[Alicia Davis] Have you ever felt anxious or nervous or just generally stressed out about having to have a difficult conversation with someone or getting up in front of a group of people and speaking? If so, we’ve got some tips for you today, don’t we, Stacie?

[Stacie Watson] Absolutely! You know, of course, public speaking is one of the top things that creates anxiety in most of us are many of us, right? I think it’s number one. And you know, even whether you’re speaking in front of a group of 500, or you have to go in and have a hard conversation, or something you’re going to anticipate is hard with another colleague or co-worker, or someone on the team, it can create a lot of anxiety. And I think it’s really helpful to think about what can we do before we even get into the conversation to help ourselves.

[Alicia Davis] That’s exactly right. And so we want to share one very simple way to start, which is literally, how do you use your body?

[Stacie Watson] Hmm.

[Alicia Davis] And this is from our communicate with confidence communication session. So using our body, right, wherever we go, there we are, there’s our body. Right, Stacie? So let’s actually do this – and I’m going to invite you, as you’re watching to do this with us. So, Stacie, you’re sitting, I would invite you to just sit a little taller. I’m standing, I’m gonna stand a little taller. So roll the shoulders back a little bit. You know, when we’re stressed, we breathe fast and shallow. So maybe take a deep breath. Just take a slow deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. And, you know, we can get super serious right Stacie? Though maybe one thing that you might try, whether it’s before you’re speaking, or even when you’re speaking, I don’t often I don’t necessarily put a big ol smile on my face and sometimes, I’ll just turn the corners up on my mouth. Yeah, you could play with that, right? Like, what works for you Stacie like when you think about using your face?

[Stacie Watson] I do think, you know, part of how I can communicate my full attention and engagement is through my face. So I do try to ensure that I am not frowning or have a scowl, you know that I at least feel approachable. And hopefully, I’m exuding that to the person I’m talking to, or certainly in front of a group of people.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. And, and how we gesture. And gesturing can also be how we look on our face, right? Like giving expression with our face. Using our hands. You know, like sometimes when we get again when we get nervous, we can either do things with our hands that can be distracting. Or we can just be like super still. And, then we’re also not communicating as effectively. Right. So when we gesture when we’re moving our hands or our arms in ways that support what we’re saying that can be really powerful.

[Stacie Watson] Absolutely, I’m definitely a gesturer. So I try to be conscious of it and make sure that as I’m moving my hands, it is in support of what I’m saying, as opposed to just flailing about which I can do, because I really love to use my hands when I talk. So it’s a great reminder that gesturing really is an important part of how we communicate, right? It’s all about nonverbal stuff.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. And if you have the opportunity, you know, sometimes when we’re nervous or anxious, moving a little bit like before, either in preparation, before we go into speak, like just doing walking it out a little bit. Or if we’re if you have the ability to walk a little bit and move around the room as you’re talking that can be really powerful. So really just tuning into your body and using the different aspects of your body just to start, can really help create that feeling or that energy of confidence.

[Stacie Watson] Right. Absolutely. In fact, before this video, I think we both did that, right? We were like, okay, we’re gonna get ready to do our videos. So we sort of, without even knowing it, I think moved our bodies a little bit. So it can be really powerful to do that.

[Alicia Davis] It sure can. So we want to invite you to reach out to us, you know, we have these communication sessions. As I’m trying to communicate with you, right we have these communication sessions that we have created because our community has shared with us that communication is really important. So communicating with confidence. And we would invite you to really in a meeting this week, or before, you have to have a difficult phone call. Try adjusting your body a little bit and see what happens.

[Stacie Watson] Absolutely! You can let us know at info@tlstransforms.com. We’d love to hear how that works out for you.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. And I’m Alicia Davis.

[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson.

[Alicia Davis] We are the co-founders of Transformative Leadership Strategies and executive coaches and we’d love to support you follow us at @TLS_transforms. Thanks so much for listening.

[Stacie Watson] Thank you.