Leading Her Introvert Way: Conversations about executive leadership, career growth, business and mindset for mid-life Black women.

80: Don't Pass the Mic: How Introverted Leaders Can Command an Audience

• Nicole Bryan • Episode 80

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In this episode, Dr. Nicole Bryan and public speaking coach Sammy Herrera discuss the art of public speaking for introverted leaders. They explore the unique challenges faced by introverted women in leadership roles and provide practical strategies to enhance public speaking skills. 


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Speaker 1:

Hi, lady Leader, and welcome to the Leading Her Way podcast. I'm Dr Nicole Bryan, and I help Black introvert women land their next senior leader role, become elite executive leaders and build career wealth. Today, we are doing something a little different, which I am very excited about. I am going to be sharing with you a replay of a LinkedIn Live that I did several months ago, but the topic is one that is so, so relevant. It never seems it's one of those topics for introverted leaders that never seems to go out of style, and I'm doing it with a special guest. Her name is Sammy Herrera.

Speaker 1:

The story behind this is I knew that I wanted to do a couple of different things. I wanted to create a piece of content on this topic which is all about public speaking for introverted leaders, which is all about public speaking for introverted leaders, but I also knew that I have been on my own journey to be a strong public speaker, so I didn't want to do it by myself, and I wanted to find someone who was an expert in public speaking and invite them to join me on a LinkedIn Live, and that's what I did. Now, I did not know Sammy beforehand. I literally went into the search box within LinkedIn I put in public speaking coaches and Sammy was one of several people who popped up. But when I looked at her page, I was really impressed by her content that she was sharing her personality. That came through and I took a risk. I just literally sent her a cold message on LinkedIn, introduced myself and told her that I would love to be a partner with her on a LinkedIn Live, and she said yes. So what you're about to hear is two of us. We put our heads together, we came up with a really cool name for the episode, which was called Don't Pass the Mic Get it. Don't Pass the Mic, so Don't Pass the Mic, and it was focused on public speaking strategies and tips for introverted women, and we spent about an hour just talking and sharing both of our different levels of expertise and walking and answering questions, walking people through the process of becoming more confident as introverted women who wanted to get better at public speaking.

Speaker 1:

So, without further ado, please join me in welcoming Sammy Herrera to the mic and enjoy this LinkedIn replay, but first time showing here on the podcast. Welcome everyone. I will be likely repeating that a couple of times as people join us over the next few minutes, but Sammy and I both wanted to make sure that we welcome you wholeheartedly. This event is something that we've both been looking forward to, and, by the numbers of people who have signed up, we clearly know that it is a meaty topic that many of us want to hear more about. So we have recently looked at the numbers and we've had over 400 people sign up, so that gives us an indication that this is an important topic. It just confirms it for us and that makes us want to deliver the goods for you, right? So welcome, come on in.

Speaker 1:

As you are joining, I want to make sure that I take care of a couple of quick things for us. So today's topic, as you already know, is all about the art of public speaking for leaders, particularly introverted leaders, and so we want to make sure that this is a safe space for us to really talk about all the things that we find challenging about public speaking. So, welcome, leaders, come on in. So what we will be doing is Sammy and I are really just going to have a conversation, and we are going to be covering several things. One is we want to make sure that we are delivering some gems around what public speaking is what public speaking is not, and we want to make sure that you walk away today with things that you can actually implement, so strategies and tips that you can actually implement as an introvert, as soon as you leave this conversation.

Speaker 2:

And you are not alone. You'll see here that we have so many folks joining us. We're coming along all the people who've registered and, to facilitate that further, definitely let us know who you are in the chat. Drop your name, drop where you're currently based and feel free to drop a question or just drop why you're an introvert, extrovert or ambivert.

Speaker 1:

