Nidhi:

Self-esteem is, I am capable, I am smart, I am worthy, I am lovable. Those are all self-esteem based statements, right? But self-confidence, I find to be more around what we can do. One is about our core beliefs about ourself, and one is about what our capabilities are in terms of action. And I think that there is a distinguishing factor between who we believe we are and what we believe we're able to do.

Chris:

So I've been thinking about this a lot. Many of us who are in the creative space, we have something that we make or a service that we sell to our clients, and why is it that we feel that we can't charge what we're worth? Why can't we ask for that? And why are we so accommodating when clients ask for things that we know we can't do? Like to do things on a tighter schedule, or to do things for less money, or to throw in a few extra changes. Is it because we're conflict averse, maybe? And what can we do about that?

So I was jotting down some ideas here. I was thinking about this the other day, that in a relationship, or I should say in a business relationship, there's supply and there's demand. And I think everybody here who's ever gone through any kind of schooling knows that when demand increases greater than the ability to deliver supply, price goes up. You have more people to sell to than you can actually deliver product to. And there's a couple things that you can do to help drive demand while decreasing supply. That would be the golden balance there. Right?

If we think of some brands, they've done a really good job of creating demand while, get this, artificially limiting supply. And there's a couple of brands I can think of. Let's just pick one, maybe Gucci. What do they do to create demand for their products? Well, they run ads that are highly art directed and stylized. They feature people doing things, living a lifestyle that we aspire to live one day. And their products, their handbags generally go up in price, especially if they're more rare or vintage.

So we can also tell ourselves a story that if we buy something that's very expensive, more than what a bag should cost, it will go up in value. That's reassuring. I've made a good financial investment and I get to show people I can afford such a bag, and it means that I've achieved a certain status of my life where buying a six, seven, eight, $10,000 handbag is something I can afford. It's an affordable luxury for me. So it makes me feel better. Maybe I'll walk a little straighter and I'm a little more square with my shoulders. All they need to do is to not flood the market with product.

So this is a pretty straightforward example of looking at a product. And you're probably sitting here thinking, "But Chris, I have a service. How do I do that? How do I artificially limit production of what it is that I do?" And that's something I want you to think about because there is a real answer to that question. How do you limit availability of yourself? There's a couple things I can think of, I'll throw them out. They'll be obvious to some of you, brand new to some others. If I increase the price of what I charge to do what I do, fewer customers can afford it, therefore limiting the supply of what I do. And this is true if you're solopreneur or solo practitioner, or if you run a company of 20 people. If you just raise the price, you limit how many people can buy it. If you narrow the focus of what it is that you do, you limit the amount of people who think you're qualified to do the work.

This is the opposite of being a generalist. I know that's not a popular idea for some of you, but that's something that you can do. There are other things that you can do, but I'll park it there. Today we're talking about confidence, how you can build it, how you can create, how you can manifest it because without confidence, everything else that you do is going to be in a shaky foundation. What are your thoughts there, Sona?

Speaker 3:

Well, the concept that you were talking about right now brings up that example from Jordan Peterson's book, the 12 Rules of Life. I think it's in the first one where he was bringing up this whole concept of the lobsters. That's what you were saying right now that just reminded me of that, that if you stand up straight, if you are confident in who you are, you're able to... If there's adversity in any type of way, not just with another opponent or even with, I don't know, it could be anything that you could feel adverse to these days, that having that confidence in yourself really allows you to lean forward and move forward rather than towering or bending over, or feeling like you have to run away or hide, or do any other type of activity that would lead to you not feeling confident. If that makes sense, Chris.

Chris:

It does. I have a follow-up question for you, Sona. On a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most confident I've ever been and ever could be, and one being I'm afraid to look at myself in the mirror, where do you put yourself?

Speaker 3:

Probably at an eight or nine.

Chris:

Okay. Have you done some self work to get there?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, 100%. I'm still doing self work.

Chris:

Oh, I love this. Okay, wonderful.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Chris:

What has been the biggest contributor to raising your confidence level? Can you give us a clue one thing that you've done or realized?

Speaker 3:

No, it's hard to associate one thing. The first thing that comes to mind is self-talk. I think self-talk is a huge, huge thing. It's like how you see yourself, but the words you associate with yourself, and it could be with anything. Because for me, I grew up feeling like I was probably dirty, less than. There was always something to point out from my extended family or just people that I would meet within the communities I was growing up that would just point out things about me that were wrong or undesirable. And I didn't realize this, but it stays and sticks with you. And when you're working and you're doing all this stuff, it really comes up in a really weird negative way. So I found a way to work through it with coaches and programs, but I think why self-talk comes up as the first example is, I think I noticed it have such an impact in a short frame of time.

What I did was, is for those who don't know, I got the book by Shad Helmstetter. I think it's like The Way You Talk to Yourself or something like that. He has recordings on his website. I just bought three months of that. But what I did was, is I just recorded that down. I wrote down everything he said and I repeated it and I did all of the sessions. I did through that in three months. I noticeably could feel an impact and a difference in the way that I looked at myself and the way that I carried myself.

It just felt like the thoughts that I had about myself that were negative, now were in the background and it just felt like, you know what, that feels like a child or a roommate or just one of those honest friends that doesn't have a filter. And I didn't associate it with me like I used to. And that I used to feel like that voices right now is just a voice in my head and I can listen to it for maybe the information that is trying to give me, but I don't take it personally anymore. Does that make sense, Chris?

Chris:

It does. And you're reminding me of a couple concepts I want to point out to. One is, I think you were talking about this guy saying affirmations to you, reprogramming your subconscious, right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, 100% affirmations. Exactly. That's exactly what it sounded like. I-statements that are positive, and he would repeat them three times. And then at the end. He would position it like, "You are great," or, "You are this or that." I don't know, I just went through the process. I didn't really question it, I just sort of did it, and it really worked.

Chris:

Wonderful. There's a Saturday Night Live skit where he stares at a mirror and he says, "Gosh, darn it, you're good enough. People like you." He's doing these affirmations, it's kind of hilarious. Right? But there's something that I think it was Jim Kwik who said, "Your brain or your mind is a super computer. Your thoughts, your self-talk is the operating system." So computer is only as good as the operating system that runs it, and we kind of have to think about how we talk to ourselves, how we look at the world, because that's going to determine what this computer's going to do. It's going to do more of what you think about. Go ahead, Lee.

Speaker 4:

I just wanted to kind of echo something that Sona touched on there. It's like you lay the foundation with the positive self-talk, but then you can go out and find these communities of people that are also going to help support you. And I think that a lot of folks maybe stuck in their bubble or wherever they're at. Me for instance, working in the Web3 space in Kentucky, there aren't a lot of people here that I can really have community with that can help build me up or support me. So I had to look to remote communities or communities like The Futur Pro Group.

