The psychology of confidence

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey Portlandia fans. Carrie Brown seen in Fred Armason here. The Dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form. We're launching Podlandia AO rewatch. Our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Kreisel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann and many more. Kyle is going for it here. You fully improvised not just words but a song about it. I thought you were all going to write a song. I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest shot, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. And on my new podcast, the Livering Happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing on my belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tutorial. Let's go with happiness, delivering happiness, and many, many more. Open your free I Heart Radio app, search the Livering Happiness with Nick Tutorial and listen now. Our five first guest is Paris Totten, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. I have support. I have support. Many surprises. Welcome to the Sweet 305 podcast where the new tech comes to life. What the f***? You're the only person I know that loves the Yellow Starbursts. It's lemonade. This is Sweet 305. Here, oversharing is encouraged. Listen to Sweet 305 with Lelipons on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all? It's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of Everyone Watchers Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in I Heart Women's Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines. Naomi Osaka showing out. Shout-out to you now. The viral moments. Out of the obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good. Her combos are swift. The stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's sports. On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Brennan. And on my podcast, Discrease Land. I tell the stories behind music's biggest names. Like how the story of the food fighters isn't just about music. It's about grief, shock, and the moment everything changed. Imagine that. You're in the biggest band on the planet. As Dave Grohl was in 1994 in Nirvana. In the phone rings. And you learn that you're singer, your friend. The reluctant voice of a generation. Kurt Cobain is dead. Listen to Discrease Land on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody. I'm Gemma Speck. And welcome back to the psychology of your 20s. The podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s. And what they mean for our psychology. This episode is a rerun. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode. As we have caused breakdown the psychology of our 20s. Before we begin, I just want to let you know that this episode actually has two parts. It has basically like, I guess, a sister episode over on my other podcast mantra. So if you prefer a more kind of compact succinct version of this episode to start your day or to start your week. I'm going to leave a link in the description of this episode for you guys to go. And check it out. I would love if you just gave mantra a try. I'm sure if you love this podcast, you will love that podcast because it's basically the psychology of your 20s. But more spiritual, more philosophical, more meditative. So yeah, go check it out. But as for our topic today, we're going to talk about confidence. And what it is about confident people that is so alluring, so fabulous. And how we can emulate it, how we can cultivate this brilliant, bright, amazing attitude. Because confidence, my friends, it's actually not something that you were born with. It is a skill, a skill that you can develop. One of my closest friends, Percy, actually inspired this episode, friend of the show, we love Percy. She is what seemingly she was seemingly is a very confident person. She just approaches every single social situation, every work presentation, every first date, with just such a grounded, secure mindset. It's honestly, it's sexy. Like she is so magnetic to watch. And sometimes I've even like found myself just being like, where did this come from? Like, who is this amazing woman? Because her confidence is like an aura. It's like a color that almost surrounds her. And I think it's so easy to observe people like her and conclude that she was simply born with this. This is always who she was going to become. But the thing is, I've been friends with Percy for some time, for a long time. And I know her very well. And I know that this is not always what she was like. She was a very shy, reserved kid. I know she was bullied quite badly. I know she really struggled. And so it really got me thinking, what does she kind of know that we don't? Like what is this formula that she has? What are the profound kind of psychological principles or shifts that delineate people who are confident and people who are not confident? What is it about the history that are bringing their personality, whatever it is? And what about that can we change? What about ourselves can we kind of work with to come into any situation and just feel like we own the room, feel like we deserve and belong to be there? Because once we understand the science of confidence, once we kind of break down the myth that confidence is only something that you are born with, we really do become unstoppable. Like we become unstoppable in work, in romance, in friendship, in loving ourselves, in directing our lives. You know, the list could go on and on and on. So where do we begin? What do we do? How do we get there? That is exactly what we are going to talk about today. Your formula for confidence. Let's get into it. So let's begin by dismantling this core assumption or core misconception, I should say, that confidence is a fixed personal attribute. You either have it or you don't. Is that true or not? Well, I'm going to give you the answer right now and then I'm going to give you the explanation. The answer is no, it's not. According to research, including a really comprehensive study on the heritability of confidence conducted in 2021, confidence is only between 9 to 28% heritable. What that means, if you don't understand your next, because sometimes I barely do, is that the majority of our confidence somewhere between 72 and 91% is shaped by things like environment, experiences, mindset, choices, not just your genetics, not just things that feel outside of your orbit of control. For the most part, something like confidence is something that we can change. We can kind of intercept and form to our desires. And to truly understand why this is the case