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Hello, and welcome to biz Inbox. I'm m Vernon and you just stepped into your judgment free zone for all things career related.
And I'm Sarah Davidson, a lawyer turned entrepreneur, ready to get real about workplace challenges and dive into some workplace real talk.
I am so excited.
Think of these biz Inbox episodes as your career confessional booth. You can be completely anonymous if you're struggling with office politics, building a business, dealing with a boss from hell, whatever it is.
We are all is.
Today we're chatting about those colleagues who treat meetings like their very own ted talk me sorry to everyone, and proving your worth to your boss from your home office. But let's start off with a question we got in that's something that I think everyone on earth can relate to. Really, why public speaking is absolutely terrifying?
Oh my god, this question tackles the number one workplace fear. And no, it's not accidentally replying all, which I have done more times than i'd like to admit.
This comes in from.
Casey and she wrote, I'm presenting to senior leadership tomorrow and I'm incredibly nervous. My voice tends to shake and I lose my train of thought when anxious. I've tried using voice notes to keep me on track, but then my shaking hands become even more obvious as I'm fumbling with paper. It's like my body is determined to expose my nerves one way or another. What techniques do you
recommend for staying composed during high pressure conversations? Any tips would be so appreciated, Sarah, you do a lot of public speaking and a lot of presenting, like I feel like you are perfect to answer this question.
Oh my gosh, well it's such a valid one, Casey, I feel like a lot of people. I can't remember what the statistic is, but a lot of people are more scared of public speaking than they are of like death. Like it's people's number one fear worldwide. Such anxiety inducing activity for so many, And I guess one of the first things is be gentle on yourself. Nerves are so normal. Even after I would say probably more than a thousand speaking gigs, I still get nervous. So the goal is
not for the nerves to disappear completely. So that's one thing we all get nerves. It's a really good sign that you care about the outcome, that you care about doing a good job. It's just about, like you said, learning how to not let them totally overtake you. And there's a couple of things that really help with that. I think the first is practice. It definitely gets easier
over time. So when I look at my first speaking gigs when I was, like, you know, really young, in my early twenties versus now, the comfort level is dramatically different, and that just comes with practice.
But there are so.
Many little things that you can do in the lead up that can sort of reduce the capacity of those nerves to overcome you. So deep breathing is a really big thing just beforehand, because your heart rate getting away from itself is part of the thing that makes you shake. It's the thing that makes your brain so flighty that you lose train of thought. So big deep breast beforehand.
There's a lot of psychology around the poses that you stand in beforehand while you're doing that breathing to kind of instill a bit more confidence in you, sort of instead of shrinking away and having your shoulders round it, it's put your shoulders back so that you can get as much air into your body as you can. Practicing parts of your speech in advance so that if you do lose your train of thought, you've got muscle memory.
Even just the intro. I feel like if you deliver that confidently, that helps carry you through the next bit. So I know it sounds silly, but doing your speech to your mirror the night before or in the weeks before that always actually really helps me feel more confident.
Yeah, saying it out loud, out.
Loud, and then the third thing that sounds a bit counterinto you is just to call it out. So I find when I am really really nervous if I start by saying, guys, I'm really nervous here. This is not my forte, but I really want to do a good job, so please excuse the shakes. For some reason, getting it out in the open, you stop feeling that you're chasing your tail, like you're trying to look more confident than you are. If you just kind of acknowledge it and
say this isn't my forte, but I'm doing my best. Yeah, everyone in the audience will understand. No one is ever not nervous, so everyone will understand that it gets it out of the way. Then you kind of feel like the fumbling. No one's staring at you, going, oh, she's fumbling because they already know that you are. You've called it out, you've had a laugh, and then you move on. I find that really powerful.
Oh these are such good tips, and Casey, I feel like my nervous ticks are very similar to yours. I recently went on a live tour with our podcast Mummy Out Loud, and we were talking in front of thousands of people, and most people I've spoken in front of was twenty, so I went from twenty two thousands and it.
Was so scary.
