The Quiet Warrior Podcast with Serena Low

106. Competent to Captivating: Presence, Influence & the Courage to Be Yourself (with John Ball)

• Serena Low, Introvert Coach for Quiet Achievers and Quiet Warriors

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In this thoughtful and deeply grounded conversation, Serena is joined by John Ball, keynote speaker, presentation coach, and host of the Present Influence Podcast, to explore what it means to be impactful — especially for introverts and quiet achievers.


John shares his unconventional journey from flight attendant to professional speaker, and how discovering coaching, communication, and improv reshaped not only his career, but his sense of self. 


Together, Serena and John unpack the myth that confident speaking is about performance or extroversion, and instead reveal why presence, authenticity, and self-trust are the real foundations of influence.


In this episode, we explore:

  • Why so many introverts feel most energised by quiet, nature, and solitude
  • The surprising link between improvisation and confidence
  • What “presence” really means when speaking or leading
  • Why confidence comes from experience — not personality
  • The importance of embracing the learning curve (and the dip)
  • How humour and lightness create connection, even for serious thinkers
  • The difference between influence and persuasion
  • Why authenticity isn’t oversharing — it’s self-ownership
  • How to build influence without pretending to be extroverted
  • What quiet achievers need to remember when stepping into visibility


Memorable Quote


“The best speakers aren’t trying to impress — they’re trying to connect. Influence comes from being real, not from performing.”
— John Ball


Key Takeaways for Quiet Achievers

  • You don’t need to be loud to be impactful — presence speaks louder than volume
  • Confidence grows through practice, not perfection
  • Being authentic doesn’t mean sharing everything — it means being grounded in who you are
  • Influence is built through warmth, clarity, and self-trust
  • The audience is usually rooting for you more than you think
  • Growth requires patience — and compassion for yourself along the way


About John Ball

John Ball is a keynote speaker, presentation coach, and host of the Present Influence Podcast. He helps speakers, coaches, and leaders move from competent to captivating by developing confidence, presence, and authentic communication.


Learn more about John and his work at:
https://presentinfluence.com


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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

SPEAKER_01:

Hi, I'm Serena Little. If you're used to hearing that introverts are shy, anxious, antisocial, and lack of good communication and leadership skills, then this podcast is for you. You're about to fall in love with a calm, introspective, and profound person that you are. Discover what's fun, unique, and powerful about being an introvert and how to make the elegant transition from quiet achiever to quiet warrior in your life and work, anytime you want, in more ways than you imagined possible. Welcome. Hello and welcome. Today's guest on the Quiet Warrior Podcast is John Ball. John is a keynote and presentation coach who mostly works with professional speakers, coaches, and leadership teams, helping their communication go from competent to captivating. John is the host of the Present Influence Podcast, the professional speaking show for experts who want to create impact, influence, and inspiration with their talks. John also co-hosts the Coaching Clinic podcast with his good friend Angie. Welcome, John, to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you for inviting me on, Serena.

SPEAKER_01:

John, I would love to ask you about your professional journey. How did you come to do what you do now?

SPEAKER_02:

It's a very roundabout journey, but I will try and summarize it as best I can for you. I used to be a flight attendant, which is very far away from what I do now. But during that time, I was introduced to the world of coaching by another flight attendant who did that. And I started training as a coach. This is what I want to do. But in that journey of learning coaching, I also discovered the world of training and professional speaking. And so it just seemed to flow and build from there that when I saw people being able to make careers as trainers or be able to get on stage and be a professional speaker, things that I didn't even know you could do as a career when I was growing up, I knew that that was maybe the frustrated actor in me, but that was something that I really wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01:

Beautiful. And do you consider yourself an introvert? Where do you sit on the spectrum of introversion and extroversion?

SPEAKER_02:

I've always considered myself to be an introvert, but I've I've been given pause for thought more recently. Um I'm an introvert who can definitely be extrovert at times. So I can push myself to be ambivert in certain situations. And there was recently a psychologist in the US, I think from New York, who came up with uh a new, a new categorization called Otrovert, which is really more for people who maybe are more naturally introverted in general, but with the right people in the right environments, feel comfortable and confident enough to be more extrovert and put themselves out more. I thought, yeah, that that does seem to fit for me. So yeah, I I probably could identify with that more, but in terms of where I energize myself more, where I recuperate best, it's usually by myself, peace and quiet. I like to be out by a lake or um reading quietly in a room, and that energizes me more than anything else.

