I Was Selectively Mute. Last Week, 160 People Couldn’t Stop Listening.
I’m going to tell you something that doesn’t make sense on paper.
Last week I stood in front of a room at the Wellness State SHRM26 conference. The session was on happiness; my life’s work, the thing I’ve been building in Knoxville and beyond for years. The room was designed for maybe 130 people. 160 showed up. They filled every chair. They lined the walls. They stood in the back, shoulder to shoulder. Someone joked it was a fire hazard. They let them keep coming anyway.
HR directors. Recruiters. Engagement specialists. People who spend their days trying to figure out how to make workplaces human. They packed that room to hear about happiness, and by the end they were laughing, connecting, leaning in — moved.
And the woman standing in front of them? The woman who moved that room?
She was selectively mute.
Let Me Tell You Who I Actually Am
I am 56 years old. I know what the world says about that. It says I should be winding down. Coasting. Planning the retirement party. Thinking about what I was instead of what I’m becoming.
I proclaim … oh no. Fifty-six is only the start.
Because I found it. The sweet spot. The place where everything I’ve been through, everything I believe, and everything I’ve learned how to say out loud finally converged. It has a name. It’s called executive presence. And it is how I moved that room; to laughter, to joy, to something real.
But I need you to understand where I started. Because if you only see the woman on the stage, you’ll think this came naturally. It didn’t. It almost didn’t come at all.
The Girl Who Couldn’t Speak
I was born in 1970, a first-generation Greek Cypriot in Annapolis, Maryland, raised in Knoxville, Tennessee. My father was a farmer turned biophysicist; he worked at Johns Hopkins before earning tenure as a full professor at the University of Tennessee. My mother was a resilient woman who balanced a career and homemaking and filled my life with lessons of courage, faith, and humanity. These values became my roots.
In 1973, we visited Cyprus, where my mother was pregnant with my brother. I still remember my grandfather picking me up from school every day with a homemade ice cream cone in his hand; a symbol of love, community, and care. But that year also taught me something else. One day, my mother tripped while pregnant, and despite the fear and worry of our family, she stood back up, unshaken. She carried on — showing resilience in the face of adversity. From her, I learned that strength isn’t about never falling. It’s about rising each time you do.
One year later, in 1974, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus shook our family’s roots. Our extended relatives fled their homes, leaving behind everything; including the memories stored in precious photo albums. The injustice was profound. I didn’t fully understand it then, but I felt it. Watching my parents, who had already endured so much under British rule, taught me about courage; courage that goes beyond the physical, courage that comes from within.
And then there was me. A quiet, introverted child in an American school where I didn’t speak much English. Public speaking terrified me. Not the normal kind of terrified; the clinical kind. The kind that has a diagnosis. What is now known as selective mutism. I could think clearly. I could feel deeply. I had things to say. But the words would not come out. My body would not let them.
I want you to sit with that for a moment. Because the woman who stood in front of 160 people last week and made them laugh, made them cry, made them lean forward in their chairs; that woman spent her childhood unable to speak in a classroom.
The Moment Everything Shifted — And the Decades It Took After
In fifth grade, I was called to present a book report. There was no way out. I prayed for strength. And something shifted. I found my voice; not all of it, not permanently, not without fear…but enough. For the first time, I understood that faith and courage could transform fear into something I could walk through. The mutism began to break that day; but it did not resolve with once experience.
But here’s what nobody tells you about overcoming anxiety. It doesn’t happen once. It happens over and over and over again. Every new room. Every new audience. Every new level.
I became a mental health therapist. A good one. I could communicate; that was my training, my gift, my professional identity. Sitting across from another human being, listening deeply, reflecting back what I heard, helping them find their own words; I was built for that.
But speaking? To a room? To a crowd? To people who were looking at me and waiting for me to lead?
Terrified.
I had retired from therapy. I was building something new; the Knoxville Happiness Coalition, a movement to bring the science of well-being into workplaces and communities. I had the mission. I had the research. I had the heart. But every time I stood up to share it, the old fear was right there. The little girl who couldn’t speak was still in the room with me.
