The Right Questions with James Victore
The Right Questions is designed to help you get paid to do what you love and stay sane in the process.
The Right Questions with James Victore
Episode 56: Who Do You Think You Are?
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Confidence isn’t a costume you earn after you “arrive.”
It’s an energy you can put on when your work needs you to show up clear, steady, and useful. We explore why even asking a question takes guts, how borrowed beliefs become identity, and what changes when you stop outsourcing permission to other people. You’ll hear a candid story from the stage about wearing confidence in service of an audience, plus a revealing Oprah anecdote that proves everyone—yes, even the famous—checks in to see if they were “okay.”
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All right, let's do this thing. Howdy, and welcome to the right questions. It is I, the boss, the man, James Victory. And I wanted to dedicate this podcast, this one in particular, um, to us just doing our creative best. You know? Us creative people just trying to get paid to do what we love. It shouldn't be so hard, but there it is. And the reason it's hard is because we're human beings. And in being human beings, we are perfect and we are beautiful, we are flawed and we are silly. So I wanted to do an episode about one of these sillinesses, and that silliness is called confidence. And I was talking about this with some friends recently, and I said, I said, there's a lot of information on confidence. I could, I could do, I could do a series of podcasts, I could write a series of books on confidence, and that's kind of what I'm gonna do. So this is the first episode of two on confidence, and this is this is some background on it and some possibly some ways, new ways to think about it. And I was trying to figure out how to share it and make it a more meaningful and memorable experience. So this is the first episode on confidence, and the second one will be followed up next week. So I come to all of these right questions from a very simple place. I come at my life from a very simple place. I am not, nor do I try to be a brilliant researcher or an expert. But because these answers, my answers, are so simple and direct that perhaps they're not as accessible for us. Because we don't allow ourselves this level of simplicity or maybe this level of honesty. Because one of the first things I was thinking about in talking about confidence was the whole idea of confidence in the context of the right questions. Because in the right questions, the idea for me is to ask questions of you. But I've realized something about asking for questions. It is hard for us to be asked questions. I remember in grade school or even college or whatever, raising your hand and answering a question. Does anybody have any questions? It's hard for us to do that. Because for us to ask a question, two things have to happen. First, we have to admit that we don't know something, or that we have concerns or fears, or we are unsure. And we have to admit that to ourselves first. And then, number two, we have to share that. We have to share that fear, our unknowing, our ignorance, and ignorance is a beautiful thing, it's not a bad thing, with the world. Or you have to share that with me. So even asking questions takes confidence. And the classic response is, you know, if you do get a question, people will say something like, Well, you know, this is a stupid question, but right? But it never is. It never is a stupid question. So one thing we have to know, and one thing we have to understand when talking about confidence, is confidence is not about knowing. And it's not about having. It's about being curious, and it's about learning, and it's about growing. And it's something, if you don't have it and you're working on it, that is amazing. That's awesome, that's wonderful, and do me a favor, teach your children how to do that. Teach your children to be comfortable in not knowing, comfortable in asking questions. And teach them to be comfortable with confidence. So, in trying to find an interesting angle from which to investigate the question of confidence, I have decided to call this episode Who Do You Think You Are? And I think that's a serious question. Who do you think you are? Who do you think you are? I can hear my parents asking that question. That's how serious it is. Jimmy, who do you think you are? I almost feel compelled right now to say to you, my beautiful dear readers, listeners, close your computer. Go and sit under a banyan tree for an hour and ask yourself, who the hell do you think you are? Who do you think you are? Write it all down. Because who we think we are and who we really are can be two different things. And who we think we are may not be who we want to be. So who we think we are makes everything else happen, right? If we think we are brave and bold and prepared and able to handle any situation, this can become who we think we are. And alternatively, if we think or believe that we're unsure or insecure, or not good at parties, or small talk, that changes us too. And it becomes who we are. Or at least who we believe we are, because that's the thing. That's the thing. Who do you think you are? Okay, for many of us in our lives, we see more, right? We see more. We have a vision of on down the road. We have that beautiful vision. We see more and we want more. That's why you're here. Because my audience, our audience, our the right questions audience is hungry and horny and excitable. We're creative people who want to do more with our gift. And we would like to be seen and heard and loved. And that loved part sometimes means appreciated, like appreciated at work. We don't have to be loved at work. We want to be appreciated. And sometimes it just means paid. We want to be paid. We want to be seen and heard and paid. We