Nicky Lowe [00:00:06]:
Hi, it’s Nicky Lowe, and welcome to the Wisdom for Working Moms podcast show. I’m your host, and for nearly two decades now, I’ve been an executive coach and leadership development consultant. And on this show, I share evidence-based insights from my coaching, leadership, and psychological expertise, and inspiring interviews that help women like you to combine your work, life, and motherhood in a more successful and sustainable way. Join Join me and my special guests as we delve into leadership and lifestyle topics for women, empowering you to thrive one conversation at a time.

Nicky Lowe [00:00:40]:
I’m so happy that you’re here, and let’s get on with today’s episode.

Nicky Lowe [00:00:46]:
Have you ever been told you need to work on your presence or your gravitas, or that you’d have more impact if you were somehow more confident or more assertive? More something. And on one level, that feedback can sound like personal development, but for so many women, especially working mums, it’s not just about skills. It’s often a symptom of trying to navigate power, politics, and the authority gap—that frustrating space where you can be competent, experienced, even exceptional, and still not be perceived with the same weight or credibility Because when you’re carrying the mental load, juggling the demands of work and life, and showing up on limited bandwidth, communication becomes the lever. Not to perform or to pretend, but to be seen, heard, and taken seriously without burning yourself out in the process. Add in the cognitive load so many women carry, and it makes sense that we sometimes default to over-explaining or second-guessing or softening or staying silent and until we’re perfectly ready, and the cost is huge— not just career progression, but confidence and our energy and well-being. Today’s episode is all about this, those small shifts that change how you’re perceived with more composure, more presence, and more impact. I’m joined by the co-founders of Composure Media, Louisa Preston and Louisa Baldini. Two women with extraordinary experience in high-stakes communication.

Nicky Lowe [00:02:30]:
Louisa has been a recognizable face on British TV screens for nearly 20 years and was formerly a BBC News freelance presenter and reporter. She’s been part of the presenting team on BBC One for major national events, including the 2017 general election, the London 2012 Olympics, and the 2011 royal wedding. She joined the BBC after working for ITN, ITV, and Channel 5 News, becoming the youngest national newsreader at 22. And alongside broadcasting, she’s long worked in the corporate sector, hosting conferences, award ceremonies, and Q&As with CEOs and high-profile public figures. She brings real personality, warmth, and humor to this conversation. Anne-Louisa has spent 12 years at the BBC as a recognised correspondent covering major stories from the Amanda Knox trials in Italy to the PayPal events in the Vatican to the 7/7 bombings in London. In her later years, she was a deputy royal correspondent covering the Queen Diamond Jubilee, then the Duchess of Cambridge early engagements, and also the birth of Prince George. She’s worked across ITN Euronews and international corporate events, bringing a truly global perspective shaped by living in Africa, Europe, and the US.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:03]:
Together, they’ve taken everything they know about performing under pressure, live, on camera, in front of millions, and turned it into a practical toolkit for leaders who want to communicate with calm authority. So if you’re heading into a meeting where you need to hold your ground, or a presentation where you want to be compelling, or a conversation where you want to ask for what you need without apologising for it, I think you’re going to love this conversation.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:33]:
So welcome, it’s great to have you both here, Louisa and Louisa. Fantastic to be here, Nicky.

Louisa Preston [00:04:40]:
Thank you very much for inviting us.

Nicky Lowe [00:04:42]:
So for people that don’t know about you and your work, can you just explain how you came from kind of the high-stakes environments that you were in to do the work that you now do with Composure Media?

Luisa Baldini [00:04:55]:
Well, after many years working at BBC TV myself as a correspondent— Louisa, what were you up to?

Louisa Preston [00:05:03]:
More presenting from a nice warm studio most of the time.

Luisa Baldini [00:05:07]:
And, you know, we’d probably still be either me in a freezing cold location or Louisa in her nice warm studio if it hadn’t been for the fact that, well, firstly, I left the BBC because my husband got a job in New York and you don’t say no to New York. So we moved to New York and while I was there, I just had a reset and I was really struggling with a bit of burnout, basically. My kids were very young. I’d been working as a reporter on shifts, earlies, lates, all sorts, working Christmases, working New Year’s, you know, The news never stops. And so I thought, I just, I love it, but I cannot go back to that level of stress. And it was quite incompatible, obviously, with family life. I’d had to have an au pair, but I didn’t get to see my kids very much. So I thought, I really want to use those skills and help other people present with confidence because I’d always been incredibly nervous.

