Speaking with Confidence: Why You Can't Get There by Proving Yourself
Learn how speaking with confidence isn't about proving yourself. Discover why new leaders struggle with status anxiety and how to access your natural presence.
There's a moment that happens when you step into a new role. Or join a new company. Or find yourself in a room full of people who've been doing this longer than you.
Your chest tightens. You speak faster. You find yourself adding extra credentials to every sentence, as if your expertise needs a permission slip.
I see this all the time. Brilliant people—people who know their work inside and out—suddenly performing competence instead of embodying it. They want to learn speaking with confidence, but they're going about it backward.
And here's the thing: You can't speak with real confidence when you're busy proving yourself.
They're incompatible states. One is presence. The other is performance.
The Validation Void We're All Feeling
Right now, so many of us are navigating newness. New leadership roles. New teams. New expectations in uncertain times.
And when you're new, there's this unspoken pressure to establish credibility immediately. To show everyone you deserve to be there. To fill what I call the validation void—that gap between how competent you are and how competent you think others perceive you to be.
So you overwork. You over-prepare. You add disclaimers to your ideas. You shrink your language to make space for everyone else's authority.
You think this is what confidence requires.
But here's what's actually happening: Every time you try to prove yourself, you're reinforcing the belief that you're not enough as you are.
What Speaking with Confidence Actually Looks Like
Speaking with confidence isn't about having all the answers. It's not about eliminating doubt or anxiety.
Confidence is being present with the anxiety. It's trusting your expertise even when your nervous system is screaming otherwise.
When you're proving yourself, your attention is split. Half of you is speaking. The other half is monitoring how you're being perceived, adjusting in real-time, managing everyone else's comfort.
When you're speaking with confidence, your attention is consolidated. You're here. You're listening. You're responding to what's actually in the room instead of the imagined judgment you're trying to outrun.
My mom is a mime. I grew up watching her command rooms without words—through nothing but attention and intention.
And I still struggled with social anxiety. Still couldn't speak up around authority. Still felt my voice disappear in certain contexts.
Because confidence isn't a personality trait you either have or don't. It's a practice. A choice to stop performing and start being present.
The Real Work
The gap between your expertise and your ability to articulate it? That's not a communication problem.
You communicate perfectly when you're comfortable. With your team. With your friends. When the stakes feel lower.
The struggle is situational. It's systemic.
You defer to authority even though you have the expertise. That's not a flaw in you. That's a response to systems designed to keep your voice small. Status anxiety makes sense.
You're not broken. The rooms are broken.
So the work isn't about fixing your voice. It's about liberating it.
It's about stopping the compliance and performance. Stopping the over-preparing and self-monitoring. Using your empathy as the focusing tool it was always meant to be.
How to Start Speaking with Confidence Right Now
If you're new to leadership, new to your role, or navigating a transition—stop trying to prove yourself into confidence.
Speaking with confidence isn't about collecting more credentials or working harder to impress others. It's about presence.
Instead:
Get present. When you notice yourself performing, bring your attention back to your breath, back to the person across from you, back to what you actually know.
Trust your expertise. You wouldn't be in this role if you didn't belong here. The validation you're seeking from others? You already have the credentials. You need to give them to yourself.
Speak from impact, not defense. Instead of justifying your presence, focus on the value you're here to create. What does this room need from you? Lead with that.
Stop filling the silence with credentials. You don't need to list your resume every time you speak. Your ideas can stand on their own.
The world needs people who can speak truth clearly. Who can articulate what matters. Who can align their voice with their values.
Not next year. Not when you've practiced enough or proven yourself sufficiently.
Right now.
Because you already have what you need. You just have to stop performing long enough to access it.
Want to Know Your Patterns?
If you're wondering why speaking with confidence feels so elusive in certain moments—why you're brilliant with your team but tongue-tied with executives, why you can write clearly but speak in circles—it's not random.
There are specific patterns at play. And once you see them, you can shift them.
I created a free assessment to help you identify exactly how status anxiety shows up for you and what to do about it.
Take the Confidence Style Assessment →
In 2 minutes, you'll discover:
Your specific communication pattern under pressure
Why certain rooms trigger your anxiety while others don't
Practical tools designed for your natural style (not generic "power poses")
How to access your expertise even when your nervous system is activated
The assessment gives you a personalized playbook based on how you actually communicate—not how someone else thinks you should.
Because the work isn't about becoming someone else. It's about being more fully yourself.
