To Sound Professional & Confident, Avoid Speaking Like This. | 7 Tips

You want to sound professional and  confident when you speak in English.

To do that, avoid these seven bad habits that  make you sound unprofessional and not confident.

Number one, stop apologizing.

Of course, if you spill your coffee  on someone, you should apologize.

There are many times in your  life when you should apologize.

You do not have to apologize before you  ask a question or before you share an idea.

Sorry, I just have one question.

This shows that you're not that  confident in your ideas or in  

yourself and you're not sure if you  deserve the time or attention you do.

You do deserve it and I understand  you might want to sound polite when  

you say I'm sorry but and then you ask a question.

But there's a better way to sound polite and  still sound confident, still sound assured.

You can say excuse me but  and then ask your question.

Or if this is a good time,  I'd like to share an idea.

You can still add phrases that sound polite,  but when you say sorry but I have a question,  

it makes you sound not very  confident #2 and the upspeak?

Upspeak is when you have a rising  intonation at the end of your sentence.

You know, where everything has a  question mark at the end of it,  

with an upward inflection at  the end of every sentence.

You may be familiar with this because this is how  

we ask questions in English  when it's a yes, no question.

Do you have time?

Can you complete that today?

Notice you end by rising up.

Can you complete that today?

Because it's a yes, no question.

But if you're saying this as a statement, I can  complete that today and you rise at the end,  

it sounds like you're not sure that you can  complete it because it sounds like a question.

I can complete that.

Can you?

Are you sure you can to add  confidence in your statement?

Make sure you have a lowering intonation  when you're making a statement.

So let's practice that.

Let's practice purposely adding that upspeak  

so you know what it sounds  like and what it feels like.

I can complete that.

So that come up on add.

I can complete that.

You try.

I can complete that.

Now we don't want to do that.

We want to come down.

I can complete that.

So your tone comes down and your volume can  come down as well because your tone comes down.

I can complete that practice.

I can complete that.

So you can practice this record yourself.

See if you are using upspeak  at the end of sentences.

Remember you can do this at the  end of questions specifically.

Yes, no questions but for statements you want a  lowering intonation #3 stop criticizing yourself.

I'm sure you might not even see this as criticism,  but when you make a statement like I'm not very  

good at public speaking, I don't know how  to use Excel, I've never done that before.

These, you might think, are just  truths and you're telling the truth.

But there's a time and a place  to reveal this information.

And sharing this with your boss, your colleagues,  your clients is not the time or place.

You can tell your friend, I'm  not very good at public speaking.

I'm terrified of sharing my ideas in public.

But this is not information that you want to  reveal when you're in a professional situation,  

because if you don't have confidence in  your abilities, why would anybody else?

So you have to first have confidence in yourself  before other people will have confidence in you.

So instead of saying I'm terrible  at public speaking, simply stay.

Although I haven't had a lot  of experience public speaking,  

this is an area I'm committed to improving.

So you can still acknowledge the truth in  the situation but turn it into a positive.

I haven't used Excel in the past, but  I'm confident I can learn it quickly.

These are the types of statements you  want to share in a professional situation.

And of course, you can tell  your friends, your family,  

that you're in fact terrified of speaking  in public #4 keep qualifiers to a minimum.

What's a qualifier?

There are words like kind of sort of  probably maybe they add some doubt.

So if you say I'm kind of ready, I'm  sort of prepared, I can probably do it.

These add doubt and they make the  person you're talking to feel like  

you're not that confident in your own abilities.

And again, like we just talked about, if  you're not confident in your abilities,  

other people will also not be confident.

So instead of saying I'm kind of prepared,  just drop the qualifier drop kind of.

I'm prepared, I'm well prepared.

I spent the time preparing #5 slow down.

This one might be hard for you because there  are a lot of videos, I have them myself,  

that teach you how to speak faster  because native speakers speak fast.

The thing is that in those videos, you're  speaking fast by using connected speech.

You're not necessarily increasing the pace,  the speed that you're talking, but it sounds  

fast because you're connecting your speech and  you're not adding pauses, which sounds unnatural.

So that's the purpose of those videos.

Don't confuse this with needing to increase  your speed so you speak really, really fast.

Because as a natural tendency  of our body when we are nervous.

Let's say you were in a situation,  

you were walking alone at night and you heard  some noises and your heart starts racing.

And then you call someone to tell them you'll  

probably speak faster than  your normal speaking pace.

Because when we're nervous, your speech increases.

So if you're giving a presentation  or you're in a job interview,  

or you're sharing your ideas in a meeting and  you're speaking really fast, first of all,  

it may be difficult for people to understand  you, especially if you also speak with an accent.

But second of all, it sounds like you're nervous.

Even though you might not be nervous at all,  but speaking fast is a sign of nervousness.

There are two things you can do to slow your pace.

One, you can add pauses.

You can do this before introducing  an important point to build suspense.

You can also do this by shortening your sentences.

So rather than having one sentence with  three different pieces of information,  

you can share one idea, pause, share another  idea, pause, and then share a final idea.

Number six, stop mumbling.

When you mumble, it means  you don't open your mouth  

wide enough for the sound to be fully produced.

When someone Mumbles, it's very  difficult to understand them,  

and because they mumble, their  volume is automatically quieter.

So also, if you speak quietly, it's a sign  that you're nervous and you lack confidence.

But you might not be nervous, it's  simply because you're mumbling.

So right now this is an example of mumbling.

So notice my mouth isn't opening very wide.

Right then it was probably more  difficult to understand me,  

and it was probably slightly quieter as well.

So simply by opening your mouth, it  forces you to produce more of the sound.

Your volume will automatically  be louder, but your sounds will  

be easier to understand because you open  your mouth more #7 Reduce word fillers.

Word fillers are those words that have  no meaning like well, but but so well,  

you know that we add as we're forming our ideas.

Have you ever had a dreams that that you you  had you you you could you do you you want?

You, you could do so You you  do you could you, you want.

You want so you could be sharing your idea in  a meeting and say, well, you know, if we finish  

the the report by next Thursday, well then the  client, yeah, the client, the client will be OK.

So you added a lot of word fillers  as you're thinking of your ideas.

This is totally normal.

Native speakers use many, many word fillers.

You probably use them in your own language.

They're actually very easy to reduce.

Your goal isn't to eliminate them 100%.

Simply aim to reduce them.

And every month you can try to reduce them more  

and more until you use only one  to two word fillers per idea.

And you can do that simply  by adding a silent pause.

So as you're thinking of the information,  you just vocalize that you're thinking,  

so we went to this, oh, this  restaurant called, oh, what's the name?

So as you're thinking of the name of the  restaurant, you're just verbalizing your thought.

Instead say we went to this restaurant called.

What's the name of that restaurant?

Yes, it's called and then you  can eventually find the name.

And sure, there will be pauses,  but would you rather listen to  

10 seconds of pausing or 10 seconds of  you would rather listen to the pauses?

So adding a silent pause is a very easy solution.

The best advice I have for you  is to record yourself speaking  

and look for these areas that you need to improve.

Do you speak too quickly?

Do you mumble?

Do you use too many word fillers?

Do you use up speak?

And you can listen to yourself and  then you can identify which areas  

you need to improve and focus  on improving one at a time.

Now that you feel confident sharing  your ideas, you need the vocabulary.

Watch this lesson right now  to fill your vocabulary.