Ep. 113 How To Be Confident In 20 Minutes: A No BS Guide

0:28Hey, it's Adam Grant from WorkLife, a podcast from TED. software, you'll work smarter, not harder. Freshworks uncomplicates. Learn more at Freshworks.com.

1:00Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. Hi, friends. Grace from the Working Hard podcast here. When you're stretching every dollar, a little goes a long way, and Walmart Business is here to help. They make it easy to order what you need from tech and cleaning supplies to everyday essentials, all at low prices and with helpful tools like spend tracking and tax-exempt purchasing for eligible organizations. Because when your operations are smooth, your impact can be bigger. Visit business.warmart.com to get started.

1:58deep dive into topics that have really changed the way that I think about things like self-improvement, success, navigating work, and to be honest, life in general. For each of these episodes, I've done a ton of research and spoken to experts so that you don't need to sift through all of the information out there. And the whole idea is that these episodes are a deep dive into one particular topic so that you can get a shortcut to theories that could genuinely help you to level up your life and you can get them all in one walk or commute or while you're doing the dishes. And I've been researching today's topic for a good while now.

2:33It is something that I have dipped in and out of for the last six years and it is something that has had a huge impact on me. We're talking about how to become more confident. I really believe that confidence might just be the key to happiness, whether it is in your career, your personal relationships, or even just in how you talk to yourself. I think that is a huge, huge part of it. And understanding the root cause and the root issues that come in the way of confidence has shown me that confidence is really something you can learn. It's like any skill. And if there's one thing that I love, it's learning skills.

3:12So very excited to break it down. And I really hope you enjoy this episode.

3:24So first of all, let me set the scene. Confidence is something that I think we all admire in others, but it is also something that can feel very elusive. I think it's easy to look at people who seem confident and assume that they were just born that way. But the reality is that, as I've said, and will keep saying until it becomes my catchphrase, confidence is a skill. It's very much something you can develop. Don't get me wrong. Some people are definitely born with more confidence and some people have a lot of experiences that make them a lot more confident from the beginning of their life. But that is not to say that if you were not born that way or if you did not have a childhood that led to you being super confident that you cannot become confident.

4:05The same goes for communicating confidently. We often think that being a good communicator, for example, is about being naturally charismatic or extroverted. But communication is actually a series of skills that you can learn, refine and practice over time. And this topic is really personal to me because working on my confidence has opened doors in my career. It's definitely helped me to build stronger relationships. And I genuinely think that my businesses wouldn't exist without confidence, but it wasn't an overnight transformation. And I will tell you, and actually any of my close friends would tell you from when I was a teenager in particular, I really, really lacked confidence, like lacked confidence on a fundamental level where I just, I didn't have an ounce of it.

4:51It wasn't that I wasn't kind of loud at times or wanting to do certain things, but I really, really lacked a fundamental level of confidence and self-worth, which really got in the way of me getting to where I want to get to. And it's very much been a process of identifying where I lacked confidence and working on it step by step to get to the point now where I don't even recognize that person that I once was. I don't know, there's so many different parts of confidence that I think help you get to where you want to get to, not just in the actual progression, but in terms of mindset and you trusting yourself and you trusting your emotions and you trusting that what you're doing is the right thing or whatever it might be.

5:32So if you've ever felt insecure about your abilities or struggle to express yourself. Hilarious that I said that wrong. Or struggle to express yourself is what I was trying to say. Don't worry, you're definitely not alone. And let's talk about how we can build that foundation. If there's one thing about me that you will know if you've come to any of these episodes before, it's that I think some of the scariest topics and some of the most elusive topics are made a lot less fucking scary, when you break it down you look at the context behind it you look at the theories behind it you look at why we feel that way I am one of those people who like I love nothing more than a podcast walk I love nothing more than like stomping through a green area and actually finding out more about why I feel a certain way or why I go for a certain type of relationship or friendship or why I have certain tendencies in terms of like my career like any of these different things like I believe the answer to unlocking truths about yourself and getting to know yourself more and getting able to therefore build a better life for yourself very much comes down to how much you understand where these things come from and how to fix them if there's something you want to fix.

6:48And as part of that, you know that we do not do anything on this podcast without receipts. So let's back this up with some facts. First of all, a study published in the Journal of personality and social psychology found that people who demonstrate higher self-confidence tend to perform better in the workplace and have higher levels of overall life satisfaction. When it comes to communication, the importance is equally significant. A report by the Harvard Business Review showed that strong communicators are not only more effective in leadership roles, but also more likely to be promoted and experience career growth.

