The Confidence Secret Nobody Talks About | Dr. Christiane Schroeter

Have you ever wondered why some people seem naturally confident while others constantly struggle with self-doubt?

In this episode of From Drift to Direction, I sit down with Dr. Christiane Schroeter—leadership strategist, professor, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, and creator of the Petite Practice® method—to uncover what confidence really is and how anyone can build it.

We discuss why confidence isn't something you're born with—it's something you build through consistent action, intentional relationships, and learning to trust yourself.

In this episode you'll learn:

✅ The real meaning of confidence

✅ How to overcome self-doubt

✅ Why small daily actions create extraordinary results

✅ The Petite Practice® method

✅ How to build stronger relationships

✅ The importance of finding the right people

✅ Daily habits that improve confidence

✅ How to stop feeling stuck and start taking action

If you've been waiting until you feel "ready," this conversation may completely change the way you think about growth.

👇 Question for you:

What's one small action you can take today that your future self will thank you for?

I'd love to hear your answer in the comments.

🎙️ About the Podcast

From Drift to Direction is a podcast exploring purpose, mindset, confidence, success, career growth, entrepreneurship, financial freedom, and living a more intentional life through honest conversations with inspiring guests.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So confidence really comes from to fully trust yourself. And I think that a lot of people don't trust themselves. And that's special. It's not like I have something in my life that other people don't. I think what I just do is I listen for the right moments. Everybody has 24 hours. Nobody has more time than others. But it's your choice what you do with the 24 hours.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Welcome back to From Drift to Direction, the podcast where we explore the moments, challenges, and mindset shifts that help people move from feeling stuck to living with greater purpose and direction. Today's guest is Dr. Christiane Schrouter, a professor, leadership strategist, dead speaker, and best-selling author. For more than two decades, she has helped people navigate, change, build confidence, and create meaningful progress in their lives and careers. But like many of our guests, her insights didn't come from a textbook. They came from real-life experiences, challenges, and lessons learned along the way. Today we are talking about confidence, change, leadership, and why sometimes the smallest steps can create the biggest transformations. Christiane, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Oh, thanks so much for having me, Peter, and of course, audience. This is going to be such a value-driven episode. So I'm really glad you're here. And if you are driving somewhere or just hanging out, we are for sure going to make it worth your time.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Thank you. Let me ask you uh growing up, did you always uh uh wanted to become a professor, speaker, entrepreneur? What what uh brought you to those uh many things?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Well, one thing when I was growing up is I always enjoyed just speaking and communicating with others, and I think at the gist of it, that's really what it comes down to. That I feel like I'm serving others, I'm helping others, I'm listening to their problems, and I'm turning around and maybe even listen to some people that don't have anybody to talk to or feel like they can't put their own words into meaning. So I think that a good leader, to come back to what I'm doing now, I'm a leadership strategist, is really somebody that first and foremost listens, but then secondly, of course, listens and helps those people that they listen to maybe reach the goals that they are really achieving to do. So I was always a good listener, I was always creative, and at the same time, I always wanted to make people smile and bring joy to their life. Um, whether it would turn out to be a professor, leadership strategist, and speaker, that wasn't even something I had thought about, but at the same time I knew I wanted to do something with people.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Okay, that's awesome. I think something you say is that people uh listening to people, but what I find is that people are listening, but they're not taking anything from that conversation. Do you think that many people are just present there? They're listening, but they're not taking uh you know anything from the conversation or a lesson.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

You're bringing up such an amazing point because I think when you are in a conversation, we tend to underestimate that even though we are listening, all of your other senses are there too. So you can watch somebody while they're speaking and see their body language. You can also feel it. Sometimes when people are very sad or very joyful, they even have this energy about them that you can kind of pick up with your senses. So it's not just the listening, but it's also the watching and the feeling, of course. And you can even like, you know, touch somebody's arm or like reach out and tap their shoulder and kind of making that body contact with them. So I think what we all need to do is first and foremost listen better, but then also when you listen, really listen intentionally and use your whole body and your whole senses in giving that person the full attention because, as I mentioned before, we don't get it enough, and we're feeling we're just an afterthought or a side project while somebody's scrolling through their phone, and because we don't get that enough, there is sometimes like a little bit of a shortening of the sentences to where people are becoming it's not like a muscle. People use the listening muscle, people don't use the muscle of empathy, people don't use the muscle of really watching somebody when they're speaking. And I think once you train yourself, you're going to be amazed at how much more you start picking up in conversations and how much more you're really starting to connect to people because they're feeling seen, they're feeling heard, but they also feel that I understand where you're coming from, this empathy moment right there.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Exactly. And do you think that um people are struggling to connect with each other? We live in a busy, busy world, and everybody's rushing and trying to get to work on time, trying to complete the next task. Do you think that people are struggling with that?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

