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Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode of the Savvy Painter podcast. I'm your host, Antrese Wood, and if you've been listening for a while, welcome back. And if you are new here, I am so glad that you have found me. Savvy Painter is the podcast for artists who want practical, tactical tips to create a meaningful art practice that is both fulfilling and supports you. Today, I want to talk about confidence and this idea that it's a personality trait, which, in my mind, is false, but I know a lot of us get sucked into that idea. To me,

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confidence is not a personality trait, it is a practice. And if nobody has told you this today, I want to remind you that you are not broken when you feel insecure or when you feel uncertain about your work or you're feeling like, what am I even doing here painting when the world has just gone mad? So I'm just here to remind you that you're not broken. You're just practicing something that you were never taught. And if you've ever looked at another artist and thought, I wish I had their confidence, this episode is for you, because confidence isn't something that you're born with, it's something that you build, just like a painting.

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So let's kick this off. There are two kinds of confidence. One is the confidence that comes from experience. This is the kind of confidence that says I've done this before. I know what I'm doing. I can do this a million times and not even really think about it. For example,

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I can drive a stick shift. I've been doing it for over 40 years. Please don't tell my mom, because she thinks she taught me when I was an appropriate age, but in reality, my brother taught me how to drive when I was 11. So I know how to do how to drive a stick shift. I know how to drive a stick shift that's temperamental. I know how to drive a stick shift that has a lot of play, or one that has no play. Doesn't bother me. On a hill, off a hill, totally fine,

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right? That's what confidence is. Confidence comes from having done something and have the experience to draw from having done that thing.

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The second kind of confidence is self confidence, and self confidence is the kind that says I've never done this before, but I trust myself that I can figure it out. I trust my capacity to

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try, fail, do it over again, learn from that. I trust my capacity to ask questions, to find answers. So as an example, I have never, ever flown a plane before, but I do have the self confidence that I could learn. I definitely would need a teacher. I definitely would need to practice, and I definitely would need to take a lot of deep breaths, but I trust in my capacity to learn and grow, and that that is something that I am capable of doing under the right tutelage. Okay, so those are the two types of confidence that we're going to talk about today, confidence that comes from experience. I've done this before, confidence that comes from an inner trust, and that's the one that I think we overlook often, because we think that we have to have the confidence in order to start and we think that the confidence that we need is the kind that comes from experience. So then we're sort of in this never ending loop of, how do I become confident in something that I've never done before, when the only way to get confidence is to have experience, and there's that loop, right? Or the other false belief that so many of us have is that people are just born that way. They just like have all the confidence in the world,

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and I think this is what we don't talk about enough in the art world. Most people think that confidence is something that you either have or you don't have, but to me, it's actually more of a muscle. It's something that we can develop and we can focus our attention on and we can build that muscle. So the more that I try to develop my self confidence, the more that I focus my attention on that and notice all the areas where I do feel self confident and where I'm I'm lacking at, because we all are.

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Then I can start to practice that. Okay, so those are the two, the two types and and another thing that I would add on to this is that when I don't have self confidence in any area of my work, and this can be for a lot of artists, I know there is sometimes a lack of self confidence in their painting skills, and there's maybe a lack of self confidence in speaking at public events. I'll tell you the story in a second of one that was like for me, that was a big lesson in self confidence, but also, when we are asking somebody if they want to buy our work, right? There's the self confidence and the self trust that comes in there, and a big piece of it

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is having the self compassion to allow myself, for example, to learn something new and treat myself kindly as I learned that something new, right? So if I'm learning how to use a new color that I just put in my palette, right, I can become, I can be self confident in my capacity to figure out colors, to take all the knowledge that I have before and apply it to this new color that I'm using, right? So I can take my knowledge of, you know, I don't know what happens when I use lemon yellow, and apply that to to chartreuse. And so I can kind of go like, Okay, so there's some similarities here, and I can build off of that. So I can use the experience that I have in other areas to then allow myself to get curious about this. The

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the other piece of it is when I allow myself to just know that I can figure this out. And there's that self trust that comes from just that, that self confidence of, I don't know the answers right now, but I know that I'm an intelligent person. I've figured out many other things before. There's many things that I know every single person listening to this podcast episode has done that has been very difficult.

