You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode 470.
Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.
Hello my beautiful friends. Let me tell you, I’m excited about this podcast. I am teaching a class in Get Coached right now that is all about self-confidence. And as I was preparing for this class, I went back through some of my materials for the course and I found that I had recorded two podcasts on self-confidence that are fire.
They are so good, and it’s so crazy because one of them was recorded in 2015 and I just listened to it again and was blown away by the content and needing to hear it again for even myself. It is really good. And then there’s another one that I recorded a couple years later that has different content, a different take on self-confidence.
So because I’m recording a new course within Get Coached based on self-confidence and this is the work that I had done before and what I’m studying to create that course, I decided to replay it here for you. So both of the self-confidence podcasts are included right here on this podcast, and I want to also invite you to come into Get Coached to my two-part self-confidence course that I’m teaching right now in Get Coached live. So enjoy the podcast.
—
I think that self-confidence is one of those things that really determines whether you are going to rock your life or not. When you look at people that have genuine self-confidence, you know that they've either created something amazing or they're about to create something amazing. I think that is a really powerful thing to know and a really powerful thing to understand.
The question is, what is self-confidence? Of course, I went to Google and the Interwebs to see what they thought, and I love this definition, "A feeling of trust in one's abilities, qualities, and judgment." Now, I think that we really need to think about what that means because so many of my clients say that they don't trust themselves and they don't believe in their abilities and qualities. I think that there's a distinction that we need to make here that's really important. For example, if there is something that I want to do in my life, if I set a big goal and I don't yet have the ability to do it, it doesn't mean that I'm not self-confident about it. I'm trying to help my students and clients understand the difference between having to already have the ability in order to have self-confidence or having self-confidence in your ability to get the ability, if that makes sense.
It's important to think about how you view yourself, and I have a ton of confidence in myself that I will find a way to get something done, that I will figure it out, that I will work as hard as I need to work to get the result that I most want. That does not mean that I already have that capacity. Notice the difference there. I have faith in my ability to learn it; I have faith in my ability to try; I have faith in my ability not to give up, but I may not have faith or trust in my ability to actually do it yet. I think that's where the self-confidence comes in, because I'll have brand new coaches and they'll say, "I don't feel confident in being a coach yet." I'll say, "Okay. What do you believe you need in order to be confident?"
Now, of course, self-confidence always comes from our mind, and the reason they're not feeling confident is because they feel like they don't have enough experience. Yet, when I first started coaching, I was very confident and I was very self-confident. I'm trying to understand what's the difference there. Here's why I was confident. I was confident in the tools that I was using; I was confident in my desire to help people; and, I was confident in the process of someone spending an hour with me, focused on themselves being a powerful use of their time. Even though I may not have been the coach that I am today, I may not have been quite at the level that I'm at today, I didn't need to be because I have self-confidence and I find it in other areas around me.
Here's the important piece, you all, are you getting or trying to get confidence from something that you've done, from your actions? Are you trying to get confidence from your results? Or are you getting confidence from the only place you can get confidence, which is from yourself, your mind, your brain, and how you think about yourself? People will say, "Well, when I think about the things that I'm very experienced in, I feel very confident, so how do you explain that?" I'll say, "Well, the things that you're experiencing, you have given yourself permission to feel confident about, and it doesn't mean that you're always going to do it well."
I like to use the example of pouring a glass of water. Most of us would agree that we're pretty confident when it comes to there being a pitcher of water and us pouring water into a glass. Now, if we go to pour that water and we miss it or the glass falls over or it doesn't work out the way we had planned, we don't make it mean that we're not good at pouring water. We don't make it mean that we don't have the ability to pour water. We feel confident in our abilities before and even when we fail at it. The thought is, "I can pour water. I know how to pour water."
Now, could you have confidence in pouring gasoline into a glass? Why? Why would you feel like you have confidence there? You've never poured gasoline into a glass, but it doesn't matter; you have confidence in yourself as a pourer. You know you can pour liquid, and so you're transferring that confidence over. What I'm suggesting is that that's only a thought in your mind. That's only your brain coming up with thoughts to think about pouring. You can do that with anything in your life.
