Ep 30 - Rewiring Your Voice: The Mindset and Science of Confident Speaking

What if confidence in speaking isn’t something you’re born with—but something you can rewire?

In this episode of Rewired, Tiffany sits down with speaking skills and mindset coach Michele Trent to explore the powerful intersection of mindset, neuroscience, and communication. Together, they unpack why speaking in front of others can feel so threatening to the brain—and how to move from fear and self-doubt to clarity, confidence, and authentic expression.

This conversation goes beyond presentation tips. It’s about identity. It’s about voice. And it’s about what becomes possible when we stop holding back and start showing up.

You’ll hear:

• Why the brain perceives speaking as a threat—and how to regulate your nervous system in the moment
• The mindset shifts that transform “I’m not a good speaker” into “I have something worth saying”
• Common mistakes professionals make when trying to communicate their expertise
• What real confidence-building practice looks like (and what actually makes anxiety worse)
• How finding your voice can change not just your communication—but your life

Whether you’re leading meetings, giving presentations, or simply wanting to speak up more fully, this episode offers both insight and practical tools you can use right away.

✨ Ready to go deeper?
Download Michele’s free ebook here: Michele Trent Free Resources

🎤 Want to build your speaking skills in community?
Explore local and virtual opportunities through Toastmasters International

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Empowered people empower people. Live intentionally. Lead thoughtfully. Grow through awareness.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:36

Welcome to Rewired. I'm your host, Tiffany Grimes, with Empower Coaching and Training. Rewired listeners, I'm so excited you're here today. Thank you for joining. I am excited to share my conversation with you today with Michelle Trent. That is Michelle with one L. And you can find her at Michelle Trent.com. Michelle is a certified speaking skills and mindset coach. I had the privilege of working with Michelle and meeting her when she was part of our professional coach training program at the Empower Coach Training Academy. She's a CPEC grad, certified professional empower coach. She just recently became accredited as an ACC level coach through ICF. And she brings so much to the world of coaching. Specifically, our conversation today is going to focus on really how she works with people in public speaking and bringing speaking confidence into the lives of people, including but not limited to high-achieving introverts. I think if you've ever been asked to speak, whether that is at a family event or in front of 300 people at an event, you will find today's conversation so meaningful. We're going to talk about mindset shifts we can begin to make to embody and embrace this idea of building our speaking skills. And then we're also going to learn from Michelle some of the tactical skills that we can use right away to really strengthen some of the things that we actually do, the techniques, and how important practice in both of those categories are, both in mindset and in practical techniques. So I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Let us know what you think. Please make sure to follow, to give us those uh positive five-star reviews, and really help share and spread the word of the Rewired Podcast. It's such a joy to make it and to be doing this work with you all. Enjoy our conversation. All right, Michelle Trent, welcome to the Rewired Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Oh, thank you, Tiffany. I'm delighted to be here with you today.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, so glad you said yes to this invitation. And we always start the podcast the same way, which is to ask, what does empowerment mean to you? And how are you empowering yourself right now?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yeah, no, this is a really great question. And I think empowerment to me almost means just finding your voice, just being able to step into who you really are and being comfortable, to place a comfort and peace. So I think that would be empowerment. What it would mean to me. And how am I empowering myself right now? I think probably it's it is this coaching, which I know we're going to talk about in a little bit, but we'll get this history again later. But being a public speaking coach and marrying that with, you know, ICF coaching and the mindset work and putting all those things together, I think, has really just helped me to flourish more as a coach and to help my clients in a much more sophisticated manner, in a way that is leading them to be empowered themselves because they have the opportunity to speak more clearly with confidence. And I do believe that that's kind of on the heart of all of us as humans. I mean, there's a desire to connect with other people. And part of that connecting process is being able to say what's on our heart, what we know, what we're good at. We just want to express that. And public speaking, of course, is a way that we can do that. So kind of marrying all those things together.

