The Introvert Leader

The Confidence Blueprint: Part 1 - How to Build It

Austin Hopkins

Confidence is the foundation of career success—but most people don’t know how to actually build it. In this episode, I break down the strategies I’ve used to build and maintain confidence throughout my career. From getting promoted 11 times to launching this podcast, I’ve relied on confidence to take risks and make bold moves. I also share a story I’ve never told publicly, give you a confidence audit to test where you stand, and close with the exact steps you can take to become more confident—starting today.


Timestamp

:56 — Storytime: How I overcame self-doubt and launched my podcast and business.

5:33 — What Confidence Is and Isn't: Clear signs of real confidence vs. false bravado.

7:57  — Why Confidence Matters: The role confidence plays in promotions, life choices, and career momentum.

9:38 — Nature vs. Nurture: Do you have to be born confident—or can you build it?

11:21 — The Confidence Audit: 7 questions to help you identify your current confidence baseline. 

14:55  — What Confidence Sounds and Looks Like: How confident people speak, act, and show up in the real world. 

20:26  — Strategies to Build Confidence: Tactical habits and mindset shifts that actually work.

31:47 — Challenge for Listeners: What is one bold risk you should take this week?



Confidence Blueprint Series: 

  • Part 2 - How to Rebuild It drops July 30th 


Resources

  • Book: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*** by Mark Manson


Career & Leadership Coaching

  • Want to level up as a leader? Clients who work with us earn 57% more and get promoted 3x faster on average: Book your free career clarity call here.


Engage

 Hello, this is your host, Austin Hopkins, and welcome to the Introvert Leader Podcast.

Welcome to the Confidence Blueprint. During the next two episodes, I'm gonna break down how to build and maintain confidence. I'm gonna share with you the playbook that I used to get promoted 11 times in 15 years, launch a top 5% global podcast and create a life I'm really proud of. In part one, I'm gonna break down how to build confidence.

What are the strategies? What does it look like? What does it sound like? How to get it fast. And I'm gonna tell you why. Confidence is the building block the most important thing in your career, in your life. In part two, I'm gonna share how to rebuild confidence, how to bounce back from failure, and how to know if you're on the right track.

Stay tuned to the end of this episode, 'cause I'm gonna share with you my absolute favorite book on confidence. Okay. With that, I wanna jump right into a story. So growing up, people always told me, Hey Austin, you could be on the radio. Or Hey man, you could have your own TV show, or, oh my gosh, you could be in a movie.

And I always laughed when I heard that I had zero interest in being the limelight, laughed it off, didn't think much of it. Fast forward to 2022. It's the fall of 2022. Fast forward to the fall of 2022. I'm in my little desk working my corporate job, and I'm just not feeling my best. I'm feeling like there's gotta be something more, something more.

I could be giving something more. I could be doing something more that could be stretching me, and I was feeling a little unfulfilled, and so I thought, well, okay, why am I feeling unfulfilled? Honestly, the reason was, is I wasn't able to share the stuff I had learned. I, I felt like I wasn't able to really kind of help other people along the journey I had been on.

And I thought, okay, well how could I do that? I kept thinking about it and I thought, all right, maybe a podcast that could be interesting. And almost the moment the podcast idea popped in my brain immediately I was filled with doubt and thought, oh my gosh, no, no, no. I'm not doing a podcast. I value my privacy.

I don't like to be in the limelight. I don't want to put my life on blast. Like I'm just, no, this is not for me. No, no, no, no, no. Then I kept thinking about it over the next couple weeks. I kept thinking, well, why couldn't I do a podcast? I mean, you know, I'm capable, I've had a successful career. I'm sure there was a message that people would resonate with.

And so I just kept thinking about it, and then I thought, okay, well, all right, Austin, lemme just sketch out a premise and maybe a name. I thought, okay, well what, what would this show be about? And I thought, all right. You know, I, I, I think I know career and leadership development pretty well and was able to, you know, carve out a cool career.

Maybe there's an angle there. I kept thinking about it and thought, well, there's hundreds of career and leadership podcasts. How am I gonna stand out? What makes me unique? What makes Austin different from others? And then I thought, okay, well. I'm an introvert. That's kind of weird. And I'm also a leader.