Let's talk a little bit about what prevents us from feeling confident. Whenever I'm talking to a client and they're saying that they don't feel confident, I know that they're feeling something else instead. What are you feeling in place of confidence? What are you choosing to feel instead? What are you thinking about that's creating a different emotion? What most of them are feeling is some flavor of confusion, doubt, or second-guessing themselves, which is more of an action, that second-guessing coming from that doubt. Lack of confidence, insecurity, doubt, those are all kind of the same flavor.
Let's think about it. Let's think about first … I've been talking a lot about this in my Master Coach training, a lot about how we use confusion as one of those indulgent emotions. We use confusion as a way of not moving forward. We indulge in it and entertain ourselves within it, and I think that's a really dangerous emotion to indulge in, confusion. It has no upside and it feels necessary and it feels true and it feels legit. I think that's one of the scariest ones. Then, doubt is something that some of us have become so accustomed to feeling that we don't even acknowledge that there's another option, so notice when you're feeling confusion or doubt in place of confidence. Remember, confidence is just, "I believe in my ability to get it done. I believe in my quality. I believe in my judgment."
Here's the thing. You don't even have to take it personally, that confidence. You don't have to say, "Well, I'm confident because I'm such an amazing person." You can basically give the credit elsewhere. For some of you, that's God; for some of you that's the universe, whatever, your creator. You can give credit to the force that made you that you have the ability to overcome adversity and to overcome obstacles and get it done and to do it and to do it at the best of your ability. The thing that robs us of self-confidence is our thinking, and let me tell you exactly what I mean by that.
One of the areas where most people would say they don't have a lot of self-confidence is in public speaking, and here's how you rob yourself of the feeling of confidence. You go up and you're going to speak. You go up to the stage and what you're thinking about is possibly, "I'm going to forget what to say; all these people are staring at me; they're not going to like what I have to say; it's not going to be interesting enough and I'm totally going to flop." You start having these thoughts of anticipating how you're not going to do well or thoughts about how you're not going to perform to your own ability or how other people aren't going to like you. You start anticipating this worst-case scenario.
Now, the worst thing that can happen is your thought about something happening. Even if everybody hated your speech, the worst part about that would be what you would think about them hating your speech. You see what I'm saying? Your anticipation of that, you’re thinking about what you're going to be thinking is what prevents you from having self-confidence. I really want you guys to wrap your mind around this. Self-confidence comes from your brain, and you rob yourself of having self-confidence by what you think about your brain and what you project is going to happen or how you're going to do it.
Now, when I start talking about self-confidence, inevitably someone will bring up arrogance and fake self-confidence. We all know the person that has that fake self-confidence. They come in and pretend to be confident, but you can sense their insecurity. You can sense their need for approval and their desire for approval. That's not what I'm talking about here. That actually is the A-line of self-confidence. That's acting like you're self-confident but having it come from a place of insecurity.
The thing about self-confidence is it comes from thoughts about yourself and how you feel about yourself and how you think about yourself and your abilities. One of the things that generates a lot of self-confidence is believing that you are capable just because you're alive, just because you're a person in the world. Not because you're special, not because you're better than anybody else, but just because you are worthy. That is where the most self-confidence comes from. When you know that you're worthy because you're a human being, then you also know that everybody else is worthy, too. What this does is it takes you out of worrying or having a need for approval from other people, because we're all human beings and we don't need to have approval from anyone else to deem us worthy.
The other thing that it does is it takes us out of arrogance. It takes us out of that need of believing that we're better than anybody else. A lot of people try to generate self-confidence by comparing themselves to other people, and they think, "Ooh, I'm better than that person," and they try to get confidence that way. What that is is arrogance, and that's a very slippery slope because it depends on other people not doing as well. I've been in that position where you believe that other people failing, other people not doing well actually serves you. I have to say that is never the case when you're coming from an abundant mentality.
Excellence begets excellence, whether it's your own or somebody else's. There is enough for everybody to be excellent. There doesn't have to be any competition between us in order for there to be confidence. It's not like there's this finite amount of self-confidence to go around and you have to wait until you get yours. Right? No. If we really understand that we're all worthy and we're all capable, then we see that everybody can have as much self-confidence as they possibly need. The more self-confident I am, the less I'm going to try and put you down, the less I'm going to try and hurt you, the less I'm going to try and slow you down or sabotage you because I'm not depending on your failing in order for me to get my sense of confidence. You know what I'm saying?
