You’re The Boss, Now What? with Desiree Petrich | Leadership Development for New Managers

9 Lessons to Build Confidence and Self-Awareness as a New Leader

• Desiree Petrich - Intentional Action

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These 9 life lessons aren’t in a textbook, but they should be. Whether you're a new grad, a new manager, or someone guiding the next generation, this episode helps you grow with purpose, confidence, and self-awareness.


Most of us don’t learn life’s biggest lessons in high school, college, or even from a mentor.
 We learn them through awkward conversations, missed opportunities, and figuring it out one hard moment at a time.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever typed “life advice for new graduates,” “how to be more confident,” or “personal development tips” into a search bar. I’m walking you through 9 things I wish someone had told me at 18 (and again at 28).

These are hard-earned lessons about identity, emotional intelligence, self-leadership, confidence, and growing into the kind of person others want to follow. Whether you're stepping into your first leadership role or mentoring someone who is, this episode gives you practical tools to become more self-aware, make better decisions, and build resilience before life forces you to.

It’s everything I wish had been taught in the common sense class we never got.

By the time you finish listening, you’ll learn:

  • How to build confidence through action instead of waiting for it to appear
  • What it means to frontload your life so you’re ready when things get hard
  • Why self-awareness is the most underrated leadership skill
  • How to mentor young adults without judgment or frustration
  • The mindset shift that changed everything for me: you’re responsible to people, not for them


Connect With Desiree on Linkedin
Buy the book - Taking Intentional Action: How to Choose the Life You Lead

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Coachin...

Desiree Petrich (00:08.61)
Most of us don't learn life's biggest lessons from a textbook. We sure as heck don't learn them in high school and most of the time, not even college. We learn life's biggest lessons from screwing up and stumbling forward and figuring it out one awkward conversation and missed opportunity at a time. But in this episode, I'm sharing 10 pieces of uncommon sense that you'll likely have to learn the hard way. Uncommon sense because common sense isn't always common.

Desiree Petrich (00:49.506)
Most of us don't learn life's biggest lessons from a textbook. We sure as heck don't learn them in high school. And a lot of times college isn't that big of a help either. We learn life's biggest lessons by screwing up and stumbling forward and figuring it out along the way, one awkward conversation, one missed opportunity at a time. And in this episode, I wanna share with you nine pieces of uncommon sense that you're likely gonna have to learn the hard way, but hearing them right now just might help you

cut that learning curve in half. These are the truths that hit differently after you've lived them. But once you know they're coming, you can start to think about them now and start to implement them in your life in whatever way works for you. So whether you're graduating into a new stage of life or you're mentoring someone who is, this episode will help you name what's hard, normalize the learning process, and grow on purpose. So lean in and let's get started.

Desiree Petrich (02:03.192)
In the last episode, we talked about the difference between relational and tactical strengths and weaknesses. We are so designed from a young age to think about test scores, to think about productivity and time management, to think about whether we're checking enough things off during the day to make us feel like we accomplished something. And that's great. It's all important. It really is all encompassing when it comes to those tactical skills. We absolutely can spend time

getting stronger in them.

Desiree Petrich (02:49.154)
In the last episode, we talked about the difference between relational and tactical strengths and weaknesses, but it all comes down to one thing, knowing ourselves better, being able to ask ourselves the better question. And this episode is no different. We are gonna be talking about nine uncommon sense truths that will cut your learning curve in half, whether you are someone who is graduating high school or college.

or you're starting a new job or you've been in a job for 30 years and you feel like there is a new start on the horizon. Common sense is not always common sense. I always kind of joke that I want to see a common sense class in high school, but again, there is no way to completely cut out the necessity to learn these lessons for ourself. But my hope with sharing these nine things with you is that from number one,

all the way through number nine, there are going to be nuggets in there that you are going to never be able to unlearn. You are going to hear my voice the next time you experience certain things. And hopefully it will cut your learning curve in half. So I want to get started with number one. Number one, good intentions are not enough. I believe this so thoroughly that I actually wrote a book on this topic. We all have good intentions. It's something that we all can relate with, but

We're not taking action on them. I shouldn't say that as a blanket statement, but for the most part, we're not taking action on the things that we say we want. We want to put our phone down to have better connections. We want to be able to communicate better on their level. We want to exercise and read and...

