Closing the Gap Between What You Say and Do for Real Influence | Tim Newman Speaks

Are your words truly building the influence you want, or is there a hidden gap between what you say and how you act that's silently killing your credibility? In this episode of Speaking with Confidence, I dive deep into the powerful truth that your real message isn’t just what comes out of your mouth—it’s what people see in your behavior, especially when no one’s watching.

I open with a personal story about a tough leadership lesson: the painful disconnect between preaching innovation and risk-taking, and then acting in a way that totally undermined those values. Admitting that I was the one who once made this mistake sets the tone for radical authenticity and accountability—qualities I argue are essential if you want genuine influence.

Drawing on insights from John Maxwell's Everyone Communicates, Few Connect, I explain why your PowerPoint slides and pitch-perfect scripts are just window dressing. The heart of true connection and lasting influence is living out what you communicate. I tackle the myth that communication is all about how you craft your message and show why, instead, behavior is your primary message. Your team and clients have real-time “credibility audits” running in their heads, always weighing your actions far more than your words.

Here’s what I cover in this episode:

• The invisible gap between values and behavior that sabotages your influence
• A personal leadership mistake that taught me hard lessons about credibility
• Why your behavior communicates more than your words, especially under scrutiny
• How accountability—not perfection—accelerates trust and strengthens connections
• The step-by-step formula for owning and fixing mistakes with clients and teams
• A fresh take on vulnerability: how sharing learned wisdom (not present weakness) wins hearts and minds
• How to shift from a transactional to a partnership dynamic in any relationship
• The power of doing a quick “alignment audit” before key meetings to instantly increase impact

Whether you’re a leader, communicator, or entrepreneur, this episode arms you with actionable tools to make your influence grow—by living your message with confidence, accountability, and authentic vulnerability. And remember, we’re always chasing progress, not perfection!

As a quick update, next week’s schedule features a special guest and a holiday replay, so stay tuned. Don’t forget to grab your free eBook and check out my new book for even deeper strategies on turning your connections into true career growth. Thanks for joining me—your voice really can change your world.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Core Premise
• 0:28 The Credibility Gap Story
• 1:19 Behavior As The Real Message
• 2:31 Leadership And Client Disconnects
• 3:19 Why Authenticity Drives Trust
• 4:02 Ditch Perfection For Accountability
• 5:00 The Missed Deadline Script
• 6:05 Turning Mistakes Into Trust
• 6:17 Owning Errors In Team Pitches
• 6:48 The Three-Step Accountability Formula
• 7:07 Strategic Vulnerability Explained
• 7:50 Learned Experience vs Know-It-All
• 8:40 Creating Psychological Safety
• 9:45 Alignment Audit And Weekly Practice
• 11:13 Closing, Updates, And Resources

