The Confidence Shortcut with Niki Sterner

#13: Pam Sandrock | Rooted in Resilience | Thriving Through Life’s Toughest Turns

• Niki Sterner • Season 1 • Episode 13

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What happens when life knocks you down with a diagnosis you never expected? For Pam Sandrock, a breast cancer diagnosis at 37 became the catalyst for a complete transformation in how she approached life, decision-making, and personal boundaries.

Pam shares her powerful journey from devastation to empowerment, revealing how cancer forced her to confront mortality and reimagine her priorities. "I made a commitment to live long and live strong," she explains, describing how this mantra has shaped everything from her physical habits to her emotional responses. Her story isn't just about surviving—it's about finding clarity through crisis.

One of the most profound lessons Pam discovered was the freedom that comes from saying no. Before cancer, she volunteered for everything, chaired committees, and rarely declined opportunities to help. Her diagnosis gave her permission to evaluate what truly mattered and decline commitments that didn't align with her values or energy. "Obligation leads to resentment," she notes, a simple but revolutionary insight that transformed her relationships and daily experience.


The conversation delves into practical strategies for building confidence through action rather than waiting to feel ready. Pam explains that confidence isn't something you're born with—it's something you develop through experience and competence. Her perspective on resilience is equally refreshing: "When hardship comes, instead of asking 'why me?', I just think 'I guess it's my turn'." This shift from resistance to curiosity makes challenges infinitely more manageable.

For anyone facing difficult decisions, feeling stuck in obligation, or searching for clarity about what they truly want, Pam's insights offer a roadmap to greater authenticity and purpose. Her story reminds us that while we can't always choose what happens to us, we absolutely can choose how we respond—and sometimes, our greatest challenges become our greatest teachers.

Connect with Pam: 

Instagram: @noknockouts

https://www.instagram.com/noknockouts/

Facebook: No Knockouts

https://www.facebook.com/noknockouts

Or visit noknockouts.com for coaching resources and free guides.

https://noknockouts.com/

No Knockouts Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/no-knockouts-with-pam-sandrock/id1811892908

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut, the podcast for ambitious creatives and entrepreneurs who are ready to stop overthinking, take bold action and finally step into the life they've been dreaming about. I'm your host, nikki Sterner mom, actor, comedian and producer. After years of playing small and waiting to feel ready, I went on a courage quest and found a shortcut to confidence. Each week, I'll bring you real stories, simple steps and conversations with experts in mindset courage and confidence, plus heart-to-hearts with fellow creatives who are turning their dreams into reality. It's time to get unstuck and start showing up. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut. I'm your host, nikki Sterner.

Speaker 1:

Today's guest is Pam Sandrock, a native Texan wife, mom of two college boys and the inspiring voice behind the no Knockouts podcast. After two decades as a stay at home mom and navigating a serious health scare, pam reinvented herself as a purpose-driven life coach, helping midlife women shift from survival mode into thriving. She's all about deep conversations, personal alignment and turning pain into power. Whether she's jogging outdoors, coaching clients or baking something sweet, pam is committed to living well, not just being alive, and guiding others to do the same. Please welcome to the show, pam Sandrock. Hello, hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1:

Nikki, it's so nice to have you here today. I'm so excited to hear about your story and to go into a little bit about what you went through, some of the challenges that you had. I want to start with what you're super passionate about right now and just tell us what you're doing and who you are.

Speaker 2:

Wow. Okay, first, I just want to honor you for starting your podcast, because I think it's going to be a great service to women in the world that we live in right now, and I just want to honor your efforts that you're putting towards that. So good job.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, and you too, yeah, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

That is where my efforts are right now is. I launched my own podcast a few weeks back and it is my little mini baby right now. It's what I'm putting towards a lot of effort towards and trying to develop and grow not only the podcast but me in the process. So it's a work in progress and I'm having a lot of fun doing it. My podcast is called no Knockouts and it goes alongside my coaching business, which is also no Knockouts, which is rooted in resilience, intention and really emotional intelligence. I think a lot of times people, especially our age, as we get to the middle part of our life, we don't even know what we want. We say I don't know what I want. When somebody asks you and I help people dive into that figure out what they want, set an aim, let them figure out where they're going to go in life, expect challenges along the way, learn how to be resilient through whatever life throws at you and be emotionally mature as we encounter hardship and struggle along the way. So that's a summary.

