Hello, Advanced English learners. Welcome back. Today I'm going to be sharing how you can sound more professional in your interactions in English, and this goes for the interactions that you have at work as well as in casual settings, but the point is that you are going to come across as more professional, assertive, and confident.

If you're ready, let's get into it.

All right. For the first tip here, I want you to focus on being calm and centered. This is really going to show up in your nonverbal communication. As we know, communication is not just what we speak; the words we say, but it's also the body language we use, the gestures we use, what we do with our faces, the expressions we make, what the micro expressions are, those really quick expressions that flash on our faces for a few seconds.

So to do this, you want to adopt a stance of calm. And one way to show calmness is by smiling. Have relaxed body language. Stand up straight. You want your shoulders to be back if you're sitting or if you're standing and you want to have what we call in communication and public speaking, training an open stance.

So instead of hunching your shoulders and rounding your shoulders and making a C curve with your. Imagine, being curled up in front of your computer. We don't want that kind of posture. Instead, we want our shoulders to be open and back. We want our chest out, we want our chin up and high. We want the back of our necks to be straightened.

That's what we mean by having an open stance. This invites positivity. It creates confidence within your own mind as well as projecting it onto others. So the very first step is to start by communicating without words with our body language, only with our nonverbal communication. That is the first step.

The second step for you here is to adopt a power pitch. So what I mean by this is think of a time where you're really confident explaining something to someone or confident with the person that you're interacting with. You'll notice that you automatically use a lower tone of voice. Now, everyone's tone of voice spectrum is going to be different.

Some people have naturally higher pitched voices, others have lower pitched voices. But for you personally, your power pitch is the pitch at which you can assert yourself with confidence and imagine explaining something to someone. You have no doubts about what you're explaining. You're not lacking confidence, you're not feeling insecure.

So I want you to think back to a time when you adopt this kind of tonality and you want to replicate that you want to use that in these kinds of situations where you want to be assertive, you want to show someone that you are confident, you want people to take you seriously. You want people to respect you. So one way of doing that is by adopting your power pitch.

Using that, and then also thinking about your deeper tones of voice.

Again, for everyone that's going to be different, but the point is find your own power pitch and keep using that.

The other thing to do is to make sure that you are not ending a sentence with rising intonation. If you end a sentence with rising intonation, you're probably asking a question, and if you don't intend to ask a question, then you should not raise your intonation at the end of your sentence.

If I were to say, Do you want any coffee? I'm about to go out. I'm about to go to the coffee shop. Do you want any coffee? That's a question. 

Please have the reports on my desk by noon. But if I were to say, please have the reports on my desk by noon? That's asking a question, that's giving them an option to have the reports on your desk by noon.

They might not have it on your desk by noon. So you see how important it is to be aware of those intonations at the end of a sentence as well. When you're asking a question, it's okay, you're going to raise the intonation at the end of the question. 

But if you are being assertive and you're making a statement, then you're going to lower your intonation. 

Also, being mindful of not trailing your voice off at the end. Make sure that even the last word can be audible, can be heard. You don't want to swallow the words at the end. You don't want to chew them up so that nobody can hear them.

You want to make sure that you end on a strong note. I even like to think when I am speaking, especially when I'm trying to make an important point, like I'm in a meeting or in an interview or in a sales pitch setting, any type of professional setting where I need to be on my A game. I consider even raising my volume ever so slightly with my last few words to make sure that I'm not trailing off at the end and just slowly being quiet, right? So I'm exaggerating there, but you can definitely hear yourself do this if you pay attention to it. So please be mindful of not trailing your voice off at the end.

All right. Strategy number three. Don't rush. It is not a race to speak the fastest. You will notice that the people who are deemed powerful, that seem powerful, that seem like they have a lot of clout and authority in the office or in the cafe or whatever space you find yourself in.

You'll notice that they're very deliberate, even with their body language, even with the way they're walking. They're not in a rush. When they speak, every word seems to have import. It is of value. Part of that is because they're taking time to think. They're not just blurting out whatever comes to mind.

They might even have a mental outline that they're going through in their head, and it's a matter of thinking about word choice. So don't feel like you need to speak as fast as native speakers. I want you to get that thought out of your head. I know that for many of you, it could be a goal. That's a fine goal to have, but when we're talking about trying to assert ourselves and sound more professional and be taken seriously, I really want you to think about not rushing.

Be mindful of the words you use. Be mindful of the way you're expressing it with your tone of voice, with the body language, with your facial expressions and your hand gestures. How are you carrying yourself? So all of these can be done in non rushed movements. Okay? So it'll give you a lot of time to think.

