06
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah.

00;22;11;28 - 00;22;14;15
David Hall
So what specifically are you thinking of?

00;22;15;23 - 00;22;24;10
Julia Beecham Kraft
Well, like, imagine walking into a party and there's a lot of people and they're very loud and there's lots of movement. How do you feel about that?

00;22;25;08 - 00;22;31;04
David Hall
Right. Yeah, it just it just depends. But I probably yeah. Probably not going to be very comfortable.

00;22;31;29 - 00;22;46;22
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. It's a generalization, but often it's the interviews that find the quiet corner to have an intimate conversation. Right. That's our affinity is we want like that quiet, safe cocoon of a space.

00;22;48;03 - 00;23;08;25
David Hall
Yeah. And we really do want to connect with people. It's just right on the big loud, noisy environment. And we tend to gravitate toward the one on one or smaller group kind of thing. And again, it's just important to know all this and not to say that we can't do well in the big environments, but we just need to know ourselves and how to do that, how to navigate those situations.

00;23;09;20 - 00;23;36;01
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right? So part of what I teach them about navigating those kind of situations, because if you want to be more visible, usually you do have to like go to a conference or speaking to a larger stage like that probably will come up and it's a good opportunity. You need to manage your energy, like there needs to be almost a charging of the battery beforehand and then a recharging of the battery afterwards.

00;23;36;01 - 00;23;37;10
Julia Beecham Kraft
I see you shaking your head.

00;23;37;10 - 00;24;02;19
David Hall
So yeah, yeah, I've been through all of that. It's so important, you know, and it's I love I love speaking. It's fun. I have a lot to say, but I've learned to approach it by just what you're saying by I think that hurt someone's call it preachy charging and then recharging. But also just the way that I prepare is going to be different than extrovert.

00;24;02;19 - 00;24;08;11
David Hall
So it's all these things that we need to learn to be effective and also have a good time at public speaking.

00;24;08;19 - 00;24;54;01
Julia Beecham Kraft
MM That would be the ultimate goal that I have for every woman that I work with, that she has a good time with it. Right, can finally enjoy it, but it's definitely some steps to get there. So like I was saying, the first step is learning to manage and calm your nervous system. A lot of time. That's healing really old trauma that we've had sometimes from childhood, like really far back of overwhelm and burnout and it and and just this feeling of, I can't handle it, it's too much and starting to to deflate that feeling so that you can come back to a healthy baseline of energy and start to manage it better going forward.

00;24;54;11 - 00;25;10;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
So I provide my women with practices that that help them really rest deeply on a core level and learn how to unravel their nervous system when it gets frenzied or when it gets overloaded.

00;25;11;20 - 00;25;18;15
David Hall
Yeah, for sure. How my preparation between introverts and extroverts differ preparing for that speech?

00;25;19;10 - 00;25;47;14
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah. Well, a lot of introverts will say to me that they feel better about speaking when they have time to prepare. And when I ask them about how they prepare, they'll say that they write out what they're going to say, like a script, or they write out a list of questions in in full sentences. Or they do like a very detailed PowerPoint presentation that has lots and lots of words on the slides.

00;25;49;07 - 00;26;24;24
Julia Beecham Kraft
And this this kind of strategy, even though it might make you feel more secure, you know, like in the sense that, okay, I've figured out what to say, it actually works against you in terms of being an inspiring public speaker for introverts or extroverts, though extroverts won't tend to do the scripting quite as much, but it really is a general thing like scripting is going to keep you in a box of a where you feel very controlled, like you have to control the environment in order to feel okay and confident.

00;26;24;24 - 00;27;03;13
Julia Beecham Kraft
What I want to get my speakers to is that they trust themselves to improvise. But if you're just flying by the seat of your pants, that's really terrifying for anybody, right? Especially introverts. So learning to outline effective early is really important. Learning the structure of a presentation that's persuasive and inspiring and yet doesn't. It's not too much that it keeps your eyes locked to the page or your your mind stuck on making sure you get every word right.

00;27;03;13 - 00;27;37;18
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. And we can soften it up a little bit to a very loose outline. And usually I have my presentation on this little piece of paper, which is a Post-it note, basically, and I'll just have some notes on the process of just thinking it through is more important for an introvert and figuring out the structure and then showing up 100% to however, the converse session or presentation in the moment goes.