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Yeah, the blending and braiding of all of that. Absolutely. Yeah, so good. I just did last week's podcast, it was just about communication and you know, all of the many different facets of it. And so I think you're a beautiful follow-up to that of public speaking and how we can get in our own way and also how we can coach ourselves, you know, into something really beautiful and skill building in those realms. Yeah. So tell us kind of set the stage for listeners. I'm pretty familiar with what you're doing. You also have a beautiful website that really lays out, you know, all that you offer, kind of all this blending and braiding that you just described. Um, but for our listeners, uh, tell us, just give us a synopsis of the what you bring to the world, Michelle, through your work.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Let's see. I I kind of jokingly describe myself as a recovering marketer because I spent 25 years of my career and in marketing, which I think is really interesting because you talk about to go back and make like meaning of your life. Because now I'm a coach and you might say, well, what does that have to do with marketing? And I think marketing is about, you know, saying something about a product and trying to get people interested in your product. And I think coaching is just helping people become even more interested in themselves.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

To believe in themselves, to be like, yeah, I wanna, I wanna be. I'm bought in. I'm bought in this way. Yeah. I'm bought into this. So that, you know, kind of makes sense. And and I was doing this public speaking coaching for a number a couple of years before I got into more of the life coaching realm of things. And so walking through again, it's like understanding that there are things you can build tactically, but unless you get that mindset part of it, you can really undo those things. So it all just kind of blended together. And I'm I'm at this really fun phase of life where I'm a grandma, so I get grandkids and I am I'm flexible, I'm not in my corporate zone anymore. And I get to to to give back, I get to pour into people. That's just really important to me in this stage of life. And and it's interesting having some of these experiences that blend together in a way that I I do feel is helpful to people and my clients. And so that's just fun. Just doing some fun stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yeah, I bet. And who tell us about your clientele? Who's coming to you? What are they seeking?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Oh, yeah. Thanks. They're seeking help with public speaking, definitely. And and anybody that says something along the lines of, oh, I'm a terrible public speaker, oh, I hate public speaking, oh, I never want to give a speech. Any of those people, like, I love them. Love that. Let me help you. So it's those folks. And if you go to my website, and you mentioned that I I have that's Michelle Trent.com. Michelle with one L, by the way, because I wanted to make it just a little extra hard to find me. So it's just Michelle with one L. But on that, I talk about introverts because I'm an introvert myself. And I think there can be this myth that introverts in particular struggle more with public speaking. That's not true, but I think there's there can be that borrowed belief. I'm an introvert, and therefore that might mean something about me as a public speaker. So I'm definitely there to help introverts, but I think it's really anyone who has just a reticence and a fear and are holding themselves back. It can be in professional life, but it can be in personal life as well. I I can't tell you how many clients I've had that the reason they come to me is they have to give a speech at a wedding.

unknown 8:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

And it's so it's seemingly so high stakes. All these people that they know and loved ones and people looking at them, and they can't weasel out of it. Like at work, they could kind of weasel out of it. And here they can't because it's like, well, you are the father of the father. I are the father. There's no way around this. Yeah. Yeah. And so then, you know, then they they come to me and they get to work together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

So and then is it is it when you say speech, I think about multiple people are watching me, but can it also be if someone's struggling with contributing in team meetings, for example, or uh, you know, is it can it be smaller settings as well that someone's coming to about?

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yes, absolutely. And it's interesting you even phrase it like that, Tiffany, because that's one of the things that I I we spend a little bit of time on when I have clients who are the sphere of public speaking. I'm like, what makes it a public speech? Yeah. You know, and though they have these arbitrary things like, well, if it's over like 50 people, okay, so 49, we're good. Are we good there? You know, I mean, really talked about that because public speaking is just you speaking in front of someone else. Yeah. And so if you can do that, you can have lunch with your friends and formulate complete sentences and have a you know get discussion. You can absolutely do that in multiples of more people. It's the same kind of skill. And people are like, wait, no, it's way different. Is that different?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, yeah. That's great. I I love that. Yeah, you know, you're talking about introverts and that borrowed belief, and I really appreciate that. I identify as an ambivert. I'm in between, as a as a good gym and I would be, right? Not committing to one or the other. But I find the stage, you know, I get I teach a lot in public settings, and the stage for me is so comforting. It's the second it's done, and now I have to go do the small talk and the networking, or it's those moments because it really does feel like I'm alone up there. You know, it's it's such a it's an interesting thing about introvert, extrovert, ambivert, and public speaking. Because while it feels like I'm doing this with everyone, it's also very much I'm doing this by myself, and that builds my confidence. I mean, obviously we're interacting, and there's, but it does feel like I've got space that I don't always feel when I'm in small talk, you know, the networking conversations. Well, so you mentioned this already, this idea that, you know, while people might be coming to you to work on these kind of technical skills, the mindset has to come with it to really, really build the skills and sustain the change. So when we think about mindset and how important that work is in conjunction with speaking techniques, why do you think so many people sabotage their speaking before they even begin?

