How To Own the Room | Is “Confidence” the Most Misleading Word in Public Speaking? With Viv Groskop

What if the word “confidence” is actually making you worse under pressure?Viv Groskop has spent years studying how people perform when the stakes are high: first as a stand-up comedian, and later as the author of the best-selling How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking.Through her podcast Own The Room, she has interviewed some of the world’s most compelling communicators, including Hillary Clinton, Margaret Atwood and Julie Andrews.In this episode, Viv shares how her career in comedy has taught her to view the word “confidence” with suspicion.She says:“The biggest lesson I’ve taken from comedy about confidence is that the word itself is really not very helpful.”Instead of going after confidence, Viv argues, the most effective progress comes from simple, measurable behaviours you can actually control.In our conversation we explore:• Why the word confidence can actually make people perform worse• The improv technique of “happy high status” used by great performers and leaders• How to navigate awkward power dynamics at work without losing your authorityViv also shares some of the most useful advice she has learned from interviewing some of the world’s greatest communicators.This podcast is designed to be practical. Every Friday, I’ll be sharing practical tools inspired by each episode to actively help you boost your confidence. This is now for paid subscribers only. If you want to receive these posts, hit the button below. If this episode has inspired you to develop your confidence and communication techniques, join us for our Confidence Through Storytelling workshop on Wednesday 15 April in Soho.I’ll be joined by:• West End director Abbey Wright (National Theatre, Donmar, protégé of Alan Rickman and Danny Boyle)• Award-winning playwright Nina Segal (Royal Court Associate, writer on The Crown and Hanna)Together we’ll show you how actors and performers:• hold a room• tell powerful stories• stay calm and compelling under pressureAnd I’ll help you translate these techniques into your world — so you can win pitches, bring your team on side, and be seen as a confident leader.Tickets are available here.Use code ROSIED for a discount until the end of the week.If you need a non-corporate rate, just get in touch.Liking, following, re-stacking, sharing, rating, reviewing etc makes a huge difference to this podcast. We’re on apple, spotify and youtube. You can also share this episode easily using the button below.To hear more from Viv, you can find her on instagram here and visit here website here.This episode was produced by my amazing husband. It’s a job he never knew he wanted! If you’d like to support the making of future episodes, you can buy him a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/rosiedallingBy the way, I help C-suite leaders and founders build confident, robust teams. If you want help with that, drop me a line here.Enjoy the episode - and tell me in the comments what you think.Rosie Get full access to In Confidence at inconfidencepod.substack.com/subscribe