Speaker 1:

What types of questions do you ask people that you work with? Because I know a lot of women, like you said, do wonder. Well, I don't really know. I've spent so many years helping others, raising kids, focusing on other things, that I don't really even know what I want. So how do you hold space for them? What do you ask them?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, obviously it's situational, but I have to really give somebody time to quiet down, because a lot of times we have these candid answers that we spit out on the outside but that's our brain talking and we know from our heart and we know from our soul and that's not something you can access like in the moment. And we have to quiet down and really find where our truth lies inside of us. And some of that is just listening to our body and listening to our basically your intuition and your gut. And so I go through a process with that. But I ask people questions like if you had the ideal day, what would your day look like? Where would you go? Who would be there with you? Would you be alone or would you actually have someone with you? And what would you be doing?

Speaker 2:

And we don't think that because we're so caught up in the day-to-day. We're going to work, we're getting the laundry done, we're handling the yard work, we're taking the kids to the doctor or taking them to college. Whatever stage of life you're in, or if you're midlife, you may be handling your own parents. You're stage of life you're in, or if you're midlife, you may be handling your own parents. You're stuck in that middle ground and so it's hard to see through that. So we have to quiet the noise, all the drama in our head, and figure out what does your I-day deal look like? Is it loud or is it quiet? And then we start to decipher from there.

Speaker 2:

But if you ever get to this point where you're yourself and you want to decipher through that, you say what do I want? And then go what do I really want? Because that means something different than what I want. And then if you take it down further and you say no, what do I really really, really want? Because that takes it just a little bit deeper. And something that works, is pretty effective, is saying if you didn't say it out loud, what would you want? Because your insights really know. And another version of that is if you don't know, what would God say? The answer is Because God knows what you want. You can't keep it a secret. A lot of times we squash our wants because of society, or we don't want to seem greedy, or we should be happy already, but we're not, and so we don't want to come across as greedy or needy or demanding, and so we don't want to be honest on the outside, but on the inside we really do know what we want. You just have to access it.

Speaker 1:

I love that you find honesty on the inside.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's in the depths. It's not on the surface, it's in the depths that's so good.

Speaker 1:

Will you tell us a little bit about maybe a low point and what you went through the most challenging time?

Speaker 2:

yeah, 10 years ago, 2015, I was 37 years old and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I found the lump myself and went through that very scary time of going to doctors figuring it out and, needless to say, it knocked me off my rocker. I was devastated by it. I couldn't justify why I got it and I mentally and emotionally needed to blame something, because I didn't understand. I was only 37. I was in my own mind. I was healthy, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I never healthy, I didn't drink, I didn't smoke, I never had. I did genetic testing and all my genetic tests came back as negative or clean. I didn't have a genetic problem and I just didn't understand and I couldn't find someone or something to blame it on, and that really made me spiral to my depths.

Speaker 2:

I felt so personally attacked, like it wasn't like this thing that just happened. It was personal, and I was ashamed and devastated and I couldn't learn from it because I couldn't figure out what I did wrong, to make it better, to prevent it again or to tell somebody else, and so I was in emotional turmoil for quite some time. So I was in emotional turmoil for quite some time, trying to make peace with that and going through that process, going through surgeries or anything like that, it didn't make it better, it just it took the cancer away but it didn't cure my mind, it didn't heal my soul. I was so bruised, I was so damaged and I had to somehow make peace with that. And really that was 10 years ago.

Speaker 2:

But those were some of the early seeds of why no knockouts exist today. You know, those were pure trials for me and I had to work through them and because of that, because I was forced to do that, I learned so much and I don't want those efforts and those lessons to be wasted. So I use that pain I had to propel myself forward and to help others through whatever they're going through, whether it be a big pain or a little pain or just a concern or just a striving for betterment. But I just don't want to waste any lesson I got out of that. So I've dedicated myself to helping others who want help.

Speaker 1:

I love that. What does that look like?

Speaker 2:

When I was going through it. It was messy. It was messy, I mean. I cried. I put on a pretty face on the outside, I wasn't very vocal about it. Hardly anybody knew what I was going through.

