The Critical Role of Self-Belief in Bold Business Endeavors

[MUSIC] In times of rapid acceleration, high pressure, and general uncertainty, the reality is clear. Professionals are struggling. They have become more mentally and emotionally exhausted, less curious, more stressed, and less giving. Adding to this is the complexity around solutions with the overabundance of protocols, supplements, and so-called performance hacks. The end result is leaders are more distracted and have less mental agility, poorer performance, and struggle to be the belief builder and energy multiplier for their teams. We don't want to accept that. Our passion is to help professionals be more. These conversations help illuminate your thinking into sustainable human performance, learning real solutions to improve your energy, focus, and ultimately increase your impact. This is the TIGNUM Thought Cast. [MUSIC] Today's episode, the critical role of self-belief in bold business endeavors with special guest Brian Wade, performance specialist at TIGNUM. We hope you enjoy it. [MUSIC] Hello, everyone, and welcome to our bold session. In today's test, we're going to do a deep dive. We're going to just dig a little deeper into two concepts, self-image and self-belief. And these were two huge topics that came out of our last session, and many of you asked so many great questions. So we want to answer some of those questions and talk about how do you actually build these things? Because we know that clearly without the right self-image and without adequate self-belief, there's probably very little chance that you're going to succeed with your bold projects. So to tackle these important concepts today, I have the perfect partner, Brian Wade. And Brian's our chief performance officer at TIGNUM. He's a performance psychologist, and he's worked with the US Army Special Forces and special operations for many years, preparing them for their missions and helping them develop the mindset skills to succeed. So our goal today is to have a kitchen table discussion. And just to talk openly about the critical role of self-belief and how important it is for both personal and professional bold projects. And so what we'll do is we'll start the conversation, but we encourage you all to jump in with your questions. And at the end, we'll even leave a little time to maybe capture some of your thoughts and your takeaways. So welcome, Brian, and let's just jump right in. Hey Scott, thank you so much for having me as part of the bold event. Again, very, very excited to be here. As we're getting things kicked off, I think a great place for us to start is also maybe at the foundation of why self-image is so important. Because if you look everywhere in the world of human performance, there always seems to be a huge emphasis on things like goal setting. They always talk about that being the first step or the most important thing if you're going to be a high performer or go off on bold projects. In fact, I think I literally just read an article last week on Yahoo or something like that that spoke to that same kind of point basically saying learn to set goals like high performers. But from the start, as you found a TIGNUM, you put the importance of self-image, which is one of our main topics today. You put the importance of self-image as the key, as the foundation, and not goal setting. Now, goal setting is still important, yes. But I'd love to hear more about that decision because at the time, that was a very different and that was a bold decision to make putting the emphasis on self-image and not goal setting. Where did that idea come from? I really appreciate the question. I expected to ask you the first question, but I appreciate the curveball here, but I appreciate the question because you're so right that from the start, we knew that this had to be the foundation. And one of the reasons is we knew that human performance or human beings rather can't outperform their own self-image. While at the same time, we are the only creatures on earth who have the ability to actually purposefully create our own self-image. And let me explain kind of where this thought or this belief came from. When I was in college, I was a wrestler and I felt like my confidence in my mindset were kind of holding me back. Common story for many athletes that we've worked with and we know. And so I came upon a doctor and he was delivering a session on campus on how to build an unbeatable mindset. So I thought, I got to go to this. And the guy's name was Maxwell Martz. And the funny thing was he wasn't a psychologist. He was a plastic surgeon. And in his presentation, he started telling these stories about how he was operating on all these famous people, given them facelifts or nose jobs or some other beautifying procedures. And he experienced something that totally perplexed him. Even though he had done such a successful procedure, when the patients saw themselves in the mirror, they were all upset that he hadn't made the changes that they wanted. And he even showed them like the before and after photos, but they couldn't see the difference. And he realized that you could change someone's outside. But if you didn't help them change the way they saw themselves, you failed. And this really hit me like, how do I see myself? And so from here, I really started to work on how I saw myself as an athlete, as a student, as a boyfriend, as a son, as a brother, and so on. And I realized that although I had set many goals for myself, I kept failing because I hadn't changed my self-image. In other words, my brain kept sabotaging me to show me that I was actually exactly as my self-image said I was. So that same year, I was reading a New York Times article on the books that have had the biggest impact on people's lives. And I noticed that on everyone's top 10 list was a book by Victor Frankl called Man Search for Meaning. I'm not sure, Brian, if you've read it or if any of our members have read it, but I could tell you, it really is a life changer. I mean, it was an incredible book. And basically, the premise is Victor Frankl was a psychotherapist during World War II, and he was taking into concentration camp in Auschwitz. And while he was in the camp, he made this amazing observation. Some of the prisoners were physically strong enough to survive, but yet he would wake up, and the next day they would be gone. And at the same time, other prisoners who were physically so weak, they shouldn't survive, he would wake up the next day, and they were pushing on. And he realized that the answer was in their mindset how they saw themselves, and the meaning they placed on how they saw themselves. And from this experience, Victor Frankl developed a whole new type of therapy called Logo Therapy. Now, you have to understand, this was completely the opposite of the typical Freudian therapy. And Freud's model, you had to look, the patient was taken backwards in a session, look at all their life experiences, all their childhood wounds, all their traumas, and he said, this is what created your self-image, you need to understand all these. In