Luisa Baldini [00:06:14]:
When I went on TV, even though it was my job. And Louisa and I had been friends for many, many years. And Louisa, you were already doing some corporate work, weren’t you?

Louisa Preston [00:06:25]:
Yes, that’s right, Louisa. I, as a presenter, there is always the tendency to do quite a lot of corporate work because you’re not bound by a BBC contract, so to speak. So yes, I was working in the corporate world, and what I heard from a lot of women, and these were very confident women in very senior positions, but many were still saying they struggled to get their voice heard. And Louisa and I, when we started in journalism all those years ago, it was extremely male-dominated. So we knew how to navigate that sort of situation, and we thought this could be an opportunity to really— it sounds rather cheesy to say give something back, um, but actually help other people in a position that we navigated quite well many years ago.

Luisa Baldini [00:07:10]:
And that’s why we set up Composure Media transatlantically. Nikki, I was still in New York and Louisa in the UK, And then obviously I moved back and that’s when we really hit the ground running.

Nicky Lowe [00:07:22]:
I didn’t realize you’d done it while you were over in New York. Okay. And I just think that’s really reassuring for people to hear that even when you were on screen and this was your profession, that you still struggle with the, the power dynamics of being in a male-dominated environment and actually how do I feel comfortable in those high-stakes environments? So, I can’t wait to dive into this because I imagine you’ve got loads of, like, tools and insights. So, what did working in those high-stakes environments teach you about confidence and finding your voice?

Luisa Baldini [00:07:59]:
You have to have really good communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal, by default. Ideally, that is the stage you need to get to, the position you need to get to, so that in a pitch, in a presentation, in a speech, in whatever your high-stakes moment is, you can really focus on 3 things: what you’re saying, how you’re saying it in terms of that you’re landing the message correctly, and finally, your confidence. And we always say confidence is half the battle. So when we’re training or coaching people, we really believe talking about confidence is the foundation. Because if you think about it, the skills are totally learnable. Learning how to structure a pitch or a presentation, learning about executive presence and body language, all of those are learnable skills, but only you can really work on your confidence. And if you don’t work on your confidence, then in your really high-stakes moment when the pressure is really on, as it was for us when we were live on air to millions of people, you won’t be able to perform and deliver at the best of your ability to the level you need to be at.

Nicky Lowe [00:09:20]:
Yeah, and I think that’s so key. So perhaps let’s start there then. So if confidence is the foundation which all the other skills can be built upon, what did you learn and what do you teach around confidence, particularly for women? Because as we’ve said, like most of people listening will be confident, competent women, but actually when you’re put in those situations, how do you find your ground?

Louisa Preston [00:09:45]:
It’s really important to have a number of skills up your sleeve. So we do a lot of training around the elevator pitch, because if you have a great elevator pitch up your sleeve, you can walk into one of those networking events and feel more confident that you’ve got something engaging to say. So that’s really important. The other thing to think about, and Louisa’s alluded to it, is that whole idea of executive presence and body language. How you walk into a meeting, you know, before you even open your mouth, 80% of communication is nonverbal. So, how you walk into the meeting, you know, do you have open, confident body language? What about your eye contact? Are you making sure you’re looking at the people that you’re about to address or walking in with your shoulders crunched over and looking at the floor? All of these things communicate so much. And the other thing that we like to talk about, and some people say, really, you’re going to focus on the handshake? But actually, it’s so important. That first point of contact you have with somebody before you have even opened your mouth communicates so much.

Louisa Preston [00:10:48]:
So a firm handshake, not too loose, is so important. But it’s body language, executive presence, not just in person, but when you’re working virtually as well. We talk a lot about that because the hybrid world is isn’t going anywhere. So, so many parts of the jigsaw, or pieces of the jigsaw, that all have to come together that you can really communicate and be that confident individual in the room, or virtually.

Nicky Lowe [00:11:13]:
Yeah, and I love all of those different pieces because, as we know, we are constantly being judged whether we like it or not, and all of those, as you say, visible, invisible elements of ourselves make that impact. So, when you talk about executive presence, because it is often a term that’s banded around, and I get really kind of curious but also furious that, you know, women often get in their end-of-year appraisals, you know, if you just had a bit more executive presence, you’d be ready for that next level, or if you could just, you know, have a bit more impact. And on the one hand, it’s really useful feedback, but it’s really difficult to do something with such a term. So, what factors for you contribute to it? So I’m hearing the handshake, the eye contact, but what else would you be working on with your clients around executive presence?

