77. How to Say What You Mean (Without Shrinking in the Room)
You already know what to say… so why don’t you say what you mean when it matters most?
This week, I’m breaking down the real reason high-achieving women struggle to say what they mean in high-stakes environments. If you’ve ever left a meeting replaying what you should have said, this episode will show you why that gap exists and what’s actually happening in those moments.
Tune in this week to hear how women edit themselves even when they want to say what they mean, and how this pattern is rooted in the need to stay safe rather than be heard. You’ll learn how to recognise when you’re holding yourself back, what’s happening in your nervous system in those moments, and how to shift your response in real time.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How high-achieving women edit themselves in real time.
The difference between speaking to stay safe vs. speaking to be heard.
What’s happening in your nervous system when you hesitate or soften your message.
Why you default to minimising risk instead of maximising impact.
The identity shift required to consistently say what you mean.
A practical framework to catch yourself and speak with clarity in real time.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Watch my TEDx talk: Reclaiming anger: A woman’s birthright
Episodes Related to How to say what you mean:
49. The Executive Pause: How Leaders Command a Room with Silence
76. How to Handle Rejection at Work Without Losing Confidence
Full Episode Transcript:
You're not being overlooked because you don't know what to say. You're being overlooked because you don't say it in the moments that matter. You've had this moment. You're in a meeting. You see exactly what needs to be said. It's clear, it's sharp, it would move everything forward. And then, you don't say it. Or you say a version of it, a smaller version, a safer version, a version that keeps the room comfortable. And later, you replay it. What you should have said, what you meant to say, how it would have landed.
Most women think, I need more confidence. I need to communicate better. No, this is not a confidence problem. This is not a communication problem. This is an execution problem under pressure. And today, I'm going to show you exactly why it happens and how to change it in real time.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's podcast. I have been sharing with a lot of women, I've been talking to a lot of women as Command is open for enrollment, and what I'm seeing is that a lot of women actually know what they want to say. They actually know how they want to show up. But what happens is there's an execution gap between the way that they want to say it, how they want it to land, and what actually happens in the moment. So, I've created this whole episode just for you if you are like, that's exactly me, right?
Let's be honest about what's actually happening here. You're not confused. You're not lacking clarity. You are editing yourself in real time. It sounds like this: softening your point of view, over-explaining, waiting to see what others say, adjusting mid-sentence. You start with clarity, then dilute it as you speak.
So you're not lacking clarity. You're editing your best thinking out in real time. And there's a real reason why you do this, right? I actually have shared this example before, but I'm going to share it again. I have a client and she has been really working on her assertiveness, and she shared with me how bold she was talking to a senior leader in her organization. And she was like, this is what I recommend, this is why I recommend it, and very matter of fact, very powerfully, concise. And then she undermined herself by saying, but it's your call, right?
So this is sometimes how we edit ourselves in the moment, right? We take a risk, we step out there, we're bold, we're visible, and then we somehow take three steps back because we feel a little shaky in our nervous system. We feel a little scared, right? So this is where I want you to understand because this is a natural and normal thing that happens, particularly if you are in spaces that weren't really built for you, when you're like the only person, or when you're stepping into more levels of authority than you've had in the past.
What happens here, in that moment, you're making a split-second decision. This is exactly what happened to my client. You speak to stay safe versus speak to be heard. So instead of her actually landing the point and saying, this is what I recommend, period, end of story, she kept going on. And she gave her power away to another leader. And speaking to stay safe sounds like, I might be wrong but, just to add, dot, dot, dot, maybe we could, dot, dot, dot, right?
So you're managing perception, reducing risk, and trying to land it perfectly, right? Trying to not upset other people. But to be honest, if you're going to have a big presence, sometimes our big presence will be upsetting to people, will not always be taken with open arms, right? My last episode was about rejection, right? Which is part of the path to more and more leadership and authority. You are going to get rejected. People are going to disagree with you or push back on you.
And speaking to be heard sounds different. This is what it sounds like: Here's what I see. This is what I recommend. We need to address this. So it's the same intelligence, but completely different leadership energy. Do you notice the difference between being heard versus speaking to feel safe? This is super important because the more onto yourself you can get about this and to notice it in the moment, the better you're going to be able to interrupt the pattern. But first, you need to be aware of this pattern and really own it and take stock of it, right? And the more you own it with compassion and caring about yourself, the more you're going to want to shift it because you're like, oh, I get why I'm doing this. How can I shift in the moment versus have that pattern just play out?