Right, so many of us are. This topic is centered around introversion, but I know and Sammy had mentioned earlier that just by talking to some people who had signed up, everybody's not an introvert. So I'd love to hear if you are an introvert, extrovert, or you identify as an ambivert, and we promise we'll tell you what we are you identify as an ambivert, and we promise we'll tell you what we are.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we will. You might be able to guess, as we have that conversation, but either way, we will definitely let you know Now. One of the other things is that we just so happen to want to wish you a very happy International Women's Day. The day is actually tomorrow, march 8th, but we're hoping that we are the first, or among the first, to be able to celebrate that day with you, and we believe that today's topic the art of leadership, communication for introvert women is a perfect way to celebrate International Women's Day, allowing us to be even stronger leaders through how we communicate with others. Okay, so, sammy, would you like to introduce yourself, and then I can do that, and then we can kind of jump right into the meat of today's conversation.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I'd love to introduce myself and thank you again so much, dr Nicole, for bringing me on to speak and highlight my expertise related to public speaking. To speak and highlight my expertise related to public speaking. Hello everyone, my name is Sammy Walker Herrera my pronouns are she, her and ella and I'm a public speaking and confidence coach. What I do is I work with executive leaders to help them express their expertise and trust their voice as they're speaking in the workplace. Now, with that, a lot of it is focused on how do you build a speaking practice, how do you build discipline around this practice to help build that confidence as well. And I work with folks from all different personality types, of course introvert, extrovert and pervert. There's so many challenges that folks who are introverted have experienced. However, that does not limit them from being an amazing speaker over time.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, wonderful, yes, and so when Sammy and I first talked about, it's been a couple of months, actually, that we first came up with this idea, and the more that we got to work and collaborate together, the more I knew that Sammy was the exact right person to partner with on this topic. So thank you, sammy, for just saying yes. So let me introduce myself really quickly. I'm Dr Nicole Bryan. I am a executive mentor and coach. I help women introverted women in particular get into the executive suite and excel once we get there, and so obviously, communicating and public speaking is a part of that, which is why there's so much synergy between Sammy and myself on this particular topic. So here's how things are going to go down. For the next 45 minutes or so that we're all together, sammy and I want to share some important information with you and some strategies, and we're going to do that for about 15 to 20 minutes, but we've deliberately set aside time to answer questions that you might have about public speaking, leadership and communication. So throughout our conversation, if you have a question, drop it into the chat. Sammy and I will keep an eye on the chat and we'll likely answer the question right then and there. But if we're not able to stop the presentation to answer the question on the spot, we will definitely come back to it before we or when we open the floor up for Q&A toward the end of today's presentation. And I'm saying presentation, but you're going to probably feel like it's a conversation because that's just how Sammy and I roll, all right, okay, so I've kind of set the stage for kind of what the conversation is going to be Before I hand it over to Sammy.

Speaker 1:

I did want to talk about why I believe public speaking skills are so important for introverted leaders. The truth of the matter is public speaking is important for everyone and definitely important for all leaders, but in my opinion it's particularly or extremely important for introverted leaders because one, I'm a little biased, as Sammy mentioned. We're going to tell you where we fall and I definitely identify as an introvert. So I'm biased because I myself am an introvert. But the other reason I think it's really important and it's based on my opportunity to kind of mentor and coach hundreds of introverted women leaders in my experience is that I've come to understand that introverts have unique ways of communicating which don't always conform with traditional leadership styles or with conventional workplaces. So learning how to embrace our introvertedness while also effectively communicating our ideas and opinions is something that most of us have to work to master. So to help us do that, we're going to cover a few key principles of public speaking, and then we'll shift to a few specific strategies and techniques that you can start using now to be an even better public speaker.

Speaker 1:

Before we dive in, and before I ask Sammy to kind of share her thoughts as well, I want to strongly encourage you to get very, very clear on what you want to work on when it comes to public speaking and why. And the reason why I feel so strongly about this is because it's a mistake that I made very early in my career where I didn't have clarity in terms of what I actually wanted. I had received feedback and I will say it wasn't always very direct feedback that I needed to work on my public speaking skills, and so I internalized that and was very, very critical about myself and how I showed up. In terms of communicating with others, I felt like I was a really great writer, but in terms of verbal communication, I was very hard on myself, and so what that turned into is years of me kind of swirling and you know, not necessarily being very focused on what or how I wanted to improve, like I mentioned, I took other people's kind of general feedback. I kind of beat myself up with that and I don't want you to do that and I know Sammy doesn't want you to do that. So how you can combat that is you deciding, not having other people decide for you, but you deciding why you feel public speaking is important for you.

Speaker 1:

And two, what about it? As an example, I was not very concerned with saying ums or you know or anything like that, and I know for some of us that might be the piece that we want to work on. For me, that wasn't a priority. For me, the priority was making sure that I was able to communicate my ideas, and efficiently and effectively. That's what I wanted to work on. So once I identified that that was what I wanted to work on, I could really focus in on the techniques that I needed to get better in that area and let everything else go. So, as we share kind of more tips and strategies, I want you to really get honed in on what specifically you want to work on and why, and make sure that you own it and it's not being pushed upon you by other people in your workplace or other people at home. And with that I will hand it over to.

