Confidence Recipe

Write Down the Ingredients

A financial services professional wanted to increase his confidence level when giving presentations to his prospective clients.  I asked him, “When you are confident, what do you notice?”  He began to list the conditions for confidence: Being relaxed, having a conversation that is natural and not forced, making a real connection with the person, keeping eye contact, being expressive, enjoying it, having good posture and standing tall, breathing, fully listening, and believing that I am giving a gift to the other person.

In reviewing his list, you can see there are both physical and mental components.  He then identified his top five and that became his recipe for confidence.  Even when he cannot control the circumstances 100%, some of the main conditions are within his command.

Cook it Up

What is your confidence recipe?  What conditions need to be in place?  Write them down and when the situation warrants, gather the ingredients and follow the directions.  In other words, use your recipe as a method of preparation.

Here are two other examples:

• A client of mine successfully prepared for what could have been a difficult conversation with her boss by focusing on two key ingredients in her confidence recipe: informing (rather than defending) and offering an idea.
• My confidence recipe for giving group presentations includes this key ingredient, given to me by a colleague: When you walk into the room, act as if they love you already.  Try this one!  It can dramatically impact your project and how you relate to the group.  I’ve known this technique to work for presentations, interviews, business proposals, and various other meetings.

File That Recipe

The next time you’re in a situation in which your confidence might be tested, a presentation, a challenging conversation with a coworker, or perhaps a social setting with several people you don’t know, have your confidence recipe handy and use it.