I express myself freely and confidently.

The thing that gets said in a meeting is rarely the best thing available. It is whatever survived the editing — three others were considered and dropped in the second before speaking, on the grounds that they were obvious, or too much, or would land wrong. Then somebody else says one of them ten minutes later and the room likes it.

Freely doesn't mean unfiltered. It means the filter running at a reasonable setting rather than at maximum, where almost nothing gets through and the cost stays invisible, because unsaid things leave no trace.