Speaker 2:

I kept it very secret because I fight battles internally. I fight battles from the inside out and I didn't feel like I needed distractions from others. So I kept a lot of it to myself. But a lot of times I would. I felt like a bubbling cauldron. I felt I had thoughts and emotions that were just bubbling out at the surface and I didn't know what to do with them.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times I would run to a journal and I would write things down. It wasn't a formal process where I would sit down every day at a certain time and ask myself questions. It was. I ran to my journal when I had to get something out of my head because my brain and my mind was noisy. It was dramatic and I couldn't process it all. It was too much for me at that point of life in life, because I was also a stay-at-home mom, taking care of two young kids at that time, and I didn't want to detract from my real job, which was being a mom because I was battling cancer and I would run to my journal and get things out of my head and those weren't even complete sentences, sometimes they were just thoughts that I would just jot down just to get it out, and I would sit in quiet and pray. I would pray. I referred to Romans 5.3. Romans 5.3 says something along the lines of we all suffer, but in our suffering we create endurance, and endurance creates character and character brings hope. And so I would sit and read that verse over and over. I prayed in silence to God and said just help me get through this. I'd say Jesus, hold my hand as I walk into any doctor's appointment. I would say, jesus, just hold my hand. And so I was silently trying to stay grounded and keep my feet on the ground.

Speaker 2:

I listened to music a lot. I created a playlist. I called it Christian Country. I love country music and I just created a playlist of soft, easy listening Christian country songs and I played that all the time. I played it as I cooked, I played it as I got dressed in the morning, I played it anytime in my headphones when I went for a walk or a jog, and that, just that, helped me a lot, but the walking and the jogging. I was already active, but I really dove into being physical. I really dove into running more. I really made a commitment to live long and strong. That's been my mantra since what I call my cancer time. But I really made a commitment to live long and live strong, and that means emotionally, physically, spiritually, in every way I can come up with. I just want to do it well, and so I would run and stay physically fit and get out of my head, get out of my body, and that was really helpful. You're an athlete as well right, nikki?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do. I do the same thing. I love getting in my body. It helps me to get out of my head. Something about the physical strength just transfers into my mental strength and overall all of it, my whole persona. I feel like I can do anything when I've pushed myself in the gym and it's amazing because I do believe in the habits that you create just can be so powerful. I didn't realize that you could change your body in your forties so much with a little bit of progressive overload or putting yourself in an uncomfortable position. I never used to hold things or like really feel that uncomfortable place when you're lifting weight.

Speaker 1:

Maybe it's like pushing yourself running to the next level. But I think when you do that in that uncomfortable place, you expand your growth so much to places that you never thought possible, and so I do think that your physical is so attached to your mental and your spiritual, like you're saying here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's mind over body really, because when we tire out physically, you can still keep going. We know this. You just have to push yourself, yeah, and so it. The mind and the body really are partners. And so when we get tired and don't want to push ourselves in the gym or with the weights or the run, you keep going because you're just building your own resilience is what you're doing. You're making yourself stronger for whatever comes next, and so that's huge, huge.

Speaker 1:

That's huge to me is staying physically fit if you've been living with chronic symptoms like pain, brain fog, sensitivity to smells, light or sound, it might not just be your body, it could be your brain, stuck in a survival loop. Dnrs stands for dynamic neural retraining. It's a science-backed program that helps rewire the limbic system, the part of the brain responsible for fear, fight or flight and overreaction to everyday things. It changed everything for me, helping me heal and return to the creative life I love. If this speaks to you, click the link in the caption. It might be the answer you're looking for.

Speaker 2:

But also at that time, I think, going through that process of I'd take my kids to school and I'd come home and I'd pout and I'd feel sorry for myself and I would have to make doctor's appointments or have to do whatever you have to do through this process I really learned to say no. I really learned what was important to say yes to and I really learned how to say no. Before this, I was so involved at my kid's school. I was on the PTO, I was chairman of this. I volunteered for anything that came up. Any email or phone call or sign up that came in, I was on it.

