The CONFIDENCE Habit with Dr. Cindra Kamphoff (ep. 222)

Confidence isn't built in big wins or spotlight moments. It's built in the small, often unseen choices, how you talk to yourself after a mistake, how quickly you recover, and whether you act without feeling ready. With repetition, these responses become automatic, and that's what the confidence habit is. - That was Sandra Kampff, PhD, and author of a new, best-selling book called, The Confidence Habit. Seven core practices to transform, self-doubt, and self-belief. In this episode, you're gonna learn how to create your own confidence habit. You'll get clarity on the difference between confidence and credibility, and you're gonna learn how to create your identity. You'll learn a new, three-word mantra to help you get over life's biggest challenges, and we'll talk about capturing your wins. We'll talk about borrowed confidence and more. Let's do this. (upbeat music) Let's do this, let's talk about talk. - Welcome to the Talk About Talk podcast. My name is Dr. Andrea Voynitsky, please, just call me Andrea. I'm an executive communication coach here at Talk About Talk, where I coach leaders and aspiring leaders like you to communicate with confidence, yes, confidence, and credibility so that you can achieve your career goals. You can learn more about me and what we do at Talk About Talk if you go to talkabouttalk.com. You'll see all the information there about my corporate workshops, keynote speaking, online courses, and lots of free resources. (upbeat music) Okay, I am really excited about this episode. Let me tell you a little bit about Sandra's incredible background, and then we'll jump right into the interview. And at the end, as always, I'm gonna conclude with a brief summary of three things that I wanna reinforce for you. So, you don't need to take notes. I met Sandra Kampff a couple of months ago when she had me as a guest on her top-rated podcast called High Performance Mindset. I'll leave a link to her podcast in the show notes, so you can take a listen. Anyway, after our conversation, I immediately invited her to be a guest on this talk about talk podcast as well. Sandra Kampff, PhD, is a keynote speaker, professional certified coach, and certified mental performance consultant for leaders, professional athletes, and championship teams around the nation. She's the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, whose mission it is to help 10 million people become mentally strong over the next 10 years. She's worked with impressive organizations, including the Minnesota Vikings, USA Track and Field, Verizon, Bobcat, and Target. She speaks more than 125 times a year. And, as I said, she hosts the top-rated podcast called High Performance Mindset. And now she's the author of two best-selling books. Here we go. Thank you so much, Sandra, for being here with me today, with the talk about talk listeners, to talk about your new book, The Confidence Habit, Seven Core Practices, to transform self-doubt to self-belief. Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to just serve the talk about talk listeners today. So Andrea, I love having you on my podcast as well. You've got to check it out everyone episode 774 of the High Performance Mindset. Yeah, so this is how we met. And after the interview was over, I was like, Sandra, you need to be on the talk about talk podcast. I know the listeners are gonna learn so much from you. And since then, you have become a national best-seller, and you were featured on Good Morning America. I'm so proud of you. I'm so happy for you. Thank you so much. Okay, let's get incredible. Yes, I know we were talking about it. Yeah, we were talking about it off camera, right? It, I'm so happy for you. I'm thrilled, but let's get into this. My first question actually is related to the title of your book. It's this, Why Habit? So I want you to think about how confidence is for things. It's a feeling that actually comes and goes. It's an action or decision you get to make in the moment. It's a skill you get to keep growing. And as I've been doing this more, I've realized that more and more people are going through transitions and times that their confidence is shaken. And it's a belief in yourself. And there's a part in my book that I want to summarize, 'cause this is my favorite paragraph in the book. Oh wow. And it says, every day presents moments that test confidence. And those moments are unavoidable. What differs is the response. Confident people don't feel fearless, doubt free or fully ready. They respond differently. They regulate, refocus, and take a controllable next step. Each time they do, they strengthen self trust. It's built in the small, often unseen choices. How you talk to yourself after a mistake. How quickly you recover. And whether you act without feeling ready, with repetition, these responses become automatic. And that's what the confidence habit is. And what I would say to summarize is that we have to make confidence a habit. It's something that you have to keep growing and resetting throughout your lifetime, no matter how old you are, no matter what you do. - I know, Sandra, that you have extensive experience, coaching, high performance athletes. And as you were reading that paragraph, you know