So in the moment, your body reads risk, not logic, not strategy, risk. Risk of being wrong, being judged, being too much, disrupting the room. And it's important that you anticipate this because your body is going to tense up a little bit and you're going to notice this. So you're not choosing your words, you are choosing your level of risk oftentimes when you are feeling a little bit more wobbly. And this is why it's so important to practice ahead of time and get clear with yourself and coach yourself ahead of time, especially if it's a big meeting and you're going to step into new spaces and you're going to take a more powerful point of view.
So most women instead of doing that and actually instead of supporting themselves to be solid and to follow through and to trust themselves, what will happen is most women will default to minimizing risk instead of maximizing impact. So you don't say what's most true, you say what feels safest. And oftentimes what feels safest won't land because other people will feel your energy and they'll be like, oh, is that nice girl energy or powerhouse energy? And that's a totally different outcome, right? And being able to notice that in yourself, right? Sometimes when I notice myself like, wow, I was being super like nice girl, what's going on here? Like what would it sound like for me to be bold and assertive?
So let me share with you that there is a deeper level of this than just how you sound. There's an identity shift. This is where most advice stops, but this is actually about identity. In that moment, there's a deeper question running. Am I allowed to take up space like this? Oftentimes, that's what our brain and body is saying, especially if it's spaces we haven't taken up that space before. And if the answer isn't solid, you will likely adjust, you will shrink, and you will edit. So the shift is not be more confident. The shift, and this is the exact assignment that I gave to the women in Command that blew a lot of their minds because it's such a simple shift, right? So instead of telling themselves, be more confident, what I would tell them to do when they caught themselves in being wanting to be safe versus moving forward with power and strength and strategy, right? The shift is to tell yourself, I am valuable. Period, end of story.
I would tell people, there's no over-explanation. It's just I am valuable, not as an affirmation, not as hype, but as an operating system. And the truth is, and I feel very firmly about this, every human being is valuable. And babies are valued just for being babies, but somewhere along the line, we learn that we need to achieve, achieve, achieve to be valuable. But what you can bring yourself to in these moments when your body and your mind feel a little scattered or wobbly, you can actually tell yourself, I am valuable and just let that sink in and let that be something that your body is opening up to and savoring.
Value doesn't need to be proven in the moment. It needs to be expressed. This is where you are taking yourself from feeling a lot of fear to actually shifting to where can I bring value? When you know you're valuable, you stop speaking to protect yourself. You start speaking to lead others. This is costing you more than you think. When you are not actually letting yourself focus on the value that you bring and you allow that fear in you, what happens is the cost is your ideas don't land. You're not seen at your level. People are like, why is she in this room? Obviously, she does really great things, but she doesn't hold the presence that she's valuable. She doesn't hold the weight of wanting her words to land or expecting her words to land.
Your influence will stall and internally, it will feel exhausting. It's like you're working harder and harder, trying to be nice and trying to hold it all together, but not actually getting things done. And people will start noticing what is going on with you. You know, I actually just talked to somebody recently who was like, I realized that I'm trying to be nice when I'm giving direct feedback and pushback, and I always solve the problem. And so when I always solve the problem, people don't really get that there's a problem because there's that safety in you that's like, oh, let me tell the leaders I'm going to solve the problem versus let the leaders sit with the problem that I'm telling them about and have them hold the anxiety of that problem versus me holding it all the time. That's a power shift, right?
So you're not tired from leading, you're tired from holding yourself back while leading, while doing it, right? Because you're half like in and half out. You're trying to be nicey-nice, but you're also trying to be assertive and heard and it's exhausting to try to do both at the same time. Leadership is not decided in preparation. It's decided in these micro-moments, in the exact seconds you choose how to show up. This is why it's so important that you go to school on yourself and you start noticing yourself and you start being really engaged into that emotional tension and resistance that comes up when you want to move forward, but something is telling you to hold back, right? Leadership is decided in the moment you choose your voice over your fear.
So, I want to move on to some practical steps because it's all well and great to say, okay, I get that there's this way that I keep holding myself back, but how do I actually move forward? And if this content is landing for you and you know other people in your life that are dealing with the same thing, please share this episode with them. This is something that so many high-achieving women are dealing with that are causing them to burn out because they are not realizing that the operating system within them is telling them to hold back and to go for safety versus actually leaning into being heard and to not carry as much of this emotional weight that keeps gathering on each other because you're like, I'm not being heard and I feel this emotional tension and it keeps building up. This is a way to actually create steps for yourself to notice these things and to use your life as an experiment, your leadership as an experiment to shift some of this thinking and to shift this emotional resistance into action so that you can be heard, right?
