Speak Confidently in Senior Meetings (without Blanking Out)

Has your manager at work ever told you something along the lines of your work is strong, but you need to speak up more in meetings or I know you're capable. I just don't always hear your perspective. And when you hear that, it's like a punch to the gut. But when it's your turn to speak, especially in a fast-moving meeting, it doesn't come out the way that you intended it to. You hesitate, you lose your train of thought, you blank out, or you say something, but it doesn't land. And then someone else in the meeting, someone with less context, speaks up and says something in simpler terms, and somehow their voice is the one that gets heard. And if this has ever happened to you, stay with me because this is not about working harder, and it's not even about being smarter. It's about something else entirely. If you clicked on this video, you're likely someone who doesn't necessarily struggle with your communication all the time. In fact, you might communicate really well when you're prepared. You even find yourself being able to speak clearly and calmly when it's a one-on-one situation or in a very small group situation where there's lower pressure. But in high-stakes moments, something changes. When senior leaders are in the room, when the conversation is moving quickly, or when you're put on the spot, your mind starts racing. You start thinking about what to say while you're saying it. And instead of sounding clear, competent, and credible, you sound choppy, you're rambling, you're over explaining, or you don't say much at all. So what happens? You end up holding back. And this is not because you don't know what to say or you don't have good ideas to share, but it's because you're worried about how you're going to sound when you say it. So here's what we're going to do today. By the end of this video, you're going to have clarity on why this keeps happening, a way to steady yourself in those conversations, in those meetings, and high-stakes moments, and a simple structure to communicate your ideas clearly. And this is all to get you to stop overthinking and stop hesitating in those important work moments that matter. So quick context in case you haven't clicked on any of my videos before, my name is Linda Raynier. I'm a leadership and communication coach, and I work with high-performing professionals who are already good at what they do, but they struggle to express it under pressure. And if this resonates or sounds like you, you are someone that I call a quiet achiever. Quiet achiever is the book that I wrote on this topic. The my book is called The

Quiet Achiever: Your Journey to Authentic Confidence, and it's become an Amazon bestseller in multiple countries. For example, one of my quiet achiever clients, Dong Yi, is Harvard educated and incredibly capable. But before joining our program Quiet to Confident, she told me that when it came to speaking up and sharing her thoughts, they came across as scattered and unclear, especially when she was speaking to senior leaders. And as someone who is, like I said, Harvard educated, it's not because she didn't know her work, but it's how to organize her thoughts and deliver her words in a way that was clear, cohesive, and credible in those important moments when she was speaking to senior leaders. And once we worked on that together in our program Quiet to Confident, how to structure her communication and speak clearly, everything changed. She became more confident in conversations and became seen as someone who was ready for bigger opportunities. And this is something that is possible for you, too. Now, before we go deeper, I want to give you something practical. Type the word confident down in the comments down below, and I'll send you my Speak Confidently in Meetings PDF guide, where it'll give you the phrases, the structure on how to speak up calmly and coherently in those high-stakes moments, especially if you don't want to blank out or ramble. Okay, let's take a step back and zoom out for a bit because this entire topic that I'm talking about today is not just about communication and speaking up. What you have to remember is that your career, your personal brand, the way that other professionals perceive you is shaped by the quality of your conversations. And it's not just about the conversations

that you're having in the meetings and discussions that you attend, but it's also determined by the conversations that other people are having about you in rooms that you're not even in. Now, I know you don't really want to accept that as the truth, but we all know that it's the truth because if you want to get promoted, advance in your career, you know that it's not your decision to get promoted as much as you want to get promoted. It's the decision of several key individuals in your organization. It's your manager, key stakeholders, the decision makers, the leaders of the organization, as well as the visibility owners. They all have a say in determining whether you get promoted. And so the conversations that they have with you on a regular basis shape and form their perception of you and whether or not you are ready to get promoted to that next level. This is a concept that I teach in our program called the promotion ecosystem, and it's really important to remember that your chances of getting to that next level in your career, your chances of advancing, are determinant on how well you can nurture your promotion ecosystem at the end of the day. And if your manager and those in your promotion ecosystem are not able to clearly explain the value that you bring because you're not doing it for yourself, you can't be advocated for. They're not able to offer you the opportunities, the growth, the promotion