Logo Therapy, Frankl realized that regardless of where you came from, if you had a clear enough image of where you wanted to go, if you knew who you wanted to become, you could essentially reprogram your map, reprogram your mind to become that person. So in my mind was just going between these two things, oh my god, I have this incredible power that I know I'm sitting on. So I applied it to myself at the time. And I was not doing well in school. I was literally a 2.0 student almost failing out. And I, by thinking about this and how I could see myself different, how I could rewrite my own self-image, I turned from a 2.0 low-average student to a straight A sumo cum laude student. And more important, suddenly my goals didn't feel like burdens to overcome or mountains to climb anymore. They felt like they were a part of who I was. And this is how Yogi and I from the start knew that self-image was the key to behavioral change. It was more important to be clear about who you wanted to be, not what you wanted to do. And we hated the common approach of to-do lists and setting goals and then failing and then feeling guilty for failing and then diminishing your self-image and just constantly recreating the spiral failure. So I apologize for the long answer, but it really became the foundation of what today we call our to-be vision approach. And maybe we'll dig a little deeper in our conversation of how to develop your to-be vision. But I know from where you came from, Brian, maybe a different experience is, but what's been your experience with self-image? Yeah, well, first off, I think that was a brilliant answer. No matter how long it took to get there, I really appreciate you kind of going into the background there because I think a lot of people, even if they do have some good experience with the TIGNUM, they're probably curious about that start and how you've made that decision. So with the populations that I've worked with in my background, a lot within the military and then a lot within athletics. And then in the last five years, obviously as I came on and joined your company, transitioning over into the executive space. And I'll tell you, I mean, self-image is, to me, now I can't be a little biased because I'm a performance psychologist by nature. But to me, all roads lead through and from someone's self-image. I mean, it's critical because as you were kind of alluding to there, you can set goals and you can have to do lists and you can have things that you want to do. But if your mindset, if the way in which you view yourself isn't aligning with believing that you have the capability to do that, but trusting that you can do that with being Energize or even inspired to do those changes and it's never gonna happen. I mean every year right every year at the start You know of January we have the New Year's resolutions Gang across the world that says I'm gonna do x y and z and they set all of these goals Now there's a lot of reason why those goals typically wind up failing and those resolutions don't get seen through But I would be willing to bet that if you could interview those individuals that a Strong strong likelihood is that they don't have the image that supports those new behaviors And so for me it's everything whether that's a soldier who's joining the military in their 18 or 22 or 30 And they decide that they want to go on and become a special force special forces operators Or you take a youth athlete this and Trying to make the transition to college or then that transition into professional or into Olympic caliber Or you take that that individual that's been kind of climbing that corporate ladder and all of a sudden they're getting these New responsibilities and new roles if they don't have the mindset in the self-image of I can do this I can do hard things. It's gonna make it that much difficult You know, I commonly refer to it as the software. It's easy for us to upgrade the hardware You know buy some new equipment You know you get this new office you get the new computer the new phone all the that's all Hardware but the software which really runs it which is you in your self-image That's what has to be updated more than anything else so that you can actually achieve those behaviors because if I I believe if you have a vague self-image You're gonna have vague results Yeah, you know, it's interesting about what you just said is I'm thinking about myself when I was a firefighter and One day I'm a firefighter part of the crew. We're all playing practical jokes on each other Which was very common and then I get promoted to captain. I mean I I was qualified and I took the test and and all that but I get promoted And at the time I did not change my self-image to see myself as the leader who is the responsible adult for all these people Making sure that they went home every day alive and and uninjured and I found myself playing the same practical jokes that I played when I was a firefighter And quickly not only did I give away all my authority and power but I actually diminished my ability to lead and to protect them and to make critical decisions when I needed and so I'm wondering I know I haven't but I'd love to hear your story Brian as you've worked with executives. How do you help them recreate their self-image as they take on these new roles? Yeah, so you know one of the first places where I'll start is one acknowledging that they had a self-image that was successful that got them to this current transition space right where they're now You know assuming this this new role Taking on leadership and then I'll just have a very frank discussion and say you know that that image that you have right now and the behaviors that it drives are those the same behaviors They're going to help you thrive in this new position right not just kind of get by and not just be okay But really thrive and and be that leader that you know everyone believes you can be because that's why you were selected And more often than not you know if we're being honest with ourselves we've realized no I've got to grow a little bit So then we sit down and we would ask where are the areas in which you need to grow? How do you need to develop? And then what's the You know what's the practicality how realistic is you? Is it for you to grow into some of those positions because we also want to have a self-image that isn't too fantastical right? We want to have one that is a little bit of a reach that it is a little bit of a stretch for us But it is something that we can achieve as long as we you know stay focused on it and we have the right behaviors underlying there So really helping them understand hey, what got you here? Might not help you get where you're heading to next. Let's really start to map this out. Where do you want to grow? You know, how do you want to be perceived amongst your peers? What are some of the skills or the behaviors that you know you need to develop or do more of? And then ultimately also what are maybe one or two things that you want to keep doing because you know that it It supports you in that you know keeping you energized