00;27;39;03 - 00;28;02;04
David Hall
Yeah, I've I've found that approach very effective for me in making an outline well ahead of time, but then just kind of letting it after I do that, let it sit in the back of my head and I'll have ideas about things I want to say and just kind of jot those down. But again, I'm not scripting it because that doesn't work for me like you're describing, but just thinking about the kinds of things I want to say.

00;28;02;15 - 00;28;24;09
David Hall
And you brought up being able to be impromptu. I know that's something the introverts struggle with. I mean, my answer to that is, you know, if it's a topic I'm passionate about and that's probably why I'm speaking about it, those things aren't difficult because they come to me. It's the problems I have is when it's something maybe that I haven't thought about, that I might need to think about first, you know?

00;28;24;10 - 00;28;35;14
David Hall
So how do we how do we take care of being impromptu as an introvert preparing for that? Maybe it's the question and answer after word that you don't know what you're going to get asks.

00;28;36;00 - 00;28;43;15
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, great, great example. I hear this all the time. Like the question and answer section is my greatest fear. Yeah, for sure.

00;28;44;06 - 00;28;50;13
David Hall
Mine too. Yeah. Not yours. But I'm saying yes. Me too. That's. I agree with that.

00;28;51;07 - 00;29;18;00
Julia Beecham Kraft
Why you think it comes down to if we go to the root of this, the perfectionism like I should, the belief that I should have the answer right away. Is that true? You can ask yourself, is it 100% true that I should always have the answer right away? No. Like that. That is a ridiculous expectation of yourself that especially as an introvert, you will fail.

00;29;18;01 - 00;29;44;01
Julia Beecham Kraft
You are setting yourself up for failure and more self-criticism. So we need to let go of that belief and have a new belief that I can be honest in the moment. So, for example, if someone asks you something like, Wow, I really need to think that through, I don't have an answer right away. That's the truth. You can be impromptu and improvise with the truth.

00;29;44;25 - 00;30;00;11
Julia Beecham Kraft
And that's where confidence comes from, is it's not from knowing all the answers or always sounding good and professional. It's from being yourself and being honest and confidence is something you can rely on.

00;30;00;11 - 00;30;17;15
David Hall
Yeah, you know, and I'm definitely a perfectionist. I do want to know everything, okay? But I think something that's helped me with this is what you're describing, realizing I'm not perfect. But guess what? Nobody in this audience is either, you know, and that's been something that's really, really helped me.

00;30;17;24 - 00;30;21;04
Julia Beecham Kraft
Good. Yeah, that's a really good point.

00;30;21;04 - 00;30;29;27
David Hall
So how you talked about, you know, being inspiring. What does make an inspiring speech?

00;30;29;27 - 00;30;56;11
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. It's a great question. And this isn't necessarily about introversion, right. This is a bigger question of just what makes a talk inspiring. And again, I want to broaden this from it doesn't have to be a TED Talk. It can be you leading a team meeting. How do you make that really inspiring? You know, so being inspiring can be something very simple within your day.

00;30;57;00 - 00;31;19;16
Julia Beecham Kraft
And the way that you do that is not necessarily about being rah rah. You know, we're going to do it together and and be really loud and big, right? You could. You could if that feels authentic to you and congruent with the context you're in. Like if you're in front of an audience of 10,000 screaming fans, yeah, you might want to go Rah rah a little bit.

00;31;19;17 - 00;31;56;28
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, that would, that would feel like the right response to that amount of energy. But if you're in front of three other people that are your team, that's not necessary. What can be inspiring is being of service to the people that you're speaking to. So that being a service requires certainty on the part of the speaker, certainty of their ability to provide value in your you can you know, you can provide value to an audience when you're a step or two beyond them.

00;31;57;03 - 00;32;05;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
Just one or two steps ahead of them. Right. And then you have value to share. Does that make sense, David? I see you looking a little confused.

00;32;06;09 - 00;32;13;09
David Hall
Oh, no, absolutely. It's not about you. It's what are you what value are you bringing to them? What are they going to take away?