and to truly understand like the foundation of confidence, we have to understand one of its core ingredients, which is self efficacy. Self efficacy is a concept that was first named or labeled, I guess, by someone called Albert Bondoura, a very famous soci psychologist who we talk about a lot. And it is basically our belief in our capacity to execute the behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments. It's simpler to us because that is such a convoluted definition. It is your belief that you can successfully perform a given task. You can achieve a particular goal. You can, I guess, present yourself a specific way based on your intentions and your desires. It is not so much your belief that things will go well. It's not so much your belief that people will like you. It's not your belief in anything outside of your control. It is belief in yourself. Before we can become confident, we need self efficacy. And the great thing about self efficacy is that it can only be built and earned. It cannot just be granted to us. It is not either there or not the moment we are born. So there are four primary sources through which self efficacy is developed and strengthened. When you understand these sources, you kind of precisely know how confidence is built in someone brick by brick through the process of learning and environment and experiences. So the first source, the very first one is something called mastery experiences or inactive attainments. Basically, when you successfully perform a task, especially one that you initially found rather challenging, it creates a belief in your capabilities. This starts from like three months old. Let's use the example of learning how to ride a bike because it's a very good one. You know, the riding a bike is kind of scary. Like, it is kind of scary. Like, you have to balance on these two wheels and you can go really, really fast and you'll probably fall off. You know, the first few attempts involve wobbling and falling and that erodes your confidence. But with each kind of like successful pedal stroke, each moment of balance, like your belief and your ability to ride independently grows stronger. It's all based on these moments of feeling like, "I didn't believe I could do this, but I can." And that, for our mind, kind of acts as these concrete data points that rewire your internal narrative. It rewires your trust in your own abilities. The fact that you're kind of, you are capable. Now, the brain actively seeks and reinforces these positive experiences, which means that the next time you encounter something scary or new, the judgment of others, the beginning of a new job, whatever it is, your brain kind of subconsciously looks back at these prior moments and goes, "Actually, no, like we are fully capable of managing this." These moments of mastery can be deliberately created. And that's really important because the more times you show yourself through trial and error and through believing in yourself that you can do something, the more confident you will become. Next, we have vicarious experiences or social modeling. We are, of course, inherently social beings, and we learn a tremendous amount by simply observing others. When you see someone similar to yourself successfully perform a task that you want to do, it can significantly strengthen your belief that you also possess the capabilities to master similar activities. This is why mentors, role models, even peers are so crucial in building confidence. If you're, you know, a budding entrepreneur and you see someone from a similar background successfully launch their business, a powerful message like, "If they can do it, maybe I can too." This actually really explains why representation matters and is so important for marginalized groups. There was a study done in 2016 in the UK and researchers asked high-achieving university students from underrepresented backgrounds to basically send letters to students from similar backgrounds who were considering university and just talk about their experience, the fact that it's possible. So there were over 11,000 people in this study and these letters were really positive. They were like, "Shoot for the stars, you can do it, aim higher." And the researchers tracked students' application decisions and found that there was a significant increase in applications to more prestigious unies amongst the group that received the letters versus groups that did not. So this isn't about blind imitation. It's about seeing a pathway to success that is demonstrated by others which then informs your own sense of possibility. It's also why I think that we could do with more admiration in this society instead of being jealous of people who are, have what you want or have the life that you want or who are doing better than you. These people can act as basically proof that your dreams, maybe not even that aren't big enough because this person is managed to do it. Therefore you can too. There is a pathway that is accessible. So confidence can be acquired through observation in a really significant way. The third way we gain self-efficacy is through social persuasion. So it's not observing someone else doing something. It's being encouraged by people who you admire. Having people like a coach, a parent, a teacher, a friend, someone that can say, "You're doing a good job. You are capable of doing this." Positive feedback, it's truly so motivational because we really do like external validation secretly, but also not secretly. If you have someone who you admire who is saying, "Wow, you really are getting better and you're improving and you're doing well, you're actually prepared to fail more." You're prepared to fail more in some circumstances at least because you have this weird desire within you to succeed more and you kind of put yourself, you kind of face opportunities more often. You put yourself in the path for success more often, even though you know that failure might be a possibility because you believe in yourself even in those moments when you do fail because you have this strong sense of someone else believes in me despite missed opportunities, despite moments of ill confidence. Therefore I can believe in myself. There's also the opposite, which is discouragement. Other people can really make us feel terrible about ourselves. From parents who are dismissive to childhood bullies, you know, I remember how to teach her once who was really, really mean to me and I was like, "Why do you have faith with me? Like I'm literally 70 years old." And I felt really, like I remember feeling really bad about myself and not wanting