A lot of people will say to me, "I went and looked at her website and I saw what she was doing and I just had this total compare-and-despair moment." That's because you're coming from this place that there's only so much success, only so much confidence to go around, and they took it all. They clearly have more than you. The truth is, they're just expressing their self-confidence in a bigger way. They're expressing it in a way where they're not waiting for approval; they're not waiting for the experience of going for it. That's what I want to encourage all of you to do is to really know that the only thing holding you back is your belief about what you're capable of doing. If someone else is capable of doing it, I believe you are, too, in your own way. Everything that you dream about or want in your life is available to you if you stop doubting yourself and holding yourself back by not believing in yourself.
I know that some of you will now say, "Okay, so how do I do that? That sounds all great, but how do I do it?" I would say that the very first step is getting to know yourself, is understanding where are you on that confidence scale, meaning what is your opinion of yourself and your capability and your ability and do you trust yourself? See, the more you know yourself, the more you trust yourself, because here's why. The more you know yourself, what I mean by that is you know more about what's going on in your mind. The more you recognize what's going on in your mind, the more you see how the thoughts in your mind are creating the results in your life.
There's something very empowering that breeds self-confidence from that knowing, because it really is just like math. What you think creates your result, and you can see it in everything you do. You can see every thought and how it's creating the result you get. You can see the areas where you've managed your thinking and thought things that are positive and useful, that you have the result that is positive and useful. The areas in your life where you haven't done that, you don't have the results you want. That, right there, is so confidence-producing because here's the thing. If all you have to do is manage your mind to create different results and you learn how to manage your mind, there is literally nothing you can't do that you want to do.
I believe the desires that we have are the maps to our destiny. We don't just get a desire out of thin air. When we are tapped in, we know what we want to do and we're either going to honor that by having the self-confidence to go after it or we're not going to honor it because we're too full of doubt for ourselves. I want you to think about every person who's ever influenced you, every teacher that's ever really taught you something and really shown you something with their example. It is because they were not indulging in confusion and doubt; they were going after it. They were going after their desires because they generated enough self-confidence to create it.
Now, in order to express your self-confidence, you have to be willing to risk rejection. People will say to me, "But it's so hard when people reject me. It's so challenging." Let's talk about that for just a minute. When you don't get the approval you want, when someone rejects you, why is that so difficult? When someone tells you, "I don't like what you're doing. I don't like your work in the world," when somebody criticizes you, those haters are going to hate on you; they really are. If you put yourself out there in a big way, they're going to come after you in a big way. Why? Because they're not coming from their confidence. They're not coming from their increased confidence in themselves. They're coming from that place of competition and scarcity.
Here's the thing. When someone rejects you, the worst thing that can happen from that rejection is what you make it mean. When you know that, you have your own back. You can tell yourself, no matter if this person rejects me or not, I am going to make it mean something that fuels me, that empowers me, that increases my self-confidence, and I will never use it as a reason to decrease my self-confidence. See, the truth is nobody can take away my belief in myself. I'm going to believe in myself more than anyone else on the planet, for sure. I'm going to believe in myself because that is something that serves me in showing up, in delivering the most that I can to the world.
Are you going to let someone affect how much you believe in yourself by what they say to you, by what they don't say to you? You get to decide that. You get to risk that rejection. If you ask somebody to go on a date or you ask someone to help you or you ask someone if they want to be your client or you ask someone if they want your free opt-in, if they say no, you can make that mean something about you. You can use that against yourself or you can make it mean something that increases your self-confidence, that grows you into the next version of yourself.
Confidence is always going to come from that space of believing and trusting that you can do whatever it is you want to do, that even when you make a mistake, even when you fall short, that you will show up as the next version of yourself, no matter what, whether you're approved of or not. If you live your whole life seeking your self-confidence from other people's approval, you're always going to be seeking. You're never going to land in that place where you feel confident. It doesn't mean when someone says something to you that it won't sting because of what you make it mean right there, but you can choose to stay there or you can choose to move on.