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah. Well, I think many people do because of this belief that they have that they're just not good at it. So we need to avoid that because we need to stay safe, right? That's just a human characteristic. And therefore, if I don't have to do it, then you know I'll be better off. There's a belief in that. And but what happens is that people will get overlooked or passed over, or just they won't be able to promote their business. And there's gonna be some way that it's holding you back if you are self-sabotaging by just tapping out.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, you know, to see that.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Because I think probably anybody who's listening to this can remember like somebody maybe at their workplace that's that speaks really well. And when they do, and they can speak with great skill, you just attribute other things to them. Like they're competent, they're a leader, they're successful, all these other things. So you kind of get an an you know an overwhelming benefit by being able to be a good speaker. Yeah. And you might be the most competent person at your workplace, but if you're not willing to put yourself in a position where other people can hear from you, then you're not going to get some of that credit that you rightfully deserve. And someone else who can talk really well about it is gonna get outsized benefit from it.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And so we're so essentially it's this understanding all of that and creating a mindset around what I'm gonna put public speaking in quotes and just hold it there because we we've already defined it can mean a lot of different things. But really, the mindset is understanding that public speaking is so much more than about what I'm necessarily saying in the moment, but how I'm representing my skill set, how I'm accessing greater benefits, shall we say? It's really building that this is more than just in this moment uttering something out of my mouth, but aligning with who I am. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yeah, very well said. Because and the but the mind, the mindset part of it is so powerful. Because even if someone is in a position where they they do want to work on their speaking skills, which is great. Like when I work with somebody, that's what we're gonna do. We're you're gonna speak from the first session and every single one of those coaching sessions, because some of it's just you just need to put those skills into practice, right? You need to build that. But it's almost like if you build this amazing talk, it's kind of like building a sand castle near the ocean. So you have this amazing talk, right? You put turrets in there and you have extra rooms and you have a drawbridge and a moat. It's like beautiful. AKA, you have the PowerPoint, and you know exactly how you when you want to pause and how you want to use your hands and everything. But then you get up there on the stage, and that mindset that you haven't attended to that's telling you that was has been whispering the whole time, you're not good at this, you're not good at this, you're not a good code speaker. It's gonna get really loud when you're in that position in front of people. Yeah. And then it just gets overwhelmed with some of the things that are then triggered in us, that fight or flight response that are triggered. And all of a sudden, the you know, the oxygen and what we needed in our brain has like gone out to our limbs because we're just wanting to run. And that's the mindset, that's the ocean. It will just come and wipe out all that work that you put into the making.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Such a great metaphor. Yeah. Well, and I mean, I think again, I'm I do a lot of public speaking and I think about how the setting can change suddenly. Like I, you know, the screw, the screen sharing is messed up, and I now have to work from this screen and I don't have my notes. Or they're this big, or I'm showing up, I'm ready, and now they're setting up a camera in front of me because they're also going to project this off of Zoom, and I didn't know that. And now I need to look at the audience and the camera. Yeah, just the little things that we can't control and how that can change immediately and activate that fear response. Well, let's stay with that kind of this brain triggering threat response that we're talking about, this fear of judgment, rejection, embarrassment, you know, the whole gamut. I'm sure that you have experienced them all, have heard them all, of really what are the stories our brains create about what's going to happen. What are some ways people can regulate the nervous system, that parasympathetic nervous response before stepping onto the stage? So, not just what can I do in the moment, but really creating a practice for myself to help.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

Yes. I, and this is also something that's available on my website. So if you go to my website, Michell Trent.com, the one else, I have an e-book that can download, which is nine strategies for managing your nerves when public speaking. And so that gives you just nine practical tips. You can go in there and you can try and see which one works for you because there's different ones that work for different people. Right. But I think one of my favorite ones is just slowing down your breathing. Just taking big, deep belly breaths slowly. Because it it kind of relaxes everything. It brings down what we that fight or flight, right? The fight or flight experience. If something is truly you're in jeopardy, you're gonna be taking these short breaths, right? You're just gonna be getting quick oxygen, you're ready to run, you're ready to fight, you're ready to do something. And if you can slow that down, then your brain all of a sudden is in this weird spot, right? Because it's always trying to be congruent, but it's like, wait a second, we should be panicking, we should be freaking out. Why are we breathing slow?