00;32;14;25 - 00;32;46;25
Julia Beecham Kraft
Exactly. So as long as you are thinking of the audience instead of your own fears and perfectionism and like did I say that right? And like all of that, it's not important, really. It's about the audience. And then there's plenty of techniques, you know, like telling stories is really inspiring. Using metaphors is really inspiring. Having a strong eye contact really draws people in, you know, having higher energy than your everyday self so that you make this a very important moment of communication.

00;32;46;25 - 00;33;10;28
Julia Beecham Kraft
Those kind of things will take a strong message that is already going to be really important for your audience and then deliver them, deliver it in a way that people can really receive it and feel the impact of it. Ultimately, with communication, it's the I said this earlier, it's the nonverbal communication that makes an impact on your audience.

00;33;10;28 - 00;33;16;01
Julia Beecham Kraft
So we have to bring our messages to life.

00;33;16;01 - 00;33;35;28
David Hall
Let's talk you mentioned storytelling. Let's talk a little bit about that. And my question is, how would introverts get better at storytelling? And like for me, I have some amazing stories going on in my head. Okay, but it's not always easy for me to share exactly the beautiful story that's in my head. So how can introverts get better at storytelling?

00;33;36;29 - 00;34;00;19
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, it's it's just such an interesting question, because you're right, we have such a rich inner world. And yet I also speak for myself. I often don't feel the need to share my story of what I'm having going on up there or what I experience. Yeah, like I've been on social media a lot more in the last year because I'm building my business online, but I before that, had no desire to post on social media.

00;34;00;19 - 00;34;31;22
Julia Beecham Kraft
I'm like, I really don't care if people know what I did. But you're right, storytelling is really important for being inspiring, and it's one of the ways you let people let other people into your world, which is important for visibility. So as an introvert, you could do some preparation where you you write like a story bank and you have some stories that would be relevant for your topic or for your business so that you could just pick and choose when you need them.

00;34;32;09 - 00;34;52;15
Julia Beecham Kraft
I've always done that in terms of customer success stories. As an entrepreneur, I want to share testimonials sometimes, so it's good for me to have a few that I've thought through so that I can pull them out at a good moment. But also this is just a speaker skill, I think, in terms of what's the supporting evidence of what I'm saying.

00;34;52;15 - 00;35;22;23
Julia Beecham Kraft
Instead of just speaking about the information and your ideas like this is what I believe this is, this is information. What's the supporting evidence and supporting evidence is usually stories, examples, metaphors and analogies. Statistics of a statistic is always a story. Actually, it's never just a number. There's a story to how that number came about, right? So as long as you have supporting evidence, you'll be triggered to think in terms of how did I come to this idea or belief?

00;35;22;23 - 00;35;25;08
Julia Beecham Kraft
And stories tend to come out more naturally.

00;35;26;19 - 00;35;45;17
David Hall
Yeah, I like that idea that you have some stories ready and I automatically think of not just public speaking, but maybe it's a job interview where you're not trying to think of something on the spot or, you know, you have something, you have a few things that could apply to various situations. I think that's a great idea.

00;35;46;16 - 00;36;08;00
Julia Beecham Kraft
And it usually takes us a moment, right, to find a story if you are put on the spot. So it's back to what I was saying earlier of overcoming the belief of I should have something to say right away. The introvert brain is slower and I don't mean that in a bad way, I just mean there's a longer pathway from your mind's process to your mouth.

00;36;09;15 - 00;36;10;21
Julia Beecham Kraft
Like literally it's so.

00;36;10;22 - 00;36;12;06
David Hall
It's yeah, it's true.

00;36;12;06 - 00;36;42;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
It's a real thing. So another moment, to be honest, like that's a great question. Let me think about a time that that happened. You can sort of fill space while you're thinking, you know, there's been lots of times that that's happened to me. In fact, I'm thinking of one right now. You know, I'm just like feelings. Well, I give myself time to think if if you don't make that a problem, if you're not beating yourself up about that, you can manage it.

00;36;44;07 - 00;37;02;05
David Hall
Yeah. Give me some time to think about that is a saving sentence for introverts, because like I said, if it's something I'm really familiar with, I may not need some time to think, but I might. You might ask me a question and I might need a second or five, second or ten, or I might say, let me get back to you tomorrow.

00;37;02;12 - 00;37;22;05
David Hall
You know, and that's just really important, too. And I think that was that was a big confidence booster for me, realizing that exactly what talking about that that was a natural process for me. And it's good because if you do ask me something, it's going to be well thought through and it might not be instant, but it's a strength of mine.

