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The Everyday Millionaire and Mindset Matters Podcast
MindShui Way- Episode #240- The Truth About Confidence Most People Get Wrong
00:42:10
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- [00:04]
A
Most people try to change their life by doing more. More discipline, more planning, strategy, more effort. Often the real issue is not that you're not trying hard enough or even that you feel like you're broken and need to be fixed. Mostly it is the mental and emotional clutter that keeps getting in the way, leaving you wanting change in your life, but not knowing how, or even avoiding the changes you need to make. So welcome to the Mine Shui Wei podcast, formerly Mindset Matters. I'm your host, Patrick Franci, alongside Stephanie Hanlon Franci, my wife, Olympic mental performance coach. We call this mind shui, like feng shui for the mind. And just as feng shui creates order, flow, and alignment in your physical space, Min shui is about creating order, flow and alignment in your inner world. Because your mindset is not just positive thinking. It is the operating system behind your experience. Experience in life. This is the mine shui way. Listen in. Enjoy. Most people think confidence means walking into a room and owning it. I think that's maybe where they get it wrong, because for a lot of people, owning the room really means performing for the room, trying to look a certain way, sound really smart, prove they belong, trying to make sure nobody sees the doubt underneath. But real confidence is different. Welcome to the Mine Shui Wei podcast. A little feng shui for the mind, clearing your clutter. Stephanie, welcome.
- [01:39]
B
Hi, Han.
- [01:40]
A
Okay, let's open up the conversation of confidence. And how do you define confidence? It's a big conversation, and one of the things that came up and why we brought this up was because the conversation around confidence and competence, that you need competence to have confidence. And that's just not true. But let's talk about it.
- [02:04]
B
Well, for me, the way that I describe and define confidence in the languaging of, especially with young athletes, and this could translate into other populations as well. But confidence is the ability to trust yourself. So confidence is based on the root of the word fidelity. So F I D. So confidence. So the FID is not the con. So con sometimes can be. You know, you think about a con man or whatever, but FID is fidelity. Can you trust yourself? Can you trust your training? Can you trust the fact that when you screw up, you can put in the correction. When you fall down, you can get back up again. And doing that repeatedly over time is what builds confidence. And to your point, you don't have to be competent to be confident, but
- [02:49]
A
we see that all the time.
- [02:50]
B
That's the trap, right?
- [02:53]
A
But we see a lot of people who are incompetent but have A lot of confidence. So that kind of dispels the theory or the thought process that you have to have competence to be confident. As a matter of fact, you don't. So let's just take that right off the table. And I think there's another side of it which we have to. No, we'll. We'll get to the point. I want to say that, you know, confidence, a phrase that I often use is confidence, is rarely owned, it's often borrowed. And somebody who is very confident shares their confidence with others. Their confidence actually ripples out to make everybody in the room confident. It doesn't minimize them, it actually lifts them. So we can talk about that as well, because that's my view of the world.
- [03:34]
B
Nice. Well, I think too, when you think about parents or people, coaches or people who are wanting others to excel in whatever realm and area of life they want, just. They just want them to be confident. Come on, just be confident. Right? Go into that exam and be confident. But I would rather have a parent or a coach or a teacher say, are you prepared? Did you study? Do you feel that you have done what you need to do in order to do well on the test? Because that's what builds confidence, is they go in just thinking it's going to come out of the blue, and magically I'm going to have all these feelings called confidence. Then they're just. Actually, it's B.S. it's just bullshit. Because confidence isn't a feeling. It's the outcome of action taken. That's how I describe it.
- [04:17]
A
Well, let's break that down, because is it about action taking necessarily the way that I heard you say that? So the reason I say that is because when we think about somebody that we acknowledge or seems to be very confident, what do we notice about them? And I think the word composure has to be in this conversation because I know for myself, it's taken a long time for me to get gain confidence or show up as being confident, even when I know that I'm being judged or misunderstood or somebody has to correct me. It's about composure. And when we look at somebody and we acknowledge somebody for appearing confident, I think that stems from their ability to stay composed even in really challenging times. What's your thoughts on that?
