The Confidence Shortcut with Niki Sterner
The Confidence Shortcut is your permission slip to start before you’re ready. Hosted by actor, comedian & producer Niki Sterner, each episode is packed with honest conversations, mindset tools, and practical shortcuts to help you silence your inner critic, develop a growth mindset, and get unstuck.
Designed for high-achieving creatives, performers, visionaries, and entrepreneurs, this podcast helps you build the habit of courage in the face of fear—so you can finally share your voice with the world.
If you’ve ever wondered how to build confidence, overcome self-doubt, or stop overthinking and start taking action, this show is your weekly boost of momentum. Whether you’re battling imposter syndrome, stuck in perfectionism, or simply afraid to take the next step, you’ll leave each episode with real-life tools and the confidence to move forward—one bold (and sometimes messy) step at a time.
Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show wherever you’re listening, and grab your free “Confidence Kickstart” in the show notes.
The Confidence Shortcut with Niki Sterner
#21: Niki Sterner | The Success STAR Model | Confidence by Design
What if the fastest way to confidence isn’t waiting to feel ready, but modeling what already works? In this episode, we explore The Success STAR Model, a repeatable process for reverse-engineering the paths of Issa Rae, Brené Brown, and Ed Sheeran into Soul Goals you can act on this week.
It’s not about copying, it’s about alignment: matching your values to proven patterns so you can start messy, share boldly, and turn consistency into courage.
We’ll break down:
Issa Rae’s self-starter approach, how to launch with what you have right now
Brené Brown’s storytelling method, how to shape a signature story that connects
Ed Sheeran’s practice-in-public mindset, how to turn nerves into presence
You’ll get specific: two Soul Goals from each model, plus three concrete actions to help you choose your story, create your first draft, and share it out loud, whether that means posting a video, pitching your idea, or stepping onto a stage, within 72 hours.
Along the way, we’ll teach the ACE Mindset Routine to manage fear and move forward fast:
- Acknowledge the fear (“This feeling means it matters to me.”)
- Clear the mind with a neutral statement (“I move before I feel ready.”)
- Elevate your energy with how you want to feel (“I am joyful. I am magnetic. The crowd loves me and they lean in when I share my story.”)
You’ll leave with reflection prompts to identify your top three Success STARs, clarity on the one Soul Goal to pursue next, and a simple rhythm that makes momentum inevitable.
If you’ve been over-preparing, second-guessing, or waiting for the perfect plan, this is your cue to move first and let confidence follow.
Subscribe for more episodes of The Confidence Shortcut, where we turn daily discomfort into big breakthroughs. Share this with a friend who needs a nudge, and drop a review with your 72-hour action: What brave step will you take today?
If this conversation sparked something, share it with a friend who needs a nudge. Subscribe and leave a quick review so more creatives find their courage faster. Ready for more? Grab the free Confidence Kickstart in the show notes and get first dibs on my book, "The Confidence Shortcut" when it launches in December 2025, sign up below to be the first in line.