Luisa Baldini [00:12:09]:
Well, it’s really interesting if we think back to one senior woman that we were coaching. She was very well-respected, well-regarded, but, and she was going for an even more senior position. And we went in and worked with her and we only did one one session face-to-face. And what we saw really was quite surprising because she was sitting away from the meeting table. We were in her office. She was sitting in a chair slightly pushed away from the table and sort of in the corner, in the back corner of her chair. And we could see immediately that she didn’t have the executive presence. And so we, we did some filming with her actually where she delivered some content in that position.

Luisa Baldini [00:13:03]:
So we didn’t say anything at that point. And then we talked about bringing herself forward closer to the table, owning the space without spreading herself out in any— with any arrogance, but owning that space at the table and leaning forward a little bit more. And we videoed her delivering the same content in that position, and it was like chalk and cheese. So sometimes it is very small changes that can really transform your executive presence. But it can also be about energy. If someone’s brilliant at their job, but when they’re communicating, there is absolutely no energy, the presence isn’t there, maybe the gravitas isn’t there. So there’s some fine-tuning that people can do to really take themselves on to the next level when it comes to executive presence. But it’s difficult to do unless you know what fine-tuning you need to do.

Luisa Baldini [00:14:07]:
So it’s fantastic to have another pair of eyes to assess and be able to tell you how to change gear. And Louisa, you mentioned gravitas there.

Louisa Preston [00:14:18]:
I think that is so important because everybody is talking about gravitas at the moment. And Louisa’s alluded to that idea of making sure that your structure is great. You know, it’s structure. When you have great structure, you can be so much more impactful, which will help with your gravitas. When you think about your executive presence and performance and things like speed of delivery, just by slowing down, can transform how you come across as a communicator and really enhance your gravitas as well.

Nicky Lowe [00:14:48]:
Yeah, so that’s really interesting because again, we often hear those terms together, executive presence and gravitas. From your perspective, what’s the difference in those?

Louisa Preston [00:14:59]:
Oh, that’s a really good question. Some people walk into a room and they just exude gravitas. Would you agree? I mean, we see, we see it quite often. People just have a presence. And I think it alludes to that idea that Louisa is talking about energy and that positivity. And it’s interesting to look back on my career, you know, in those really high-stakes moments where you’re feeling the butterflies in the tummy and you’ve got sweaty palms, the key thing for me as a news anchor was to remain calm and composed. But also, whatever I was feeling inside, there would always be, especially at the beginning of a bulletin, the smile on my face. So, you know, not just confident executive body language, but thinking about what I was communicating via my facial expressions, making sure the audience felt comfortable and secure that I was there to deliver a job and I was in control.

Louisa Preston [00:16:00]:
I think all of those attributes that I’ve just mentioned people with gravitas have, and you can see it as soon as they walk into the room and when they open their mouth. But it’s knowing all of those little things that then you can improve your gravitas and your executive presence.

Nicky Lowe [00:16:17]:
And it’s something you said there that really struck me about, like, the audience being comfortable and confident that you’re like this safe pair of hands. And I think we’ve all had those situations where we may have been sat in a meeting, or perhaps what watching somebody on TV and you’re squirming because you’re like, oh my gosh, I haven’t got this, and I really feel for them, or I feel apprehensive about where this is going to go. And just as you say, going, no, I’m this safe pair of hands. I feel I, I am portraying that. I’m sure Louisa’s—

Louisa Preston [00:16:45]:
I just want to say there’s a story that I just want to share, and Louisa has loads of them as well, but exactly that, looking at somebody on TV and thinking, oh my gosh, they’re not in and I learnt that at 22 when I started presenting on national news because suddenly I was presenting a bulletin where everything was breaking. And when I say that, it was the transition between when we used to do everything on tape and then we moved across to digital television, as you said, many years ago. And I was presenting a news bulletin And suddenly the director on my ear came through and said, “Oh, Louisa, we don’t have that television report you’re about to link into.” So, of course, I looked down, I said, “Unfortunately, we can’t bring you that,” and I moved on. I then read the next script and the director said, “No, we can’t bring you that either.” And that carried on for about 10 minutes. And you can imagine the fear as a young journalist that I had at that point. I mean, literally, I could feel the sweat. Not a very nice image, but I could feel the sweat dripping down the side of my body. You know, there was real fear.

