Shadowing Practice: Speak Up in Important Meetings (Even When Put on the Spot) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Have you ever walked out of a meeting and felt that little punch in your stomach?
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Have you ever walked out of a meeting and felt that little punch in your stomach?
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Because you had it.
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You had the sentence that could have saved everyone 10 minutes.
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You were aware of the risk that no one else saw.
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You had the clarification that would have stopped your team from moving and drifting into the wrong decision.
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And yet, you didn't say it.
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And then later, walking back to your desk,
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making dinner, lying in bed,
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your brain turns into a courtroom.
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You start asking yourself, why didn't I speak up?
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I should have said something.
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I had it.
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I literally had it.
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Or sometimes you do speak up,
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but it doesn't come out the way that you had imagined it in your head.
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You might have spoken a little too quickly,
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or you might have just gotten straight to the point,
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or you might have over explained and it had a few too many caveats.
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And then you replay it in your head for the next 48 hours asking yourself again,
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why did I say it like that?
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Now, if this sounds like you,
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I want you to know this.
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You don't have a communication problem,
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but what you do have is a pressure execution problem.
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In other words, you find it extremely challenging to communicate under pressure.
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Because in other settings, you can absolutely communicate.
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You know this.
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Because you do this all the time.
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In one-on-ones, you're very good at speaking.
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In low-stakes, calm, normal meetings, you're able to speak.
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But all of a sudden,
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when it becomes a high-stakes meeting,
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high-stakes conversation, something subtle shifts.
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As soon as there's a senior leader in the room,
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something happens to you where you start feeling as though you're being evaluated,
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you're being tested, and then that changes the way that you communicate.
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In other words, you feel as though you sound like you don't know what you're talking about.
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And here's the thing, it's not as though you're new in your career.
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You're not someone who's just joined the corporate world.
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You've got 5, 10, 15,
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maybe even 20 years of depth of expertise and experience.
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You're the person that people rely on for substance,
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to get the job done, to get the results.
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But in the moments that decide perception,
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the moments where leadership trust is built,
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your delivery doesn't reflect your capability.
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But not to worry, because by the end of this video,
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you're going to have a simple structure that you can use mid-meeting in real time to make your thinking easy to follow,
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even when your heart rate jumps.
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And this isn't to get you to become louder or to become someone else.
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It's actually to get you to become who you already are, a credible leader.
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And as always, I'm going to teach it in a way that is authentic.
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It's for people who hate fluff,
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who hate the idea of fake it till you make it,
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who don't want to perform.
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And that's good because we're not performing.
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We're learning how to execute under pressure.
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And this reminds me of one of our clients who is shown here,
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who before joining our Quiet to Confident program,
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shared that she was overcome with anxiety
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and her words weren't able to come out properly when she was speaking up in high stakes meetings.
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Despite having taken Toastmasters classes and keynote presentation classes,
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she knew how to present.
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But for whatever reason, when it came time to speaking up in meetings,
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to delivering presentations in front of senior leaders,
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she was not able to do it in a way that was calm and confident.
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But fortunately, after joining Quiet to Confident,
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She's learned how to structure her thoughts,
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how to become visible and speak up in an impactful way.
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And today she's on her way to the next level in her career.
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And she feels more confident than ever before.
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And this is possible for you too.
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By the way, if you're new here,
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my name is Linda Rayner.
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I am the author of the book,
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The Quiet Achiever, Your Journey to Authentic Confidence,
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which has become an Amazon bestseller in several countries.
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And over the last decade,
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I've coached thousands of high-performing corporate professionals to communicate with confidence that have allowed them to gain trust,
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visibility, and career advancement.
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And one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about my quiet achiever clients is that they're not experienced enough,
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they're shy, or they're not articulate.
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But that cannot be further from the truth.
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And also, that's not who you are if you're watching this and identify with being a quiet achiever.
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You have years of experience and it's now time to take
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that experience and to learn how to translate it into visibility and influence.
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Now, before we go deeper,
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I want to give you something that you can use immediately.
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Type the word confident in the comments down below
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and I'll send you my speak up confidently in meetings PDF guide where you will learn the phrases,
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the structure as to how you can speak up more confidently in your next meeting.
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Now, to set the stage,
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here is the context shift that you need to understand.
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In most workplaces right now,
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people don't get trusted with the bigger decisions because they happen to be the most competent.
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They get trusted because their thinking is visible.
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Now, we're not talking about visible as in self-promotion,
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but more so visible in a meeting where people can follow the way they think.
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Because it's in meetings where leaders often decide,
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and this is subconsciously, who's strategic,
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who can handle ambiguity, who can talk to stakeholders,
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who can represent the team,
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who's ready for more scope.
