Why People Find You Intimidating and What You can Do About it with "Quick Confidence" with Selena Rezvani

0:02Who's ready to rock today Fire Nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Finding Founders. Today, we'll be breaking down why people find you intimidating and what you can do about it with quick confidence. To drop these value bombs, I brought Selena Reziani into EO Fire Studios. Selena is a leadership author, coach, and content creator. She trains some of the brightest minds in business at The World Bake, Under Armour, and Microsoft, and teaches more than 27 courses on LinkedIn Learning.

0:34Her brand new book, Quick Confidence, is based on a viral newsletter she started in 2020 to help founders and job seekers hone their leadership presence and make big impact. And today, Fire Nation will talk about being intimidating, even if you don't know you're giving off that energy, how important confidence is, and the difference between being intimidating and being confident, becoming more approachable, and so much more. And a big thank Thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Selena and our sponsors. The Product Boss, hosted by Jacqueline and Mina, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

1:12The Product Boss helps you take your physical product sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life. With episodes like, Can I Have a Successful Product Business as a Side Hustle? Listen to The Product Boss wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit Thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability. It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Selena, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1:56Thank you so much for having me. And I'm so excited to boost up my fellow entrepreneurs today. You know, I think particularly for people earlier in their entrepreneur journeys, being overly polite and deferential with VIPs actually earns you less respect. and so when you hurry through your words when you say oh jld i'm so sorry to bother you today you know when you thank them for 10 minutes at the beginning of the meeting for meeting with you or you say i know you're so busy right you actually do yourself a disservice so i think there's something to be said about rebalancing the power dynamics a little bit well this is going to be on point and on theme for today because Fire Nation, as you heard in the intro, we're talking all about why people find you.

2:53And I'm not talking about you specifically, Fire Nation, but you in general. Intimidating and what you can do about it with quick confidence. And I'll be honest, Selena, my dad is an intimidating person. He always has been. He was in the military. He's a lawyer. My mother's name was actually Selena as well. And luckily, I have some of her qualities, but I actually can follow in his footsteps and be a little intimidating at times. I do have a military background myself, so I can jump into that kind of militaristic mode from time to time. So how can we actually know we're giving off intimidating energy?

3:32Yes. Well, I have one of those dads too, JLD, so know that we come from common stock in that way. and look, most people who are intimidating have been made aware in some way that they're seen that way. You know, friends or people who manage to break through and form a bond, they will actually tell you, you know, I didn't really click with you at first or I found you really intimidating initially. So if you're somebody who hears that again and again, you might wanna take that to heart, use it to build some of your own emotional intelligence and awareness. This is one of the biggest challenges I hear from people dealing with either being intimidating or intimidating, finding others, you know, intimidating and just over the top, larger than life.

4:25And so like some of the ways you might be showing up with that intimidating energy are skipping pleasantries, you know, kind of going right to the task at hand. People may kind of perceive that you put this wall up. That's like, don't come too close or else. And what I tell people is like, if a range of people are labeling you intimidating, sure, it could be them. but it could also point to this fact that people find intimidating, you know, interacting with you to be kind of hard. So there's things that you can do about that. And I know you and I are going to get into that. We are going to get into that because everybody knows in my audience, at least, the importance of confidence, because that is just a key thing that we do need as entrepreneurs.

5:19It's a great trait for us to have as humans. Let us get into the difference between being intimidating and being confident. Because I feel like at times, it can be a fine line. It can be a fine line. And we probably know people who two different individuals would describe differently, you know, one in a negative light, one in a positive light. And so I think one of the things that's a hallmark of confidence is this sense that I have just as good a chance as anyone, you know, to improve at a skill, to go up on that stage and give an important presentation or talk, right? It's normalizing your candidacy, that you are just as good as anyone else at the ability to go up there and do that.

6:12But I think you can also predict that, look, I'm going to either excel or I'm going to learn. You know, I trust that even if I make a mistake, I can write myself. I have the problem-solving skills to kind of write myself like a cat has that writing reflex. And I think intimidation is different. You know, it's not just that knowing belief that I can maneuver, you know, through challenges in life. It's more of a leading with your status, you know, leading with your credential, your big title, whatever that status is that people find larger than life. And intimidating people, they tend to know that that gives them an edge and they lead with it.