And this is where I need to be honest with you; not as a speaker, but as someone who has lived with clinical anxiety. Anxiety is real. It is not a mindset problem. It is not something you can positive-think your way out of. It is an emotion that every human being experiences, and when it becomes clinical, it creates shame. It creates paralysis. It tells you that your voice doesn’t matter, that you’ll be exposed, that the safest thing you can do is stay quiet.
I know that voice intimately. I lived inside it for decades.
So how did I get from selectively mute and clinically anxious to standing in an overflowing room, moving 160 strangers to connection and joy?
The answer is executive presence. But not the way most people teach it.
My Three Pillars — And the One That Was Missing
Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s landmark research with the Center for Talent Innovation found that executive presence sits on three pillars: gravitas; which is really the fusion of character and confidence; communication, and appearance. Gravitas carries 67% of the weight. Communication carries 28%. Appearance carries just 5%.
When I first encountered this research, I didn’t see a theory. I saw my own life.
I had character. That was never the question. My faith in Jesus and His Word is the bedrock of everything I am. My spirituality isn’t a side note in my story; it is the story. The courage I learned from my mother getting back up. The resilience I inherited from a family that survived invasion and displacement. The values my father modeled; that a farmer’s son from Cyprus could become a full professor through discipline, intellect, and integrity. Character was my roots. It was always there.
I could communicate. Twenty years as a therapist taught me how to listen at a level most people never practice. I could read a room. I could meet someone where they were. I could take complex ideas and make them human. Communication was my training. It was always there.
But confidence?
Confidence was the gap.
Not because I didn’t believe in my work. Not because I didn’t know my material. Not because I lacked intelligence or preparation or passion. I lacked the willingness — the ability, for a long time; to stand up and let people see all of it. To take up space. To own my voice. To stop hedging, stop apologizing, stop making myself smaller so the anxiety would quiet down.
My gap statement; the one I teach every leader in my workshops to write…would have been this:
“I am clear and convicted on the inside, but I show up as hesitant because I tend to let anxiety decide how much of myself I reveal.”
That was my gap. For years.
How I Closed It
I didn’t close it in one moment. I closed it in a thousand small ones.
In 2019, I started teaching at the University of Tennessee. Standing in front of students. Finding my rhythm. Learning that I could hold a room — not by being the loudest person in it, but by being the most present.
I started creating online courses…Udemy, LearnFormula; translating what I knew into formats that forced me to be clear, structured, and direct. You can’t hide in an online course. There’s no warmth of a live room to carry you. It’s just your voice and your ideas, and they either land or they don’t.
I started writing. Articles published by the Knoxville News Sentinel. Featured in MSN. Yahoo News. I put my thinking into the world in print, where it could be read and judged and shared. Every article was an act of confidence; a decision to say this is what I believe and let it stand.
And then, circa 2024, I began teaching executive presence itself. The thing I had been building inside myself for years became the thing I taught others. And something locked into place. Because when you teach the framework, you have to live it. You can’t stand in front of a room full of leaders and talk about the sweet spot of character, confidence, and communication while hiding behind your own anxiety. The material won’t let you. The room won’t let you.
The invitations started coming. ASSHRA. Florida SHRM. Interviews with HR Dive. The Knoxville News Sentinel asked me to be part of their 40 Under 40 feature; which, at 56, I found both flattering and hilarious. WATE Living East Tennessee. And then SHRM…the national stage. The National Talent Conference. I stood in front of a packed to overflow room and I spoke.
Not perfectly. Not without nerves. But fully. Character, confidence, and communication — aligned. The inside matching the outside. The gap closed.
What Executive Presence Actually Is
Here’s what I want you to understand — what I wish someone had told me thirty years ago.
Executive presence is not a personality type. It is not charisma. It is not being extroverted or commanding or fearless. It is the alignment of three things:
Character — who you are when it costs you something. Your values, your integrity, the things you stand for when standing is hard.
Confidence — the willingness to let people see your conviction. Not the absence of fear. The decision to speak through the fear. To state your position. To hold silence after you’ve said it. To stop apologizing for taking up space.