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So when you freeze or you hold back or your message comes out muddy,
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it's not just one awkward moment.
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It's a missed reputation building moment.
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And when that happens consistently,
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people don't think, oh, you're humble.
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They think, oh, you're not ready yet.
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And I know you're feeling frustrated because you are ready.
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But perception is formed in those types of moments.
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And you deserve to learn a way to show up clearly in these moments that matter.
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For example, you could probably relate to the story of one of our clients,
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Ashley, who had been the go-to person at her company for years.
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As an accounting manager, she was the expert behind the scenes.
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She knew all the details.
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But in leadership meetings, she'd often stay quiet or feel as though her ideas weren't landing.
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Now, she had the technical expertise and her performance reviews reflected that.
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But she wasn't being seen as that clear,
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trusted voice in the room.
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But once she stopped second-guessing every thought and got to the root of her challenges
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and learned a clear structure on how to speak up confidently, everything changed.
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Her communication became clearer, more strategic, and easier to follow.
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And senior leaders started to take notice.
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And that is why she is now on her way to advancement in her career.
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And this shift is available for you too.
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Now let's get into the three key reasons why this is happening for you if you're relating to Ashley's story.
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Reason number one is that in high stakes moments,
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your mind shifts from clarity to self-protection.
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What's interesting is that you feel confident when you're in a one-on-one meeting.
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You can present clearly if you've prepared fully.
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And you can even speak at events or run a small workshop.
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But as soon as you're put in a meeting where the stakes feel high,
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where there's an executive or a VP in the room,
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in the meeting with you,
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where you feel as though you're being evaluated,
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all of a sudden, something shifts within you.
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Your body starts to react.
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Your breathing changes.
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Your heart starts to race.
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Your chest tightens and your mind starts moving faster than your mouth or nothing happens and your mind just goes completely blank.
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You completely blank out.
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Now, what's actually happening is that your nervous system is doing exactly what it's designed to do,
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which is to protect you from social threat.
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Except in corporate moments, social threat sounds more like,
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what if I sound unprepared?
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What if I get challenged?
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What if I lose my train of thought?
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What if this impacts how they see me?
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And when that happens, you don't need more motivation.
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But what you do need is a structure that your brain can grab onto when you're not operating at 100%.
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And that structure is something we'll discuss in just a bit.
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Now reason number two why this is also challenging is because you think that being clear means saying everything.
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High performers have this need to be accurate.
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And so you think to yourself,
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if I say this, I need to share all the details so they don't misunderstand.
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And then you start giving all the details,
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all the information, all of your technical expertise is shared in that moment.
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And then what happens?
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The room gets lost.
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They get confused.
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And it's not because your thinking or expertise or technical knowledge is wrong.
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It's because the way that you are delivering your thinking is not packaged in a way
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that people are able to listen and follow along with in meetings.
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Senior leaders don't have time to reconstruct your logic.
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They need you to hand them your logic in a clean sequence.
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So your goal for your next meeting isn't to say more.
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It's to say it in a way that's easy to follow.
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And finally, the third reason why this is so challenging for you is
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that you wait to be right instead of being followable.
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And this is the sneaky one because you're trying to say the perfect thing.
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So you wait, you refine it in your head,
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you wait for it to be airtight.
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But leadership communication isn't about being perfect.
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It's about moving thinking forward.
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So if you wait until you're 100% sure,
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you almost always miss the window where your input could shape the decision.
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Now, if you can relate to that,
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don't judge yourself because that perfectionism is what has made you successful in the first place.
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But in a meeting, perfectionism works against you.
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Meetings reward momentum and clarity, not necessarily perfection.
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So how do we address this?
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What do we do next?
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We're not here to change your personality.
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I'm not here to tell you to just be confident.
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Instead, I'm going to give you a structure that's going to help you in those moments,
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even when your heart is pounding.
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And this works even when you're put on the spot and even when you don't even have time to prepare.
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And this structure is called OR.
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O-A-R-R.
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Here's what OR looks like.
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O stands for observation.
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You're going to discuss what's happening,
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what you are observing, what you are seeing in this moment.
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A stands for analysis.
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You're going to describe what it means.
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What are the implications of what you're observing?
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On to R, which is recommendation.
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Now you're going to state what we should do based on what you've observed and what it means.
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And finally, you're going to tie it into the final R, which is result.
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What is the outcome that your recommendation creates?
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How does it tie to the bigger picture?
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So let's make this ridiculously practical.
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Imagine your team is debating an approach in a meeting.
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The conversation is swirling.
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People are sharing their opinions,
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their ideas, their concerns, but no one is landing on a decision.
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Your brain is tracking it.