Speaker 2:

Sammy, nicole, I just have to say that is a very powerful what you just highlighted your own experience of getting feedback that was really vague regarding your public speaking and that getting to your head and feeling like, oh, do I need to improve this entire skill set of public speaking? When I teach public speaking, the way I like to frame it is public speaking is kind of like an umbrella and there are so many sub skills, so one you just mentioned was filler words, the um. Right, you knows, that's just one piece of public speaking, let alone storytelling, let alone pausing, phrasing, structuring different aspects, and so I love that advice just to focus on one thing every time you speak. What's that one thing you can do to be intentional about your speaking as well. But going to our topic here, the art of confident speaking for introverted women, I will let y'all know that we are a dynamic duo here and I am the extrovert of this duo and the way a lot of my extroversion comes in is less about like being in large groups, but a lot more from my own performance background. I teach dance, I sing, I do stand up and improv comedy, so these are really great ways for me to get my energy out and be amongst a large amount of people and also share my voice.

Speaker 2:

But when I think about the dichotomy of introversion and extroversion with public speaking, I honestly believe that's more of a false dichotomy.

Speaker 2:

The dichotomy I really think about is inner confidence and outer confidence. One thing that we often may assume is if someone is showcasing outer confidence, they must be an extrovert, but that's not inherently true, and that same person who's highlighting that outer confidence may not feel the inner confidence. Their own journey of speaking and it doesn't mean like TED Talk, you know, speaking circuit journey, more of just getting comfortable speaking up at work, speaking to superiors, leading presentations and projects that over time, when the inner confidence is not matching the outer confidence, a lot of people stop speaking, and so I believe that's a lot more healthy dichotomy to think about is how do I feel on the inside about what I'm talking about? Am I an expert? Do I know what I'm talking about? And then also balancing oh, how am I being perceived? How am I carrying myself? I believe that dichotomy is a lot easier to balance and it focuses a lot less on the weaknesses, if you will, of folks who are introverted.

Speaker 1:

That distinction, I do think, is really, really important, because I think there are so many, maybe assumptions about what an extrovert might be, what an introvert might be, and the truth of the matter is it's as unique as each person and how that kind of shows up. And frankly, I think it's also important to acknowledge that for some of us we show up differently in different places. So some of us may be introverts and we pull on pieces of us that are more extroverted and that might be how we show up for one meeting and we're more introverted in another, and vice versa. That distinction, I think, is really important for all of us to hear, sammy.

Speaker 2:

Most definitely, and as I was building my business, speak Y'all and thinking about what is the mission, what is the goal of what I'm doing? So I help people trust their voice and express their expertise, and what is that other than inner confidence and outer confidence?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think confidence is such a big, big topic for so many people, and I don't think that has anything to do, frankly, with introversion or extroversion, but I do know that many of the women that I have the honor of working with, they will always feel like they don't have an inner confidence, and that is what is stopping them necessarily from showing up to other people as being more confident. I also, frankly, experienced the other part, the reverse of that, where people pretend they have the outer confidence even though internally they're really not very confident, and so obviously, I think we can all guess that having a balance between the two is what would position you to be feel strong about how you're showing up and how you're thinking. But we don't live in a perfect world, so that may not always happen, but I do think the understanding that there is an inner confidence and an outer confidence and striving to find the balance is what we can all be working towards.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and I think all of us can relate to seeing someone speak and be like an amazing performer and super expressive and wondering like this person doesn't know as much as me they're not the expert, that I made their notes right Like it's really important to balance that. Even when you start building your expression and your public speaking skills, you don't have to come off like a performer. You don't have to be Tony Robbins yelling at the top of your voice, you know, jumping up and down, motivational speaking. You can find a way to still be authentic while speaking, and I think that's a challenge a lot of introverted leaders have is well, I'm afraid that the only way I can be regarded as a good speaker is by portraying myself in a way that's not authentic and that's not true.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, very true, very right, very right. Okay, I know you had mentioned another dichotomy that, unless I'm forgetting, but there was another dichotomy that we talked about that I felt like, okay, this is really juicy. This is something that I think we all need to be recognizing. Am I misremembering? It was thinking Way to put you on the spot. Right Way to put you on the spot.