What if I put the two together? Boom. I had my idea, I was gonna be the introvert leader. And then almost the moment that popped in my brain, I thought, that's a horrible name. No one's gonna listen to this show. And if so, maybe it's only introverts and it's gonna box me in. And I, I, I just don't know. So I kept thinking about it.

And eventually I came to the realization, I need to do this thing. I'm gonna feel crappy. I'm gonna feel regret if I don't do this show, even if I feel embarrassed, even if people judge it. Like I just gotta do this show. So I just kept thinking about it and made the decision to go ahead and, and launch this bad boy.

So fast forward a couple of months later, I, I decide to leave my corporate job. I wanna take some time off. I wanna figure out what I wanna do next. And on my last day I sent an email to. Couple hundred people that I had worked with closely in the company, and at the end of the email, I had written a little blurb about the podcast.

It was gonna be coming out in a couple weeks, and I wanted people to know about it. So I wrote it, I deleted it, I wrote it, I deleted it. I just thought, I don't know. I hate self-promotion. I don't like talking about myself. This is weird. Don't do this, Austin. Don't put that little blurb about the podcast at the end of your email.

Okay. Cooler heads prevail. I decide. Screw it. Why not put it in there? If no one listens? No one cares. It's no sweat off my back. So I put that little blurb in the email later that day. I get a ton of responses. People saying, Hey, can't wait for the podcast. We're gonna listen. It's gonna be awesome. So then it comes to the launch day.

I launch the podcast, and during that first week, I had a couple hundred downloads. Absolutely amazing. So confidence is skyrocketing. I'm feeling amazing. And then over the next year I continue to get amazing feedback. I mean, I had over 55 star reviews on Apple and Spotify and you know, I got dms from people telling me that they really appreciated my message and I signed up coaching clients.

Everything was looking good. But then again, that feeling kind of popped in my head where I'm like, gosh, could I be doing more? Am I really pushing as hard as I could be? Is there something more I should be doing? And the idea of video popped in my head, and as soon as that idea popped in, guess what happened right after that?

Doubt, insecurity. I thought, oh my gosh, no, no, no, no, no. Cannot get on video. That is gonna be way too scary. How am I gonna look? What are people gonna say? Do I have the right background? Do I look good on camera? All the insecurity things popped up in my head. Kept toying around with that over and over and over again.

Didn't get on video. Eventually I said, screw it, Austin. You gotta get on video. You gotta try this. If there's something inside of you saying you need to take this risk and do it, you have to do it. You have to take the risk and get on video. So I started posting videos weekly back in February for the podcast, and guess what happened?

Download started a spike. I started to see more people engage with me on YouTube and downloads more than I've ever had before. And I tell you this story to show the power of confidence. When you feel confident, take a risk to get outta your comfort zone, to do something special. Cool stuff starts to happen.

So with that, I want to transition and talk about what confidence is and what confidence isn't. And I think the reason why is a lot of folks get confused. You may see someone walking out and about in life or at your job and you think, Ooh, that person's confident. But maybe they're not. Maybe they're wildly insecure and they're projecting confidence or they're projecting something that's not real.

So I wanna give you a couple of things that I've identified. When I look at someone, when I work with someone that tells me, Hey, this is a confident person, or This isn't confidence, this is just confidence masquerading as something else. So let's start with what confidence is. It's things like being vulnerable, trying uncomfortable stuff, helping others around you get wins, right?

You're not worried just about yourself. You know that you can get wins and other people can get wins. It's not a zero sum game. You're also aware of your shortcomings. But you're not overly focused on them. So I think that's another key. So a lot of times you, you might see someone who looks confident, right?

But they're not showing any self-awareness. They don't think anything about what they do is wrong. They believe they're perfect. That's not real confidence. It's false confidence. I think confident people are aware of their shortcomings. But they're not overly focused on them, right? They're not making that the biggest thing.

They're not focused on their weaknesses, they're more focused on their strength zone. So that, that's what I think confidence is. At a high level, what confidence isn't, it's not putting people down. Confident. People have no desire to put others down. There's no need for it. They're confident in their value, in their skills.

