Trust, Power, and Presence: A Real Talk on Rebuilding Confidence from Within

 In this powerful solo episode, we dive deep into the real meaning of self-trust — and why so many of us think we trust ourselves, when in truth, we’re quietly living in doubt, procrastination, and overwhelm. I share my personal journey of recognising how often I stepped out of my power, tried to prove my worth, or placed others on pedestals — and what it really takes to come back to yourself.
 

You’ll learn how to identify when you're in your power versus out of it, how your body holds the key to trust, and how to build integrity with yourself through small, consistent actions. If you've ever struggled to follow through, trust your decisions, or feel grounded in your worth — this episode is your invitation to return.
 

This is radical trust. This is self-leadership.

 Let’s rebuild it from the inside out. 

Transcript

0:01

In this episode, I talk about the illusion of self-trust, how power and trust are interlinked, and how one affects the other. I talk about how to use the body to know when you are in your power and know that being in your power is a practice, not a destination. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 1:01

Trust. How do we trust others if we can't even trust ourselves? This is a big, big topic, but it's something that I think gets missed by most people. And the reason I say that is because I myself, for years thought that I trusted myself fully and that I knew exactly what I needed to do when I needed to do it. Whether that is in relationships, finances, finances, business, my own health and wellbeing. Whatever it was, I thought I knew that I knew exactly what I needed to do and I trusted myself to do that thing, but I've been riddled, riddled the right word. Yeah. I've been riddled with overwhelm and procrastination and I would get so far and be like, is this the right thing? And I would question, I would question. A lot of what I was doing at the time. And so after some investigation, I don't even know where, if investigation's the right word. It, um, in a, in a inner work, I've kind of realized that for years, years and years. I had this huge part of myself that said, I do not trust myself, and it's only when I looked inside. So rather than looking on the outside, I look inside that I actually realized that for the majority of the time, I don't trust myself. But that's been, that realization in itself has been massive because. It's helped. Now that I know that there's a, there was a belief or there was part of me that didn't believe that I didn't trust myself. I'm now able to change it and luckily I am I, the lady I know called Kara Elizabeth, fuck, I think I mentioned her a few times. In fact, I interviewed her that last episode and. We did a session on Alchemizing and I alchemized the not trusting to trusting. So now my natural instinct is trust. That doesn't mean that not trusting myself isn't there the opposite, but there's a sense that. We have duality. So with trust, we have lack of trust with happiness, we have sadness with grief, we have joy. Everything with, with with fear, we have happiness. I think there's, I, I dunno. But anyway, we have the opposites. But this realization that we have opposites allowed me to know that inside somewhere, there is trust. There is part of my body that trusts itself. And so being able to explore that has really helped me to find that place of trust, that found that place of, and being able to focus that my, my focus, my energy, my thoughts in that place. One thing that has come from working through trusting myself again, is really stepping into my own power now, finding that power, my own real power, my inner power. It is becoming a big priority for myself right now because I know that when I'm in my power, I'm in my, I'm in my, I'm in my best place. I'm able to focus. I trust myself. I know exactly what I need to do and when I need to do it. And so making that so like before I recorded this episode, I made sure that I was in my power. And even now as I say it, I'm making sure that I am, I'm in that area of being my power and how do I do that? How do I do that? There's a few ways that I do that. And the first, I find that you have to distinguish when you are in your power and when you are out of your power. Then once you have distinguished that it's being able then to identify how, how is my body, how does my posture look? That's the first key thing. So I know that when I'm in my power. I'm naturally opera. My chest is, my chest is up slightly, not over exaggerated as though my chest is right out, but so that my, I'm in most up. I'm in this better posture. My shoulders are back. I'm more relaxed. I'm calm, I'm breathing. In fact, when I am in my power, I allow myself to feel my own breath, and I breathe through my stomach. Rather than the chest breathing, quite often we do, we have shallow breathing, so we chest breathe. When I'm in my power, I'm able to really hone in on my deep breaths. In fact, I make it a priority to slow my breathing down because naturally when you slow your breathing down, you slow down and you're able to distinguish. That sense of being in your power, that sense of where your trust is, whether you distrust yourself or whether you trust yourself. Where, where's your focus? Where's your attention? Another thing is, when I'm in my power, I'm able to identify how I react throughout the day. So if I am, if I'm anxious, if I am. I not very calm. If I am a bit erratic, if I'm trying to do one job at multiple jobs, I'm not in my power. If I am slow, as I said, if I am watching my breaths like here, now I'm talking slower and I've noticed that myself while I'm doing podcast episodes is that there's times when. My natural, my pace will pick up. I get excited and then I realize, okay, I need to step her back a little bit, a little bit here, take a few deep breaths, come back to me. Or if I, if I notice that the person that I'm interviewing, if I have them on the pedestals, what I mean by a pedestal is if I, um. If I almost worship that person, then I am almost putting them onto a pedestal. I'm putting them beyond myself. So then it's realizing that, okay, I'm doing that. So I think, I think I did the same with T um, t Taylor, Taylor, Eaton. I did the same with Cara initially. But then once you're able to identify that you're putting them into a pedestal, I'm able to bring my energy back to me. I know that I am just as worthy as they are. I am just as good enough. They might have certain skills, certain attributes, which are incredible, but I might have other things which make me just as incredible, just as amazing as Carone Taylor. And so it's that realization that sometimes we get fascinated by other people. