Clearly Speaking
Clearly Speaking

Unshakeable Confidence

Lynda Stucky Build Your Brand, Public Speaking

Did you know that June is National Smile Month?

I’d like to use National Smile Month as a campaign to boost your executive presence.  How?  Well, read on and discover how your smile can provide you with all of the self-confidence that you need to have all the executive presence you desire….

“Confidence is our inner perception of our ability to fulfill a job or role in society and it’s a learned behavior.”  Christy Glass. Ph.D., sociologist, Utah State University

Do you gravitate towards a confident personality?  If you do, it may be that you instinctively feel that you are in the hands of a person who doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Your self-assured colleague or manager appears more capable, happier and more relaxed which naturally puts you at ease.

Confidence is the trademark of many successful executives who have presence. By doing one simple action, you can slowly (or even quickly) build the confidence that you need in order to succeed in business and everywhere else.

All You Need to Do is Smile​

Smiling is the key ingredient to conveying confidence.  Smiling conveys warmth, approachability and trustworthiness.  Smiling also increases your credibility.

Smiling has a lot of health, psychological, social and physical perks if you use it generously, too. Just look at the list of positive changes that can happen just by smiling more often.

  • Improve your vocal resonance (your soft palate lifts when you smile)
  • Elevate your mood
  • Lower your blood pressure
  • Relieve your stress
  • Improve your relationships
  • Boost your immune system
  • Relieve your pain
  • Increase your life span

(From: The Top 7 Health Benefits of Smiling by Erin Coleman)

Lacking Self-Confidence in the Business World

On Being Trustworthy

“People need to like you before they will buy into your products or your ideas or even you.”  Professor Deepak Malhotra, professor in Negotiation, Organizations and Markets at the Harvard Business School

According to a study done by Schmidt, Levenstein and Ambadar, facial attractiveness is associated with a variety of positive social characteristics including trustworthiness. Since a smile is attractive, the lack of smiling may be sending the message of not being trustworthy.  Have you ever observed two sales people vying for your business and one is smiling and the other is not?  Which one do you trust more?

How to achieve a sincere, authentic smile.

A trustworthy smile has a name—Duchenne (named after a French physician named Duchenne).  A Duchenne smiles look like this:

  1. Reaches up into the eyes. (Your wrinkles are showing and your eyes are half-shut.)
  2. Takes longer to spread out over the face.
  3. Held longer.
  4. Looks symmetrical

Here’s an activity you can try to become aware of your smiling behaviors….

1. Stand in front of a mirror for a few minutes and just smile to analyze your smile.  Ask yourself these questions:

  1. Does your smile seem sincere?  If it doesn’t, think about something that makes you happy and look again.
  2. Can you see those wrinkles around your eyes?
  3. Is your smile and face symmetrical?
  4. Is it difficult to hold your smile?  (If so, keep trying to hold it longer.)
  5. How do you feel overall?

2. Become aware of your smile habits in other places

Since awareness is the first step of any behavior that you want to change, begin to be aware of your smile in your everyday activities. What is your facial expression when….

  1. You listen to someone?
  2. You drive in the car?
  3. You exercise?
  4. You work at your computer?

Think about all the different areas of your life and begin to pay attention to your expression.  Are you smiling or frowning?

3. Practice smiling in other situations

Once you are aware, you can begin to try smiling for some of the situations that you would like to do better.

Did you Know?

  • You can smile first before you are happy because a smile triggers a mind state and causes your brain to be happy.)

Confidence is a key ingredient to having great executive presence. This effortless and free facial expression not only makes you look more approachable and friendly, smiling will give you the confidence and trustworthiness that you need in order to persuade and get people to listen.

Communicate Confidently to Transform Your Impact in the World

If you are ready to overcome your self-doubt and feel confident about the way you sound, this free checklist gives you the speech, language and voice competencies you must master.  Claim yours here.

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