7:01Well, one thing that I am pretty curious about, because I feel like it kind of can go both ways, and that's that confident people, they can be intimidating with their confidence. You've kind of seen that person walk in the room, and you know of them, and you're like, wow, I'm a little intimidated by that person because they have it all together. They've had all this success and all this jazz. So the question is, are they actually intimidating or are you intimidated? Yeah, that's a great question. I think if a meaningful enough number of people, right, that's up to you in your own life, find interacting with you to be intimidating, then you are intimidating.

7:51You know, perception is reality. and that's important to know the difference. I think on the other hand, if you're striving to kind of be at ease with your own power, to be comfortable in your own skin, that's what it looks like to radiate confidence. You know, feeling that good enough feeling, not constantly discounting yourself, but feeling like, you know, I belong here. I earned my place here as much as anyone else. And I really go into depth about this in Quick Confidence, my book, because it's something so many people struggle with. Let's take an example from your book. What is a situation where this is actually the case, where you actually went to a real-world example and really kind of dialed in on this specific issue?

8:45Yeah, so I want to kind of take the reverse, which is somebody feeling intimidated, you know, socially intimidated. There's plenty of research that actually shows people experienced a lot more social disconnects after the pandemic and felt a lot rustier, you know, being social and connecting with others. And so one of the real life examples that I think can help people, especially if they kind of deal with feeling intimidated by others, is to be the first. You know, I call this like dog code. And dogs, you know, aren't afraid to be the first to come right up to you, right, and be friendly and initiate contact.

9:34And this is a really powerful thing. Even if you're dealing with the most, you know, daunting of characters, when you habituate initiating contact with people, you make it normal and common to be the first, to welcome, to greet that newcomer, to walk up to somebody or a little circle at a networking event and introduce yourself. And it's a really incredible way to unintimidate yourself when you find yourself in situations where people seem larger than life. I love that example of the dog because I have a three-year-old golden doodle. He's about 62 pounds. He's a decent-sized dog. And he's just a bowl full of happiness.

10:26So whenever people come over, his tail's going, he's going up, he's curling himself up next to people because he wants to be petted and to be acknowledged. And you can tell he's smiling as a dog. He's so happy in the moment. And of course, people just react to that. And they're happy. And they're kind of cooing and petting and doing all this stuff. And I'm like, wow, what if I acted a little bit like Gus, my dog? When I saw people, I mean, people love to feel good about themselves. and when you make people feel good about you being excited to see them, happy to see them. I have a friend actually that I've been kind of studying recently.

11:02He's so good at this. When he comes into a room, he goes around to every single person and makes sure that person is seen, knows that that individual is happy to see them and to meet them. It's just very, very personable. Every time that person walks into a room, people are excited that that's happening because they know they're going to get that kind of nice dopamine hit of happiness because that person is going to give it to them. And it's just so cool to see that you have that power, Fire Nation. We're going to talk about a lot more when it comes to this type of stuff when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

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13:22See over 2 ,000 Verify Success stories and schedule your free 101 13-point assessment with Mr. Clay Clark himself today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Knowledge will not attract money unless it is organized and directed through practical plans of action. become the next success story. Schedule your free 13-point assessment today at Thrivetimeshow.com. Selena, before the break, I was talking about my friend who is just so approachable and is actually just so approaching other people in such a happy, positive kind of way. That can lead to a lot of opportunities when you're actually approachable, when people know they can go up to you because you're willing to be approached.

14:05So what advice do you have for people who want to become more approachable? Yeah, your friend sounds amazing. Like, you know, just the kind of person we all want to emulate. And I love the way he makes people feel acknowledged. And you can do that too, listeners. You know, you can do more of that. And part of it is balancing kind of task and relationship, especially that can be difficult if you are somebody who is more task and let's focus on the work you know that's your style and so take a genuine interest ask people follow-up questions to really show your interest in their thoughts and pov their feelings another way is being more empathic you know maybe somebody's telling you about their challenging week and you say something like, wow, I imagine that's a lot to deal with.