- [05:11]
B
Well, that's another root of the word I love. Pose, compose, positive, filtering things through that. Somebody's giving me feedback instead of somebody's criticizing me. We need to go in with that frame much earlier, I think, than we do as a society and as parents and teachers and Coaches is that teaching composure is about seeing the situation for what it is and then looking at it through a lens of how this is working for me and how I can see this as a positive outcome. Because composure is something that, you know, you think about, you know, being interviewed, a hockey player or an athlete being interviewed on television and they've just maybe had a shitty game or the goalie let in way more goals or something happened and they don't have that positive composure. They're blaming people, they're, they're, they're judging themselves. It's the, it's the, it's the weather's fault, it's whatever. So that level of, of excuses or stories can get in the way of composure, of saying, okay, well here's what really happened, here's where I can take responsibility, which to me is the link between composure and confidence.
- [06:19]
A
Okay, so I'm going to give you a line that I think you're going to really like. Okay? Because it, me, because it's a, it goes back to one of the things that you've coached over the years. I think that as I'm, you know, as we're talking through this and thinking through this, I think confidence really is an inside job. So in other words, it isn't about anybody else and it really is strictly about you and how you feel about yourself. You know, when you consider that you may be judged, you may be challenged, somebody may be critical of you and it may be out loud, you're in a scenario where lots of light is shining on you. You have to be able to stay composed, have the confidence to remain composed, but it's an inside job. So you have to see yourself in a certain way. And also just expanding on that thought process a little bit is understanding that the minute we start to compare ourselves to others and we put ourselves as less than. I'm not smart enough, I'm not rich enough, I'm not good looking enough, I'm not tall enough, not enough conversation. You're going to lose confidence because you're looking through the lens of I'm not enough, I don't belong here, or they're so much smarter than I am, or they're so much better looking than I am, that's going to diminish confidence. Whereas if you show up and actually own your abilities and who you are, you don't have to be the smartest person in the room, the best looking in the person in the room to have confidence. It's an inside job. What is the conversation? You're Having with yourself. Now, I might be full of shit there, but that's just one thought process.
- [07:59]
B
No, I think it's your ability to hold discomfort, you know, in your body when you're being judged and. Or when you're being criticized or, you know, for us, think about being on stage or on television or. I've just written my first chapter in a book that's going to be published at the end of the month. I'm putting myself out there and I'm getting ready to be criticized, to be judged, to be, et cetera. But what I really see it as is, do I have the ability and the composure and compassion for myself to. To hold that and go, you know what? I'm prepared to be misunderstood. I'm prepared in this moment to receive the criticism and then increase my capacity for discomfort. And when you can increase your capacity for discomfort in your own body and stay still, I call that quiet confidence. And to keep yourself as neutral as possible and not react until you've had the ability to let that all come in. But a lot of that comes from age and wisdom and gray hair and, you know, getting. Getting your ass handed to you, et cetera. I think what we're talking about is how do we help people distinguish what confidence is if it's not truly a feeling? Because if you go underneath it and you're waiting to feel confident to your point, chances are you're not going to take even a small action step in the direction that you want to go. But it's in the taking action and then getting the result and going, oh, that, that wasn't so bad. I'm still alive. I didn't die. And then you go, oh, maybe I will do it again. Or you take that step and you don't like the result, or you get a lot of pushback and a lot of negativity. Can you stay quiet in that and receive the feedback without taking it on as something that you have to do to change, to make sure that you fit in or that you're liked to expand on that?
- [09:38]
A
I think that's probably one of the bigger misunderstandings about confidence, is that confident people don't get rattled or get scared. They're not afraid when they go into scenarios. That's not it at all. They do. As to your point, you're a pretty confident person, but you do get rattled. You do get scared. It is in actually, and so do I. It's in our ability to trust ourselves that whatever comes at us, we can deal with it. That's where the Composure, part of it comes in. And again, I keep going back to we can lose confidence, or if we're being minimized or criticized or whatever that might look like. A lot of people attach confidence to that gregarious, big, bold personality that walks into a room and kind of dominates it, if you will, the loudest person in the room or the. Again, the most gregarious, the performer, if you will, can actually show up. Or people thinking, wow, is that person ever confident? When I think maybe that person is the most insecure and has to generate what looks to be like confidence when really they're not confident at all. That's kind of my thought process, having had lots of experience with those kinds of people.