It's important to find like-minded individuals that are on your same wavelength that can give you those affirmations, can provide that support, especially in the field or the work that you're doing. Otherwise, you're only fan, which of course being your biggest fan is a huge part of it. But you really need to have that support of people that are in the same field or know what you're working on so they can really help build and support you too because that's something that was so crucial for me trying to make my way in the Web3 space being in Kentucky, is that I didn't have anyone around me locally that I could talk to.

So I had to find people remotely to share my work in and to find out, "Am I doing this right? Is this the way that I need to go?" And things like that. So it's something that's like The Futur really provided for me when I first started getting involved in the Web3 and then it blossomed onto clubhouse and so on and so forth. So finding that tribe of people that can really help with those affirmations is so, so important, especially in the field that you're working in.

Chris:

I think you're talking about the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic belief. Intrinsic meaning from oneself and extrinsic from others or externally, if you can think about it like that. And I've always been a really big fan of saying to people, it's got to come from you because people who give you things can take things away, and it's a fragile way to live. But my friend Stefan reminded me of this, for many people who don't have the self-confidence that I might have, they actually need this moment when others see things in themselves and believe in them so that they can start to build that foundation of self-belief. So I'm evolving in this thought.

I just want to be sure I wouldn't be doing my part if I didn't say this, is that you have to eventually transfer that extrinsic belief so that it becomes an internal belief, because otherwise you're going to need this from others to prop you up all the time. One of the reasons why I don't love this as a long-term solution is because you become very needy. You become a person who tracks people to them just to prop yourself up, and eventually people will start to resent you for it because it feels like it's all about you. I'm throwing this over to Drigo.

Speaker 5:

This talk just reminded me of two things. So I started my video production career in New York, and what you just talked about with Lee, my first self-talk, I used to work as a butler and I used to introduce myself as a... People used to ask me, "What do you do?" And it wasn't until, I forgot what book I read, that they were like, and what you said, Chris was like, "What you say to yourself becomes true." The year that I started introducing myself as a videographer, even though video production or videography was only 10% of what I did, it's what I wanted to be, within the year of introducing myself, "Hey, a videographer," versus like, "I work in hospitality," my business changed a lot because that's who I portrayed myself to be to other people. And then from that, I started getting more business in video production. So that was my first self-talk and belief.

And then the other big one that came for me that of an external that really helped me get momentum was the whole Gary Vee thing, me being featured in his book, that gave me that external belief of like, "Wow, somebody else believes in what I do, and I want to portray that to be even bigger to myself." And that gave me the confidence that I needed. But it all came from internally first believing in myself that this is what I want to do and letting the world know that that is who I am and that is what I offer.

Chris:

Drigo, I have a question before you. Can you outline very specific steps or something that allowed you to build this belief himself?

Speaker 5:

For me, I was in a situation that I didn't know what else I wanted to do, because I got into video production by accident, I never went to school for it or anything. And I was not happy with where I was in life. And just me being an immigrant, I was like, "What's my other options?" So for me it's like, this is what I want to do, this is what I need to pursue. I need to believe myself that I need to do this because I have no other options around it. It's either I believe in myself that I can be a really great videographer, or I'm going to end up working in the service industry for the rest of my life. And that was the building steps for me.

Chris:

And did you have this literal conversation with yourself? Were you sitting somewhere looking in the mirror in a quiet place saying, "It's either this really dark path which I don't want, or I'm going to have to start believing myself to do this other thing that I really do want"?

Speaker 5:

Honestly, there's a little bit of both because at that time, when I was living in New York, I was living out of max style credit card. I literally get paid for my credit card, paid my next bill, and I just like, "I can't live like this." So it was like, I need to make this work, I need to believe in myself that I can make this work so I can get the jobs that I want to be able to make a living doing it.

Chris:

Okay. Thanks for sharing that. Robin, go ahead.

Speaker 6:

Hey, thank you so much, Chris. You have to take the steps. You have to be willing to put yourself in uncomfortable, uncertain situations, or there will be no growth. And I love what you said about the operating system because when we were all born, we were born into a pre-programmed operating system. Years and years and decades and generations of society has programmed our lives in the way of our thinking to be a certain way. We spend most of our adult lives, or at least those of us who want to grow and transform, in unprogramming those belief systems and developing our own.

I'm actually reading a book right now, Overcoming Underearning. And I really do believe the connection to confidence and money and what you charge is what your relationship is with money. And I think it requires going back in time to your parents, your upbringing, and even before that of what your relationship is with money, how do you respect it, how is it used in your family, and things like that. But confidence and money are so tied together, and for me it's all about transformation.

Chris:

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that with us, Robin. You're talking about unprogramming this operating system that we're given. Whether you believe it by birth or not, but by the time you're a teenager or whatever, by the time you're an adult, you've had plenty of programming. You started with, I think, a clean slate. You really did. And it's all these thoughts and opinions of other people, their fears, their beliefs, their values that get seated inside of you that start to become your own self-talk. It's no coincidence that we parent ourselves the way we were parented. So we have to kind of examine that.

No parent is perfect. I think most parents try to the best that they can, but they're imperfect beings themselves. So we have imperfect beings raising and transferring that operating system to others, and sometimes you'll catch yourself like, "Why do I say that? Oh, because my dad or my mom used to say that all the time. What is that based on?" And if you just dig deep enough, and I think deep is just two layers deep, you'll discover there's no evidence to support any of this, but you carry it as if it were like a law of physics. It's crazy. Okay, Keshab?

Speaker 7:

Thanks a lot for giving me this opportunity. I'm really excited. I've been following you since a very, very long time. I like to share my thoughts on creativity first and then we can move on to confidence later. I think that creativity just boils down to combining X number of things, X number of different things which haven't been combined before. And I think the more we start combining things which are not related to each other, the more we sort of get into the territory of being creative. That's what I like to think. The more we practice it, we combine more sort of alien concepts. And that's how I think we develop an approach of being creative and that's how we gain this, the other word, confidence. Because as we have done it thousand times before, that's why I think we also get that confidence from. So that's my project. I'd love to know your thoughts on it.

And also my question to you is that, as creative people, we overthink a lot. So how can we stop that overthinking mind when we are not working on stuff? Because it's very difficult for me to do so because I always keep on having thoughts of combining weird concepts together too. Because I am a designer myself, making an illustration or designing something for a brand. So yeah, I would love to know your thoughts.

Chris:

Are you talking about overthinking when it comes to delivering a project or finishing something?

Speaker 7:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Chris:

Yeah. I don't know if work is ever finished for creative people. I think they're just things called deadlines and clients. That's the only reason why we finish stuff. I'll give you a personal example right now. We're preparing to move, and in order for us to move, we have to stage our house so that the pictures look good, so we're presenting its best possible light.

Now, it's embarrassing to say this, but we've lived in this house for 16 years and we're finally doing this work. It's kind of embarrassing. Right? And after finishing the work, somebody had said this because I shared some pictures on Twitter, the sentiment is true like, "Finally, you finish the house the way it's supposed to be done, and so you actually miss the house and you don't want to leave now." We say this to ourselves every single time we move and we've gone through this two times before, that why don't we commit to doing this work up front so that we can enjoy the house the way it was meant to be? Of course we're doomed to repeat this over and over again.