00;37;22;05 - 00;37;42;10
David Hall
It's a strength of of introverts where we are thinking things through. Whereas when I was younger and I was spending time thinking not understanding what was happening and people are saying, why are you so quiet? Right. It makes you feel shy and not confident, but understanding, hey, this is a natural way I work and it strength comes from it.

00;37;42;21 - 00;37;51;02
David Hall
Yes, I became confident and my anxiety and shyness went away just by understanding things like that.

00;37;51;02 - 00;38;22;03
Julia Beecham Kraft
That's so well verbalized. Thank you for saying that. I think so many people need to hear it because you're right, there's a natural process that you find your thoughts. Everyone has their own process. And in general, introverts take a little bit longer to find their thoughts. But for everybody, everyone that wants to improve their speaking, they need to get better at understanding what their process is from thought to verbalize ation and master that process.

00;38;22;03 - 00;38;27;12
Julia Beecham Kraft
That's how you become a master improviser as you start to learn how your mind works and you master it.

00;38;28;29 - 00;38;32;07
David Hall
Yeah, very good. I'm still working on that myself, but.

00;38;32;24 - 00;38;34;08
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, it's a lifetime thing too.

00;38;35;03 - 00;38;48;21
David Hall
Yeah. And you know, I always say you do your best preparation figure out how you work, but at the end of the day, you got to give yourself some grace too, because you know you're going to have some awkward moments. As much as you can minimize those, you're still going to have some.

00;38;48;21 - 00;39;20;06
Julia Beecham Kraft
You're humanity is part of the inspiration. There's a there's a misconception. Back to that question you asked me at the beginning. You know, a misconception is that perfection is what people are looking for and audiences looking for. It's just not true. An audience is looking for your humanity, hoping that you let them see you. It's in the moments that you screw up or you think that you screwed up that often are the most memorable.

00;39;21;17 - 00;39;34;07
David Hall
Yeah. Now it might seem so counterintuitive for some people, but what you said is so true. It's people are going to listen to you when they when they see your humanity more than when they're not seeing your authenticity.

00;39;34;20 - 00;39;35;05
Julia Beecham Kraft
Mm hmm.

00;39;35;27 - 00;39;44;14
David Hall
So how do you help introverts, introverted women gain confidence? You know, they might somebody might be listening to this and, like, oh, that sounds great, but I could never do that.

00;39;45;10 - 00;40;22;16
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. And I hear you, if that's you out there listening to this, feeling like this is too much for me, I don't know how I could ever get there. It doesn't even feel like a possibility. I just want to acknowledge that it's it's okay to feel that way. So that's always the first step of my process with women like I talked about the calming your nerves is getting present with the fear, the anxiety, the overwhelm that probably has been there for a long time, and instead of trying to avoid it or push it down or push through the opportunities, just get them over with it.

00;40;22;17 - 00;40;48;20
Julia Beecham Kraft
Let's actually take time to address this anxiety, fear and overwhelm so that you can feel better. Just bottom line. So you can just feel more like yourself and energized. And then once we've got a good baseline there, the second step that I help women in with is to release the past. So once they're feeling like, okay, I feel like I'm okay, I don't have as much stress, okay?

00;40;49;01 - 00;41;09;03
Julia Beecham Kraft
Now I can even think about where did where did these patterns come from? Where did I get this conditioning? Oh, my mother always said, shut your trap. You're you're going to catch flies. My mother said that. Shut your mouth. You're going to be catching flies. You know, she wanted me to stay quiet and be demure or a good Catholic girl.

00;41;09;06 - 00;41;46;00
Julia Beecham Kraft
So I learned very early about perfectionism. Right. And being put together. You're going to have your own story. So we got to unravel the past and bring it to the conscious mind so that it's not playing itself out unconsciously in your nonverbal communication. And then the third step is to open your full expression, which I call your expressive channel, doing expressive exercises that are most likely bigger, bolder, louder, weirder than you've done.

00;41;46;00 - 00;42;06;07
Julia Beecham Kraft
You were very young, like, since, you know, a lot of women that I work with, you're like, Oh, wow, I haven't made that much sound since I was five years old, running around the backyard with my friends. And the voice gets so suppressed and so letting your voice out and be weird and wild and rediscover it and let your emotions flow.

