Have you always been told that you needed to speak perfect English to be successful in business meetings, presentations and conversations? I'm going to show you why you don't need perfect English. I'll help you understand why you should never worry about having perfect English. I'll also share what you need to focus on in order to speak English confidently at work. I'll give you a hint. It isn't focusing on perfect grammar and perfect vocabulary. Many business professionals have been told by their teachers for many years that they need to speak perfect English to be successful in international business. This advice is so confusing to me because I'm not a teacher. Maybe you have a big presentation and you feel that you must practice for days and days and memorize your best and perfect vocabulary words. Or maybe you have that big meeting next week and you must spend many extra hours practicing what you're going to say so that you can use your perfect grammar in your important meetings. And then try to use your perfect vocabulary and grammar in those presentations and meetings and it doesn't work. In fact, it creates big problems. Let me share the story of one of my clients named Maria. Maria is not a native English speaker and she works in a company where English is not used most of the time. When we started working with each other, it was clear to me that Maria knew a lot of English. However, when she's talking with me, she was speaking so carefully and I could just feel her searching for the right words in each sentence. I could feel that she was always trying so hard not to make mistakes. I learned Maria had a big job and lots of responsibility and experience. She was a really smart woman. Her responsibilities included meeting to do more business with native English speakers in the future. My client, Maria, was explaining that she had some important meetings and presentations in a few weeks with native English speakers and she was not confident at all. In fact, she was scared. She was scared of speaking to native English speakers. She was scared of making mistakes. She was scared of looking stupid in front of native English speakers. In fact, she had a big business trip plan in about one month where she needed to speak with many native English speakers and it was an important meeting for her and for her company. Maybe you feel like this. Did your teachers always tell you that you needed to be perfect? Did your teachers always say, no, you can't do it that way. You must do it this way. Are you scared about speaking with native English speakers because you will make mistakes? Are you scared? You might look stupid. Back to Maria. After letting Maria speak for some time and our first meeting together, I politely stopped her. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Grant. I'm not a teacher. I've never been a teacher. I hate grammar. I'm a business professional and I'm a business English communication coach. And what I said to her was this. I want to be very clear. I tell all my clients this. I have one rule and only one rule. This is my one rule. It's okay to make mistakes. Then I stop talking. After about 30 seconds of silence, she started to smile. And soon had this huge smile on her face. She went on to tell me that no one had ever told her it was okay to make mistakes. And teachers always told her she needed to be perfect. Many of you are so focused on using perfect vocabulary and perfect grammar that you're missing the entire goal of using English for work. To speak English confidently so that you can communicate your messages to your audience. It was fantastic. She immediately started to relax. And I could just see her start to feel free. During her first session, her ability to speak English improved so much. I've never seen anyone take this advice so quickly and start speaking without fear of making mistakes. She was so happy. Her big personality started to show. And she was smiling and happy and speaking and laughing and making mistakes. And she didn't care. I certainly didn't care about her mistakes. That was 100% happy about her just feeling free and sharing ideas and thoughts with me. It was fantastic. I explained to her that you need to focus on communicating your message to your audience. If you're always trying to be perfect with your grammar and vocabulary, you will never sound confident. The people you are speaking to will feel that you're not confident. And many times they'll think you're not confident in your message or your product or your service. You'll never guess that you're not confident about your grammar. I can guarantee you that they don't care about your grammar or your perfect English words. They only want to make sure that you're confident in your message and that they'll be doing business with a company that they can trust about a month later. Maria was about to go on her business trip and meet with these native English speakers. She had become so much more confident during the past month. I told her, I wanted her to do one thing for me before she walked into her meetings. I will repeat this one thing for you when you have meetings with native English speakers. Forget about your English. Nobody cares about your bad English. They care about your message and if you have a great product or service. So don't even think about your English when you walk into that meeting or presentation. A week later we met and Maria was all smiles. She went on to explain that she focused only on her message. She didn't care about her English. The meetings and presentations were a big success. She was so happy. It was really great to see her reaction. I love helping business professionals communicate confidently. Your life will change when you realize that instead of focusing on perfect English, you need to focus on communicating a good message. I tell my clients all the time. You can have bad English and still be a great communicator. You just need to focus on good communication skills and understand what message your client really needs in your client wants and give them that message. I want you to stop worrying about making mistakes. I want you to stop trying to speak with perfect vocabulary and I want you to stop trying to be perfect in your grammar. Everybody cares about your grammar. Just your crazy English teachers. Your business audience only cares about your message. So focus on knowing what message your audience needs and wants and give them that message of feeling and confidence. You'll be very happy and successful. I want you to share your success with me in the comments below. I want you to know what happened when you stopped worrying about making mistakes and you started speaking with confidence. Remember, it's okay to make mistakes. If you haven't tried it yet, you'll be amazed how easy it is to start communicating with confidence in English. Please like this video, subscribe to the channel, share your comments, and I also invite you to learn your business English confidence score. You'll find the link in the description below this video.