What all I'm saying is, the deadline is the thing that makes us move. So one thing that we can do as creative people, whether it's a client-motivated deadline or a self-imposed deadline, to stick to it, make a commitment to yourself, make a promise to yourself, and then deliver. Don't break your own internal promises. I hope that helps you, Keshab.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I think that's true.

Chris:

Here's what I like to do. I'd like to ask everybody to think about this. I used to do confidence workshop, believe it or not, and one of the things I would ask people to do is, at your normal self, not at your high, at your low, give yourself a score of confidence between one and 10, 10 being the highest that you could possibly achieve. Nothing can touch you, your Teflon. And then I want you to think about situations where you feel your confidence waning and try to remember where you were, what you were doing, what the subject was around that had you pull your confidence score down, where you felt the most insecure. I think we all have moments like that. I for sure have moments like that.

And then think about the people that you're around, the things that you're doing, the topics in which you're speaking about, where your confidence is boosted. So we have our resting state of confidence, we have points in which we're lower and points in which we're higher. Try to sign a numerical value to each one of those things. And then try to describe what brings your confidence down and what brings it up. And there are going to be clues as to what you need to work on and think about. Give yourself your resting score of confidence from one to 10, your lowest score, your highest score, and what circumstances surround each of those scores. Okay, I'm going to throw this over to Annalee. Go ahead.

Speaker 8:

I'm thinking about a lot of things when you talk about this, but first of all I just want to share a little bit about, I had a tough journey the last two years but also a lot of self-discovery work and self-acceptance. Maybe I am liking myself, but I'm kind of far away from really loving myself yet, but I will get there probably. But I realized something, and I don't know if it could help people, but when we talk about childhood, we are always thinking about if we had a tough childhood and maybe not get too much love and things like that, but I actually have the opposite. But I realized that wasn't either a great thing. I mean, the parents do whatever they can, of course, but my mom, she gave us so much love. So I think what can happen with that, if you just get validated all the time every day and you don't learn how to validate yourself, is that you get really, really addicted to having that around you.

So what happened to me was that I think I have great self-confidence actually, but my self-esteem was so low. I think this is really important, that we build that up from start and really try to validate ourselves. I had to hear from someone every day that I was okay. She always told me that she loved me every day. And then when she passed away, I didn't know how to do this myself. So I had to start over, now just a couple month ago. So that validation, looking yourself in the mirror, it's so difficult. But just look at yourself and saying, "You're doing good, you're okay," I couldn't even do that without crying because I couldn't look at myself and say that I was doing okay. And that might sound strange for a lot of people, but if you don't have that self-esteem, you need to start there.

So I think for me, it's definitely like I was my own worst enemy, and you need to kind of build yourself up. So yeah, I just want to share that because I think it's difficult to talk about. You can see a lot of people with self-confidence out there, but if you don't really like and accept yourself, I think you need to start there, and it's a lot of work.

Chris:

I have questions for you, Annalee.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Chris:

I'm not sure I understand the distinction between the two. Obviously there are differences, so I need some help here.

Speaker 8:

Okay.

Chris:

What is the difference in your mind, forget about the dictionary definition, but between self-esteem and then self-confidence? I just want to make sure we're sharing the same vocabulary and definitions here.

Speaker 8:

Yeah. I don't know if I'm having it right, but the way I see it and the way I understand it is that, self-esteem is the way I feel about myself, like me as a person, and self-confidence is what I can achieve, what I can do. So when it comes to work, for example, I know what I can do, so I have pretty good self-confidence, but the self-esteem is about self-acceptance and self-love. That's how I see it.

Chris:

Oh, fascinating to me. Okay. I'm glad that you defined it that way. So you have high belief in your ability to do things, but where does that belief in your ability to do things comes from if not within yourself?

Speaker 8:

Because I think it's come from proof. It's very objective. It's like long experience that you've been doing things that worked out well. Everything that is external validation. Awards, good result, everything like that is the world outside telling you that you're doing good. That's not the same thing as you looking at yourself in the mirror saying, "I believe in myself, I like myself, I accept myself." So that is the difference for me.

Chris:

I see. Okay, well, that's quite interesting. So you're talking about things that are objective and measurable that then you don't actually have to tell yourself anything because there's proof, there's evidence. Right?

Speaker 8:

Yeah.

Chris:

So are you using the word accomplishments instead of self-confidence? Because that's what it sounds like. I've accomplished things and so therefore I can point to that and objectively say without bragging, without boasting, those things exist.

Speaker 8:

Yeah, it's kind of the data from... That evidence data makes it easier to have good self-confidence, I would say.

Chris:

Mm-hmm. Okay, allow me to unpack. So if we look at you where you're at today, you have many accomplishments, things that we can objectively measure. You've held the title chief brand officer, chief marketing officer at really large corporations. You've trained lots of people. You've had a best-selling course. You've probably won awards I don't know about you. You've been featured in many different places. That's towards the end, so if we were to rewind to the middle and the beginning, how does one take that step to get here? How does one build our own self-confidence before there's actually any proof of it? That's the question I want to know from you, Annalee.

Speaker 8:

Oh, okay. You mean in the beginning where I even started out?

Chris:

Yeah, because you were saying, "To me, self-confidence is in the ability of me being able to do something and there's empirical evidence that I can do this," but before we were able to do anything, we have to believe that we can do the thing because it's a chicken and egg situation, isn't it?

Speaker 8:

Yeah. Yeah. I would say that I love actually that you reflected on, that sometimes we just need people to see you and to say that they believe in you, giving you an opportunity, because for me that made all the difference. I got a really good advice when I was younger to try to be around people that are good for you and are good leaders. And that was something that I really listened to. So every work, or if I work with a big client or I worked somewhere when I was younger, I really tried to be around good leaders because I knew that they saw me and they kind of believed in me and that gave me a little bit better confidence. So I think that's how it started when it comes to self-confidence. Then when I started my own company, then I kind of had to do it myself.

I didn't have so much difficulty growing up. In the beginning it was tough, but then in Sweden it was easier for me because it's also my own language. But I think a lot of people can relate to this in the audience if they have English as second language. When you start working on a global market and you haven't done it before, it's like starting over. It's like totally just having your second language, you can't make yourself understood. It's horrible. It's like being back in school again. So then I have to start all over again building that up. So yeah, you need to be around people who can give you opportunities and see you and also understand that it's no failure. I mean that's something that I really learned, that we need to just try different things. You always told me, don't have so high expectations so try to lower expectations and just see things as, "I will try it out. I will do my best and then I can just improve and do better next time." Otherwise, you will not do anything if everything have to be perfect. So yeah.