unknown 17:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

And it just puts that little bit of pause in there where your prefrontal cortex can kick in and you can remind yourself, like, I am safe. There's nothing to be afraid of here. Because absolutely there's a part of you that is operating out of fear, and you just have to be able to, you know, this way you kind of using your your body to to trick your brain a little bit, just to give yourself a little bit of space and distance and slowing things down. And the other thing is you you literally want to have more oxygen to your brain when you're doing a presentation. Right. Yeah, when you're nervous, people be like, oh, I just I stumbled from the beginning, I forgot the introduction or whatever. Well, you did because you were in this state where your brain wasn't getting this full oxygenation, and of course it wasn't working at its optimal. And you really want to slow things down, breathe deeply. You always want to practice your open and your closed more than any other part of your presentation so that you can just start into it because and maybe you feel this way even today. I know I do. Once I kind of get started, then I'm kind of getting in my rhythm and then I can kind of feel it. But I always know that at the beginning there's a little, you know, a little bit of I I call it excitement. I like to rebrand my nervous energy and tell myself I'm excited instead of telling myself I'm nervous. And then, you know, terribleness isn't gonna go well. I'm just like, yeah, I'm really feeling it. This is gonna be good.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah. I love that. Rebrand my my messaging. That's a great phrase. You can hear your marketing background come through. You know, mate, when you said these things, it made me think of two things. One is how important it is for us to do this work, not just moments before we go to do our talk, right? That really all that breath work is just as important as practicing our speech, nailing the opening, understanding what we want to achieve in the closing. It this practicing of the breath and building that brain pathway is how we then access it in the moment, I think is such a reminder for us. And then the other thing it made me think about I was having this realization the other day, you know, with everything going on in the world, when I'm driving, for example, my brain is like, oh, what's gonna happen and drought more, and you know, just I'm just and I can I can feel my whole nervous system, my sympathetic nervous system kick in, my heart's beating, you know, I'm breathing shallower. Sometimes I'll even get tears in my eyes because I'm really fantasizing, like, what is this gonna be like? And and I had this flip of a switch moment where I thought, none of this is controlling the outcome, none of this preparation I'm doing in my head and worrying about it is actually impacting the outcome of things that I have zero control over. And so what if instead I'm fantasizing about peace agreements and, you know, systems put in place to capture rainwater and like all of these things that soothe my system and create oxytocin and dopamine and all of this totally different response also doesn't impact the outcome, but it's those choices are absolutely impacting my access to resiliency and how I deal with capacity and overload of nerves and all of those things today in this moment. And so I would imagine, I don't know, maybe this is one of your nine strategies, which I love that you have a free ebook that folks can download, is to fantasize it going well. I think about public speaking, how often we fantasize it going terribly. What if we fantasize it going really well? What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yes, it is one of the nine. It is absolutely, yes. I love that one. And I've always been fascinated by the research that I've read that says there's a part of your brain that really can't tell the difference between you visualizing something and it actually happening. You know, something that happened to you yesterday, it seems really believable today because you're but you're only replaying it in your mind. So there's so much power in that.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

And so for those people who I were looking to build their confidence, right? Go back and visualize yourself giving the talk successfully, exactly how you want to, having the looking at the audience, them being engaged, them nodding along, like visualize all that. So your brain has the brain kind of knows how it's gonna go, right? And then when you walk into the scenario, your brain's like, Yeah, we've been here. This went well. Let's do this again.

unknown 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

You know, of course, why not? And you can build those reps. And we know, you know, the research with Olympic athletes and that, that that's a big part of their training. Why not make it a big part of your training too? You can, you can practice that talk and give it successfully, you know, 10 times over. Why not?

unknown 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So good.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I love that work. I love that body of work because it's like, I think about it as this passive, this actively passive way, if that even exists, to rewire. Fantasize. Our brain's going to do it anyway. It's part of our default mode network.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Just get involved a little bit because on its own with our negativity bias, it's going to go negative. So just if we just get involved a little bit and then let our brain spin off on that, we are literally wiring, creating those neural connections either way.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:45

We're practicing something. So what how would we like that to go? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

