In my last two posts, I’ve argued that to gain self-confidence, you need three components: skills, situation, and self.

The first principle is that instead of building self-confidence, you build skills that lead to self-confidence. Confidence is the by-product of competence. Pursue competence and the confidence will take care of itself.

When I got my first car, my driving skills were still raw and I was a nervous wreck. In fact, after graduating from driving school, I drove my way home and banged into a parked motorcycle. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

But months and years of road experience had honed my driving skills such that I can cruise down a highway and listen to the car radio at the same time.

Now comes the second principle: the way you see your situation influences your self-confidence.

Let’s go back to the car.

As I’ve said, I have no problem driving around very familiar territory: the highway, the subdivision where I live, the place where I work.

But one time, I was driving Lucy and myself to a social event. The problem was that it was in a remote northern place in the city. We’ve never been there; all we were given was an address.

Sure, we poured through a road map (we didn’t know how to use Waze), but when we were at the general vicinity, I had this gnawing feeling we were lost.

Soon, paved streets gave way to dirt roads. All we could see were trees and bushes. Where were the houses? Worse, it was getting dark. Our only illumination was our headlights. It was getting spookier by the minute!

My driving confidence plummeted. It was bad enough that we were off track. What if some bandits were to pounce on us? I could see the headline: “City Slickers Attacked in the Middle of Nowhere!”

Mercifully, we doubled back and finally arrived at that social event.

The point? Same driving skils (no problem), but different situations (big problem!), thus different levels of confidence.

Now, suppose you’re an aspiring public speaker intimidated by a sea of unfamiliar faces staring back at you. You can talk the ears off a good friend over coffee, but now you’re gripped by stage fright.

Why so? Because you see the situation as a threat to your identity (you’re not a good speaker) or psychological safety (the audience will judge or ridicule you).

But suppose your thinking shifts from “I’m going to suck.” to “The audience is my friend. They’re rooting for me to succeed.” The focus is no longer on yourself, but on imparting some benefit to other people. You will feel a reduction of fear. Do that more, reflect deeper, visualize the positive more clearly, and pretty soon you will be owning the stage.

So reflect on coaching questions such as:

  • What situation tends to erode your self-confidence?
  • What is it about that situation that makes you feel that way? What else? (or: What story are you telling yourself about that situation?)
  • How can you see that situation in a positive way? (or: What new story will you tell yourself about that situation?)
  • What makes this new thinking helpful for you?
  • What have you learned about yourself?
  • What resources do you need to reinforce this new thinking?
  • Who can support you with this new thinking?
  • How will you celebrate your newfound confidence?

 

0 Comments

As an executive coach, I’m always fascinated with the topic of self-confidence. Some of my clients are introverts who want to be more empowered in sharing their thoughts, addressing issues, and persuading stakeholders.

I’m also an active Toastmaster. When I sat in interviews of people who wanted to join our club, practically all said they wanted (you guessed it) confidence in public speaking.

So what makes for self-confidence? Curious, I asked ChatGPT and it gave me ten or more components of self-confidence.

For me, that’s too many! I don’t want to give a workshop entitled “Thirteen Ways to Develop Self-Confidence.” As if I can memorize that many pointers and expect my participants to do that, too.

I’m a big fan of the Rule of Three. After some reflection, let me propose three major components of self-confidence. Work on each area and you’ll achieve personal mastery faster than just slugging it out.

The three components are skills, situation, and self.

I’ll explain each of them in the subsequent posts.

0 Comments

While juggling different projects, I’ve finally found time to update my Linkedin “About”. There’s likely something that may interest you, so do please check it out. Blessed weekend!

0 Comments

In Part 1, my first suggestion is that you see numbers as stories. So if your deck has plenty of numbers, instead of just rattling off those numbers from the screen, tell the audience what those numbers mean.  And if I may add: tailor your story to the audience. The level of detail can vary. Executives tend to want the punch line right away while technicians may want to hear about the thinking behind the numbers.

My second suggestion is to use bullet points in your deck so you can be more spontaneous as you deliver your presentation, rather than reading from copy-pasted text from a Word document.

Here’s the challenge. Boil down your content into bullet points, then expound each point in your own words. Don’t forget to exude confidence as, remember, you own the deck. You’re friends with the numbers. You’re crushing it!