Chris:

Okay. There's a couple things here. I'm going to just pause. I'm grilling you because I want to have a deeper conversation with you, but I don't want it to just be about you and me talking about this one thing. The thing that I got from you, just listening right now, is that when whenever we're starting something new or starting over, beginning a new journey, of course our confidence is going to be relatively low. We have nothing to reference that we can do this thing. So what Annalee had just said was, sometimes we just need someone to help us jumpstart our engine, if you will, and once the engine is started, we're good to motor. It could be a friend, it could be a boss, it could be a child. Your own children could give you that confidence, we don't know. But it sounds like once you're on your way, you're going to be able to collect evidence to support the narrative that you could do this thing. And we also have to just be realistic about this.

The first time you do anything is the first time you do that thing. And there's no way that we can become an intermediate or advance or an expert at something or even a master until we take that first step. Now I may be wrong in this, because years ago I did look it up, the definition of confidence, it's belief in oneself, in your ability to solve any problem with the skills that you already have. So it's a little bit different. Maybe I just butchered that a little bit because I don't have my computer on right now. But there was a TED Talk given about this, it's the belief in your ability to solve a problem, any problem, not just the problem you already know. So I have a different relationship with self-confidence, but I appreciate your share and your perspective on that very much. So let's move this conversation around. Keshab, if you want to jump back in, go ahead.

Speaker 7:

Yeah, I had a question or something on similar lines. So I wanted to know, people who are deep in content creation, especially YouTubers and people who are dealing with creative of things, how do you get over the fact of the fear of publishing content when you're just starting off? Because I am at this place right now. I'm very confident in my skills, in my designing skills, but I'm sort of pushing content creation and not starting YouTube. Do I really want to because of this fear of people will criticize me or just my work? How can someone get over that fear?

Chris:

I think a lot of our fears rooted in expectation. If we can just reduce expectation to nothing, we have nothing to be afraid of. We're attached to our own identity. You have a self-talk that says, "I do great work. People are going to love this," and so then you post something and when that expectation isn't met with the kind of response that you'd hope to get, it could be devastating for you. So if we begin the conversation with, "I'm going to post something because I'm going to post it for myself as a form of public journaling. I just want to be able to share my thoughts with my future self as to where I am today. It's just a time capsule, it's a marker of where I'm at, what I think."

And we all know this. I'm a child of the '80s. There's music and fashion and hairstyles that I used to love. It's kind of ridiculous right now. If you look at Stranger Things, you're laughing because that's what we wore in the '80s. It's very comical. So if we go in with the expectations that the first time we do a talk for an audience, we're going to just nail it and people are going to hoist us up on our shoulders and say, "You're the most amazing speaker I've ever heard," how could you even live up to that? The fear of not getting across or achieving those results from what you ultimately get is crippling. The negative self-talk will be at volume 12.

So my only advice to you is, ask yourself, why the heck are you posting this? And to have an honest conversation, because some of it might be, "Because I want people to love me, to like me, and to think I'm amazing." And that's feeding the ego. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, but to be honest with yourself. But a healthier motivation or reason for you publishing work is just for yourself. Alex Hormozi talks about this and he has a brilliant way of talking about this. He says, "Imagine if Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates were documenting everything they were doing while they're building Microsoft, Amazon, or Tesla, then we would know because there would be clues as to how they got there. So we can look at every decision, every trial, every triumph, every tragedy that they were going through.

So he thinks what he's doing today is building the blueprint on how you can build a billion dollar company as he's building it. I love that concept. And if you don't know anything about Alex Hormozi, although despite being super successful, knowledgeable, he struggles with issues of self-esteem and insecurity, massive insecurity. So he's just going outside that bubble and just putting it out there. So let go of the expectations, try to lower it. The more you can lower it, the less you'll be likely to be disappointed. Okay, I'm moving over to my friend Ashley. Thank you very much for waiting, Ashley.

Speaker 9:

Hey man, how's it going?

Chris:

It's going great. Good to hear your voice.

Speaker 9:

You too. I'm sitting here thinking about what Annalee was saying about self-esteem and self-confidence. So I definitely play into the high self-confidence, crushingly low-esteem. I look at self-confidence as my confidence in my ability to do something. I have really high confidence in my ability to select cheese and write and find emerging markets, but I have really low confidence in my ability to ski or my ability of time management. But the self-esteem is the different one, because the self-esteem is the one where if I get critique, I take it as crushing. And it doesn't matter if it's a small piece of critique. The self-esteem is what gets affected by the feedback. But the self-confidence, it's still there. It's weird. So I understand Annalee.

Chris:

I love that. Okay, I love it. Let's talk about this. I know you do amazing things other than selecting cheese, writing, and defining emerging markets. I know there's a lot more skills in that, for sure.

Speaker 9:

They were the quickest things I could write on my whiteboard. I was like, "What do I suck at? Skiing and managing my time?" There you go.

Chris:

Yes. The thing is, I suck at skiing too, and I've tried snowboarding. I've hurt myself a couple times, I sold snowboard, but that doesn't affect my esteem or my confidence. So I'd like to talk about this a little bit more. So if we were to go with the definition that I posted earlier that I think I got from the web about self-confidence, it's the belief in your ability to solve problems based on the skillset that you have, any problem, not just the problem that you already know how. So that kind of gives me a clue, is that we have some kind of process or framework that we go through.

And I've said this pretty boldly. If you give me enough time and resources, I don't think there's a problem I could not solve. I don't mean me personally, but if you're like, "Chris, build a rocket ship to the moon," I'm like, "Okay, I don't know how to do any of that." But I go through my process, I do some research, I align myself with really smart people who've done it before. I learn from them and then I figure out who to hire and I start to build that. So I can do that.

Another embarrassing story from the Do family. We have a treadmill. We've owned this treadmill for 14 years. We've used it probably less than 20 times. So my wife, we're trying to declutter our house, trying to get rid of all our stuff before the move, and she's like, "This treadmill does not work. We just need to throw this in a dumpster." I said, "How could this not work? It's been used so rarely and it's stuck in the upright position for storage." And she's like, "Look, it doesn't even come down." I'm like, "I can't figure it out either, but I'm confident I can figure it out." She looks at me like, "What?" "Yeah, there's this thing, it's called the internet. I'm just going to go." I find one solution, come back, it didn't work. I'm like, "Let me try again." I look it up again, come back, "Oh, you just got to pull the knob out." It's kind of counterintuitive. You pull the knob out, the whole thing falls down, we plug it in, it works. And she's amazed.

So my confidence comes from my ability to problem solve, to look at the problem, to do research and figure things out. And eventually with enough effort and energy and determination, I will figure it out. I can't ski today, but if I really wanted to, I think I could, using that exact same framework. So Ashley, with your mind, your abilities, do you think you have a repeatable process that can get you predictable results? Because if you go with my definition of self-confidence, if you said yes, then I would think that you have a lot of self-confidence.