Transcript

Tim Newman: 0:08

Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor, turning communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. You know, there's a lie that's killing your influence right now. It's not something you're saying out loud, but everyone can hear it. It's the gap between what you claim to value and how you actually behave. I once watched a leader stand in front of his team and passionately talk about innovation and risk taking. He said failure was just part of the process. Then, two days later, I saw him publicly dismantle a junior employee who tried something new that didn't work. The silence in that room was louder than any speech. In that moment, his credibility evaporated. His words became meaningless. That leader was me. I had to learn a valuable lesson the hard way. John Maxwell calls this out in chapter 10 of Everyone Communicates if you connect. He says the most fundamental principle is this. Connectors live what they communicate. Your message isn't your PowerPoint slide. It's you. And today I'm going to show you how to close that gap for good so your influence actually grows when you speak. You see, this is the core of the entire problem. We think communication is about crafting the perfect pitch, finding the right words, or telling a compelling story. Now don't get me wrong, those things actually matter, but they're secondary. Your primary message, the one people actually believe, is your behavior. It's what you do when the camera is off. It's how you treat the intern. It's whether you follow through on that small promise you made in the hallway. Your audience, whether it's your team or client, has a BS detector that's always on, especially in high-six situations. They're not just listening to your words, they're conducting a credibility audit in real time. Disconnecting leadership is brutal. You say we value innovation, but you punish the first person who takes a calculated risk that doesn't pay off. You say people are our greatest asset, but you cancel one-on-ones the second things get busy. You're communicating that tasks are more important than people, no matter what your mission statement says. The disconnecting client communication is just as damaging. You tell a client, we're your strategic partner, but then you treat them like a transaction. You nickel and dime them when scope changes. You're unavailable when they have a problem, but suddenly responsive when it's time for a renewal. You're communicating that the revenue is valued, but they are not. The immediate non-negotiable consequence is this. People will always, always believe your behavior over your words. Every single time. Your actions are the headline. Your words are just the fine print. And this is why authenticity is such a buzzword. Not because it feels good, but because it's a functional requirement for trust. Without it, you're just performing. And people are terrible audiences for a bad performance. They'll tune out, they'll disengage, and your influence, your ability to lead and to sell dies on the vine. So how do you fix this? First, you start by abandoning the myth of perfection. Nobody expects you to be perfect, but everyone expects you to be accountable. The pursuit of perfection makes you defensive. It makes you hide your mistakes. Accountability, on the other hand, is an integrity accelerator. It's the fastest way to build trust when you've inevitably messed up. Let me give you a client communication example. Let's say you miss a deadline, and it happens. The weak, disconnected response is to make excuses. You may blame a vendor, a technical glitch, an overloaded team. You might even try to quietly extend the deadline without saying anything, hoping they won't notice. If you do that, what are you communicating? You're communicating that you're not in control, that you're not trustworthy, and that you think your client is dumb. But the connecting response, you pick up the phone or jump on a call immediately. You say something like this, hey Steve, I'm calling about the deliverable that's due today. Look, I own this. I've missed the deadline. It's on me, and I'm really sorry. Here's exactly what happened. And you can give a brief, unvarnished truth. And here's my concrete plan to fix it. I will have it to you by 10 a.m. tomorrow. Does that work for you? So let's break this down why this works so powerfully. First, you acknowledge it fast. And you didn't let the problem fester, and you owned it fully. You use the word I, not we. We can be a cowardly word that spreads blame. You took definitive ownership and you fixed it definitively. You gave a new specific time and asked for confirmation. This responds to something magical. It actually builds more trust than if you'd ever made the mistake at all. Why? Because it proves your character. It proves you're safe to work with. It proves that when things go wrong, and they always do, you'll handle it with integrity. This applies perfectly to a leadership pitch, too. Imagine you're pitching a new strategy to your team, and you get a detail wrong, and someone points it out. The disconnected leader doubles down or gets defensive. The connecting leader says, you know what, you're absolutely right. Thanks for catching that. Let me correct myself. That moment of public accountability makes you more credible, not less. It shows you care more about being right than about being seen as right. The formula is simple, but it's not easy. Acknowledge the mistake fast. Own it fully without dilution and fix it definitively with a clear solution. This one practice deposits more trust capital than a dozen perfectly delivered speeches. Now let's talk about vulnerability, because this is where most professionals get it all wrong. We confuse vulnerability with weakness. We think showing any crack in the armor will make people question our confidence. The exact opposite is true. In the context of influence, vulnerability is strategic authenticity. It's a calculated display of humanity that makes your expertise relatable and therefore more trustworthy. Contrast the know-all leader with the learned at all leader, especially in a pitch. The know-all has all the answers. They present a flawless plan, they never seem uncertain, and as a result, they create distance. The TR client thinks, well, of course this looks easy for you. You're on a different level. There's no connection. The learned all leader is different. They might say, When I first approached this problem, I made the mistake of focusing only on X. It took me a while to realize that Y was the real lever. That failure taught me the framework we were using today. What just happened? You didn't show current incompetence. You shared a relevant struggle you've already overcome. And you made your journey accessible. You communicated that you've been where they might be, and you found a way through it. And that builds a bridge. This is incredibly powerful in client communication. Sharing a brief, relevant story about a past project where you face a similar challenge and what you learned tells a client two things. First, that you have real hard-won experience, and second, that you're honest enough to talk about the messy parts. It makes your success seem repeatable, not like a fluke. The key distinction is crucial. You share challenges you've overcome, not current incompetence you're struggling with. You're not saying, I have no idea how to handle this. You're saying I've navigated this before, and here's the insight I gain. This kind of vulnerability does something remarkable. It creates psychological safety. When you're willing to be human, you give everyone else in the room permission to be human too. It encourages honesty, deeper questions, and a more genuine collaboration. It deepens a connection because it moves a relationship from a transactional expert client dynamic to a collaborative partner-partner dynamic. So let's bring this all together. The principle is that you are your message. Your integrity is your most powerful communication tool. And the practices are to right your wrongs with immediate accountability and to be strategically vulnerable, sharing your learned wisdom, not your current weaknesses. The cumulative effect of these aligned actions is a steady deposit into your trust bank account. Every time your actions match your words, you add a little more capital. Every time you own a mistake, you make a major deposit. This capital is what gives your words weight and your influence power. The one practice I want you to start this week is simple but profound. Before your next important leadership meeting or client call, conduct a quick alignment audit. Ask yourself one question. On this topic, do my recent actions match the words I'm about to say? If you're going to talk about valuing customer feedback, have you actually reviewed the latest survey comments yourself? If you're going to emphasize teamwork, have you publicly credited a colleague for their help recently? This five-second habit forces you to close the gap before you even open your mouth. It grounds your communication in reality. Remember, behavior is a language. What language are you speaking? The lie that kills your influence is the gap between your words and your actions. Live your message by owning your mistakes and embracing the strength of authentic vulnerability. Your credibility depends on it. That's all for today. Remember, we're looking for progress, not perfection. A quick update for next week's episodes. On Monday, we will have a regular episode with an amazing guest. On Thursday, December 25th, we will have a special replay of a popular teaching episode for the Christmas holiday. Then we'll be back on the regular schedule starting Monday, December 29th. Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidence podcast.com to get your free ebook, The Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Formula for Public Speaking. Always remember, your voice has empowered you. We'll talk to you next time. Take care.