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You're noticing things and you're seeing the missing piece.
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Here is how you're going to address this without necessarily giving a TED talk.
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You're going to speak up and say,
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first of all, what you are observing.
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What I'm noticing is we're circling around the same point,
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but we haven't landed on what decision we're actually making today.
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From there, you're going to tell them your analysis or the implication.
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What that tells me is we might leave this meeting with everyone thinking we agreed when we didn't.
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Then you tell them what to do next.
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My recommendation is we define the decision in one sentence
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and assign an owner before we move on
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and then you tell them the bigger result so
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that we can leave this meeting aligned
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and avoid re-litigating it next week that's it so do you hear how
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that lands now this is not exactly how you're going to
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speak in every single meeting this is just a very practical
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way to use this framework it can be related to your
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technical work to give an update to share an idea from a technical perspective
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and only you really know how you're going to use this framework for yourself in your work
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but do you see what it does it's not fancy
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but it's followable it tells others
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that i'm tracking i'm thinking i'm moving us forward whether you're
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in operations it hr marketing product any of those teams
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if you can make your thinking followable you will become more
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influential this is just like one of our clients calvin who
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before starting our program struggled to Share his ideas in a clear, influential, convincing way.
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And once he learned how to tell the right stories,
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how to structure them in a way that was going to convince the senior leaders that he was capable,
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that he had the right approach,
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that was when he was able to advance to the next level in his career.
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And if you learn how to do this,
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you'll be able to get the same results.
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Now, don't forget, if you want to learn this exact approach,
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feel free to type the word confident in the comments down below
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and I'll send you my Speak Up Confidently in Meetings PDF guide where you'll get the phrases
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and structure on how you can approach your next meeting in a confident, calm way.
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Now, I want to close with something that I believe high performers need to hear,
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especially if you've been carrying this quietly for years.
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In a meeting, silence is often interpreted as uncertainty.
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And I know that's not who you are.
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You're careful.
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You're precise.
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You're thoughtful.
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You're trying to add value.
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You're not trying to add noise.
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But leadership isn't only about accuracy.
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In fact, leadership is more about clarity.
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So your question isn't, can you speak more?
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It's more about, can you make your thinking followable so that your team can move with you?
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Because once you do that, something shifts.
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People stop overlooking you.
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They start turning to you for guidance.
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They trust you with ambiguity.
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They give you bigger scope.
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They see you as leadership material.
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And that's how your career accelerates and advances to the next level without you becoming someone that you're not.
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Hope you enjoyed this.
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Make sure to type confident in the comments down below,
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and I'll send you the Speak Confidently in Meetings PDF guide,
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and be sure to watch this video next for how to speak more confidently at work.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This video is an excellent resource for English learners looking to improve their speaking skills, particularly in high-pressure situations like important meetings. When faced with senior leaders or critical discussions, many find it challenging to express their thoughts clearly and confidently. By practicing with the example provided, you can enhance your ability to communicate effectively, ensuring your insights are heard. This is particularly valuable for those preparing for situations where clear expression is crucial, such as IELTS speaking practice or professional discussions.
Utilizing a shadowing app can enhance your experience by allowing you to repeat phrases and structures used in the video, improving both your fluency and confidence. As you learn English with YouTube, you'll discover not just how to speak, but also how to express complex ideas seamlessly, even when put on the spot.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
The speaker employs several key structures that serve as useful tools for effective communication:
- Direct Address: Phrases like "Have you ever walked out of a meeting..." directly engage the audience, creating a connection and inviting them to reflect on their own experiences.
- Conditional Sentences: The speaker states, "If this sounds like you, I want you to know this." This structure can help you express hypothetical scenarios or provide advice based on the audience's situation.
- Emphasizing Experience: Sentences such as "You're not someone who's just joined the corporate world" highlight credibility and experience, important factors in professional discussions.
- Analytical Phrasing: The expression "your delivery doesn't reflect your capability" effectively analyzes communication failures and encourages self-reflection, a useful technique in both personal and professional contexts.
Common Pronunciation Traps
In the video, several words and phrases may pose pronunciation challenges, especially for non-native speakers:
- Evaluate: Pay attention to the stress on the second syllable: e-val-uate.
- Communicate: The rhythm of this word can be tricky; practice breaking it down: com-mu-ni-cate.
- Pressure: Be mindful of the initial 'pr' sound, which can be softer in some accents; ensure you pronounce it clearly as pr-essure.
By focusing on these aspects, you can significantly improve your English speaking practice and prepare yourself for high-stakes conversations. Regularly engage with content like this, and consider using a shadowing app to maximize your practice effectiveness. This method will not only strengthen your language skills but also build your confidence in any speaking scenario.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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