Speaker 2:

And with this one I couldn't do it because I was at doctor's appointments or recovering from some surgery, but I also didn't want to do so much of it. I still wanted to, but I was able to decipher yes, this is in alignment with who I want to be and no, this isn't. I'm only doing it out of obligation and obligation doesn't feel good. Obligation leads to resentment and I didn't want any part of that. I wanted to clean up every area of my life that didn't feel good and in no way was I going to be obligated to things that were going to lead me to feeling bitter or resentment, and so that has helped me from then till now and will continue. I know how to say no. I don't have to do things out of obligation. I do them because I want to, and that is a huge thing that I think anybody can learn from you. Do not have to do all the things. Pick and choose what's right for you. That's been huge.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of power in using your time how you want to, versus just giving it away to anybody who wants it.

Speaker 2:

Well, and I think when we're younger you don't really know what you don't know. You try all the things, you think you're supposed to do these things, but over time you realize there's no supposed to. I'm an adult and I can choose what I want to do, and society and culture and maybe our upbringing, makes us feel like we have to do certain things. But in reality we're grown adults. We don't have to do anything. We can do whatever we want to do.

Speaker 2:

I mean within reason, of course, right, the clarity I got from having to say no or getting to say no was extremely powerful. And in my mind, when I'd get an email that came in and said, hey, we need volunteers for this where I normally would have said yes, I would answer politely and say no, but in my mind I was saying I'm sorry, I can't, I have to go fight cancer, and that was so much more important. I'm sorry, I can't, I have to go fight cancer, and that was so much more important. And fighting cancer became really a path to me, figuring it out, figuring out who I was. It became a path to finding my purest, most authentic self and realizing what was important to me and what was not, which I think we all go through at some time. I was just forced into it at a certain time in life.

Speaker 1:

So what did you let go of?

Speaker 2:

Obligation.

Speaker 2:

Anything specific I I said no to a lot of things at school. I got off. I didn't bring snacks to every event. I didn't have to head them up like I once thought I would. I just wanted to be a participant, not the leader of everything. Sometimes I just wanted to show up with the paper plates, not organize the entire event, and so it allowed me to pull back and do just what I wanted to do not what I felt like I had to do, because, as a stay at home mom, I thought I had all this time and I should be leading these things.

Speaker 2:

That's not true. I still have a life. I still have things I want to do for me and for my husband and his business, and so on and so forth, and so I didn't feel the obligation to do some of that. But even within my own family, like within my own family of origin or my husband's family, when they wanted us to do something, I learned to say I don't really want to do that this weekend, or I don't really want to go out to eat this time, I want to stay home tonight, or whatever it is. It just brought clarity to the day-to-day moments, and that was helpful. It still is. It still is.

Speaker 1:

How do you stay organized? Do you have a time in the morning where you look at your calendar? What do you do for that?

Speaker 2:

with everything. I'm super organized. I laugh because my husband would laugh at me. I'm super organized, not super. I don't want to say that I'm pretty organized. I have a calendar on the side of my fridge that I print out every month and keeps us all on track. I have my Google email, my Google calendar online. I don't like clutter in my life, so my public space, my spaces behind closets most of them are very organized and clutter-free. So having a clear, clutter-free space allows me to have a clear, clutter-free mind and it allows me to make decisions faster and more accurately. The things around me the clutter, the things when they're out of place or I don't need that, I don't use it, I get rid of it because it's distracting to me. So is that a foreign concept? I don't think so.

Speaker 2:

It's just something that's been an important part of my life. I don't like to accumulate a lot of things because things don't mean a darn thing, and that's something cancer taught me. Things don't mean a thing, and so I have what I need, but I don't like to keep a lot of extra. I just feel weighted down by extra things and I don't like distractions, and clutter is a distraction to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it totally is, and, like you said, it's heavy. I wish I was better, but my husband is really good at organizing things and I tend to accumulate papers and piles, and so that's why I was asking if you have a system for it. I'm the opposite.