00;42;06;18 - 00;42;36;26
Julia Beecham Kraft
I think women especially need this. I don't know if men would relate as much. I don't specialize in working with men, but I know women need to refind their ex. It's like open, wild voice. And when they find that they can trust themselves to make choices, conscious choices about how they want to express themselves. And so the last stages then we can learn some best practices about public speaking, like how to use the tone of voice, how to use your eye contact, how to improvise within structure because you don't have as much perfectionism anymore.

00;42;36;26 - 00;42;58;09
Julia Beecham Kraft
You've loosened it all up, you're not stressed out so you can think clearly more. You know, you're not so worried about what other people are going to think of you. So you can actually figure out what you want to say versus what would make other people happy. Yeah, so that's my step by step or step framework for supporting introverted women to find their voice again.

00;42;59;17 - 00;43;03;18
David Hall
How do they practice? How do they practice that? What you were describing.

00;43;04;02 - 00;43;05;11
Julia Beecham Kraft
Which part?

00;43;05;11 - 00;43;09;12
David Hall
Just practicing, being more expressive and things like that. How do you do that?

00;43;09;12 - 00;43;34;23
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yeah, it's a great question. And the first step would be what's called a sigh of relief. Oh, which can be a huge deal for some women just to let out some sound, just like let their throat open and oh, let it go. Oh, what do you think about that sound?

00;43;34;23 - 00;43;42;20
David Hall
Yeah, I mean, definitely it definitely experience the opposite where, you know, keeping everything in and it's very anxiety producing for sure.

00;43;43;05 - 00;43;56;26
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right. It gets stuck in our a lot of times a lot of women will say to me they feel like they're being strangled within their own throat. And I can see the tension in their throat. And as they start to let that sound out just a sigh of relief.

00;43;57;10 - 00;43;57;27
David Hall
Oh.

00;43;58;16 - 00;44;19;08
Julia Beecham Kraft
You know, then there's not so much held back, so much sort of contained within. And again, you start to access the authentic voice in the moment. What wants to be said right now, instead of all the stuff from before. So that would be a first step sigh of relief. And then we start to play with loosening your body.

00;44;19;12 - 00;44;46;09
Julia Beecham Kraft
I'm shaking right now with my shoulders, a shimmy shaking your whole body loosening up. And like I said, being silly, being weird, being wild with your body in ways that probably you've been told you shouldn't be right now. Keep it together. Look, put together now. Shaking is a really great way to just let it go. And then we get into a higher level techniques, something that's called the Lisbon effort.

00;44;46;09 - 00;45;11;04
Julia Beecham Kraft
Actions that I learned in theater schools are amazing technique where you learn eight different effort actions of different characteristics or energies of expression to to widen your range of possibilities, things that probably a lot of the women I've worked with like have never tried. For example, the punch and the punch energy is really strong. Women don't like that either.

00;45;11;04 - 00;45;20;19
Julia Beecham Kraft
Wow. It's too much. It's too much. But they need to try it. Try it on, let themselves be all that they are. We all have a punch within us.

00;45;21;12 - 00;45;42;05
David Hall
And as you were talking about that, I thought of something else that I've learned to use, you know. So you talked about letting go of perfectionism. And then once you get going, I guarantee you your second speech is probably going to be better than your first and you just keep getting better. And a superpower that we have as introverts, we're very reflective.

00;45;42;20 - 00;45;59;22
David Hall
So, you know, I've learned to after my speech, just kind of not beat myself up, but just think, you know, what work will what could go better next time. And I even apply this to this podcasting work because I'm having so much fun doing this, but I get better each time, I think, you know, because just thinking, you know, how do I go?

00;45;59;22 - 00;46;07;05
David Hall
What do I want to do differently next time? And it's a learning process and it's definitely you're going to get better each time is my thought.

00;46;07;28 - 00;46;37;25
Julia Beecham Kraft
I love that. It's really important and a lot of times the women I'm working with, they're reflecting afterwards all the things that went wrong. So it's a training process to learn to look for the things that went well. So I teach 7525 feedback, which means that you you find 75% of the things that you tell yourself, 75% things that went really well and 25% constructive things of what you want to do differently later.