what kept coming to my mind? I'm sure you can guess, is muscle memory? Is it like confidence is like a muscle? Do you like that metaphor? - I like that metaphor, you know, and what people have been saying to me, well, should we just fake it till you make it? I don't think you should fake it till you make it because that means like your confidence is fake. So I want you to think about building real authentic confidence. What does that authentic confidence mean to you and showing up in an authentic way? And when I think about muscle memory, you know you have neuroplasticity in your brain, which means that you can change the way your brain operates and you can change how it functions. And so if you're continuing to interrupt those patterns of negativity towards yourself about the world, that's what you can do to like think more confidently about yourself in the world. And I would say like there's been definitely moments of my life where my confidence has wavered. I can certainly like dive into some of those today. Several of those reasons are why I studied confidence and you know why I do what I do today. I would love to hear one of your, I don't know, favorite most impactful stories of when you personally experienced lack of confidence or maybe imposter syndrome. - So I would say there's two moments of my life that kind of connect to my purpose. And when I was a high school athlete, I loved cross country and track. In my senior year, I ran the fastest mile in the state of Iowa. And so leave it or not, Andrea, there are still records that stand today in my name. You know, some 20, some years later. And I have this huge goal. I know, and you know what? It was really easy for me in high school. My dad was around a lot like teaching me about the psychology. He was like learning about the psychology of sales and he was teaching that to me and applying it to my running career. So he's learning about psychology all throughout my running career. And I had this huge goal of making it to the Olympics. And to be honest, it was time period that really I really struggled. I thought that the way to get ahead was to beat myself up. You know, to tell myself like, you know, she's so much faster than you are better than you like just shape up, Sandra, come on. You're not fast enough. You're not skinny enough. You're not good enough. And I thought that that would motivate me. And you know what? I, you know, there wasn't at that point any podcasts or books or there was no social media or you know videos you could watch. There's no YouTube. And so I really struggled with my own mental game. And that's ultimately why I got interested in performance psychology. And then I got my PhD in performance psychology. I took a job at Minnesota State as a college professor. And I thought that I was really living my purpose. But I knew that there was more for me. I knew like I wanted to write books and I wanted to become a professional speaker. And I had this aha moment when I was at the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. And if you remember, I had just finished the race. And I had gotten back into marathoning and running just because I knew that I hadn't reached my potential in high school and college. And I was like, you know, what could I do now that I have like this PhD and I knew these strategies? And I ran an incredible race on my fastest marathon yet. And as we were walking back to our hotel room, you know, we heard the noise. We didn't know what it was. And then we got to our hotel room and we were overlooking Boyleston Street where the bomb was. And it was this moment, Andrea, that I was like, I don't know. I think this might be the last day in my life. You know, there was multiple bombs along the route. We thought there was a bomb. - I remember the bomber was missing right for a long time. - The bomber was missing. You know, it was like stay cover, stay in your room. There could be a bomb anywhere around, you know? And so it was terrifying. Like the most profound for me was that my race didn't matter. In fact, I had trained like nine months for this race and I was on the highest of high. And then all of a sudden it was like, what really matters most, Sandra? Number one was my family. And then second was my passion and my purpose. And I'm like, you're playing small, Sandra. You know, when I kept asking myself that night, like 24 hours, 48 hours, like why am I here? Like what difference do I make? and why do I do what I do? And I got back and I just, I really I took a deep dive trying to figure out my purpose. And I'm like, what am I really supposed to be doing here? And I would say, you know, how I got on Good Morning America, how I have this two time national bestseller. It's like basically every day living my purpose, every day choosing to take one courageous step forward. And that's what that being at the bomb taught me was that to leave your purpose, it takes courage. And it's so easy for us as entrepreneurs to hold ourselves back. Well, gosh, what if people, what will people think if I post this on social or what if no one reads my book or what if people give me a one star review? I wanted to work for the Minnesota Vikings, but I didn't play football, you know? So I just started every day, one courageous