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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 Stirner, 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 back to the Confidence Shortcut, the show for ambitious creatives and entrepreneurs ready to stop overthinking, take bold action, and finally live their wildest yes life. Now, if you're wondering what a wildest yes life is, it's something that lights you up. It's that yes that makes you feel like this is what I was put on this earth to do. I'm your host, Nikki Stirner. I'm an actor, comedian, and courage coach. And this is week three of season two. In week one, we became dream detectives. We uncovered the four key areas of life: health, relationships, career and creative expression, and fun and adventure to see what truly lights us up. We looked at where are we now versus where do we want to be and how do we get there. In week two, we created our three S lists: star, scared, and success to identify who inspires us, what scares us, and where we've already proven we can win. And this week we're taking that star list even deeper with the success star model, someone to admire and reverse engineer, star, someone to admire and reverse engineer. This is what I did. And I did it without realizing what I was doing. And then I looked back and went, oh my gosh, this really works. And there's so many studies out there that show that you don't have to start from scratch. You can look at whoever has success and what you want to be doing and just model your life after that. You're not copying them because obviously you have a different path, you have a different way of looking at things, but there is a way to do this. So, what is the success star model? The success star model is about identifying someone who's already living a version of your wildest yes life and then studying their path to design your own. You don't have to start from scratch. You can model success and make it your own. So today I'll walk you through three people who found their voice and used it boldly: Issa Ray, Renee Brown, and Ed Sheeran. For each one, we'll break down two soul goals inspired by their journey and three action steps for one of those soul goals that you can take this week. All right, let's dive in. The first one is Issa Ray, the self-starter showrunner. Issa Ray didn't wait for permission. She built her dream from her living room. She started the Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl on YouTube, just her friends and a camera. And that small web series became insecure on HBO. It launched her production company and earned multiple awards. So Issa reminds us you don't have to be discovered. You can decide to start. So Issa Rae's two soul goals. Number one, launch a self-produced series or creative project. The second soul goal: build visibility and authority as a multi-hyphenic creative. So let's focus on soul goal number one. Launch a self-produced series or creative project. Here are three action steps inspired by Issa Rae. The first one, choose your story. What do you want to say? What message or moment keeps calling to you? What keeps showing up? Write it down, name it. That's your concept seed. The second action step, create with what you have. Film, record, or write using your phone, your house, your circle of friends. Perfection is a trap. We know that. Progress is power. Move forward messy. Number three, share it publicly. Post episode one of your first clip. Remember, every masterpiece starts as a messy draft. Isa didn't wait for Hollywood. She built her own stage. And you should too. And I'm gonna do that too. All right. The second success star model is Brene Brown, the vulnerable visionary. Brene Brown began as a shame researcher at the University of Houston. Then she did something few academics dared to do. She stood on a TEDx stage and shared her breakdown. That talk went viral. Her message became universal, and she built an empire on truth and vulnerability. Her courage to tell the truth out loud is what made her unforgettable. Brene Brown's two soul goals. The first one, craft and share a signature talk or story. Her second one, write and publish a book or blog around your message. All right, let's focus on soul goal number one. Craft and share a signature talk or story. Here are three action steps to follow Brene's lead if this is something you're modeling your life after. The first one is write your story of truth. What's one story that changed you but still feels raw? Write it. No editing, no judgment. Just write. Brain dump. Get it out. Don't try to be perfect. Write the story. Number two, shape it into a five-minute talk. Boil it down the struggle, the shift, the lesson. Like, where did you start? Like, where did you go to? What was the journey? What did you learn? Write it all down because people want to hear that. They want to hear your story. It's more interesting when you share the struggle. Number three, share it safely. Read it to your courage crew. If you have a courage crew, a group of people that hold you accountable. Post it privately. Record a video. Watch yourself. See how can you improve? How can you make it better? Get a coach if you need to, if you can, or just read it in front of your spouse or your partner or your kids. Vulnerability creates connection. And connection is magnetic. Like when you open up, I want more. My new book, The Confidence Shortcut, is almost here. And I want you to be among the first to know when it goes on sale. This isn't just a book, it's also a journal and a calendar that walks you through the exact process I used to go from over-preparing and stuck in perfection to finding my voice and using it on stage in relationships and in business. When you sign up, you'll get early access updates, behind-the-scenes bonuses, and first divs when the book goes live in December. Don't wait. Sign up at the link in the show notes and be the first to know when the confident shortcut is available. Okay, the third