And one of my nervous sticks was similar to Casey, where like my hands shake, especially when I'm holding notes. So what I did, because all the other hosts would have these palm cards and they would read of these palm cards as guides every time in rehearsal I do that, I would just uncontrollably shake. So I actually just memorized my entire bit because I knew that was my nervous tick, and I went out without holding anything and it worked
so well. So it is a lot more work you have to do, but I felt like for me, knowing that was my nervous tick, not having the palm cards was a big blocker for me. So not having them was just the best decision ever, and it just made me look so much more relaxed than when I was actually dying on the inside. Another little tip I have was from these girls. They have a podcast called Interview Boss.
They're absolutely brilliant, and they say like, if you get nervous in interviews and things like that, clench your butt cheeks and you stop shaking. So if you go to pick up a glass of water and you feel yourself shaking picking up like glass of water, clench your butt cheeks. It works every time.
That is such a good one.
I actually saw this on your notes and I was like, I don't know where this is going.
But I love it, just me talking to myself in general.
Do you know what is one other one I just thought of as well, which always helps me is that there will always be no matter how big or small your audience is. Some people have resting bitch face even if they're really engaged, and some people have resting encouragement face, And you'll know almost instantly the people who are going to be warm and receptive to what you're saying openly, like express it on their face. Go back to them.
Don't look at the people who look like they've tuned out or that they're bored, because you'll start to spiral and you'll think, oh my god, no one's listening. There's always one person who smiles and nods at you, like physically nods. Just find them and talk to just them, and you'll block out everyone else, and that kind of reinforces to you that people are listening, people are enjoying this,
and that helps quell those nerves. So I always have like my yeah, secret friend in the audience who probably don't know that they're holding me up or carrying me as much as they are, But there's always one find them.
That's such a good point. Okay.
Our next question is an anonymous one, which are always the juiciest ones, and this person says, hey, biz team, my performance review is in a few weeks and I'm a bit worried. I work from home most days and feel like my work is kind of invisible compared to the office crowd. I've been doing fine, nothing terrible, but nothing amazing. Either any quick wins or easy ways I can show my value and stand out before my review,
especially when my boss can't actually see me working. This is such an interesting question because when I was thinking about it, I was like, surely that's not the case. But then I talk to some friends, and I have friends who are genuinely like my boss still expects everyone to be in the office. Like my boss, no matter how hard you work, my boss needs to see people
in the office. Sarah, what's been your experience with what you've seen with work from home versus working in person and seeing people work.
Yeah, it's such a fascinating question because I feel like most people will either have all this colleagues working from home so they don't have to prove their worth because they're all doing the same thing, or they all work in the office. So this is a really unique scenario where you are competing with peers who have more FaceTime than you, and they do have more opportunities to show their worth. So it's a bit of a tough one
I think. In the end, I am so so pleased that we have come a long way in proving that you don't have to physically be there to have value and to do valuable work. The problem is it is going to be a little bit harder for you to show that, And I think that does mean you have to do a tiny bit more work to be out of back yourself up. And so my advice in this situation would be, so often we don't record what we do during the day. As a lawyer, you don't have
that choice. We always had to record in six minute increments every single task that you do during the day to a client.
That feels like a whole job in itself.
It is an entire job. So at the end of the day you spend so many six minute units just on working out what you did. But it's a really good habit that I got into because now I have a list at the end of every day of what I worked on and how long I worked on it. And I think tracking what you do so that when you do have a performance review, you can show them and say, these are the tangible things that I worked
on that you didn't see. Otherwise it just all blurs into one big I was at home and sure we finished the project, but your individual contribution to that project or valuable things that you added to the conversations get lost in the slack conversation or the email chain, so write dot points through the day and then you've got something actually tangible written down to present because you'll forget it as well, like you won't remember what part of
that project was your contribution. So I think it really is record keeping and then packaging it up in a way that does show what your value is. Which is unfair that you have to do more work than your colleagues, but that's I think part of the challenge that we still face. So don't disadvantage yourself by just not keeping a rud.
It's so true, and you also might find out that you have been doing way more than what you thought, Like I know sometimes when I work from home, because no one can actually see me working, so you end up just like even taking your phone to the bathroom, like I've done that so many times because people can't actually see you get up and go to the bathroom, or see you get up and go to lunch, like even those like little bits of like hey, just letting
everyone know I'm going for lunch. Now, hey letting everyone know I'm back, Like you do do those extra things that like people in the office don't have to do. So keep that in mind, because you actually might be doing more than you realize.