to try and not wanting to speak up. Discouragement is equally as powerful as encouragement. That is why it is so important to surround yourself with good people. It may be hard to go up against this if you've had a family who was really awful or if you were bullied or if you do feel like your environment is really what made you the way you were and it's hard to escape. But the older you get, you do have choices to be around people who will care about you, who will elevate you, who will encourage you. You know, if your friends are secretly trying to tear you down or if you are constantly listening to what people online are saying that is mean or cruel, if you let the words of your family members really invade your mindset, confidence, it will be harder to obtain. Luckily, we have one final source of self-efficacy to talk about and that's our ability to manage our own emotional reaction to stress. It's our physiological and emotional states. Our mood, our stress levels, that can profoundly influence how we judge our potential for success. If you're feeling calm, energized and physically prepared for a task, you will believe in yourself more than if you went to bed super late. Or if you have had too much coffee or you're hungry, these choices matter and these are choices that you have control over. Basically, how you approach stress, how you learn to relate to your emotions, how you physically prepare yourself is a factor in whether you feel capable. But that also means that we can create routines and patterns and traditions that we know will make us feel confident and good as a way to prepare us and counteract negative emotional states that kind of come with doing new things or being in front of new people. So when you understand these four sources, it becomes really clear that confidence isn't an inherited trait. If you consistently seek out opportunities for mastery, if you observe others who are successful, if you go where you are valued, if you learn how to manage your anxiety and your physiological state, your self-efficacy and therefore your confidence will likely grow. It is important here to talk about the fact that although confidence isn't inherited, it is really quite deeply influenced by how you were raised and who you grew up around. If you again had parents who are deeply discouraging, if you grew up in poverty, if you grew up with mentors or teachers or no examples of success, you are starting from a harder point. And we have to be completely honest about that. It's not about ignoring those disadvantages. I would not be doing my job if I sat here and said, everyone starts from zero and starts at the same starting point. You know what I mean? And everyone has the equal ability to build confidence because it's just not the case. But what I'm really trying to say is that it is possible. So it's not like if you've had these experiences, you are completely doomed. If you have been raised to shrink yourself, to talk down to yourself, if you don't feel great about yourself, these are things that can actually be undone. They were done to you. That means that they have kind of like a counteracting or a counterbalancing action that can also do upon you. That you can do upon yourself not to reverse those things and to reverse those experiences, but to integrate them and say that you are more than them. We're going to talk a little bit more about that later on. But I think it's an important caveat to add here. Now that we kind of understand self-efficacy, let's also talk about how confidence is in part dictated by the conversation that you have with yourself. If you want to understand how you can make yourself believe that you are confident, you have to know the name Carol Dweck. She is a renowned Stanford psychologist, one of the best, who discovered that there are two and really only two fundamental mindsets. We can have regarding our intelligence and our abilities. You've probably heard of them before. You can either have a fixed or a growth mindset. Someone with a fixed mindset believes that their basic abilities, their intelligence, their confidence, these are static traits. They are what they are. are they were born that way, there's little that can be done to change them. If you're good at math, it's because you were born being good at math. If you don't have confidence, it's because that's how you were born. There's nothing you can change. There's nothing you need to change that. This kind of perspective is voluntary. You, I know it's going to sound harsh, but you do choose to believe that way. And so what that means is that when you face obstacles, when you face setbacks, when you look at your confidence levels and feel depleted by them, you don't feel like you can change them. You feel like you are always going to be this way. In contrast, a person with a growth mindset believes in themselves, but also believes that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work and practice. And your brain talent personality, those are just starting points. In other words, they have what we call an internal locus of control. They believe in their ability to change their actions and therefore an outcome, but also to change their fate. Basically, when you believe I am capable, I am expanding, I am learning, I'm experiencing, I am confident. You act that way. You know that how you think about your situation and how you think about yourself will influence what part of your, what parts of yourself grow and expand and what parts, you know, ultimately shrink. The reality, of course, is more nuanced. We've kind of already talked about this, you know, confidence is a skill. It is something that comes from mindset. It isn't something that you're born with, but there are other things that we are born into that can make it harder. What it's about discerning is really when your mindset can trump those things and when it cannot. And that's when having a formula for confidence or having skills and things in like your toolbox really helps. Because instead of just feeling paralyzed by situations, you do have options to try out to kind of counteract your lack of confidence, counteract your anxiety, counteract your social anxiety, counteract your imposter syndrome or your belief that you don't deserve to be there. So that really leads to the biggest question that we have today. How do we do that? I'm not just going to leave you guys here without some practical tips, including the formulas of some of the most confident people in the world, how you can walk into any room feeling amazing, unshakable, completely yourself. That's what we're going to explore after this short break. This is Chelsea Hamler from Dear Chelsea. Every week the news gets worse. The world gets crazier and Yamanika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. If you come over here to play games, I'm going to check you. Okay? If you do something in the news that don't sound good, I'm going to play you. Join Yamanika Saunders as she breaks down the week's most problematic stories on her new podcast. You're the problem with Yamanika. Do you know I just found out who Sydney Swini was? New episodes weekly every Wednesday is part of my new network, the Dear Chelsea network. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men do better or do less. So I don't have to do so much. So join Yamanika each episode as she answers one question. Who's the problem? I'm Yamanika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamanika on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest shot or Spike Lee's Black Plansman. But I'm also from Queens, which means I know pizza. And on my new podcast, the delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza from Prince Street pizza to a new guest. We deliver pizza now? Then we sit down for a real conversation. What are you doing on the belt? To Alex Rodriguez. Just let you people know we're talking to one of the goats here. To Bill Burr. This gold happiness, delivering happiness. Mariano Rivera. And many, many more. Open your free iHeart Radio app. Search delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial. And listen now. What's up fam? It's your girl Sam J. And we're the host of everyone watches Women's Sports. A new podcast from together in iHeart Women's Sports. Because let's be real. Women's Sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler. She became the first female solo roeer to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments to take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. She beat Savalinka. You get the palm Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, Portlandia fans. Carrie Brown's seen in Fred Armason here. You know us or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about podlandia a.o.rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love and opening up about our creative process. How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it. You fully improvised not just words, but a song about it. I thought he was going to write. Listen to podlandia a.o.rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin, Samira and Gracie. I'm so excited. On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to sweet 305, where the good chat comes to life. What up? What up? I'm not a f*cking. It's like a form of saying hello to my friend, hello to my friend, hello to my sister, hello! Look, I've never seen it with anyone. Except with my children. My children know. Yes. I know my lover. Oh! Oh, it's incredible. She's a newbie. I'm the only person I know that loves the Yala Star Wars. It's a woman. It's not someone that needs you, as you say. I would like to collaborate with this person. This is sweet 305. Listen to sweet 305 with lelepons as part of my Toyota podcast network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Confidence is truly a mental game and the good thing about that is that if you have the right mental strategies, you can bring these with you everywhere. You can apply them in any situation. If your brain's coming with you, these strategies are coming with you as well. So the first part of our mindset that we want to target are the deeper beliefs that we have that we don't deserve to be confident at all. Or that people will always be able to see through us. They will always see us as a fraud. They will always know we're faking it. We call these thoughts, or at least I call them confidence blockers. Your thoughts are powerful architects of your confidence and of your self belief. So I do need you to become aware of your confidence blockers or your inner critics. What is your inner critics favorite catchphrase and favorite thing to tell you when you're putting yourself out there or trying something new? Probably something along the lines of you can't do this. You're definitely going to mess it up. Everyone's going to know that you're a fraud. Everyone's going to see you fail. Not true, firstly, but when those self-defeating thoughts surface consciously pause, then begin to question them. Is that thought truly 100% accurate? Like what concrete evidence do you actually have for that and what evidence do you have against it? You can fight back. Your inner critic isn't the only one with a voice. Your inner cheerleader also has something to say. They can say it louder. They can fricking scream it. You get to choose what you want to believe about the future and about where you sit in the future because it hasn't happened yet. So as much as your inner critic wants you to believe that you're going to fail and you're going to embarrass yourself, it has no idea. It has no more idea than your inner cheerleader who thinks that you're going to do absolutely amazing. So every time you encounter a confidence blocker, I want you to repeat this mantra. Well, this series of mantras. I'm magnetic. People flock to me. My energy, it opens doors before I arrive. I move through this space steady and prepared. I am calm. I am collected. I do. deserve to be here. I am confident. Any version of this, any series of phrases that supports you and elevates you and which capture you and you know, enthrall you, I need you to be ready to kind of like throw them at your own critic. I kind of think of it as like throwing balls of sunshine and like each time a ball of sunshine like hits your like the shadow of your inner critic like it gets smaller and smaller and like parts of it like dissolve away whatever makes it visual for you. Positive self talk like this is incredibly powerful. You and your brain have a two-way relationship. You are what you tell your brain. You become the words and the sayings that you speak to yourself. It's a process kind of loosely known as linguistic relativity. Basically the premise of this is that the language that we use towards ourselves and towards the world doesn't just reflect what we're thinking but actually shapes how we think. So if you are constantly using harsh or limiting language towards yourself, you may literally narrow how you see the world and how you see yourself within it. Conversely, if you use empowering language, confident language, open language, you broaden your sense of agency and you broaden your sense of the world. If you say to yourself, and sorry