Speaker 2:

I get rid of things. I don't do it. I do it regularly, but not on a schedule. So, like at the end of the school year, we would go through everybody's backpack and everything we accumulated throughout the year and chunk what we wanted and then keep the rest. And if it was a keep, we were going to organize it in an organized fashion, not just leave it in a box. What does that mean? We were going to organize it in an organized fashion, not just leave it in a box. What does that mean? Well, from the kids' standpoint, I would take all of their whatever math tests they wanted to keep and we'd have a math folder and we'd have an English folder or whatever it was. And then it is in a like a sterilite bin, like a plastic bin, labeled for that school year. And as time went on, we kept less, but so multiple school years might be in the same bin. But my closet is color coded. My closet is all the blue shirts are together, all the red shirts are together, all the white and the long sleeves are separate from short sleeves.

Speaker 2:

I just sometimes getting stuck in indecision really drains energy, not just mine but anybody's. When we get stuck in indecision, we lose our power, and so I just like to make decision making easy, and that's staying organized is a way for me to do that. So you don't have piles is what you're saying? I do, everybody does, but not a lot, and if they're a pile, they're mostly organized Like. I have a pile outside of this room right now. One of my kids came home from college and I don't know where to put it all yet, because some of it I'm not sure if it's going to go back with him to his apartment next fall or if it's going to get donated. So I need to go, we need to go through that pile. So I have piles, just not a ton of them, and they don't last very long.

Speaker 1:

What about pictures? Do you organize your pictures? Yes, how do you do?

Speaker 2:

that my pictures go off my phone onto my computer by date, by month in a year. So I have a 2025 folder and then within it I have a January folder, a February folder. So they're organized by month within the year on the computer, and videos too in there Videos as well. But the videos I'll put in their own video folder so they're separate from the pictures. That way if I need to run to it, if I know there's a video, I don't have to sort through them all, just go to the video, month and year. For that I used to. I haven't done it in a few years. Every summer I'd create a shutterfly photo book and put all of our summer pictures in it and that was like our memory book for the summer, and I'm a little behind on that. But as our kids get older my kids are college age we took less pictures. You didn't take a picture of them every time they jumped in the swimming pool.

Speaker 1:

When they're 17, like they do when they're six. Do they still let you take pictures when they're 17, like they do when they're six.

Speaker 2:

Do they still let you take pictures? Yes and no. Sometimes I get the side eye or the frown, but they're used to me so they know they have to comply. I'm going to persist, so they may as well comply sooner rather than later. They can still give me the side eye, but I'm still going to do it.

Speaker 1:

I love that Same. So I have a daughter in college. She's going to be a junior next year, and then one that just graduated high school, so she'll also be in college next year, and then our son is going to be a junior in high school. So yeah, they're all okay, mom get it over with.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So my older son, who's 20, almost 21, he's come back. He didn't like it for a while but now he understands. I think with him off at college for a while, he appreciates having some of those memories and some of those pictures and so he's reverting back to. This is a cool thing To where, as my 19 year old not so much he thinks it's pretty stupid right about now. But too bad, that's fun.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, confidence doesn't come first. Action and habits do. That's why I created the Confidence Kickstart Morning Routine a 15-minute free guide to help you build habits that actually work. You'll get powerful journal prompts, a guided audio meditation and my three-part confidence shortcut system, mindset Path and Action. It's the exact routine I use to get up on stage and speak up. No more shrinking or second-guessing the link's in the caption. Grab it now and build the confidence to move forward every single day. Okay, I wanted to get to our confidence quickfire round, which is the five questions that we ask at the end of every conversation to get your point of view on them All righty.

Speaker 1:

So the first one is can you please define confidence and what that is to you?

Speaker 2:

Let's see here. I would say confidence is a certainty that you can do something or a certainty that someone can do something. It's feeling confident, it's feeling certain. But the thing is you're not always going to feel that. You know. Any beginner of anything doesn't have certainty nor confidence, so you have to persist whether you have that feeling or not. Confidence comes from doing the things and gaining skills and gaining ability. You're gaining competence through experience, which makes you confident. So it's really a loop. But to me, confidence is a certainty that you can do something. It's feeling certain in yourself before you progress.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Yeah, you're right. It's not like you have it before you do the thing.

Speaker 2:

No it's a skill you build. It's a skill you build. You don't start out confident. You're not born confident. You don't start out learning how to walk. It's something you build. And confident you don't start out learning how to walk. It's something you build. And thank goodness right, because you can always get better, and so you have to do things to gain your competence, which grow your confidence, and then you become certain. But you're never going to always be fully confident or fully certain, because new experiences and new challenges are always going to come up. You're always going to be a beginner at something, and so you have to embrace the beginning, knowing very little, but you're just going to grow more and grow through it and get better and more confident.

