Innovative Strategies To Build Self-Confidence

0:04This is the Ed Milet Show. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. I'm so excited. This week, we're going to get a chance to talk about something that I know is on the minds of so many of you, which is how to increase your self-confidence. There's so many things on social media and in the personal development self-help space about how to do that. I really feel like it's become an echo chamber of the same exact things being said over and over again. For the last 30 years of my life, this has been a core topic for me to create new and innovative content on because I needed it so much myself. And so as we dive into this conversation today, just realize something.

0:41I'm with you on this. I struggle with self-confidence a better part of my entire life until I really started to work on these tools and resources that I'm going to share with you here briefly today. And so it became out of a necessity for me and it's changed my life. It's changed the internal part of my life and obviously the external things I've achieved in my life are directly correlated to the confidence level that I believe in myself that I can do it. Because in our lives, our external results are never going to exceed our internal identity. We're never going to consistently do more than we believe we're worth or that we deserve.

1:16And I know you deserve the best in your life. You deserve more. You deserve abundance. You deserve increase. And I think my conversation today with my friend Brendan Brouchard that you'll hear here is going to give you some insights and some ideas and just some tactics that maybe you've not heard phrased the way that we phrase it here today. By the way, if you enjoyed the conversation, he's got an amazing app that I always promote for him called Growth Day. If you go to growthday.com forward slash Ed, you could get more of the types of content like what he and I are talking about here today. But this one today is just for you on the Ed Milet show.

1:49So I hope you'll enjoy this conversation on self-confidence. Here we go. Ed, good seeing you, brother. Love you, brother. Good to be with you, Brennan. Man, I'm so excited to be talking about personal development with you because every time I do, I get fired up. And if I think of something you're known for, especially when we see you on stage or you're on your podcast, you have a certain kind of confidence and energy and presence that I think draws people in, but also builds that kind of trust and assurance that you kind of have it. You know? And I'm going to guide you. I'm going to help you through this.

2:23You have it too. We both reflected a little bit differently. But even when we started today, when you came on the camera, I said, I'm instantly smiling when I'm with you. And that's because you radiate that type of confidence as well. So it's such a great topic because even when I work with athletes, you know, like when we're done today, I'm working with one of my UFC fighters and people say, what do you really work with? Is it their visualizations? And I do do those things. But even with the top of the top athletes that I work with, the number one thing they struggle with is their confidence level.

2:50And it's building, building it back, gaining the momentum of it again, remembering where it came from initially. And I think one of the reasons so many people and even myself, to some extent, the last couple years lost a little bit of it is our promises we were capable of keeping to ourselves were taken from us. So I see self-confidence almost like it's a reputation that you have with yourself. And if you have a reputation with yourself where you keep the promises that you make to you, you begin to stack those promises on top of each other, you develop what we call self-confidence. When I have not held self-confidence, if I look back 90 days or 120 days or even a year, at some point I stopped keeping the promises I made to myself.

3:34And they can be small things like what time I get up in the morning, how much water am I going to drink every day, how many contacts am I going to make in my business, How many pages of a book am I going to read? And those things seem very small, even making my bed. They seem very small. But when you start stacking up these little things like, oh, I do the things I tell myself I'm going to do. And when the stuff happened the last couple of years, our opportunities to deliver on promises we made to ourselves were, for the most part, taken away from us. The normal routines and habits we had about going to a gym, even as simple as things like that, or even contact in business, going to an office every day.

4:10And so these things changed. And then we wake up 90 days or a year later and we go, I don't really feel like I've got what I had before. So I always go back, even with the athletes I work with or even myself, where can I begin to build baseline self-confidence? Baseline self-confidence is keeping these promises. Superhuman self-confidence, no pun intended, is right behind me if they're watching the video. It's keeping the promises you make to yourself and then doing one more. So if I say I'm going to make 10 contacts in a day, I make my 10, I do it one more. Now I've not just kept the promises, I've elevated the standard.

4:45Because in our life, you know this, I believe we don't get our goals most of the time. What delivers on our goals are the standards we set. And so the higher the standard, the deeper our self-confidence goes. So one of the keys for me has been rebuilding the structures around which I keep the promises I make to me. And the duration in which I do it is causing the depth of the self-confidence level that I have. So for me, it starts with basic habits and routines and things that I commit. This may seem really small. My daughter, one of the commitments I've made to myself is I will talk to my daughter every day.