Desiree Petrich (04:39.852)
eat healthier. There are things that we all want. We all want them for our own reason, but there is one common truth to it. You need to take action. Just saying it isn't enough. Hoping for it is not a strategy. We need to be able to evaluate our excuses. just plugging my book here for a second, chapter one is not going to tell you exactly how to fix what it is that is currently feeling hard. It's going to tell you

What is the excuse that you're using that's making it hard and how can you overcome it in a way that works for you? So you can go in the show notes to grab that book. I am working on getting an audio version of that ready as well. So make sure you hit subscribe to the podcast so that you won't miss out when that finally comes up. With that being said, good intentions aren't enough. I know you have good intentions. We are all good, kind people. It's not enough. We have to take intentional action towards the things that we say.

we want. And one of the pieces of action that I want you to take, and I want you to take it right now, is I want you to choose the identity that you have. This might seem a little strange, but think of identity like your personal brand. We talk about this all the time. Think about your identity as a word, confident, trustworthy, creative, visionary, dependable.

Desiree Petrich (06:09.666)
the word or the identity that I want to embody is disciplined. And let me tell you, it is not enough to say that you are. It might not even be enough for other people to believe that you are because Rory Vaiden talks about this concept in his book, Taking the Stairs. He says, the things that we want are rented. They are not owned. We have to pay the rent every single.

day, which means that if I want to be disciplined, if I want to choose my identity as a disciplined person, I have to pay the rent on that every day. I have to make my actions match with the words, with the intention. I have to make my actions matter. What about for those who maybe feel like they're stuck in an identity that they created, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and they don't know how to get out? For example, I was working with a 17 year old.

and she had been in 4-H for a really long time and she had shown pigs and she was known as the pig girl. I can guess you can imagine at 17 she no longer wanted to be known as that as she was going into college. She was excited about being able to create a new identity for herself. But you have to believe it first. You have to identify why is this the way it is? Did I choose it? If not, how can I be more intentional and what do I want to be known as?

You get to choose your identity and what do you want it to be?

With that being said, I laugh because the number one thing that people say when I advise them to choose how it is that they want to show up, other people see them, they say, I'm not confident enough to make that decision right now or I'm not confident enough to show other people that I am that thing. Confidence isn't required. This is lesson number three. Confidence is not required to start. It is a total misconception that you need to be confident in order to get the things that you want in life.

Desiree Petrich (08:09.794)
Confidence is built through doing the thing. It is a belief that you have what you need to succeed. It is a belief in yourself that you are going to do what you say you're going to do. It is a belief that you are going to be able to do the action even when you're scared, even when you're nervous, even when you don't know what the outcome is going to be. In reality, action precedes the feeling of confidence. It builds like a compound interest. You don't start with it. You earn it.

You earn it through repetition. You earn it through continuously proving to yourself, not others, but to yourself that you will do what you say you're going to do. This is a hard lesson because it's really easy for us if we have a list of things we need to do or someone is relying on us to do something. It feels a lot easier to do the things that we say we're going to do. But what about when nothing is on the line?

What about the days when you could go for a walk or you could skip your walk and it won't technically make a difference? Any which way. Here's lesson number four. It's called front loading your life. I got this from a David Goggins book. I'm going to mention a lot of books during this episode. So if you want to get a list of all of my favorite books, you can go to intentional action dot net slash books or look down in the show notes below for that link. It's a free downloaded PDF.

and you can get a list of all my favorite parenting, leadership, personal development, all the books. But this concept of front loading your life, it's actually what my book ended up being about. We can do the hard things now when nothing is on the line, proving our discipline, proving our desire to have a life that we have chosen, to have an identity that we have chosen. And what it means to front load your life is doing the hard stuff now, knowing that your future self will benefit.