step. And I think that's how you, how you live your purpose. And I think when you live your purpose, you have more confidence. Because this book really, for me, isn't about Sandra Campoff. It's like living this mission of helping people throughout the world grow confidence. Oh my gosh. We are so fortunate that you have laid this all out. And I've got, I've got it written here in front of me. You've got seven practices and all of these strategies. I'd love to dig into some of these now so that you can do some coaching here. But I want to back it back up. You said you, you never played football, but you would love to coach the Minnesota Vikings. And in fact, you did. So when I read that, I was curious, what is different or is there a difference between the confidence of and kind of the high performance of professional athletes versus, you know, really ambitious senior business leaders? I'm sure there are differences. I would love to hear your take on that. Because I've know you've coached both. I've coached both. There's more similarities than differences. And you might think those professional athletes that you see on TV or your CEO or the president of a company that they never struggle with a lack of confidence. But as I mentioned, right, confident people aren't fearless or doubt-free. Like part of the human experience is we get in our own way, we doubt ourselves. And I think just by recognizing that, maybe someone who you really admire that you think will never struggles with an imposter syndrome or today we're going to call it imposter phenomenon. And I can break that down and why. But my point is, there's more similarities than differences. And I would say just like a professional athlete, we need to train our mind every day. And we are in high stakes environments, might not be on the football game or the football field, but it's selling our business. It's starting a project. It's getting out there with your message more in the world. So when I'm coaching leaders and aspiring leaders, you know, the question of confidence and credibility both come up a lot. People talk about these in different ways. People have different definitions. Can you share what you mean by confidence and what you mean by credibility and how that distinction might be important? - So think of confidence as like this true belief in self. And we define it as a feeling that comes and goes, don't overthink the lack of feeling confident or experiencing anxiety or self doubt. It's a decision you get to make really this habit, you get to form. And I think of credibility as like outward. You know what, maybe someone else perceives you or how someone else sees you. Whereas confidence is more of this inward belief in self. And of course they are both connected. We did this national research study last year that shows we're in a confidence crisis in America today. 68% of Americans that we surveyed all over the United States believe that we are. And we know that young people, Gen Zers are really struggling with confidence one and two consistently or frequently feels like they're not enough. And a Gen Zers defined as ages 18, 14 to 29. But we also found some really interesting things in our study about well gross confidence. And the majority of people say that they perceive someone confident as they can tell in the first minute if someone is confident or at least their perception. And one of the strongest ways that people make judgments of you and your confidence is by the way you dress. And so that's really kind of, I think of that as credibility. And credibility comes in lots of different forms. Your confidence certainly plays a role in that. Are you an expert at what you do? Do you have the competence? Do you know what you're doing? But I think of credibility is more like this, someone else's perception of your competence. And competence, what do you think? - So, I agree. I have this leadership presence framework where I start with communication skills and that builds your confidence, which is how you feel. And then the credibility is how others perceive you. That's exactly how I say it. I'm curious about your observation of how often confidence, how you feel, the credibility, how you're perceived, are aligned versus misaligned. So I can imagine someone walk me into a room with enormous confidence. I'm not talking about arrogance, but they're very confident and they're still not perceived as being credible and vice versa. You might be perceived as very credible, but you don't feel confident. And then I guess the third option is they are aligned. So what's your take on that? Like how big are each of those buckets and how do we make sure that our confidence is fueling our credibility? So you never know what's going on in someone's head. And you really never know how they're perceiving the world, how they're perceiving the situation and you don't know what their inner chatter is. And so we might see that someone is perceived, we can see we tell by someone how they dress and how they interact and their voice and how they show up in your presence. That's how we perceive confidence, but you never know what's going on in someone's head. And so I think what is important about that is our research study showed 70% of working Americans struggle with a harsh inner critic and have difficulty letting go of mistakes. So most people's inner chatter is not very kind to themselves. And so why does that matter to you? I would say that many times we're worried about other people's opinions. When we have no idea what other people are thinking about us. There's a new term in psychology called FOPO. Have you heard of this? Fear of other people's opinions? Yes, I have heard that. It's F-O-P-O. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I would say you never know what's going on in someone's head. And you might perceive that they're thinking confidently, but they aren't always. Yeah. So let's dig into how to develop this habit of confidence and build our confidence. And I've shared with you that you have this practice called create your identity, which I just love the sound of that. Can you describe for the listeners exactly what that is and how to do it? So I want you to think about your identity is really how you see yourself. And it's created by what you say to yourself about yourself, typically in your mind or out loud. And so Andrea, I used to say to myself or believe that I was terrible at learning people's names. Now, if I really believe that, I'm not even going to learn Andrea's name. I'm not even going to lock in her name. I'm not even going to try to remember her name. And so I realized that was holding myself back. And so I had to be really careful with, we all need to be careful with what we say to ourselves about ourselves. And even just changing, I work on learning people's names. Or I have a strategy on learning people's names. And usually like, I actually have a college friend, her name was Andrea. She had a hair similar to yours. So I just, I think of her when I think of you and it helps me remember, right? It can help you remember. And so one of the ways that you can create your identity is it aligns with practice number three in the confidence habit called create your goals. And goal setting does help grow confidence as long as we have what's called a gallery of goals or a wide variety of goals, not just outcome goals that you can't control. But the first step is to think about, what is it that you want in five years from now or 10 years from now? And I would literally write out some things that you really, really desire. If you're not sure, that's actually the first step because we all need hard goals that we're going after. And then take a step back and say, what do you need to believe about yourself to reach those goals? And so I think about myself five years ago, I have about 30 statements I say to myself every morning and I wrote those out, three zero. I have the list in my bedroom, I have it in my office, I have it in my car. And I thought a lot about like, okay, what do I want? I knew I wanted to become a national bestseller to have this confidence habit, have even more impact on people. I want to be a passionate speaker. And so those are kind of things that I say to myself every morning, like I'm a national bestseller, I'm the best damn keynote speaker you've ever heard. You know, and of course I can't control if you believe that, but I can show up in that way by reducing my own judgment and like serving and being here for you. And so think about what you want in five or 10 years. Make a list, it could be five statements, it could be 10 statements, but what do you need to believe about yourself to reach those goals? And that's how you keep leveling up your identity. And it's cool because your brain is whatever you tell yourself. you become, right? So if you think that you're, you know, you're unorganized or you're terrible at high management, that's what you're going to become. So you have to be careful with what you say to yourself because you're always listening to yourself. Yes. Oh my gosh. There's so much to unpack there, Sandra. I'm thinking about controlling the narrative. I'm thinking about how we label ourselves as opposed to our behavior or what our future plans are, right? Just want to kind of double-click on this is in my forthcoming book, I talk about the definition of personal branding. And the definition that a lot of people talk about is Jeff Bezos. Your brand is what other people say about you when you're not in the room. And then I spoke with Seth Godin and he said, cool. He said your brand is what people think you're going to do next. And my immediate response, which I love, my brain exploded. And I was sitting where I am right now. And when I, when I was done the interview with Seth, I took a piece of paper and I wrote down exactly what you said. What am I going to do? Like what are my big lofty goals? And it was write a book, get on the TED stage, you know, make a big impact, similar things to what you have. And then I asked myself, I mapped it to do other people, like I'm working towards these things. They haven't happened yet. Do other people think it's possible? And then that, of course, is very uncomfortable, right? You have to be very vulnerable, but you can create opportunities for yourself to make those things happen. And even just the act like you said of writing them down, I love that you put it in your car, in your office, in your bedroom, like it's everywhere. That's, that's another great hack, by