I'm in a sound, so repetitive here, but I promise I have a different point. If you say to yourself, I will succeed in this moment. I will be an image of confidence and power. That creates somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy, which we know is a psychologically proven and relevant concept because the expectations you set, especially through internal dialogue, influence your behavior in subliminal ways that often make your expectations come true. I also want you to sincerely ask yourself, right now, why don't you deserve to be confident? Let's put on our investigate a hat for a second. Who convinced me that this is who I am? Who made me feel small? Who told me that I should shrink and that this is where I belong and I should be silent and more importantly, what makes them right? Seriously, like what evidence do they have? Are they like the head of some like accredited committee? Have they been ordained to be able to do this? Do they have some degree or some authority in who's allowed to be confident and who doesn't? No. They literally don't. They just have an opinion and you can have a better opinion. You can have an opinion that's more accurate because you know yourself better than anyone. You know you're a good person. You know you're thoughtful. You know you're smart. You know that you have things to say and that you deserve success. You know that better than anyone because you have to live with yourself every single day and they don't. So you can choose to disagree, not only with your inner critic but also with whoever it is, parent, family member, ex-boyfriend, ex-best friend who convinced you to be silent. Another incredible way to curate a confident mindset is through visualization. Visualization is so psychologically powerful. That's why we talk about it so much. Visualize how you want to enter a room before you enter it and you will enter the room that way. Visualize how you want others to feel in your presence and often they will feel that way. Visualize your voice being steady. Visualize the eye contact you'll make. Visualize your posture. Visualize your power. There are a few exercises to make this easier. One I have spoken about before many times called the Golden Orb Theory. This is the one that I personally use. If you have ever met me at like a meetup or like on my book tour or at a live event, I promise you that I have been doing this when you have met me. This is what happens. Before I enter into any room, I feel this nice golden orb in my heart. Obviously it's not there with visualizing but I imagine there is this pulsating, beautiful ball of light. And every time I breathe in and breathe out as I step into this room and expanse and expanse and expanse and each time I make eye contact with someone and have a conversation, that fuels it even more. And this ball, this orb just gets bigger and bigger and bigger so that anyone it touches, anyone who comes into contact with it immediately feels comfortable, immediately feels tied to me, immediately feels good around me, immediately feels like they're best self and I feel like my best self. And it's this visual way of imagining that I get to control how other people are feeling. Obviously I don't, but I do get to control my own perception of their feelings. And I know that sounds strange, but often with social anxiety or not feeling confident, it's not that you don't know that you can handle yourself. It's that you're overly worried with how other people are going to perceive you. So if you give yourself the illusion that you can change their perception, suddenly nothing else really matters and you feel the ability to be authentic and natural. And that's what this kind of activity and exercise really does for me. There's another one. It's known as the golden thread trick, golden orb theory, golden thread trick you're seeing a theme. Basically it's about imagining like a golden thread pulling from the top of your head into the sky. Instead of controlling you, it's elevating you and it's making sure that you take up space. It's not going to let you slouch. It's not going to let you shrink. It wants you to be present and you have like the permission from this golden string, this thing way up high going into the cosmos and beyond to be here and to be strong. You're drawing all of your power from it. There's also the very famous act as if technique. The act as if technique, it's a psychological strategy that involves behaving as if you already are the version of yourself you want to become confident, secure, successful, grounded, you are already those things. Even if you don't fully feel it yet, we talked about modeling before and modeling really asks you to look at someone else who has what you have and to kind of emulate them. You can also kind of emulate yourself as well, right? Like you can emulate a version of yourself that you think is incredible and who you want to become and who you can so clearly visualize. It's not about faking it. It's about rehearsing the reality that you're stepping into and over time the gap between who you are and who you're acting as if begins to close and so you feel like that version of you is real. It's like method acting almost, method acting for a future version of you that you want to become. Also not to bring up modeling again, but if it's too hard to fake it, you don't have to. You can also borrow your confidence. You can borrow other people's innate abilities. You can borrow their sense of satisfaction and pride in themselves. When you see someone that you really admire, think about the coolest person you know, the coolest, most ambitious, amazing person, aspirational person you know, think about everything that they would do in this situation that you're scared to be in. How would they hold themselves? How would they walk in? How would they speak? How would they communicate? How would they be? Think about that. Take it all and pretend that that's you. Borrow what they have. There was a study that I read from 2021 that actually looked at how this is used to help train the confidence of young Olympic athletes or Olympic hopefuls. There was a study done in Korea and the research is basically asked the participants who were people who would probably one day be in the Olympics to borrow their confidence from someone they admire. They were paired with an older team member or an older Olympic hopeful or an Olympian even at that. They were asked to think about them before they started swimming or dove off the diving board or do whatever sport they were doing. Think about them. Think about what they would do. Think about