So I, I mean, you know this, we've done a lot of work together. I spend a lot of my time and on this podcast as well talking about identity level change and how important that work is. And again, you're speaking to this when we think about mindset shift and how real transformation happens when we update how we see ourselves, who we see ourselves as in the world. So in your work, how does someone shift from I'm terrified of speaking, I'm awful at public speaking, to I'm someone who shares ideas confidently.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Yeah. And that it's it's so huge to be able to do that. And and believe me, when people come to me, they have all these stories that have taken on literally mythical proportion of how this horrible thing happened there and how it's just like it's governed their whole life. It's like, okay. I kind of think of it. Here's another metaphor for you is public speaking is almost like it's it's this haunted house. So when we go to do public speaking, we're walking into a haunted house. If we have these beliefs that we're bad at it, we walk into this haunted house, it's always dark. There's always thunder and lightning and and wind. And you open up the door and it creaks, and you step in and you bump something, and you're just sure it's a dead body, you go running away screaming, right? That's your and you're like, see, that's why I don't do public speaking. It's scary, it's terrible, it's awful, it's all these things. And I'm like, when we meet, it's like we get all that out. Give me all the stories, get it out. Walk me through your house here. Yeah. And we go story by story, and it's like, we're gonna go to the haunted house, but guess what? It's daylight, sun's shining, we're gonna open the door. Yeah, it's kind of dusty. Oh, that thing you tripped on, that was a pile of magazines. It was not a dead body. And then we just walk through those whole stories and invite them to essentially redraft those stories so that they're the hero of them instead of being victimized for from them so many years later. And to me, it's amazing to me. I was working with this one gentleman, and he's he was very accomplished in his career, and he was a veterinarian. So his whole career, he really got out of public speaking.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

But then after he retired, he was elected into this leadership role of a civic organization, and he had to do a presentation, and he was just terrified. He's like, he's in the 60s, like, finally, I'm gonna do something about it. This is ridiculous. And I talked with him, and it was really stories from college that had governed his whole life, and even to that day were a problem for him. And we went back and we really looked at that story in all kinds of different ways and said, Well, is that really true? Is that how it happens? What else could it mean? And he's like, Oh. And you know, do you just see the softening of this story about how horrible he was at public speaking? And it almost means he didn't graduate. We could really see, well, but you did. You actually did take a college level public speaking class. You did pass, and it turns out he actually got a pretty good grade in it, but that was he'd forgotten all of that because it was just it was such a terrible yeah, you know, again, this whole big epic drama about public speaking.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

That he had 40 years to retell himself and really embed that identity. 40 years of practicing. I'm terrible at this. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So we just have to get people to a place where they can go and be honest about their past and what really happened. And then also invite them to recognize what's happened between that incidence and now. Like how have they been successful in public speaking? If in what environments, how so, and start really pointing our our focus that way. And just getting them to at least be willing to accept the the fact that they may, they may be good at this, they may like this, they may get better at this. If they're getting coaching, they can at least say, I am, I'm willing to invest in myself in order to become a better speaker. Like even that is just so different than I'm terrible at public speaking and I can't do it. I'm just I'm I'm willing to learn. I'm bel I'm believing I can change. And then by doing it, that's where you get to the confidence. And I tell them, you know, the confidence is gonna be way down the road. Like self-confidence is something we can arrive at and you can start to feel confident during our coaching, but you're gonna keep doing this. And from you keep doing this over and over and over again and building this skill. Eventually, I don't know when it's gonna happen. Three months, six months, a year, you're gonna be like, yeah, I'm pretty solid at this. I'm yes. It doesn't bother me anymore. Because that's that's inevitably the the path that then we're putting them on.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, doing it, it's that idea of I'll do public speaking when I feel more confident about it, versus I'm going to practice and build my skills so that I can become more confident at it. And eventually that will come. We use that same technique when we talk about, I do a lot of work around helping folks set boundaries, right? And the idea of, well, I would set them except I feel guilty. And the truth is about boundaries that we know is we have to feel the guilt and set the boundaries, that these things we can't wait for guilt to go away because it probably won't, because we keep getting reminded about how we should be people pleasers. Yeah, that's great. It's great work. Yeah, that reminder that we can't wait for confidence to present itself, that we really, yeah, do that work. And so that makes me think about practice and emphasizing practice. And we've taught, you know, already about mindfulness and fantasizing, about it going right and really practicing the beginning and the end and some of those things. And so, what kind of practice actually builds confidence that we're talking about that gets us eventually to that destination? And what kind of practice reinforces anxiety, if that's a thing?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Yeah, I think any authentic practice will build your confidence. And what I mean by authentic practice is like you really take in intention and using some of the skills that you learn to like to craft a message in a way that it's easy for your audience to understand, like putting in some of the tools of the way that you use your your breath and your vocality and or vocal ability and all those things. Like any intentional practice like that is going to get you better and is going to grow your confidence.