Speaker 1:

And that ties into you talk a lot about resilience, right, I do.

Speaker 2:

I do, rooted in resilience, because I think a lot of people, I'll say, live in like a fairy tale world. They think they shouldn't have any struggle or they should have less struggle. But everybody struggles. I don't care what point in life you're at, you're going to have some hardship or struggle come your way, and so just accepting that you're going to have struggle and accepting it as part of life is really the first step in being resilient. So when it happens, it's not oh, why me I'm going to play the victim. It's oh, I guess it's just my turn. It's my turn to have a hardship today or tomorrow or week or month or however long it lasts. It's just my turn and I'm going to bounce back, or I'm going to bounce forward and I'm going to come out of this one way or another.

Speaker 1:

I love that perspective on it, just expecting it one way or another. I love that perspective on it just expecting it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can't predict what's going to happen. Something is going to eventually be hard for you and it's going to be challenging, whether it be your Wi-Fi go out or your cell phone breaks, or you go through a career change or your loss of a loved one. It's going to happen and hardship we're not immune to it. It's part of life, and so, just when it happens, instead of it being so dramatic and so devastating, just be like huh, I guess it's my turn Now. I got to deal with it and then I'll move forward.

Speaker 2:

So, it just makes it easy. Just allow hardship to be easy Understanding. That's easier said than done, but once you can realize you're not alone in hardship and struggle, you're already starting off better.

Speaker 1:

So that's a great mindset trick is just saying oh, it's my turn.

Speaker 2:

It's my turn.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, letting yourself know. Oh, everybody goes through this, it's just my turn.

Speaker 2:

I love that, that's right, that's right, and everybody's hardship is different. So you're like, oh, this is what I got today, this is the card I drew, or this is the short straw for today, or whatever's handed your way. It's just huh interesting If you meet it with curiosity instead of like resisting and pushing it away. If you just let it in and be curious about it and be like, oh, it's my turn. It really does make it easier because you don't create all the drama in your brain around it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, curiosity versus resistance. I love that. Yeah, that's a good one. I like that.

Speaker 2:

Okay, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

The second question is what's one bold move you made before you felt ready?

Speaker 2:

I got a double mastectomy. I don't think you're ever going to be ready to amputate part of your body. I didn't have to do that. It was a choice for me. I had other options, but I chose to do that because it was the most aggressive physical thing I could do regarding my cancer. That, I thought, helped me the most in the long run. And I don't know that you can say, hey, today's the day, I want to have a major surgery, but I was confident in my decision because I knew, out of all the options that were there, that was the best case scenario in my opinion. So that's probably the boldest thing I've ever done is to make that decision. Even though I didn't have to do it, I chose to do that and that's empowering. When you choose your outcome as opposed to it being forced on you. Choosing bold, choosing to be daring that's powerful. Choice is powerful.

Speaker 1:

Do you feel like that's given you momentum, that choice?

Speaker 2:

Massive momentum. Doing that, making that decision, making that choice. Yes, I got to choose and I chose what was best for me. In the long run, I left. I didn't leave a lot on the table. I was an athlete always growing up. I played tons of sports and I was a go big or go home kind of girl go big or go home kind of player and this was my go big or go home. This was my go big. I'm going all in, I want it all off and then I want to live my life, and so knowing that I can make that decision has empowered me to make every other decision easy or easier. There are plenty of things that aren't easy, but it really keeps it in a perspective. If I can do that, I can make other decisions. It really keeps it in a perspective. If I can do that, I can make other decisions. I can empower myself to do lots of things that are easier than that.

Speaker 1:

It does it gives me power and perspective.

Speaker 2:

I'm curious which sports you did. Okay, so I grew up in a small town so you got to play anything, right. There wasn't this whole one sport thing. So I played volleyball in the fall, which I loved. Volleyball is my favorite. I did not play in the winter. I took basketball season off and then in the spring I did track, golf ball and powerlifting. I played all three sports. But then I played tennis in junior high, which I didn't play in high school because I couldn't fit it in. It was one more spring sport that couldn't work. But I still love tennis too and I just picked up pickleball, like a week or two ago, and I'm loving it, but I like volleyball.