keeping you focused. So that's really my approach is really just kind of mapping out the and asking those questions. How do you want to develop where do you need to go and then creating the sentences and the language around it to really support it? Yeah, the question that you you know that always works so well is What would it look like for you to be successful in this new role? Yeah, and most people don't quite have a picture of that. They might have seen someone else be successful in that role But seeing themselves be successful and drawing upon their strengths Which we'll probably talk about later when we talk about self-belief But that's super important to creating this image of themselves and I know It's almost impossible to create this to be vision that is so comprehensive that it covers every aspect and most of the time we focus kind of on this big picture of A person that both work and then what who would you be if you were successful at home? I know one thing that I've tried to use a lot is also situational to be visions or situational self-images And one of the things that I do here is you know try to help people figure out in this one situation Who do you need to be I remember I had this one client And he really struggled to lead these drug development review sessions because they were so many really deep knowledgeable Experts in the in the audience and so his first notion was to study all the science and try to be as smart as them and I said maybe you have the wrong image of your role because the way you're describing it to me I think your role is actually as the orchestra leader which is more common with leaders especially at high levels You're really the orchestra leader whose job is to bring out the best from each of the participants each of the people of the team And that way you'll come up with a much better solution and this would be a better role for you Maybe than a deep specialist and so we practiced and had him develop Who would you what would it look like if you were the orchestra leader tell me what that would be and we created this situational to be vision of him in that situation And then another quick story. I'll just share a little embarrassing but a personal one for me And this just shows people that it applies just as much at home as it does at work You guys all know I'm a pretty competitive and hard drive and guy and so I'm pretty hard wired to just grit things out, you know, and it served me really well and most my sports especially wrestling and in firefighting But I wanted to learn to play golf and golf is one of those sports one of those games We're trying harder and using more for force never works So I was playing golf with my wife and I got the shanks and so for those of you that those of you who aren't golfers A shank means I'm trying to hit the ball straight ahead, but it goes 90 degrees to the right And it happens because of tightness And kind of clamping down and not allowing your hands to come through And so here I am a shank 10 chips in a row. I was so frustrated. I broke my My wedge right over my knee Now you don't need to be a golfer to know that that isn't good right? So my wife who tends to be a much more reasonable and calm person than me gets out of the cart And looks at me and just calmly says, you know, I've had enough and she walks off the course. She's going to walk home And so here I am Mr. Mindset Having to return to the clubhouse one golfers short in my cart With a broken wedge to say it was embarrassing as an understatement So I went home that day and I literally created a golf to be vision for myself Where I saw myself as being calm having fun being relaxed letting go of perfectionist tendencies being a great partner to play with I want to just be like the person that everyone wanted to play with And learning to just play for the opportunity to improve and not be perfect or win And I can tell you When I pull that situational to be vision out and read it before I golf I'm a completely different person and then sometimes I forget and I might be three holes in and I need that reminder And that also tells us that it's a constant work in progress Yeah, I love that and thank you thank you for sharing that story I love the idea of the situational to be visions because you know We can sometimes get a little rigid in our approach to things because we think that okay I know who I need to be and we think that that can just be a blanket approach To all situations when Obviously that that's not the case and there should be some variations there And so really what you're speaking to is the essence of being adaptable which You know many of us on the on the caller leaders or you know part of the reasons why we're remember remembers of this bold circle is You know, we've got big things on our horizon big projects that we're trying to achieve and in order for us to be great leaders or You know achieve success in these projects. We have to be adaptable And so I think that really highlights the importance of self-awareness and all of this too where you have the ability to Recognize let me take a step back Based off of this situation. I'm getting ready to to be in based off of the audience that I'm getting ready to present in front of You know who do I need to be what would success look like is there Is there a theme is there an archetype let like your story of you know being kind of like the orchestra conductor Back when I was working with the military I kind of recognized on my own that I needed to have that situational to be vision because there were some time. where I was sitting in kind of like a, you know, a classroom space, working with these individuals, teaching them about mindset. And there were other times where I would be out in the field with them, and, you know, walking through mud or, you know, you know, just kind of going, trucking up and down hills, and, you know, doing like really heavy, sweaty kind of work with them, that's a different kind of self-image. I can't come across as being overly classroom when I'm in the field, but when I'm in the classroom, I can't talk and come across as if we're out, you know, in the field and we're, you know, covered in mud. So it was really, hey, who do I need to be in these different situations, even though the audience was maybe the same, the environment helped dictate, how do I need to be adaptable? Now, having the knowledge of what a to-be vision is and in my self-image, that helped me expedite and become a little bit more adaptable quicker so that I could be successful. So I'm picturing you in these different environments of which you are not a soldier necessarily, but here you are trying to understand what they're doing. And you had to have self-doubt. There's no way you could know. So a topic that you and I have been passionate about and talked about so many times, I'd love to ask you about the relationship between self-doubt and self-belief. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So I had tons of self-doubt and I kind of joked about this on the first bold session a couple of weeks ago, but I mean, when I transitioned from working with the kind of the regular, you know, big army as they call it, which is just kind of the typical soldiers in transition to working within special operations. Within the first day or two of me arriving at the special operations unit, this guy comes up to me and I'm trying to pitch and introduce myself and, you know, say, here's what I do, here's what I know. And this guy comes up to me and he says, you know, I was a green beret long before you got here and I'm going to be a green beret long after you're gone. So what can you do for me? I mean, talk about like a, oh my gosh, like welcome to the moment. And yeah, that filled me with doubt. So I'm passionate about this too because I do think it's something that can almost become a superpower for individuals when they understand it and self-doubt and self-belief have this really unique relationship. And in order to best understand it, I think it helps to go back and think about this quote or this old kind of like adage I heard around courage and fear. And courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is being afraid and doing it anyways. And to me, that speaks perfectly, absolutely perfectly to the relationship between self-doubt and self-belief, right? Self-belief is not the absence of doubt. Self-belief is the acknowledgement that you have doubts, but still trusting that you can do it anyway, still having that belief that you can overcome, that you can do hard things. And if I can, Scott, let me scale back a little bit because I know some people might be hearing self-belief and they might be thinking, oh, you're talking about confidence. But to me, I think you can draw a line between confidence and self-belief. There are a lot of similarities there, but there's a lot of differences. And confidence is, it's kind of fickle, meaning it's very fleeting. You know, you can have it and then not have it. And you can lose confidence very quickly and very oddly, we can gain confidence really quickly. And so to me, that's not something that's solid that I want to build, you know, belief off of, is just this idea of something I can have it or not. Confidence is also very strongly linked to like a physical sensation. You know, we feel pumped up or, you know, we feel confident, right? It's something that we can know our heart is, you know, racing or, you know, we're feeling strong, whatever it might be. But the problem with confidence is that it doesn't give any room for doubt to exist. Because the second you start to doubt, you know, what's going on, you know, your opponent, you know, the next quarter's numbers, that confidence very quickly goes away because it's very, very fleeting. And so for me, it's not about confidence, it's not about feeling something. It's truly about self-belief. It's about knowing and believing in your core. I've done hard things. I can do hard things again. I've learned how to overcome. I can learn how to overcome this. I've solved hard problems or puzzles. I can solve this puzzle here. So for me, that's the relationship between doubt and belief. Self-belief goes, okay, yeah, I've got some doubts, but I'm going to do it anyways because I know I'm capable too. The way you just described it, I think, is so critical of separating just confidence because most of us think about this kind of almost fake confidence. We've all heard the term "fake it till you make it." Which is, you know, whatever you do, don't show them any weakness. But what you're just described is so powerful because it's actually more around, I don't have to run from myself doubt. I can embrace myself doubt because it's going to awaken something in me that's going to allow me to prove that not only can I go through it, but I can learn from it, grow from it, and overcome it. And therefore, I believe that I can, I can face the next challenge, the next obstacle and continue to do that. I think that's a really, really important way to describe it the way you did. Yeah, and, you know, to kind of give it a little bit of a fun, or funny, maybe, you know, metaphor to it, right? Like everything you just described, that doesn't sound fun. Because it does take a little while to really have that self-belief. And it's not fun to go through the process necessarily because it's not flashy, right? It's not sexy, it's not glamorous. And so I used to always joke when I was working with the military and it's one of my executives now. I say, "Confidence is like a bowl of candy." Confidence is, you know, that bowl of candy is yummy, it's shiny, it's colorful, and it's going to taste good. But very shortly after, you're going to feel very, very bad, right? And you're going to be hungry again. So, confidence is just that shiny object. Self-belief, that's chicken and broccoli, right? It's kind of boring, but man, is it loaded with great nutrients? It's going to fill you up and it's going to sustain you for much longer. So when you're really looking for the motivation or the energy to drive and to take on a bowl project, you really want to go for just the flashy object that makes you feel good right now. Would you rather dig deep and build the self-belief that you know is actually going to sustain you and it actually probably spill over into your teammates for the long run? Super important. So this might be a great opportunity right now to open up to some questions from the members because maybe we can invite them to our kitchen table here. I'm sure they have a lot of, we've stimulated some thinking here. So Alexi, I'm going to go to you and see, do you have any questions that have come in? We do have some great questions coming in. I'll start with this one. After many years in leadership roles in very large multinational companies, I'm starting a new company that is a total change in direction for me. I'm wondering how do you build your self-belief when you have thought that I don't have any expertise in this area? I don't have a degree in this area. This is totally new and I may be crazy. Great question. Brian, how about if I just take a quick stab then I'm going to hand it over to you. I'm going to take a quick stab because this was my story when I left the fire surface and I entered the business arena which I had zero experience in. And one of the things I realized when I did have a lot of experience in still was around high performance in around building self-belief and around leading people. So what I did was I went backwards and said, what have I learned from all of my other experiences and I literally made an Excel spreadsheet. And I looked at, you know, promotional process I had been through different emergency scenes that I had managed, challenges that I had in leading big projects. And I literally made a list of all the skills, all the talents, all the tools that I learned that I took away. And then I asked myself, why can't I take these exact same tools and apply them to this next challenge which at that time was starting to take them. And working with some of the greatest leaders in the world. And I think this is another technique. This is a technique that can be used here