want more creativity, more money, more appreciation, and more love. And we should. We should have those things. Those are very human, very beautiful things to desire. And it shouldn't be that hard. And as kids, we didn't think it would be this hard. I think our lives as kids and how we see things as kids is much simpler than our vision as adults. I read recently about a Japanese manga artist. His name is Howard Ikamoto. And he tells this story about his daughter. And it goes like this. He says, When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college. That was my job, to teach people how to draw. She stared back at me, incredulous, and said, You mean they forgot? As adults, everything seems to become more complicated. I think it's interesting to have these kind of long meditations on ideas we don't usually question, like who we think we are. For example, I like to think of myself as confident. But doing this podcast is not particularly easy. It takes a lot of confidence. While I'm writing it and while I'm delivering these episodes, it brings on the chorus. The chorus of voices who perch on my shoulders, throwing tomatoes and yelling, fake fraud, sit down. I think you're familiar with that. And if you're not, bravo, good for you. As a kid, I was shy. Well, I wasn't really shy. I wasn't born shy. I'm not genetically predisposed to shyness. I don't have the shy gene. I wasn't shy. I was made shy. I was the smallest of three kids. I was the boy. And my daddy would say, This is Jimmy, he's my shy one. Like I, as I clung to his leg. I wasn't shy. I was told I was shy by authority, and I became that. And a lot of what I would call my weaker attributes come from me not being allowed to speak up as a kid, or not being trusted with directions, or trusted how to do things as a kid, or being teased as a child. So I don't come from a particularly confident place. It takes work, it takes an effort to become confident. But then one day I had this epiphany on stage. I was at a university speaking event. And after about the after the 45-minute to an hour long um um event, me talking about creativity, there was a question and answer period, and somebody in the back room, this young woman, piped up and she raised her hand and she stood up and she said, Mr. Victoria, how can you be so confident? And I had never thought about it before. But my answer was this. I am not confident. It is something I have to be for you. If I had given that forty-five-minute speech in a less confident manner, I would be of no service to you. So confidence is something that I have to wear. Because I hadn't thought that I was particularly confident before that. But I realized that I could be at times. And I hadn't thought about how I went from shy to confident, or if I had actually made a distinction, if there was a line at some point in my life where I just was like, okay, I'm not shy anymore, now I'm confident. Um there is none. It doesn't work like that. I think, I think the confidence thing is like the fear thing, right? Um, fear never goes away. You just have to deal with it in different ways again and again and again. Confidence is the same way. I am cool with shy. I don't care if you're shy. Here's a couple of thoughts about being shy. If you are shy, and I've dealt with people who are very shy, I've dealt with people, people who've come to my workshops who have like a social disorder where they can't be in, you know, in groups, and they start I've seen them like I say, hey, tell us about yourself, and then like start breaking out in hives, climbing uh, you know, around their neck and up their face, and like it's a serious thing. So you can be shy. I don't care. And here's the thing nobody cares. Nobody cares that you're shy, and nobody knows that you're shy. So just move forward and get what you want. So I don't care if you're shy, but don't let it stop you from getting what you want. Don't let it stop you from coming to my workshop, for example. The young woman who came to my workshop, she was amazing. And I said, Oh, so you don't like you don't like it when people pay attention to you, or when people applaud you, or people, you know, uh, really, really, really, it's the attention thing. And she said, Yeah, no, I uh I have a problem with that. And I said, Okay, to the rest of the gang. And there was only like six or eight or ten of us, and I was like, okay, everybody, every time Susan does something, we're gonna give her a big round of applause. We're gonna force her to confront this shyness, this thing, and realize that she's not gonna die. You can be shy, it's okay, but just don't let it stop you from getting what you want. Okay, that's my little talk about shy. So today I want to continue to study confidence. And personally, I want to continue to call upon this superpower. Because, like I said, I am not confident. I don't consider myself a 100% confident person all the time. I think confidence is like um like willpower, right? It's an energy. And if you if you have to be, if you have to use your willpower all day, you will get exhausted. If you have to use your confidence all day, you will get exhausted. But it's something I can wear, something I can put on, something I can enact in short spurts. And we all do that. And we all can. I heard William Defoe talking recently about actors, and the question was, you know, about uh being terrified, and he was like, oh my God, all actors are terrified. All actors are terrified. I will tell you this right now. He says they're either terrified or they're drunk. That doesn't go away. It's just that we have to deal with it each time. Right now, you're thinking, oh man, I wish James Victory could be my mentor, my guru. Hell, I wish he was my coach. Well, you can make that happen. Go to your workisagift.com. There's a questionnaire that will probably help you out, but it'll also give you access to a free