SPEAKER_01:

It sounds like we're quite similar then. I think I've been uh an introvert all my life, and reading quietly in a room is my idea of a chaos.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's bliss to me. Uh yeah, a bit of sometimes a bit of classical music in the background, and uh yeah, just uh a good book and uh a bit of peace and quiet. I I love it. In fact, uh the older I get, the more I appreciate being able to go to places outside the city where I live where it's where it's peaceful, where there's no traffic noise, and you really feel the tranquility that much more when the ambient noise around you is not really there.

SPEAKER_01:

I actually agree with you. I've heard a lot of introverts say that the older they get, the more they crave that peace and quiet and they value their energy. And finding those places that are soothing to the senses, that don't overwhelm, overstimulate. I think that's a rare thing. And that's it's wonderful to be able to find those pockets and just completely relax and not have to do anything.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I I think I first really started to notice that on my honeymoon. This is nearly nearly 10 years ago. But we did we went to the um national parks on the west coast of the US and it was beautiful. Honestly, I would love to do that or something similar. Again, there's so many national parks that I'd love to go to, but it was being out in nature, being away from all the hustle and bustle, having real peace and quiet. And then going to a city afterwards, like we went from I think it was from Yosemite to San Francisco, the contrast was actually a shock to the system. And then we had the pandemic and we were all locked away for ages. And then um, I think some part of just got used to that, used to that quietness and not having all that noise around, that it was almost jarring when it started to all come back. And and so now we actually have bought a place that's uh about an hour and a half out of the city, up in the mountains, near a lake, where we can go and escape to uh weekends or for longer breaks, and it really is peaceful.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's an introvert's idea of heaven. Well done.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, your discussion about the the pandemic has also reminded me that quite a few introverts I know have become even more introverted after the pandemic. I have had people tell me that they didn't feel like coming out to socialize, to come back into the community anymore. They just got used to being on their own and they are happy in their bubble.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. It's it's interesting to me that I some of my coaching clients are still very much finding that for themselves, that they don't really want to come back to how things were before, even though most, I think most people have gone back to life pretty much as normal, even though we all thought there was never going to be normal again. It it I think people were a bit more hardy on that than we might have thought. But certainly there are many people who just thought, no, actually, this is great. I know a lot of people who really struggled through that period of being a bit too isolated. For me, it was fine. But someone who already had been working remotely for years, it was no big deal for me to just carry on working remotely and just have a bit less of social life. There were some things that obviously wasn't particularly thrilled about, but it didn't really impact a lot in terms of my work and and how I live my life.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to talk to you about improv.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm looking at the keyboard in the background, and we were just having a conversation about jazz and jazz versus classical, and how you know, with classical, it's very structured, very orderly. And with jazz, you know, there's so much room for improvisation, but that doesn't come naturally to people. And you work in improv. Tell me all about improv because I can't improv to save my life.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I I would use that very loosely because uh I think most people would classify improv as being getting up and doing improv comedy or improv skits. And that's not really what I do, although I have done some of that. But I will do improvised talks and I will sometimes do a bit of improvised comedy. Um, but I tend to have improv is just one of the things that is not really something you get up and do completely unprepared. You generally have some practice before you want to get up on a stage and do that. You have some confidence that you can do it, you have a sense of where you can go and how you can do. But the the basic principle of improv in terms of performance is the yes and philosophy, which you may have come across before. And so it's never saying no, it's always saying yes and. What do I say to myself when I'm on stage? I'm generally not having any conversation with myself when I'm on there. I tend to be very in the moment. So I'm not stepping back from that. Um, I'm very present when I'm on stage, I'm present with my audience, and so I'm engaging with them. So if I'm thinking about anything, I might be thinking about what they might be thinking, or I'm looking at their reactions and responses as well, and I'm I'm reacting to that. But that's more instinctual now than anything else. I'm not having to say to myself, all right, they're uh not smart, or they don't seem to be engaging. Maybe I should uh do something to change that. Um, it it just happens. I I see like audiences saying I'm responsive for a while, states aren't changing, someone's maybe being a bit disruptive somewhere, I can automatically respond to those things. Whereas maybe uh early on, I had to be a bit more conscious about that. So I say no, I'm not really in my head when I go on stage. I'm very present with being there and kind of want to enjoy the experience as well rather than be, I think it one of those things where we get if we get in our head when we're on a platform, there's a good chance we're gonna forget what we want to say or distract ourselves. Uh and so it's not generally a good place to be.