Louisa Preston [00:17:52]:
But I knew in that situation, the important thing was that I remain calm and composed, because if I hadn’t, then the audience would have lost confidence. And also, in those situations, some people at home busy making their kids’ dinner or whatever it may be, they don’t even notice. If I’d started, you know, if the fear had hit my eyes and I was umming and erring, straight away the audience would have, “Oh, something wrong here, let’s watch this.” whereas just being calm and composed in that situation got me through it.

Nicky Lowe [00:18:23]:
And so I love that the 22-year-old you could do that as well, because most of us at that age wouldn’t necessarily have had the, the toolkit within us to do it. Can you think back what you were doing in that moment to stay calm and composed?

Louisa Preston [00:18:40]:
Yeah, very young in national television. Um, I had been working in newsrooms or doing work experience in newsrooms from the age of 14. When you were allowed to do stuff like that back then. So, even though I was 22, I had a lot of experience. And also, I did law and politics at university alongside journalism, and we did a lot of practical TV work. They had a studio, and you actually— So, I really believe all of that experience from a young age really helped me to be able to perform in that high-stakes moment at a young age. Obviously, I had a team in the gallery, that were supporting me as well. So it’s very much in television, it’s all part of the team.

Louisa Preston [00:19:17]:
It’s not about one person, even though I was the one person fronting it all. It’s all about teamwork. So that helped me in that situation. But I think, you know, we talk about confidence. I, I think a lot of women are very confident. Louisa and I come across as very confident individuals. You know, that idea of innate confidence, I believe I gained a lot of confidence in my formative years. I also had a very ill father who I had to deal with from a very young age.

Louisa Preston [00:19:48]:
So, I suppose in a way, I was beyond my years. I had to grow up very quickly from about the age of 16. And I think that has all helped me in my professional career as well. So, it’s not just about what happens in your professional career, it’s what happens, of course, in your personal life as well, you know, and how you build on certain experiences in your personal life that then come out in your professional life.

Nicky Lowe [00:20:11]:
Yes, because I was watching— it’s only a couple of weeks ago now, and I’m sure you’ll be aware of it in the profession that you were in— Caitlyn Collins, when she was speaking with President Trump, um, about the Epstein victims, and he just was saying— it completely dismissed her, quite dismissed her questions, and was like, you don’t smile enough. And was really trying to demean her and put her off in that moment. And I was just so impressed with her composure, like she did not flinch. And I was like, wow, you have obviously learned this over years of how do you in that— because it was a high-stakes environment, the cameras were on her, and he was clearly wanting to take her down and discredit her in that moment. And I imagine you’ve I’ve heard many, many stories like that in the kind of interviews that I imagine that you were doing. But it sounds like you were finding your center, finding your resourcefulness, as you say, both professional experience but also building on your personal experiences.

Luisa Baldini [00:21:13]:
Yeah, as Louisa says, all— let me start that again. As Louisa says, any experience in your personal life is going to help build your confidence. And we’re always saying to people, Firstly, keep exercising that confidence muscle, and most people are day in, day out at work especially, but you ideally, you don’t want to just sit behind your laptop doing a really good job. You need to push yourself out of your comfort zone, put yourself forward for that panel discussion, put yourself forward to meet the graduates and speak to the graduate, any opportunity that you have, And of course, it’s the last thing you want to do on top of your job, on top of your to-do list, to give yourself an extra challenge. But all those opportunities are really what do help build your confidence. And also referring back to your personal life, I found it really helpful to tap into my personal life to keep things in perspective at work, because what we tend to do is we get really blinkered. We’ve got a We’ve got a big presentation to do, we’ve got a big speech to deliver, and we become really focused, which is good. But sometimes we focus so much we forget we’re not doing brain surgery here.

Luisa Baldini [00:22:38]:
And keeping things in perspective is really important to regulate your anxieties. And we always say to people, tap into anything in your personal life to help you do that. I used to absolutely dread doing a live broadcast on the 10 o’clock news because that’s when all the bosses were at home watching. That’s when all the CEOs are home watching. So for us at the BBC, all the national bulletins were incredibly important. But for me, the 10 o’clock news had that extra layer of jeopardy, if you like. And just to do a 90-second broadcast, what I would have to go through to get myself camera ready and confident was quite something. And I would say to myself, for example, this is just 90 seconds, okay? It’s 90 seconds to maybe 8 million people, but remember, you were in labor for 48 hours, so I think you can manage 90 seconds.

Luisa Baldini [00:23:49]:
Yes, oh, that’s a really great reframe.