I feel that a part of the issue really is people struggle to understand. Everybody has 24 hours, nobody has more time than others, but it's your choice. What you do with the 24 hours. Do you want to spend it with people? Do you want to spend it scrolling through your phone with people that might not even exist in real life? You don't know what who these people are that are posting on social media. It could be an AI bot. You don't know, right? So it's your choice because what I always tell people is you have to think that at the end of your life, you never wished. Oh, I wish I would have scrolled through my phone more. You always wished I would have spent more time connecting with others and building those meaningful relationships. So I always say, start now. There's no better way than now in connecting to people. Put your phone away, look around, who's around you right now. Even when you're standing in a coffee shop in line, do you absolutely have to look at your phone in that very moment? How about just starting a conversation and connecting with somebody who's standing in front of you in line or with a barista who tries really hard in making a very great beverage or a snack for you? So for me, it's like the small moments and I call it petite practice that really build the connection. You don't have to go like to an event with 600 people to meet others. You could meet them in the six minutes that you spend in picking up your next coffee. So it's really intentionally that you use your time, your 24 hours, instead of just sliding through your day, feeling you're running from one thing to the next. Spend your energy on each task and really absorb the task, and then you're going to get so much more out of it. It's nearly like you're like a sponge that's just absorbing what's happening around you, and you're going to see a big difference.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

You mentioned something that people are not connecting, but do you think that the lack of confidence is something that stays between that willingness to connect with other people? Because you talk a lot about confidence.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

I do. So you hear my accent. I'm from Germany. German is my first language, and English is my second language. And because it is my first language, I'm always really interested in the root of a word. Where does the word come from? When you really peel it back, does it come from Latin? What does it really mean? So confidence really comes from to fully trust yourself. And I think that a lot of people don't trust themselves, and because of that, it comes across as like a hesitation or an inability to maybe put your thoughts into a clear train of words. Now, coming back to what we talked about earlier, the connection. Guess what? How can we build more confidence? In building more connection. You might not be able to stand on a stage in front of 200 people and give a talk. But how about you just share with the person in front of you at the coffee shop what you want to do? And the more you repeat those words, the more you start to trust yourself. Remember the root of the word confidence, trusting yourself fully, the more you're able to really gain more clarity, more momentum, and maybe sharing that with a bigger crowd. Because it could be one person at the coffee shop, three people next time you're in the supermarket, four people maybe at some event, a family gathering, five people maybe next time you're like teaching a class or at a job meeting. So it's really the momentum, the petite practice in practicing the small moments where you keep repeating and you're gaining confidence just by practicing. Nobody knows how to give a speech, and they are like these natural talents. It's all a skill, a muscle that you have to train. And because you're not connecting with others, you're just scrolling on your phone. Most people do that. You're not practicing, and so the confidence really comes from looking up and looking people in the face and starting to use your words and expressing what you want to do. And I think that sometimes we feel we're not getting anywhere, we're kind of like overwhelmed and stuck because that really comes from the fact that you're not using your network or the people around you to your full ability. And I think that as I say it, we all have 24 hours, but really use your time wisely connecting with people because that is the ultimate free goal of really reaching your next step there.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And something really important you say is that you don't need to get in front of 600 people and speak, just start with one person in front of you or one person behind of you. Um tell me about a little bit more about the petite uh technique system. How did you discover it? Was it uh coming was it coming from a personal experience?

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Beautiful question. So I have always used petite practice, so petite French for small practice for the fact that I'm giving you permission, that it's a practice, like a trial and an error. You're practicing, it might be something amazing that you discover, it might be something that maybe doesn't work, it's a practice, right? It's just like you're picking up a ball and you're starting to dribble, and maybe the ball rolls away. On the next day, you're starting to do the same thing, you're starting to dribble, and maybe the ball doesn't roll away. It's a practice. So you're getting better at it, you're trying things, you're learning how to do it, you're becoming better at it because you keep repeating it consistently on a daily basis. So, did I always do this in my life? I think so. Did I always name it petit practice? For sure not. So now I have a trademark on it because it's my signature system. But looking back at my life, I always framed all my successes around the fact that I chipped away at them consistently and that I chipped away at them daily, and that I was okay with the fact when I failed. Because you always think failure is such a struggling, negative experience. It's really just your first attempt in learning, right? You fail and you're like, all right, that was maybe not a good idea. So let's try something different. And then you're sailing because your second attempt in learning is maybe just much smoother and much easier, and you're just really starting to take off. So for me, I want to emphasize like one important thing. We all have stories, but we tend to not calm down enough to really let the stories speak. So for me, once I started kind of slowing down, all of a sudden I noticed, oh my gosh, I've always done small steps reaching, big impact, the pitied practice. And then after my TED talk, I thought, well, let's write it all out. Because people started talking. Like they were like, How did you how did you earn your PhD? How did you write your books? How did you start your top 1% ranked podcast? How did you do your YouTube channel? And I was like, There's no magic, it's always the exact same system, the petite practice. But then in August this year, August 16th, 2026, I'm publishing my fifth book, and that's called Petite Practice, because I'm sharing my system with you how everybody can do that as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