7:20As I was researching for this episode, I read this sentence in a journal. Research shows that confident people are more likely to take risks, seize opportunities and persist in the face of challenges. However, from what I've read and listened to, I'm keen to flip the sentence on its head. This is the key lesson of this podcast. People become more confident because they take risks, seize opportunities and persist in the face of challenges, which makes it really a self-perpetuating cycle. What I mean by that is if you lack confidence and act in a way where you don't trust your decisions, you think over and over and over again that you haven't made the right decision or that you can't show up in a way you want to show up, you're going to compound confidence in the wrong direction.

8:00You're going to move away from confidence. On the other side, just doing things like one thing at a time, even if you don't feel confident enough to do it, like acting the way a confident you would compounds in the direction of actually building that confidence. It's like a placebo effect. you have to prove to yourself that you are a confident person in order to become a confident person and I know that sounds complicated but it's really not that complicated you will all have had those times where for example you're like I don't want to respond to that text I don't want to respond to that text and you're like I'm a confident person this is how I do it or I'm not going to go for that thing because it's too scary and then you go for it because you're like I'm just going to pretend in this moment that I am a confident person and funnily enough that seems to be how you build confidence.

8:47I think the term happens to be fake it till you make it. But this brings me on to the theories. An important disclaimer that I am not a scientist, very much so. I am not an expert in anything, but I do like reading about people who are experts on things. So this is the theory on confidence building that truly helped me become more confident and lose kind of this constant self-doubt. And I've chosen to speak about confidence and communication together today because they are actually scientifically linked. So there is fascinating research around something called the confidence competence loop. Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and other institutions have shown that the more competent you become at something, the more confident you feel, which leads to even better performance.

9:29This feels obvious, but I think that we often don't reverse engineer this. So obviously, if you're better at something, you're probably going to be more confident at something. But if that something isn't something that you're naturally doing, you're never going to become confident because you're not even trying it in the first place. That might even just be something like public speaking. That might be something like going for new jobs. That might be something like speaking up in meetings when it's not something you'd usually do. If you're not doing it, you can't get better at it. And therefore, you cannot scientifically build confidence.

10:01It is really a positive feedback loop. As you improve your skills, you gain confidence, which then fuels your ability to perform even better. This is particularly relevant when it comes to communication, where practicing and refining small aspects of how you express yourself can lead to huge gains in confidence. For example, let's say you're not naturally confident when speaking in public. The first time you give a presentation, it might make you feel uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, you might be sweating, and to be frank, you might not be very good at it. But as you practice and build your communication skills and presentation skills, learning how to structure your talk engage with your audience or manage your body language your competence increases and even if you think it was a total car crash you have learned something and gained competence and with that competence comes greater confidence and because you're feeling more self-assured your performance improves the next time you speak obviously it doesn't always work that fast sometimes it takes years and years and years to build up confidence in an area but one thing that i can categorically tell you is that if you are not actively trying to improve your competence by trying something and actually doing the thing then it is going to be very fucking hard to improve your confidence and this loop also works at a micro level even small improvements in things like learning to ask thoughtful questions can make you feel more confident in conversation over time this builds a foundation of confidence which not only improves how others perceive you but also how you perceive yourself and as research shows this confidence you gain from competence in one area can spill over into other areas of your life, enhancing your overall performance and how you feel about yourself.

11:36I think what's important to say at this point too is if you generally don't have confidence around one certain area, like it's not something that comes naturally to you, it might not be that you suddenly sign up for like a fucking open mic night in order to be able to build confidence with public speaking. I think one of the best ways to break that down is to really get to the root cause of the fear because that really is what is behind your lack of confidence. So what is it that makes you stressed about this type of thing? What is it that makes you feel like it's going to go badly or you're going to be laughed at or whatever it might be, you just don't like it.

12:12By being able to break that down, you can work on other areas where you can improve that. So for example, you're worried about it going badly. What about practicing A or just practicing getting little bits into other conversations or meetings that's not like a true public speaking experience, but is you speaking in front of other people in a meeting. It's a smaller version of the bigger thing that you are working towards. And a lot of the time, it's not so simple as just being like, oh, I want to get better at X and then just doing more of X. You probably have to work up to that even in the first place.

12:42I will say as well, when you start to build competence in one area and you start to build confidence in that, you stop needing to be like good at everything in order to be confident as a person. And I think that's because once you build up confidence in one area, that really can, as we've talked about scientifically, be applied to other areas of your life because naturally you feel pretty good about yourself because you're like, do you know what, even if I'm terrible at public speaking, I'm actually really good at running and I put a huge amount of time and effort into actually improving in that.