Nicky Lowe [00:23:52]:
And it reminds me, I got invited onto BBC Radio 5 Live just before Christmas to do— they were doing a segment on— there was a new piece of research about working mums and the pay gap, and they invited me on. And it was the first time I’d been on kind of more of a bigger radio show. And as they put me on kind of hold to listen to the radio show while they were waiting for my interview, I realized that they were interviewing the president of Israel just before me, and I was like, “Oh, okay, this is like, this already feels higher stakes.” And then he was talking about subjects that I found particularly triggering, and I was like, “I’ve got about 30 seconds till I’ve gotta go on and say my piece here.” And like you say, it’s only a very, very short piece where you wanna make impact. And my nervous system went like crazy, and I literally had to, and I was taking the call sat on the bed upstairs in our bedroom because it was breakfast time, the kids were getting ready for school, so I’d kind of taken myself off to a quiet part of the house. And I literally had to sit on the bed and like breathe, get your nervous system back regulated, because you are not going to bring your best self to this conversation. And it was totally unexpected. I never thought that they would have had a guest on. I don’t know, I don’t know what I was thinking was going to be on before me, but I certainly wasn’t expecting that.

Nicky Lowe [00:25:13]:
And then as you were talking, Louisa, about like the tech going down, only last week I was delivering a global webinar to a big corporate client and I’ve got a wireless mouse and it decided that the battery was going and I’d got no other way of flicking through the presentation because it didn’t allow me to do it off my keyboard. And I was like, oh my God, I cannot portray that. Like, I have got to be— I’m kind of facilitating that. My energy is going to leak out everywhere if I’m not careful. And as you say, building the muscle to be able to do that and seeing it as a muscle that if we don’t keep practicing it, it’s not going to be strong for those like curveball moments that you just don’t expect.

Louisa Preston [00:25:56]:
You definitely have to keep working that muscle for sure. When you— what a great story, Nicky, you know, that Five Lives story. I love that. And we talk a lot about confidence boosters that you can do before those high-stakes moments. And you said about breathing, I mean, that is so important that you regulate your breathing, because then that really helps with your speed of delivery as well. Because in those high-stakes moments and you’re really feeling the nerves, you suddenly speed up and you, you know, you talk too quickly. And of course, that communicates a lack of confidence and nerves and everything else. You just want that spot over very quickly.

Louisa Preston [00:26:35]:
But something else that we talk a lot about is the power pose. Have you come across the power pose, Nikki?

Nicky Lowe [00:26:41]:
I’ve heard of them, and I’ve heard of several different ones, but I don’t know what mine would be. So no, I’d love to hear.

Louisa Preston [00:26:47]:
So the one that Louisa and I do is— instead, a lot of people will stand, they stand up and they put their hands on their hips. What Louisa and I like to do is actually stand up and put our arms in the air. Um, now we don’t do this in the middle of the office, or we didn’t used to do it in the middle of the newsroom. Actually, we didn’t really use this on television because of course you never know when somebody suddenly might be cut up on TV to the nation with your arms up in the air. But holding a very physical pose, and you just literally hold this pose for a couple of minutes, really helps with those physical nerves. You know, a lot of people talk to us about, as I said before, the butterflies in the tummy, the shaky hands, you know, some women will say, I feel myself, and men, going red, you know, throughout my face. If you do something very physical, at the same time do some deep breathing and box breathing, which Louisa can explain in a minute, that can really help you. So at the end of the 2 minutes, you then shake all of your body out, you release all the tension from that upper part of the body across the back where we hold a lot of tension, And that idea of them being able to push your shoulders back, holding your head up high, and then you’re ready to perform, it really does help.

Nicky Lowe [00:28:02]:
Oh, and for people that couldn’t see that on camera, you literally got your arms up almost like as a Y shape above your head, hadn’t you? And I love that because you’re almost— you’re using kind of your psychophysical biology there to cause, I suppose, a nervous system interrupt of like, yeah, let’s interrupt that pattern of nervousness.

Louisa Preston [00:28:23]:
Yes, exactly. Because when you get nervous, you tend to fold your body language down and bring it all in, whereas, you know, opening up and stretching actually always feels good, but helps you as well. The other thing is to have your feet shoulder-width apart. A lot of people, when they stand up and present, when they’re nervous, they close their body language down, so they cross their legs. As soon as you cross your legs, you’re off balance. Think about it. So that idea of having your feet shoulder-width apart and really feeling the ground, you know, you feel solid. Is also so important.

Louisa Preston [00:28:55]:
And as well, the breathing.