- [11:01]
B
Well, you're not wrong. I think the biggest, boldest, you know, personality that walks into the room sometimes that draws the attention is usually the. The scary is the most scared, the most afraid person in the room. And to deflect or distract what it is that they're not capable of, they're not competent, they actually will put on that jacket. Whether it's ego or aggregate, you know, aggrandization or just not wanting to show their wounds, not wanting to show where they're not competent. And I think that is a distinction that if the sooner we teach kids that or the sooner we can bring that forward, is that when you. And that can be an act too. Like, playing small is also the opposite of that. Right. So it's not about playing small or not about playing big. It's about know thyself, knowing yourself well enough to. To go, okay, well, maybe I'm a little bit out of my league right now. You know, I've got a scenario coming up where I'm meeting with someone that, you know, is. I'm feeling is that way is way out of my league. And what it is that I have to do to prepare to sit in front of that person and just be myself. And I think that's one of the things my mom always said, you know, just if you can just figure out how to be yourself, because no one else can be you. And then when you think about it, if you're not yourself, who are you being? Because everybody else is taken, right? So who you trying to be in that moment? Or who's the person with the giant personality, the huge ego? And the. And the downside of that, it usually pisses people off and actually pushes people away from being drawn to that person that supposedly has the big confidence or the big personality.
- [12:34]
A
Yeah, I think it's interesting that I know for Myself, I'm feeling these past. I guess as I've gotten older, I certainly feel more confident because I know myself better. So I may not know a certain circumstance that I find myself in or certain things that I've been asked to do or want to do or don't want to do. My point is that I think I've just gained so much confidence in myself and my abilities to deal with whatever comes at me that really is starting to show up for me. So even though I don't know what the hell I'm doing in a certain circumstance or in a certain situation, I also am confident in my own ability to do what I need to do, to pull it off, to connect with the people that need to support me. And I don't have a lot of ego around having to have all the answers, which was a bit of a, what we'll call that a blind spot for me over the years. So confidence really is about trusting ourselves and our willingness to be okay. Being judged, corrected. I still get embarrassed easily if I'm not smart. That's one of my blind spots. Not a blind spot. I know that about myself, but I have confidence around it. But back to where we started, that's not the same as competence because actually what I'm saying is that I may not be competent, but I have the confidence to go move forward anyways.
- [14:05]
B
Well, I think that's where the FIO piece comes. You also have the ability and the confidence to FIO it. You can figure it out when you can FIO something in the moment before you actually speak or, or like when you came in, I asked you to fix my chair. You didn't know what was wrong with it, but you flipped it over and you FIO'd it. You figured it out and then went and drew from your skill set and fixed the chair without, you know, freaking out or without knowing that we're doing this podcast. So there's little things like that that when we have the ability to do that, it can start at a young age. I don't know if you know, if you can relate to this or if anybody can relate to this, but when you see somebody like a little piano player, four year old piano player that just gets down and starts playing piano and playing Mozart and Bach and Rachmannov, like, where does that come from? Is that confidence or is that sort of some download that they're getting from the heavens and then other 4 year olds and their parents go, how come you can't do that? Did I not play the right music? In the womb and da da, da. So many times parents and coaches can get in the way of their kids screwing up or making mistakes and putting in the correction themselves. So when I see a young child or a person that has this, which could be perceived as amazing ability, and they just look so confident, there's times where I look back or I unpack the conversation with the parents or the coaches or whomever is the caregiver and I go, what is it that you think it is? And, and, and they'll go, I, I don't know. I don't know what that is, but if I could put a pin in it, I go, you know, there's probably times when that person was growing up and that parent was in engaged that they actually let them FIO something, whether it was putting a block in a square or fixing something or braiding and cutting the Barbie's hair and getting consequences. If we don't allow the people around us, the young people, as we're building, and we need them to be confident, trust me, as we're going into these new uncertain times is we need young people to step up and trust themselves and try things and get responses. Because if we don't, if they don't get supported when they screw up or when they make mistakes, that's to your point, where that future adult embarrassment comes in, where we hold back our gifts or we stop trying or risking because I'm just going to get attacked or judged or corrected or whatever before I'm even have a chance to fio it.
- [16:14]
A
So this is an interesting kind of conversation in, in that which comes first, competence or confidence? We, we determined that competence isn't important to confidence, but it certainly helps. We can't underestimate or minimize the impact of competence. The more competent competence.
- [16:37]
B
Your, your P's and your F's are getting a little messy. What, what is it?
- [16:42]
A
What am I drunk?
