Little Me vs Big Me

The challenge

During a break at a corporate sales training, a participant—a towering six-foot-tall man with a warm smile and slow, gentle speech, approached me for help with his presentation skills. His soft-spoken nature required listeners to strain to hear him, but he revealed this behavior surfaced only at the office.

Out in the field, he was assertive, even intimidating when needed. He struggled to raise his voice to an audible level, especially around his manager. Before turning to NLP, he had tried self-help books and podcasts, yet saw no improvement in overcoming this office-specific timidity. 

The effect

The client’s confidence challenge crippled his ability to engage customers over the phone when his manager was nearby—his manager’s office door opened directly onto his desk, amplifying his discomfort. “I freeze up; I can’t get the words out loud enough,” he admitted. This led to lost sales and frustration, with his manager on the verge of giving up on him, a sentiment the manager shared with me before the training.

He felt powerless and anxious, hearing his own voice falter while seeing his manager’s growing disappointment. His kind demeanor masked a sinking confidence, and he knew his job was at risk. Beyond books and podcasts, he’d attempted practicing alone, but the presence of authority silenced him still. 

Solution

I invited him to my independent workshop, where I coach MBA students on topics from negotiation to personal growth. Over two 15-minute sessions in the main workshop, I guided him through the "Big Me" technique—a process blending visualization, reframing, and kinesthetic anchoring to shift from fear to confidence (as detailed in my submitted article to Rapport).

The sessions felt calm yet energizing: soft instructions guided the client to visualize his empowered self, paired with physical cues like stepping forward to embody that state. The room humed with focus—quiet reflections broken by his steadying breaths as he rewired his mindset. First session unlocked his potential; second one reinforced it.

Result

On the last workshop session break time, he approached me outside, overflowing with gratitude—thanking me so profusely I felt bashful. “I feel like a different person,” he said, his eyes now locking with mine, his posture upright and commanding. He told me the next time he faced a call with his manager nearby, he spoke confidently, no longer shrinking.

Back in the class during a role-play, the "kind giant" vanished; his voice boomed with assertion, startling me with its clarity. His transformation was striking—eye contact steady, shoulders back, words crisp. I checked in with his manager later, who noticed the shift: “He’s more present now, though sales haven’t spiked yet.” This newfound presence rippled into his life, boosting his self-belief and workplace interactions. While sales figures lagged slightly, his trajectory was clear—progress was underway.