Speaker 2:

So the first one is going to be the inner confidence, outer confidence, you know, introvert, extrovert. Another one I think about often regarding people's speakers, speaking styles, is improvisation versus preparation, that dichotomy, because when it comes to speaking, there are times when improv is the move, there are times when preparation in the move and sometimes that you need a nice mix of both. So, for example, when you're interviewing, especially for a job, scholarship, something like that, you pretty much want to be 80% preparation with 20% improv the improv. There would be questions that were really out of left field, that you did not anticipate, or even some of the small talk at the start of your interview, at the end of the interview, kind of built in that rapport.

Speaker 2:

But what I focus on as a public speaking coach, which is different than some other public speaking coaches, is I like to focus on building those improvisational skills first. The reason for that is I found that to be quite a bit harder than prepared speaking, and when we master that tougher skill it often blends into the presentation skill well, and so the easiest example I can think of is how so many folks they'll spend hours and hours preparing for a 30 minute presentation. They have the slides in front of them. They have their speaker notes, they have like bullet point notes ahead of them, but once they get to the Q&A, it all falls apart. Right, we might have experienced that.

Speaker 2:

I definitely did early on. For example, I think we've all felt like, oh my gosh, what kind of audience do I have here? All these curveballs, right? So I really like to think about how do we find a great balance between the improv as well as prepared speech making, because, honestly, for example, writing a speech, writing a talk, that requires a lot of public speaking skills to centering the message, storytelling, data storytelling sometimes, and making sure that there's a good structure so it's easy for you to follow along and easy for your audience to follow along too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm not going to lie, sammy, when you say improv, that scares me as an introvert, and I am confident that my introvert colleagues are also feeling like what.

Speaker 1:

But I think what you're saying is really important.

Speaker 1:

So for me, as an introvert, I am a person who at one point in time I would write out every single word that I was going to say and that gave me a lot of comfort, but I wasn't coming across as relatable to my audiences.

Speaker 1:

And then I pushed myself a little bit and instead of writing out every word, I wrote out like an outline and some bullet points so that I wasn't verbatim reading those things, but the outline would keep me focused and make sure that I don't miss any important points. And so what that did as you're talking about improvisation, that to me allowed me to be more fluid in how I was showing up and how I was speaking, but also have the comfort of not completely having to wing it. I'm wondering if you come across that when you are coaching and helping others, is there like a progression, or do you kind of just start them off with improv and which is fine, like I'm curious I'm sure others are curious in terms of how do you get to the place, for example, where someone is able to fully improv, particularly if they're introverted.

Speaker 2:

One thing I'll say. You can probably guess what the answer is you throw us in the defense.

Speaker 1:

I get it Okay that's fine.

Speaker 2:

One thing that's so important for me when I'm working with someone, someone selects me, someone trusts me to be their coach, is that I am trusting in that relationship, that, hey, anything I'm sharing with you is something I've personally done and is something I've seen time and time again support folks in building their confidence. Because one thing you talked about with the idea of like you moved from writing out every word right, maybe even writing your pauses or writing your laughs and things like that to having the bullet points, is that confidence isn't about knowing everything. Confidence is about being able to trust that you'll be able to do it. Hold up hold up.

Speaker 1:

Repeat that, please. Cause that is so important, I'm going to type it in the chat. Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Yes, confidence isn't about knowing everything. It's about trusting that you'll be able to do it, even when you're scared. In some ways, I'm paraphrasing from a pretty famous quote about courage. Courage isn't about not being afraid, it's about doing it anyway. Yeah, the fear, or the anxiety, the worry, and I think that's what folks want to work with me on. When I work with folks, it's a lot deeper than I want to speak up more in meetings. It ends up being I want to trust myself, I want to build a habit, I want to know that I signed up for something important and I'm going to be changed and transformed by this process. And it's not just from, like, the direct coaching hours, it's a lot from the practice that they're building through the right in the deep end, improv skills.

Speaker 1:

Okay, all right, fair enough, fair enough. But I think that point is clearly I want to emphasize it, given that I just put it in the chat it is also, I think, really resonating with me, because it is something that comes up over and over and over again with the women that I do work with, particularly on executive presence and as part of executive presence, speaking and communicating is obviously a component of that. But what I will always say is no one knows what you know. I'm sure most of the people who are on and listening to us today are experts in their craft. You guys are experts in your craft and there's a lot of power and confidence that you can lean on because of that.