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And so anything that you're doing in your art practice, I totally believe that you have the capacity to do it. But what usually kind of kicks us in the butt is everything that I just talked about. But then we layer on the judgment about our current ability, our current experience level, and if we remove that piece and we just say, Okay, I'm learning how to use this color. I'm learning how I want to be as I post on Instagram. I'm learning how to sell my work, and if I

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name that and allow myself to have that and just kind of recognize this is exactly where I am, and I have the self confidence to know that I'm capable of doing this, and I don't add on all the judgment that tends to come up if I remind myself that I'm currently learning this thing and that there's no law in the universe that says I'm supposed to know this already, I'm choosing to learn this now, or I'm choosing to give myself this experience now, and I'm not going to Add on all of the layers that we tend to to add on, of judgment and criticism as we allow ourselves to do that. Okay, so I want you to think about that as you're thinking about this concept of confidence, meaning, I've done this thing before, and I've experienced that I can draw on and self confidence, which is is simply a trust in my capacity to figure things out, to know who to ask, to take a class as as needed, or to Google something, or to just experiment and see what happens, like make it a science experiment, so I can be extremely self confident about flying a plane when I've never flown a plane before.

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But that doesn't mean that I'm going to jump at an airplane and start hitting buttons and think that I can fly it right. So it's the it's that belief in my capacity.

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So a long, long time ago, I'll tell you this story because I was trying to think for this episode, when was a time when I did something, or I was asked to do something that I'd never done before, and and had that like, Oh my gosh. How do I do this? So years ago, I used to work at Disney in their video game department.

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And early, early on, as I was working there, they were recruiting, they were in this massive hiring frenzy. And so my boss, at the time, asked me to give a presentation at a recruiting event. In front of it was like 1000 people. There was tons and tons of people there, and he asked me if I could give a presentation on working for Disney.

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And I felt it, I'm telling you, I've it was this weird for me, at least it was this weird mix of pride, like I was so happy that he asked me, and I felt seen, and I felt validated, and I felt like I was valued in the company. And I was pretty young, then I was not too long out of college, so it was a big deal for me. And also I felt full body terror, like my stomach flipped. My hands felt like blocks of ice, and I was just like, oh my god, how am I gonna like, Can I do this? But I said yes, and I think this is the part that that matters, and that is really important, because it's the confidence didn't come before I gave the talk. I was terrified.

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I had lots of thoughts about blowing it and all of these things,

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and there was no confidence in the sense of I can stand up. I know what it's like to stand up in front of a group of 1000 people and give a talk, right? But I did it, and then the confidence came after I stood on that stage, and I had prepared like I had my I figured out my slides, I practiced, I did all the things that they tell you to do, and that did help, but I stood on that stage, gave, giving that presentation internally, just trembling, but I did it anyway, and that's when I realized that that confidence is a result. That first type of confidence that we're talking about, right? It's a result. It is not a requirement for me to have that confidence ahead of time. Okay, so it's important to to mention that, and to really kind of kind of internalize that, because a lot of times we we feel like we don't have the confidence, so we can't do something, and there's so many things that we opt out of because there we don't have this feeling of confidence. It's why also, I think it's super important to really distinguish between the two types of confidence, the confidence that comes from experience and the confidence that comes from my capacity to learn and to experience. So my self confidence, in that case, allowed me to get up on stage and do this thing that I was internally very, very scared of,

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right? And and the self confidence really was okay. I know what it's like to work at Disney. I know what it's like to be an artist working here. I know what it's like to be fresh out of college and to be hired here. These are all the things that that I know. So I I have something to contribute there. And so I I borrowed, you know, some of my my confidence in that context. I borrowed some of my confidence from other scenarios that were kind of like, even the slightest bit similar to this. I've talked to my friends about working at Disney who wanted to work there.