So number one, catch the moment. Notice the hesitation. Don't rush past it. Pause for one second. I want you to notice the more you can slow down time and notice this, this is what I teach in the executive pause, right? We're literally slowing down time and we're noticing ourselves in the moment. The more you can do that, the more you're going to understand like what's actually happening to me and my body in this moment. And you can say, whoa, I feel fear and even noticing that will help you calm down your nervous system.
Ask the right questions in the moment. Am I speaking to stay safe or to be heard? I want you to just pick one question, right? The other question could be, if I'm valuable, if I'm trusted, what would I say? You want to ask the question that's going to support you to shift in that moment. And sometimes for me, I'll ask, if I was speaking to be heard, how would I say this?
The third thing to do is to say the first clear version of what comes to mind and say it in a concise way. Here's what I see. And you want to have some anchor words for yourself to lean into it. This is what I recommend. Here's what I'm seeing. However that is, to help you be that bridge to shift because clarity lands more than perfection. So this is not about being perfect. This is about honing in on a skill, catching yourself in the moment, and being able to shift.
You also, once you say what you are going to say and share what you're going to share, you're going to hold the silence. Don't rush to explain, don't fill the space. This is where so many women undermine themselves and use their anxious energy, right? It leaks out of them and they don't feel powerful anymore. So your job after saying and delivering the message is not to manage the reaction. It's to deliver the message and pause and hold that silence. Again, that executive pause is so powerful.
And lastly, review, don't replay, right? Don't replay and beat yourself up. This is where exhaustion happens. Instead, have a science mindset, have a growth mindset about this, right? Step back and ask yourself after the meeting, what did I hold back on? What worked? What will I do next time? You want to go to school on yourself with lots of compassion, knowing that you're building and learning a skill to play at a level that you've never been playing at before, and you're training yourself. You're not judging yourself. That's why it's so important to review and not replay. It's reviewing so that you're training yourself and you're learning and you're growing and you're having fun with this. You're not replaying to beat yourself up and get more and more mad at yourself and hold more and more emotional tension. That's not the game here.
So, that's it. I know this is a super short episode, but these are the skill sets to be learning to go to school on yourself because so many women come to me and they say, I know what to say, but I can't do it. There's something wrong with me. And I say, listen, there's nothing wrong with you. You are learning to train your mind and body to speak up in spaces that you have never in your whole life thought you'd be at and that weren't actually built for you. So there's a lot of things that are going on with us mentally, physically that are holding us back. And our job is not to judge ourselves. Our job is to give ourselves compassion and to give ourselves tools that we can use to step into these new spaces powerfully because that's how we change leadership. That's how we show up as leaders in these spaces, not by shrinking back and by speaking from safety, but by speaking up and choosing and expecting to be heard.
So you already know what to say. That's not the problem. The work is saying it in the moments that matter. You don't need more confidence. You need to trust that you're valuable and act from it because the leaders who advance aren't the ones who think the best. They're the ones who are willing to say it when it matters most.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
Most women think, I need more confidence. I need to communicate better. No, this is not a confidence problem. This is not a communication problem. This is an execution problem under pressure. And today, I'm going to show you exactly why it happens and how to change it in real time.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills, and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Hey podcast listeners, welcome to today's podcast. I have been sharing with a lot of women, I've been talking to a lot of women as Command is open for enrollment, and what I'm seeing is that a lot of women actually know what they want to say. They actually know how they want to show up. But what happens is there's an execution gap between the way that they want to say it, how they want it to land, and what actually happens in the moment. So, I've created this whole episode just for you if you are like, that's exactly me, right?
Let's be honest about what's actually happening here. You're not confused. You're not lacking clarity. You are editing yourself in real time. It sounds like this: softening your point of view, over-explaining, waiting to see what others say, adjusting mid-sentence. You start with clarity, then dilute it as you speak.
So you're not lacking clarity. You're editing your best thinking out in real time. And there's a real reason why you do this, right? I actually have shared this example before, but I'm going to share it again. I have a client and she has been really working on her assertiveness, and she shared with me how bold she was talking to a senior leader in her organization. And she was like, this is what I recommend, this is why I recommend it, and very matter of fact, very powerfully, concise. And then she undermined herself by saying, but it's your call, right?
So this is sometimes how we edit ourselves in the moment, right? We take a risk, we step out there, we're bold, we're visible, and then we somehow take three steps back because we feel a little shaky in our nervous system. We feel a little scared, right? So this is where I want you to understand because this is a natural and normal thing that happens, particularly if you are in spaces that weren't really built for you, when you're like the only person, or when you're stepping into more levels of authority than you've had in the past.
