This is the pessimistic trick to sounding confident at work

This is the pessimistic trick to sounding confident at workThis is the pessimistic trick to sounding confident at workur ideas seem to lose a lot of their cogency when presented in front of our peers. Unfortunately, if you inhabit the corporate ecosystem learning how to package your input in neat digestible sentences cant really be circumvented. Even for people that are fundamentally anxious or insecure, there are field-tested methods to advertising confidence when speaking before your colleagues.Here are a few tips from a panicky, self-loathing, marble-mouthed, incompetent pessimist.Follow Ladders on FlipboardFollow Ladders magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and moreBe humble and expect the worstThis one has helped me quite a bit.Savage insecurity makes expressing my half-baked ideas particularly difficult. I get choked up, like tea leaves in a sink. Talking in front of more than two people sends me in a panic. A method that has done wonders for bringing me back down to earth comes from the teachings of Seneca Nothing comes to the wise man despite his expectation.A lot of the anxiety that fuels public speaking is based out of predetermined outcomes. The fear that everything will go wrong is really the desperation for every single thing to go right. Why should it though?Yielding to the potential for unadulterated disaster is both freeing and sobering. Conceive a realistic worst-case scenario. You say a word wrong, you speak a little too quickly, maybe you drop a gasser or two mid-sentence. Life goes on. Youre no less qualified and youll have plenty more time to prove that to anyone that might be presently ambivalent.Seth Gordin, best selling author of This Is absatzwirtschaft You Cant Be Seen Until You Learn To See, puts the nail on the head when he defines our fear of failure in truth to be a fear of criticism. Criticism from our colleagues and criticism from ourselves.Its all a matter of perception. Take y our time, take critique in stride and remember one day youll be dead forever, what does one meeting matter?No-one actually cares about youThis one sounds negative but it isnt.A good chunk of insecurity is arrogance misinterpreted. The idea that one fumble in a meeting at 8 am on a Tuesday will live on in the hearts and minds of your peers for centuries is self-aggrandizing. Your peers are just as self-absorbed as you are. Theyre way too busy beating themselves up to notice that you said Ruth Gator Ginsburg. Twice. Over the course of two separate days.More importantly the pressure to not screw up implies youre above it. Finnegans Wake, written by James Joyce has a pretty gnarly typo in it (come in). Stan Lee forgot Spider-Mans name in one of the early issues so hes referred to as Peter Palmer.If thats not enough, take famous celebrity commentator Al Sharpton for example.In an homage to the late Aretha Franklin,Sharpton spelled respect wrong on TV, broadcasted all across America. Mist akes happen. Sharpton alsomispronounced the word giddy.on a popular TV show broadcasted all over America. You think that kept him down? Hes human like the rest of us. He kept trucking. And you can too.It could always be much worse.Avoid double worryingLastly, dont worry until you have to. When you actually put your foot in your mouth allow yourself a little freak-out time but theres no point in experiencing it twice.Make a point to talk much-much slower than you would normally, Our speech is received much quicker to other people than we think.Make eye contact. Talk slow, anticipate the worst, and pretend the best is unachievable. There are zero stakes.You might also enjoyNew neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happyStrangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds10 lessons from Benjamin Franklins daily schedule that will double your productivityThe worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs10 habits of mentally stron g people