Speaker 1:

But somehow we get into our own minds when we are in a position where we have to communicate that expertise, maybe to a totally different audience or maybe to more senior people in our organization or to whatever, right.

Speaker 1:

But the truth of the matter is your expertise doesn't change. You know your stuff. It's just that you let a little sliver of doubt come in when you're put in a new and different environment, right, and the anxiety kind of takes over and it reduces or impacts your confidence in that moment, but that doesn't change the fact that you are, in fact, an expert, and so I think another thing that I would encourage everyone to really think about is to lean on that expertise. It doesn't have to be perfect. How you communicate doesn't have to be perfect, as your message has to be a good one that people want to listen to, but the way in which you communicate it does not have to be perfect. To me, it's a more about it's less about the how, and very much more about the meat of the what you're saying, what you're communicating. That's my personal perspective on that one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that makes sense, and when you talk about the sense of, you don't lose your expertise. There is that barrier for speaking. Often that barrier is pressure, and what I feel pressure from is different than what other people feel pressure from. The easiest example I can think of is having taken a stand-up comedy class recently. I had folks in my class who were more nervous that their family and friends were going to be there, and I had people in the class who were more nervous that strangers were going to be there.

Speaker 2:

Right, what we feel pressure from is different, and that's why I do that deep dive with my clients is because I want them to habituate or get used to that pressure. Because once you get used to that pressure and that recognizing that, hey, having nerves before speaking is totally normal I had nerves before even getting on this talk today. It just shows how much we care about making sure that our expertise is expressed.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, perfect. So now that we've talked about some general principles and I mean really we've talked about mindset, we've talked about a couple of dichotomies that are very important, what are some basic pieces of advice, maybe, or strategies and things that you have you know, as an expert in public speaking have seen work well, that we can start thinking about how we might incorporate that in terms of how we communicate with others like to introduce today if you're a willing participant, nicole is I want to introduce the first speaking structure that I teach my clients to get them used to, that improvisational or impromptu speaking.

Speaker 2:

You ready for that? Okay, yes, yes, I am ready, I am ready, yes, I love it, and you know what I love that you're not 100% on board with it. Maybe we'll it'll become so fun that you'll love it though, so, okay, all right and feel free.

Speaker 2:

Anyone who has is taking notes, typing notes, feel free to do so. Even highlight your own answers in the chat, as is called PRP. Okay, and what that stands for is point, reason, point, and what I teach my clients to do is to structure their answers using this acronym, prp. So, point. Let's say, someone asked me what my favorite bird is. Point is going to be answering the question. So my favorite bird is the cardinal. We got point. Now we have the reason, the R there. The reason the cardinal is my favorite bird is for most of my life, red is my favorite color. So every time I see a red cardinal out in the bushes, out in the trees, it just makes me smile. So we have that reason. Then we have the final P, which is point again, and that's why my favorite bird is the cardinal. So you're pretty much sandwiching your answer the first point, the last point and you're picking a reason in between your answer the first point, the last point and you're picking a reason in between.

Speaker 2:

Now, that can seem pretty simplistic when we're first starting with something like this, some type of structure people here in the audience, they might be familiar with the STAR method for interview answers. That's Situation Task Action Result. For anyone who's curious, let me know in the chat if you're familiar with STAR is. We want to keep it simple so we can build upon it. Right, my answer was what? 15 seconds, but we might build it up to be a minute, two minutes, five minutes.

Speaker 2:

And if you're answering a question, you want to make sure that, hey, everyone knows you answered the question and hey, everyone knows you're done speaking. That's one of the biggest benefits of something like ERP. Speaking, that's one of the biggest benefits of something like PRP. Now let me also highlight one thing that gets in the way for some folks, especially a lot of our extroverted folks like myself who love talking is when you pick our reason, you can only pick one. You can't pick your five favorite reasons, your five favorite birds. You want to pick one bird, one reason, and then to cap it off as well. And so, nicole, do you want to answer a question using the PRP structure here?

Speaker 1:

I will give it my best shot.

Speaker 2:

Okay, nicole, if you were going on vacation somewhere, what kind of environment would you want to be in?

Speaker 1:

Okay. So, prp, if I were going on vacation, I would want to go to the beach. And the reason why I would want to go to the beach is because I was born on a beach and it very much calms me down. So if I were going on vacation, I would really like to be on the beach.