SPEAKER_01:

What would you say to someone who is not yet at that level of confidence or experience in speaking publicly, but they know they need to get there for professional purposes or just you know building their own business and they need to be more visible? How do you how do you help them be more present, more confident?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I there there are exercises we can do to help to ground you and to have less nurses when you go up on stage. But ultimately, confidence is really only going only going to come from experience and practice. And so the more prepared and rehearsed you are when you go up on a stage, the better. Because you're going to be more confident that you know what you're talking about, you're not going to forget it, you're well prepared, you've run through it enough times. As a fellow musician, you know that if you're learning a piece of music, you're not ready to perform it until that is really in you, until you know that you know the music. You don't need to look at the score necessarily to follow it, although you might have it there for you know that that sort of safety thing. Um, but you don't need it. You you know the music. You can play the music, the music more channels through you than you having to consciously think about what notes come next. It's kind of in your fingers, it's in your body. It's the same kind of feeling you want to have when you're on stage, but it takes time to get there. And I think that's what people don't want to have to think about or accept is that it doesn't just happen. And it's not the case that somebody just gets up on stage and is an amazing speaker. Um, it's rare, it's very rare that someone just gets up and can do uh a fantastic job. But um, it's more the case that it's the practice that has to go into it and it's the people who have stuck with it longer. Have you ever come across uh a book by Seth Godin called The Dip?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I can't say I have.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a short book and it's well worth a read. The dip is this principle that when you start doing something, you have to, you're gonna have to accept that there's a dip in in your performance. You're not gonna be that good at it for a while. You're not gonna be wowing people, you're gonna be having to learn the basics and build yourself up on those steps of competence to be able to get from the conscious incompetence through to the unconscious competence. And it's quite a journey, but there's a dip on the way there, which means you're gonna seem like you really don't know it or that you're having to go really slow. You've got your training wheels on, and you're not gonna feel like a pro, you're gonna feel like a learner. And that's the case for everything, but we all want to avoid the dip. We all want to just be able to get up on stage. In fact, sometimes I think people even think that they should just be able to get up there and do magic. Um that there shouldn't even, that the dip doesn't even exist, but it does. And so if you want to be good at this, if you feel like you need to be greater speaking, presenting, talking on the stage, you have to accept that where you are now is your step one, your level one. And where you could be in a year from now could be your level 15, your level 20, you could be much more advanced if you're willing to put in the work. But if you just think we should just show up, wing it, get on stage, and should be amazing or scrape by, you're never really going to develop. So it is that case of having that lifelong student mindset of I'm always learning, I'm always looking for growth and development. Even now, as someone who's been speaking a long time, who other people might look and say, Oh, wow, it's so easy for you. It wasn't always, it wasn't always easy for me. And so um it you just have to accept that there's a journey to be taken and your level right now is not the same as someone else who's 20 steps ahead of you or more, who's been doing this a lot longer. You do not need to be as good as them. So it's a bit of that the difference between the fixed mindset and the growth mindset kind of thing is like if you're not good at it now, it doesn't mean you can't be good at it. You have to grow and develop and become good at it. Uh, it doesn't mean that you don't have talent or it's not not something you can do. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01:

It makes perfect sense. And I think the introverts and quiet achievers who are listening to this will be very relieved because they will recognize themselves in there. They are the ones with a growth mindset. They are the ones who are the lifelong learners who turn up to conferences and workshops with a notebook and pen all ready to take notes. They are the ones who who understand that that conscious incompetence that we all face at the start of every new thing that we've ever tried, every new piece of music that we're reading. Right. And it takes time, like you say, it takes practice to to develop that muscle memory where it becomes second nature, it becomes easy, and you actually transcend into another level and it becomes a state of flow. And that's a beautiful thing. And I think that's that is very much related to that being present and being in the moment that you described.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, if I could add to that, the um one of the things with more naturally introverted people, the quieter people are usually the most thoughtful, often the most self-critical as well. And you're probably going to be far more critical of your own speaking, your own performance than anyone else ever would be. And if you if it's not, if it's not something that you're well-versed in, well experienced in, it's maybe time to be a little bit kinder to yourself and to say, actually, I'm still learning this. I'm still at an early, it's hard to switch off the self-talk. I know. Um, you know, I came off from my first ever open mic night, spent about two hours. I did all right, I did all right, but uh I spent two hours afterwards pulling apart my whole set, and oh, that could have been better. And I had to remind myself, that was the first time I've ever done it. It's like maybe I should be a bit nicer to myself about this because I reminded myself of the dip. It's like this, it's gonna take a while to get to a level that I might want to be at with doing something like that if I'm gonna continue with it. So I would say that be kinder to yourself and try and uh be aware of where you might be criticizing yourself unfairly. Give yourself a break and say, you know what, I'm still learning this. And it's okay to not be great or to have made some mistakes, and uh, and people are actually much more accepting and understanding and supportive of these things than we give them credit for. It's us who tend to be hard on ourselves.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I agree with you. I think the the quiet achievers are particularly hard on themselves, very with a tendency towards perfectionism and needing to get it right on the first instance. And some of that is conditioning, some of that is, you know, childhood upbringing. But the idea is that we do get better. And I think just to circle back to something you said earlier on, it's important not to compare ourselves with what other people are doing, but also not to have this unrealistic picture in our minds of how quickly it should happen, and then feeling that I should be further along by now. I think that's another thing that we say to ourselves very often. I should be further along by now. We have this imaginary timeline or something that we aspire to and we think it should be quicker, we should learn faster because we've always been good at things and we've always set high standards. And why is this thing so hard?

SPEAKER_02:

Immediate gratification is a very real thing. We want it now. We want it, we want to be good now. We don't want to have to wait for anything. Um, but the things that are worth having generally are worth waiting for and worth putting in the time and the effort for. You know, it's uh it's not like the the film The Matrix, it's kind of dated now, I guess, but you know, you can't just plug yourself in and download all the knowledge and be instantly amazing at something. I think even if you could plug in all the knowledge, you still wouldn't have it physically in your body. You still wouldn't have it kind of programmed into yourself physically. Is it there is that is part of the flow of the application of knowledge, the actual experience that you have being a part of this as well. But it's um yeah, definitely a case of people who want to be much further ahead than they are now, but we have to life is lessons in patience. It's always lessons, lessons in patience. And uh, we should remind ourselves of that. It's like maybe there's a lesson I need to learn about being patient here and just accepting this is gonna take a bit of time.

SPEAKER_01:

What are some of the lessons you've learned from your time in public speaking, in improv, in being on stage? What are some helpful things that our audience could learn?

SPEAKER_02:

Something I often find myself talking about with clients and on my own podcast is How the journey into speaking and presenting is as much of a journey of personal transformation as it is of professional growth and development, skills development. Because you have to, you have to become so much more of yourself. You have to really step into owning who you are. Really, you have to have a level of vulnerability where you accept your flaws and you don't need to hide from them, where you can even have humor around them and share that with an audience and be okay talking about these things. A lot of it, especially like comedy and humor, pushes you to have to reframe experiences in your life in a funny way, to be able to look back with a bit of humor. And that can sometimes help to heal trauma in the past, emotional trauma and the likes in the past, and to have a different perspective on things. It can move us to taking ourselves and our lives a little less seriously. Because sometimes one of the things that really makes life feel heavy is that we take everything very seriously when really it's all just thoughts going on in our heads. And we do have some control over these things. But you know, we we're supposed to take the world seriously. We're supposed to take business seriously. I work with a lot of speakers who struggle if they're coming, especially coming from corporate training backgrounds or any kind of corporate background, that they are supposed to be super professional, they're supposed to be the business speaker, which means they're not really supposed to be showing emotion, they're supposed to be able to be entertaining and slick on the stage. That's buying into what you may have seen other people doing and what you may feel is expected of you. But if you can't learn to be yourself on a stage and to let your light shine through, your perspectives, your humor, your ability to shine through on a stage, um, then you're gonna be trying to be someone else. And that's gonna be inauthentic, and you'll feel it, and your audience will feel it. Is there's gonna be a slight disconnect there? Um, so the best speakers, in my opinion, are the people who are able to be authentic on stage, not to have to, not that they have to share every aspect of the life, but to just be able to be comfortable in their own skin, know who they are, and to express that well from the stage and to be able to talk about their own challenges, to not feel that admitting mistakes in the past is something that puts chinks in their armor and means that they're less. It's like it's a kind of vulnerability that lets your audience relate to you. You're not, you don't need to be above them, you don't need to be higher than them, you need to be at their level so you can connect and relate and be a pal, a friend to your audience. The connection part is the most important. So these are all skills that we call it soft skills, but there's so much more to it than just uh being able to speak and put the words together. There's the performance side, there's the humor side, there's the uh gosh, the structure, the business side of it all, the prospecting, the everything of the practice time rehearsals that go into it all, um, that it absolutely is uh a key skill that you have to show up as your best self in. Doesn't does that make sense? Did I properly answer your question?

SPEAKER_01:

It does, it does. I love that you clarified what it means to be authentic in such a holistic way. Because usually when the people think of I have to be authentic, they worry that their authentic self, their original self isn't good enough. That even the original self has to be curated in a certain way to be palatable or acceptable to the audience. And I'm thinking what about what you said about humor as well. Not everyone, I think, has got that gift of humor. Some people are they're just really very serious-minded and find it hard to appreciate jokes or tell jokes. So, what do you do in that case?

SPEAKER_02:

Here's the thing: I mean, anyone can be funny on stage. You you don't have to get up there and be a comedian. Uh, although I do think stand-up comedy skills are a great thing to learn and try. I do think even a serious personality can be made funny if you're open to to doing doing it, to giving it a try. That you could get could get up on a stage and say, I'm I'm sorry for my temperament, but I've had a sense of humor bypass or something like that. But it would be it would be funny. You know, you you can make a joke about how you are. It's like, um, you might not be able to tell by the look of my face, but I'm really happy today. You know, it's like things like that. But it's okay, it may not have them rolling in the aisles, you may not be getting booked for your Netflix comedy special, but you will be entertaining your audience and they will appreciate it for you. So they will love you for that. It just makes you relatable, it makes you human. If you, if you're someone who really doesn't like jokes and doesn't like humor and never laughs at anything, sure, okay, don't do that. It's gonna make it very hard to have a speaking career, but it's uh I wouldn't say it's impossible, but uh it will make it will make things challenge. So because the entertainment is a part of professional speaking, whether we like it or not.

SPEAKER_01:

So that sounds like uh another skill to develop the ability to be light and to find the humor in life and communicate that humor. What happens when the the joke doesn't land? Has it ever happened to you?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, sure, sure. And and absolutely it's uh it's gonna happen from time to time. Yeah, any any comedian is gonna have times where their whole set bombs. Uh a speaker may have a time where their uh joke doesn't land, is that uh, but just a throwaway comment like, oh well, I thought it was funny. Oh well, they laughed, but they laughed when I said that in such and such place. And you move on. That's all you do. You just move on. You've done your best, it didn't work, it didn't land that time. Maybe it will with another audience, you can try it out again. Or you work on it, it gives you something to grow and develop from. But but don't take it as a, oh no, I've messed up. They didn't laugh. It's like, yeah, some will, some won't. It's like sometimes we have to spend a little time figuring out what's funny. In my experience, though, audiences, it I think people have it in their heads, maybe because we do sometimes watch stand-up comedy online, that your audience is waiting to heckle you or to shout you out. And it's not the case. If you're doing a talk, your audience wants you to be good, they want to support you. And so they probably will laugh because they will at least appreciate your attempt to break the break any tension or to make them feel comfortable. So they might just smile, they might have a little light murmur, murmur or chuckle. Great, that's all you need. So if you get that, you're great. If you don't, move on, keep going. Uh, maybe you'll find other ways to do that. But uh it's trial and error a lot of the time. And even sometimes you think I might have a line that nearly always gets people laughing. One time you have a kind of audience that doesn't, okay, you know that that normally works, but not with that kind of audience. You've learned something.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And that circles back to what you said earlier about yes and. So it's not yes, but it's not a closed door, it's not personal. And I agree with you, most audiences are kind, supportive, encouraging. They want you to succeed. That's exactly right, because they don't want to feel like their time was wasted either. They're there to cheer you on and they are glad. They're they're probably even a little bit inspired because you had the courage to stand up there and bear your soul, tell your story, be yourself, which most of them would not dare to do. So they want you to do well. They're rooting for that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, never underestimate how many people are going to be in your audience thinking, I could never do that. I couldn't get up on stage and do that. Lots of them are thinking that. And even if they don't necessarily like you, they probably will respect you. Like not everyone in your audience is always going to like you. That's okay. Not everyone should. Um, but most people will be fine with you, and most people will probably enjoy your presentation a far, a far lot more if you don't take yourself too seriously all of the time, and you have a little bit of emotional variety in there. Uh, and that's the thing. I think that's where presentations become deadly if they're all at one emotional level and tone the whole way through, it gets very hard to listen to. And I often say that even Shakespeare understood very well that uh he had to put uh comic relief in the middle of a tragedy because people couldn't take that serious level of tragedy for so long without breaking up with something a little bit different. And it's very much the case in talks and presentations. Okay, five to five to eight minutes, not so much, but keynote talks or workshops and nice. If you can't at least be a little playful or lighthearted about stuff for some of the time where it's where it feels appropriate, um, you're gonna just be keeping one tone and people struggle, even in life naturally, to stay in one emotional level for a particularly long time. We we cycle through so many different emotional states in in a day and through time. We need to do that in a talk as well to keep people engaged.

SPEAKER_01:

So it's a recognition that the listener is just like us, they have the same range of human emotions, the same ups and downs. And so it's curating the experience for them to have the best possible time while they are with us.

SPEAKER_02:

It really is, Serena. It's um a speaker, ideally, a good speaker, should always be at their talk early. And if there's an opportunity that presents itself to mingle and mix with people who are attending the talk beforehand, you should definitely take it because then you are going to have personally connected and interacted with some of the people in your audience. You're gonna have friends and supporters there, and they will help to lead the rest of the audience uh to supporting you as well, because they've already had some connection and relation with you. People will maybe even look to them to say, all right, yeah, they're laughing, they're clapping, whatever, and uh and we'll follow suit. Um, it's surprising how, you know, there's been tests done on this, uh, psychological tests done in this, like a street busker might not get any money, but when they've set people up to make sure that people can other people can see that someone's putting money in, more people put money in. It's when audiences on stage as well. Somebody starts clapping or somebody in the audience is laughing, others are likely to follow suit as well because somebody has said, all right, yeah, some other others are finding this funny. Social cues are really important. So if you can help warm up your audience and get some people on onside, as it were, you know, they already feel connected to you, they are far more likely to be receptive to whatever you're saying from the stage.

SPEAKER_01:

I can validate that because that just happened a couple of weeks ago as well, with uh with an event that I was speaking with, I was speaking at. And I remember that because there were quite a number in the audience who were people I knew personally ahead invited and they showed up. Just seeing them there already gave me such a boost. And having that free event conversation with them, there's a small talk and all that, the warm-up it made such a difference because it it felt like we already had a special connection before the presentation. And so, and when I'm in the audience and I'm there to support someone that I know who is speaking, I do the same too. It's like I love that special connection with a speaker. And it makes me feel, oh, you know, I know them and I've been seen and I'm here to cheer for them. And so it's a very good vibe when it happens like that.

SPEAKER_02:

I I believe it helps the speakers as well in in so many other ways of when you're up on stage and you know that if you know you've got friends in the audience, or you know you've connected with some people in the audience, um, you're talking with them. You're not talking at them or to them, you're talking with them. And it's a very different tonality. When we're talking with friends, when we're talking with people who we know, we tend to talk a little differently. And sometimes people get up on a stage and they're really talking at their audience or talking to their audience, but not really with them. And so when we make that shift, whether it's on the stage or a virtual stage or a podcast or whatever, that tonal shift, that energy shift is really important for the connection part of it. Is that we're having a conversation, even though you can't necessarily answer back, we're having a conversation. And so I'm aware that there's a conversation going on in your head, and I'm talking to that, I'm talking with you.

SPEAKER_01:

I think it makes a lot of difference when it's a meeting of equals in that sense, the conversation, as opposed to an authority figure as a passive audience, like giving a lecture. Yes, that the energy is definitely different. You have a podcast called Present Influence. What is influence and what makes someone influential?

SPEAKER_02:

It's uh interesting to me that one of the things that I am kind of mad about, like I just love learning about it, is the psychology of influence and persuasion. So influence is the ability to have sway over other people, to have status to some degree. People will follow you. Uh, it might be for what you say, it might be for your status, it could be for a number of reasons, but there's things about you that make you influential to other people that they want to either want to follow you, they want to um hear more from you, they want to know what you would do, how you would do in certain situations. That kind of stuff is influence. So you are not actively trying to change someone's mind with influence so much as you are putting out the markers there that you might uh you might have body language that shows that you are confident and that you own your space. Great. You know, people will that will influence people as well in how they respond to you. Um, you may have uh we say one of the things that's key for speakers and presenters, um, and this this comes from research by Vanessa Van Edwards and others as well, of it critical that we show these qualities of warmth and competence on the stage, that we need to show warmth and competence, and that influences our audience to be able to relax around us, to connect, to have a vulnerability both ways with us. That there's that kind of like where you can tell a story and somebody afterwards will come up to say, I had something similar happened to me. That's the kind of thing that shows there's deep level connection there. That's influence. Uh, and so a little different to persuasion, where you are usually with persuasion, you are actively seeking to uh change an opinion to influence somebody's opinion um with your own arguments, perhaps, or um many different ways we can do that, but persuasion is much more active, whereas influence is just this, it's more passive, it's already there, uh, and it tends to just flow from how we show up and who we are.

SPEAKER_01:

It sounds to me like persuasion is what we do when we are trying to get someone on board with our idea, or we're trying to get them over to our side, and influence is how others perceive us and how much sway, as you said, we have over their perspective, their opinion.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, uh, I'd say influence is the more the more passive one, um, because we we're generally we've already set influence in in motion. And um, so it is usually things like status, as an example of which would be we tend to assume that somebody wearing a white, long white coat is medical in some way, shape, or form, even if they're not. They might be um there might be uh sometimes you see nail technicians in long white um overcoats as well. They're not medical professionals, some might argue, but they're not, you know, you you're not gonna go to them to hopefully to get a diagnosis on something that's wrong with you. Um, but they're they convey that sense of authority. Somebody dressed in a sharp suit or polished business dress on stage already has influence of you're making assumptions about them. You are saying, all right, this is somebody who works in a professional environment. Um, this is somebody who shows up smart, they probably have money, they have status. Um, you know, one event I was at uh working at, I was selling, I was uh at a personal development event, um helping to sell people into a program that was called, I think it was called something like billionaire boot camp or something like that. And uh and people just assume because I was there in a suit and I was by this table that I must be a multimillionaire or a billionaire is like couldn't be further from the truth, you know. But but the assumptions that people make because they associate with that, and that's influence that has an effect on how people respond to you, how people show up uh and how people react in your presence, but you're not actively doing those things, not trying to make somebody think that you've just that's just the influence of what actually is going on or what's showing up.

SPEAKER_01:

So, what would be your advice for a quiet achiever, an introvert who wants to elevate their influence in a professional sense?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. I do think some of the things that we've already talked about, being yourself and being confident in in who you are and having that authenticity and vulnerability to be able to be okay with talking about things that you've gone wrong with in the past and um that you have recovered from. You don't want to we don't want to open up our own wounds that are still painful for us when we're speaking to people, but um, but stuff that we have learned from and developed from. Um if we just pretend that our our whole lives have been perfect and we've never made mistakes, we never never done anything we might ever need to apologize for, everybody else knows that's not true. So uh so there's there's really no point in in even trying that. It's like people find it much more easy to relate to somebody who has made mistakes and who has learned from them and has moved on, but is still perhaps further ahead than they are. So I do think the the work on yourself part is one of the most important is that thing. If you if you don't love yourself, if you don't like yourself, how are other people going to do that? So you do have to do some work on yourself more than anything else uh to be authentic and to connect. But also think about who who you want to be speaking to, who do you want to be influencing, who do you want to be impacting, and and think about the ways in which you would expect somebody who is um at the top level of that to how would you expect them to dress? How would you expect them to show up? If you were um then going to look to somebody to admire or to model, how would you then expect to to dress, to stand, to uh to be, to engage on stage? It might take a while to learn those things, and then when you try and be someone else, you have to be you, your version of whatever, um, and find your own true identity there. But that's going to give you much more influence. It is the courage to be yourself in these environments and not to try and fit the mold, not try and be what other people think you should be. Um, not that you have to be contrarian or creating um creating opposition with anything that you do. But you you do need to be willing to say what needs to be said or to speak more directly in some situations or to add humor where everyone's being too serious. In again, you have to learn where it's appropriate and where it's not, but it's about then being able to show up as the best version of you. in as many many times as life as possible, because far too often we end up in situations where we are holding ourselves back. Um because maybe other people are being louder or maybe we think we're not enough yet. Maybe we think we haven't gone far enough. And so we just end up holding ourselves back because we don't think we're good enough yet. And um and it is just that well, good enough now and good enough now and keep getting better. You are good enough, but you still have room to grow always.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think on that note this is a beautiful way to wrap up this conversation. We've talked about the courage to be yourself, which I think is the one piece which would be really valuable for listeners to take away because ultimately being authentic requires courage. We're talking about showing people who we are and that involves being vulnerable, letting people into our inner world. And then you did say you know you don't have to overshare you don't have to you know disclose everything but let people see enough of ourselves so that they can feel this is a real person, you know, this person has been through some things they've come out on the other side they're learning as they go they're not perfect. Same as me. You know if they can do that I can do that too. So that's hope. We're giving them back that hope. And you talked about having the growth mindset of that continuous learning, lifelong learning. We never stop because there's always room to grow. And that is good news because introverts love lifelong learning. And you talked about humor, the the importance of lightness not taking life too seriously not taking ourselves too seriously reminding other people too that you know in the midst of heaviness there is also room for laughter and you know appreciating the the quirkiness that happens in life. But I think the the piece that I took away is the connection piece it shows up when we are self-aware, when we do that inner work of personal development you said to become the best version of ourselves. When we are that deeply connected with ourselves it makes it easier for us to connect with other people particularly in a public speaking sense when we are creating that rapport with people we've never met before we have no prior conversation or any kind of relationship with to be able to connect from that space of equals as opposed to a hierarchy. I think when we are deeply connected to ourselves it helps us connect to other people and it helps people to reflect and connect with themselves too because they are listening and we are being an influence and they're taking something away from that interaction. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02:

And what is the best way for people to connect with you John I I would say I would encourage people to go and check out my website it's presentinfluence.com. You'll find uh you'll find there's a quiz there so you can check your charisma you'll find links to the podcast episodes you'll find what I do speaking wise what I offer coaching everything is at presentinfluence.com including all my social links. So that's the best way to go and find out a bit more about me.

SPEAKER_01:

Brilliant. We'll make sure to have all the links in the show notes. So thank you so much John for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today.

SPEAKER_02:

It's been a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01:

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