- [16:42]
B
Don't underestimate what competence.
- [16:45]
A
So we, we don't want. So which comes first? Confidence or competence? Or, and do you need one or the other? So we've, we've kind of said you don't really need to be competent to have confidence.
- [16:58]
B
Isn't that the truth?
- [17:00]
A
But, but my point is, is that when we become competent at something, we have more confidence. But how do we gain competence? We have to do.
- [17:14]
B
I know, but how many times have somebody walked in, whether it's a business meeting or somebody offered something and they come in, they got, yeah, I got this. I'm so good at this and this and this and I can do this. And then they're coming across like they're super competent. So you trust them. And then all of a sudden you test them or they give you evidence that they're just way more confident than they are competent. And then by then it's too late. You know, you've already either committed or whatever. Right. So I think it's also up to the observer to create the environment for people to go, okay, well, he's coming across pretty competent right now. Is that truly the case or is that just confidence shrouding or kind of coming across as competence? I think that's where we can kind of unpack it a little bit.
- [18:03]
A
Well, back to what you said earlier, which is the con in confidence is the con man in confidence fakes the competence. But you don't need to be competent, which is only to say that you don't need to be competent to be confident. And you know, confidence comes is again, it's self trust. It's in our trusting ourselves to go through the process of gaining the competence and without actually being necessarily. We have to disconnect from maybe the embarrassment or the judgment of others or in our own pride, if you will. We have to be able to step away from it, disconnect from it, so that we can actually go through the process. And that's where true confidence is gained. I guess that's my point. You know, it matter. Competence matters, but. And you definitely gain confidence as you get more competent. We get all that. But in order to get competent, you have to go through the process. And that can be where you lack the confidence, but you still have to fake it.
- [19:06]
B
Yeah, well, that's where I maybe somewhat disagree. I don't, I don't subscribe to the fake it till you make it real. I mean, I have a lot of athletes that.
- [19:13]
A
Okay, then you're wrong, but go ahead, explain it.
- [19:16]
B
No, I'm totally right. So you can't fake it. Think of the word fake. You can't. If you fake it till you make it, then you're always somewhat of a fraud. You're always connecting to the fraud. What I'm talking about is that when is it possible? When you're. When I'm training an athlete or one of my CEO clients or whatever, and they're struggling with something and they. I can see that there's a competence with a P and a confidence with an F conflict. What I'll bring them back down to is who are you judging and who's judging you? Where are you on the scale of where you're ranking yourself as you walk into the room of what other CEOs are you going to a competition with other world class athletes in your mind, if you're going in there with a hierarchy of where you think you already stand in the hierarchy, you've already lost.
- [20:04]
A
So when I say, but let's put on it. So if you walk into the room, okay, and in your confidence depends on where you rank against others, okay, then you're going to, you're, you're not going to feel as confident. But back to the fake it till you make it kind of thing. When you find yourself in those scenarios, you have to trust yourself. That's where the confidence comes. So again, you may be measuring yourself against those other CEOs or those other individuals and you're going, gosh, I'm not as smart as they are, I'm not as accomplished as they are. But if you go down that path, you are not going to have the confidence. So you do have to fake it a little bit to go, okay, I'm not feeling very confident, but I'm going to fake it and get through it and gain the competence in that kind of a scenario that it doesn't impact me this way, you follow? So there is a little bit of you have to do it.
- [20:58]
B
Yeah, I get it. But I also want to be really squeaky clean in our languaging because I'm working with world champions and Olympic champions. The word fake to them is a huge trigger. It's about getting to know yourself. Okay, can you sit with the discomfort and go, I'm not feeling like I'm competent enough to be or I'm valuable enough or I deserve to be here. I need to sit with that for 30 seconds and find out where I am deserving, where I am competent, where I do believe in myself. So I would rather train that and teach that and help people unpack and uncover that rather than say, oh, just pretend, just fake it till you make it.
- [21:35]
A
Well, yeah, okay, so that may be a little bit loose, but let's. Okay, the point is this.
- [21:42]
B
You just can't admit that I'm right.
- [21:45]
A
Well, it's not that you're wrong. I'm just trying.
- [21:48]
B
That's a double negative.