Luisa Baldini [00:28:58]:
The other thing, Nicky, is one thing is remaining composed when things don’t go to plan, but also how do you then continue? How do you pick up and continue? And we like to talk about when things go wrong, forgiving yourself in that moment, Drawing a line and picking up with even more confidence. Because what happens if you stumble over your words or you forget what you were going to say or the slide doesn’t work is you start beating yourself up in that moment and you start having a loop if you’re not careful in your head. And that’s all you focus on. And then the rest of your pitch or presentation it, it just spirals. So it’s really important that you have this pattern of forgiveness, draw a line, pick up with confidence, and then you can debrief with yourself afterwards and learn from what went wrong and, and whether you could cope with it and deal with it in a better way next time.

Nicky Lowe [00:30:07]:
I love that. It’s because high achievers tend to be quite self-critical, and I say that as somebody that, you know, I, I know my inner critic very well, and I’ve I’ve had to learn it’s about self-correction, not self-criticism, because that will, as you say, spiral. And I love that, just forgiving yourself in the moment and picking back up with more confidence. And it made me think, as you were saying, Louisa, often you might be presenting to 8 million people. Do you have any tips for what you would do in terms of your audience, what you imagine? You know, you hear the things of, oh, just imagine your audience all naked or sat on a toilet, or, you know, what kind of things worked for you in your career?

Luisa Baldini [00:30:45]:
I’ll tell you exactly. It was imagining the audience with a remote control in their hands, which they did have. And if you think about that, Nicky, and we share this with everybody that we’re working with today, we really encourage them to imagine their audience with a remote control in their hands, even though it’s going to be in a business environment, because If you focus on why they might switch you off, maybe you’re boring them, maybe you’re confusing them, maybe you’re bamboozling them with too much information, too much detail, too much minutiae that they don’t need. So it really helps focus your mind, and we encourage people to look back at the content that they’ve prepared. Ideally, you should be able to see it in black and white, write out a pitch or a presentation initially so that you can look back and make sure it flows, it’s logical, you’re joining the dots for the audience, that you haven’t included extraneous information that isn’t necessary. And it will give you the opportunity to improve your content So imagining whether your audience is going to switch you off at any point, or even worse, switch over to your competition, it really focuses the mind.

Nicky Lowe [00:32:17]:
Yeah, that’s a really powerful one because I can imagine in the, in the kind of industry you were in, that was a real kind of life scenario, but it’s a powerful one for us all to adopt as a metaphor, isn’t it?

Louisa Preston [00:32:30]:
The other thing that I like to think about, because so many people when you’re presenting face-to-face, if you look at your audience and someone’s sitting there looking totally bored or someone’s just focused on their phone, you know, that could really knock your confidence in the moment. But what I always think, if somebody is looking at their phone, it’s about changing the mindset to a positive way. But if they’re looking at their phone or typing on their phone, I think, gosh, everything I must— I’m saying must be extremely interesting because they’re taking lots of notes. So it’s that sort of idea of just shifting the mindset. And interestingly, with audiences, when we’re doing virtual coaching, we’ll always say to participants, you know, even if you are in the audience, make sure you turn your camera on and make sure you’re looking engaged because it makes it so much easier for the actual person who’s presenting, you know, help them to lift them in that moment, you know, by doing something productive as well. But we could, we could talk about virtual setups and best setups and all of that until the cows come home, but just a few little, you know, pointers there that can help. No, and I think that’s really important.

Nicky Lowe [00:33:34]:
I’m also thinking that the person that’s turning their camera off, that has an impact on your brand as well, doesn’t it? There’s a real opportunity, even if you’re just listening and watching, to be conveying your brand and an impact with that. Um, and I love all these little nuggets, and I’m— you’ve talked there about really being, um, clear on what you’re conveying. And I think that’s a trap that I know that I can fall into if I’m not careful, like trying to overprove and put too much information in, almost like I need to show you how good I am. And as you say, in that you can lose people and you lose the impact and the gravitas and all of the things that we’ve talked about. So I wonder if you’ve got any tips for how you work with people about structuring the actual content.