Speaker 2:

You did it First. Brb. Hey you got all the BRB right there Right. And one thing I noticed I had to think about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I noticed a little pause between your, you know, like calms me down. That's why we want to use a simple structure. We want to answer in a very simple way because we want to embed PRP into being something that just becomes second nature over time. Right, If we continued doing this, I would keep asking questions. I would encourage you to lengthen your answer and even right now, Nicole, starting off with I was born on the beach. You're already going into storytelling, which is fantastic, and that's just a great way to this away from this conversation.

Speaker 1:

frankly, and when I am being asked a question and I am either talking to my team or talking in another setting. This actually meets my effectiveness communication, which is, I said earlier, that's something that I'm continuing to work on, where I use the PRP to make sure that I am answering the question that's being asked first and foremost. I know many of us tend to, kind of you know, use a lot of words and not actually answer the question that's being asked. So this helps me answer the question that I'm being asked but then also add a little bit of context so that whoever I'm communicating to or talking to can actually more easily remember the why of my point. That's great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and PRP, it's such a helpful tool but knowing it just right here and there it's probably not going to be embedded in the mind.

Speaker 2:

What I encourage folks here who are watching this to do is practice with a bunch of questions. I know I use a website called Random Question Generator and what I do is I just generate a bunch of questions and answer with PRP. And what I'll tell you is it's unpleasant getting to use a new skill sometimes, and it's unpleasant recording ourselves. And it's the most unpleasant to watch your own recording of sometimes, and it's unpleasant recording ourselves. And it's the most unpleasant to watch your own recording of yourself. And that's why oftentimes folks want to work with a coach, because a lot of building public speaking skills often can hit some of those unpleasant like memories of times when you didn't speak up at work or times you felt like your message didn't come across. And my hope is, hey, you have this tool, you know that you can use it and I hope that you do try it out today to see hey, how can I start getting used to answering with that PRP structure?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, okay, I love it. I love it. Any other tips that you have, I will say that one that we just talked about, but didn't necessarily we didn't call it out as a tip, is the pause. Yes, so for me, if there's anyone listening, if any of you are internal thinkers like you, want and need more time to think things through before you actually open your mouth to communicate something. That's how I am personally, and I used to feel pressure to not take my time in communicating. If you're listening to me, you can probably hear me.

Speaker 1:

I'm a little bit more moderated in how I speak. I speak slower, but before I used to kind of just rush out and I would be thinking as as I was talking and that would cause all types of problems. I would say the wrong things, I would say yes to things that I should be saying no to. The downstream effects of that were horrible. But I have learned over time to use my pause for a variety of different things, not only for me to actually think before I actually speak.

Speaker 1:

But, sammy, when we you and I talked previously, you were speaking of using the pause for emphasis to emphasize a point, for example, versus, you know so, to let the point. The audience consume the point that was made before you move on to something else. I have used a pause to buy time, without my audience necessarily knowing it and, honestly, in the past I have said in the middle of a presentation to my board of directors give me a minute to think about that. That's an excellent question. Let me think about that before I respond. I'm going to circle back, let me continue, and I'm going to circle back to that All to say that that's a different way to pause, essentially right, meaning that you don't have to feel on the back foot to be able to respond immediately. Even in high pressure situations, there are ways to give yourself room and space to collect your thoughts before you respond.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and it's funny you talked a little bit earlier about like your pacing used to be super fast and you would speak really quickly and you were thinking and speaking at the same time.

Speaker 2:

And I find that folks when they're really nervous, they often build their speaking pace up, like they speak really quickly so they can get off the stage or out the Zoom as quick as possible.

Speaker 2:

Right, and I love the idea that you talked about of the pause isn't just for us, it isn't just for me to think, it isn't just for me to be dramatic or emphasize something, but it's really truly empathetic for our listeners, especially our introverted listeners, who probably or want more of that time to process what you've said, especially if you dropped like a wonderful nugget of truth that allows people to really process what you've said, ask great questions. At times people associate pausing or asking for a time as, oh well, if I pause or it takes me a bit longer to answer this question, they're going to think I'm stupid, they're going to think I'm not prepared, they're going to judge me in a negative way, and pretty much most of the time I've seen leaders recognize that pause not as being unprepared, but a lot more of someone who's being thoughtful and someone who's trying to bring the best answer to that question, rather than just speak for speaking sake.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. So all of that to say that that is a second tip, that you can give yourself permission to use the pause in whatever way you and or your audience might benefit from, versus having to succumbing to real or perceived pressure to speak quickly and automatically.