that you want because, unfortunately, you appear invisible to them. Even if you're doing great work, we all know that that's not enough anymore. You need to learn how to be able to influence others and communicate your thinking clearly so that others can trust it, act on it, and repeat it. So now let's talk about why this keeps happening. There are three key reasons because the more you understand yourself, the better that you will then be able to do the right things to move forward in the right way and make the transformation from someone who is shy and quiet to someone who is calm, confident, and credible. Reason number one is due to internal pressure. In other words, you are putting way too much pressure on yourself. Think about it. When you're in a meeting or having an important conversation with a senior leader, let's say, one part of you is serious, dedicated, and wants to contribute. You know your stuff. But then there's this other side of you at the same time that's operating, and it's saying things like, "Does this even make sense? What if I lose my train of thought? What if I'm saying the wrong thing? What are they thinking of me? " And that internal noise locks your clarity. It blocks your ability to articulate the ideas, the message, the concepts that you want to share in a calm, clear, confident way. And because of that, others are now listening to half-processed thoughts that sound anxious, and because of that they're not going to take what you have to say seriously, and they're not going to move forward with your recommendations. And then you end up feeling deflated in the end. So the key point here is that you're putting way too much pressure on yourself, and you need to get to the root of why you're putting that level of pressure on yourself. Why are you so afraid of the worst-case scenario happening? What is the thing that could go wrong if you were to say something wrong? What is your biggest fear? Only until we can address and get to the root of why we are thinking and feeling this certain way can then we make the change to improve the way that we sound and what we say and how we say it. But it needs to be that you need to understand that you are putting too much pressure, and you need to start lifting that pressure off. And that's something that we do in our Quiet to Confident program. It is designed to take the pressure off your shoulders, to not put the weight of the world onto you, but instead to give you a clear, straightforward path and set of steps that you need to follow in order to transform from quiet, shy, anxious, and nervous to calm, confident, trusted leader. Reason number two is that you default to tasks, not impact. And what I mean by this is that you tend to rely on explaining what you're doing, what the facts are, what the information is, but you aren't explaining what's changing, what's improving, and what's moving forward because of what you're doing. So even though your work is strong, it doesn't come across as leadership-level thinking because you're simply focused on the tasks and giving the updates. So the way to fix this is to start thinking about the bigger picture. How does your work connect to the bigger picture, the overall strategy, the overall outcome that leaders care about? This is something that I teach in our program Quiet to Confident, and it has helped our clients to be able to expand the way that they communicate because they're able to speak on a greater stage. They're able to elevate themselves to a level where they can speak to higher-level audiences rather than to just the people around them. For example, one of our clients, Calvin, learned how to do this exactly. He started off feeling nervous, anxious, not knowing how to articulate his value, speak to senior leaders, to then being able to explain his value clearly to the senior leaders of his organization, and that has since allowed him to advance in his career. And finally, the third reason why this is so challenging is that you allow your position to shift in the room depending on who's in it. And so what I mean by this is something that I see all the time. When you're around your own team

when you're around people who you're comfortable with, you're able to communicate well, you're able to explain things clearly, you have no issues with sharing your value. But then when you're around senior leaders, something shifts. Something happens. It's subtle, but you notice yourself tensing up. You notice that you start observing yourself. You start feeling as though you're being evaluated, you're being judged, and you're potentially being criticized. Instead of seeing yourself as someone who is contributing to the conversation, you begin to feel as though you're being tested in it. And that shift alone changes how you speak and how calm and credible you sound. Now, these are all things that you can change. So, now that you see the real issue, you recognize that it's not just about needing to speak up more. It's that you need to be able to communicate clearly when the pressure is on. So, let me share with you three steps that you can start taking right now in order to make this transformation to go from quiet to confident yourself. The first step is to reset your state. When you feel the pressure, instead of fighting it, acknowledge it. Say to yourself, "Okay, I'm feeling nervous right now. What is it that I'm feeling nervous about? " And usually a negative thought will come up. Listen to that negative thought. Pay attention to it. Huh, observe it. "Where are you coming from? Why are you telling me this? Why are you making me believe that I'm not capable? feel nervous? " You want to almost objectify it. You want to distance it from you, that negative thought, that negative belief, because it really is not who you are. But you need to be able to learn to practice doing this to set the negative beliefs aside and observe them from a distance. That is how you separate yourself from that, and that is how then your calmness will come in, how you will no longer feel as anxious and nervous if you identify the cause, the root cause for why you feel that way. And just doing that, identifying the negative thought, the negative belief, that alone will help you to step back into the moment and stop spiraling out of control. Now, onto step number two, and that is to clarify your value. Every time you give an update in a meeting, every time you have to speak up and share an idea, remember that you want to describe the impact, not just the tasks that you've been assigned to do. Now, to help you to get into that right mindset, here's a structure that you can use. You can say, "I'm known for strength. " Insert your strengths. "I" What do you do? "So that" What's the impact? For example, if you are a project manager, you could say something along the lines of, "I'm known for strong stakeholder alignment. I anticipate risks and communicate proactively so that leadership stays informed and projects stay on track. " Now, obviously, this is going to depend on whatever job you have, what is your career, what are your unique strengths, but you want to think about this in a deeper way, not just from the position of your job description. You don't want to just think, "Okay, this is just what I do as a job. " But what are the unique strengths that you bring? What is the expertise or the technique or the approach that you bring that is unique and different from the way that others do your job. That is what you want to

think about when you are coming up with this value statement, because it is from understanding your value and knowing how you bring value to your company, to your team, to others, that you're then going to be able to sound more confident, you're going to have more conviction in your voice when you speak from this place of value. Finally, step number three is if all else fails, use just one clear sentence. And what I mean by this is in meetings, you don't have to try to say everything. In fact, you shouldn't be saying everything in meetings. The key to be memorable and visible in meetings isn't about speaking more. It's actually about saying things that are impactful and that will actually drive things forward. So, for example, you can use one clear sentence such as, "My recommendation is blank because of blank, so we can blank. " If you can just fill in those blanks, you will be able to get people on board with your recommendation, with your idea. It's clear, it's direct, it's something that people can follow. If you want more examples like this, just type the word confident in the comments and I'll send you the full guide. Now, let me leave you with this. You're not being overlooked because you're not capable. You're being overlooked because in those high-stakes moments, in those important meetings, your ideas aren't coming across clearly. And every time you hold back, you miss out on an opportunity to show people how you think. And showing people how you think is what builds trust. That's what builds leadership. You don't need to become louder, you just need to become clearer, especially under pressure. Once again, type confident in the comments if you haven't already, and be sure to click on this video next on how to communicate more confidently at work.