- [21:50]
A
Okay. I'm just trying to clean it up so we know that comparison is just mental clutter. This is kind of mind shui. This is clearing the clutter of our mind. So it pulls people out of alignment and into performance. So that's where confidence can live or can be gained. That's the fake it part that you don't like that languagey. But ultimately you still, whatever language you want to use, you have to rise above that feeling of fear or comparison and you still have to perform. You still have to step up and do what you have to do, even though you may not feel confident and you may not have the competency. So how do you guide your athletes? We'll use that. Or your clients. How do you guide them through that? I'm in the situation, I've never been in it before. I'm surrounded by a bunch of people who are smarter, better looking, richer than I am. Yet I have to go in there and have a conversation with these people. So where do you link them to?
- [22:47]
B
Right, well that's the gift of starting this work as early as possible. I'm starting to open up to younger and younger athletes, like 21. I think I've got a nine year old starting into this conversation. I wouldn't do the exact same process with each child or each adult because I meet them where they're at. But the biggest thing is I help them distinguish between purpose and performance. And because I call myself a performance resilience or a mental resilience coach or whatever, what I do is help them distinguish between their purpose and their performance. So when they're being judged for their performance for exact and you don't want them just to get into performative mode where they're quote unquote faking it, what I'll do is link them to their purpose, their why, what is it? And I've been doing this for 30 years, why is it you're going out there? Why? Why do you want to stand in front of another room full of CEOs or why do you want to go out and become world champion? And if they just can get that, and sometimes I'll even get them in a Sharpie to write one word of a Y on their wrist so they can be reminded. So purposeful people that are connected to purpose and then there's performative people, people who are only connected to performance. So what I try to do is bring those two together. When you bump up to your level of incompetence, which is where most of us fail or we think we're, we're succeeding, but we're really failing is when we bump into our level of incompetence and to your point, you're sitting there going, I'm not good enough or good looking enough or whatever, then you go, but here I am and here's my purpose here's why I'm here. So regardless of the result that I get, if I win or lose, that doesn't matter. I need to circle back to my why, which is the difference for me between purposeful action and performance based action.
- [24:28]
A
Got it. Okay, so where do we move on from here?
- [24:32]
B
For me, I think where we have to go is to where people don't stretch into their potential and their capacity because of my least favorite word. Ready?
- [24:43]
A
What?
- [24:43]
B
Comfort. Comfort.
- [24:45]
A
Comfort. Okay, got it. So hold that thought for a second because I think we want to lead into that with this kind of thought process, which again, you know, there's often when we're talking to clients or if I'm speaking to a room full of investors or whatever, there's a. Often a story that comes up and you, you know somebody, you may say to somebody, well, what are you afraid of? What is one of your biggest fears? Like let, let's just say that's a point of entry into a conversation. And they go, I'm afa. I'm afraid of failure. And I would argue that point. I go, I don't think it's so much that you're afraid failure. I think you're afraid of the judgment of others who see you that you think will see you as a failure. And when you put it that way, then they start to really own what it is they're operating on top of. Because very few things that you're going to do in business or in real estate are catastrophic. It's not that they can't be, and they are sometimes, but it's not usually if you're going in with some kind of guidance, it's not catastrophic. So what are you really afraid of? It's not a failure, it's a being judged, embarrassed, misunderstood. Okay, so that's where I think we lack. Where confidence goes away is if we cannot get past our fear of being socially embarrassed. We'll call that use the word embarrassed or judged or somebody's disagreeing or saying, you're full of shit. If you can't get, if you can't get past that, you will never gain the confidence you need to grow into what's next. Let's take the podcasts for an example. You know, over 10 years of the Everyday Millionaire podcast. Millions of people now have listened to that podcast, have downloaded it. And if I had a real fear around judgment, which I kind of don't want to be judged, but I also have come to accept it, I laugh about some of the trolls that reach out or make comments and Stuff like that. Until you can let go of that, you can't have the confidence to keep going and growing. That's my view of it. So you have to get past that judgment appears if it's constructive feedback is one thing, but if you're just afraid of the judgment because of a story you're telling yourself, that's where you get into trouble.
- [26:56]
B
Oh my gosh, that's so true. You know what's funny about that too is as I've been learning and growing and stepping out into realms that AI should never be successful in, I should. You know, on some level, if you really looked at it, I should not be a five time Olympic coach. I should not be a speaker, I should not be an author. I should not be right if you just took my resume or whatever. But one of the things I've learned over time is that when I, I
- [27:20]
A
mean, you would never have been married to me.
