Tristan de Montebello: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah. The third one is staying in character. And these go hand in hand. And what's really powerful is when you start doing these, there's a beautiful feedback loop that happens that gives you a lot of confidence. So staying in character I said is the one that's going to make you feel more confident. What's staying in character? So it's related to end strong in some sense, in that people tend to self-sabotage a lot. I'm speaking, and obviously as I'm speaking, all of my senses are really, really heightened. So I'm aware of everything, if a word comes out a little bit weird or if it's not the word that I was expecting to hear come out of my mouth, I'm going to be very aware of that because I was expecting something and something different happens. But that happens all the time when speaking. I'm starting to not make as much sense or I feel like I'm rambling, going a little bit too long. All of these create insane noise in the back of my mind, the insecurities. And you have a choice there, because I can tell you right now, nobody can tell. People cannot see what you feel, even though it feels that way when you feel really, really strongly, but people can't see it. You're just looking like a normal speaker, competent and confident. But internally, it feels like everybody can see. So you're feeling all this insecurity and it feels like there's an elephant in the room. And so what most people do is they start leaking and they break character. And they'll say, "Oh, man, I'm not making sense right now," or they'll laugh nervously after saying a word that came out weird, which is kind of saying like, "Oh, I also noticed that this word came out weird and it's okay." Right? Or they'll keep letting all of the insecurities and doubts come out when people didn't see it in the first place. So again, it's like I'm forcing these filters onto my audience and now they can only see me through that light. And so one analogy I love for this is, again, a flying analogy. You're on the plane, everything's smooth, you're having a great time watching your movie, and suddenly you're interrupted by the pilot who picks up the intercom and says, "Oh, ladies and gentlemen, so I just had a red light start blinking here in the cockpit, and I'm not sure what this is. It could be really bad, honestly, but I don't know. So don't worry, please, I'll get back to you soon." First thing that's going to happen if you experience that is you're going to think, I wasn't worrying in the first place. But then you start thinking, wait, something probably is going wrong. And now the smallest noise, the tiny little bit of turbulence, a creak on the right, you're going to start thinking, oh no, we're going to die, every time. So you're going to make any little mistake, any little imperfection, you're going to turn that into something big. That's what happens when you speak. thinking, oh no, we're going to die, every time. So you're going to make any little mistake, any little imperfection, you're going to turn that into something big. That's what happens when you speak. If you start leaking and letting the insecurities come out, people are going to start thinking, this person doesn't really know what they're talking about. It's like a leader who isn't clear in their direction. Suddenly I'm thinking, wait, I think I have to second guess everything here because I'm not sure about this guy or this person. And the good news is, the solution is very, very simple. The solution is that is just, don't share your insecurities. Put your best foot forward and stay in it the whole time. Stay in character from beginning all the way through past the ending, because you go all the way through your speech, then you got to end strong, which is a form of staying in character, and then let it be. And that's so important, just let it be and you're going to notice something incredible. If you're the type of person who would break character a lot, start staying in character, and the cue use for myself is, stay in it. And the worse it gets, the more I'll say, just stay in it. And what happens is, you stay in it. And you expect everybody at the end to say, "Oh my God, you looked so uncomfortable, what was happening?" But people can't see that, that you look confident. So they're just going to give you the reaction that a confident person would get, and you're going to notice, oh wow, I am coming off as confident, and that's going to make you feel more confident. And so it's a very reinforcing cycle. If you start staying in character and ending strong, naturally, you're going to be reinforced by this behavior and you're going to realize, oh, I didn't need to break character. I didn't need to hedge every time I spoke, and that's going to give you much more confident, and you're going to start realizing, people just look confident by default. This is a crazy thing. I want everybody to walk around the world and look at people and think, most of the people I'm looking at are actually nervous right now. You're going to look at them and you're like, I can't tell. Most people speaking up in meetings are feeling a level of nervousness, but you can't tell unless it's through the roof. I love this, and it's something I'm extremely guilty of. And I think the reason I do this and the reason I think a lot of people leak, which I love that term of just I don't leak, that you know, feel something's not going right. The reason I do it is I feel like me being upfront, I know this isn't great-…

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