unknown 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

And the kind that's not going to is the kind of where you just keep doing the same thing you've been doing. You just keep doing the same way, you know, definition of insanity and expecting different results is not going to happen. So if you just keep kind of keep winging it because you're putting it off, because you don't want to do it anyways, and then you're in this high leverage situation and you don't really have a plan, and that's not, that's definitely not going to reinforce confidence. Yeah. That's definitely going to give you more fodder for the I can't do this, I'm not a good person. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

It's a continuing to walk through that haunted house, right? It's like I'm just going to show up to this and walk through it again. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Get scared all over again. I might have made it to the second bedroom, but I bumped into something else and it was scary me and I ran out the front door. Yeah. So, and and when it comes to practice too, one thing that that I would I would suggest, and I suggest this to a lot of folks that I work with, unless they are already doing a lot of public speaking, I encourage them to join Toastmasters. Toastmasters is an organization, they've been around for over 100 years, and they're all about public speaking. And what I especially like about Toastmasters is it's a low-risk environment. Sometimes when we're trying out our public speaking skills and we're doing it in front of our peers, our colleagues, people who can promote us, people who we're meeting with every day, sometimes it just seems like there's so much on the line that that it's it's a little bit more challenging some some ways to get our hands ripped on the nervousness. If you go to Toastmasters, like who cares? These are all people who have said, I want to work on public speaking. Right. And you don't know them, they can't promote you. That you know, it just doesn't, it doesn't matter as much. So I think it's easier in that way to somehow to practice in those environments than to always try to do it like at work and in high-risk environments.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

That's such great feedback. It's such a great idea. How do I lower the risk here? My consequence uh feeling like whatever the consequence might be. And so, how do people find Toastmasters? Is that just a Googling it and then your city and state? How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah, they have an amazing website, it's Toastmasters.org, and you can go and you can find the Toastmasters group near you. And they're all over. You wouldn't believe how many Toastmasters groups there are. And they're different times of day, some are online, some are in person. So you're gonna be able to find, you know, some kind of group that that fits for you. And then you can go and you're gonna be able to speak. And again, it it's just not this high stakes. And they also give you feedback, which is always valuable to have, you know, and then you can see like how is an audience taking in my message? Because a lot of times it at work too, even if we give a our presentation, we'll ask our best friend or work buddy or whatever, we're like, How'd I do? And they're like, Oh man, you nailed it, it was so good. I loved it. You know, they're your they're your friend, they got your back, they're like, it was great. Whereas like a toastmaster, it's just more objective feedback. The same with a coach. Like, I'm gonna be more object, I'm gonna give you more objective feedback than you're likely gonna get if you're just gonna pick, you know, your spouse if you're at the PTA and you're like, How did I do, honey?

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Hey, good job. Yeah, glad you said it, not me. Yeah. And so are people submitting recordings to you when you're saying you're giving feedback? Are they say doing this with you live? Tell us about that process.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Yeah, it can be both ways. So I I do coach several different types of speakers. And my speakers that have a the the kind of the fear of public speaking and are wanting to get some more basic public speaking skills and that, they're just speaking to me live. And it's on Zoom. I sometimes I'll do in person if they're here in Arizona, you know, and they're close by to me. But usually it's just on Zoom and they're but they're speaking, I'm listening to them, and then I'm giving them feedback when they're done. And I'll like I said, they taught they speak in every single one of our sessions. So they're gonna speak in the first one, and then I'm gonna give them a taste to develop usually like a five-minute, just something really short and simple. And we just keep evolving that over the course of the week so they can kind of see how, you know, they can see like, oh, this is where I started, and now I put all these skills together, this is where I ended, and it's always so much different from where they started. So we'll be practicing. But then additionally, I also work with some speakers who are the professionals and they maybe they didn't call to speak at an event or something like that, or maybe they have spoken and they want to get feedback on a stage or a platform or something like that. They can send me what they have and then we can go over it together. And I'd be like, okay, at this point, remember when you said this, like this is what happened. So we can do it that way.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, yeah. That's excellent. Well, I have a dream of someday doing a TED talk, Michelle. So I reach out, yeah, because that's one that feels to me. So, okay, so I I love that we're getting into some of the tactile real skills that people can use, soft and hard skills, you know, across the board. So I'm imagining, because I think I I I'm making this up, but I feel like somewhere in my head, public speaking is like the greatest, one of the greatest mentioned fears by people, right? If we ask people like, what is one of your greatest fears? And they go, public speaking. Um, that it's, you know, one of the like public enemy number one for a lot of folks. Um so I'm imagining that we have a lot of listeners who are listening in to what you're saying and who might be interested in some skill building techniques because they're preparing for a presentation or a meeting or a keynote that's coming up. So you've given a lot of already some great ideas for us and strategies, but I'm wondering if you would leave us with one mindset shift and one practical strategy that we can start using immediately to show up to this fear with more confidence.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