Speaker 9:

And I think that that's the thing, the self-confidence comes from the process. The self-confidence comes from the track record and the history. Right? I can objectively look back and say, "Oh right, I know how to do this. I belong in this room because of that reason." But at the end of the day, even if I go home, I still think like, "Ugh, maybe..." I think I'm a con artist some days. That's how I feel sometimes. I'll go into a meeting, I'll come and I'll do all these things, and I'll be like, "How am I doing this? Why am I here? What do they see in what I'm doing?" And I just fight through it. That's the thing.

Just because you have these thoughts, does not mean that you have to select them, invite them in, and let them sit for dinner and give them dessert and let them sleep. Just be like, "Okay, this sucks. I feel this, but I'm going to be brave and I'm going to push through it because everything else says that I should." And the only way that I can really do that is by looking back and looking at the positivity that has come from being courageous and doing it anyway.

Speaker 10:

Time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.

Welcome back to our conversation.

Chris:

The one thing that I'm going to say to use this: Try to see yourself the way those other people see you, not the way you see yourself. And I would argue with some of my interns about this kind of stuff too. One of my younger interns, amongst four other interns, was feeling really bad about themselves because the other four people were amazing. They were so good at so many things. And this person happened to be European from Switzerland. He was working with me, he's like, "Chris, I'm not sure I should work here." His name is David. I'm like, "David, what's the problem?" He said, Well gosh, all these students here from Art Center and Otis, they're just so good. I'm looking at the work and I'm just feeling really bad right now. I feel like you should fire me." And he was saying this earnestly, he was struggling.

I tried to logically talk him through this and he was really struggling. I could see the desperation in his face and the sadness. His shoulders were slumped over, his posture was poor. So I took new tactic. I said, "David, let me ask you this question. Do you respect me?" He goes, "Yes, of course." "Do you think I know what I'm doing?" He goes, "Yes." "Do you think I'd make a habit of picking lame people who have no talent because I'm running a charity?" And then he stood back and he smiled a little bit, "No." "So why would I hire you then if you weren't any good? I need you to remember I'm in charge and I only pick good people to work with." I said, "I want you to go home today. I want you to think about that. I'm not saying I'm perfect, David, but I have a pretty good track record of finding, nurturing, harnessing talent, and you are talented."

We never had that conversation again. He made it through the internship and he did some really wonderful work. So sometimes, what we need to do is just look at ourselves from the eyes of the people who believe in us, the people who hired us. They're not fools. They don't run a successful business by hiring and giving a lot of money to people that are lame, that are bad. You're not invited to speak because they're like, "We just need a Canadian woman to fill a slot because you know what? We have to hit a quota." Nobody does that. I mean, maybe some people do, but not smart people. They invited you to speak, they invited you to the meaning because they know you have ideas. Because if everything else fails, they know you know how to select the right cheese for the meeting. Okay, Ashley?

Speaker 9:

Yep. My cheese taste is-

Chris:

It got you in the door, man.

Speaker 9:

It really did.

Chris:

Got you in the door. Okay, let's move over to Egypt. Go ahead.

Speaker 11:

Okay, great. No, I was just going to comment on Annalee, what she was saying. I thought that was very perceptive because I kind of understand what she means by confidence being related to external validation. So as a professional I've been working for over 20 years, I've developed a certain level of confidence in being able to deliver certain things. And the example you gave about the treadmill, I can also relate to that. I really have that kind of attitude towards new problems. I have that confidence to do things, but that's a very different feeling than self-esteem. So self-esteem or having that imposter syndrome sometimes or those things that kind of sometimes haunts you, it comes back too even despite your achievements and what you've done because, like she explained, when the world tells you you did a good job, or when somebody hires you, you mentioned Chris, you know that they have a good idea why they're hiring you. And you get that confidence.

When you're sitting with those people, when they're telling you, "Thanks, that's a really great thing you've done for us," or, "Thanks for this deliverable," or, "Thanks for your contribution," you get that inner sense of peace or confidence, "Wow, I did a good job." But when you're by yourself all alone and you're just sitting there without that interaction, that's where the self-esteem comes in. And that's variable. That's really something that I agree, that it's something sometimes I've struggled with in my life to say, "Yeah, I mean, you are a value-headed person." You don't need to wait for somebody outside to tell you that you're valuable to the enterprise or to these people or things like that. So I think that distinction is important, and I don't know if that's essential for creative confidence, but that's definitely, I can see the difference between those two. So I just wanted to comment on that.

Chris:

Thank you very much, Egypt, for adding to that conversation. So Annalee, there's many allies here who are saying clearly there's a difference, and I recognize there's a difference, I need to go do some homework here, between self-esteem and self-confidence. I must have both because I thought they were the same. So we'll revisit this. Okay, Nicholas, go ahead.

Speaker 12:

Hey, Chris. I was sitting here listening for a while, and a lot of the things that were said just resonated a lot with me. And just a quick personal story, I didn't really have a lot of creative confidence during the pandemic and I just really didn't know what I wanted to do. I think I just kept looking at other people that were doing what I wanted to do, which is designing things, and I would look at their work and I would always compare myself to them and just say, "I admire this person so much and I'm just never going to be at their level of talent."

And I just had to do a lot of my own independent working on myself to get to a place of like, if I don't ever try to put out my own work and try to expose myself to show people what I'm capable of doing, then I'm only going to ever halt my own creative growth and my own process. So I just decided to throw up some GIFs one day on Giphy, and the rest, in a way, was history, just because a lot of the GIFs that I ended up putting up there got used by a lot of different people. That was really cool. And for me that was a cool moment of like, damn, something that I created and I put out into the world is actually resonating with people.

But then I think, on the flip side, a lot of that can come with imposter syndrome as well, which I still struggle with today just because I'm looking at it and I'm saying, "Well, I'm creating all these cool GIFs and working with people and doing all these things, but at the end of the day, is this bringing me fulfillment? Do I feel fulfilled in what I'm doing?" So I think that that's kind of the constant battle. Or am I good enough to actually be up here with these creative people and these talented like-minded individuals? So that's something that I personally just struggle with a lot, and I've had to move past that. But I just decided one day it doesn't really matter, I'm going to put my thoughts out there. I'm going to be myself. I'm going to show the world my design, and if it resonates with just even one person, that makes me feel good.

Chris:

Thanks, Nicholas. Those of you that don't know Nicholas, he's super transparent and vulnerable and real. So if there's somebody you want to check out, check him out. Okay? Okay, Annalee, go ahead.

Speaker 8:

I want to share something that actually gave me a little bit of confidence, now when we talk about building confidence. It's something that I learned from a coach many, many years ago, but he always said, "What if?" And then he said like, "Okay, say what you want to do. What if I could do this?" And then my answer was always, to him, "But I can't do that." He's like, "I know you can't do it, Annalee, but what if you could?" And I just loved his way of saying that because he really like, "I know you can't do it, but what if?"

So I always have that in front of me, like what if I could do this? Because I know there is a power in words, but I think we can actually prompt our brain, so the brain starts looking for solutions. So when I don't feel so good about myself, I try to trick myself into that, "What if I could do this?" And then when I go really bad and negative, I have to say, "I know you can't, but what if you could?" And that kind of resets my brain. It works for me at least.