Mine ended up being, how can you build a foundation of self, a foundation of good habits, mentally, physically, money related? How can you have good habits when it comes to sleep? How can you have good habits when it comes to your money mindset?

Desiree Petrich (10:29.548)
My entire book ended up being based around this concept of life will throw you hard things. It is inevitable. My heart is going to look very different than your heart. I might have it in my 30s. You might not have anything truly hard until your 50s. I don't know, maybe your three.

Desiree Petrich (11:00.92)
I wrote an entire book about what it looks like to build a strong foundation of self, of physical goals and mental goals and emotional goals and sleep-related goals and money mindset goals, spiritual goals, and setting out to do those things and to build really good habits before you need them. Front loading our life in a way so that when something bad does happen, your bad is gonna look different than mine. It's gonna happen in a different timeline. It's going to have a different level of intensity.

and I will never be able to fully feel your pain, your bad, your trauma, whatever that looks like. But what I do know is that if you can set up those habits in a way that ingrained them in your life, you truly can get through some of that hard stuff with a little less resistance. When my son was in the NICU for a month and then my mom passed away just three months after he was born, I didn't think it would be something I would ever...

I couldn't have imagined trying to get through that, if I'm being completely honest, but I had spent a long time front loading my life and building a foundation of self and creating habits so that when I was in the NICU, I was reading instead of watching TV and I was stretching on the floor instead of sitting there and just completely feeling like my body wasn't my own.

When my mom was in the hospital, there was nothing I could control in that moment. But I knew that if I could continue to keep up with my relationships that they would be there for me. It was the whole reason I had built them in the first place. Front loading your life is just setting up the life that you want to have and working on it now and just saying, I am going to put in the intentional action without the confidence required so that I can be set to go if and when something happens. Front load.

your life.

Desiree Petrich (12:52.61)
This comes with a lot of benefits. It comes with a lot of hard moments. It comes with a lot of moments where you're have to question yourself and you're gonna question if it's worth it. But here's what I know. Lesson number five is that the best kind of leader is a self-aware leader. Patrick Lincione is my favorite author, my favorite leadership development person in general. And he often says this. People will ask him, who is the best leader? What's the best personality style for a leader in this industry?

His answer is always the same. It's always the best kind of leader is a self-aware leader. Self-awareness changes everything. It's the difference.

Desiree Petrich (13:40.79)
It's the difference between us reacting to situations and responding thoughtfully. It's the difference between micromanaging our teams and mentoring our teams. It's the difference between having patience for certain situations and completely blowing up. Self-awareness is our ability to ask ourselves better questions. Self-awareness is not optional. You will continue to get self-aware whether you're listening to the lessons or trying to shorten the timeframe between lessons or trying to do things better.

Self-awareness is something that will continue to compound over time. But there are ways that you can increase the speed and cut down on some of the process. One of my favorite ways to do that is through personality assessments. I just think that there is so much to be learned about ourselves through things that we maybe hadn't thought about in certain ways. It's why I'm certified in two different personality assessments, but there's also free ones that you can take. So if you go to intentionalaction.net slash self-awareness, I have links.

to a ton of different personality assessments, some of them free like the Love Languages or the Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. Otherwise, you can also click on the Disc Assessment, which is gonna tell you about communication styles, behaviors, connection, communicating. I think I said that twice. Or you can click on Working Genius, which is gonna tell you a little bit more productivity, energy, where you're getting joy at work. And if you pay for the assessment,

free 20 minute.