call. So let's talk. Let's free you from overwhelm and creative frustration. Let's build your business and help you get paid to do what you love. Again, go to your workisagift.com. Let's talk. Here's a funny or interesting story uh from Oprah Winfrey's book. Do you know that um f on her uh on her television show she would have guests, and they would be the the the the the biggest names you can think of in politics and in poetry and actors and chefs, everybody, right? Everybody's on her stage, everybody's sitting in a chair across from her, and they're having a conversation, and it's just delightful. And oh, oh pray look darling, oh yes, ha ha ha ha, right? And as soon as the camera shuts and they say, you know, that's a rap, Oprah tells the story. Every time a conversation is finished, whomever, could be a former president, could be an author, doesn't matter, they look at Oprah and they say, was that okay? They're looking for permission. They're looking for permission from Oprah Oprah to see if their confidence worked out. So we all question our confidence is who we are. So who do we think we are? If I asked you to tell me your story, right? Hey, tell me your story. Tell me something about yourself, tell me everything about yourself. What you would describe is your circumstances. Right? I came from here, these are my parents, this is what I do, right? It's the thing we tell ourselves over and over and over again. Did you hear that? Over and over and over again. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition is how we learn. But because that's our story, much of it may not actually be true. But it's our story, and we keep repeating it because we're not questioning it, and this is the right questions, so let's question everything. So here's the thing: here's a basic premise about confidence. The only thing that we're in control of in our lives, we are not in control of our past, we are not in control of our past decisions, we are not in control of other people. We have two dogs in the house. I'm not in control of them. We're not in control of our relationships. The only thing that we can control is our thoughts and our actions. And our thoughts can be changed. We can change our thoughts. We can go, oh, you know what? I never thought about it that way. We can change our thoughts, and by doing so, we change our mindset, right? And this is why this is an important idea. Because if the only thing that we can control are our thoughts and actions, so our actions come from our thoughts, right? Our thoughts become our words. We think about something, that's what we keep telling ourselves. Our thoughts become our words. Our words become our actions. We follow through on our words, those become our actions. Our actions, by way of repetition, become our habits. And our habits, done repeatedly, become our character. Like success is a habit. Success is is is choosing to do something well again and again and again. That becomes our character. And our character becomes our destiny. Now, knowing this, think about this. If you track backwards from your destiny, which is where you are right now, where you are in your life, this is your destiny up to now, and go backwards through your character, your habits, your actions, all the way back, all the way to your thoughts, you'll see what I mean. Because if you don't question the very first premise, that of being your thoughts, then you cannot change your destiny. So we have to ask ourselves, why do I think that about myself? It all starts with our thoughts. And for most of us, our thoughts are shaped by get this, get this, our thoughts are shaped by other people. Our thoughts are shaped by other people and other voices from our past. That that creates our persona, that creates our ego, that creates our subconscious. And even further, that our thoughts are shaped by other people. Listen to this. The people who grew up and survived the Great Depression here in the 1930s, they created habits around being super frugal, right? Saving, even hoarding. Right? Listen to this. Their children, the children of the Great Depression, were given this same mentality, or this same trauma of there never being enough. I knew one of them. He was my boss when I was in New York. So their fear of poverty, which they got from their parents, made them poor. It's the same thing of children of refugees. The fear is passed on to their children. It's not what their parents wanted, but there you go. So I can imagine if you were a child of a refugee, your parent is constantly telling you to be safe. Beware. Be, you know, like that that grows on you, that becomes you. So others people's voices and their limitations and their fears and their hangups, you know, something they did or did not do, become us. And it doesn't matter if it was a parent or a teacher or a coach or a caregiver or a shitty sibling. Their actions, their words, their fears, their limitations become us. And it's important for us to understand this. It's important for us to track that back and find that so we can change it. You know, often I hear people saying, oh my God, I sound like my mother. That's true. That happens. Because what happens is their thoughts, their concerns are often regurgitated into our mouths. Their shit becomes our thoughts and our words. And we don't realize it, but the because of these voices, we end up following an unconscious set of rules given to us. So who we think we are and who we want to become is often at odds. When I bring confidence up, that idea of confidence with people, they're like, people say, well, you know, I don't want to be an asshole. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's a longer way to go to being an asshole. Let's just talk about being confident, right? So again, it's not to walk around with your like big chest stuck out and be pushy, right? But when you need it, you know, we must we have to have it in order to function. For simple things. Have you ever been in a shopping line, right? You're you're you're paying and your card doesn't work and you have to keep trying it and keep trying it and keep trying it. Then all of a sudden you feel the pressure of the people behind you. You feel like crap, right? And you feel the, you're, you start to sweat and you feel uncomfortable, and then you make more mistakes. That's lack of confidence. It's you, you not being in charge of the situation and not being cool with it, and you being very sympathetic to other people. There they are again. Another example would be men driving and asking for directions, right? We are assumed to have confidence. We are assumed to know. We're assumed to like, well, I don't need to ask directions. I don't worry, I know where I'm going, right? Our ego won't let us ask. Or even something simple like this. Have you ever been around somebody or at a party or at an event or something? Um, and there's someone there who you know is dying to say hello, but just can't. So understanding these ideas about confidence is a boon to our character, and it helps us get what we want in this life. We all want to be seen and heard and loved. But we have blocks to that. You know, there are many blocks to it. You know, possibly as a kid you were told to dial it down or slow down or tone it down or quiet down, right? Those kind of things. Or we had crappy bosses, whatever the situation, or bosses with their own ego that they've got to deal with. But what happens is these become, these form the subheadings, the negative subheadings of confidence. These form things like imposture syndrome or low self-esteem or fear of judgment. And that becomes that fear of judgment is from the inner critic, you know, your pre your pre-recorded voices, and fear of outside voices, the what we call the haters. Also forms um comparison when we look around the world and see what everybody else is doing, right? That is a lack of confidence. Right? And for women, I'm sure the being the good girl is a big part of it. Or if or if your dad wanted you to be a boy, right? Right? All these things, all these things become part and parcel of it. And what they do is they set up expectations. They are what we expect of ourselves and what we perceive others expect of us. So the fear behind our lack of confidence prevents our growth and forward movement. Because we have a lack of faith in ourselves, a lack of faith in our future, a lack of trust in ourselves, and a lack of trust in others. And the same thing for our thoughts about the future. Our confidence affects our thoughts about the futures because we're shitty prognosticators, right? We're guessing on the future and projecting a bad outcome. Based on what? Based on the past. Because we basically assume a lot. It makes me think of this the line from uh from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, which is um, he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. We think too much, right? Our worry and fear and lack comes from this assuming. Assuming that it won't be better, assuming that it won't come. And here's the thing about us and thinking about the future. We need to see ourselves not as confident and winning in the future, we need to see ourselves as safe. That it will be a safe place for us. Because owning your confidence is not about bravado, it's about the truth. It's about looking through your life, seeing who you are, and understanding an idea of self-worth and self-love. Because confidence is about um your autonomy, which is about your your independence, your freedom, your your self-governess. You know, an autonomous person can make decisions without influence or direction from others. Means you're free to follow your own heart, without all the voices, without the chorus, to just move forward, to just move forward boldly. For me, there's a word that I use in lieu of confidence often, and that word is audacious, which is which is bold and not caring about what other people think. I like that word. So here's a big idea about confidence that we'll end on. And that idea is that is about seeking permission. One of the fundamentals of confidence is that we need to be given the permission. And we need, we should have had it from our family or some authority should give us the confidence, right? My daughter is is um I forget how old my children are. My daughter is six and my son is eight. And we've started this thing where um I find a huge parking lot and we they sit in my lap and they start driving. They're just using the steering wheel. And I do my best to like keep it super quiet and keep it super calm because I want to help them develop confidence. I want to give them confidence. Because if we are not given confidence at an early age, it's difficult for us to develop it ourselves. We need to give ourselves that permission. And in my family, I told you there was teasing, there was stuff. My family did not give me permission. I had to take it. One of the wonderful offshoots of everything that I had in my life was that I developed a rebellious spirit. That helped tremendously. It helped with the audacity that I take now. So confidence is something you have to assume, you have to take, just like your freedom, and you have to give yourself permission to have confidence. So you can believe in yourself, and you can become who you think you are. In the next episode, we're gonna have some um uh how it can be learnt, how to learn confidence and some tools. I'm James Victory. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being a part of the experiment called The Right Questions. Thank you for supporting this. Thank you for being here. I appreciate you, I love you, I love being here for you. I'm a pretty good graphic designer, a fairly decent artist, but I'm a much better teacher. Thank you for your help. Adios.