5:21She's away at Clemson in college. You think, what does this have to do with business? It has everything to do because I'm a really busy dude. It's easy for me to just text her. I actually call her. Hey, Bella Boo, it's daddy. I did it this morning, except now I do it and I do it one more time a day. Now I'm like a superhuman confident dad, because how many dads are doing that? Right. And I also, and I'm going to let you jump in because I'm curious for you. I actually believe there's a part of us that goes, I'm getting what I deserve. I'm getting what I deserve. The external results I'm producing have a lot to do with internally what I believe I'm worth and what I believe I deserve.

5:56And if you're Like me, I don't naturally have a proclivity to believe I'm worth a lot. I wasn't raised with a bunch of praise and belief being poured into me. I'm very self-critical. When I make a mistake, I'm my own worst critic. Even to this day, I have to really battle that. And even when I'm winning sometimes, candidly, I'll be vulnerable. Is this a fluke? You know, like, am I fooling everybody right now? And so this stuff we're talking about has been fundamental in my life to changing my life is me believing, man, I'm doing things most people aren't willing to do. I deserve to get stuff most people end up getting.

6:35And so for me, it's the it's the beginning of keeping those promises you make yourself. And then I've got some other stuff, too, when we come back to it. But do you relate to that? Is that part of your recipe, too? A thousand percent. And I think researchers find that. They might use other language. They might be, hey, that's keeping personal commitment. Same thing. Hey, that's integrity. That's self-trust. And the language I use for that, that's just congruence. I say I'm going to do it. I do it. I was congruent. if I say I'm going to do it and I don't do it I break that congruence and the more breaks then the more breaks in my psyche the more breaks in my identity the more breaks in my rhythm and I a million percent agree with you on that there is a rhythm you know some might call it a vibrational frequency or a rhythm to success there's a rhythm to confidence and when you're in that rhythm the words flow a little bit different yes places and things flow to you a with yourself and with other people when you're in that rhythm.

7:35It's funny that you say it because my son had to take a bunch of time off from golf. He had a knee injury and he lost that confidence in that rhythm. And even myself, when I've lost it, it's almost like, and you can be so close to the way you were before, but it's just not what it was. It's almost like you ever be at a wedding and you watch that dude and he's got the moves, right? But he's dancing to the lyrics, not the beat of the music. So it's just, well, that's just what I've heard. Okay. But it's that lack. And that's why you can say, man, I'm saying the same things I was saying six months ago, but I'm not producing the same result.

8:13It's that rhythm is off. You're, you're dancing to the lyric, not the beat of the music. And there's a beat to it. And I think you're a million percent right about that, Brennan. And I think once you find that groove, it's like, you know, momentum is a magnifier. Momentum is a rhythm. Momentum can take a person who's pretty average and ordinary like me, and you start getting enough momentum on enough rhythm, you're like, whoa, you have these superhuman things you begin to achieve. What's important about what you're also saying is that here's what's really important. Both of us are saying this is an internal game.

8:48It's not contingent on the external praise or even producing the result to generate confidence. In other words, the game I've set up isn't outcome driven. It's process driven. Did you engage the process today as a win? Yes. For me, it's like all I can control, I can control my attitude, my activity. Everybody knows that. But I'm linking that to my confidence, not the production of the result. if your confidence is constantly contingent on the result, you'll be chasing your tail most of the time. You'll be chasing your tail. So it's an internal game. It's also not, I don't need the affirmation of another person to get self-confidence.

9:25Self-confidence means it has to do with one's self. I'll give you another big key for me. And this really flipped things. I've talked to you about these conversations I had with Wayne Dyer. And a lot of times my confidence is not even predicated on my ability because there may be somebody smarter than me or better than me a better speaker a better marketer a better whatever so when i walk into even today i'm confident today let me tell you why i give myself credit for my intentions so my confidence i've linked to my intent to serve my intent to do good and not necessarily my ability to so even when i speak I mean, I'm a pretty good speaker, right?

10:07But I'm not out there going, I'm the world's greatest speaker. My confidence comes from, I've prepared, I've kept the promises of myself and my intentions. Yes. Not enough precious human beings say, I'm a good woman. I'm a good man. I deserve to be successful. I'm walking into this business meeting and I intend to do good. I intend to help these people. I should be confident. Yes. They think they've conflated, go, no, no, but I'm not as good as I need to be. That's not where your confidence should be linked to, or even the outcome. Link it to your intentions, because that's something you know to be true about you.