the way, for everyone. When you're trying to adopt a new habit or maybe even a new way of thinking, put it in front of you everywhere you can and say it, right? You said, you said you say it to yourself. And I think what's important, because people kind of get uncomfortable, you know, don't just have to look in a mirror and say these things to yourself, you know, I think you can just repeat them in your head. You get to decide, but the point is, is to intentionally create what you believe about yourself, and your identity is the most salient thing about you. And so whatever you put behind I am that represents your identity. So you have to be careful. And you know what's, what's interesting about confidence is I was on MPR the other day. And it was really cool because people could call in. And I heard the ways that people are struggling, right? More than ever before. One person called in and said, I'm 77. I still keep on thinking about how my mom told me I was a mistake. She was a single mom and she didn't want me. And he's holding on to that 77 years later. And he said, I'm terminal. I'm ready to move forward to that. He said, I didn't even realize that that was my narrative until like six months ago. And so, you know, we eat so easily listen to what people have said about us. And many times they're just suffering. And we even hold on to what was said to us in little school, in high school, in college, when, you know, we're all, I mean, we're trying to do our best in those growing years. And so what's important is just you know, there's a tool in this section called craft your inner coach. And it's a tool called the truth meter. And it's a series of three quit questions when you notice yourself putting yourself down or you have an automatic negative thought. And I just say automatic because the thoughts you don't always choose or you don't even have in your head are always your choice. You know, they just pop it. Your brain's like, it's like, it's like survival. That's why it's here to keep you safe. And so the truth meter is just a series of three questions. Number one, is that true? Are you a mistake? Absolutely not. Number two, is that serving you? Is that helping you be the best version of yourself? Absolutely not. So what can you choose? What's an empowering thought you can choose that you know to be true about yourself that you can believe? You know, and I would just say for all of us, you know, I have to catch myself in those doubt spirals. I had a professional athlete one time talk about it as like this hamster wheel that just keeps on like going, doing going, you know, we all experience that usually when things are really important to us or usually around goals, we haven't we haven't accomplished yet. Yes, I love that word yet. I love that word yet. So as you were describing this gentleman who heard this narrative from when he was a young child from his mother, it reminded me that I did read recently that this is a common thing that happens. It could be from a parent, from a coach, from a teacher, from someone who the child holds in high steam. The little phrases and sentences that they share can have an outsized impact that actually influence their entire life. What do you think of that, Sandra? Well, I would say two things. Many times confidence is borrowed before it's built. And I think about people in my life who even as an adult who say, "Sindra, you're doing awesome." Like, or "Sindra, I'm so proud of you." Wow, that actually goes a long way. But I think about like my dad really, my coaches. And so what you say to someone does matter. And since I wrote the confidence habit, I have a list of things you should say to build confidence in things you should not say. Okay. I'm going to read you a few of those. Okay. I wish I would have written this in the book, but you know, version two. Things to build confidence. You want to say, "I believe you can handle this." And not, "Don't mess this up." You want to say, "Walk me through your thinking." Instead of, "Why would you do that?" Really judgmental. The first option is more curious. What do you think we should do? I care about your opinion. That's what that says. Instead of just, you know, just do what I tell you. Well, that didn't go as planned. What did we learn? Take more of an easy-going approach. Instead of you should know this by now. Yeah. What progress are you proud of? Instead of look how well everyone else is doing at this. Oh, wow. Or you don't have to feel ready to take the next step, which you don't. The action comes with fork feelings many times. Instead of just like you just need to be more confident. People don't know what that means. And they don't know how to how to be more confident. And then the second one is like, what do you need from me? How can I support you? Instead of like just do it yourself? Or I'll just do it myself, you know? And when I think about my own kids, and I have two boys, 1917, I think about the role that coaches and parents have played. And also teachers have played in their confidence. And we do have to be really careful what we say to young people. That doesn't mean that you don't give them feedback or hold them to great standards, right? But it just means like, can you also tell them what they're doing well? Not ignore them when they're on your team. And sometimes coaches like ignore kids who aren't the stars. And that does not build confidence. Oh gosh. So true. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I've got three kids similar age. And all of them are or we're into sports. And those coaches have such a massive influence on them and their lives. And even you, like this is first person for you, right? There's a couple of other things that I want to ask before we get into the three rapid fire questions. One is your practice of capturing your wins. Can you elaborate on that? I just love this idea of capturing your wins. One of the ways to grow confidence is to focus on the progress that you've made. And we get so caught up at how far we have to go. And so this is based on my own research and our national research study on confidence, but also Albert Benderas research. If you know him, he is a psychologist who studied self-efficacy, just situation-specific confidence. And one of the strongest ways to grow your confidence is your past performances, what you've done well. And Andrea, in April of this year, my dad was in the ICU for 51 days. And you write a book and then you kind of give it to your editor and your publisher. And you know, I hadn't looked at the book for about eight months. And 14 days in the ICU visit, I was having a really hard time just seeing anything that was good. And I'm a relentless optimist. I think he is as well. And so one day I just got out a sticky note out of my bag and I wrote a win on the sticky note and I put it on the wall. The next day I did the same. I was losing my mind. And I couldn't see the good. So next day, same thing. I read it to him. I put it on the wall. My sister's a few days later got me like a three, like a, how do you, what do you say? Like a trifle. And then we could picture you syndrome. And picture this. Yeah. Yeah. And the nurses and doctors told us, wow, your room feels so much different because you're celebrating wins. And they were like, you need to bring this into hospitals and organizations. And it was cool when I was on Good Morning America. You know, they wanted to talk about this idea of captioning your wins. And I, you know, you have a few interviews before the actual day. And so I told them the story about my dad. And they said, it's too sad for Good Morning America on Saturdays. And they said, well, what other examples do you have of win walls? And so I brought in my own win wall from our family. My favorite thing on this win wall is my. son who's 19 the other day wrote, I loved playing golf with my dad and the best part was I beat him. Oh, wow. That's nice. That's nice. 19-year-olds don't always celebrate their parents, right? And then I sent in another example of an Olympian and her wind wall that she put in her kitchen and leading up to the Olympic trials. She just, her confidence was kind of shaky and so she just put up some wins and then by the trials, she saw like, wow, I'd made all this progress. And I'm sitting on Good Morning America, I'm showing my family's wind wall. And out of the corner of my eye, I see my dad's wind wall that ended up going on national TV. Oh, wow. And I was like, oh my gosh, like he's here with us celebrating wins. And my dad did pass away, which was really hard, but we started a nonprofit called Hank's Hope and it's all about bringing wind walls into your organization, you know, and even that could mean like starting a meeting going around, what would everyone like to celebrate. Let's say there's a meeting around a project, hey, let's take two minutes and think about the progress we've made in the last six months. That could mean you start a performance review. Tell me about the progress you've made. What progress are you most proud of? And we all like, what's next, what's next, what's next, we don't take a step back and say, wow, look at all we've done. And your brain loves evidence. So go back and you know, can you make your own wind wall or mastery journal, I talk about it in the book where you write three great things that went well that day. Even if they're small, like you listen to this podcast. Sandra, I do that every morning, I write three goals and every evening, I write three things I'm grateful for, you're gonna, you're gonna be one of them for me tonight when I'm writing a bunch. I'm gonna tell you that for sure. It's amazing. I love this idea of institutionalizing, winning and having this celebratory, I guess you could call it mindset, right? I'm really sorry about your father, but he must be so proud of you. I'm sure he was so, so proud of you. He's just looking down and saying, keep, keep living my like seat. And you know what every Monday morning, I have a meeting with the talk about talk team. And until now, we've been opening that meeting with one thing that's interesting, one thing that, you know, you think we should try, it could be something internal or external or something that you saw someone else doing, whatever. And the idea is that we're getting our fantastic, so I don't want to lose that, but I'm thinking we really need to start that meeting with a win. Yeah. I think. Yeah. We're gonna institutionalize that. I would love that. And even if every, I don't know how many