Luisa Baldini [00:34:21]:
It’s about distillation. As you say, Nicky, it’s a really natural tendency to want to show off all your research, your knowledge, your expertise. It’s a really natural inclination, and it is for us too. So we, we have to contain ourselves. However, as you say, you can be more impactful if you’re thinking less is more. So really be discerning about your content and really think, does my audience need all of this right now, or can I hold some of it back up my sleeve and use that in the Q&A or maybe in an ensuing conversation? And when, when I see that there’s maybe at a conference, there’s going to be a speaker for half an hour, for 30 minutes, I think, boy, they’ve got to be a really good speaker if they’re going to hold the audience and land all their content in 30 minutes. Because frankly, you can be much more impactful if you prepare in the right way in 10 minutes than in 30 minutes. And last year, the CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, actually said that people in business should be communicating in just 30 seconds what they’ve traditionally been communicating in 5 minutes.

Luisa Baldini [00:35:44]:
So it really goes to show, A, audience concentration spans are shrinking. The way audiences receive information has definitely changed since we’ve come into this digital age. And if you think about video on social media, it has about 1 second to capture the audience. Okay, in business, if you’re speaking, hopefully you have more than a second, but actually you don’t have that much more to capture your audience. And you need to be focusing on being impactful rather than being verbose. So that is our top tip to people. Less is more. Focus on the impact and keep a lot of it up your sleeve if it’s not absolutely vital.

Nicky Lowe [00:36:33]:
Brilliant. And I also wonder, In your experience, are there particular words or phrases that as women we tend to use that might be ones we want to throw out or use sparingly? Because I hear a lot of that minimising type of language.

Louisa Preston [00:36:53]:
Yeah, we hear it a lot. Yeah, it’s not positive language, it does undermine people. You know, of course there’s so much shared about women saying, “I’m sorry,” But we hear people saying, “Oh, I’ve had a go, but I’m not sure exactly whether I was on the right lines,” or, “I’m not an expert, but I’ll give you what I can.” You know, it’s just all undermining language that you just want to stay clear of. So, again, it’s a mindset and thinking, instead of saying that, what can I say? We also find that people tend to come out with this negative language as a bit of a, you know, They’re sort of communicating they’re not confident, but also they’re filling the gap with, “Oh, what can I say here? I’m just going to come out with something that’s slightly undermining.” We’re like, “No, just don’t. Just pause. Just hold the silence. Be confident enough to hold the silence. You don’t need to fill all those gaps with language.” Some of the best orators, some of the most impactful communicators are those that can really hold the silence.

Louisa Preston [00:37:56]:
Think about what they want to say, and then come out and deliver it.

Nicky Lowe [00:38:00]:
Yeah, that’s so powerful. When I first started training as a coach and you would ask a question and somebody would be thinking, and we were always taught, like, just the cogs are working, be quiet, sit back. But how uncomfortable that can feel. Like, we often want to fill that silence. So I love that you’re kind of going to lean into it, the power of the pause and the power of just going at a much slower pace that builds that credibility. And there was somewhere my mind went then around— there was something you said around, yes, the language of, oh, I’m not quite sure, or— and it reminds me of that, the research that we hear about actually women have to be really careful about balancing warmth and authority. And often we’re trying not to come across as too confident or too arrogant, or because it gives us negative connotation often. So have you got any tips for how you teach people to balance that warmth and kind of authority?

Louisa Preston [00:39:06]:
Around facial expression, we always say, I mean, if you can be confident, authoritative, but also think about what your facial expression is communicating, because some people will do that quite an aggressive way, and everything about their body language, their facial expression is communication, more aggression, which obviously you don’t want to do. Whereas being assertive, you know, that idea of if you’re in a meeting and someone interrupts you, you know, how do you deal with that situation in a way that is just going to be seen as professional rather than aggressive? You know, assertive and professional rather than aggressive. We always say, you know, it’s great to maybe turn to that person and say, “I really want to hear what you’ve got to say because I’m interested, but could I just finish my point?” But as soon as I do that, you’re being assertive, but straight away that smile comes on my face. Compared to, “Can you just, you know, I’m interested in what you want to say, but let me finish.” You know, without the smile, it comes across as totally different. So that’s an important part as well.

Nicky Lowe [00:40:14]:
I love that because it’s mixing this all in, isn’t it? It’s not just about getting the right words, it’s the tone, it’s the facial expressions. I mean, we’ve, we’ve covered so much here, and I know that there is so much you work with your clients on. We said before we hit record, the reason that I invited you on the podcast and I came across your work is I was speaking to one of my clients and they’re bringing me in to do a workshop, and I’d ask them like, what’s the most memorable workshop you’ve ever hosted and what worked about that? And they said, oh, it was Louisa and Louisa, and they were telling me about this workshop. I was like, I’ve got to reach out to them, I’ve got to find out more about what you do. So I know that there is so much more that we could go into, but I suppose if there was just one thing that you want somebody who’s listening to this conversation to take away, what would you want that to be? And it might be two separate things, so over to you as to, to what they might be.