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, because quite often you can learn a lot from these people, but then it's realizing that you are just as worthy. You are just as good enough. And then from that space, you can really, really step into your own power. And once you start to step into your own power. You will naturally start to your own skills, your own things that you can do. Amazing start to come, come to, come to you. Like even just, just then here now speaking, I will notice myself slowly creeping forward towards the microphone. In this space, I don't feel my power. So then it's realizing that, okay, come back to my body, come back to my breath, and they bring myself back into that state, that place of power. So as I mentioned with trust, there's this idea that. When you're in your power, you are able to trust yourself. You know exactly what you need to do, when you need to do it. And for me, just being able to alchemize the, the not trusting myself to trust in myself, I've made a lot of. Realizations. Like one thing I realized yesterday, I had a, a funeral and I, I knew a lot of people there at the funeral, and one thing I realized was what, and I was speaking to people, was that I would talk about myself a lot. It's this realization that when, when I don't know somebody, I try to talk to people about what I'm doing, about how, so I'm, I make myself become the, in, become the most interested. Sorry. I make myself look in, uh, the interesting person in the room by saying what I do with a podcast and with the retreats, with other things, with the book. But then it's this realization that when I am trying, when I'm talking, when I'm talking about myself, I'm not actually in my power. I'm actually trying to prove that I'm worthy. I'm actually trying to make the other person interested in me so that I can prove myself. And so, yes, I've still got a lot of work to be, to, to do with, to do with feeling worthy, to do with feeling good enough. I already know I am, but there's times when I shift out of it and it's realizing when you shift out of trusting yourself, of trusting your power of because. Once you realize you are able, you are outta your power, that you don't trust yourself, that you want to try and prove dear a person that you're worthy, that you're good enough, then suddenly you shift into that neediness, please like me, please like me. So you almost put that other person. Yeah. We go back to the pedestal. You put that person on that pedestal, and this only happened yesterday. So it's that realization that within it all, there's a place where you need to trust the process, trust the process, know that you are not, especially when you're just learning to get into your power more and more and more, there's gonna be times when you're not in your power. So trust the process. Don't be too hard on yourself. And realize when you are in your power and when you are outta your power, and then bring yourself back into your power and then go back out into that world and become aware that when you slip back out, then come back in. And it's, it's almost this, this. Seesaw of back and forth, back and forth. I almost said battle because it's not really a battle, is it? Seesaw of back and forth. And from that place of being in your power and outta your power, you will start to realize what things, what things kick you outta your power. What is it? What is it? Is it a be? Is it when you walk into, uh, around certain people? Is it when it's people you don't know? Is it the fact that maybe you, your energy isn't quite, um, isn't quite right? Maybe. Is it because it, you perhaps haven't put yourself in your power yet? And so it's having this, this place of introspection, of knowing what, when am I in my power? When am I outta my power and what effect that has on you. And so it's just in the process that you know when you are and when you aren't. And from that place, you can always put yourself back into your power. The more that you do this, the easier it becomes. The more that you notice, the more that you notice when you're outta your power, the more that you'll notice when you're in your power. And from then places you'll be able to step into your power more and more and more and more. But it's a continual practice of back and forth before I recorded this episode. There was this idea of, okay, I need to record an episode because tomorrow I need to, I do. I tend to do three episodes of interviews with other people, and then one episode of myself and the one today. I was just, I mean, I, sorry, the one that comes up tomorrow. Is an episode of doing myself and I was just, I'm in an A ring. What do I talk about? What do I talk about? Oh no, I can't think of anything. And then it came to me on my vision board downstairs. I have radical trust on the board and I saw radical trust and I thought, okay, okay, let's just go and do it and let's trust and know that what needs to be said will come up. And this is the big, this is the, this is the radical trust. I have not planned. I have not, I have not said I'm gonna do this, this, and this. I just started recording and whatever topic came up, came