- [27:22]
B
That's right. Exactly how I never would have deserved someone like you, hun. Oh my gosh, here we go. Okay, now it's all about you again. Anyway, what was I gonna, what was my point?
- [27:32]
A
I don't know, I interrupted.
- [27:34]
B
Oh yeah, yeah. So it's so funny because when you think about it, nobody knows that you've made a mistake.
- [27:43]
A
Maybe somebody might.
- [27:44]
B
No, listen, listen. This is a real, this is a, this is a superpower. Ready?
- [27:48]
A
Listen, Linda.
- [27:48]
B
Okay, listen, Linda, this is a superpower. So for example, maybe we'll use skating, for example. So skating is now, it's such a judge sport, but now you have to get certain points and you have to execute an element a certain way. Okay? So let's say you do something and that you come out of it the wrong direction, for example, but you did the element. Nobody knows that you came out the wrong direction. So you just put in the correction and keep going. And one of the things I've learned, especially on stage, and I think this is one of the things you helped me with, is that nobody knows that I'm going to skip a slide or nobody knows that I screwed up in the order of something that I did if unless I shine a light on it. It's the same thing in sport and athletics or whatever. If I just go, oh shoot, just wait, let me just back that up. And instead of going oh no, I meant to do that. So one of the things I'm really known for and you laugh at me over the years is that I trip a lot, I fall a lot for somebody that's a really good athlet athlete. And has good balance. I trip a lot. Like, I. Whether I fall off my flip flops or my stilettos, it. Or my skates, it doesn't matter. So I've learned over time to make that something that's normal for me. Sometimes I trip like, I meant to do that, or, oh, that's not one of my better ones. Just so that. Because a lot of people, when they look at other people making a mistake or in the pers. You know, their perceivement of. If that's a word of them screwing up, is that they go into judgment or they go, like, for example, the first time I fell, you know, in front of an athlete, for example, and they're like, oh, my God, are you okay? I'm like, yeah, totally. I meant to do that. And they're like, oh, okay. You know, that's hilarious. Yeah. I go, it's called a choreographed fall. I do it every once in a while and I normalize things that maybe other people would judge themselves for. I mean, did I mean to fall? No, of course not. I'm just kind of clumsy. But ultimately, people don't know if you've messed up or screwed up or if you didn't do something on purpose until you tell them then you've given them something to judge.
- [29:41]
A
And I think that your whole bad balance thing is just an excuse to have me hold your hand.
- [29:46]
B
I know, right? So cute at this age.
- [29:49]
A
Okay, so here's the thing. At the end of the day, confidence is ultimately, it's not the absence of discomfort. It's the ability to stay with yourself when discomfort shows up. So stay grounded in who you are. And I think that's the biggest. I keep coming back to that. As soon as we got into this conversation, I realized that confidence is an inside job. It really is. And it's not about posturing. It's not about being big and gregarious. It's just being really grounded in yourself. And so that you know that there are going to be times when you're judged, There are going to be times where you're probably going to embarrass yourself. Those are the things that in life that we have to deal with. But that's what confidence allows you to do. And to take those kind of social risks, if you will, or to walk on stage maybe less prepared than you would like to be to speak. We. You know, I've had that scenario where I've been called to speak to something in a group of people that I was just part of the audience and all of a Sudden somebody says, hey, well, Patrick's here. Why don't we talk about this? It's then having the confidence to be able to engage in that conversation regardless of what the audience might think. And that just takes, I think, years. I think for me, it took years of experience of going through it knowing that you're not going to die. So I think that's, again, it always comes back to our trust in ourselves.
- [31:14]
B
Yeah. And the trying too hard guy. I remember trying too hard guy. Hey, can I buy you a drink? I'm this guy, I'm that guy. Let me pitch myself. Let me pitch the deal. And I realized that, you know, when you're trying to prove yourself or, you know, you need somebody to believe in you or that you're confident and you try too hard, or you over explain or talk too much. And I know that's what I used to be guilty of is that I would get into a scenario where I wanted to impress somebody and I would over talk and over explain and oversell when they'd already bought they'd already believed in me and I'm the one that broke down.