So there's no need to diminish others. Uh, confidence I don't think is bragging. I don't think you have to brag about how good you are. In fact, I think. If you're bragging about how amazing you are and you're shouting from the rooftops all your amazing achievements, you're actually overcompensating for something.

I don't believe you're actually truly confident in your core. I think another really good example of what confidence isn't is thinking you're better than others or being disrespectful to others under the guise of being direct. I don't know if you've had a boss that's super direct and they kind of go around the company and there's this guys that they're confident.

Their directness is actually them just being an asshole. So if you find that you're working with someone who's overly direct, but they're mean, right, they're being disrespectful, they're not being direct as in just sharing facts and logical, you know, conclusions, they're actually putting you down or being disrespectful.

That's not confidence. That's someone who's compensating. And then I think the last one that really stands out to me is thinking you're perfect and without faults. So I don't believe. You can truly be a confident person if you're not aware of your shortcomings and have some self-awareness. If you are just blindly thinking, you are amazing, that's a problem.

So those are a couple of the things that scream to me when I think what confidence is and what confidence is. And I wanna transition slightly and tell you why. I think confidence matters. You probably think confidence matters. You know that, right? You've heard it before. You gotta be confident that's how you get ahead.

But maybe you really. Don't fully grasp how important confidence is and how big of a role it plays in your career and your life. So I believe in my core that confidence is the key to any sustainable success in the world. I don't mean just a little blip of success, I mean continued upward success, right?

I think confidence is the bedrock of all that. It has helped me buy my first home. By 25, I bought and sold three homes, each for a profit. By the age I turned 35, I became a director by the age of 29 without a degree, I moved to New York without. Knowing anyone, I started multiple departments from scratch with no playbook, no safety net.

None of that would've happened if I lacked confidence. If I wasn't confident to take a risk to try something new, I would've done none of that. All of those were risks, things that people around me that I was friends with or that I knew weren't doing, and I, I share that list of things with you, not as a brag at all.

I, I'm very proud of those things, but I really just share them to show you can do amazing things that you didn't think you were even capable of. If you just are willing to show a little confidence, if you're willing to just dip your toe into those scary waters and see what might happen. So my wish as you listen to this episode is that you.

Start to understand why confidence matters, what role it plays in your career, in your life, how it informs the decisions you make. I want you to get some strategies that are gonna help you maintain and build your confidence. So with that, I'm super pumped to jump into it. Confidence isn't just important.

It's everything. So I want to transition and talk about the first topic, which is nature versus nurture. Some people that I've met say you have to be born confident. You either have it or you don't. You know, some people, they just have the right parents, the right upbringing, they lived in the right neighborhood and went to the right school.

So they're confident. They just walk around with innate confidence and others who are maybe born in worse circumstances just can't be confident. No matter how they tried, it's not possible. Well, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think it doesn't matter who your parents were, it doesn't matter how you were raised, the shit you went through, the hardships you had to endure.

Confidence isn't what's happened to you in the past. It's what you're doing right now. So you could have had the shittiest week, but you could still show up to that next meeting with confidence. You could have had the worst quarter of your entire life where you didn't meet your quota and you did absolutely horrible, but you can still show up the next quarter with confidence that you're gonna have a better one and that things are gonna work out.

So I, I think at the end of the day, it's really about taking action and what you do versus what's happened to you in the past. I think that's the key. So I tell you all that to say, I think confidence is within all of us. It's always something that we can choose. Now, is it gonna become easier to others?

Absolutely. Some people they just walk around this earth and you're like, I don't know how they do it. They just ooze confidence, right? It just comes out of them. They don't even know. And others, it's, it's more challenging. We have to try. For me, I'm in that boat, right? I'm the boat where confidence didn't just come to me.

In fact, wildly insecure as a kid, but over time I started trying stuff. I got better at it. I got feedback. I felt better. My confidence went up. And so really, that's what it is. Confidence is expecting the best, but knowing you can handle whatever comes at you, that's what I really believe Confidence is. So if someone's told you.