This was hard because you're asking me to sum it down to one and like eight, 13. But here's one mindset, mindset shift that I think will be useful to people is sometimes, especially when we have this fear, our fear is that we're going to be judged by the people in the audience. It's almost like it's an us against them, and they're and we're gonna trip up and and then they're gonna think we're not coming. You know, it's almost like we're doing this thing, this performance in front of them and being evaluated. And I I think there's an invitation to believe that the audience is for you. They're not against you in any way. They want you to do a good job. Yeah, they're here listening to you, giving their time and attention. They want for this to go really well. So you're kind of like all in this together. It's like a Venn diagram of sorts. You have you as the presenter, you have the audience, then you have the subject matter, and where those overlap is your presentation.

unknown 38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

You know, so they're they're bringing something of it too. So it's not adversarial in a way, they want you just believe, go on there believing that they want you to be successful because they absolutely do. Yes. So look at every face in there. They want you to be successful, they want you to be successful, and just feed on that. And I think that makes it so much more comfortable than like, oh my gosh, I have to prove myself against this firing squad of people that are on this.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Oh, that's so good. Just I'm on a team. We're in this experience together. I was just listening to, I don't know where I got this the other day, but some little tidbit of evolutionary science where they were saying, I think it was Charles Dohig again. He was saying that there's all this research behind when we laugh. So I say something and I laugh, even if it's not funny, right? I'm sending evolutionarily a message to you that's saying, I'm safe and you're safe. And then when you return that laugh, and again, even if it's a nervous laughter, it doesn't have to be humor, you're reciprocating that message. And we're not even aware of it. It's on that unconscious level. And so I think about that, you know, when we come up and we see people nodding, when we say something or they're smiling, they're making eye contact, they laugh if you say something about being uncomfortable. And it's this rhythm, this dance of we really are in this and looping with each other. That's a great way to shift the mindset. I love that, Michelle. We're all in partnership to make this great. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

I want it, you want it. Why not just step into it?

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Yeah. So great. And then what about a practical strategy? I love the mindset shift, but give us one practical strategy.

SPEAKER_00 40:27

I think a practical strategy is just give yourself the gift of preparation. One practical thing. If you don't want to the first time you go to speak someplace, you don't want it to be the first time you've ever been there. Give yourself that ability to go there in advance, even if it's someplace like you wouldn't necessarily have access to, like a wedding venue if you were doing a wedding speech. Well, go in there when the cateries are setting, setting up and just see where it's at and just stand in that position. Like because you don't want to be your brain's just overwhelmed taking in all these new things. It's like fear, fear, fear, fear, fear. Give yourself the ability to be in the environment to the extent that you can. And if even if you're presenting at work and you're nervous about it, go to that conference room and see what it's like. Okay, this is like familiar. I know where the doors, I know where they're gonna sit, and I know where I'm gonna stand. I mean, that in itself just builds a comfortability that you then won't have to deal with the anxiousness of the news space when you're there presenting. So give yourself that gift and and by all means, think through what you're gonna say, practice what you're gonna say. And that is a gift to you and a gift to your audience for sure. But it's a gift to you to just kind of know what you're gonna say instead of being like, I'm just gonna wing it because I put my head in the sand. Here we go. You know, that's that's that's a recipe that's probably not going to deliver the results that you want.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

Yeah, I love that advice. I do that, so that's affirming for me. I when I'm going to a conference, as soon as I get there, I go into I look to see what room am I presenting in, and then I will go hang out in that room. I'll go and just peek on another presenter when they're, you know, what's the chair setup? What's the screen like? And um, where is the projector? Is it mounted to the ceiling? So I have loads of room, or am I gonna get blinded by it, you know, when I walk in front of it? But I think about the same thing with virtual. So even if you don't have a physical room of going and getting familiar with Zoom, if you're presenting on Zoom, how do I share? And how do I, what's the setup I like? Do I want the people over above, up here, or on the side? And yeah, all of those going and just getting familiar with it. So it's one less input for one less feed for your amygdala to find fear in the moment of. Yeah, exactly. Great advice. So good. All right. Well, anything else that you want to leave us with before we go off into the world and say all these beautiful things we have to say.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Maybe that's so hard because I want to be like, yes, there's all these things, but I know there's, you know, there's a time limit and and all that. But I I think the biggest thing that I want to get across to people is that public speaking is a learned skill.

