PepTalk
Everybody needs a cheerleader...somebody in their corner hyping them up to perform their best. That's me. Everybody also needs a Coach...somebody in their corner giving them tips to tap into all of their potential so that they can make the most of their life! That's also me! This podcast is where those two elements converge and I speak to you about ways to work hard, pray harder, believe better, and live life to the fullest in every single way on every single day! It's time to level up, elevate, and slay the day! Have you had your pep talk yet?
PepTalk
#67: Bob the Builder Could NEVER: Building Your Own Confidence
What if you could finally unlock the full potential within you, held back only by a lack of self-belief? Join me, on this transformative episode of Pep Talk as we explore the profound impact of confidence on our ability to succeed. Drawing inspiration from William James, the father of modern psychology, we dissect how most individuals live restricted lives due to insufficient self-assurance. Through compelling personal stories and motivational insights, I challenge you to convert your latent abilities into dynamic productivity. This episode is a goldmine of practical advice on nurturing confidence to achieve your true purpose and make a significant impact.
Discover the secrets behind the unwavering confidence of elite athletes like Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, and learn how to build similar intrinsic belief in your own abilities. We'll delve into the vital process of accurate self-assessment, emphasizing that true confidence comes from within and is bolstered by positive visualization and tangible achievements. I’ll share personal anecdotes, illustrating how consistent practice and handling criticism productively can elevate your self-efficacy. Tune in to grasp actionable strategies to reinforce your belief in your abilities, handle challenges with grace, and ultimately, unlock your true potential. This empowering episode promises not just to inspire, but to equip you with the tools to elevate your confidence and achieve sustained success.
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When's the last time you had a pep talk? Pep talk, pep talk. Yo, when's the last time you had a pep talk? Has it been a minute? That's okay, you're in the right place. I've got you. Welcome to pep talk. And today we're talking about confidence. Now let's get it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to season three, episode 2, of Pep Talk. I'm your host, Coach J Life Coach in DFW, and I'm so glad to be here hanging out with you today for what is going to be a really impactful episode. But before I get there, I want to let you know that this is the podcast that cheers you on and coaches you up. Here in the Pep Talk world, we believe that everybody needs a cheerleader to encourage you and tell you how great you are, but we also need a coach that can take that and challenge us to go deeper and to achieve higher heights, and I want to be that cheerleader and that coach, and so I'm so thankful that you have chosen to spend the first part of your week with us. We drop episodes on every Monday, and that's right. You heard of the first. This is season three, episode two, and we're just so happy that you've chosen to give us a little bit of your time to get your week started on a good foot. Get on a good foot, y'all Listen. If this is your first time catching the podcast, we're so glad that you're joining with us. You are an honorary member of the Pep Squad. You are deputized to go and spread pep encouragement, motivation and inspiration to everybody in your sphere of influence. Remember, a rising tide lifts all ships Now let's get into it. Tide lifts all ships Now let's get into it.
Speaker 1:I ran across a quote and it was by a man by the name of William James, who was considered to be the modern, the father of modern psychology, really and this quote really caught my attention and I'm going to tell you why after I give you the quote. So here's the quote William James said most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. I'm going to read that again Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. Now, here's what he means by this and I think if any of you out there are like me, then I think this kind of will resonate with you. But he compared this to someone who uses only a small part of their body. Like, let's just say that you were choosing to go through life only using your pinky toe. Okay, now, we know the pinky toe is important for balance, but if you're only going through life intent on using your pinky toe, then you are limiting yourself, quite literally to maybe 1% of what you could be doing if you had both of your pinky toes. And then the whole foot, ankle, legs, knees. You know all of these things and so, in the same way, when he says that most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being, what he's saying is most of us are living lives that are restricted. Our potential is restricted for a reason, and I believe that reason is confidence.
Speaker 1:Now, if you've listened to the podcast at all, then you know that I have a love-hate relationship with the word potential, as someone who grew up hearing you have all of this potential, this potential, this potential. For me, potential became like a four letter word. You give me the spark notes, the cliffs notes, give me the hacking code to be able to dig into that, to make that potential something that is actualized Now. But seeing this quote, it's almost like a key going into a keyhole. Most people live in a restricted circle of their potential being.