how they would stand and their self-efficacy, which we know as a crucial ingredient, increased. Not only did their self-efficacy increase, they were also better able to really shift into a flow state. They were better able to cut through the noise of their own insecurity or their lack of self-belief and just be present in what they were doing. So just choose someone you admire. Another step to mastering confidence and really building this skill like a muscle is putting yourself in situations where you can prove to yourself you can cope. You can win. You can show up. You can be successful. Basically find ways to experience small boosts to your confidence like those mastery experiences we were talking about before. A lot of building confidence is actually exposure. Like anything if you have a social phobia like how they treat most phobias as exposures. If you have a social phobia or any kind of anxiety around specifically being around people. What someone is probably going to ask you what therapist is probably going to get you to do is to be in those spaces that terrify you the most as much as possible. If you are terrified of dating you have to go on 10 first dates to win the challenge. If you're scared of meeting strangers you have to go to all these stranger events. If you're scared of giving presentations you have to volunteer to do them. No skill ever is built simply by thinking about it. It's built through practice. It's built through stretching, pushing yourself and you know what that's really scary. It's really freaking scary. It's also the only way to do it. I'm sorry to say. And then one day not too long in the future, you'll suddenly find yourself being the person who is no longer at the beginning of the story, but half way through it, who was able to turn around and say, "I used to be someone who really struggled with this. I used to be someone who didn't want a date, who didn't want to put myself out there, who didn't want to wear these clothes." And now, I'm a success story because I put in the work. Finally, really consciously focus on your sphere of control. This is like the practical everyday application of cultivating a growth mindset and a strong locus of control. When you find yourself facing a challenge or a daunting situation or decision, you have to really ask yourself, "What parts of this can I genuinely do something about and what parts do I just have to accept or lean into?" Then, critically direct your energy and your effort solely towards the things you can influence, your preparation, your effort, your belief, your learning, your attitude, how you choose to adapt, rather than wasting precious time and energy on things that are never going to be something you can change even if you try your hardest. One huge example of something you can't control, and this might surprise you, it's what other people choose to think of you. You may be thinking, "Wait, what the heck? Isn't that all we've been talking about? All those exercises that you just told us? Wasn't that to control or influence what other people think?" No, those aren't meant to change what they think. They meant to change what you think. They meant to change how you think about yourself. That is way more powerful than ever trying to change what other people think of you. They're going to follow your example. How you think about yourself as how other people will often end up thinking about you. People can have whatever opinions they want as well. That's also not your business. You just can't control it and you will go mad trying to because trust me, there will always be someone who has negative thoughts about everyone, no matter who they are. I think we've all been on the internet long enough to know this, right? You know, literally think about like the coolest person on this planet, like the most confident, successful, talented person. I can tell you right now, there is someone out there who doesn't like that person. There is someone out there who could sit down with this person and have a big in-depth conversation and still not like them. If confidence only came from people liking you, no one would ever be confident because everyone, there is a hate of everyone out there. So instead of fighting against this like a movable brick wall that is someone else's nasty thoughts, focus on how you feel. What do you want from a situation? How do you want to leave feeling? Remember, people that are confident, they're not these like shiny, perfect, great at everything. People, they are often people who can admit when they're not great at things, they can ask for help. They also know that there will be people who don't like them, but they know what's in their control, which is their mindset. Okay, we are going to take another short break, but when we return, I have some listener questions, some listener dilemmas, all about confidence, so please stay with us. We will be right back after this short break. Next down the week's most problematic stories on our new podcast, you're the problem with Yamannika. If he got a bunch of women, then I should have a bunch of men. Do better or do less, so I don't have to do so much. So join Yamannika each episode as she answers one question, who's the problem? I'm Yamannika and I'm out. Listen to you're the problem with Yamannika on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Nick Tutorial. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest shot, or Spike Lee's Black Plansman, but I'm also from Queens, which means I know pizza. And on my new podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Tutorial, I deliver pizza from Prince Street Pizza to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins, what are you doing on Vell? To Alex Rodriguez. Just to let you people know we're talking to one of the goats here. To Bill Burr. Let's go happiness, delivering happiness. Mariano Rivera. And many many more. And listen now. What's up fam? And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together in iHeart Women's Sports. So Kelsey Fandler, she became the first female solo roeer to go from California to Hawaii. Like what are we? What are we eating? Every week we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. She beat Savalinka. Hey Portlandia fans. You know us or rather you know them. We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years. But today we're showing up as ourselves to tell you about podlandia, AO rewatch, our brand new podcast. Each week we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning. Breaking down the sketches, exploring the back stories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love