What happens here, in that moment, you're making a split-second decision. This is exactly what happened to my client. You speak to stay safe versus speak to be heard. So instead of her actually landing the point and saying, this is what I recommend, period, end of story, she kept going on. And she gave her power away to another leader. And speaking to stay safe sounds like, I might be wrong but, just to add, dot, dot, dot, maybe we could, dot, dot, dot, right?
So you're managing perception, reducing risk, and trying to land it perfectly, right? Trying to not upset other people. But to be honest, if you're going to have a big presence, sometimes our big presence will be upsetting to people, will not always be taken with open arms, right? My last episode was about rejection, right? Which is part of the path to more and more leadership and authority. You are going to get rejected. People are going to disagree with you or push back on you.
And speaking to be heard sounds different. This is what it sounds like: Here's what I see. This is what I recommend. We need to address this. So it's the same intelligence, but completely different leadership energy. Do you notice the difference between being heard versus speaking to feel safe? This is super important because the more onto yourself you can get about this and to notice it in the moment, the better you're going to be able to interrupt the pattern. But first, you need to be aware of this pattern and really own it and take stock of it, right? And the more you own it with compassion and caring about yourself, the more you're going to want to shift it because you're like, oh, I get why I'm doing this. How can I shift in the moment versus have that pattern just play out?
So in the moment, your body reads risk, not logic, not strategy, risk. Risk of being wrong, being judged, being too much, disrupting the room. And it's important that you anticipate this because your body is going to tense up a little bit and you're going to notice this. So you're not choosing your words, you are choosing your level of risk oftentimes when you are feeling a little bit more wobbly. And this is why it's so important to practice ahead of time and get clear with yourself and coach yourself ahead of time, especially if it's a big meeting and you're going to step into new spaces and you're going to take a more powerful point of view.
So most women instead of doing that and actually instead of supporting themselves to be solid and to follow through and to trust themselves, what will happen is most women will default to minimizing risk instead of maximizing impact. So you don't say what's most true, you say what feels safest. And oftentimes what feels safest won't land because other people will feel your energy and they'll be like, oh, is that nice girl energy or powerhouse energy? And that's a totally different outcome, right? And being able to notice that in yourself, right? Sometimes when I notice myself like, wow, I was being super like nice girl, what's going on here? Like what would it sound like for me to be bold and assertive?
So let me share with you that there is a deeper level of this than just how you sound. There's an identity shift. This is where most advice stops, but this is actually about identity. In that moment, there's a deeper question running. Am I allowed to take up space like this? Oftentimes, that's what our brain and body is saying, especially if it's spaces we haven't taken up that space before. And if the answer isn't solid, you will likely adjust, you will shrink, and you will edit. So the shift is not be more confident. The shift, and this is the exact assignment that I gave to the women in Command that blew a lot of their minds because it's such a simple shift, right? So instead of telling themselves, be more confident, what I would tell them to do when they caught themselves in being wanting to be safe versus moving forward with power and strength and strategy, right? The shift is to tell yourself, I am valuable. Period, end of story.
I would tell people, there's no over-explanation. It's just I am valuable, not as an affirmation, not as hype, but as an operating system. And the truth is, and I feel very firmly about this, every human being is valuable. And babies are valued just for being babies, but somewhere along the line, we learn that we need to achieve, achieve, achieve to be valuable. But what you can bring yourself to in these moments when your body and your mind feel a little scattered or wobbly, you can actually tell yourself, I am valuable and just let that sink in and let that be something that your body is opening up to and savoring.
Value doesn't need to be proven in the moment. It needs to be expressed. This is where you are taking yourself from feeling a lot of fear to actually shifting to where can I bring value? When you know you're valuable, you stop speaking to protect yourself. You start speaking to lead others. This is costing you more than you think. When you are not actually letting yourself focus on the value that you bring and you allow that fear in you, what happens is the cost is your ideas don't land. You're not seen at your level. People are like, why is she in this room? Obviously, she does really great things, but she doesn't hold the presence that she's valuable. She doesn't hold the weight of wanting her words to land or expecting her words to land.