10:44I could always go back, Brennan, no matter where I am in the world, no matter what I'm doing, the one thing I do believe about me is I'm a good man. I intend to serve. I intend to contribute. Yes. I generate a tremendous amount of confidence in my intentions, not necessarily my ability or the result. And I think this is something that's never taught in a self-confidence world. Yep. That listen, your intent matters. You should generate tremendous strength from your intentions. Yet most good people just sort of, they slough it off. They don't give themselves any credit for their intent. In other words, this doesn't, they think, oh, everybody intends to serve.

11:23Everybody's good. Nah, not so fast. And worse, you lose it. You lose it sometimes, meaning people lose the, the time or the practice of setting the intention. So even if they are good, they don't even set the intention so they can't give themselves credit for it. So you'll love this little psychological trick. We call it a doorway trigger. Doorway trigger is anytime you enter a doorway, you say something to yourself. So mine is when I walk through a door, I always say, I enter this room, a happy man, ready to serve. By the way, the trigger thing is huge. We should talk a little bit more about that too but because you can make deposits when you are confident that you can make withdrawals from later so let's talk about that in a second but like for example this fighter that I'm going to work with later today she has a very major fight coming up and one of the things I just wanted to have a simple self-talk that gives her confidence and actually we've been working on it now for three months leading up to this fight and here's what it is I find a way to win I find a way to win I find a way to win and I make her repeat it to me with different emphasis so she'll say things like, I find a way to win.

12:31I find a way to win. She'll say, I find a way to win. And then other times I'll ever say, I find a way to win. And we emphasize this over and over and over. It becomes like an embedded command. If anybody knows any NLP stuff, right? But it's just self talk that's repeated over and over again. And it's funny how the mind works. You begin to repeat this over and over again. It becomes a believable belief and our mind moves towards what we're most familiar with so if we're familiar with that thought i tell you right now in this fight when it gets down to crunch time and she's in that what i they call it deep water when she's taking out to the deep water she might be getting submitted she's tired and she's going to come back to this i find a way to win and i believe what we believe to be most true we end up producing long term in our life i just hope it shows up in the fight right you're exactly right with the self-talk.

13:24I'm curious, do you do anything, because I do, to anchor a state when you have confidence so that you can make the withdrawal later? Do you do that? When you're really feeling it, do you do anything to create that trigger or that anchor? Yeah. Mine's dorky and self-reflective. When I capture, I go, oh, I got it. And I'd write it down. And I'd tell myself, write it down. And it's go, because I know I'll forget that state or that moment, or even if I do myself physically anchoring, you know, 10 minutes later, the emotion's gone. So I want to know what was the aha, what was the breakthrough? Oh, I got it.

13:59And I write it down. So it's almost like a reward or a celebration or reflection. And to me, I have to write it down. Partially because I had a brain injury way back in the day. So my memory and my cues aren't as easy to reflect like consciously. I remember it. I have to write it down. The other thing I just want to say and reflect that coaching you're giving her is so great because I've always defined confidence as the belief in one's ability to figure things out. My confidence is, I believe I can figure this out, which is another way of saying, I will find a way. It's literally the same thing, right?

14:36I will find a way to win is, I believe I can figure this out. I like yours better because the deeper level of commitment and adding the win to it. I think that's so important, but you mentioned you have something that you do? When I really feel something, this is maybe a little bit technical, but I think it's worth sharing for those that want to experience it. I think confidence is an emotion also. Right. It's not only a thought, it's not only a state of being, but it's an emotion. And there is a neurochemistry to all of our emotions. And so when I am feeling particularly confident, this is just what most people don't ever do in their life.

15:16They don't take advantage of states they find themselves in so they can go back to them later to your point about the trigger and the anchor so when I am in a state of achievement let's just say or confidence I like to just do something very simple physically that anchors that state in my body it's not really dramatic either it's kind of nerdy and nerdy and dorky also but for example if I'm on the stage and I'm just it's being crushed or I'm just feeling the flow in a podcast or I'm in a beautiful moment with my daughter where I'm feeling particularly confident as a father whatever it is my daughter this morning when I called she called me back Brennan she's like she had a major test today her and her roommate called say dad they're going to the test dad we need words of wisdom we need some motivation my daughter and by the way it's bizarre to me at this stage of my life bro that my daughter now seeks this from me because I got eye rolls her entire teenage years when I'm giving her the same talks, right?

16:10Circle of life right there, absolutely. So I started out and she caught me off guard. So the first thing I said was like, okay, dad, thanks. But then I kind of crushed a couple other recommendations that I gave her, right? And when we were done, I'm like, that was a good dad moment right there. I crushed that as a dad. And so when I'm feeling a particular level of confidence, I'll anchor it with just some type of physical move. So like it might be, for me, it's a lot, it's like a finger snap. I'm on the stage, I'm crushing, boom. And what I'm doing is I'm depositing that confident state into my neurochemistry.