Communication — the ability to make your character and confidence visible. To say what you mean clearly. To lead with the headline. To tell a story that makes people feel something. To be direct and warm at the same time.
The sweet spot is where all three intersect. And the research confirms it; Hewlett’s study of 4,000 professionals found that this intersection accounts for 26% of what it takes to get promoted. She called it “the missing link between merit and success.”
But I’ll tell you what it really is. It’s the missing link between who you are and who people get to experience. Most leaders aren’t lacking substance. They’re lacking expression. They are, as the research puts it, “not under-confident — they are under-expressed.”
I was the most under-expressed person I knew. And I closed the gap. Not because I became someone different. Because I finally let people see who I already was.
What I Saw in That Room of 160
When I stood in front of that overflowing room at SHRM26, I wasn’t performing. I was present.
I told them about happiness; the science, the practice, the organizational imperative. But underneath the content, what they were responding to was presence. They could feel that I meant it. They could feel that I’d lived it. They could feel that the woman in front of them had fought for every ounce of the voice they were hearing.
They laughed…real laughter, the kind that comes from recognition, from feeling seen. They connected with each other. They leaned in. And afterward, they came up to me, one after another after another, and they didn’t say “great presentation.” They said thank you. They said I needed that. They said how do I bring you to my organization?
That’s what executive presence does. It doesn’t impress people. It moves them. It doesn’t make them admire you. It makes them trust you. It doesn’t fill a room with your voice. It fills a room with permission — permission for everyone in it to be a little more honest, a little more courageous, a little more human.
The Part Nobody Sees
I want to be careful here. Because I know how stories like this can sound. Woman overcomes adversity. Woman finds her voice. Standing ovation. Roll credits.
That’s not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that anxiety is still real for me. It’s not gone. It’s not defeated. I didn’t slay it. I learned to work with it. I learned that the shaking hands and the racing heart are not evidence that I don’t belong on the stage. They’re evidence that I care about what I’m saying. They’re evidence that this matters to me.
The whole truth is that confidence isn’t a feeling I achieved. It’s a behavior I practice. Every single time. I still have to choose to state my position first instead of polling the room. I still have to choose to hold the silence instead of filling it with qualifiers. I still have to choose to say “Here’s what I believe” instead of “I could be wrong, but…”
The whole truth is that the sweet spot isn’t a destination. It’s a practice. Character, confidence, and communication don’t align once and stay aligned forever. You align them every morning. Every meeting. Every conversation. Every time you stand up and decide to let people see you.
That’s the work. And it’s worth it. Every single time.
What I Want You to Know
If you are reading this and you recognize yourself in my story — if you are the person with deep character and real ability who keeps getting told that something is “missing” — I want you to hear me clearly.
Nothing is missing.
You are not under-qualified. You are not under-confident. You are under-expressed.
The gap between who you are and how people experience you is not a character flaw. It’s a translation problem. And translation problems have solutions.
Here’s where you start. Write one sentence:
“I am _________ on the inside, but I show up as _________ because I tend to _________.”
That sentence is your diagnostic. It will tell you exactly which pillar needs your attention — character, confidence, or communication. And once you can name the gap, you can close it. Not someday. This week.
If your gap is character — start naming your values out loud. Before your next decision, say “Here’s what I believe…” and let people see what drives you.
If your gap is confidence — state your position before you ask for anyone else’s. Hold three seconds of silence. Let it land. Stop apologizing for having a point of view.
If your gap is communication — lead with the headline. Say the important thing first. Then the evidence. Then stop. Trust that less words, spoken clearly, carry more weight than a flood of caveats.
Fifty-Six Is Only the Start
They say at my age I should be winding down. That the arc bends toward quiet. That the best years are behind me.
I’m going to be honest with you because that’s what I do.
I’m in menopause. I talk about it. I talk about it because nobody else will, and silence around the things women actually experience is how we end up feeling crazy and alone in rooms full of people going through the exact same thing.
