{"id":7171,"date":"2026-08-28T14:01:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/?p=7171"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T14:01:08","slug":"fake-it-till-you-make-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/uncategorized\/fake-it-till-you-make-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Fake it till you make it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-media-text is-stacked-on-mobile is-vertically-aligned-top\" style=\"grid-template-columns:36% auto\"><figure class=\"wp-block-media-text__media\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"577\" src=\"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/fake-1024x577.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7172 size-full\"\/><\/figure><div class=\"wp-block-media-text__content\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week, one of my students told me that she was afraid of giving a presentation to a new client in English. She\u2019s actually quite high up in her organisation, her English is good and she is perfectly comfortable presenting in German. She\u2019s just worried about what her Dutch client will think about her English skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sound familiar?<\/strong><br>It made me think of three tips I read in an article a long time ago about overcoming fear. I\u2019ve found them really useful myself \u2014 especially when I had to give my first webinar on teaching English interview skills to top management. They\u2019re a little quirky, but they work!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>First: Give your fear a name<\/strong><br>I sometimes call mine <strong>Captain Catastrophe<\/strong>. Instead of thinking, \u201cI\u2019m nervous. My English isn\u2019t good enough,\u201d try: \u201cOh, hello Captain Catastrophe. You\u2019re here again.\u201d Giving your fear a name helps you realise that it isn\u2019t you talking \u2014 it\u2019s your fear. And somehow, that makes it much easier to take a step back from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Second: Let it float away<\/strong><br>Imagine your fear is a leaf floating down a stream. Notice it, but don\u2019t grab it. Let it float past.<br><em>There goes that thought \u2026 and there goes another one \u2026<\/em><br>And then focus your thoughts on the task in hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>And finally: Fake it till you make it<\/strong><br>Get dressed up. Stand tall. Shoulders back. Look in the mirror and tell yourself, \u201cI can do this.\u201dAnd then practise in front of the mirror. And again \u2026 and again.<br>It might feel like pretending \u2014 but there\u2019s evidence that changing your posture and behaviour can actually help you feel more confident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And remember: Your audience is usually on your side. They\u2019re not sitting there counting your mistakes. In fact, perfect English probably isn\u2019t what your conversation partner is looking for. <strong>Being polite, respectful and professional is much more important.<\/strong> They want to understand you, have a good conversation and get something done. And if you\u2019re both speaking a language that isn\u2019t your mother tongue, there\u2019s something rather nice about that, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, one of my students told me that she was afraid of giving a presentation to a new client in English. She\u2019s actually quite high up in her organisation, her English is good&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.5","language":"en","enabled_languages":["de","en"],"languages":{"de":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7176,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7171\/revisions\/7176"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jolliffe.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}