Awesome. Uh, you mentioned something really important, and I think also failure is really important part of the journey because if you never try, you never fail, you never succeed, so it's part of those small steps. Um, were you always confident? Was this always part of you?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

No, that's a great question. I would be lying if I would say yes. I mean, obviously, we all have doubts. Even now, to be honest with you, Peter. There are so many days when I'm like, is it really a good idea to publish another book? I mean, your confidence is an author, it comes and goes. It's like the ocean. I'm living in California, you're looking at the ocean, there's a wave of confidence, and on the next day you're like, what in the world am I doing? And that's okay to have self-doubts. But here's the tricky thing. If you have self-doubts and you don't have anybody to share those self-doubts with, it's going to start spiraling down. That's tricky. You need to express your self-doubts because guess what? What I just shared with you, the fact that on some days you're sitting down and the writing is smooth, and on some days you're sitting down and the writing is rough. If you have ever written a book or anything in your life, doesn't that sound familiar? So you need to share that with somebody else. And by sharing it, all of a sudden you're like, well, I guess I'm not the only one, huh? And then you gain confidence because all of a sudden it feels like I'm connecting with others because we share the pain of the self-doubt. Right. So did I always have confidence? Nope. But I always had the ability to communicate. And I think at the end of the day, that's what it comes down to that your communication leads to your connection, and your connection leads to your collaboration, and your collaboration leads to your confidence. That you kind of start connecting the dots in the moments when you're really struggling, and to how to get out of it is just to communicate with others, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

And something that you mentioned is sharing with people. Do you think that we really need to find the right people to share with? Because many times when you want to do something, when you're struggling, you share with your closest people around you, and you always get that negative, uh, you know, negative voice. Do you think that we really need to look for the right people, the people who motivate us, inspire us, support us in those moments?

SPEAKER_00 16:02

That's a beautiful question. Audience, this is like really crucial for you right now. So I'm giving the audience two homework assignments here because I'm a professor, I can do this, right? First, really go through your social media accounts and look at the accounts that you are following, and the accounts that maybe even by the algorithm keep popping up, so maybe you're not even following them, but they're just popping up. So, first, you can block the accounts that keep popping up by saying this is irrelevant and I don't really want to see it anymore, so your algorithm will change. But second, people that you're following and that keep putting out the negative nilly messages. Are you really sure that you want to see that when you open your social media? Wouldn't it be amazing to see a stream of joy or a stream of things that actually build you up instead of pulling you down? So you need to be really clear with yourself. Are these really people that I want to associate myself with? Because guess what? My dissertation was on obesity, and the research is clear. If you want to be healthy, you cannot hang out with people that eat fast food every day. Because this, if that's your network, you will not get healthy. They will not understand your desire, and that's okay. You need to let them be, right? It's not your job to make the world healthy. But if you want to hang out with healthy people, you will get healthy. If you want to hang out with unhealthy people, it will be really, really difficult for you because they will be the ones, as you mentioned, Peter, that will not be there when you say I'm having a really hard time right now, um, starting to eat healthy, and I'm having a hard time right now making a healthy dinner. They will not lift you up because they will be like, I don't understand why you're doing this. So you need to figure out if you're struggling, you need to hang out with people that lift you up and not drag you down like a dead weight, right? So go through your algorithm, go through the people that you follow on social media, and then start living around in your real life and like become a little bit aware. Like when you call a friend and you're struggling, is that friend actually there for you? Is that really actually a friend, or is that person like saying, I'm going to come over, I'm going to listen to you? And that is an honest question, and sometimes it's hard because friends, they're kind of like some friends are for a season, some friends you have a for a reason, and some friends you have for a lifetime, so you kind of need to classify your network a little bit more. Do I have them just for a season? Do I have them for a reason? Or are they always going to be in my life? And you notice all of a sudden that your friend group maybe becomes a little bit smaller. That's okay. It's better to have few friends that are really amazing friends than having, you know, like 200 people that barely know you and they wouldn't be there when you're struggle. So this is your homework audience, right? You have to build a network that lifts you up depending on where you want to go.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Right. That's a great advice. Um, what's uh what's your support system? Where do you find the people to are your are your family uh supporting you? Who are the people that really get you that motivation and inspiration to keep going?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah, a good great question. So, of course, my family, you know, they are they are right, they are like um my husband, my children. When I practiced that TEDx talk audience, my daughter claims that when I was standing on stage, she was able to word for word say this talk with me. Now I don't know whether that's true or not, but she claims that um that my youngest daughter said that, right? So yeah, I mean they were there, and it's like, can I practice my talk again with you? Actually, at the end, I didn't even ask anymore. I just walked into their rooms and started practicing. So conveniently they were right there, but then also what I did is I used my neighbors, I used my colleagues, I used my friends, other podcasters. I mean, you need to think a little bit of like a fan that has these little concentric circles, like who's in the immediate network, who's maybe in the network around you, even like where you live, who is in the network even bigger. Maybe I don't see them on a daily basis because friends are there, you just don't always have to see them. So that's really important that you surround yourself with all these stars of friends. Some of them are really bright because they're close, and some of them you don't see them, but you still know they are there. Really, really important. And then again, some stars they might just kind of disappear because you're like, huh. I don't know. Like, whenever I hang out with these people, I stand to get like really, you know, frustrated or stressed or something. There might not be the right friends anymore, and that's okay too, right? People change and friendship change, and you just need to kind of like think a little bit about being honest with yourself and acknowledging that.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