Luisa Baldini [00:41:07]:
I would love to communicate that, of course, all of you listening are confident people. Whatever you’re doing in your life at the moment, in your careers, even maybe at home as a mum running the family, the household, of course you are confident. But confidence doesn’t always behave, and it is like a naughty child. We like to think of it like a naughty child, and it doesn’t always behave the way you want it to when you you need it to. So you need to have a better understanding of your confidence and how you can boost it and basically manipulate it so that it can work for you when you need it. Because however experienced you are, however expert you are in your field, however smart you are, there will be moments where your confidence tests you, and they tend to be in those high-stakes moments, and more often than not with public Speaking, and we know that glossophobia and fear of public speaking probably tops the list of fears. So there’s a lot that’s happening in that moment. So as we said at the beginning, the skills are learnable.

Luisa Baldini [00:42:18]:
Make sure you are learning them so that you can use them by default and really focus on your messaging and your delivery so that you are landing what you want to say and cutting through the noise because it’s a very, very noisy world, especially in the world of business.

Louisa Preston [00:42:41]:
And I think what I’d like the audience to take away and just remember, even as professional presenters, we felt the nerves as we have alluded to, and that is okay because those nerves that adrenaline push, it lifts your performance. So as long as you can control them and remain composed and confident outwardly, you’re gonna do a great job and you can own your moments in front of any audience.

Nicky Lowe [00:43:11]:
Oh, I love what you both said there.

Luisa Baldini [00:43:15]:
And Nikki, one last thing, because we have, we’ve been working rather hard and not sleeping enough and we’ve probably been stubborn stumbling over our words a little bit. You don’t have to be word perfect. Really focus on how you want your audience to feel. And you mentioned this earlier, you want them to feel comfortable and confident and be engaged with what you’re saying. And if you connect with them on a human level and if you do make them feel comfortable because you are confident in a nice way and you’re not undermining your own confidence by using those negative words and phrases, then that’s what really counts. We often have people we’re working with saying, “Oh no, that wasn’t good because I stumbled over my words.” And we say, “We didn’t even notice because you were really interesting and engaging.” And I like to say, “Have you got spokesperson in your title? Have you got presenter in your title?” No, you’re there for your expertise. Find the best way to communicate it and use your best voice. But it doesn’t mean you have to put all this pressure on yourself to be word perfect.

Nicky Lowe [00:44:34]:
I love that because we do. We tend to think if we’re not doing it perfectly, but the impact, as you say, and how it makes you feel is so important. So I know people are going to want to find out more about you and what you do. So where would you point people to, and I can put all the details in the show notes for you.

Luisa Baldini [00:44:53]:
Yeah, thank you.

Louisa Preston [00:44:53]:
So we would, we would say our website, wouldn’t we, Louisa? But we’re in the middle of redesigning it. So what is your website name? So our website is composure.media, so do check it out.

Nicky Lowe [00:45:05]:
Thank you both, and thank you for joining me and sharing your insights. And I really encourage people to reach out. The fact that I’ve had such a kind of glowing recommendation. So I, as I understand, you go into organizations and you will work organizationally, but you also work one-to-one with individuals.

Luisa Baldini [00:45:23]:
Yes, anything from one-to-one to large group workshops to smaller groups in between, face-to-face, virtual, hybrid. We do speaking events as well. So we’re going to be quite busy around International Women’s Day. But yeah, we, we love those speaking events because we bring the energy, we bring that TV production value with us as well, and really create a buzz in the room.

Nicky Lowe [00:45:49]:
Thank you both for joining me today and sharing your vast experience and expertise with my audience. It’s been a pleasure.

Louisa Preston [00:45:57]:
Thank you for having us.

Luisa Baldini [00:45:58]:
Thanks so much, Nicky. Lovely meeting you.

Nicky Lowe [00:46:01]:
If you’ve enjoyed this episode of Wisdom for Working Mums, I’d I’d love for you to share it on social media or with the amazing women in your life. I’d also love to connect with you, so head over to illuminate-group.co.uk where you’ll find ways to stay in touch. And if this episode resonated with you, one of the best ways to support the show is by subscribing and leaving a review on iTunes. Your review helps other women discover this resource, so together We can lift each other up as we rise. So thanks for listening.

Nicky Lowe [00:46:34]:
Until next time, take care.