Avoid “talking” to Communicate With More Confidence
Confidence is important when you are trying to build trust. If you speak uncertainly, people will easily reject or be skeptical about what you say, however true it may be. One vocal habit that undermines your confidence is talking, the tendency to speak as if you are asking a question.
Many of us are to blame for this, and sometimes it is so subtle that we do not even realize that we are doing it. Magnetic Speaking explains exactly what it is and why it can kill your trust:
You can say, “Go to 148 Townsend.”
But you could say, “Walk all the way to Townsend 148?”
And your listener won’t know if you are giving him direction or asking him. Awareness of the “conversation” is critical to you if you are in a leadership role or working to achieve this level. How you make your statements will determine whether people believe you or not. If you repeat every sentence of the narrative, people will see it as insecurity and ignorance.
I didn’t realize that I had done this until the stranger pointed it out to me. Again, this is an obvious habit in some cases. For example, like many people, I hate answering the question, what are you doing? Usually you have to answer a series of lingering clarifying questions about your job, it can feel like an interview, and it just usually gives me discomfort. Therefore, in answering this question, I often said: Am I a freelance writer?
It’s easy enough to nip in the bud. But sometimes conversations are so ingrained in your way of speaking that you don’t even know you’re doing it. I noticed that whenever a customer service representative asked me to verify my social or phone number, I also answered my questions as questions.
Not that sounding convincing was particularly important in any of these situations, but it got me thinking about how often I did it in interviews, giving advice to a friend, or during negotiations. The Magnetic Speaking company shares several ways to get rid of it:
- Raise awareness of when you are using conversations
- Consciously practice making declarative statements in private (so you get used to it)
- Always work on developing a sense of confidence – this is very important to me, and I always work on it. Confidence is a muscle and you have to use it to get strong.
This is good advice, especially the last tip. But one quick solution that worked for me was rendering the dot at the end of the sentence. It sounds silly, but it convinced me that I was talking a sentence, not a question.
This does not mean that getting rid of conversations automatically, indefinitely, will make everyone consider you more authoritative. But it will certainly make you sound more confident, and that makes a big difference.
Stop Uptalk To Boost Your Credibility As A Leader | Magnetic speech