My body has changed. Not gradually, not gracefully — fast. I’ve gained a lot of weight quickly. There’s a frump I didn’t plan for and can’t seem to outrun. There are days I look in the mirror and don’t recognize the woman looking back. There are days I feel out of control; of my body, of my energy, of the version of myself I thought I’d be at this age.
I’m struggling. I want to say that plainly. Not as a disclaimer. Not as a setup for a triumphant pivot. Just as the truth. I am struggling.
And here’s what set me free.
When I studied the research on executive presence (Hewlett’s S.A. (2014) data, the survey of 4,000 professionals, the hard numbers) I found a fact that made me sit back in my chair and breathe for the first time in months.
Appearance accounts for 5% of executive presence. Five percent.
Gravitas — your character, your confidence, your integrity, your emotional intelligence — carries 67%. Communication carries 28%. And the way you look? Five.
Do you know what that means for a woman in menopause whose body doesn’t feel like hers anymore? It means the thing I’ve been agonizing over; the weight, the frump, the feeling of not looking the part — accounts for almost nothing in whether people experience me as a leader worth following.
Five percent.
The other 95% is who I am and whether I let people see it.
That’s not a consolation prize. That’s liberation. That’s data telling me what my anxiety has been trying to drown out: you are not your body right now. You are your character. You are your conviction. You are your voice.
So no. I am not winding down.
I say I spent the first half of my life finding my voice. I intend to spend the second half using it; in this body, at this weight, in this season, with hot flashes and brain fog and every unglamorous thing that comes with being a woman who refuses to disappear on schedule.
I was a little girl in Knoxville who couldn’t speak in a classroom. I was a therapist who could heal others but couldn’t stand on a stage. I was a woman with a vision for happiness who was terrified to share it out loud. And now I’m a woman in menopause who some days feels like she’s falling apart; and who stood in front of 160 people last week and made them laugh, made them lean in, made them feel something real.
Not because I was polished. Not because I was thin. Not because I looked like the picture in anyone’s head of what a keynote speaker is supposed to look like.
Because I was present. Because my character, my confidence, and my communication were finally, fully aligned. Because the 95% showed up so strong that the 5% didn’t matter.
That’s executive presence. That’s the sweet spot. And I’d like to teach you how I found it; because I believe with everything in me that you can find it too.
You already have everything you need. You just have to let people see it.
Even the messy parts. Especially the messy parts.
Alexia Georghiou is a keynote speaker, organizational development consultant, and adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee. [http://tiny.utk.edu/6xcAI]
She is the author of The Future of Work is Human and The Future of Success is Happiness, [https://www.amazon.com/Future-Work-Human-Success-Happiness-ebook/dp/B0DX1GZVW3]
Founder of the Knoxville Happiness Coalition and the World Happiness Fellowship, [https://www.worldhappinessfellowship.com/]our annual celebration of the international day of happiness March 20th.
Creator of the V.A.L.U.E.S. Model for human-centered leadership. Her executive presence course is SHRM-accredited through the Knoxville Happiness Coalition Academy. [https://academy.knoxvillehappinesscoalition.com/]
Hear It From Them
I can stand here and tell you what happened in that room. But you don’t need to take my word for it. You were just watching the video. You saw it.
You saw the room…every seat taken, people standing along the walls, bodies pressed into the back because they wouldn’t leave. You heard the laughter. You saw the moments where the room got quiet… the kind of quiet that means something landed.
But what you didn’t see is what happened after.
I hadn’t even left the stage.
They lined up. Not for the door… for me. A line formed right there at the front of the room while I was still catching my breath.
They came with their copies of my book. They cleared out the entire SHRM inventory. Every single copy. Gone.
And then two of them stood in front of a camera and told you themselves.
Watch Sydney’s Testimony [https://youtube.com/shorts/rajZG8KTXcI?feature=share]
These aren’t scripted. These aren’t polished marketing testimonials recorded in a studio with good lighting and a second take. These are two human beings, minutes after walking out of that session, still carrying whatever shifted inside them, looking into a lens and saying this is what just happened to me.
Watch CJ’s Testimony [https://youtube.com/shorts/0tKPbYPUBvY?feature=share]
That’s not a review. That’s a testimony.