Example: you are presenting a business case for buying a new machine for quality control. On the benefits slide, a bullet point simply says “Reduce rework.” You tell the decision-makers in the audience:

“Right now, the production line is so fast that when defect X appears, the line produces 10,000 defective pieces before our people notice it. Then we stop the line, isolate those 10,000 pieces, and spend Y hours repairing what can be repaired and throwing away the rest.

“But with this machine, we will be able to detect the defect after only 100 pieces, thus we save on cost of rework.”

This brings me to my last suggestion: anticipate questions.

Those decision-makers would likely ask for the cost of the rework. Do your homework and you can say “Php Z per unit” rather than stammer “I’ll get back to you” (which won’t sit well with busy approvers).

In fact, be ready for another question down the road: how much would the quality-control machine cost and what is the payback period?

So practice your presentation and pretend you’re an executive listening to yourself. What questions pop into your mind? This takes critical thinking, curiosity and foresight. Have the answers in your fingertips. If there are so much data to memorize, then keep short notes handy.

When you do all three: see the numbers as stories, use bullet points to force you to expound, and anticipate questions so you have the answers ready, your reporting days are over. You will shine as an expert.

And you know how employers value experts.

0 Comments

When you’re making a presentation, do you find yourself:

Copy-pasting a Word document onto a Powerpoint, then read the content word for word?

Reciting the numbers on the screen, then freezing when an audience member asks you a question?

Having your boss answer that question, then he takes over the rest of the presentation? (You quietly slink back to your seat.)

If that’s you, you’re sabotaging your career. Think of a business presentation as an audition for higher responsibilities. Everything else being equal, employers value those who communicate well.

Here’s my pitch: What you may need is not another workshop on presentation skills. Rather, you need a change in thinking. Do you see yourself as a reporter or an expert?

The reporter is the first guy I described who reads the Powerpoint word for word… and irritate the audience member who can read faster than you can speak.  He’s also the guy limited to the content on the screen. Throw him a question and he draws a blank, then pulls in an expert, usually the boss, to rescue him.

So why not be that expert? In doing so, the audience will see you as boss material. Here are some suggestions.

1. See the numbers as stories.

It’s one thing to rattle off the numbers. It’s another to tell the audience what they mean. Is there a problem? How bad is the problem? What do the data say is causing the problem? Where do you and the audience go from there?

Once you get the hang of this, you will be more conversational than robotic. What’s more, because you know what the numbers mean (and not mean), you won’t be caught flat-footed in the Q&A.

2. Use bullet points.

When you copy-paste a Word document to a deck, you didn’t actually create a deck. You might as well project the original Word and read from there. There’s no real difference! So why do people do it? Because it’s easy. In reading the text, you’d just be coasting along.

I’ll give an example in Part 2, as well as offering a third suggestion.

Meantime, if you know someone who struggles as a reporter, do that person a favor and share this post with him. He or she will thank you for it.

0 Comments

Sometimes a powerful question for personal change has the obvious answer of “no.”

For example, are you sure you want to eat that donut? And be one step closer to being unhealthy, maybe even diabetic and hypertensive? Is that who you want to be?

The power lies in connecting motivation with identity, which in turn is shaped by values. If you value short-term pleasure, then no wonder why it’s hard for you to resist that donut. But if you affirm your values of purpose and vitality, then the siren song goes down a few notches.

Let’s go back to that donut. What if you answer: “Who I want to be is someone who’s so healthy that I can enjoy life with my loved ones.”

I know you may still want that donut now and worry about life later (no thanks to temporal discounting). But I’d bet it will at least make you think twice before sinking your chompers on that sugary and fatty concoction.

So the next time you want to defeat that bad habit or spur yourself to be better, ask:

“Who do you want to be?”

0 Comments

If you’ve been in some meetings on succession planning, you may have heard some leaders saying, “Oh, my successor is not ready”, “She still has a lot to learn” or “Maybe after two more years.” Then as you ask for specifics, the discussion sinks into vagueness.

“He’s not ready.” So WHY is he not yet ready?

“She still has a lot to learn.” So what precisely does she have to learn and how can she learn them?

“Maybe after two more years.” So what needs to happen within those two years? (The “maybe” was a dead giveaway.)

In my experience, there are many who agree that succession planning is critical for business continuity, yet never get around to devote the three Ts: time, thinking, and tasking.

