1127: How to Look and Sound Confident Even When You’re Not with Montana von Fliss

How to Be Awesome at Your Job

How to be Awesome at Your Job

Sharpening, Decisions, Interview, Selfhelp, Fun, Speaking, Education, Careers, Skills, Money, Training, Meaning, Career, Thinking, Mental Health, Business, Health & Fitness, Success, Collaboration, Winning, Self-improvement, Mockaitis, Writing, Development, Wins

4.5 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 9 February 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Montana von Fliss shares her expert strategies for appearing more confident, no matter what you’re communicating.

— YOU’LL LEARN —

1) How to override your critical self-talk

2) The #1 habit most communicators neglect

3) Three simple tips to upgrade your presence

Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1127 for clickable versions of the links below.

— ABOUT MONTANA —

Montana von Fliss is a keynote speaker, public speaking coach, and CEO of Montana & Co., where she and her team help people deliver the best presentations of their careers. Her TEDx talk How to Be Confident (Even If You’re Not) has 3M+ views. With 17 years coaching at companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, and 30+ years as an actor/director, Montana teaches speakers to show up with clarity, presence, and real confidence.

• TEDx Talk: How to be confident (even if you’re not) | Montana von Fliss | TEDxBellevueWomen

• Website: MontanaVonFliss.com

• YouTube: The Montana von Fliss Show

— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW —

• Book: Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking by David Bayles and Ted Orland

• Book: James (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A Novel by Percival Everett

• Past episode: 477: Speaking Confidently and Effectively with Diane DiResta

• Past episode: 1118: Finding Consistent Motivation to Turn Intention into Action with Chris Bailey

— THANK YOU SPONSORS! —

• Monarch.com. Get 50% off your first year on with the code AWESOME.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We can't yet read each other's minds, so we won't ever know if you are actually nervous as a speaker unless you show us or tell us.
0:18.6	Practice is everything. We already know this. We apply it easily if you want to learn a
0:24.4	musical instrument or if you want to learn a sport, right? We'd never go, okay, everybody, we have a big
0:31.5	soccer game on Saturday. So let's all go home and just think about how we're all going to do well on that day, right?
0:40.5	And then see you on Saturday, right?
0:42.7	No, we would practice it as much as possible.
0:45.1	And yet, when it comes to public speaking, presentations, for some reason, we don't automatically apply that.
0:58.9	Thank you. some reason we don't automatically apply that. That's Montana Von Fliss.
1:00.6	She's a professional public speaking coach with over 17 years of experience coaching and over 30
1:05.1	years of acting experience.
1:06.6	She works regularly with professionals from Microsoft, Amazon, and Google to help them show up
1:10.2	with clarity, presence, and real confidence. So you'll learn, one, how to override your critical self-talk. Two, the number one habit most communicators neglect. And three, simple tips to upgrade your presence. And if you want a quick summary write-up of the actionable takeaways, I recommend you sign up for the free Gold Nugget email newsletter found at awesome at your job.com. I'm Pete McItis. This is How to
1:28.2	Be Awesome at Your Job. And now here's Montana. Montana, welcome. Hello. Pete. Hi. Thank you so
1:39.7	much for having me. Oh, thank you. It's great to have you here. I'm excited to talk about confidence.
1:45.1	Yes. Tell us, you've done a lot of coaching with a lot of people. Is there a top thing about
1:51.4	confidence that has really surprised you and your clients again and again? Yeah, that confidence
1:59.9	is not an innate trait. You don't have to be born
2:04.3	confident. It can be learned. It is a skill that you can practice and learn. All right. That is
2:11.6	encouraging. I guess that's what we're trying to do here. Otherwise, it'd be a very short interview,
2:16.5	Montana. I think so. It's learnable. Cool. All here. Otherwise, it'd be a very short interview, Montana. I think so.
2:18.0	It's learnable.
2:18.8	Cool.
	...

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