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I, you know, internally, I'm like, here's all the things that I've already done that that sort and this is just a bigger a bigger room, right?

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So what we often don't see, and and we have this belief that confidence is something that you're born with, or that that it just comes and some people have it, and some people don't. Later on,

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one of my another boss that I had, I had a lot of bosses, but later on, I worked with this woman named Rachel, and I had so I was in awe of her. I had so much admiration for her. She was somebody that I just really respected. And she gave these killer presentations, like in an executive room filled with like a mostly male crowd, very high pressure. We were in video games, so figure this is like the late 90s, early 2000s

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and she would nail it. And I remember watching her and thinking, oh my god, she is just naturally confident. I don't know how she does that. I could never, ever do it later on, as I.

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Grew inside of the company. I started getting invited to the prep meetings, and that's where I saw it. Rachel practiced, she researched, she prepped answers for every possible question. She anticipated what objections would be. So it wasn't magic, it was repetitions, and when we compare ourselves to the finished product without seeing the process underneath, we often cut ourselves short. So I know I'm kind of talking about this in the sense of like, this is an experience that I had in a more business environment, but it it's the same thing that we're doing all the time. Like we see somebody on Instagram, or we see somebody at a painting convention, or we see somebody's website, or we see somebody in a YouTube video, and we just think, oh my gosh, they have something that I don't have.

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Whatever day that was that they're handing out confidence, I must have been absent that day, because that's not something I can do, and they just do it so naturally. I guarantee you, every single one of those people have practice have done multiple, multiple reps of whatever it is that they look so confident now. They've practiced so much, whatever it is that they've done over and over and over again and that's the thing, is that these are the baby steps. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, or you're, you're one of my growth studio people, you know, I talk about this all the time. We don't do things in leaps and bounds. We do things in baby steps. And that's the thing about it, that is so kind of sneaky, I think, is that the baby steps in the moment feel very inconsequential. They feel too small to be making a difference. I'm just thinking right now, like, I have another example, but it's about my dogs. And everybody in Grow studio is cracking up because it's just like, at what point is Antrese gonna mention her dogs as an example. But I'm training dogs right now, and so I get to experience that, that the these tiny, tiny, tiny, little

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things that we do over and over become the the mini step that goes on to the next, the next piece of it. So every time you're sketching in your journal, every time you are just staring out the window and painting in your head, you are building those skills, and those skills are what you draw on, right? So those skills, if we're talking technical skills in painting, or we're talking the skill of putting yourself putting your work out, and figuring out how you personally want to put your work out, not how everybody else does. We're not talking how everybody in the world does it. We're talking about how you feel comfortable putting your work out and the only way you know these things. The only way you you know what your voice is in painting is to

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make paintings. And as you make paintings, you start to discover, what do I like, what do I don't like, what are the things I consistently do? So these little, tiny, tiny baby steps end up becoming this very strong voice that you have in your work, and these little, little, tiny baby steps you take in discovering, by practicing, by putting your work out. Oh, like that. I didn't like the I didn't like the way that landed right, every single one of those, every single one, every single time you you know, if you're somebody who's exploring Instagram, every single time you make a post, you're learning something about the about your voice in sharing your work. And every time that you

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have a show, whether it's a group show or it's a weekend event, like, it's a an art fair, or it's a farmer's market or open studio event, wherever, however, you're discovering, how do I put my my workout? What is it that I like to do? And you're gathering these moments of like, okay, I've done that. Now I have the confidence to know that I can do that piece of it, and you attach to it. This assessment of is that something I want to continue doing every time you do that, all of those little micro moments, you're showing yourself, you're proving to yourself like, oh yeah, I can do this. My capacity for this is increasing. Another thing I was just thinking about this inside inside grow studio, Megan, one of the artists in inside grow studio, she had this opportunity to give a workshop, and she asked me if I if I get nervous before I teach, or if I get nervous before my of.