Desiree Petrich (15:29.952)
If you choose to take the disc or working genius assessment, I would love to gift you a 20 minute debrief of whichever of those two personality assessments you take because it's not just about reading the report and not letting it sink in. It kind of defeats purpose. We have to apply these things to our actual life in order for them to make sense and for them to actually help us in our self-awareness. So intentionalaction.net slash self-awareness. And that will give you the links for everything that you need both

free and the opportunity to do a debrief with me. So number five, honestly, this is the most important one. I could say that about a lot of them, but the self-aware piece of this, piece isn't going to go away. It is a never ending journey. And that shouldn't be a scary thing. That should be an exciting thing, an exciting thing to know that the hard lessons that you're learning are actually adding value to your life. And we have at the end of the day, the opportunity to do things and to react to things.

and to help other people through the lessons that we learn. So it is a good thing, as frustrating as it is sometimes. Talking about frustrating, this word has the tendency to rub people the wrong way, but vulnerability. This is lesson number six. Being vulnerable enough to ask for help is a strength, not a weakness. The willingness to ask for help, to be vulnerable, to admit your mistakes.

the willingness to tell people how you are without putting

Desiree Petrich (17:12.312)
The willingness to tell people how you are without putting walls up, the willingness to take the blinders off and actually see things for how they are. Being vulnerable is a strength, not a weakness. It is a skill, just like any other skill. It will get better the more that you practice. And I know how uncomfortable it is. And in a previous episode, I said I had talked to a client of mine who said,

Desiree Petrich (17:40.728)
that she literally can't imagine a world in which it's appropriate to be vulnerable in the workplace. Vulnerability, it teaches us that it's safe to not have all the answers. It's okay to still be learning. It builds real trust really fast when you are willing to ask for help and to offer it and to be willing to share your failures and your successes with others and not trying to keep those.

behind the glass. It's not worth it. In my opinion, but I also think that there's a lot of merit to feeling like there's certain people you can't be vulnerable with. But here's the other thing I want you to know, and it's gonna lead us right into our next lesson. It's that if you don't feel confident and comfortable being vulnerable in someone, you may have outgrown that person. So number seven, you will outgrow people. And that is not a bad thing. Letting go of relationships,

that no longer align with your values or the direction that you want to go in life. It isn't cruel. It's not mean. It's necessary. I don't know if you believe that you are the culmination of the five people you spend the most time with. But if you have goals, if you have aspirations, whether you're in high school and you want to go to a certain college or get a certain test score, if you are in college and you want to get a certain job or you want to have a certain amount of influence in your community, if you've been in leadership,

for 20 years and you want to get on a certain board of directors or you want to have a better public relations view in the community. It is important that you are spending time with the right people, not only because of the way that it's going to make you look that actually doesn't have anything to do with it. It's the way that they set an expectation for you to do bigger and better things and set an expectation for you that you can be more than you are currently being growth.

often means leaving comfort behind. And I know that's not exciting to everyone in the way that it's exciting to me to leave that comfort zone. But some people are in your life for a reason and some are just for a season. Both are OK. You do not owe performance.

Desiree Petrich (20:07.916)
you will outgrow people and that is not a bad thing. It takes a lot of courage actually.

Desiree Petrich (20:23.254)
You will outgrow people and that's not a bad thing. It actually takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of desire and a lot of intention to choose who you want to be and who you're going to spend your time with so that you can become that person. And this leads right into lesson number eight. You are not responsible for people. This mindset change, this leadership development mindset shift, it honestly changed

everything for me because I was trying so hard to be everything to everyone and to do everything perfectly and to make sure that I was giving people what they needed. was responsible in my mind for how people reacted, how they responded, how they showed up, how they etc. etc. You are not responsible for people. There are certain things in life you cannot control and this is one of them. However,

You are responsible to people. You are responsible to be the best version of yourself. You are responsible to show up in the best way that you know how and to be a good friend and to be vulnerable and to put action behind the things that you say and to show up in a way that you are proud of. You are not responsible for people. You are responsible to people. But here's the caveat to that. You don't have to be perfect. No one expects you to.

My daughter was coloring with me in, I have a little workout shed in my backyard and she woke up super early this morning. So she came out with me and she was coloring and she said, mom, look, I'm staying in the lines really well. And I had immediate thought to say, well, practice makes perfect. But I stopped myself as I'm sitting there with my hands on my knees heaving because I can't breathe. I had paused my workout and I just thought, you will never become perfect at anything. I've been working out for.