to answer this question which is although you might be doing something where you feel you don't have any expertise. So that's your self-doubt popping in. Don't doubt that you have a ton of experience that you can take into this totally new project. And in fact, you have one superpower that people underestimate. And this is actually what I brought to take to my hope. I could see performance and business from a new lens because I didn't grow up in it. People who grew up in it couldn't see the forest from the trees. But as an outsider, I could look at it with the lens of a firefighter or the lens of a performance coach with no expertise in business. And I would often tell I remember coaching Sandy Og who is at the time the chief HR officer of Unilever. I didn't know nothing about HR. How could I even hold a candle to what Sandy Og knew? But I could ask him great questions looking at it from another lens. And from there we developed a relationship not only that was based on me helping him perform but one that's last of now. We have a great friendship. We've worked with CEO works in so many different areas, all around the same concept. So I'd love your thoughts on that, Brian. Yeah, well, I mean, first off, that's a great answer. That's more than just a little bit of a stab. But, you know, going back to it, I guess the heart of that question, right? I've done some things in the past, but now I'm doing something totally different. And I don't think that I'm going to be able to succeed, or how in the world could I possibly believe that I'm the right one for this role? It reminds me of this research from Dan Gilbert that came out about, you know, about a decade ago, and it's called the end of history illusion. And, you know, kind of the bumper sticker for it, just the quick slogan, it is essentially like, we struggle to see future growth in ourselves. And so what the end of history illusion is all about is, if you look back five, 10, you know, 20 years, it's very, very easy for us to see and admit, I've grown. I've changed. Like, I'm a totally different person. Because we have all of that kind of data, and we have all of that inventory to look at and go, yeah, I'm a different person. But when we think about what we're getting ready to do, the projects that we're going to undertake, the new roles that we're going to have, it's very difficult for us to project ourselves into the future. Essentially, we just assume that who we are right now today is who we will be in six months time, or a year, or five years. We have this really hard inability of imagining that we will grow and develop into the future, which I think speaks again to the importance of sitting down and taking the time and really defining that self-image. What would success look like? Who do I need to be? What are the things that I need to learn? How do I need to develop? Because if you can more clearly outline that, then you give yourself a little bit of a blueprint on how you're going to grow moving forward. And so, you know, you have to be curious. You have to ask questions about yourself early and often, you know, checking in, you know, rating yourself, kind of auditing and saying, "I said I wanted to be more curious," or "I said I wanted to, you know, find better ways to prepare." Have I done that? How could I still get a little bit better at that? So, that would really be kind of, you know, the big takeaway for me is, one, it's totally normal that you're feeling that doubt. But here's why you're feeling the doubt. Let's normalize a little bit. You've got this end of history illusion going on. But now, let's look forward. Let's define this new kind of era. And then let's start to blueprint out and map out what you're going to be doing. Isn't it funny that, you know, when you're thinking about a project that you're taking on, the truth is you don't always know exactly how it's going to turn out, because the world changes, the variables change. We end up having to take, you know, different directions and be adaptable. But the one piece that people often miss is, "Who do I need to be in order to handle those challenges in order to be successful in this project?" And that comes exactly back and you just, it reiterated almost perfect, Victor Frankl. If I'm clear enough about who I want to be, I can tackle whatever challenge comes, and I can grow in that. And I think that's super, super important. Alexi, any other great questions? Yes, so we have a couple around the same kind of idea. I'm working on a bold project where I'm trying to reshape my team and our focus. And I feel like they aren't believing in themselves or our ability to deliver. How can I, as a leader, help others build their self-belief? Telling someone they have a self-image problem seems a little harsh. Brian, you want to jump on that one? Yeah, so I totally agree. I think just coming out and being very blunt and saying, "Your self-image sucks." I think that probably does come across a little bit harsh. But, you know, as leaders, right, it does fall on you. You do have to wear the hat of, you know, doing some things that aren't in the typical job description. Right, and that is, you know, being a chief energy multiplier and a chief belief builder, things like that. So, it ultimately boils down for me, you know, is feedback. How are you delivering the feedback? To me, that is the key. So, it's very easy for us to deliver feedback that's focused on outcomes. But outcomes don't help individuals, you know, change their behaviors. And outcomes don't really help an individual understand the self-image that they have. So, there's kind of two parts to this question here. If I'm helping them build their self-belief, I'm going to give feedback that's focused on moments or actions that specifically are repeatable. So, I'm going to highlight how they prepared. I'm going to highlight how they seem to be very calm in the meeting or, you know, very reserved. How they asked great questions or your research was so well put together. Thank you for coming and being an asset to the team, went through your preparation. And then I'm going to ask them questions, how did they do that? How did you come across, you know, so calm and collected in that meeting? You know, where did you come up with those questions? You know, how are you so curious? That's going to help build the belief of they're doing the right things. Right, that the actions that they chose to get that far have been helpful for them. When it comes to helping them build their self-image, I'm going to just, you know, sit them down as the leader and I'm just going to ask them and say, you know, how do you see yourself? You know, what role do you see yourself on this team? You know, what do you think are some of the strengths that you bring? What are maybe some of the gaps that you feel like that you're missing when it comes to interacting with the team or, you know, being a higher performer? just asking a couple questions like that can give you really good insight into how that individual is defining themselves, is thinking about themselves. We often find that so