13:15And I've proven to myself over and over and over again that I'm a disciplined person, that I'm someone who shows up, that I'm someone who goes longer distances, whatever it might be. So maybe it doesn't matter so much that I'm not amazing at public speaking. I can still be confident in myself and I still show up as a confident person. And I truly believe that showing up as a confident person makes the biggest difference to how you are perceived. I think we all will have had experiences with people who show up and for some reason they are not confident. Like for some reason it might be the day, it might be generally what they're like, it might be the environment, they are not confident.

13:52It becomes harder and harder to communicate with, to interact with, to build a relationship with a lack of confidence. It's a sad truth essentially and so sometimes it's just about showing up and faking it till you make it. Like showing up and putting on a confident face, acting how a confident person would act in that situation and just proving to yourself that you can do that, even if it didn't come from your genuine actions. The mother of self-improvement, Mel Robbins, defines confidence as the willingness to try. And I always think this definition is so spot on. You're not going to gain confidence if you do not take the first step to gaining competence, which is to try something.

14:35And this busts one of the key myths about confidence. You don't suddenly feel confident when you try something for the first time. It's not always going to feel great. But the key to confidence is continuing despite that. For example, sometimes people ask how I'm confident when delivering a talk. But in truth, it is something that has always terrified me. And especially in certain situations, like I do a lot of speaking now with industry professionals who are like the top of their career. I did one at TikTok the other day, which was all CEOs and CMOs at the forefront of the industry and these huge companies.

15:13And that would have fucking terrified me a few years ago. But over time, I have done it more and more. And I've repeated the action and I've learned and I've had terrible talks. I've had great ones. But each time I built competence, with that competence has come confidence. Another thing I did was actually set goals around the fact that that was something that I wanted to become good at. It was pretty intrinsically tied into the career direction that I wanted to go in. And I put in a number of things that would mean that it wasn't just that I was showing up in public speaking every week and getting better at it, but I was doing other things that developed conversation and meant that I was less on the spot.

15:51For example, actually starting this podcast. Like when I started this podcast, I was fucking terrible at interviewing and I don't always get it right now. It was really hard. Like I found it really, really hard. And I'd have this plan that I wanted to talk to them about and they'd be talking about these things and then I wouldn't know whether to stick to the plan or whether to go with what they were saying and it was just like too much for me to think about at once and I remember just once being like oh my god this is too much I'm actually just not good at this and actually being able to put in place something that says okay I'm gonna try and get better at this and I'm gonna keep showing up and I'm gonna put things in place that mean that you know I have two options to talk about that type of thing or just I'm listening to people better whatever it might be and just building up that competence little by little.

16:35And that has fed into so many other things I'm doing like public speaking. You know how everything's a subscription now? Music, movies, even socks. I swear if - To continue this ad, please upgrade to premium plus platinum. Uh, what? No, anyway, Blue Apron - This is a paper listen ad. Please confirm your billing. Oh, that's annoying. At least with the new Blue Apron, there's no subscription needed. Get delicious meals delivered without the weekly plan. Wait, no subscription? Keep the flavor. Ditch the subscription. Get 20 % off your first two orders with code APRON20. Terms and conditions apply.

17:07Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. The market's uncertain. Revenue's tight and hiring on hold. That's why results-driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving. Go to upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast. No bulky overhead. No rigid long-term contracts. Just the right expert right when you need them. Work smarter and faster with Upwork. Go to Upwork.com now and find your freelance expert. That's U-P-W-O-R-K dot com. Post a job for free and get started today. At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone. You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve.

17:52You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu. But now we know the theories, it's time to think about applying them in everyday life. So step one of this is starting by trying small things. As we've already spoken about, confidence is built through action. It's not just thinking positively. start by setting small achievable goals that push you slightly outside your comfort zone.

18:29This could be something like speaking up in a meeting as we've talked about, initiating a conversation with someone new or practicing public speaking in front of a mirror or a camera. And to very much use my catchphrase, you need to schedule it in. Like you cannot just tell yourself you want to be more confident but not plan out the actions you need to take to build the competence to get there. And I'm not saying that you need to do a public speaking spot to your mirror every single week. But it might be that talking in front of a camera makes a big difference. So it might be that when you have something coming up or you have a big meeting coming up, you're saying, do you know what?

19:03I'm going to make sure that in that meeting, I make three really strong points and I challenge people on things that I do, you know, X, Y, Z. It's about putting things in that are actionable steps that can lead you to where you want to get to competence wise to build that confidence. And you cannot just expect it to get better without doing that deliberately and doing that over time and being able to like snowball that confidence. Step two is that you really don't want to make it personal. So let's say you've scheduled in the thing you want to try to make yourself more confident and it's a public speaking event.