unknown 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

It is just like any other skill that you have, whether you're, you know, you're a knitter or a gardener or whatever, nobody's just born a public speaker. Everyone who you respect who is a public speaker has built that skill. Now, some people may just have some more natural ingredients they're able to pull from, but everyone works at it and everyone can, no matter where you're at in that process of public speaking. And you've been doing it for a long time, you could always get better. If you're, you know, you feel like you don't have a lot of skills, no worries. You can just get better. Just keep at it. It is a learned skill, and it's not beyond you, it's not something you can't do. Everyone can do it. It's just a matter of doing it, putting your mind to it and doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

And releasing any messaging that you have to plow through it alone. I think that's what's so important. We think about, we watch people give these great speeches, TED Talks. I think about, you know, Obama, watching Obama speak with such ease and where he can hit the humor notes. You know, it's like read the audience. These amazing people we witness speaking literally have teams of people who are helping to write the punch lines and making sure the lighting is just right and they're practicing it with them. And we, while we might not be investing, you know,$100,000 in a team of people to help us, we can release some money to invest in ourselves in the skill that really helps us shine. That's how I think about it is we're it's like we tighten up with the fear, which means I'm also not investing my time or my money or my energy in ways to help me grow in this because it feels almost sometimes safer to stay in this armor that we've built, right? That castle that we've built for ourselves. And so really thinking about where do I create ease? Who do I bring on my team? How do I build the skill? What do I really want this to look like? And then begin that crafting work to bring it to life.

unknown 45:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

You talked about investing and Warren Buffett. Has some amazing quotes about public speaking. So as a coach, I quote him all the time. And he says learning public speaking will improve your worth by 50%.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

So if you want to return on that investment, start building those skills because it just gives you, again, an outsized presence, an outsized platform to get your message and your ideas out there, which just makes you even more valuable. Because we know that every every person is intrinsically completely whole and valuable as they are. But imagine if you can share some of what you know to others, and that's that's a big deal. And that's there's a big gap. And the sooner you get good at those skills, the more you're gonna benefit over being able to use them over the course of your life.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, a hundred percent. We started doing this thing in my circle of friends. I I don't know, I probably heard it on a podcast because I feel like that's where all my great ideas come from. Um, but they were talking about why do we wait to like to go to funerals to talk about how great people are in our life and the value and the meaning when it's so late. And so anyway, they were encouraging people to on the birthday of your friends, have a moment where people are coming together and sharing with them. And so I did that, I crafted that for one of my friends. And again, I think about how like woman after woman came up and honored this person and shared and cried, and the emotion was there, the beauty was there, and how if we were afraid to show up in that moment, what we would have missed, you know, and what she would have missed hearing from all of these amazing people. So, yeah, the many, many ways that that investment will repay itself. Yeah. Michelle, thank you for this time and this interview, and ultimately thank you for the work that you're doing and really kind of helping people show up to life, is how I'm thinking about it. Show up to these moments that they're drawn to and might be stuck.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Well, thank you for having me. This is I knew it was gonna be fun, and indeed it is fun, it was fun, and I, you know, I I just think the world of you, Tiffany, you have helped me so much, like personally and professionally, and and it was because of your ability to communicate that I really connected with you. It was through a like a seminar or webinar that you were giving. And I went, I want to work with that person.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Oh, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

Yeah, just yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Oh, thank you. That's meaningful. I'm gonna tuck that away. Beautiful. Okay, and rewired listeners, if you want to connect with Michelle, again, it's Michelle with oneltrent.com, correct? Michelle Trent.com. Um, and we will link that along with Toastmasters and uh a few other things. If nothing else, get over to her website and download the ebook for nine strategies. It sounds like that alone will deepen the work. So excellent. All right, thanks, Michelle. Thanks so much. Thanks. Thanks for tuning in to Rewired, where neuroscience meets real life change. If you enjoyed today's conversation, I'd be so grateful if you take a moment to leave a five-star review. Your feedback helps people discover the tools, insights, and inspirations they need to create lasting change. While you're leaving that five-star review, please also subscribe and share an episode with a friend. Remember, the way you think shapes the way you live. Every intentional thought, every mindful choice rewires your brain and your life. So go live intentionally. Live thoughtfully and never underestimate the power of your own mind to transform your world. Until next time, this is Tiffany with Empower Coaching and Training. Stay curious, stay empowered, and keep rewiring for real change.