many people are operating in their self-image that they didn't design, that it was given to them by a former boss or from their colleagues or from their political or spiritual or just familial relationships. So really trying to understand how do you see yourself and then from there again asking those questions, here's how, where do you want to grow, how do you think you could develop and then as the leader saying, well here's how I also think you could and help design and push them towards creating a new self-image. It's really interesting you use the term chief belief builder and many leaders don't realize that that may be the most important role that they have as a leader. I was doing a presentation for Dunin Bradstreet and it was a bunch of analysts and a guy comes up to me at the end and he hands me a napkin and he says, you know, I was listening to everything you were saying around mindset and I wrote this algorithm and I'm like, what? Like that's the craziest thing ever. So I look at this algorithm and he basically said success equals will plus skill plus belief squared and I look at it and I'm like, oh my god, will be an effort and attitude that plays into a team. Skill, do I have the skills or some of those we're talking about, even the skills to build self-belief, but skills to do the job and belief squared. So your belief is so important and we've used that so many places to help people build belief and to help leaders build it. And one exercise that I helped the leader do one time that answers this really well, I think is to go around the room and ask each person, how do you think you got on this team? Tell me about your past experiences. Tell me about how what your career path looked like. Tell me about other challenges that you faced. And by the time they finished that discussion, the room was on fire because people realized we actually have an amazingly competent team. And now that I've heard each person contribute how they can help us solve these problems, I essentially just built not only my belief in myself, but my belief in each of you. And then of course the leader's job is to create clarity that allows them to believe in the mission or the strategy. And once that happens, everything gets aligned and that can make a big difference. So I think this is a great question that will never end for a leader. Leaders always have to constantly build and rebuild the belief of their team members. Yeah, I think that's a brilliant point that circling back, right? It's not just something that you check off once and say, all right, cool, I built the belief teams good to go. Especially if there's those significant kind of time points, right? The end of a project or the end of a hectic quarter or the start of a time period where you know things are going to be potentially a little difficult or world events. Like there's always these little shifts that can happen that can create a rift in that self-doubt. And I know both of our main focuses for today, self-doubt and self-image have the words self in front of them, but self-doubt can very quickly turn into grouped out in a self-image. It's just as important as that group image. So I love that example you gave of like, you know, addressing it as a group sometimes can be very, very beneficial because you can get that that kind of like cross-power effect of individuals just kind of energizing each other and building the belief at the group level. Really great point. Alexi, any other questions? I love these questions. They're great. Okay, next question. I feel like when I was young, I actually had very little self-doubt. As a new consultant, I was rearing to go and full of self-belief. But as I've gotten older and moved up the organization, I find myself with self-doubt a lot more often. Is this normal and why is that? I have experienced this exactly as a firefighter, but Brian, I'm going to let you answer this first because you enlightened me with the Dunning Crew Perfect. And it is forever branded in my brain. So maybe you would want to share that because it explains it so well. Yeah, totally. And you read my mind there. I started laughing because as that question came to a close, that graph came up into my mind. For those of you not familiar, you can very easily just do it like a quick Google search on Dunning Crew Perfect. And that's a DUNN, ING, hyphen, KRUGER, I believe. But basically, it's this kind of psychological principle that states that early on when individuals learn a little bit about something, their confidence is way high. They think that they know it all. They think that everything that they learned is solid. And these are the people that are usually the loudest voices in the room. They're ones with the megaphone talking about this new information that they just learned. But as you keep going across the X-axis, and that's the more that you learn, confidence actually starts to drop down. Because you start to realize, I don't know it all. I don't know everything. And so this is, you know, the Dunning Crew Perfect is very commonly applied to knowledge. But it's applied to everything, right? So, you know, going back to this question, when I was young, I had very little self-doubt, right? Raring to go full of self-relief, well, that's because you didn't know as much as you know now. You didn't have as much experience, right? There's, there is something to the old kind of phrase of ignorance is bliss. But as you got older, you realized you don't know it all. You don't always have the answers. You start to experience a lot more kind of ups and downs. And so you realize, gosh, there's, there's a lot more out there that I don't know than I thought I knew before. And so naturally, you're just going to have that little bit more self-doubt. But that's a normal occurrence as you follow this kind of Dunning Crew Perfect. And you never really get back to the level of confidence as that early learner. And that's kind of the irony of it. You know, you've got individuals that have multiple PhDs sometimes that still say, well, I'm not really sure. I'm no expert. But the person who took their psych 101 class is all of a sudden, you know, an expert in psychology. It's just the irony of how we are. We see that so much now with social media, you know, everyone, my daughter gets parenting advice on TikTok from someone who's had one child that's three months old and you're like, it's similar. They have so much confidence that it is interesting, though, because you mentioned the contagion of self doubt, but also the contagion of false confidence where people follow people because they look so confident. They must know what they're doing. And you're like, no, they don't know enough to know that they don't know. Like that's even scarier. So I actually love this too, because I have a client who is a little bit older than the people he leads. And one of his frustrating things was that he doesn't have the energy or sometimes even the memory to keep up with everyone. And partly what I helped him realize is what you bring is amazing wisdom because you've seen so many projects like this come