16:42I'm making a deposit. And so when I'm feeling it, I deposit it with my athletes. You just hit a home run. You better, when you're running around those bases, give me the finger snap or slap your chest or pull on your ear or tug on the helmet. You better anchor this amazing state. Now it's anchored. And the more we repeatedly do the same physical simple move in a particular state, those are deposits. then when I need to make a withdrawal and I'm feeling a bit insecure when I'm about to walk out on stage bam finger snap puts my neurochemistry back in that state again you can even tell as I'm saying this to you now my energy levels right you're opening yeah I'm opening and so this some for some people that's too much but for a lot of people it's like that's it when I'm feeling good do something and do the same thing repeatedly whatever it might be that's why you'll watch a lot you can learn so much from an athlete you watch an athlete get out of the batter's box and adjust their batting gloves or they tap home plate the same two times right or the golfer does the same two practice pattern of a rhythm yeah right or tom brady let's go or peyton manning omaha you know whatever it might be these are verbal or physical triggers that are from previous self confident peak performance states that they're now calling on now when they need the most right so that's the sort of the that's the science part of self-confidence the other stuff is sort of the art form of it.

18:01One of the things that I'm still sort of surprised by when I work with people or they come to events is lack of clarity. And if I would add on top of that is a lack of specificity. So you say, well, I want to lose weight. You're not going to get a lot of self-confidence coming from that statement. Specifically, what does that mean? Is it pounds? Is it body fat? Is it a percentage. Clarity is specificity. And so I want to, you know, I want to have a good year in business. I want to have my best month. What exactly specifically does that mean? So that when you look at that board, it's there's specificity all over it.

18:41Almost think sometimes that building the muscle of setting specific outcomes and specific visual things is something people need to work on for whatever reason of all the things I'm not good at. That has never been a struggle of mine. I've never been vague. I've always really been very specific because I want to know whether I hit it or not, but that's what creates clarity. It's like, if I'm looking at a golf hole, like we were talking about golf earlier, you and I off camera, if I, you know, I'm my average player. So what I'm really trying to do, which I was just talking about this this weekend in a golf tournament, I'm trying to hit it on the green, which is a big old 60 foot green, right yeah and that's why i'm an amateur and that's why i lack confidence yes the truth is a professional player is trying to hit it to a spot on the green that's about six inches wide right right and that specificity creates clarity for them in the shot and so they're far better than me because the target is so specific yes even if they were to miss they're gonna be much closer than me because they were so much more specific in their focus than I was with my wide focus or lack of focus.

19:51Some people that are worse than me at golf aren't even trying to hit the green. They're just trying to hit the ball. Right. And that's something that's a metaphor for life. And so you're a hundred percent. And one of the things that also creates clarity is this notion that I've been here before, meaning you were like, take a speech. You're exactly right. And I know you're one of the greats of all time. You've walked out there in your mind before you've gone there. You walked out for this podcast before you've gone there. You project yourself into that space and see it happening to the point even when I was in, when I'm selling, I even picture them hugging me at the end and thanking me.

20:30It's that level of specificity. It's that level of, so that when I get there and that rhythm starts to happen, it's familiar. see I don't want to end up in if I can help it I want to minimize the unfamiliar and so if I've projected I've prepared I've projected a lot of my self-confidence comes from the fact that I've prepared and I've been there in my mind I've been there before so you're that helps create clarity for me and I'll give you one more thing to kick around you know it's it's surprising to me no matter what your faith is. So if you're a Christian or a Muslim or Jew or Hindu, or you practice Buddhism, or maybe you believe like I do, and I'm a Christian, but also I believe in energy.

21:16I believe in the quantum, right? And people say to me, I believe there's an all powerful source, or I'm a follower of Jesus. And it's interesting to me, whatever their belief system is, that they don't derive any self-confidence personally from it. Interesting. Why would you not link your faith, whatever faith it is you practice, to your confidence? Like as a Christian, if you're a Christian, I'm the son of the king of kings. His DNA is running through my veins. Why in the world would that not give me some dadgum confidence? Right. The quantum and you can plug into an all-knowing knowledge field.