15:03You know, that's a lot to manage. You know, acknowledgement, you talked about that in a sense with your friend, making people feel seen, I think, you know, giving sincere compliments, not phony baloney ones, but giving people sincere compliments, talk about a way to extend confidence to other people. so I think that's huge and and just make sure you're not creating this environment where it's rigid you know it's my way or the highway but that you're acknowledging other people's viewpoints now something that you and I talked about at the beginning of the show is that we actually both have intimidating fathers and I mean honestly I feel like it it set me up for success in the world because I learned how to deal with him as an individual and so when I met other intimidating people in my life, whether it be a boss or somebody in my chain of command in the military, I just wasn't cowed.

16:01I was able to handle the situation. And so there was some pros to that for sure. But I want to speak for Fire Nation now. What if they are feeling intimidated by an important figure in their life? What advice do you have for those that are in that scenario? Yes, I have been there as an entrepreneur. And I'll never forget it. Negotiating one of my first deals with like a fortune 100 company. And you know what, all I could see was like their logo in my brain, you know, looming this, this feeling like they had all the power. And so one of my pieces of advice, I go into this in quick confidence is speak with the person, not the power.

16:48I had to mentally shift and say, I am going to work with Rachel, the general counsel at this company, right? The flesh and blood human being and connect with and interact with her. I'm not connecting with, you know, some other title or position that's just going to kind of freak me out and scare me. So, again, interact with, negotiate with the person, not the power. And I think another important thing is coming at it peer to peer. So even if you're intimidated, out of your mind by somebody, approaching it a little bit more like it's you and I versus the problem in front of us. You know, it's not me down here and you way up there.

17:39No. You know, but really coming at it like a respected peer. Okay. And speaking with them that way. but you're not diminishing yourself. And I think one other thing, this is kind of a way to have fun with this, and I encourage people to have fun with it, is picture them doing the ordinary. You know, no matter how powerful and amazing somebody is, they are still human. So imagine them getting ready for their day. You know, probably just like you and me, they wanted 10 more minutes of sleep this morning. You know, they might have had to think twice and had trouble deciding what to wear, kind of groggily made breakfast and chatted with their family while they were multitasking.

18:26You know, so seeing them kind of doing the ordinary can be a great reality check when someone just feels above and beyond. And by the way, I have had to do this with really out there images, like seeing them in a Spider-Man costume, you know, doing ballet. So have fun with it. They are just human. Selena, let's end with a bang. I wanted to learn more about your book, Quick Confidence. Tell us about this book, why Fire Nation needs to read it. And of course, where we can go to do just that. Well, thank you so much for creating this amazing forum for entrepreneurs. And I built this book, Quick Confidence, out of a newsletter that went viral.

19:11And I started it in 2020 as a way to rebuild my own confidence as a business owner. And it's become this incredible forum. so I hope you'll check it out it's full of 88 plus tips that you can use every day to build up your confidence in terms of mindset shifts using your physicality and of course in interpersonal relationships so check it out Fire Nation you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with you've been hanging out with SR and JLD today so keep up that heat for links to everything we talked about visit EO Fire Just type Selena, S-E-L-E-N-A in the search bar and the show notes page will pop right up.

19:56And what is the best URL for Fire Nation to learn more about everything you have going on in Quick Confidence? Awesome. Well, I'll make it easy. It's quickconfidence.com. Wow. Great domain. Loving that. Thank you. Selena, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you and we will catch you on the flip side. Amazing. Thank you for everything you do for entrepreneurs. Hey, Fire Nation. A huge thank you to Selena and our sponsors for sponsoring today's episode today. And Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That is why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days.

20:40And we're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com. I'll catch you there or on the flip side. The Product Boss, hosted by Jacqueline and Mina, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Product Boss helps you take your physical product sales and strategy to the next level to create your dream life. With episodes like, Can I Have a Successful Product Business as a Side Hustle? Listen to The Product Boss wherever you get your podcasts. Is this your year? Visit thrivetimeshow.com to see testimonials of how Clay Clark's business coaching has helped over 2 ,000 entrepreneurs to dramatically increase profitability.

21:19It's month to month and less money than an average minimum wage employee. Schedule your free consultation today at Thrivetimeshow.com.