That you have to be born with confidence and that you can't develop it. Tell them they're an idiot. Tell 'em to listen to this podcast and, uh, they'll learn something today. Okay, I wanna move on to the next topic and I wanna talk about your confidence baseline. So you may be walking through this earth and not even know what your confidence baseline is.

Maybe you think you're super confident, maybe you don't think you have any confidence. Maybe you're somewhere in between. So what I thought I could do is give you a couple of questions that would be almost a little confidence test that would help you figure out. Do I have an opportunity to develop my confidence?

Am I already super confident? Do I have zero confidence? Like where am I? So I wanna give you seven questions that I know will absolutely help you figure out what your confidence baseline is. And at the end of the day, if you don't know where you're at, if you don't know where your baseline is, where your current status is, how can you expect to get better to improve on that?

So that's the key. You gotta know where you're at before you can make changes. So here are the questions. Number one, what do you say about yourself? What do you say after you make a big mistake when you're prepping for something big, what's the messages that you're telling yourself? Are you saying things like, dude, this isn't gonna go well.

I don't think I can do this. Oh my gosh, I'm in over my head. People are gonna figure me out. Like, what is the message that you're telling yourself? Because the messages that we tell ourself in our brain are the things that we then start to show outwardly. Number two, are you capable of handling the big moments in your career?

Do you believe you're capable? Do you believe that you are equipped to handle the big shit in your career? The, the uncomfortable conversations, asking for a raise, getting a promotion, uh, you know, working on projects with high ranking stakeholders. Are you capable? Do you believe you're capable of those things?

If you don't, that, that kind of says something right. Number three, when you get a win, does it feel like luck or do you feel like you earned it? There are people that I talk to who, when they get a win, they think, oh my gosh, that was lucky. Ooh, I don't know if I could do that again. And then there's other people that when they get a win, they're like, yeah, I knew it was gonna happen.

I figured it was gonna work out. I, I was prepared, I was ready. And so, which one are you? Do you believe that the good stuff that happens to you is just luck, that you have no control over it? Or do you believe that you do have control on that things are working in your favor and that the universe is, were always working out for you?

Something to consider. Number five, what areas in your life. Do you feel confident in? Is there any area in your life right now that you feel confident in? Where is it? Is it raising your kids? Is it the the cool instrument you learned? Is it at work? Is it when you go to the gym? Where is it? Where do you feel confident in your life?

Are there any areas that you currently feel like you're better than average, that you, that you have a little swag, that you feel like you know what you're doing? Number six. How often do you take risks? Are you the kind of person that drags your feet and that refuses to take risks unless they're forced into it?

Or are you the kind of person that's not risk adverse and you think, yeah, risks are, are an important part of life and that's how you're gonna get ahead and grow your career and enjoy your life? I don't know. Where are you? Do, do you fear risks? Do you take 'em? Do you, do you think they're necessary or not?

Number seven, and finally, when was the last time you stepped outta your comfort zone? Can you remember the last time you took a risk that you got outta your comfort zone, that you did something that you. Didn't know fully how it was gonna turn out, but you did it anyways. I don't know. Has it been a couple of months?

Has it been a year? Have you ever done that? Those are some questions that I would ask myself to figure out my baseline. If you're getting some answers that you don't love. Probably a good sign that you need to work on your confidence. Probably a good sign that there's something you're leaving on the table, that you're not, you know, risking as much as you could.

You're not pushing as hard as you could in your own life. And to wrap up this section, the last thing I'll say is when we're confident, we believe we have control over our lives, and that we're not a victim, and that things aren't just happening to us, they're happening for us. So I, I want you to remember that you are.

In control of your life, you're in control of how things turn out. You're in control of your mindset of how things are gonna be perceived. So those are the things to remember. So I gave you a couple of questions to figure out where your confidence baseline is. What I wanna do now is, is kind of break down what I think confidence looks and sounds like.

There are some key indicators, some things that I've seen over and over and over again from people that when I see it, I think, oh, uh, that's confidence. Oh, that, that person's confident. So I wanna start with communication. I wanna break down what I think confidence sounds like. So. First one, speaking positively about the future.