- [31:45]
A
Okay, but that's such a great point because I want to circle back to the one thing that we talked about earlier when we started this, which is around composure. So what you just said is that you had this, you know, over talking, which is about composure. So you, bro, Your composure broke down in those scenarios. Right. That the over talking part is a breakdown in composure and confidence and composure go together, I think, more than competence and confidence.
- [32:18]
B
Yeah, I would agree. And I think really there's also how we show up in those scenarios is what, you know, as Canadians. I was just on a call with just an amazing young woman, just turned 21. She's a NCAA hockey player. And I worked with her dad back in the day, and her mom is this gorgeous spiritual warrior. And one of the things, when I was talking to her today, I said, so what? You know, tell me some of the things of what do you want to be known for? We did this exercise and she started listing these things and the first thing she says was, I want to be known as a nice Canadian. And I went, oh, no, a nice Canadian. And I said, oh, so is your favorite word sorry? And she went, well, yeah. I went, oh, wow. Yeah, so sorry. Oh, let's say today you just got on the call one minute late and you know, I'm always five minutes early. And you said, sorry, I'm late. I went, oh, here's a trigger sorry to me. And Being nice are about people pleasing. It's not about building your confidence or your competence. I think what it does is it really shatters your ability to own what's going on. And I helped her a little bit shift her languaging. And I said, so instead of saying, sorry I was late, just say, oh, hey, thanks for wa. Waiting, because you. Your. It gave her her power back. But she wouldn't know that because one of the things she wanted to be known for before she met me was being nice. And I said, you know, being nice and being kind are two different things. And if you're being nice, you're not going to be building the confidence or the competence in areas and in rooms or dressing rooms or meeting rooms where you want to be seen as competent if you're constantly apologizing for yourself or constantly minimizing yourself. So I said, let's shift the language from being nice to being kind. And what does that mean? Well, kind means I'm. I'm true to my word. I'm. I do what I say I'm going to do, which is really also the building blocks, not just for competence, but for confidence. So that's what the whole meeting today, which is why I love this conversation.
- [34:18]
A
So. Yeah. And back to your point, you know, if you're over apologizing for things, in saying sorry or thanks and over everything, it doesn't land as confidence. It doesn't even actually land as polite. It lands as your lack of confidence. But to your point, it's a different. These are little subtle narratives. So important. We've talked about it before, and I think we need to unpack this, even this conversation a little bit more. Back to what you said. Sorry I'm late, or getting on, saying thank you for your patience.
- [34:50]
B
Yeah, there you go. Thanks for your patience. That's a good one.
- [34:52]
A
The person at the receiving end feels honored because you're thanking them for the patience and. Yes. Yeah, I'm a patient person. You're welcome. You're welcome.
- [35:01]
B
Exactly. And she did. And you don't have to be sorry because you know what? Okay, so here's a little rabbit hole. And I know we're getting a little bit over time, but I was on a meeting with somebody I really admire and really respect, and she has this huge thing about being on time. So I'm always, like, I say five minutes early on everything that I do, and I get a text from her one minute before, and she goes, I'm going to be 10 minutes late. Sorry. And I went, what? She didn't have to say sorry. But you know what it did? It gave me 10 minutes to go figure out, like, I had some things that were incomplete for me. So when she came on the line and we're chatting and I said, you know, I just have to point something out, I said, appreciate that. You told me you were going to be 10 minutes late, but you didn't have to say sorry because it actually worked for me. And if you just say I'm going to be 10 minutes late, that buys me 10 minutes. And I'm okay with that. Because what I know is life happens. Things are going to shift. And I remember, if you remember Wade, our friend slash wellness coach years ago,
- [35:58]
A
I remember, if I remember this scenario,
- [36:01]
B
he's the one that taught it or taught me that, because I used to try to be on time, I'd scream through the city, I'd be speeding. I'd get a ticket just so I'd be on time, and I'd be on time, and I'd run up the stairs to have my appointment, and he'd be running 10, 15, 20 minutes late. So what he finally said to me is like, trust yourself, because if you're running late and energetically, chances are, if you're with the right person in the right scenario at the right appointment, chances are you're going to get there at the right time. But if you're so rigid in things that have to be a certain way, it's really hard to build that trust and that confidence that you can actually not have to say I'm sorry all the time, or you not have to be, you know, making excuses and really being present to what it is. And I don't know, those are two scenarios. So the one this morning with the young girl who said, I'm sorry I'm late, instead of, hey, thanks for your patience. And that. What Wade taught me back in the day is that without being irresponsible, if you're just being a jerk and irresponsible and lazy, chances are that's not going to work. But if you're truly running late for no reason because of something that is out of your control, chances are so is the other person.