19:33You're standing at the side of the stage and you are shit scared. But you need to get on that stage because how are you going to get the competence you need to feel confident otherwise? The simple answer is to take yourself out of the equation. And it is easier said than done, but you need to say to yourself, what would your confident alter ego do right now? What would your career hero do right now? This way, you're talking your mind out of the realm of anxious scared you and you're giving yourself the freedom to try. It's literally not about you at all. You are there, other people have their whole life, they aren't here, they're about to watch your talk.

20:07It's literally not about you. You're just here to deliver it, you're here to try, you're here to do your best and I promise you with each time it will get easier. The same can be said for literally anything. I feel like we've spoken about public speaking a lot but the same can be said for feeling terrified of like being in a public gym. Just turning up and finding yourself like a mat in the corner and working out there makes a huge difference versus not actually turning up and staying at home when you actually want to start using gym equipment. Each week you can get closer and closer to like edging towards the gym floor and actually being there and not being worried that other people are looking at you, for example.

20:46And step three is all about working on your body language. Whether it is power posing before a presentation or simply practicing good posture throughout the day, how you hold yourself physically can have a big impact on how confident you feel and also how confident you are perceived to be. Start paying attention to your body language, especially in high pressure situations, and make small adjustments to stand taller and take up space and embody the person you want to be. And I know that sounds like a bit of a woo-woo step. Like, I think I would probably hear that first and be like, okay, you want me to just power post just for fun?

21:22Like, that's going to make me feel more confident. So I think what I really wanted to talk about most in this episode is how much that confidence-competence loop has changed the way I feel about confidence entirely. And I wish it was something I knew about when I was a teenager and like super super unconfident and didn't have a lot of self-worth and I feel like it's because so much of confidence is talked about and thought about as if it's a feeling and it is it's not a feeling like confidence is a skill and it is a skill like any skill that some of us are more naturally gifted at but we cannot expect it to get better without actually exercising that muscle and I think that as soon as I realized that and I've started to put that into action in all different sorts of things I have had so much of an increase in confidence in all of these different levels like it comes down to micro levels like being able to speak up about something in front of your friends or being able to say hey you know when you did that that like really made me feel like shit or whatever it might be all of that is an element of confidence and I think so many of us think oh well I'm not like that and you might not be like that you might not be like that naturally and don't get me wrong it's very annoying that some people are born with like an innate confidence and ability to like know their self-worth and know what they actually feel and how they should communicate it but that really is something you learn and it is something that you can get better at and you have to actually put the work in I will also say that if you are in a relationship for example or with your friendships you can really build this in like I find it's actually a big part of a relationship being like this is how we're going to communicate and we're going to make it easier to communicate confidently with each other about something we're not happy about or something we think should change or something that we think should improve because actually when you make space for that you start to do that little by little and you start to realize that can be received well and you can be really good at like expressing yourself I for one like especially when I'm frustrated or I am stressed or whatever it might be if I'm in like a confrontational situation I have no idea what to say like every good argument I have ever had and the fact I came into that conversation in the first place goes completely out of my head and that's been something I've struggled with at work that's been something I've struggled with in relationships whatever it might be and actually building that up in order that I force myself not to do that and I force myself to go into a conversation being like these are the three things I want that person to know when I come out of that conversation or going into a meeting where you know I'm saying that I'm wanting to hold my ground on something and I'm wanting to say like actually no it's this really building up my competence in terms of just knowing what I'm talking about and knowing why I want to say that and knowing why I even went into that room in the first place has helped no end when it comes to confidence because each time I've walked out of one of those conversations and be like, ha, finally a day where I didn't freeze up when I actually had to say the difficult thing.

24:33That's led to me understanding myself more and understanding where a lack of confidence comes from and how to build that in order to get to where I need to get to and to become the type of person that I want to move in the direction of becoming. But that is it for today's episode on building confidence. I hope you find it helpful and maybe even feel a little bit more confident to take small steps towards improving these skills. As always, I've only scratched the surface. So if you want to dive deeper, I've included a reading list with some of my favourite books and resources on this topic in the show notes.

25:04Let me know if this type of episode is something you enjoy. It's definitely something I enjoy preparing for. And as you know, if you know me my whole ethos around life improvement is never just around one thing it's like how can we build these skills to make our experience of life and our experience of every day a little bit easier a little bit more self-assured moving in the right direction in whatever that might be and a lot of things like confidence very much tie into that so let me know if there are any specific topics that you'd also like me to cover and thank you so much for listening At Capella University, learning online doesn't mean learning alone.

25:45You'll get support from people who care about your success, like your enrollment specialist who gets to know you and the goals you'd like to achieve. You'll also get a designated academic coach who's with you throughout your entire program. Plus, career coaches are available to help you navigate your professional goals. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.