Chris:

I love that. What if? What if? So Nidhi, help me first understand the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence, please. No pressure.

Nidhi:

Dang, I'm getting put in the spot here. Geez. All right, let me think about this. All right, so self-esteem, when I think about self-esteem, it's about our core belief about who we are. So self-esteem is, I am capable, I am smart, I am worthy, I am lovable. Those are all self-esteem based statements. Right? But self-confidence, I find to be more around what we can do. So you see the difference there. One is about our core beliefs about ourself, and one is about what our capabilities are in terms of action. And I think that there is a distinguishing factor between who we believe we are and what we believe we're able to do. Does that make sense? That's probably the best definition that I can give you.

Chris:

I believe your definition 100% backs up Annalee on this. Thank you. All right, with that, let's move over to Jacob.

Speaker 13:

Yeah. Hey guys, really nice to be on here. You touched on a point earlier that really got to me where you kind said use social media as your journal. And I think, as creator, being a developer, designer, running an agency, you see that you do stuff that people like and you can price them and move forward and get new clients. I think the challenge for Mojo, the agency I own, is basically getting that content on social media, which is a place that has a lot of likes and followers, interactions, impressions. What does it feel like or what is your suggestion when it comes to not receiving those likes, not receiving those retweets or the impressions that you wished you had? And when it comes to self-confidence, how do you actually go about crunching that and keep bringing up new content, getting that motivation and the drive, the self-esteem to keep going?

Chris:

Okay, so the question from Jacob was, when we're on social media, there is a report card every single time you make a post. It could be views, plays, percentage, watch, subs, shares, likes, comments, all that kind of stuff, and their engagement. I look at all that stuff as data. That's really all it is. It's not to affirm whether or not I'm a good person or if I have things worthy of sharing with other people. All it is just report card. And I need that data because I want to show up to give the audience that I'm trying to build more of what they want and not what I want.

So there's two approaches to this. You can say, "Look, you know what, I'm an artist, a poet, writer, singer, songwriter. I just want to make stuff. I'm going to share it. I don't really care if you show up." And if you really believe that, then this question wouldn't even matter. And that's totally fine. A lot of people do that. I sometimes have to remind myself when I put out a post, "You know what? Sometimes it doesn't do well. I don't want to get all crazy about it." I'm like, "You know what? I don't care. I feel good about it, I'm moving on."

But let's just say that you're not doing it that way, that you're actually trying to grow an audience and trying to make content that's valuable to an audience because you want to build community around common beliefs, interests, and values. Very cool. So let's look at the data. What we can do is, we can go back in time and look at the last 10, 12, 20 things that we shared and say what has connected with people, what has worked? And try to do more of that and see if we can come upon a formula. I believe everybody can have one hit song, one viral hit. It's our ability to consistently produce viral hits that determines whether or not we figured out a formula based on our particular skill set, our personality, style delivery, and the audience we're trying to attract.

So when I put something out, and believe it or not, this is true, sometimes it's because I didn't title it the right way. And this happens quite a lot naturally on YouTube, something that I have the most experience in creating content for. A team will release a piece of content and it will not do well. If you run YouTube, you'll know that every video that you share, it ranks you 10 out of 10 or one out of 10. And in this case, one is the best. So of the last 10 or so posts that you've made, how does this compare relative to your channel, not to other people's channel?

So when I see this is a good piece of content, why is it performing at eight or a nine? This is not good. It's not that the video is bad, it's not because the editing is poor, we've done something funny. It's most likely that the title and the thumbnail, those are the two biggest determining factors if you're going to get a high click-through rate or not. Somebody sees a title, sees the image, then they click, your click-through rate goes up. So I simply go through and change the title and sometimes the thumbnail, and the combination of those two things allows the video to perform. So I wouldn't interpret the data as a condemnation that the content isn't any good.

Now, I also want to say this, that if you go through the process of A/B split testing different titles and thumbnails, and it still doesn't go anywhere, I got to go back to drawing board and say, "Maybe this was a piece of turd." Not that I feel bad about it, but my way of delivering this piece of information was uninspiring and uninteresting and uninformative to people, I got to go back to the drawing board. I'm totally okay with that. So use the data, the likes, the follows, the shares, all that kind of stuff, the comments as what it's meant to be, as feedback for you to improve, not as a judgment on you as a human being and as a creator. I hope that helps, Jacob.

Speaker 13:

Yeah, thank you. That was really, really useful. I highly appreciate it.

Chris:

Darryl, what's on your mind?

Speaker 14:

Chris, I love what you just said. We have to use the feedback, not take it personally, but we have to measure, we have to gauge somehow. I have to give a big shout-out, and you had mentioned his name already, to Alex Hormozi. I had an experience last week, I mean I just couldn't believe how far along I came. I had started taking photos for realtors back in 2017, and I wasn't any good because I had just started, but I kept doing it because I wanted to learn. And eventually I went into marketing and I didn't do the photos anymore, but I had an experience last week that I saw other people who were doing this professionally and I said, "Wow, my photos were just as good, if not better, than some of these." So I couldn't believe how far I went.

But regarding Alex Hormozi, Chris, he gave a speech at, I think it's Grow With Video Conference in Las Vegas recently. And I want to start at the end because it just resonated with my experience and everything, everybody has been saying today. One of the three traits of ultra successful people are superiority complex, crippling insecurity, and impulse control. What this means is, they know where they want to go. They have the drive to get them there because they don't want to be a failure and they stay focused because of impulse control. So, even ultra successful people start out somewhere. When Alex said that, and I went through my own notes, would I interpret that as confidence requires courage, purpose, and drive.

I think you're absolutely right, Chris. In order for us to talk about confidence, we first have to understand the terms. Confidence is the quality or state of being certain, so self-confidence is the quality or state of being certain with one's self or with one self's abilities. I mean some synonyms for confidence are assurance, certainty, sureness, certitude. So when we look at it in that regard, what does a con can do? Con is short for confidence. It's to gain the certainty or confidence of somebody who said that they can con them. So when we look at what it takes to get confidence, and we all have to start from somewhere.

Alex shared a story. He shared a story of how somebody went up to him and they were talking about, they produced content that's just as good as Tom Bilyeu used. They shared the same way, they used the same channels, but for whatever reason, they can't get traction. And they asked, "What am I doing wrong?" And he goes, "I'll tell you exactly what you did wrong. You forgot to build quest." And that was really the mic drop moment. Because confidence is that we've done things so that we have evidence that can support why we're good. In other words, we all have to start from somewhere, and it's not so much confidence that's going to get us there. I believe, and again this is just from listening a lot, going through it myself, but I really think Alex hit home, it really is going to require courage, purpose, and drive just to get you there.