people are on the team, but we do that at the beginning of our team meetings, it takes three minutes, four minutes, but it's like, all right, we give one personal win and one professional win. Yeah. I love that. I love that. Consider it done and thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. So I wanted to ask you about, this is not a iteration, but it's like rhyming. This idea of learn, burn, return. What is that all about? All right. This is a tool in the second chapter called Clear Your Past. And it's basically how to clear your past. And so many times we let past failures or mistakes get in our way of our own potential. So you need a short-term memory with things don't go great, a long-term memory of your successes. That's why that win wall is so important. And I think of this movie called Inside Out 2. It's like this cute cartoon movie of this hockey player. And it's like her emotions are in charge of what gets stored, long-term and short-term. Yep. Don't let your emotions be in charge. You need to be in charge. And so a way to move on that fast. And by the way, I taught a Vikings-wide receiver this tool and he ended up flushing a toilet on the sidelines during a playoff game. And afterwards, he was asked, you know, his name is Adam Thielin and he was asked like, what did you do to move on so quickly from that fumble? And he said, well, I was pretending to flush a toilet. Okay. That is fantastic. That is fantastic. So good. And the next day, there was a headline that came out in ESPN that said, mental performance coach taught Adam Thielin how to flush away his mistakes. Oh, so good syndrome. So I get headlined in ESPN. But here's the tool. All right. Learn. Ask yourself, what would you do differently next time? Quickly learn. And I'm putting my fingers on my temples because I have a couple of actions. So if you want to give this a try, put your fingers on your temples and say, learn. Learn. What would you do differently next time? Sometimes I have to write it out when I'm stuck. Then you got a burn. You can burn with a phrase or an action. Mine is that fast with a snap. You could flush it like Adam Thielin or shake it off like Taylor Swift. Choose one action or phrase every time that strengthens a new neuropath way. You're less likely to overthink. And then you want to return. And the return is hands on the hips like a confident kind of power pose. And the power of this is you want to return your body language, your self-talk to where it was even before you made the mistake or experience it's disappointment. Learn, burn, return, protect your confidence and allows you to recover more quickly. I love it. I'm going to use it. I'm so good. So good. Thank you. I got to ask, what do you think may be the confidence mistake that you see otherwise smart, successful people making? Like it could be an assumption or some kind of myth about confidence or a common mistake. I think a common mistake is that even confident people think that the harsher they are on themselves, the more like they are going to get ahead. And when I talk about the power of self-compassion, which self-compassion means three things, it means softening the inner voice in your head, showing yourself the same kindness that you would to someone else and realizing that like everyone suffers with something. And when you do that that allows you to grow your confidence, grow your performance and rebound quicker. And one thing that people make a mistake around is they think that the more they beat themselves up, the better they're going to do, kinder you to yourself and that's the way to get ahead. It could be counterintuitive. But based on this conversation, I am all in. Thank you. Are you ready for the three rapid fire question, Sandra? Yes. Okay. First question. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'm an extrovert. Because you can probably tell. I love being around people. And definitely times where I need to relax or recover and wind down. Yeah. Okay. Question number two, what is your communication pet peeve? My pet peeve is when people call everyone guys because women are not guys. Okay. So that is actually a super one. It makes me crazy because I don't want to be called the guy because I'm not a guy. Okay. Full confession. Full confession. When I was on the faculty at the University of Toronto, I had a great teacher reviews, but several of the female students said, stop calling us guys. I'm not a guy. And I was like, I call myself a guy. I call my book club friends guys. They're all female, by the way. I call mixed groups guys. And I said, okay. I got it. And then I realized the other faculty were calling the students folks, which I always thought sounded a little, I don't know, formal or weird. I'm like, okay. I'm calling you folks now. I'm back to calling you folks. I learned that one in the hard ways, Sandra. Okay. And I think this is more like professionally for me. Like let's say if someone is delivering a presentation or a keynote and you're like, hey, guys, let's. Oh, yeah. Because sometimes then I'll say that, like I'll say, all right, guys, let's go. And my husband will be like, you just said, guys, you know. Oh, so you sometimes you slip. So I sometimes I slip. Yeah. And it is one, like it's my biggest