and opening up about our creative process. Listen to podlandia. AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. My first guest is Paris Hilton, Shakira, Luke and Yerin. Samira and Gracie! I'm so excited! On the bouncy bed. You have surprises. Many surprises. Welcome to sweet pre-op 5 where the good chat comes to life. What up? What up? What up? It's like a form of a saying like, "Hola amiga, hola mejor amiga, hola hermana, hola!" What up? Mira, I've never seen you talk to anyone. Except with my kids. My kids know. Se mi amante. Lemonade! No one should miss you. How do you say? I would like to work with this person. This is sweet pre-op 5. Listen to sweet pre-op 5 with lelepons as part of my Tultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back everybody. We have some listener questions coming straight from you guys. Obviously, the listener's. If you want to be able to part take in this section of the podcast, make sure you are following us at that psychology podcast over on Instagram so that you can see when I put up question boxes for new episodes. Questions for this week? So good. Thank you guys for coming out with your question hats on. I sound like a school teacher, but yes, thank you for asking some really cool interesting things. Let's get into it. This question in some form or another was probably the most asked question. I really struggle that if I'm too confident I will come off as cocky in work situations and beyond. Where is the line? So many of you wanted to know this. Where is the line between being confident and arrogant or coming off as a jerk? Such a great question. I think the fact that you are already aware of this possibility means that you are probably self correcting too much because you're so conscious of it, which could actually be having the opposite effect of meeting your shrinking yourself more than you deserve to. We want to find an authentic way of expressing confidence. Right. And so what's important to notice is how you're really feeling in yourself. Don't think about others for a second. When you are truly confident, you probably feel very calm, you feel alert, you feel grounded. When you are feeling arrogant, you feel tense, you feel anxious, you feel like you have something to prove, you feel forceful. Learn to tell the two apart and to just stay in the first lane. When you are authentically confident, that comes off amazingly. When you feel grounded, it comes off amazingly. When you are anxious as when you actually end up being arrogant. So as long as you can tell the difference, I think you're pretty safe. I will also say I hate the word "cocky". They're especially when it's used towards others to put them down. Like, there are very, very, very few people who are genuinely arrogant and cocky. And yet, people use that word to really keep other people small because it benefits them to do so. Or because they think that they should get to being control of how people act. When it's not of their business, often it is just a projection of how they think they themselves should act. And therefore, however, on else should act because they have chosen to do it. But they don't really get to make the rules. No one does. Worried less about being seen as cocky and more about what feels right for you to share, what feels right for you to open up about, what you want to say, how you want to act, how you feel in a situation. If you feel strong and powerful, if you don't doubt yourself or question yourself and say things that genuinely feel true and meaningful, that is coming from a deep place. And if someone interprets that as cocky, you know that it's not your intention. And that's really the only explanation you need. Basically, if you're worried about coming off as arrogant or conceded, you are actually the person that I'd probably be worried least about because you have self-awareness. And I don't think that truly arrogant people do. So you should be okay. Second question, another freaking banger, why do we feel less confident in a group of very confident people? I think there are a few explanations. Maybe, I think firstly, it feels like there's probably less space to take up, less kind of like breathing room because everyone is like really demanding and asking for airtime. Probably also triggers a little bit of imposter syndrome, like these people have real reasons to be confident. Like these people really look like they believe in themselves. I don't, I'm just a fraud. Their confidence seems organic. Mine feels fake. That's one take. Let's also talk about a more neurobiological side to things, which is a bit more complex, but we often, I think, feel less confident in groups of highly confident people, not just because of imposter syndrome, but also because of dominance hierarchies. We are deeply social animals that's encoded into our neurobiology. And from an evolutionary standpoint, entering a group meant having to be able to subconsciously assess where we sat in the social order. So who's dominant, who's subordinate, who's safe to align with, who feels like a friend, high confidence and high confident people signal dominance through their tone, their posture, their speech, they feel like they are leaders. And so our brain has to readjust where we sit. And that may interpret things as a challenge to our social standing, even if it's not because we have these ancient brains in a modern setting. You know, there isn't just one person who's always enticed. There isn't just one leader who will dominate over others. There is more space. The important thing to also remember is that truly confident people, they are the ones who want others to thrive and they want to elevate you. Confident people have actually been shown to judge others less. And they spend more time assessing themselves compared to other people. So actually in a room full of confident people, you are probably the safest you will ever be from judgment. So actually this is where you should feel free to be loud. Take risks, tell stories, be who you want to be authentically. If they judge you, that's something they have to address. Not you. Next question, does being delusional actually help in elevating confidence? 