Your influence will stall and internally, it will feel exhausting. It's like you're working harder and harder, trying to be nice and trying to hold it all together, but not actually getting things done. And people will start noticing what is going on with you. You know, I actually just talked to somebody recently who was like, I realized that I'm trying to be nice when I'm giving direct feedback and pushback, and I always solve the problem. And so when I always solve the problem, people don't really get that there's a problem because there's that safety in you that's like, oh, let me tell the leaders I'm going to solve the problem versus let the leaders sit with the problem that I'm telling them about and have them hold the anxiety of that problem versus me holding it all the time. That's a power shift, right?
So you're not tired from leading, you're tired from holding yourself back while leading, while doing it, right? Because you're half like in and half out. You're trying to be nicey-nice, but you're also trying to be assertive and heard and it's exhausting to try to do both at the same time. Leadership is not decided in preparation. It's decided in these micro-moments, in the exact seconds you choose how to show up. This is why it's so important that you go to school on yourself and you start noticing yourself and you start being really engaged into that emotional tension and resistance that comes up when you want to move forward, but something is telling you to hold back, right? Leadership is decided in the moment you choose your voice over your fear.
So, I want to move on to some practical steps because it's all well and great to say, okay, I get that there's this way that I keep holding myself back, but how do I actually move forward? And if this content is landing for you and you know other people in your life that are dealing with the same thing, please share this episode with them. This is something that so many high-achieving women are dealing with that are causing them to burn out because they are not realizing that the operating system within them is telling them to hold back and to go for safety versus actually leaning into being heard and to not carry as much of this emotional weight that keeps gathering on each other because you're like, I'm not being heard and I feel this emotional tension and it keeps building up. This is a way to actually create steps for yourself to notice these things and to use your life as an experiment, your leadership as an experiment to shift some of this thinking and to shift this emotional resistance into action so that you can be heard, right?
So number one, catch the moment. Notice the hesitation. Don't rush past it. Pause for one second. I want you to notice the more you can slow down time and notice this, this is what I teach in the executive pause, right? We're literally slowing down time and we're noticing ourselves in the moment. The more you can do that, the more you're going to understand like what's actually happening to me and my body in this moment. And you can say, whoa, I feel fear and even noticing that will help you calm down your nervous system.
Ask the right questions in the moment. Am I speaking to stay safe or to be heard? I want you to just pick one question, right? The other question could be, if I'm valuable, if I'm trusted, what would I say? You want to ask the question that's going to support you to shift in that moment. And sometimes for me, I'll ask, if I was speaking to be heard, how would I say this?
The third thing to do is to say the first clear version of what comes to mind and say it in a concise way. Here's what I see. And you want to have some anchor words for yourself to lean into it. This is what I recommend. Here's what I'm seeing. However that is, to help you be that bridge to shift because clarity lands more than perfection. So this is not about being perfect. This is about honing in on a skill, catching yourself in the moment, and being able to shift.
You also, once you say what you are going to say and share what you're going to share, you're going to hold the silence. Don't rush to explain, don't fill the space. This is where so many women undermine themselves and use their anxious energy, right? It leaks out of them and they don't feel powerful anymore. So your job after saying and delivering the message is not to manage the reaction. It's to deliver the message and pause and hold that silence. Again, that executive pause is so powerful.
And lastly, review, don't replay, right? Don't replay and beat yourself up. This is where exhaustion happens. Instead, have a science mindset, have a growth mindset about this, right? Step back and ask yourself after the meeting, what did I hold back on? What worked? What will I do next time? You want to go to school on yourself with lots of compassion, knowing that you're building and learning a skill to play at a level that you've never been playing at before, and you're training yourself. You're not judging yourself. That's why it's so important to review and not replay. It's reviewing so that you're training yourself and you're learning and you're growing and you're having fun with this. You're not replaying to beat yourself up and get more and more mad at yourself and hold more and more emotional tension. That's not the game here.
So, that's it. I know this is a super short episode, but these are the skill sets to be learning to go to school on yourself because so many women come to me and they say, I know what to say, but I can't do it. There's something wrong with me. And I say, listen, there's nothing wrong with you. You are learning to train your mind and body to speak up in spaces that you have never in your whole life thought you'd be at and that weren't actually built for you. So there's a lot of things that are going on with us mentally, physically that are holding us back. And our job is not to judge ourselves. Our job is to give ourselves compassion and to give ourselves tools that we can use to step into these new spaces powerfully because that's how we change leadership. That's how we show up as leaders in these spaces, not by shrinking back and by speaking from safety, but by speaking up and choosing and expecting to be heard.
So you already know what to say. That's not the problem. The work is saying it in the moments that matter. You don't need more confidence. You need to trust that you're valuable and act from it because the leaders who advance aren't the ones who think the best. They're the ones who are willing to say it when it matters most.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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