up. That's radical trust and that's also a level of being in your own power and knowing that. I am capable. I am worthy. I am good enough to do this in this exact moment and to talk about what's been going on for me with regards to trust, with the idea that this may help listeners out there to be able to really hone in on trusting themselves, on being able to step into their own power. One thing in regards to trust that I have been working on, and I've actually, I have the last few days I've slipped back out of it, but I am back on it today, and that is that we have these to-do lists that we need to get done every day. But how often do we actually complete these to-do lists for the day? So one thing I've started doing is I've been, I've got a to, I've got a list of things that I need to get done, and I've got it, I've got it in my office here and in my diary. So I have a, a four diary. A written diary. I like to write it in by hand. I don't like to record it on a laptop or a screen. I list a few tasks that I want to get done today and I try to make sure that I get them all done and I say try. Um, but the key thing here is that when you write this list down. It is about getting those things done. And I heard this off a YouTube video, um, not long ago. Because if you don't get these things done, what are you saying to yourself? Because I reckon, uh, for me, when I write in my diary, I in the morning I say, okay, I'm gonna get this done, this done this, done this done, this done. And so, okay, there's this level of trust that I'm gonna get it done'cause it's my diary. But then every time I don't get it done and it goes on to another day, I'm actually saying to myself, I don't trust myself to get it done because I never get it done. So why should I believe you? And it goes the same. So if, for example, you said to a boss, yes, yes, I'm gonna get it done for you, a certain task and you don't get it done, and you say that multiple times. That person's gonna lose trust in you. And we do exactly the same in our diaries with our to-do lists every day. And it's no wonder quite often people don't trust themselves if they're kind of right. Doing this in a diary for themselves. Yeah. And, and it's that realization that, okay. Does that mean that I perhaps need to make, I need to put less into my diary so that I can start to get things done. And then gradually over time, as you get more things done, you can add more things. But it's also being aware that when it's, when is it, when is it too much? And it's almost, uh, about, I think it's almost about not planning, not always planning the day before. Because sometimes when you plan the day before, you haven't tuned in with your body. I almost feel like we need to tune in with our body to find out how we are feeling today, what's going on for us.'cause we are in this society where we want to be doing things. We only get things done, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, day in, day out. We're in this grafting, in this, um. Culture where we, yeah, we graft, we wanna get this test done, this, we gotta get all these done every day. But you run ourselves into the ground, which is why mental health is like almost, it's quite often through the roof because we almost, we overdo things sometimes. So it's almost about allowing ourselves to tune in with our body. How is our body feeling? How are we sleeping? How are we, how are we eating? And from that place, being able to figure out, is today more of a rest day or is today a day where I can get a lot of tests done? I have days where I'm able to get lots of things done, but I'm more so I have days where I'm able to get I, I feel like my bodies just exhausted. Mentally and physically, and so they're the days where I need to relax more. One thing I've started doing last couple of days is trialing magnesium. So I've got magnesium tablets and I've got magnesium spray, and I noticed on Monday, the CrossFit on Monday and. My shoulders were killing, my shoulders were absolutely killing. I thought to myself, damn, I'm gonna have to have a few days off CrossFit. And I sprayed the magnesium on my shoulder and rubbed it in, and next day my shoulder was fine. So it's, it's finding out what is it my body needs? Is there certain supplements or certain foods that a body needs to, to function better? Yeah. But anyway, so today was bit of a. Trust episode, trusting that I knew exactly what I needed to say when I needed to say it, and at the same time being in a place of my own power. And that's really the key message for today, is to start to trust yourself again. Perhaps do do less so you can do more. But at the same time, come to realize that you, you are good enough, you are worthy, you are powerful, and tr figuring out how do I function when I'm fully in my power? How does life change when you're fully in your power? How can I, how can I step into my power more often? Can I step away from things? Can I really sit down and deep breathe and allow myself to feel that power that I, I know when I'm in my power and when I'm at my power?'cause quite often there's a shut, there's a subtle shift. So today's challenge is to be in your power, be outta your power. And distinguish the differences of being in your power and being outta your power. And from that place, can you be in your power more often?

24:53

Thanks for tuning in to Man a Quest. Find meaning if today's conversation sparked something in you, take a moment to reflect, then take a step. Remember, real growth comes from action, not just insight. If you found value in this episode, share it with a friend. Leave her a review, or reach out and let me know what resonated. Your feedback helps shape the journey we are on together. For more conversations like this, make sure to subscribe and stay connected. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn for updates, tools, and upcoming guests. Remember. It's not about having the answers. It's about daring to look.