100%. Yes, yes, yes. Being delusional can make you more confident. It's again, the language and the way that you're speaking to yourself. It relates to that self-fulfilling prophecy that we kind of talked about before. If you feel like you can be something, if you just so deeply believe it, chances are that you're more likely to act in a way that will make that happen. Kind of relating to the first question, though, there is a fine line here between delusion and narcissism and also delusion and actually putting in the work. Like confidence is a skill, not a trait. That's the title of the episode. Skills require work. So saying like, this is going to happen to me. This is going to happen for me. All great things. You should believe in yourself. You should believe in your dreams. You also have to do something about them. You also have to find a way to take all of that really positive energy. Like that's a great starting point. And make a plan. Be willing to initiate. Be willing to put yourself out there. Be willing to be cringe embarrassing fail. That's what a really confident person would do. But yes, being delusional, 100% very helpful. Final question. How do I feel confident in a physical feature? I can't change. I don't want to get surgery. Sash, I can't. So how do I embrace if not truly learn to love this part of me? I really relate to this. Yeah, I really relate to this for a long time. There are things about myself that I really wanted to change. I still do. Here's the thing. We were not meant to be as conscious of our appearance as we are. Appearance was not meant to be such an important factor as it is in modern society. And so of course, it's really hard to love yourself when the thing a lot of us feel judged for first and foremost is by our looks. And it's not just that looks signal attractiveness anymore or fertility or whatever it was meant to. It signals wealth and it signals social standing and it signals all these other things that is just like making it such a confusing thing to manage. Oh my god, I saw this video the other day and not to judge this woman at all. But I saw this video of this woman who had sperm. Like what was it? Like fish sperm injected into her face. And I was like that. I imagine telling someone like 6,000 years ago that that was something that was done. Like that sounds like medieval torture. And yet that's like something that people pay for to like stay young these days. And it's just the culture that we live in. No wonder everyone feels ugly. Like I don't know anyone who like truly just feels beautiful in themselves anymore. There's always something that an industry or a business or a brand is going to try and make you feel insecure about. So it's worth asking yourself who taught me that this was a problem in the first place. And what do they have to gain from making me feel bad? Often, you know, our discomfort is a mirror reflecting society's very narrow ideals. It's not an objective truth. Ugliness is actually not objective. At all. Also just really start by softening the language. Shift from ugly to unusual to unique to special from embarrassing to mine to whatever word you want to use that feels firstly neutral and then positive. You don't have to force yourself to love yourself right away. Aim for neutrality. Aim for something that's a little bit easier and just saying this part of me it exists. I don't need to shrink because of it. Also how you look is really the least interesting thing about you. And I know I've said that so often. And I'm sorry if you've heard it before. But if life was all about appearances, it would be very boring. And beauty does fade. And beauty becomes something that people can only talk about for so long. So focus on the other areas of your life where you feel naturally confident and work on expanding them. Work on thinking about them more, putting more time into those areas, celebrating them, beauty and attractiveness. It is something we all live with obviously and have to consider and we exist in a system where that does matter. I'm not going to deny it. But how much do you want it to matter? How much do you want it to dictate the rest of your life? That's like a big question that I think is very existential and that you kind of have to answer for yourself. But I wish you the best of luck and know that I'm there with you. And I've had many similar thoughts. That is all we have time for today. My lovely listeners. I hope that this episode has given you something to think about and given you something to apply to your own life. I hope you know confidence is a skill, not a trait. And with a skill with any skill it's something that you can improve in whatever area of your life you want to feel more like yourself and more for yourself. Leave your most like unhinged confidence tips in the comments below. If you have one that I haven't mentioned let's share it. What's the thing that you do that like is just so weird and wacky but always works and always makes you feel amazing whether it's like a playlist whether it's like whatever it is like what is it? I want to know. Make sure again you are following me on Instagram @ that psychology podcast and let you share this episode with a friend, with a family member with a colleague who you think could benefit from listening to it. Follow, subscribe, like, share, all those things. I always forget which order they're in but you know that you'll really helps the show grow, helps it reach new people. Also it puts us by on my face if that's something you may or may not want to do. But anyways until next time stay safe, be kind, be gentle with yourself. We will talk very very soon. Hey Portlandia fans. The dream of the 90s is a live in podcast form. We're launching podlandia a o re watch. Breaking down sketches, going deep on our iK comic characters and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made. Guest stars, collaborators and friends, including director Jonathan Chrysel, the mayor himself Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Ainy Mann, and many more. You fully improvise not just words, but a song about it. Listen to Podlandia, A.O. Rewatch on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up fam, I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up y'all, it's your girl Sam Jay. And we're the host of everyone watches women sports, a new podcast from Together in iHeart Women Sports. We're breaking down the biggest headlines, Naomi Osaka, showing out, shoutout to you now. The viral moments, I've been obsessed with Koshan Rock's boxing journey. She looks good, her combos are swift, and the stories everyone's talking about across women's sports. Because everyone watches women sports. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The world gets crazier and Yamannika is here to tell whoever's responsible you're the problem. Do better or do less so I don't have to do so much. Listen to you're the problem with Yamannika on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Guaranteed Human.