I don't know if I've ever met someone who talks negatively about the future, who's also confident. I don't think the two can exist. I think you either are talking positively about the future or you're assuming the worst. And if you're assuming the worst, that means you don't believe you're up to the task and that you're not able to handle what's gonna come at you.

So speaking positively about the future, big sign that someone has got some confidence. Another one, not overly apologizing. So have you met people that they are always apologizing? Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry I did that. I'm so sorry I said that. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to do that. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry. It can be overwhelming and it kind of just reeks of weakness to be honest with you. If you feel like you need to constantly apologize for your existence, something's off you. You are good where you're at. You don't need to apologize. So if you're finding that you're having to apologize for your very existence, something's off, that's not a confident way to communicate.

That tells me that there's something that needs to be worked on that you don't believe you're worth. Being in the room or being seen or being heard, right? And you gotta believe those things about yourself. So if you're apologizing, you gotta stop right now. 'cause that is not showing confidence. Another one is saying our actual thoughts, even if they're unpopular.

So here's the deal. Confident people are not afraid to say the unpopular things, the things that everyone else might be thinking, but doesn't have the confidence to say. So. I have found the people that I work with, the people that I know in my life who will say stuff, even if it's uncomfortable, they are showing confidence because again, they're taking a little risk.

They're getting outta their comfort zone to say something that maybe everyone's gonna look at them and call them stupid and throw paper at 'em, and. You know, tell 'em to get outta the room, but at the end of the day, they're just saying something that they know to be true in their own lives or what they truly believe.

So I think that's another really key one. The next one is speaking highly of others. So it's interesting. I have noticed in my career, the people that are the most confident are always speaking highly of others. There's no need to tear others down because again, it's not a zero sum game. They're confident in their value, and they can also easily recognize value in others and bring other people up.

So if you're finding yourself. Putting others down, I'd ask, why are you doing that? What, what? What are you compensating for? What are you insecure about? Why do you have to put others down in order to feel good? So confident people, they're lifting others up, they're speaking highly of them. Another clear example of confident communication is having strong beliefs.

So if you are not able to have strong beliefs and you're able to just be swayed by anybody else, and you just go along with the crowd, is that really confidence or is that just show that maybe you're more of a follower and hey, there's nothing wrong with being a follower, but if your goal is to be more confident, you have to have strong beliefs.

Even if they're different from everyone else, even if they're uncomfortable. So having strong beliefs, being able to talk about 'em, obviously super important for confidence. And then I think the last one is confident folks know how to clearly articulate their value. So when we're confident, we believe we have value.

Right. We understand that we're bringing something to the table that others can't, so we're able to communicate that value clearly. And why do you think that's important? Well, it's important for literally every part of your career. If you can't articulate your value, if you're not understanding what it means at the company and what you do and the impact you have, how could you expect to get more money, to get a raise, to get promoted, to get people to have.

Any kind of respect for you or follow you or allow your influence to take place, like you're just not gonna be able to do it. So you have to be able to know your value and confident people, they understand what their value is, they understand what they bring to the table that others don't. So I wanna transition and show you what confidence in action might look like.

So it could be things like taking risks, so confident people, they're taking risks because they're aware that they can handle what's on the other side. Uh, confident people are also totally comfortable standing up for what's right. They know that what's right is important and that even if no one else is standing up for it and no one else is speaking up, they're confident to do that.

They feel like I have to do that. That what's right is right, and I don't care if people don't agree with me, I'm gonna speak up. I think another action of confidence could be lifting others up. I've said this a minute ago, but I think that's really a key I have found when others are okay to share the recognition.

They ooze confidence, it just comes outta them because they're not worried about keeping it for themselves and putting in that value and making sure that no one else gets a win. Like they're okay to share it. It doesn't matter. They know there's plenty of other wins and that they're on their own path and things are working out for them, so they don't mind sharing the love, as they say.

And I, I think the last one. People that are confident pick the stuff they're good at to work on. They don't focus on the negative, they don't focus on their weaknesses, the stuff they're bad. You may have been told focus on your weaknesses and, and work on that, and that that may work for you. That's fine.