Speaker 1:Most people live with the potential of who they could be. And it's restricted because that potential energy is never just supposed to stay potential. I mean, let's talk from a science perspective, right, energy at rest, that is potential energy. But that energy at rest should be stored in order to be put into motion, into an action, to do something. So it should become kinetic energy at some point. And, to that same token, the potential that has been placed inside of you has never just been meant to stay a seed, meant to stay a seed, but instead that seed has been implanted within you with all of the energy that's needed to grow roots so that, at appointed moments in time, that potential becomes something that leads you to productivity, that leads you to your purpose, that leads you to the impact and the influence that every one of us are supposed to have, to varying degrees, in our lives here on the earth.
Speaker 1:And so, as I think about my experience with this word potential, I understand now. I understand now that that thing that often keeps us in this repetitive loop of living only in potential is confidence, because I could have the potential to be the greatest speaker in the world. However, if I don't believe that I can become that speaker, then it's only potential. I could have the potential to be the greatest writer of best-selling books in the world, but if I never have the confidence and the belief in my writing to actually write books, the world will never know. I could have the confidence to be the greatest insert whatever you want to insert, that applies to you in that sentence. But unless you have the belief to get to that point and to do something about it, y'all it will always remain potential and you'll be caught up in this loop of potential where you can see it kind of you kind of know what it is, but when it comes time to pull the trigger or to activate that thing, something pulls you back, something holds you back and keeps you stuck in that potential loop.
Speaker 1:Now I know that growing up many of us, we saw a lot of different types of people, but when we're talking about this confidence thing, I can remember believing that there were people who just seemed to be born with this incredible, incredible, unwavering amount of confidence. From kindergarten, you know, kids say, oh, I can jump from the top of the monkey bars and land on my feet and then guess what? They do it. And so when we see things like that, we begin to believe that there are people who are born with this unwavering amount of self-confidence, but I don't think that that's the right way to think about it, because if we think that there are people who are born with confidence, then oftentimes people think that we were not born with this, so that we're not meant to have it, and I think that a life that is lived without confidence is potentially a life that is wasted, because of the potential in you, because of everything that has been implanted inside of you.
Speaker 1:And I think that when we think about confidence as something that we're born with, I think that we're oversimplifying things, because, while there may be people who were born into situations where their confidence is affirmed and built, I think I would prefer to think about confidence as a skill set. It's something that we can develop over time, it's something that we can build, and I think when we think about it from that standpoint, like it's not a fixed thing in our lives. It's something that when we take control of it, when we, you know, when we devote ourselves to, to building it, then we're able to see the growth over time, almost like going to, almost like going to the gym my, one of my, my, my second son, my youngest son. He has been doing workouts since he got out of school this summer and one of the cool things, he came up to me and he said Dad, you know, I used to could you know, only do three pushups, but now that I've been doing pushups every day, I can get up to 12. And some days I think I can go above 12. And I'm like yo, that's cool.
Speaker 1:And when I think about that along the vein of confidence, I want you to equate it to something that we have to work at and it's something that we have to work out. And so what that means for you is that, even if you have not had confidence to this point, even if you've not been a confident person to this point, there is still hope for you. As long as you're breathing, as long as you're drawing air, there is still hope for you to develop the kind of confidence that allows you to live a full and fulfilling life have. Whether you were in a situation where you were grown into it or whether you are just now, at this stage in life, deciding, I need to become a confident person because there's things that I have to do, the good news today is that you absolutely can and it is there for you to hold because, again, confidence is a skill and skills are there for us to acquire.