success star model is Ed Sheeran, the relentless musician. Ed Sheeran started with nothing but a guitar, a backpack, and a dream. He played hundreds of tiny shows, wrote songs every single day, and wasn't afraid to be bad at it first. He practiced in public, and that's what made him great. When you get in front of a crowd, there is no hiding. It's like me going live with you guys. I want to be a speaker, so I'm going live. Here I am. Let's go. There's no perfect when you are out in the public. It's just performance. It's just presence. It's being in the moment. So he practiced in public. And that's what made him great. That is the most brave thing you could ever do. So Ed Sheeran's two soul goals. Number one, create and release a song, album, or creative body of work. Number two, perform regularly to build courage and community. When you start performing regularly, you gotta have that mindset routine in place. I talk about the ace mindset. You acknowledge the fear because when you perform in front of a crowd, your body is gonna react. You know, you're gonna have that heart beating, the sweaty palms, all of it. So you acknowledge that. Oh, yes, but you tell yourself a different story. You tell yourself, oh my gosh, I'm so ready. I'm ready. This energy is good. This is a good thing. And then you clear your mind. I move before I feel ready. You say something that has no positive, no negative. It's just a statement. It's who you are. I move before I feel ready. I used to say the first blizzard is December 1st, which is something that I used to do when I was in basketball in high school, where I would get the ball and I was the point guard, so I needed to make my free throws. It was really important. So I would get the ball, I would say the first blizzard is December first, which totally cleared my mind. I wasn't thinking about, oh my gosh, am I gonna miss this? Do we need this? Is there pressure on us at the end of the game? Whatever, like nothing. Just the first blizzard is December first. And then I would say bounce, bend, swish, because I was elevating into what I wanted, bend, swish. I wanted the ball to go through the hoop. So when I get on stage, when I did comedy, I would say, okay, this is good. This is so good. The first blizzard is December 1st. I am full of joy. I am magnetic. The audience loves me and they laugh at all my jokes because I wanted the energy to feel so magnetic between us. I wanted us to be one vibe. I wanted us to be in this uplifted energy, this positive space where we're having fun, we're laughing together. I want that's what I wanted. So that's what I told myself I was doing right before I went on stage. And that's the energy I put out, and that's the energy I got back. It made it so fun. So you get to create what you want in your mind first, and then you experience it in real life. Okay, so back to Ed Sharon. So he created and released a song, album, or creative body of work. You can do the same thing. You want to write songs, do you want to write a book? You want to read poetry? Do you want to rap? Do you want what do you want to do? Do you want to do stand-up comedy? Do you want to perform in plays and musicals? What is it? What do you want to write? What do you want to do? And then the second one was perform regularly to build courage and community. Getting in front of people, oh my gosh, will change your life. That is where the courage is. That is where you have to be fully present. Full presence is where the magic is. That's where the magic happens. That's where you connect with other people. So let's focus on soul goal number two. Perform regularly to build courage and community. So here are three action steps that you can take this week if this is someone you're modeling your career after. Number one, pick your stage. Pick your stage. Find one open mic, a showcase, an online space where you can share your work this week. Get on stage. I know it sounds crazy, but just put yourself up there. Like when I first started doing stand-up comedy, I forgot my lines. I was so awkward and I was so mad at myself. That's what made me create the Ace mindset routine was I got to get my mindset together. Because when you got your mindset right, you can be present and you can be in the moment and performing and really open up your soul to speak. That's the greatest performance is when your soul is speaking. It's not that your mind, your brain knows everything. It's that your soul is present and fully there and sharing, which is what you're here to do. Okay. So you pick your state, you get online, you Google, search, like where you live. And is there an open mic? Is there a showcase? Is there whatever it is you're trying to do? Get online and research. It's so easy. It's so easy. The second one, set your consistency goal. Commit to performing once a week for eight weeks, or every day, or every other day, three times a week, two times a week, whatever it is for you. Start performing. Get on stage, but make it consistent and show it for yourself because consistency beats confidence every time. When you show up, you connect with other people, other artists. When you show up, you build trust in yourself that you can do this and that you do the things that you say you want to do. So be consistent. Consistency beats confidence every time and it creates confidence because you know that you'll do the things you say you want to do. The third thing is record and reflect. After each performance, note one thing you did well and one thing to grow on. That's how progress compounds. So you don't want to just perform, you want to record it and reflect. You want to up-level your performance every single time. When I did stand-up comedy, I recorded it on my phone every time. I got on there and I listened to it. And it's sometimes it's painful. It's so hard to listen to yourself speak or watch your performance. But you really truly see yourself when you watch. You're able to study and say, I could have done that better. And