But for me, never has worked. The more I focused on my strengths, on the things I'm good at, I feel better and the better I do. With my strength zone, my weaknesses start to shrink. They start to matter less. So it's weird. It kind of just creates that opposite effect. So I'd caution you to do the opposite.

Focus on what are you best at? What are the things that seem to come naturally to you that when you do it, you feel like, oh yeah, I got this. I know what I'm doing. I got some swag to it. I'm feeling good. Those are the things that I would focus most of my time on. I would not spend any time feeling sorry for myself or focusing on the things I'm not good at.

So we talked about what confidence looks and sounds like. What are the actions and, and how do people communicate confidence. What I wanna do now is transition into the meat and potatoes, as they say. I want to give you the strategies to build confidence. I'm gonna break down each of the strategies I've used to build confidence.

Each one of these I've used over and over and over again. I've helped others try them and I know they work. So let's kick it off. So number one, do things in your strength zone. I said that a couple of times already at Bears, repeating when we do things we're good at, we feel good. And we feel confident, and this leads to more wins, and this leads to more confidence.

And it's kind of like a snowball, right? So you pick the stuff you're good at instead of focusing on the stuff you're bad at. So let me give you an example. Let's say at work, you feel like when you give presentations, you're not very good at it yet you struggle, you ramble. You don't make good eye contact.

It's just not your thing yet, so you could spend all of your time focusing on why your presentations suck. Well, you didn't have the right training, and you didn't go to the right college, and you never went to Toastmasters, yada, yada, yada. You could focus on all that, or you could focus on, Hey, I might not be good at giving presentations, but I am fantastic at gathering data and putting that into a clearly concise story.

I can disseminate information and make the most confusing things. Look easy and clear to people. Okay, great. So why don't I start focusing on that? How can I then bring that into my presentations instead of focusing on the presentation, I can focus on the stuff that I'm actually good at. So that's what that, that would be the first one.

Focus on the, the stuff you're good at. Don't focus so much on the stuff you're bad at. Right? And it's almost like a psychological thing. If we're, we're feeling bad for ourself and we're focusing on what we're bad at, we're gonna start giving into that. But if we're feeling, Hey, you know what, I'm focusing on the stuff I know I'm valuable at.

We're gonna start feeling better. Yeah. Okay. The next one, and this is the most important one. It is, it's the most important one. The key to my confidence, the key to my success in life has been this. Take some effing risks. Seriously. No. Take a risk. When's the last time you took a risk? When's the last time you sent that email to that person that you were thinking about?

When's the last time you asked for a raise? When's the last time you volunteered to take on a stretch project? I don't know. Has it been a while? Has it been a year? If so, something's off. You need to take risks. Here's why it's so important. When I take a risk and it goes well, it sends a message to my brain that says, Hey Austin, you're capable.

And guess what? When I feel capable, I start to feel a little more confident. And when I feel more cnce, more confidence starts to come to me. And again, snowball. It just comes one after another. I take a risk and it pays off. I feel good. Now, you might be wondering, what if you take a risk Austin and it doesn't go well?

You do something that is uncomfortable for you and it doesn't pay off it. It kind of actually is a failure. Okay. Very good question that I just asked myself. Um, I think at the end of the day, it comes down to reframing failure. We're gonna talk more about that in episode two, but you have to realize that failure is part of life and that if you expect everything to go perfect.

That's not much of a life friction is what makes our life interesting. It's the highs contrasted with the lows. It's not just all gonna be good sunshine and rainbows. In fact, kind of a boring life. There's not much dimension there, right? So take risks and confidence comes through that experience of taking risks and the hardships that we face when we don't do as well as maybe we thought we would.

Okay, next. This one is probably maybe less obvious. Maybe you know this, but you've probably already heard that the people that you spend your time with. You start to become like, so if you are around confident people, you may become more confident. And if you are around wildly insecure people, you might find yourself becoming more insecure.

So this is a hack. You need to surround yourself with confident people. That means your friends. Your coworkers, the people you spend any time with, they need to be the type of people that you're proud to be around and that inspire you to do better. So I'll give you an example. I have two friends. My two closest friends are incredibly confident men.