Speaker 1:So I want to give you a definition for what confidence is, and I've looked at a lot of different articles, I've studied on the psychology of confidence and I think that this definition kind of pulls together. It's an amalgamation of lots of different things that I've read, but for the purpose of this conversation, I think confidence is the degree to which you think and feel like your actions will achieve positive results. Again, it is the degree to which you think or feel right that your actions will achieve a positive result. So I'm a huge basketball fan, ok, and right now you know you have incredible, incredible athletes like Luka Doncic. I'm in Dallas, so you know Dallas is having a great season right now and Luka is killing it. Kyrie Irving is killing it and they're playing the Timberwolves and the Timberwolves have Anthony Edwards on their team, who is an up-and-coming young hooper who is just ridiculous in what he's able to do with the basketball no-transcript, but he's not going to stop shooting, he's going to keep shooting.
Speaker 1:And when you talk to people who shoot the basketball like they really have a gift for shooting. Like Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, the Splash Brothers in Golden State, they will tell you that they always believe that the next shot is going in. They believe they think they have this intrinsic battery within them, have this intrinsic battery within them, this intrinsic thought pattern and loop that, no matter how many shots they've missed to that point, they believe the next shot is going in. And I think that is what really separates some of the greats from some people that we might consider to be, maybe, role players and I believe everybody has a role on a team but when we talk about great basketball players or great football players like you know, michael Irving, randy Moss no matter how many balls they may have missed catching, they always believe that the next ball should come to them, but also that they will catch the next ball. And I think this goes, you know, beyond this whole idea of the little engine that could. It's not necessarily I think I can. I think I can. It's more along the lines of I believe I can Because, again, consider our definition Confidence is the degree to which you think or feel like your actions will yield positive results and when you don't feel like your actions will yield a results and when you don't feel like your actions will yield a positive results, guess what?
Speaker 1:You don't do it. You really don't do it. When I went through a phase where I did not feel like the podcast was yielding positive results, my confidence in podcasting took a hit. You see what I'm saying Now. I also need to clarify that confidence and self-esteem are not the same. Self-esteem refers to your general feelings about yourself, but confidence is more specific. Confidence refers to your belief that you can perform a task successfully. I could have good self-esteem, I can believe that I'm a good person, that I do good things, but I could lack confidence where specific things are related and, as such, because of that lack of confidence, I can still believe I'm a great person and still live life stuck in the restrictive circle of potential.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing the catalyst here to bring confidence to life is the realization and the belief that your actions yield results. So, in other words, it's up to you. If you choose to do something, then you can develop the confidence for it. But if you never choose to do it, if you never choose to cultivate your potential, okay, if you continually are waiting for people to give you a platform and you're never making use of the platform that you have, no matter how tall it is at the moment. If you never take your goals and your dreams seriously enough to invest in them, then your, your actions are leading to, you know, are they're being productive in a negative sense, meaning that you're going to be stuck and you're going to be very dissatisfied with life. However, if you have the confidence and I think no, let me continue If you have the confidence to believe that your actions will yield a positive result, then I think that you're more likely to just do stuff.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of times, we and when I say we, I'm pointing back at myself we get so caught up in, you know, the, the, the all of the rigmarole of everything that we're trying to do, that we just don't do anything. And then you know, years go by and we look back and we're like gosh, I wasted time. I've wasted. I've wasted so much time, and lack of confidence will cost you. A lack of confidence will yield a lifetime of regrets, because the very things that you may have been created by God to do, you will never get around to doing them. You will never find it within yourself to believe that you can do them. And listen, I grew up with people telling me I could do so many different things, but I never believed it. That's why confidence, if it is to be it, has to start with you. It has to come from inside of you, because, while people can encourage you along the way and that's what I'm hoping this podcast does encourages you along the way At some point we have to take up the mantle.
Speaker 1:We have to take up the battle cry to say if this is going to happen, I am going to have to do it and I'm going to have to stick to it, through the highs and the lows, no matter how many times I may fail, I have to believe the next attempt is going to work. I'm telling you, those are sustaining thoughts that will help you to build your confidence. Help you to build your confidence. Now I want to talk about how you can build your confidence, this belief, this thinking, this feeling that your actions will yield positive results. Okay, you may want to take notes or, better yet, listen to the podcast again, right? So I think the first place that I want to start is we need to be real with ourselves and engage in what's called accurate self-assessment Now, accurate self-assessment.