through. You've seen where they go wrong. You've seen what they need. So your memory of just being able to recite, you know, chemical terms and things like that isn't going to be a sharp because you're, you know, 20 years older than some of these people. But never doubt the wisdom that you bring in the asking the right questions and those things. And that's where this can also help is again realizing your self image. Don't see yourself as weaker, but actually see yourself as along that done in Crugafit. I have enough knowledge now to ask better questions because I recognize what I don't know. Totally, totally. Scott, do you have like an actual process when someone comes to you and says, I need to build self belief because I kind of realized we've talked about it a lot, but you know, I don't know if we've laid out a process kind of like how we explained earlier that we have it to be vision. And so I think that's the tool that we've given and that we created to help an individual build their self image. But how do you actually help someone build their self belief? Is there a particular tool or a process. So I'll give you a process, but I'm going to tell you there's nuance for everybody. And so, and I'm going to cover it fast. So, and you know that this is a lifelong process. So first, I think the thing you have to say is you have to be able to recognize where do I feel self doubt when I have it? Do I feel in my stomach, my neck, my chest? I just feel this wave of anxiety. So I know that self doubt. And then the second part there then is to embrace it and to realize, okay, now I recognize it. So it's self doubt. So I don't need to run from it. In fact, I need to rewire at that moment my self talk that is telling me, I'm going to fail. I'm not good enough. Re-frame that self talk at that moment and say, no, this is self doubt. I'm going to push through it. This is going to help wake me up, stimulate a question, a curiosity, a passion that I'm going to need to get better. And then the next step I think is once I'm aware of what it is, I'm feeling that I recognize itself doubt. And by the way, that doesn't mean that I have imposter syndrome, which is a complete myth. Not that there is imposter syndrome, but it's long down the spectrum. Most people, all humans have self doubt. So once I have this new, this self awareness of what it is, I'm doing it, I'm embracing it. The next step, and we've alluded to a little bit, I need to build and go back to my self belief bank. That's that process of going back through, you know, my last year or two years, five years and asking myself, you know, what challenges have I faced? What tasks have I learned or overcome rather? What adversity have I dealt with? You know, what skills did I gain? Because it is funny that when we look back, we can remember all the weaknesses and mistakes we've made. But if we don't purposely go back and look at all the things that we did well and what we've learned, we forget those really quick. And so this way, I'm showing my brain that when a challenge pops up that I can go to a toolbox that I have, I have highlight reels of already seeing myself be successful and actually overcoming this feeling, which is horrible, by the way, we all know that feeling of self doubt is not comfortable. And in this discomfort is where this growth really comes. And one tool that has really helped with doing this, I've done this with a lot of athletes and a lot of CEOs and leaders that we've worked with is keeping a learning journal like at night. What did I learn today? So just imagine now if every night I reflected on what I did well, what I learned today, what do skilled did I develop and I started keeping track of that in a journal. And every time I got self doubt, maybe not every time, but when I'm really encouraging encountering difficult or high levels of self doubt, I grabbed that book and I go back how powerful would it be if I could see my growth and see my tools sitting right in front of me. Now, of course, the trick is this isn't a one off. I have to repeat this over and over and over. But it is amazing that when I overcome self doubt like this consistently and build the self belief and I this why I love the way you differentiate between confidence and self belief. There are many times where our clients will say, am I going to succeed? I don't actually know. And you would go, oh my God, you have no confidence. But then they say, yet. And I know you and I are both a big fan of the word yet. I will succeed, but I have it yet. And is it an amazing how different we feel when we just add the word yet? Can I do, can I achieve this? Can I run 10 miles? Not yet. That means one day I will be able to if I approach it smart, I overcome myself doubt, I build the right plan. Can I lead this team to tackle this huge project that we're doing? I don't know yet, but I will be able to do it because I believe that I can overcome adversity. So it's kind of I kind of skipped over quickly, but does that answer your question, Brian? It does. And right at the very end there, you can kind of see like we're starting to weave our way over into a discussion around fixed and growth mindsets, which is probably a whole lot of things. And I think that's another coffee talk on another session, but the part that I really love and I hope everyone listening really kind of pulled that out was using the discomfort, the agitation of self doubt, not as the catalyst to avoid, but as the catalyst to lean in and embrace it to overcome it. And that's just absolutely brilliant. And that to me again, that's the separation between wanting to just feel comfortable. confident and wanting to actually believe and overcome and trust that you can. So yeah, I think that was awesome. Thank you so much for explaining that. The bad news is we will never outgrow self-doubt because the better you get, the bolder you get, the bigger challenges you're going to take on, the smarter people you're going to have on your team, the more self-doubt you're going to have. So you explained a little bit with the Dunning Kruger effect, but in essence, self-doubt will never go away. So you might as well learn to deal with it now. Exactly. Exactly. Alexi, how about one more question and then maybe open it up and see if anyone has some thoughts or takeaways they want to share? Yes, this is one of my favorite questions. You both have talked about athletes and business leaders, but as a parent, how can we help our kids build the best self-image, embrace self-doubt and build a strong foundation of self-belief? Yeah, my kids are old, Brian, so why don't you jump on it since your kids are right in that prime age right now? They are. They are. And so, you know, one thing going back to, and it's a little bit of an encapsulation or a summary of what we've been talking about so far, but a lot of it is focusing on their effort, focusing on their behaviors. When you're talking to them, when you're giving feedback, when you're trying to give praise or when you're trying to correct them, for me it's asking my kids a lot of questions about themselves. It's