These guys have started businesses, they've moved to different states, they've. Taken risks in their career, in their personal life. They've done bodybuilding shows and got on stage. And at the end of the day, these are the kind of people I wanna be around. I wanna be around friends and family that ooze confidence, that just know that life is all about taking risks, taking action.

And they're not just waiting. They're not scared, they're not insecure and letting that rule their life. So surround yourself with confident people and you by nature. We'll start to get more confident. You'll start to feel more confident. We pick up on the people around us. That being said, I wanna move on to the next one, which is consume content that shapes your mindset.

So same thing with being around friends. When we consume the right content, and I mean social media, tv, movies, radio, music, whatever it is, when we consume the right kind of. We feel more confident when we consume the wrong stuff, we might start to feel more insecure. So how is your feed curated? I don't know about you, but for me, I have a highly curated LinkedIn and YouTube feed.

I do not follow any creators that I don't think match my style. I don't follow anybody that talks about celebrity gossip and dumb, trivial stuff. I focus on following people that I think are confident that show up the way I wanna show up. So if you're finding that, you know, you're watching five hours of reality TV at the end of the day, and you're not maybe feeling your best at the end of the night.

And maybe you need to start watching something else. Maybe you need to throw in some YouTube videos that teach you a skill that you need to learn or help you in your career. I don't know what it is, but consume content that aligns with what you want. So if you wanna be more confident. Maybe follow some stuff that helps you build confidence.

I wanna transition to the next one. We've got a couple more. The next one is get wins and savor them. So a win, even a small one, helps us feel higher value, right? It tells us that we're more capable, that we can do stuff. And so I think a problem though is that folks get wins and as soon as that win happens, it's forgotten about.

So you give an amazing. Talk at work, you get some kudos, and then the very next day you've totally forgot about it. You're focused on the next big thing that you need to work on. The next big thing you're stressing about what's not going well, why don't you savor it? Like when's the last time you went back through and thought.

Well, that was a cool feedback I got about the presentation or, oh, you know what, that was a great email I got. Or, you know, I took that risk and, and asked that girl out and it went great. And she said yes. Like what is, like, I don't know. When's the last time that you've savored your wins? For me, that really helps me when I'm trying to maintain my confidence and I'm trying to build it.

I will go back and think about the things that have gone really well. So when you get a win, I want you to savor it. Don't just forget it. Maybe you put it on the brag sheet, right, that I mentioned before. Maybe you have it in a file somewhere that you can go back to later. I think that really, really can help, especially when you're gonna kind of go through those lulls of where your confidence maybe isn't the highest.

The next one is speak highly about yourself. Okay? This one's gonna be a little bit more real and raw. Folks, I don't know how you talk about yourself. I really don't. So I've, I've worked with people that I can tell they don't talk well about themselves. You can hear them talking under their breath, oh my God, you're so stupid.

Or, oh, I can't believe I did that. And they just talk shit about themselves. And I'm thinking to myself, would you talk to another stranger like that? Why in the hell would you tell that to yourself? Like if you wouldn't say that to your friends or family? Dude, don't be saying that to yourself. So for me, I have really put a focus on how I speak to myself.

So when I make a mistake, I don't try to beat myself up and call myself an idiot and a loser. I, I do understand the gravity of that mistake, and I think about it and sit with it for a moment, but then I quickly say. Hey, man, I, they're not all gonna be wins. You got this sauce, then the next one's gonna be better.

So I, I, I don't know if it's like hyping myself up or speaking of myself in a positive manner, but those things have really helped my confidence. If I tell myself I'm capable of taking risks and I'm capable of demonstrating confidence, I start to believe that if I tell myself it's not gonna go well, I don't know what I'm doing, people are gonna find me out.

I start to believe those things. So what are you saying about yourself? And I know that's kind of a weird topic, right? Maybe you haven't really even thought about how you speak to yourself if you haven't. You need to start thinking about how you speak about yourself. What do you believe about yourself?

What's the story you're telling yourself? Are you the hero? Are you the villain? I don't know. The last one is, I want you to label those automatic negative thoughts. So here's the deal. We've talked about it before. Automatic negative thoughts. They suck, they pop into your head. Whenever you're not even expecting it, a negative thought pops in your head.