17 years and I will never ever be perfect because we continue to grow and we continue to learn more about ourselves and we will color outside the line sometimes. And if we think that we had arrived and that we were going to be perfect and we had gotten to that place that going outside the lines is a bad thing, we're to get down on ourselves. There's no other alternative. It's going to cause frustration for us. But if all we need to be is coachable.

Desiree Petrich (22:44.16)
If all we need to do is be willing to know that we're going to continue to learn and we're going to continue to have to ask for help, we're going to have to be coachable to grow faster and to lead better and to earn other people's trust. It is not enough to feel like we have made it. It will never do us any good. People don't want to feel imposter syndrome. They don't want to feel like they don't.

belong or that they didn't earn what they have. But what it means to have imposter syndrome is that you know, you know that there's room to grow. You know that it's OK to ask for help. You know that you don't know everything. And that's actually going to build a lot more trust and it's going to build a lot more respect than thinking that you are exactly where you're supposed to be and that you hold all of the cards and that you don't need help from anyone. When you receive feedback,

with grace because you know that you'll never know it all. You will not only live a better life, you will actually model what it looks like to give to you're going to feel like you have taken feedback from people and you've been coachable. And it almost gives you a permission to then coach others in a way that hopefully they will learn something from you and you will give back some of that coaching, some of that wisdom that others have given you. So you do not need to be perfect. You never will be. It is an unattainable goal.

but you do have to be coachable. You do have to be willing to listen to advice.

Number nine, that's it. You don't have to be perfect. You do have to listen to the rest of these points though, because I want to just drive it home. One more time, none of these things are going to be things that you hear now in this 20 minute podcast and say, yep, got it, check. I can move on and learn that lesson. I relearn these lessons on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. I have to keep...

Desiree Petrich (24:42.934)
reminding myself that I've already learned this lesson once and I can shut I can cut down the learning curve to the next time that I'm gonna have to learn it because I have experienced this I have learned you can't unlearn the things that you have already experienced you can't unhear what you've just heard today it doesn't mean you're gonna be perfect you never can be but it does mean that you can potentially cut the learning curve down just a little bit

So make sure you go into the show notes because I have a lot of resources in there for you today. If you want to find some books, if you want to find certain podcasts that you love, if you want to read my book, if you want to take a personality assessment, all of those things are down in the show notes for you. All of the things that have helped me get from a really struggling first time manager with very little respect and absolutely no clue of what I was doing to a 31 year old individual with an absolutely

amazing life despite the hard times, despite all the lessons learned. I can truly say that I love my life and you can get there too. If you're not there yet, I promise you, you can get there and it's going to take some uncomfortability and it's going to take learning some of these lessons along the way. But these are just 10 things.

Desiree Petrich (26:14.062)
So there you have it, nine things that I wish were taught in a common sense class despite knowing that we're all still gonna have to learn it the hard way anyway. So if you have a graduate, a new leader, a new parent, if you have anyone that you feel could benefit from this message, please send this to them. This is the culmination of every hard lesson and commandment that I hold for myself when it comes to personal and leadership development because I truly believe

that as long as we are giving ourselves the opportunity to continue learning and to be coachable, we can do anything. Make sure you scroll down into the show notes and find the resources, whether it be a link for a self-awareness or personality assessment. It might be that you want to read more. If you know anything about me, I 100 % believe in the power of a good book. The list is there for you if you wouldn't mind if you got anything from this at all.

Would you consider scrolling down and leaving a five star rating and review? Leave a message that's going to tell someone why it is worth their time to really, truly learn how to be a better version of themselves. I would be forever thankful. Thank you so much for joining me today. In the next episode, we are going to be talking about how to have hard conversations. I have Scott Tillema coming. He was a hostage negotiator with a SWAT team with the FBI, and he talks about how any of us can learn how to have

hard conversations. It was a fantastic.

Desiree Petrich (27:50.39)
Make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss it. And just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it's also a huge responsibility. And you're the boss now. So what are you gonna do with it?