Here's what I want to offer to you. Notice what is your opinion of yourself. What is your opinion of yourself? That's going to determine your confidence. Now, often when we are trying something new, when we're setting big goals, we need to use courage in order to generate confidence. Here's the problem with that, you guys. Courage, as I talked about in previous podcasts, doesn't always feel good. It doesn't feel like confidence. Courage feels like there's some fear mixed in. It's like confidence with fear mixed in is courage. That's what keeps us moving forward. If you're willing to feel your own courage, if you're willing to expand your quotient of being able to feel courage, on the other side of that will always be confidence.
Now, only because you'll give yourself permission when you achieve something to feel confident, please don't misunderstand and think that the reason you're feeling confident is because you achieved something. That is not the case. The reason you feel confident is because of what you've decided to think, what you've given yourself permission to think because of that accomplishment. I really want you to focus on your worthiness as a given, as a God-given right or as a universal-given right. You are worthy; it's indisputable. You are capable of going after anything you want. Work with your mind. Use your acceptance, your curiosity, and your commitment to generate thoughts of self-confidence. You don't need permission to be confident and you don't need evidence.
I tell the story a lot of when I was a brand-new coach. I had no reason to be as confident as I was. I didn't have the experience. I didn't have the ability yet, but I was. I believed in myself so much. One of my three clients that I was coaching said to me, "Wow, you're going to be so successful at this." The reason why he said that was not because I was such a good coach; it was because my confidence was there. My confidence was generating my action, and, of course, when confidence is generating your action, the result is going to be positive.
For everybody who wants to be more confident in your job, in your life, in your relationship, in your goal-setting, in your goal accomplishment, the first question is, why am I not feeling confident now? What am I feeling instead and why am I choosing to think that way that's creating that feeling? Next, what do I want my opinion of myself to be? What do I want my opinion and my thoughts about my capabilities and my abilities to be so I can generate more self-confidence to create the results I want in my life?
—
I want to talk about self-confidence because I feel as if self-confidence is something everybody wants, but it's not something that everybody actively is trying to create. I think that's a shame, right? A lot of people say, "I want to be confident like you." They'll say this to me, or, "I want more self-confidence in my life. I want to be able to ask questions and do things that are scary." My question is, when I was preparing this, I asked “why?” What is it about self-confidence that makes it an attractive feeling, a way of being, and ultimately an identity trait?
I went to the Googles to discover the answer to this. There were three main answers. Here's one: “it instructs people how to think about you. If you show people that you are well-liked and thought highly of, they are likely to follow suit. You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself.” Now, let's unpack this because that's a lot. The truth is you can't make people think a certain way about you. People are going to think what they think about you. Believe me, sister and brother. They are going to think what they are going to think, and there's nothing you can do about it.
They get to choose what they think, but I love the way this says, "You can instruct them how to think about you." If they're on the fence, they're like, "I don't know how to think about you," you can instruct them to think about you. Then it says, "If you show people that you are well-liked." How do you show people that you are well-liked? You like yourself. You can't show people that you're well-liked by other people. That would be weird and creepy anyway. You're like, "Let me tell you all the people that like me." "Okay, no thanks."
But you can show people that you're well-liked by liking yourself when you show up. You teach people how to treat you by how you treat yourself. I think this is like a [explosion sound] for your brain. If you show up and you treat yourself with respect, you talk about yourself in a kind way, in a nice way, in a loving way, and then you have that kind of overflow to liking the other person and showing up and liking them and acknowledging them, it instructs them that you are someone to be liked.
Now, they may or may not like you, but you've instructed them. I think that's fantastic. Think about something that a lot people like. It makes you want to try it. It makes you want to like it. Like if I say to you, "Oh my gosh. I love her. You have to listen to her podcast," Jess Lively by the way, if you're wondering who I'm thinking about, she's amazing. "I love her," then you're like, "I want to love her too," right? If I tell you that I love something, you're like, "I want to love her. I want to know. If you love her, I might love her," but you can do that with yourself.