Speaker 2:

I love volleyball and powerlifting has just made has been a passion just because it keeps me strong. In no way am I a powerlifter now, but I still lift weights just to stay healthy.

Speaker 1:

Do you play sports? Yeah, I grew up in a small town as well, like 3000 people and yeah, I did basketball in the fall, which was my favorite, and then I did volleyball for my first three years of high school and then I did boys basketball cheerleading my senior year because we got to do dance routines for halftimes and stuff like that, which I love dancing as well. I did that in college dance team and then I did track, track and field.

Speaker 2:

So did you do long distance track or short distance.

Speaker 1:

What did you do? I was not a sprinter, I did long distance. Yeah, what about you?

Speaker 2:

I was a sprinter. The longest I did was the 400. The longest.

Speaker 1:

I did was the 400.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you were fast. Huh, yeah, that was fun stuff. Oh, wow, it was a 400. Yeah, fast, huh, yeah, that was fun stuff. Now, wouldn't it be funny to go sprint now, like that's something I don't do anymore? It would be funny.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't know if it would be funny.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it wouldn't be fun, but it'd be funny, funny, haha, look at that. No cameras allowed, that's right.

Speaker 1:

Okay, what's your next question? Okay, so how do you quiet your inner critic? Oh, I get quiet.

Speaker 2:

I get quiet and I root back down to what's important to me in my soul. So I go down to my truth and realize tomorrow is not promised. So, whatever is judging me in my head or I'm fearful about, I dare myself to do whatever I have to do. Because why not? Because tomorrow's not promised. Who knows what tomorrow brings? So just do it now. What are you waiting for?

Speaker 2:

So when I get fearful or I'm afraid of judgment or afraid of not being liked, I just go. Who cares? We're all going to die, just do it and have fun. And if fear wants to still be there, I just go. Who cares? We're all going to die, just do it and have fun. And if fear wants to still be there, I just bring it along with me. I just either ignore fear or say come along, anyway, I'm going for the ride, I'm not going to not live just because I'm afraid. So sometimes I quiet the inner critic to find who I am, but other times I just let it come along with me and be like I'm doing this anyway. I just become rebellious to it, become daring or bold, like we were talking about earlier.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I don't know if it will ever go away.

Speaker 2:

No, I think it's something we live with. I think it's something we live with. I think back to my grandmother. I still have one grandmother alive, but one of my other one that passed away in 2019, she cared every day. She got dressed, full makeup, pretty clothes. She was in her 80s, still making herself presentable because I don't know why, but she always cared about how she looked. I never thought to ask her at that time why do you do this? Are you afraid of judgment? Was it that? I don't know. It was a different time of life, we grew up in different times of life, but I don't think that fear of criticism or comparison or judgment ever goes away. I think we live with it. It's just dealing with it, and as we grow, as we get older, I think we care less about it. I know I do. I care less, much less about what somebody thinks of me now than I did say when I was 15.

Speaker 1:

We're just different people, we're just different people. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

If I want to be afraid, just come along with me, because I'm probably going to do it anyway. So at that point I'm just rebelling against it, saying you can be there, but I'm still moving forward. Okay, what's?

Speaker 1:

one habit that's helped you build real confidence Action. Like you're just talking about right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what we talked about early on, the physical action. Staying physical helps because I think being physical it's a surge of chemicals in your body. You're getting all these hormones released and it makes you feel empowered and confident. So being physically active is helpful, I don't care what age or stage of life you're in. It helps you move forward. But staying in action, taking bold steps or daring steps or sometimes even just baby steps, it's still forward progress.

Speaker 2:

We can't always take massive action where we just turn our life around overnight. Sometimes it's just baby steps and staying in action keeps you moving forward. And you have to be willing to try. A lot of times we get so scared and so intimidated and such a bad mood and all the world is piled on against us. You still have to be willing to try. A lot of times we get so scared and so intimidated and such a bad mood and all the world is piled on against us. You still have to be willing to just take a step and just putting one foot forward in front of the other sometimes is your best and that's all you've got that day. So that's what I do, Because one day's best looks different than another day's best.