21:51Shouldn't you get a little confidence from that? So it's interesting to me how people go, well, I have a lot of faith. I'm in the synagogue or the mosque or I'm at church on Sunday. But somehow Monday morning when business starts, I'm alone now. You're alone now? You're not alone now. Your faith tells you and informs you otherwise. You start having a combination of anchors and triggers, keeping the promises you make to yourself, your intentions, your clarity, all these things we're talking about. And then you stack on top of that. I have a faith in something bigger than me that's with me all the time.

22:22I ought to have some boldness and confidence solely stemming from that. So many of you that have faith, why are you checking that at the door when it comes to your relationships, your body, your business, your money? That should be centerpiece of your self-confidence. It should be the most important piece of your self-confidence. And I know it is for you. I love it. My favorite words in my faith in terms of Christianity is, he precedes me. It's like he precedes me. This has already worked out. Somebody already worked it out. Now, I need to find my way through. I need to figure out a way to win.

22:57I need to, you know, hopefully figure it out. But where it's going to go, I have trust. Since we're being completely real, you know, people that see me speaks backstage like, so I saw you do your move where you're snapping your fingers. But what's the last thing you'll see me do? I actually get on my knees and I pray very quickly because that's where my real confidence comes from. It's, you know, here's what it's done for me. I've never said this to somebody and maybe you and I can kick this around the last few minutes I think also we put a pressure on ourselves like am I going to make the right decision or the wrong one am I going to say the right thing or the wrong thing and I have found in my life and I have this rooted in my belief system that when I've come to a place where I have to yield or make a decision I don't necessarily think most of the time now there is right and wrong in life we all know that I'm not talking about ethics or morals I'm not referring to that.

23:51I'm talking about if something goes one way or the other, I've really built this belief system that I'll make either one work. So if I, if I decide this way and I might be wrong, I'll find a way to make that work. And if I go that way and I was going to be right, I'll make that one work. There's this notion that's sort of put into us when we're children, like good or bad, right or wrong. And we start feeling this pressure. Like, what if I don't say the right thing? What if I don't do the right thing? The truth is in life, most of the time, that path, that journey, both can lead to bliss. Both can lead to success.

24:26It might be a different path. It might not be, to your point, on your schedule. It might be on God's schedule. And if you have a God that's a pro that created the entire universe, you're probably going to be okay no matter which turn you take. And that gives you a confidence to go, I'm going to call the shot with the most information, with the best of my ability, but I'm going to make either one of these work. That's real confidence. Oh, I love it. I'm going to make either one of these works because the truth is, whichever one you take, path A or B, turns out good or bad, most people go, well, one's going to be good and one's going to be catastrophic and it's going to be terrible.

25:03And I go, well, the truth is right or wrong, the next step actually is exactly the same. If you fail, the next step demands that you summon the best of who you are to handle it. If you win, guess what? The next step is going to demand that you summon the best of who you are, no matter what. So I always tell people, you want confidence? It's easy. Know your job. You have one job every day. Summon the best of who you are to really work life and at the same time trust life or God, I think is one of the ultimate secrets of the most successful people I've ever met. I a million percent agree. And I think actually today's conversation is sort of evidence of everything we've said.

25:43We both set out with an intention to serve the day. there's been this incredible rhythm between the different things that we've, you know, said here together. And if I'd add one last thing to it, it's also that you could take on an identity of yourself too, which is that I'm kind of a learner. Like I'm curious, I was curious where this was going to go today. And I learned. And when I come to these decisions or these experiences I'm going to have, you know, at a minimum, I'm going to learn something about myself, about how to do it better you know even with an athlete i keep going back to these examples but like i'll tell them that at bat yeah you ground it out but you learned this guy's curveball does this you look so the next at bat you're more prepared for what he's going to bring to you yes this notion of i'm learning um i don't know for me it reduces the pressure it increases the curiosity and it also, I'm almost always winning if I'm learning.

26:40Yes, I'm almost always winning if I'm learning. And so I've sort of adopted in my life this notion that I'm curious, and I'm going to learn, it's going to be an experience I'm going to learn. I found that I actually produced the outcome that I actually had on my board, to your point for clarity, far more regularly, when I'm not so addicted to the outcome and everything I want to do, because addiction to outcome can rob you of confidence. But when I am committed to the process that you've described earlier, and also this notion that I'm going to gather a better me at the other side of this, because I will have learned something about me, the circumstances, the environment, how to do it better the next time, whatever that might be.

27:19I get a lot of confidence when I approach things that way. Ed, it's been a pleasure. And I hope that you'll find confidence in your growth today. Thank you, Thank you, Ed. Thank you. I want to hear it back too. Let's go. This is the Ed Milad Show.