I can't do this. This isn't gonna go well. I'm in over my head. People are gonna find me out. I'm too young, I'm too old. I didn't go to college. I don't know what it is. We all have these insecure thoughts. Do we label them as insecurity and negative thoughts, or do we give into them? Do we make that our reality?

It goes back to just how we speak to ourselves. So when that thought pops in your head, that's negative, do you give into it? Do you say, yeah, I am really bad at this. Ugh, I don't think I should do it. This isn't going well. Or do you say. No, dude, that's a negative thought. I've got no negative feedback about this.

I'm gonna assume the best. I'm gonna keep working, and it's okay that if maybe this didn't go well, I know the next one's gonna go well. Like it's okay. So labeling those automatic negative thoughts are key, right? We are in control of our minds sometimes. We believe that we don't have control of the thoughts in our head, and to extent we don't.

We don't control what pops into our head, but we do control what we feed into and what we believe. Just because a thought popped into your head does not make it a reality. Just because you think that person's mad at you doesn't mean they are. Just because you think your boss doesn't like you doesn't mean they don't like you.

Until you have facts to back those things up, I suggest you don't give into that negative stuff 'cause it's not serving you. Okay. So I want to kind of wrap up this first part by giving you a couple of things. I wanna give you a book that I think you have to read, and I want to give you a challenge. So the book, mark Manson wrote an amazing book called The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck.

It's an amazing book that I read almost 10 years ago now. And what I love about it is it reframes confidence. It shows you what actually matters. What are the things that you actually need to be focusing on? And for me, the biggest takeaway I had was. To stop giving a shit about the opinions of others, right?

No one cares about us as much as we think. So honestly, when I was gonna start that podcast that was in the back of my head, I thought, oh my gosh, people from work are gonna think I'm an idiot. Like, what am I doing here, Austin? But then the other part of me was like, who gives a shit? No one's thinking about me.

No one gives a shit about me. No one's even thinking about me. And by the way, if they do hate it, and if they do think this podcast sucks, or they think my idea is lame. Okay. I can't please everyone and if I try to please everyone, that means I'm gonna be vanilla and bland as shit. So I don't wanna do that.

So the subtle art of not giving a fuck fantastic book, I think you gotta read it. I think you're gonna really, really enjoy it. It honestly was a big game changer for me, and I've shared it with countless other people. So when I'm not recommending books, I'm helping folks level up their careers. That's what I do full-time.

So what I do is I help people in their careers who wanna make more, who wanna move up faster, who want to have a bigger impact, who wanna understand what their highest calling or their highest fulfillment is at work. So if you're finding yourself in that situation, maybe you're not sure what you wanna be doing, maybe you're struggling with leading your team effectively.

I don't know what it is for you. I know I can help. I'm confident I could add some value. So click the link in the description and let's see if we're a good fit to work together. So as we wrap up, I wanna give you a challenge. So this week. I want you to pick one thing that you could take a risk on. One thing that you don't know how it's gonna turn out, but you're willing to, to put yourself out there to do something that's uncomfortable, to see how it turns out.

I am confident that if you pick something small and that you take a risk, even if it doesn't go well, you are gonna get a confidence boost as long as you understand that. When things don't go well, that's okay. That's just failure. Something else better is coming down the line. This is preparing you for the next big thing.

So that's my challenge for you this week. Uh, I'm gonna be dropping part two in a couple of weeks. I wanna give you a quick preview. So we're gonna be focusing on how to rebuild confidence. What do you do once your confidence is shaken? Once something really big or bad happens in your life and you don't feel like you can keep moving on, you don't feel like you've got the skills, the expertise, the value to handle it.

I wanna talk all about that. I wanna give you the signs to know that you're on the right track, and I wanna cover why confidence isn't a one and done thing. You don't just wake up and become confident one day and you're confident for the rest of your life. Right. It's a scale. We all have different levels of where we're at in confidence, so that's what we're gonna be covering in the next episode.

I'm hoping you found value in today. I wanna say thank you so much for listening. Make it a great day.

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