That's awesome, that's really insightful. And uh find the right people, find the right people. They they can make your life much better and they can motivate you and uh give you that push. Uh, what did giving a TED Talk uh mean to you personally?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

I actually always wanted to give one, and I started sharing that with my with my family. I was like, oh my gosh, I want to stay in on that stage. And then when I started applying, and then I was accepted, I was like, Oh my gosh, no, it's really L L T so I started reverse engineering from the date of the presentation, August 16th, 2025. Audience, if you haven't watched yet, go to my YouTube channel, dr.dot Christiane. You can see me standing on stage. I do wear a white outfit, but my hair is like down. And then you will enjoy my talk talking about petite practice. And then from there, really, it kind of started taking off, right? So I did my talk, and now one year later, I'm publishing my fifth book. I just was featured in Business Insider. So I think you kind of like need to think about this as an opportunity, as a stepping stone, but also take advantage of the fact that you kind of sometimes use it in reassessing what am I really passionate about? And for me, it was like, okay, I want to be a keynote speaker, I want to do more in terms of YouTube and visual, audio, and media representation right there. And that's really, I think, what happened after the talk that I became even more tuned with what I'm really passionate about.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Awesome. Um, five books, TED Talk, uh, successful career. Do you think that people are not getting there because they don't get the opportunities or because they're just scared to take the opportunity? Do you think that what's what's the biggest obstacle here?

SPEAKER_00 23:19

Um beautiful. This ties back to how we get started. So this is like a great um arc that we just built in this beautiful podcast episode. So we started talking about listening. And I always say, I'm not special. It's not like I have something in my life that other people don't. I think what I just do is I listen for the right moments. So maybe it's just being at the right moment at the right time, and I do not want to call this luck. I think what I'm just doing is that I'm becoming really intentional of showing up, of maybe connecting to the right people and making my goal something that people know about. So when I started really putting years in motion for my TEDx talk, I started sharing that with people. And I think that everybody that has a dream, you need to do this because you will be surprised how many people in your network can help you. And if they don't want to help you, maybe they don't belong in your network. But I think nobody has more opportunities than others. It's just that you make yourself heard and you're saying yes to opportunities where other people may have said no to. And that's really how it was in my life. I was like, yeah, you know what? Let's just do that. And I think that sometimes when we look at the people that really succeed, they just put in the repetitions, they put in the hard work, and they really showed up when others chose not to do it. Again, it's a choice, it's 24 hours, everybody has choices, and I think that at the end of the day, it really comes down to just consistently really pushing through the moments where some days aren't pretty, some days aren't glorious, but you know what? You still showed up, and that's kind of how I look at my life. There were like so many moments where like I can't believe I'm doing this, and then you just keep going.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, right. And also, one thing is that I feel like people are struggling because they don't know what they really want. You knew that you wanted to have the TED talk. You you you were like, I'm there, I'm there. So you knew what you wanted, and you got it. And I feel like that's where people are struggling because they don't really ask that simple question, what do I want in my life? And that's the first step, basically.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