The purpose is what's going to see us through; the courage is just to start. And Chris, I think you had mentioned this earlier. We got to start somewhere. You have to just start. Chris, I followed you for a while as well, and you used to talk about price anchoring and all this. When you look at Chris's, when I look at your really old content, you started somewhere. So we look at them and look at you now, I mean you just didn't have that confidence. So I love the whole idea of confidence for creative people, and they really just comes from starting and having the courage to see it through.

The other thing I just want to mention, I think it was Keshab, you had mentioned about content. One of the things that Alex also said during this talk that really resonated was that you have to suck. You just have to. What's that expression? Everybody was a disaster before they were master. But you have to suck because you can't start out good or great. So you have to be okay with sucking, and you just have to suck and drive through. And when it comes to this content, one of the things from this talk also is, you have to share your process and you're not going to get a very big following, but you have to share your process of how you're doing things or how you're solving problems.

One of the things was, the biggest difference he said between influence is, do you teach "Here's what I did" or do you teach "Here's what you should do"? To me, that was huge. Here's what you should do as opposed to, here's what I did. One sounds preachy, the other sounds, "Hey, this is just what I did. It worked for me."

Chris:

Thanks, Darryl. Hey, I just want to just quickly recap because I was writing so many things down. Although I was at Grow With Video as well, I didn't take as many notes as obviously as you did. Courage to start, because you're going to suck and you're going to need that courage and take that first step. It's like stepping into the unknown, the bottomless pit, and to just be assured that you won't fall to your death. Purpose to get you through, because there will be tough times. What was the third one?

Speaker 14:

It's the impulse control. You have to stay focused.

Chris:

Okay.

Speaker 14:

In other words, shiny... You've talked about this too, Chris. So I mean I consider you one of these people that have these three traits, but that shiny object syndrome that you have talked about before, you have to be able to control that impulse.

Chris:

Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that, Darryl. Alveona?

Speaker 15:

Thank you, Chris. I believe that self-esteem comes from the daily momentums you do. For myself, I started to learn about myself when I went through a heartbreak three years ago. And I have to say I didn't have self-esteem or self-confidence in anything that I was doing at the time. So the first thing that really helped me to build up my self-esteem was to write a five-minute journal, focusing on the gains and all the gaps. And then slowly I moved up by building this toolkit around myself of the things that were helping me to be better or become a better person. The other thing that really helped me is building a routine for myself. Going at the gym, doing the daily things for myself that really helped me to build a really good self-esteem.

And then when I jumped into unknown situations, I had self-confidence to do whatever it came on the way just because I was doing the daily things that I want to do. So just because I was doing the small things, I was building up momentum, I was able to trust in my ability that I can solve any problem in whatever circumstance that came from different communities I was part of or at the full-time job that I was kind of doing. Slowly, I started writing the future self journaling from one of the psychologists, I forgot her name, but it's @theholistic I think, the Instagram page. And that really got me into focusing on my future self version. And I started being that version just by the daily things that I put myself on to do, those tiny things that really build up my days. And I started to kind of believe in myself that I can do whatever I put myself up to. Some quotes that I really write daily in my journal are from Tim Ferriss and some other guys and a book that I read such as the Radical Acceptance.

Whenever fear comes up or anxiety or frustration, I kind of welcome it with acceptance and I ask it what needs to be learned. This quote did change my life because I was slowly starting to write things down for all of the things that I was feeling anxious about or frustrated and stuff like that. I slowly build up this toolkit and it really helped me to start something from scratch, see myself, see the patterns that I had, and see where I was doing good and bad, and then restart again. Now I'm trying to start creating content on Twitter after building an audience on Instagram. And I'm feeling the same things that I felt when I started Instagram, and I know the path that I have to take and I'm slowly writing down a new kind of way to do things on Twitter, but with the same story that I had with Instagram.

So these are kind of some small bits that really helped me. Also, I have to mention the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon and the Learn In Public blog by one of the Twitter influencers, which is a really good blog. Those two combined will give you the perspective of believing that every tiny step is worth it to share with someone just for yourself. And then from there, people who find themselves in your position, they will join and you will see what's working and what's not. This was my take on self-esteem and self-confidence. Thank you.

Chris:

Thank you. That was a lot to process. Thank you so much also for sharing your references. I wrote down a bunch of those things, and I love the way that you talked about that. Thank you so much. Now, I think Nidhi had something she wanted to say.

Nidhi:

Yeah, I was just going to add to what had been said, Chris, because I think sometimes when we get stuck in these limiting beliefs or these thought patterns that hold us back from achieving our highest potential, we think that we're always destined to be that way because that's the way that things have gone before, or we may have had a bad experience before that that same thing is going to replay every single time that we tread our growth edge or put ourselves out there in a way that's uncomfortable. I think something that's really important for people to remember is that we have neuroplasticity. It's like the idea that we can change the way that our brain is wired. And in the same way, when you jump to negative conclusions about who you are, it strengthens certain pathways in your brain. If you think about it, it's like a super highway where now you're cruising down that highway at a hundred miles an hour really, really quickly without even intending for it to happen. It becomes automatic.

So with diligence and with the opportunity to pause and to really reflect on the experience, we can form different pathways that become stronger and that helps with the self-confidence and the self-esteem piece. But it's a long-term repetitive process in order to achieve that. Sometimes we get kind of caught up in, "Oh, I don't feel as good as I expected challenging this," or, "Maybe this isn't going to work out." But the more that we consistently do this challenging of thoughts in smaller situations, so the big existential confidence stuff, those are the bigger questions that we have. But if you really notice your thought process, chances are you're having negative thoughts that are happening throughout the course of your day. That can be a really good starting place to start to rewire your brain, is to catch yourself in those moments where you're saying to yourself, "Oh, well, they don't like me anyway," or, "Oh, I'm just not as good as this other person," or whatever.

It may not even be something as big as your creative project or your relationship or whatever it is that you're looking to improve. It's those smaller micro moments that we engage in this negative thinking that can be a really good jumping off place. So I just wanted to put a little hope and encouragement out there for people to look at evidence, look at what is actually based in reality, because we tend to jump to conclusions that are negative. We engage in unhelpful thinking and then it forms our reality. And that doesn't have to always be the case. So just want to throw that in there.

Chris:

Thank you very much, Nidhi. Go ahead, Light.

Speaker 16:

Hi. Thank you so much. So I've been working in the creative space for quite a long time and I've had people I've walked with tell me, "Wow, you're so inspiring. Working with you has been so inspiring for me." But what do you do when you don't feel like you deserve those kind of praises from people who sort of look up to you? Because for the last year and a half, I've sort of been struggling with finding that creative side of me. I think I lost it.

So I've been really battling with trying to find that creative niche where everything just comes together. Because I remember there are times when it just comes to me, look at something and I'm like, "Okay, I think I can create something out of this, create something out of nothing." But now it's like, "What's really going on?" And then there's still people who still say, "Oh my goodness, you are really good at what you do," but I still don't feel like I really deserve that kind of praise. So what happens when you've been dealing with imposter syndrome for almost a year and a half and you feel like there's no coming out of it?