You don't walk around saying, "I love me," although I do, but a lot of people think that's weird. But you can act that way. You can show up that way. That can be your truth, and when you speak about yourself, you speak in a very respectful way. I can't tell you how many people talk about themselves in a very derogatory way. They talk about themselves and their lives in a very negative way. Most people don't even realize they're doing this. They don't realize that they're saying horrible things about themselves. Just know that you're instructing people how to think about you by how you think about yourself. Self-confidence makes it easy for people to like us because we are setting the way, right? We're showing them, "Oh I'm someone to be liked in case you were wondering."
Number two: “it's suggests leadership. As humans and pack animals, we want to find the leader and follow her. Self-confidence is one of the traits of a leader. When someone is in a leadership space in our minds, we listen to them. We follow them, and we try to emulate them.” Isn't that so great when ... Have you ever gone to a conference or gone to be taught by someone and they're just full of self-confidence? You're like, "Oh good. I just wanted to make sure you were the leader. I just want to follow you. I want to be part of the pack. You step out and lead." Right?
We look for the leader, "Who's the leader in this group?" Sometimes in a group, I'm the leader, and in other times in the group, I'm not the leader. I'm the follower and I want to be the follower, and I like to follow people who exude self-confidence. I feel like when someone else exudes self-confidence and I can have confidence in them, I can relax and follow them without a lot of question. We want to do that. Isn't that so interesting? “As human pack animals, we want to find the leader that we can follow.” In a situation where you want to be the leader, you can put everyone else at ease by being self-confident, not questioning, not talking like "this," not showing up like, "I'm a little bit afraid." I feel like in some ways you're not creating that leadership role when you're not generating your own self-confidence.
Number three: “it exudes positivity that is attractive. We love to be around people who help us feel better. Self-confident people have positive thoughts about themselves, which in turn create positive thoughts towards others. Self-confident people do not feel the need to put others down or judge others to feel good about themselves. They are a joy to be around.” Haven't you found that to be true? No, we're not talking about arrogant people. Let's talk about that difference for a minute. An arrogant person says, "I'm better than everybody else. They're terrible. I'm wonderful." They come from that place of insecurity, trying to be better than everybody else. That is not self-confidence.
Self-confidence is, from my perspective, is, "I love myself. I like myself and because of that, I like all of you." None of us is better than the other. Huge difference, right? The leader of a pack isn't better than anybody else in that pack. They're just the leader in that area, and we want them to lead us, right? Don't you feel that way? "Lead me." Not because you're better than me, but because you're the leader now. Okay? That's where that self-confidence can come from. Now remember, self-confidence is based on your mindset, on the way you think.
I want to specify the difference between confidence and self-confidence because I started thinking about it. I'm like, "Is there a difference between confidence and self-confidence?" I went to the Googles. Did you know that I have a second brain and it's Google? I love Google. Confidence can be specific to a practiced skill or talent, so people can say, "I'm very confident when it comes to being a coach." "I'm very confident when it comes to playing basketball." "I'm very confident when it comes to playing video games." Attributing that confidence to a certain area. "I'm confident when it comes to pouring a glass of water."
But self-confidence is an overall mindset about your ability in all areas of life that matter to you. Now, here's the difference that I'm going to help you kind of distinguish between. Let's say we're confident in basketball. We've played basketball our whole life. We've very good at it. We know that we can go on the court and hold our own. It doesn't mean, "Oh I'm not going to make any mistakes." It doesn't mean, "I'm better than everyone else out there on the court." It just means, "I know how to handle pretty much anything on that court. I've played enough. There's lots of things that'll come up, but I'll know how to handle them." Okay? That's how we approach basketball.
Self-confidence is really about emotion. We don't know how to do everything, especially when we're trying new things, but we know how to handle our own mindset, and that's where confidence comes from. It comes from knowing that we can handle our own mindset and our own emotion. A growth mindset breeds self-confidence: knowing that we can figure things out, knowing that we can grow. A fixed mindset is more like based on our talent. If we're not good at something, it must mean we're not good at something. Okay? The minute we make a mistake, the minute we come up against something, if we have a fixed mindset, we are not going to have self-confidence to overcome it and we will probably give up.