Speaker 1:So we tell our kids right and I try not to tell my kids this, but I know I've been guilty of doing it we tell our kids you can do anything, you're great in everything, you're talented, you're beautiful, you're all of these things. You're great in everything. And I think when I say it sometimes I cringe, not because it's not true, because my kids are great. I tell my students that they're great all the time. However, telling a kid that they're great and everything, it's just not true that they can do anything. That's true to a degree, but as a whole, it's not necessarily true. Like you know, you could pick up a violin and you can learn to play the violin. You know lessons in YouTube, but maybe without the talent or the gifting behind it, you may never be able to bring that music to life. So I think, while there are many things that we can do, I think there are limits to certain things that we're able to do, and I think that's where gifting and talented talent abilities come in.
Speaker 1:However, when we tell our kids you know when we are pumping our kids full of smoke too much, we can create this overconfidence and this distorted self perception that when a kid comes up against something that is hard for them to do, they kind of crumple, and I see this a lot. Students who don't study for tests don't have the confidence that studying for the test will help them right and see, it's okay, because not every kid is a great artist, not every person's a great artist. Not every podcast is meant to become the top 1%. Not every preacher is meant to have a huge church. Not every singer is meant to record an album or be a lead singer. And that's okay, so long as what you have to do, you are confident in doing it. And so confidence or another word for that is self-efficacy is built by experiencing achievement. And how else can you experience achievement except through doing stuff?
Speaker 1:Hollow praise is like empty calories, okay, and so if you're going to conduct an accurate self-assessment, it starts by being real with yourself. You need to have a realistic appraisal of your abilities and your gifts and know where you stand in any given moment. Now, how do I know where I stand? You're going to have to put some things into motion. You're going to have to put some things into action to see, because you'll never truly know how good you are at something until you try doing that thing.
Speaker 1:I remember when my wife and I got married. I could make a mean bowl of frosted flakes, I could make a bomb oven pizza. I could make some amazing burgers in a George Foreman grill, but when we got pregnant with our first child, something happened with my wife's with her sense of taste or smell, and so I had to take over the cooking. Now, you know, almost 21 years later, I'm the primary cook in the house and I'm confident in it and I'm good with it too. In it, and I'm good with it too. And I say that having a track record of making good meals If you're going to have an accurate self-awareness and know what you're good at, you're going to have to develop a track record in those areas. Okay, that will allow you to be realistic and know who you are and where you are, and it also allows you to develop a strategy to become stronger in the areas where your confidence is really pushing you, and it creates a positive feedback loop. Now I believe I can. It's not. I think I can, it's, I know I can. I believe I can because, again, confidence is your belief, your thinking or the feeling that your actions will yield a positive result, and when you are aware of what you can do well, it reduces anxiety when you enter pressure moments associated with those things.
Speaker 1:Number two engage in positive visualization. Now a lot of people will say that this is new age manifestation. No, I don't. I don't believe in manifesting stuff. I believe you know, um, I believe in faith, I believe in work, um, and I, I believe, I do believe, I believe that daydreams are powerful. I used to daydream when I was smaller, just like briefly, you know. I'd catch flashes of things that I might be able to do as an adult. And even today, I sometimes find myself caught up into these moments where, like my dreams, my desires are so close that I can almost touch them.
Speaker 1:Mark of people who are confident y'all Psychologists and therapists have borne this out is that they visualize. They have these positive visualizations, these moments of themselves being successful winning a beauty contest, winning a Nobel Prize, speaking confidently on a stage, accepting an Academy Award, you know, being president of the United States, you know, opening that business. They have these moments where they visualize, they actually see themselves inhabiting their dreams, and I think that that is a powerful, powerful motivationary activity. So let's try it real quick. I want you to close your eyes for just a moment and I just want you to visualize whatever that dream is that you have for your life. Whatever that dream is that you have for your life. Close your eyes and I want you to visualize what it looks like for you to be in that thing.