I'd like to try this differently next time. But if you never watch, you're just stuck in like the same place the whole time. So you've got to get back on and listen to it or watch it. You've got to reflect on what you just did so that you can improve. That's what coaches do. They tell you how to make it better every time. If it's a basketball game, I want you to work on this. So that's what you're doing when you're recording yourself. Okay, now it's your turn. Are you ready to look at your own star list, the people who inspire you the most, and ask yourself what soul goals do they show me? What consistent actions did they take that I can adapt into my own path? You don't need their platform, just their persistence. Okay. So Google search, do a little deep dive online. What are they doing? What did they do? Look into their past. You could get on ChatGPT and ask, please tell me the major milestones that these artists did in their life. You're just trying to brainstorm ideas. And something will land for you. You'll intuitively know, oh, that's the next thing that I need to do. You'll know. It'll stand out to you. Just trust yourself. My book, The Confidence Shortcut, is almost here. Want to be first in line when it goes on sale in December? Sign up at the link in the show notes to get early access, bonuses, and launch day alerts. Don't wait. Be the first to know. Courage. On purpose every day. Okay, so here are some reflection prompts for you that I want you to do right now. So pull out a piece of paper and I want you to ask yourself who are your top three success star models right now? Like for me, it would be Mel Robbins. It would be Issa Ray. And it might be Ed Sheeran, an artist who is a singer-songwriter, who's putting their work out there. I want to create a one-woman show. I want to give a TEDx talk. I want to write my book. Those are like my next things that I'm putting together. So who's already done that? There was also the gentleman who wrote Baby Reindeer. I don't know if you saw that on Netflix, a wild film, but it was based on his life. And he had created a one-man show that actually transitioned into that. And then Mel Robbins is on stage speaking. She's one of the biggest speakers across the world. She has multiple books, best-selling books. She has a talk show, or she did have a talk show. Now she has her podcast. So there are things that she did to get to where she is now. She's doing a tour. How fun. Like she's coming here to Atlanta in April. And it's right around my birthday. What a perfect excuse to go and see her and see someone doing what I want to do. I'm going to the Ted next event in November so that I can be in the room with people who are on stage speaking and really absorb that. I'm going to an NSA meeting this week to go and make connections with other speakers so that I can be around greatness. And I'm also doing a speaker intensive. I'm in a program that shows me and guides me, gives me that information that I need to learn and grow as a speaker. I'm not doing this on my own. We think we have to do this alone and we don't. There are people, there are programs, there are coaches, there are people who've done it that can make this easier for you. You don't have to learn everything on your own. Okay. So number one, you wrote down who are your top three success star models? Who are the people that you want to model your path after? Number two, what two soul goals can you identify from each of their journeys? So we just talked about that as well. So write down two soul goals. Just start with two. If you want to list them all, go ahead. Great. That's fine too. Like I probably would do the same thing. I'd write down all 10 that they did or all five, whatever it is. But you're going to pick at least two to start with. And then the next part is narrow it down even more. Which one soul goal will you focus on next, right now, during these next eight weeks? What are you going to pick? What are you going to do? Is it the TED Talk? Is it working on the book? Is it creating a stand-up comedy piece that you can get on stage? Is it writing a poem that you can perform? Is it writing a song? What one piece of art do you want to work on right now? And then question number four is what three small specific actions can you take this week to move toward it? Is it brain dumping your message that you want to work on that you want to write your song about? Is it writing a book outline? Is it Google searching coaches? Is it finding a class nearby you? What are some action steps that you can take this week to move toward it? What in fact, what can you do today to move toward this? And then I want you to pick one of those actions and do it this week within 72 hours, like within today. Because courage doesn't grow from thinking, it grows from doing. And I want you to tag me at Nikki Stirner on Instagram and share your action or on TikTok. I want you to tag me. You know you're here. Nikki Stirner. Share your action using the hashtag the confidence shortcut so we can celebrate your progress together. I want to know what you're doing. Okay, I'll leave you with a quote from Ed Sheeran who said, such a great reminder. Every time he stepped into the studio, he said to himself, dare to suck. That's the secret. That's the secret. If you're willing to be bad at it first, you'll get great at it eventually. But everybody starts somewhere. And if you're brave enough to start, the way will appear. So take your first step. Start messy. Dare to suck. Because confidence doesn't come before action, it comes from action. This is the confidence shortcut. I'll see you next week for episode four, where we'll discover your core values, the compass that keeps you grounded, clear, and courageous no matter what stage you're on. Thanks so much for joining me. 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 Stirner. And join our Facebook community at The Confidence Shortcut. 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.