00;46;38;04 - 00;46;55;07
Julia Beecham Kraft
So if you're going to give yourself four pieces of feedback, that's three positives and one constructive. And sometimes I will ask, yeah, ask a woman to find three things you liked about your presentation. And she's like, like totally blanking on it. It's a really good exercise.

00;46;55;25 - 00;47;11;19
David Hall
Yeah, we should apply that to our lives too. Yeah, I think a lot of times it's reversed where we hear 75% negative type of things and it's like, shouldn't it be negative? The 25% should be, like you said, constructive. It's like, okay, well, how can I continue to tweak this to be a little bit better?

00;47;12;04 - 00;47;13;13
Julia Beecham Kraft
Yep, exactly.

00;47;15;04 - 00;47;26;00
David Hall
Wow. This time went by very fast. Julia, I think you shared a lot of great information that people listening are going to get a lot out of. So anything that we missed that you would like to hit on still.

00;47;27;09 - 00;47;51;23
Julia Beecham Kraft
I think is a closing thought. I'll just share. It's just building off of everything I've said. It's my deepest belief that the world needs your voice. So if you're listening to this podcast and you've found me, there's a reason why you've found me. I know that you have an important message and you have an important present that the world needs to hear and feel.

00;47;52;24 - 00;48;18;10
Julia Beecham Kraft
And if you're questioning that or if you're scared, then let this be your call to take a risk. Move a little bit out of your comfort zone, you know, to bust out of your comfort zone. But, you know, us introverts, we like to inch out of our comfort zone little by little while taking good care of your energy and calming your nervous system.

00;48;18;10 - 00;48;22;00
Julia Beecham Kraft
Let the world hear your message. I believe the world needs it.

00;48;23;15 - 00;48;29;15
David Hall
Yeah, absolutely. Well said. And then tell us about the quiet confidence masterclass that you offer.

00;48;30;03 - 00;48;56;18
Julia Beecham Kraft
Right? Yes. So the four step framework that I just shared in brief is in much more detail in the Quiet Confidence Masterclass. So I wanted to invite all the listeners of this podcast to totally my gift to. You learn more about that four step framework as well as I share the three biggest mistakes that I see introverted women make around public speaking that makes them more nervous.

00;48;56;18 - 00;49;24;17
Julia Beecham Kraft
So and more about my story as well. So I'd love to share this masterclass with you if you're listening to this podcast. It's a great next step from what we've talked about here today to get more concrete tips and more understanding of of how you might be, you know, just struggling with the mainstream public speaking trainings. Right. And this is a different way to approach it that is going to work better for you so that you can actually be confident in what you have to say.

00;49;24;17 - 00;49;31;21
Julia Beecham Kraft
And no longer live with that anxiety and nerves that maybe has been weighing on you for a lifetime.

00;49;32;07 - 00;49;39;02
David Hall
Absolutely. And so I'll put all your links into the show notes. What is the best way for people to get a hold of you.

00;49;40;05 - 00;49;59;19
Julia Beecham Kraft
Great. Yeah so my website is speak to inspire dot com that's the main website the the site for the registration for quiet confidence masterclass is speak to inspire dot com forward slash introvert webinar and I'd love if anybody wants to follow me on Instagram you can find me at she speaks to inspire.

00;50;01;02 - 00;50;12;28
David Hall
Very good yeah you put out some great content on Instagram so thanks. Thank you so much for the work you're doing. Keep up your great work supporting introverts and supporting introverted women in public speaking. Thanks again for being on the show today.

00;50;13;09 - 00;50;15;09
Julia Beecham Kraft
Thanks, David.

00;50;15;09 - 00;50;34;28
David Hall
Thank you so much for joining me. I look forward to further connecting with you. Reach out to David at Quiet and Strong E-Comm or check out the website. Quite strong dot com. It includes blog posts, links to social media channels and send me topics or guests you'd like to see on the show. If you're interested in getting to know yourself better.

00;50;35;05 - 00;50;56;07
David Hall
There is now a free type finder personality assessment on the quite strong website. This free assessment will give you a brief report, including your four letter Myers-Briggs code. You can also purchase the full report. If you'd like more details, I'll add a link to the show notes. There's so many great things about being an introvert and so we need those to be understood.

00;50;56;19 - 00;51;08;07
David Hall
Get to know your introverted strengths and needs and be strong.