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Before a workshop, and my answer is, yeah, of course. The difference is I have practice. I trust myself, so I know that when I feel nervous, it doesn't necessarily mean anything. It's just a feeling that I'm having in that moment. And I trust myself. I trust myself very deeply to be able to teach the course. The difference is, I've practiced. Sometimes I still feel nervous like, sometimes I'm just like, Oh, I hope this idea is good, even with the podcast. Sometimes I'm like, I hope this lands with people. I hope it makes sense to them, right? So there's always going to be that little bit of doubt. But the question for me always is, can I feel that doubt and still have the self confidence to know that I can do the thing that I'm doing? So when Megan asked me about if I was nervous about teaching a workshop,

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absolutely, the first time I ever gave an online workshop, I was a mess. It took weeks and weeks of preps. I did dry runs with friends. I did tech checks. I had people like, Hey, can I? Can you? Can you meet me on Zoom? I mean, I've been using Zoom since it started. Basically. I don't know how I got wind of zoom, but I've been using it for a very long time. So I'd be like, Hey, meet me on this new thing. And then I would explain to them how to do it and and all of that was to be able to teach people how to come onto a zoom call and do this thing with me, right? But every single glitch, and there were many, kind of made me feel like a fraud, because in that moment, I was so nervous about everything that I sort of felt like a fraud, right? But now I can improvise. Now I can teach off the cuff, not because I was born confident, but because I've logged the reps. I mean, I've literally done hundreds and hundreds of workshops online at this point, and there's so many examples of that in in all of our lives, some of them we recognize, some of them we don't. It's just that that when you are feeling that this particular thing that you're you're feeling uneasy about, or you're feeling uncertain about, is is something new and something, I'm guessing it's going to be kind of exciting if you're agreeing to do it just like that, that talk that I gave for Disney where I was like, I'm terrified,

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but I'm also excited to do this right.

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All the times that I can think of when I did something like that, I had I showed up before I felt ready, and then I grew into a person who could handle it. Sometimes I would do something, I'd be like, that is not for me. I'm not doing that again. It doesn't it doesn't take me where I want to go, so I don't need to develop that skill. Other times, I'm like, Oh, absolutely, that was terrifying, but this is going to take me in the direction that I want to go, so I'm willing to put in the reps. Making art is the same. Artists tell me all the time that things like, I'm not confident to enough to share my work yet, or I'm not ready to put a price on this. I'm scared to I don't, I don't know. I'm afraid that people won't like it. I'm not good at talking about what I do, and I get it, I've been there, but let me flip this for you. What if it's the sharing that builds the confidence? What if you don't need to be sure about what you're doing and how you're doing it? You just need to be willing to do it inside grow studio, we've been exploring this idea of your creative fingerprint. It's this invisible through line and how you make, share and sell your work, and every time you show up, even when it feels shaky, you're reinforcing your own fingerprint. Your fingerprint is your fingerprint. You cannot get away from it. It is you, and you don't need to invent it, and you don't need to go out and discover it. It's just you. And so every time you show up, you're reinforcing your trust in that. You're building not just your art, but your identity as someone who trusts themselves to

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be with themselves as they make the art, as they share the art, and as they sell the art.

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Okay, so I hope that was helpful for those of you who are listening to this and wanting some help with it. Next month, inside grow studio, we're building the muscle of sharing. This month, we're working on really fine tuning your creative fingerprint. We are working next month on building the muscle of sharing, not performatively, not perfectly, but as a practice.

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Because honestly, I think the only quote, unquote wrong move is.

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No move. So if you take one thing away from today's episode, let it be this, you do not need all of the answers in order to trust yourself. You just need a willingness to try, because confidence is not who you are, it's what you practice. All right, my friends, that's what I have for you today. Have an amazing day, and I will see you again soon. Bye.