Obviously, intellectual assent is not enough. I’m also aware there may be emotional resistance, for example, the leader who ties his identity with his position and thus find it hard to let it go. Cue Idina Menzel’s song.

If you hesitate to do succession planning because it looks daunting to you, here’s a three-question starter kit:

What is holding your potential successor back from being ready?

Beware: that reason may be you. If you’re reluctant to have a successor, it helps to explore “What is making me reluctant?” Also, what is the unintended consequence of not having a successor? For me, I can’t take long vacations!

Then again, maybe the obstacle is in the successor. For example, he already knows the ropes but doesn’t believe he can do your job. In this case, perhaps what he needs is building up self-confidence in a safe environment.

What will make your successor ready?

I suspect we leaders are so busy that we want HR, specifically L&D, to make the successor ready. But that’s actually your job. HR is there to facilitate. If the issue is limited L&D, congratulations! You’re now his L&D.

If what your successor needs is core knowledge and skills, my favorite tool is an individual development plan using the 70-20-10 framework with scheduled check-ins. Co-create it with your successor because what YOU think he needs may be different from what HE thinks he needs.

For example, I knew my successor needed financial analysis skills. But I was surprised when he asked for training in public speaking. (P.S. He’s now with Toastmasters.)

What will tell you that he is ready?

Unless you’re immortal, you cannot have a succession plan that extends forever. So have a clear end-in-mind that will be documentable evidence that he is ready to do your job. Is it him finishing a capstone project? Chairing meetings? Making presentations?

Remember, the enemy of succession planning is vagueness; that includes how it will turn out in the end.

So the next time the business owner asks you, “Do you have a successor?”, have the delight of replying, “Yes. In fact, he’s ready now.”

Who knows? Maybe that business owner will say, “Great! Now I can promote you.”

0 Comments

Cry for Help

May 13, 2024


As we celebrate InternationalCoachingWeek, here is my humble contribution to the craft.

Early on my coaching training, a valuable tip I got from a mentor coach is this: “Nelson, listen carefully to the client. What is this REALLY all about?”

Yet as I go through coaching training and observe my fellow trainees, I notice that a challenge that keeps cropping up is the ability to shift from the what to the who.

For example, the client told his coach, “I want to have an action plan for a better relationship with my boss.”  Then as the conversation flowed on, the client shared, “I know I should talk with my boss, but I keep postponing it.”

In a heartbeat, the arena has shifted from the what (making the action plan) to the who (unable to go through with it).

A good coach would have picked this up and explored what’s behind the postponing. Instead, the coach-in-training kept asking the client what he would say to the boss. He may even end the session without tackling this personal aspect. An opportunity for powerful insight and transformation is lost.

Some possible reasons why this is so:

  • We don’t know what to do when the client expresses angst.
  • We feel awkward or clueless when that happens.
  • We don’t know where the transformational route will lead to. And that scares us.
  • We may not even know how to process our own feelings.
  • We prefer action than empathy.
  • We are too cerebral. The client may be cerebral, too.

Whatever the reason may be, a good coach partners with the client to evoke awareness for meaningful breakthroughs. Transactional approaches like GROW have their own value in solving a client’s problem. But what if the problem lies within the client himself?

In one practice session, I heard a client say, in effect, “I know what to do, I know it is important for me, so why am I not doing it?” Three words came to my mind: Cry. For. Help.

I agree that this can be a bias or judgment on my part. But my thesis is that if our ears are pricked when the client seems to send us an SOS, it motivates us to park the transactional and explore what is this really all about.

The subtle trap is that when the coach hears a “cry for help”, his impulse is to jump to the rescue and switch to advising mode. Resist the Messiah complex. There is a wonderful paradox about coaching: while the client senses his need for help, he is complete and capable to find that help within the co-creative coaching process.

We are all learning. In a practice session, I thought I nailed the who part. Then the mentor coach showed how I could have gone deeper. I was, like, “Why didn’t I catch that?” But I welcome exercises like this to sharpen my ears for that cry for help so I can serve my clients better.

Mastery is a journey, not a destination. So if my post has raised your responsiveness to the client’s who, then I count that as a huge win.

Happy coaching!

0 Comments

Looking for a specific
topic? Search below,

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors