Selling With Confidence 59
Lack of competence.
Lack of confidence.
They’re communication killers.
Fortunately, this handicap is curable with proper breathing
and silent pauses.
Assumptions to consider
- First: Assume you’re faced with a difficult situation,
maybe even a crisis situation. - Second: Of course, you want to handle it successfully.
In order to do this, you must obtain and maintain control.
That means control of your stress and your thought process. You
can do it with proper breathing.
Keep in mind that no good vocal coach ever let a student make
the first sound until the student had mastered proper breathing
techniques. Speech 101 and Singing 101 follow this regimen if prop-
erly taught. In this case, you’re your own coach, so monitor your
progress carefully.
No shortcuts
There are no shortcuts, so take it slowly. You may find the
progress complicated by old, improper breathing habits you’ve
acquired over the years. You have to learn to replace them with
new, correct ones you’re about to develop.
Let’s make sure you understand what you do when you think
of taking a deep breath.
Picture this: You’ve gone for your annual checkup. The doc-
tor puts a stethoscope to your chest and says, “Now take a deep
breath.” You suck in your gut. You swell your chest and hike up
your shoulders, tightening the muscles of your head and neck like
a soldier at attention.
Keep that image in mind because that’s exactly what you don’t
want to do. I never saw a soldier at attention who looked like—or
acted like—a relaxed, comfortable speaker. So, when you heave
up the shoulders as you suck in the gut to take a deep breath,
you’re going about it the wrong way.
To learn proper breathing techniques, you first need to un-
derstand that the center of the breathing mechanism, the main