It'll give you time to let the audience, let the interlocutors, the other people that you're talking with, time to process what you're saying so that they're on the same page as you. And it's a great way to show your confidence. Confident people are not frazzled, they're not rushing into things. They're not all over the place, scattered about being a scatter brain.

They're calm, they're confident. They're taking it slow. They're not rushed. So these are all great things to keep in mind. And also it'll lower your nerves too. So being in a non rushed way, mentally and physically, you're also going to be telling your brain, "I'm calm, I'm not in fight or flight mode. There's no reason for me to panic."

So just by being more deliberate and not rushing with what you're saying, with what you're doing, with how you're walking is going to signal to your brain, "Hey, I'm calm. There's no issue here."

And that is going to enable you to perform even better.

And number four, strategy number four. Leave out the details. Cool, confident professional communication is about being descriptive without giving too many details.

There's no need for you to fill all of the air time with extraneous information. Just give the details that are necessary for communicating the message and anything else is irrelevant. If for some reason the listener is curious about something or needs that information to make a decision or weigh in or give their opinion, then guess what? They're going to ask for it.

They will ask you follow up questions. They will ask for clarification questions. They'll ask for elaboration questions, so let them do that. That's part of their job as a listener, right? If you are having a conversation with. Leave them to participate. Don't take up all of what they're going to say.

So if you leave them nothing to ask, if you just fill the air with talk, talk, talk too many details and such, then how are they going to participate? So you can think of it that way as well. Make it more participatory for the listener. That is a great thing to remember. So when you're talking to someone and you're maybe telling them about your weekend plans, you don't have to go into every single detail.

You might just say, I'm getting brunch with some college friends. You don't have to tell them where you're getting brunch, when you're getting brunch, with whom you're getting brunch. What you're going to order, what you're going to do after. So you get the idea. 

Or let's say you have a hiking trip planned next weekend. You can say, I'm planning on going hiking. You don't have to tell them what mountain, what trails you're going to do, where you're going to go with whom you're going, et cetera. If they want that information, they'll ask. If they're genuinely curious about it, they will follow up.

So amazing. Those are four actionable strategies that you can start doing right away as soon as in your next conversation. It really makes a difference with how you portray yourself with the confidence you are going to feel in English as you do these things. My recommendation for you: instead of sensory overload by doing all of these four things right away from the get go, I recommend that you take it one step at a time.

Choose one strategy to focus on. Once you're comfortable focusing on that strategy, add the second one and the third one and the fourth one, and so forth. That way you have time to [00:11:40] adjust. You feel more confident with the strategies, and you have time to practice. It's very important. I highly encourage you to try these out in the real world, in virtual interactions, in face to face communication, physical interactions.

You want to be able to try them out. You might not get them at the first try, and that's the point. You want to practice them, you want to fail. You want to have that learning experience, that teachable moment. If you don't, then you're not taking risks, then you're not going to level up and you're not going to be in the space that you want to be.

So it's extremely important that you try out the language. Try it out for yourself in different communication settings and see what works and what can be worked on, and what can be tweaked and how you can improve, and what sorts of things to think about in another interaction in a future conversation that you have.

All right. Amazing work thank you so much advanced English learners for joining me for this lesson, for spending time with me. I'm really proud of all the accomplishments you've made thus far. I look forward to hearing about your progress. I look forward to hearing how these strategies go for you. Share that with me in the q and a on Spotify, in the comments on YouTube, and feel free to send me a message as well.

You can reach out, we have a contact form on our website and you can just email me there. Also, I really encourage you to subscribe to the free mailing list that we have. I send out free worksheets based on the conversations that we have, that I do with Greg, and we have a great time doing that. So I hope that you enjoy those conversations as well.

They are a great way for you to improve your listening comprehension, your pronunciation, your vocab acquisition among other things. 

I also encourage you to check out Explearning our Communication channel, so definitely check that out. You might be interested in some of the lessons on there as well. 

We have over 500 lessons at this point between Advanced English and Explearning. So lots of content for you and I hope that you check out those strategies as well. Go to explearning.co. And you can also find us on YouTube and Spotify. All right. I will see you in the next one.

We're going to continue advancing your English together. Until then, keep up the awesome work and I will see you very soon. Bye for now.

About the Author and the Explearning Academy:

Mary Daphne is an expert in communication, executive skills and professional development. She is the founder of the Explearning Academy, a platform dedicated to helping individuals enhance their social fluency, boost their careers, and elevate their social game. Through immersive group coaching programs like the Executive Communication Lab and self-guided journeys, participants gain the social superpowers and career catapults they've been searching for. If you're ready to take your negotiation skills to the next level and connect with like-minded individuals, visit academy.explearning.co and explore the various plans available. Join the Explearning Academy community and unlock your full potential.

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