Speaker 2:

And pausing takes practice. Learning silence is really important. It's really important to practice what does a pause feel like? Because there have been times I know, before going through my own public speaking training, that if I paused for two seconds it felt like an eternity. And so, building that resilience and building that sense of oh okay, this is two seconds, that person paused for two seconds. I didn't think. They didn't know what they were talking about. So I'm giving myself permission and then we have the pause.

Speaker 1:

Any other techniques that we want to share before we see if there's any Q&A.

Speaker 2:

Let's see. Well, as we're waiting for Q&A, definitely drop those cues in the chat. Let's see, in the same vein as pausing, what I'll say is one of the best ways to practice pausing and get used to that. Pausing is get used to pausing before you start speaking, no matter what question you're getting. The reason I recommend this is just imagine you're interviewing someone and half of the questions that person is answering immediately, and the other half of the questions they're taking five to 10 seconds to think of their answers. It's very clear which questions that person didn't feel prepared for versus the other ones. So what I like to think of is how do you build such a practice of pausing that there's no tells between which questions you needed a bit more time to process or structure versus the ones that you were ready and raring to go to, but you're giving yourself more time to structure and feel like, hey, I'm hitting the main points for my answers here.

Speaker 1:

All right. So we've talked about the importance of why, particularly for introverted women leaders, public speaking, or communicating as a leader, is extremely important. We've talked about why starting with your why making sure that the reason you want to improve your public speaking and how you want to focus on doing that is something that you own and is important to you, versus assuming other people's stuff that they might be projecting onto you. We've talked about already a couple of important techniques, right like the pause, like the PRP, that you can actually start using right now to become an even better public speaker. We've also talked about the mindset around us not wanting or leaning into our expertise and making sure that we leverage that as part of our confidence in how we show up, rather than allowing a lack of trust of our own selves to kind of seep into how we present and how we communicate with other people in small or large venues. What did I miss, sammy?

Speaker 2:

We covered so much in this talk. I love it. We did a little bit of anything with you as well.

Speaker 2:

I don't think we really missed anything, and what I'd like to say is I'd love for those who are still here to let us know in the chat what have you already done to work on your public speaking. I'd love to hear anyone's maybe read a book. They're here at this session, of course. Maybe you're a part of Toastmasters. If you're not familiar with that, those are fantastic clubs the larger organization that have many city-based or regional clubs that you can participate in. I'd love to hear what you've already done to start working on your public speaking, because what I'll say is the most important thing to start doing is start practicing and start speaking. You only get better at speaking by speaking more.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so right now, we still have about a hundred people with us.

Speaker 2:

Excellent.

Speaker 1:

So I can't see anything in the comments. I put a comment in, but maybe that means guys. Hey, maybe you are aces at public speaking and these few tips that we're giving you are things that you can integrate into your already substantial speaker toolbox. But either way, I will say that I've had the opportunity to speak to a couple of people who are planning to join us, and since I can't see a specific question at this point in time StreamYard as well as my directly on LinkedIn, for example and I'm not seeing any questions, Sammy, I don't know if you're seeing any on your end- but I had the opportunity to speak to a couple of women who were planning to join Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's going to be a technical issue with the comments, and so my recommendation for folks is to follow us here on LinkedIn to connect with our newsletters, and do not hesitate to email us any questions that you have, because I'd love to respond to anything that you wanted to drop in the chat. Yeah, I do see a question.

Speaker 1:

So do I? Okay? So one question is what has helped in the past was preparation. So this LinkedIn user is saying that they love the PRP method in a cocktail situation, since that's the area that they are working on. Ok, so that's great. Right, so you're doing exactly what we said in terms of really honing in on the specific thing that you want to work on, for you versus for other people, and it sounds like the PRP method really resonated with you and it's something that you feel like you can be used. So that's fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and oftentimes, in those cocktail party situations, what do you do? What's something you're looking forward to this year? What's a goal that you have? Like, oh, tell me more about yourself. Like questions, we can anticipate which questions we might ask ourselves. I think that's a perfect venue to practice and try out PRP.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. The other thing I will say is what I was saying before, before we start wrapping up, is that the couple of women that I had the chance to speak to before starting or before we kicked off, they were really talking about how do they become more confident speakers? Right, and I think we touched on that a little bit already today in terms of using and making your expertise your primary tool that you're leveraging when you are communicating with others. I will also say that confidence isn't something that you can manufacture, and I think we talk about confidence as an end game or a result, and I don't really think about confidence that way. I think about confidence as something that is not necessarily standalone. There are many contributing factors to you being confident, which is one of the reasons why we talked about making sure that you stand in your expertise and not let people kind of conflate that in any way. But the other thing is, I think some of the tips that I talked about, sammy is encouraging us to become more fluid and be more improvisational in terms of how we speak, but there's different types of public speaking.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes your public speaking is to your team. Sometimes your public speaking is to an audience of people Sometimes the public speaking is at a cocktail party and those different situations. Your core skills will likely span across all of those situations, but there's going to be some nuances as well and for me, the way I become more confident at something that I'm not confident is through continuous practice. So I will put myself in situations I'm pretty okay at a cocktail party. I hate talking to hundreds and hundreds of people. What I've done is I will practice in smaller venues to kind of build my muscle to be able to talk in larger venues, just like right now, like I would have never in, you know, five years ago, I would have never gotten on a.