So that's your first petite practice, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah. Uh going back to the petite practice. Is there a petite practice in your life that you practice every day? What's the one thing?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

For sure. There are two, and I'm going to give you another homework audience. So one is in the moment, uh in the morning when I wake up. I like to wake up and I call it my slow morning. I create enough room for myself that before I spend time with people, I kind of just have time to myself. And to me it's really important because I'm I can only be an extrovert if I give myself room to be an introvert. So I I need calm, I need silence, I'm stretching, I'm doing maybe you know, some some morning breakfast routine where I don't necessarily need to have music on or a lot of loud noises, in order then that when I'm done with that, I can go and I hang out with people and I stand on the stage or I teach a class. And to me, that's really important. So that's how my morning starts. The slow mornings that have calm and build my confidence. And then in the evening, when I meet my family for dinner, we do what's called dinner download. So we sit at the table and we talk about what has been something that was like a really cool moment in your day. What was your favorite part of today? And what was maybe not such a great moment of your day. So dinner downloads with gratitude, or maybe even sharing some things that didn't go well, finish the day. So I start my morning with calm confidence and I finish my evening with full of gratitude, and then you know, thinking tomorrow is another day. If it didn't go so well, tomorrow is another day, it's all right, you know.

unknown 27:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

I can also almost imagine that you're not all sitting with the phones in hands on that dinner table.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Not allowed, and a download is downloadable, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:43

Yeah, definitely. And something really important is that allow yourself to take the time in the morning and you know, build yourself and take that time to read, to listen to something motivational, inspirational, something that can get you that energy and that boost. And many people just wake up and they're on the phone right away, scrolling and scrolling, and you know, it's it's that's the life. Um, if you could sit down with your again, it's everybody's right. Yeah, and we all have a choice. You can be on the phone or you can do something else and read a book, for example. Uh, if you could sit down with your younger version of yourself, what advice would you give her?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

That's a great question. I think I would say in general, you know, keep verbalizing your fears, keep verbalizing your your joys, because I think that sometimes I was kind of pushing that to the side, things that I struggled with, and now looking back, I realize that I probably would have connected with even more people if I would have shared some things that I would have struggled with, because so many of us feel we always need to show up and we need to be this happy self, saying, I'm fine, where in reality connection really happens when you may be showing up and sharing something you're struggling with because it builds your story. So I would tell my younger self is you have a story inside you, so how about you just start sharing that? And that story, you know, could also be things that are really difficult for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

That's great, great advice. Um, if anybody's uh struggling, and what is one thing that you would advise them, or what's one thing that they can do to overcome those challenges?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah, great question. Yeah. I mean, one thing is we talked about this, reach out to others and build that connection. Loneliness is a really big issue in our society, so nobody has to struggle by themselves. Even if you pick up your phone and you call somebody, that is already something that will get you out of it. Because a conversation is something that builds a bridge. And the bridge might be something that at the beginning it's hard to pick up your phone or text somebody, but over time you're going to feel like okay, that bridge becomes now my highway to feeling better. Um I'm not just like, you know, struggling at the beginning to put my fear into words, but I'm immediately becoming connected to the others because they know how I feel. And I think that is the number one step when I gave everybody that homework to build that network around you when you're struggling, reaching out to them.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Great, great advice. Find your support system. That's that's really powerful. Uh, before we wrap up, uh, where can our listeners learn more about you? Follow your journey. You mentioned five books, uh YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

I invite everybody um go to my YouTube channel. There are some really fun videos there. In some of them, my husband even appears as a little cameo. So you definitely want to check him out, and we have a lot of fun laughing and um making you entertained. So that's dr.christiana is my YouTube channel. Subscribe and watch some of those videos right there. Then of course, go to my website, drchistiana.com, and check out my podcast, Happy Healthy Hustle. And all my books are linked on the website. So on my website, you can also sign up to for the petite practice pioneer, which means if you purchase my book, you get all different kinds of perks if you um sign up to be on my pioneer website, and you're supporting my book launch, and of course, you're supporting in maybe the next step that you want to take, that next small petite practice.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Thank you. Thank you for joining. It was a great uh conversation, and you provided a lot of uh great examples, petite practice uh tools that everybody can learn from.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

One of the biggest takeaways from this conversation is that lasting change doesn't always come from giant steps, often it comes from small, consistent actions that build confidence, momentum, and ultimately a new direction for our lives. To everyone listening, if you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to follow the podcast and share this episode with someone who may need to hear this message today. Your support helps us reach more people who are looking for direction, growth, and inspiration. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Thank you.