- [37:09]
A
That's a good point, too. And that's often the case, isn't it?
- [37:11]
B
It is.
- [37:12]
A
But back to the text you got. It would have been great if that text said, sorry I'm running late. I'm about 10 minutes behind. Thanks in advance for your patience.
- [37:21]
B
Oh, there you go. I like that, too. Wow, that's good, man.
- [37:26]
A
Languaging so, okay, so confidence. Let's break it down. So confidence. Also. We didn't talk on it, and then we got to wind this down. A lot of people think that confidence, people who are very assertive. Our confidence depends on. There's a fine line between assertive and being aggressive. Right. So assertive is the. I'm willing to be direct. I'm willing to tell the truth. I'm willing to risk this discomfort. And. But you're not pushing that on people. So there's a willingness to do that, but it's not being, again, in your face, aggressive. This is the fundamental right, which is if you've got to have. We've talked about this on the show many times around conversations that are uncomfortable and having courageous conversations. That takes confidence. But where you can gain confidence is by how you enter the conversation. So if you've got to have an uncomfortable conversation, if you don't approach it right. It comes across as being confrontational, being aggressive, as opposed to having the confidence to say, I have to have a really uncomfortable conversation with you. I don't even like it, but it needs to be had. Are you okay with that? That's confidence. You've shone a light on the fact that you're about to have now. It makes it far easier to have that conversation, but it takes a lot of confidence to actually position it that way. That's my kind of. My experience around it personally. But anyways, I'll leave it at that for now.
- [39:00]
B
No, I think it's good. And just to finish that off, I have said that to certain people, and when I've said I need to have an uncomfortable conversation with you, I've actually said, people say, no, I'm not ready.
- [39:11]
A
Well, there you go.
- [39:12]
B
Permission. Right.
- [39:13]
A
So what do you do?
- [39:14]
B
I go, thank you for the being honest. I'll table it and I'll circle back when. And I'll ask again. And when you're ready, then we can have the conversation.
- [39:23]
A
Oh, so they know what's coming. Yeah, exactly.
- [39:26]
B
Or not really. Not really. I don't. It's not like it's a surprise or you're not kind of coming out of the blue or backstabbing or blindsiding them. I think it's more a case of giving people permission if they're not mentally or emotionally ready to have a conversation. I need to also respect that.
- [39:41]
A
Yeah.
- [39:42]
B
Because it's me. It's my discomfort. It's my uncomfortable conversation, not theirs.
- [39:47]
A
Okay. So as we wind this down, confidence is not dominance, aggression. It is being assertive competence is not always required to have confidence. Competence helps, but it's not the whole answer. Don't measure yourself against others because that will actually weaken confidence. Don't let social. I think the phrase is social injury, like the fear of embarrassment, judgment, rejection, that will keep you small. Don't let that get in the way. And confidence isn't about posturing and putting yourself above everybody and minimizing those around you. And back to what we said earlier, don't over apologize, you know, and lend your confidence out. Hold space for others so your composure creates and shows up as confidence which other people can lean on and lean into to support whatever they got going on. So be generous and lend your confidence to others. That would be my recaps.
- [40:51]
B
Yeah, I like that. I think the last thing I'd like to say is that when you share confidence and you believe in what your stand is and you're willing to be misunderstood, it's much easier to hold the space for others to. I always call it bumbling around or trying to figure it out where they are so that if they need to say the wrong. For me, I'm kind of socially awkward sometimes when I'm nervous, so I say some of the wrong things out of order. But when the people around me know what I'm trying to get to, they hold a space for me to get to it. And that helps me build my confidence. So if you can do that, it's huge.
- [41:26]
A
Okay. And so we bumbled around this podcast.
- [41:29]
B
We did. That was fun.
- [41:32]
A
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening. If you found value in the podcast, please take the time to rate and review and share with others. Share with your friends as it is my goal to always improve and to provide the highest value for you, the listener. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions you'd like answered, please email me@ceoraincanada.com that's ceora e I n canada.com I look forward to hearing from you. And until next time. Patrick.
- [42:05]
B
Oh,