Speaker 1:

LinkedIn, live as an introvert and talk and present, but because I've done it in smaller venues, now I feel more confident. So that would be another, I guess, quote unquote tip that I would offer is that practice doesn't necessarily make perfect and hopefully none of us are striving to be perfect but practice helps you feel more comfortable and more confident, regardless of the situation that you might find yourself in, and what that means is that I follow along completely what you said here, especially what you said regarding your mindsets.

Speaker 2:

Like you had the mindset I don't think I'd ever do a linkedin live. If we keep that belief, we won't do it. I'm never gonna learn how to dance, I'm never gonna do stand-up, I'm never going to go vegan. Those are all things I said to myself at different parts of my life and are all things I do now. It's not about oh, I don't. Well, I'm just going to not believe that anymore. It's how can we break apart that belief? How can we question it just a little bit more and maybe even ask the question why not me? Why not, why can't I be a great public speaker? Maybe I can Let me take that first step and use PRP at the cocktail party.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely OK. All right, Listen, this has been fantastic. I know that my introverted leaders who are on this call, in particular. I am sure that if you're anything like me, you're going to go away and you're going to think of additional questions that you have or even comments that you want to make. So both Sammy and I want to encourage you to follow up with us afterwards. If you think of something later that you want to say or you think of something that you want to ask. You know where you can reach Sammy and I what I will do, particularly on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to go to the event after we get off and I'm going to post a couple of things for you guys to have as resources. Just in case you weren't able to catch it in today's comments, and so it could be there going forward, the two things I'm going to post for you are a couple of free resources that both Sammy and I want to make sure you have so that, if you want to continue learning after this, you can with no cost. And then the second thing I'm going to post is going to be links directly to Sammy's profile and my profile, so you'll have an easy access right there in the comment section under the event. So if you're watching this on the replay, it'll be there for you. If you're here with us live and you go back to that, you'll have it there as a direct link as well. Ok, sammy, any final comments or final anything you want to say, as we kind of close out today's event?

Speaker 2:

For anyone watching, whether you're introvert, ambivert, extrovert. Go recharge those social batteries. Take care of yourself. Thank you so much for taking some time, especially those in the East Coast. This is after your work day, right? Take time for yourselves and recognize that, hey, this was time for yourself, too, to grow, not only in your skills as a public speaker, but in your belief as an executive leader as well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I will say thank you to Sammy. Thank you again for saying yes to this event, thank you for sharing your expertise with us, and then, for everyone who is listening real time or watching real time or the replay, you got this. The good thing about public speaking is that it's a skill, and the good thing about skills is that you can learn it and you can always improve it, and as long as you're committed to doing that, then you got this. It's just one step at a time, but if you need help, you know where Sammy and I are, so do not hesitate to reach out to us.

Speaker 2:

We're on LinkedIn 24-7. Okay.

Speaker 1:

Thank you everyone for joining us. Happy International Women's Day and have a great great rest of your day. Take care everyone and have a great great rest of the week.

Speaker 1:

Take care everyone. That's a wrap for this episode of Leading Her Way. Thanks for tuning in. If you have thoughts, questions or ideas for future topics, connect and send me a message on LinkedIn and if you enjoyed today's episode, subscribe. And please take a minute to write a quick review on Apple Podcasts. Your review will help spread the word to other ambitious females so they know they're not alone and that this podcast is a community of support for all of us. Leading her way to the top, Remember your leadership is needed, your leadership is powerful, so lead boldly Until next time.