One hundred percent. And if you've written it down, you can also track sort of the hours that you've invested as well. So if you want to be able to say I spent twenty hours on this task, you can back that up. Whereas if you're remembering it like two weeks later and you haven't written anything down, it's really hard to say, here is the time I spent on this.
Oh good luck with this performance review. We are sure that you are going to absolutely smash it. Coming up next, we have a juicy dilemma about how to deal with overpowering co leagues. We have a question about a meeting phenomenon that we've all definitely experienced. It's those voices in those meetings that end up taking up all the oxygen in the room. So Beck DMed us asking I need some meeting advice. In our twice weekly team catch ups,
the same two colleagues dominate every discussion without fail. The rest of us barely get a word in, and I've noticed some really valuable team members haven't spoken up in weeks. I'm not the meeting leader, just a regular participant, but I'd love some suggestions for how to create space for my quieter colleagues without making things awkward or seeming like I'm trying to take over any subtle hints that can actually work in real life. Ooh, this one's quite hard.
I feel like, personally, I haven't experienced this, And then when I think about that, I'm like, oh my god, was I the overbearing colleague that just took up.
All the meetings?
I was just about to say, I also haven't, and that's because you and I are the two people this.
Question was about. Ask who is it? We're sorry, so it's a producer? So who wrote in?
I think that's what's really hard, though, is that sometimes there are definitely dominant personalities in a workplace, but sometimes it's just people who are chatty. Like You're not dominating because you want to overpower your fellow colleagues who are quieter. You just love a good chat and if you feel like you've got something to contribute that's valuable. I will genuinely keep talking until someone stops me, and I don't
mean to, you know, talk over people. And sometimes I've realized this kind of made me take a cold houd look at myself, like I might be cutting off other valuable opinions simply because I find it easier to talk in a group setting. So in this scenario, I sort of thought, give them the benefit of the doubt that they don't realize that they're doing it, and maybe create an opportunity for them to realize that they are and
do something differently. And that might involve maybe your meeting leader on board, if you're not the meeting leader, take them aside and just mention that you've noticed this is happening, and perhaps pitch it as I don't think they're doing it on purpose, but perhaps we could sort of direct questions to the quieter colleague, and instead of opening up the floor, you could say, hey, so what do you
think about this? You could start the meeting by giving that particular person a chance to speak, and do it that way, like take a bit more control from the top down. And that depends on your meeting leader, of course, and how open they are to that. But I think that's a really subtle way of doing it without anyone feeling like you've had to have it out and you've had to say, guys, shut up, like let the others speak. I think that's a really gentle way of doing it.
Yeah, I love that, and it also seems like me So it's a consistent meeting they have. It's like a twice weekly team catch up. So there's a reason you have that meeting. And obviously it's not getting executed to the best of its ability because so many people can't
actually tell the room what they're doing. So maybe even just suggest to your team leader or to the whole team in one of those meetings, say I think it'd be more efficient if we just have some sort of structure in place for this meeting and be like, let's all just take two minutes each to say exactly what we have going on, and then just kind of like see if you can start with the quiet people so they can get it over and done with, and then the I guess the talk is the me and Sarah's
in your meeting can go last and we can just like finish and then it's done.
I'm like, give us a deadline, like, say, how about one dot point from everything? Yes, and then we have to I mean, I can make a really bloody long dot point, but still like, at least if I have some kind of delineation that it should be just one point, like that'll rain me in a little bit. So maybe yeah, put some limits.
How to work with us?
Yeah, one oh one.
Well, that's all we have for this week. Thank you so much for helping us clear the biz inbox. If you've got a work question, send it our way. If you have your own workplace drama, a career conundrum, or office politics nightmare, we are here for it. Or we'll put a link in our show notes for where you can s admit all of those questions. You can also have your name on this question, or you can be completely anonymous if you'd rather know one find out who you are. We completely get it.
If you've missed any of our previous episodes, they're all right there in your feed waiting for you, and we'll be back solving more workplace conundrums next week.
Bye see ya.
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