Chris:

Okay. Do you feel like you had this confidence and self-belief before this that you're going through or not?

Speaker 16:

Yeah, I did. Actually, I had it, because for people to actually give those compliments and feedback, they had to be something they saw. So I was having a conversation with someone a month ago and he said something about, "Oh, what inspired me about you was your magic to just create things." And at that moment I was like, "I don't really know what magic you're talking about. So whatever it is you saw in me, I don't think I see it in myself."

Chris:

Okay.

Speaker 16:

And then going through my past work, I really not felt like there was anything incredible about them.

Chris:

Okay. There's a couple ideas here and then I'm going to see if Nidhi wants to join in on this. But I think we are our own worst judge of our value, just because what we do seems so obvious, intuitive that it requires no effort. So we can't appreciate what it is that we do, and oftentimes we can't appreciate what we have until we lose it. Speaking for myself though, my confidence, my creative confidence comes from my belief and having a process that allows me to create repeatable results that are predictably good. So whenever I have a new problem, I'm like, "Okay, no problem. Just go through your process again." It's very defined in my mind. I could write and tell you exactly what I do and how I'm able to get to those results again. And leaning in on that process or that framework for myself or the routine or the habit, there's different words to describe it, allows me to get there.

You notice too, I used to think that this was a funny thing, professional baseball athletes tend to do this thing. They have their lucky socks and they don't wash it, or a shirt, or they have a ritual, they must walk forward three times, touch something and they go on the field and have a great game. I thought that's just superstition. That's just some crazy thing. But the more I start to think about it, for them, that's their repeatable process that allows them to get a predictable result. And if they break that routine, so those routines don't have real meaning except for as meaning to them, and that prepares their mind to go to war, to go into battle on the field, so to speak, and to be able to be confident enough to step up on the plate and take a swing at the ball.

So I think all of us need to develop a routine, a process so that we feel like, "Okay, all the factors in place." When I'm writing a talk, I play the exact same playlist, I prepare certain notes, everything is exactly where it needs to be. And for someone else looking in, it'll look like total chaos. But I often tell my wife and everybody else, "Please don't touch anything on my desk. This is my space. I need it to be exactly this way. Don't try to organize it differently because you'll mess up my process." So for you, maybe you're just going through a weird funk right now, and we all go through these funks, to go back into your mind, to travel back in time to think what is my creative process like? What is step A through Z? Can I write a recipe for it? Because if I can, I know maybe the pie isn't always perfect, but it's going to be pretty freaking good.

Nidhi:

The question that I would have, Light, think about here is, what's the evidence? So anytime that you're having these thoughts, you got to be like Sherlock Holmes, you just accepted the fact that, "Oh, I don't feel like what the feedback that they're giving me is good enough." So that must just be how I'm going to feel about it, right? But we got to look at, okay, but what's informing that? You just mentioned a whole bunch of evidence that shows that the feedback you've gotten externally is really positive, the quality of work that you're putting out there is really well received, that you've built up your skill set, that you've committed to this. Those are all signs and indicators that you are worthy and you are good at what you do, yet all of that went out the window, which this is not just you, I think I have definitely done this and I know so many people that go through that, but we never looked at what the evidence is.

So when you're having this type of thought, pause, bust out your magnifying glass and really take a look at what's even informing that belief that I've developed about myself. And that includes also looking at any evidence that is feeding into the lack of confidence. So if you feel like, "Oh, this one post that I did didn't perform as well," take that into consideration because your mind's already going there. So ignoring that piece of information doesn't help the situation. But when you lay it out and you really look at almost in two columns, evidence that is for, confirming that, "Oh, my work is just okay," versus the evidence that shows you that, "No, I'm doing well and I'm well respected and I should believe that about myself," I have a feeling that latter section is going to be filled up with stuff compared to the first one that I mentioned.

Chris:

Thank you very much, Nidhi. Little Wolf, go ahead.

Speaker 17:

Hi, everybody. I think someone said something about, our worst critics are ourself. Right now that's what I'm having to deal with because I'm trying to start a candle business, and for the past couple days, I've been feeling like I can't do it, I'm not smart enough, I'm not this, I'm not that. And I came in here today and it's like, "Wow, I can do it, Amy. I can." So I wanted to thank you so much because this really helped me out. I'm sure I could do it. So thank you so much and y'all have a blessed day.

Chris:

Thank you, Little Wolf. There's a couple things there, and thanks for sharing that. It is very reaffirming to me that we need to have these conversations, especially within our creative circles. And thank you for saying that. Oftentimes, we say we are our own worst critic. And then if we examine that a little bit deeper and we ask ourselves whose voice is that we're hearing, and the natural response is to say, "Of course it's my own voice." But here's the test. If you have children, would you speak to your own children this way? And if you don't have children, imagine having one, and as yourself, would you ever speak to that child in the way that you speak to yourself? And then you would probably say, "No, never." Would you speak to your friends? Nope. Would you speak to your enemies? Nope. To your worst client that way? No. Then how could this be your own voice?

If you keep digging, you find that oftentimes, that voice that you're using against yourself is one from a very judging parent, someone who had power and influence over you. And when you start to recognize that, label it, you can give it a nickname. And it's like, that's Karen talking, that's Bobby talking, whatever it is, and I'm not going to listen to Bobby right now. I don't know what your real name, but Little Wolf is in charge and Little Wolf is going to howl. This is what we're going to do. Okay, let's finish it off. Last but not least, my friend, Akima. Akima, finish it strong.

Speaker 18:

Lots of pressure. Hey, Chris. Hey, everyone. I just wanted to add to the conversation, excellent conversation. What's been helpful to me has been to look at confidence or self-confidence in stages and levels versus one and done. I either have confidence or I don't. I've had confidence for whatever stage or level I was at. The way that I assess my current state of confidence is by the way I answer two questions. And one of the questions is, what new thing or project have I not yet attempted or started or have I put off, although I still have a burning desire to do it? What new thing, what new project have I not started or attempted and I still have a burning desire to do it? For me, that's how I get to... There's something in there in terms of my confidence, confidence to do or start or execute that thing that I may not be addressing.

That's the one question, and the second question is, what new thing or what thing have I said yes to, although I really don't want to do it, but I still said yes, I'm going to engage in that or do it? So again, my people pleasing still maybe rearing its head. What have I engaged in that... So there's something in my confidence to say no or to maintain those boundaries. So that's how I assess using those two questions whether or not I still have work to do at my current stage in terms of my confidence. And that's what I wanted to contribute, Chris. I hope it helps somebody. Thanks for the conversation and the time.

Chris:

Thank you very much, Akima. Thank you so much. Okay, thanks very much everybody. See you next time.

Speaker 10:

Thanks for joining us this time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Greg Gunn. Thank you to Anthony Barro for editing and mixing this episode, and thank you to Adam Sanborne for our intro music.

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