highlighting when I see them do hard things. It's really highlighting and praising when I see them doing things that were really difficult that they had to kind of work through or solve it. And it's hard because they're kids and it's not going to sink every time and I find myself many times trying to remind them like you can do hard things and it's okay to be uncomfortable. So putting them in those types of situations and moments where they have to learn to overcome, right? You know, in today's day and age, you know, maybe a generation ago there were the helicopter parents. In my parental generation now you have to watch out for what they call the bulldozer parents, which are the ones that just clear the path for the kid so that there's no resistance whatsoever. But resistance is the essence of resilience. We have to be able to know that we've done some hard things that we've been uncomfortable at times. And when we know that, then we're more resilient to the hard things and to the uncomfortable times that we know are going to be coming for us a little bit down the road. So for me it's a lot of asking questions, you know, asking them, you know, hey, how did you do that? You know, what was so difficult about that? How did you solve that problem? And then when I see them in the midst of getting frustrated, you know, getting upset, trying to remind them like, hey, you know, take a breath, recognize that this is difficult, but know that you've done a difficult thing before. How can you solve this problem? Now I've got younger kids. I'd love to hear Scott. I'm sure you played experiments on your kids too with some with some mindset stuff and your kids are a little bit older. So I'm curious to know what's the, you know, the 20 year long term effects of this. Yeah, well, we're working on grandkids now. So, but it is interesting. What you just said, I think, is a really important thing. You're not pointing out to your kids, oh, look at your great successes. Look at your trophy. Look at your straight A's. You're actually focusing your conversation and your curiosity on and developing in them the curiosity to be able to see where they've struggled and overcome it. And I think that is so powerful. One thing that I've tried to do and I'm probably better at it now than I'm older, I'm not so sure I was so good at it when my kids were young, is to also share my own vulnerability, where I experience and felt self-doubt, where I had that horrible feeling, but how I pushed through and to talk about the process of it rather than just the end picture because it is amazing as human beings. You know, we look across the table and we see this other person, we go, man, she really has it all figured out. Look how together she is, look how confident she is, she has all the answers. And what we don't understand is that she's looking across the table at us going, man, look at him. He's got it all figured out. He's got all the answers. And really, both of us are full of self-doubt. And so, when we're vulnerable, we're willing to share that. And that's what I've tried to do with my grandkids, with my kids. And it is really cool to see. Now, you know, my son is a special force, is soldier. So he's also learned it the hard way. We've had so many amazing discussions about that horrible moment of self-doubt before you start to do something really difficult and how important that first step is. And that's something that I would remind whoever asked this question about as a parent. It's not about the whole thing. It's often about the first step, that moment you feel that self-doubt and embracing it and taking that first step. And you've already won at that point. And then the next step gets easier and the next step and the next step. And that's how you build strong self-belief in kids, in my opinion. Love that. So how about we shift gears here now at the end? And in the last few minutes that we have, just invite any of our members who want to share any of your final thoughts or maybe a story that maybe you have where you've done some of the things that we've talked about, we'd love to get you involved. It looks like Kyle has his hand raised. Oh, perfect. Kyle, go ahead, love to hear from you. This conversation, great job, Scott and Brian, really hit me square between the eyes. I wish somebody would have framed self-image to me this way 15 years ago, or the former college football player, played at the University of Central Florida until 2007, until one day I didn't plan anymore. And that identity, that self-image and trying to transition into the next phase of my life in reflection was a huge struggle. And my lived experience was the world around me, saw me as this person. I saw myself as this person, and I really did not understand at the time how to pivot and create a new self-image that reflected who I wanted to be in the next stage of my life. And had I had an opportunity for somebody to frame, hey, Kyle, this is who you were, it will always be a part of you. And here are the valuable, valuable skills that you acquired in this experience. And here's how you can apply them to the future. And this is how you should shape your image of who you are. It could have probably sped up my professional career three to five years. And even today, as I speak with former student athletes who are graduating, this is the trend that I continuously see where they see themselves as this high performing athlete and are not understanding why it's so challenging to move to the next phase of their life and their careers. And it's really exciting to hear that TIGNUM puts the self-image first because I think that it's a conversation that can have an impact in this space, especially for college athletes moving to the next phase of their life. So I appreciate it guys, an incredible conversation. Thanks so much for sharing that, Kyle. In fact, if I were going to say the one comment that really frustrated us so much and why one of the reasons we started the bold circle was hearing people say, I wish I would have learned that earlier in my life. And here we knew we have all these people in the world that have these bold projects in front of them that can make such a big impact in the world. Why do they have to wait to fail to learn some of these things? What if we could help them learn it up front? Also, super appreciate your comment. Brian, I want to thank you so much for joining me today for this deep dive. I hope people found it as interesting as I personally found it. And also useful, which is even more important to be able to help people help you guys tackle your bold projects. So thanks to everyone who joined us and thanks again, Brian, and thanks to the team for making this a success. We'll see you all next time. Thanks, Scott. Everyone have a good one. Thank you for listening to the TIGNUM Thoughtcast. If you've enjoyed this or any of our other Thoughtcast episodes, please subscribe so you don't miss out on future releases. If you'd like to get in touch with TIGNUM, please email us at [email protected]. Until next time, be bold, be more, and keep ruling your impact. [Music]