Speaker 1:

Some days you're making big strides and other days you're just baby stuffing it and that's perfectly okay. Yeah, I like the saying fail forward, yeah, just try it messy, just keep moving forward, like you're saying one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 2:

I know, back when I was going through my cancer stuff 10 years ago and in the few years following somebody would say my in fact my mom she's you're gonna bounce out of this, you're gonna bounce out of this, you're gonna bounce back. And I just couldn't accept that. I didn't bounce, I just landed on rock bottom and I was so emotionally hurt there was no bouncing I just splatted down there and the more I thought about it I was like I can't bounce back. I'm never going to be able to bounce back to this person who didn't have cancer. This is something that has changed me and I knew I couldn't bounce back. But I had to bounce forward and it's the same concept as failing forward. Whatever you're at, you can bounce forward or in a different direction. You can fail forward or fail in a different direction, but movement is still movement and movement is healthy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, movement is magic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah for sure, Okay.

Speaker 1:

The last question is what is your favorite book or resource that changed how you think?

Speaker 2:

I like books. I would say the most impactful one was Eckhart Tolle's the Power of Now. Have you read that one by chance?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's such a good one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that one. It just opened my mind broader than I ever thought possible. It changed how I looked at the world. It changed how I look at myself, it changed how I look at other people, and so that book has probably been the most life-changing book for me the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. But I do every day I read. It's called the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and it's just one page a day and it really grounds me. It's rooted in wisdom from the Stoics and it's not heavy reading, it's just one little lesson a day and that just really keeps me grounded. So that's not life altering, but it is a daily practice that is really helpful.

Speaker 2:

Who was the guy's name, ryan? Who Ryan Holiday? I think it's called the Daily Stoic. I'm pretty sure that's it. What does he talk about?

Speaker 2:

It's not him, he has authored it, but what it is. He has compiled a lesson per day from the Stoics Aristotle, seneca and so he has a lesson per day where he puts like a quote from them in it and then he expands on it and puts his own words into everyday meaning, what he deciphers what this means and then relates it to everyday life. So it's like a mini life lesson every day. It's just one page a day. It's not a big deal. You can sit and do it in a couple of minutes and I do it every day. It just keeps me centered. Does he email that to you? No, it's a book. You can order it from Amazon or wherever.

Speaker 2:

Oh, it's a book. Okay, yeah, it's a book. It's called the Daily Stoic and the cover I have a hard cover. I think it's like beige or light tan whitish, but it's really good it is. It's 366 lessons and you do one. It's calendared. So today I'm doing May whatever. Today is May 29th, and so you start wherever you are in the year when you get it and just go forward. It's a cool book. Check it out. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, absolutely, that is so good. Okay. So back to Eckhart Tolle. I so back to Eckhart Tolle. I do want to read his. Is it the New Earth? His other book, the one that follows the Power of Now, have you read that one? I think it's called the New Earth. I haven't. No, I have it. I just haven't read it yet. But that's. I want to sit and really dedicate some time to it because I feel like it's going to be just as impactful as the first, so I want to have plenty of mental space to process it all.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure. Oh, that's so great. Okay, I have enjoyed this conversation so much, pam. Thank you.

Speaker 2:

Me too.

Speaker 1:

Can you please share where and how listeners can connect with you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. I have the no Knockouts podcast. It's on Apple, Spotify, iHeartRadio wherever you listen to podcasts and you can find me on Instagram and Facebook at no Knockouts. You can search me up there. And I also have a website and it's no knockoutscom where I offer coaching and I have some freebies out there. But if you want to connect with me, follow me on Instagram or Facebook and message me there. Fantastic, All right, Nikki, this has been great Thanks.

Speaker 1:

Oh, thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening to the Confidence Shortcut. I hope today's episode woke something up in you, reminding you that your dream matters and you can start now. If this sparked something, share it with a friend who needs it too. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Nikki Sterner and join our Facebook community at the Confidence Shortcut. Ready to take the next step? Check out my free guide, the Confidence Kickstart. Ready to take the next step? Check out my free guide, the Confidence Kickstart, linked in the show notes. Keep showing up, keep taking action and remember the shortcut to confidence is courage.