Speaker 1:My daughter and I have talked about, you know, having a coffee shop. I can see it. I can see it, you know, surrounded by books. I can see people in there having coffee and vibing to local artists. I can see the drinks they're so good. I can see it. What do you see when you visualize success for your life? How does it make you feel? And actually I want you to send me a note to at the pep podcast at gmailcom. Let me know what you visualize, what's your positive visualization and what action does it lead you to want to take, because the next no, that's not the next thing, sorry.
Speaker 1:So the next thing is, if you want to develop confidence, you have to be able to take criticism productively. Now, I know that all the criticism that we get in our lives may not be positive, but I think even in criticism that may not be positive, we can still find a silver lining or a vein of silver in it that we can use to make ourselves better. Now what that requires is that we commit to not taking every ounce of criticism taking it negatively, at face value. Maybe we analyze it, maybe we examine it, maybe we examine it and see if there's something that we can pull away from it. Confident people they just handle criticism differently. They use criticism as a data point and they use that data as information to drive what they do or don't do next and, as a result, studies have shown it boosts their productivity. Criticism can boost your productivity.
Speaker 1:And then I guess where I want to end is we need to experience confidence building events. We need to experience confidence building events, and here's what that means. In order to build confidence, we need to have events that cause us to believe that we can. You need to get that hit in little league that causes you to think it in high school, in college, you can play baseball. You need to give that League that causes you to think that in high school and college, you can play baseball. You need to give that speech that causes you to believe that you could be a great speaker or a great preacher or an orator or a poet laureate. We all need those moments in life that encourage us to keep going with something. And I'm going to take it a step further. And I'm going to take it a step further.
Speaker 1:It's not just experiencing those things, it is also. It's also because, see, people with low self-esteem also have confidence building events. They can recall them, but they don't have the same perspective as people with high confidence. They just didn't pay attention to them and I believe that's the reason why I a lot of times I can remember the negative things people say about me, but the positive things, just I know they happen, but they feel out of reach. It's because of my perception, like we experience these good, positive, event building, confidence building things in our lives and we let them slip through, we don't hold on to them, we don't perceive them in a healthy way. That's going to help us be our best selves. Confident people pay attention, they stop, they build an altar to those confidence things so that they can come back and remember those watershed moments and use those to propel them further in life. They place weight on the positive experiences so they don't want to let them just slip through their fingers like water People with low confidence something good happens. They keep on trekking toward the negative. They place more weight on the negative, where the positive things just continually fall further and further out of reach, fall further and further out of reach.
Speaker 1:If you want to become a more confident person, I challenge you to pay more attention to the events in your life that have yielded positive results, because those are going to be the energy sources that lead you to becoming more confident and becoming a more action-oriented person. Listen, confidence follows action. It just does. That's the way that it comes. Confidence follows action, and when you begin to get to a place where you can put action to your dreams, action to your words, then you will be astonished at how your confidence skill, your confidence muscle, has increased.
Speaker 1:Now I know I've given you a lot of information over this episode, and please understand that I'm talking to myself as much as you. In my break, I've learned that my confidence is not where it needs to be all the time. We're remedying that and we're doing it together as a community. So here's what I want from you. I want to know what are you confident? What are you the most confident about yourself in when you close your eyes and see greatness and success for you. Where do you see it Like? What avenue? What does it look like? Better yet, what does it feel like? Drop us a line at thepeppodcastgmailcom. I want to hear from you, or holler at me at underscore JBSpeaks on Instagram or on TikTok and let me know what does it look like, what does it feel like for you, where is your confidence level right now and why? Because you believe that your actions will yield a positive result. I've given you some things to chew on and I can't wait to hear back from you on these things.
Speaker 1:Y'all. This has been episode two of season three of the Pep Talk podcast. I'm so glad that you've chosen again to spend some time with us today. I believe in you. I think that you are an incredible person, but it's up to you to believe that as well. I hope to see you back here next week for episode three of the pep talk podcast with your boy coach J and y'all know how we end things Keep it love, keep it light and keep it peppy. And don't forget tell your friends and family about the Pep Talk Podcast. Share it with your friends, with your enemies and especially with your frenemies. I love you guys. I'll see you next time. Y'all be blessed, peace.