keynote. So what do you say instead? Let's close a loop on this one. What do you say instead? Let's go. Or like you do even have to say, guys, or like if I'm speaking to a group of bankers, like today I'm speaking to bankers, what do you think bankers? Yeah. Call them who they are. Yeah. Make it more specific. I love that. Or you don't need to label them at all. Okay. Last question. Is there a podcast or a book that you find yourself recommending lately? Well, I've been recommending your episode on the high performance mindset, which is episode. It was a blast. Episode 774 and high performance mindset. And there's so many books I love to read. And one of my favorite books is by Brunei Brown. It's called The Gifts of Imperfection. And one of the reasons I love it is because it just shows you that you're imperfect. And it helps you embrace your imperfectness, which I think allows you to be more compassionate with yourself and move on that fast. Absolutely. I can see how you integrate that thinking into your work. That's fantastic. I will put a link to that book. I will put a link to your podcast episode and your podcast and all of your contact information in there. I have one last question for you, Sandra, which is, do you have any last words you want to share with the talk about talk listeners about how they can develop their confidence habit? The last thing I would say is create a winning team and a dream team of confidence. There's a quote by Jim Rohn. And he says, you're the average of the five people you spend time with, which is just a quote that was like 30 years ago, but the research does show that we are who we surround ourselves with. And so what I mentioned earlier is to go back and think about what do you want in five or 10 years from now, who needs to be surrounding you that's going to help you get to your goals quicker. You need a cheerleader. You need a challenger. You need a coach. You need a mentor and you need a best friend. And so what areas of those do you have empty? What areas do you need to level up? And what's great is you can even say, hey, pick out somebody who think is just a little bit further along than you and say, I'm really looking for a mentor. Would you be willing? And so put yourself out there, but the people surround yourself with are going to help you grow your confidence and also help you get to those goals faster than you thought possible. Oh, so good. So we don't have to develop this confidence habit all alone, having a network of people. And I love how you list the roles. That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible insights. I'm going to put a link to the book, of course, in the show notes as well. Thank you so much for sharing all this with us, Sandra. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. So it was so fun. And when you get the confidence book, by the way, it's called the confidence habit, and core practices to transform self-doubt, self-belief. Whenever you get it, you can head over to confidence tools,.com, so tools. And there's all these amazing resources. You get like a workbook and a discussion guide and three summits we did the summer and a master class. So like go check it out to help you keep growing your confidence, confidence tools.com. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you, Andrea. So fun. Thank you again, Sandra. And now, as promised, I'm going to briefly share three things from this conversation that I want to reinforce with you. This was a tough one, narrowing it down to just three, but here goes. First, confidence is not a trait. Confidence is a habit that you practice and reinforce throughout your life. Maybe it's like a muscle, something that you build over time and that you need to work on consistently. Make confidence a habit. Second, the practice of capturing your wins. It could be a file that you keep at your desk with a list of your accomplishments and things that you're proud of. It could be the way you kick off your Monday morning status meetings, like a new habit that I'm going to adopt for my talk about talk team, or it could be a jar that you keep on your kitchen counter for your family members to fill with wins. Institutionalizing wins or capturing wins will positively impact your mindset. The last thing I want to reinforce is Sandra's powerful mantra. When things go wrong, it's three words. Do you remember what the three words are? It's learn, burn, return. So fingers to your temple, learn. Think about what you learned from this horrible experience. Then snap your fingers, burn, or maybe flush the toilet. The point is you move on. Then return, return to your confidence self. Maybe try a power pose. Okay, that's it for this episode. If you know someone who might benefit from hearing this advice on the confidence habit, I hope you'll share this episode with them. And if you have a moment, please take the time to provide talk about talk with a rating or review on whatever podcast platform that you're on. Yes, it makes a big difference, and it helps us get heard by a bigger audience. One last thing. I'll leave a link to the confidence habit book in the show notes, and I strongly encourage you to read this book to help you build your own confidence habit. Thanks for listening, and talk soon.