Because executive presence isn’t measured by applause. It’s measured by movement. Did something move? Did a mindset shift? Did someone walk out of that room different than they walked in?
Listen to them. Not to what they say about me — listen to what they say about themselves. Listen for the shift. That’s the whole point.
That’s executive presence doing what it’s supposed to do. Not impressing people. Moving them.
Bring This to Your People
Let me be direct with you.
You just read what happened. You saw the video. You heard the testimonials. You watched 160 people pack a room past capacity and refuse to leave. You saw them line up before I left the stage, clear out every copy of my book, and look into a camera minutes later to tell you that something inside them shifted.
But here’s what you didn’t see.
You didn’t see what happened in the hallways after. The hi-ho and ha-ha-ing. Leaders stopping other leaders mid-stride to say you missed it — you missed the talk. People grabbing colleagues by the arm, pulling them aside, telling them about the session with the kind of energy you can’t manufacture. Speakers who missed it hearing about it from three different people before lunch. And the messages that started coming in that same day — not “great talk” messages, but my life already shifted messages. People who went back to their rooms and applied the framework that night. People who wrote their gap statement on a hotel napkin. People who called their teams the next morning and led differently.
That’s not a conference session. That’s a catalyst.
And you would be out of your mind not to bring it to your next event.
I don’t say that to be arrogant. I say it because I’ve lived every word of what I teach. I went from selectively mute to standing ovations. From clinical anxiety to a national SHRM stage. From terrified to present. And when I share that journey — backed by the research, built into an actionable framework, delivered with the warmth of a therapist and the conviction of someone who almost never found her voice — rooms move. Mindsets shift. People don’t just learn about executive presence. They feel it. And they leave ready to practice it.
Your opening keynote sets the tone for everything that follows. It tells your audience what kind of event this is; whether it’s going to be forgettable or transformational. Whether they’ll scroll their phones or lean forward. Whether they’ll leave with notes or leave changed.
I’m the one who changes the room.
Let’s talk.
📧 alexia@knoxvillehappinesscoalition.com [alexia@knoxvillehappinesscoalition.com] 📞 1-865-283-3605
Don’t wait for the next conference to wonder why the room felt flat. Book the woman who fills it past capacity; and gives them something they carry home.
MEDIA INTERVIEWS
WATE [https://www.wate.com/video/world-happiness-fellowship/11622503/]AI and Wellbeing [https://www.wate.com/video/world-happiness-fellowship/11622503/]· March 19, 2026 Alexia Georghiou Mark Greig World Happiness Fellowship [https://www.wate.com/video/world-happiness-fellowship/11622503/]
WATE Living East TN Interview Alexia Georghiou Knoxville Happiness Coalition February 23, 2026 [https://www.wate.com/video/knoxville-happiness-coalition/11546692/]
Knoxville News Sentinel, [https://www.knoxnews.com/story/money/business/2026/01/11/under-40-and-overworked-how-young-east-tn-professionals-can-battle-burnout/87887717007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z117857p000950c000950u116747e000500v117857&gca-ft=218&gca-ds=sophi]Under 40 and overworked? How young East TN professionals can battle burnout · [https://www.knoxnews.com/story/money/business/2026/01/11/under-40-and-overworked-how-young-east-tn-professionals-can-battle-burnout/87887717007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z117857p000950c000950u116747e000500v117857&gca-ft=218&gca-ds=sophi]January 11, 2026 [https://www.knoxnews.com/story/money/business/2026/01/11/under-40-and-overworked-how-young-east-tn-professionals-can-battle-burnout/87887717007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=z117857p000950c000950u116747e000500v117857&gca-ft=218&gca-ds=sophi]
HR Dive, [https://www.hrdive.com/news/dei-divide-where-do-we-go-from-here/805898/]DEI divide: Where do we go from here? [https://www.hrdive.com/news/dei-divide-where-do-we-go-from-here/805898/] · November 19, 2025 [https://www.hrdive.com/news/dei-divide-where-do-we-go-from-here/805898/]
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit alexia.substack.com/subscribe [https://alexia.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2]
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