Self-confidence and a growth mindset comes from a place of, "Of course there's going to be mistakes. Of course I'm going to fail. That's how I grow." Remember the little kid that falls down. They way that he gets strong enough to walk is by pushing himself back up. Fixed mindset sees failing at something as an expression of a character or talent flaw. Growth mindset thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence, but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. What is your belief about your capability? Do you believe it is fixed or do you believe you can grow and learn how to do anything? Is failure just feedback to you?
I want to offer here too, the people that have self-confidence usually have a future-based mindset. They don't base their confidence on something that they've done in the past because if you're basing your confidence based on something you've done in your past, you're only going to be repeating and improving things that you've done in your past. You're not going to have explosive growth in your future because you're relying on your past to provide you with evidence that you can be confident. Self-confidence is a feeling we need to develop capability and therefore external confidence in our ability through practice and repetition.
If you're trying to get confidence from your talent, if you're trying to get self-confidence from your ability, you're doing it backwards. You have to believe in you capability to develop your capacity, to develop the talent, and then you can rely on the external evidence, but you have to have the self-confidence to create that external evidence. It looks like this. Number one, you take action. Number two, you fail, and number three, you learn. When you take action, you either get the result your want or not, but you always learn what works and what doesn't. Take action, fail or not, learn.
Self-confident people don't take action and always win. I think it's a huge misconception. People think that, "Oh self-confidence comes from always winning, always being successful." A lot of people will look at some of the success that I've had maybe in my business and think, "Oh well it's easy for her to be self-confident. Look at how successful she is." But I promise you it's the other way around. You have to have self-confidence before you create that success, not after. For example, I'm self-confident in my capability to grow, to have bigger dreams, to accomplish bigger things in my life. That is not based on me having already done that. My goals for my future are so much bigger than my past. I've never done that.
It's based on my ability to handle anything that comes my way and I know that what will come my way is an emotion. My self-confidence comes from knowing that I can experience any emotion and I can manage my mindset. You increase your capability by practicing and getting better. If you aren't taking action, you're moving away from self-confidence. You are failing ahead of time. Self-confidence fuels action. If you are not taking action, it is because you're not generating the feeling of self-confidence. Here's how I generate the feeling of self-confidence. "There is nothing that can happen that I can't handle because the worst that can happen is an emotion and I know how to handle my emotions."
Failing ahead of time teaches you nothing. If you take no action, how do you know what works and what doesn't? If you're going to fail, don't fail ahead of time. Fail by taking action and learning, rather than failing by doing nothing and trying to stay comfortable. Yes, both can be considered failure but at least one gets you somewhere and increases your self-confidence by providing evidence that you are capable of taking action. Here are some thoughts. I believe in my ability to get this result no matter how long it takes, how many times I have to fail, or what I need to learn. That is such a good thought you guys. Steal that immediately.
I believe in my ability to get this result no matter how long it takes, how many times I have to fail, or what I need to learn. This is like when I signed up with my coach, Frank Kern and I was committed to doing everything he told me to do no matter what. Because I generated that for myself, I was able to have self-confidence. The worst thing that can happen is failure and I can handle failure. I enjoy making the impossible happen. Doing something impossible, you know it's going to be hard. You know it's going to be uncomfortable. You show up anyway. Why not? I see no reason why I can't create something spectacular if I keep trying with all my heart and mind.
Failure is the way to success. Discomfort is the currency for success. When you have self-confidence, you can create amazing success because you're willing to keep going. Self-confidence is not some amazing talent that creates success. Self-confidence is your ability to know that you can handle any negative emotion and keep going. That is what self-confidence is. It's believing in your ability not to do the thing you want to do, not to make six figures in your coaching business, not to have a great relationship, not to speak in front of people. Self-confidence doesn't come from believing you can speak in front of people. Self-confidence comes from knowing that if you fail you're going to be okay.
Self-confidence comes from the idea that no matter what happens, you're not going to die. It's not that big of a deal, that you can handle humiliation, that you can handle fear, that you can handle pain. That's where self-confidence comes from. Please know the difference. I'm going to go up there and speak in front of people, and I'm self-confident in doing it because no matter what happens, I will have my own back. I will take care of myself, and the more you do that, then the easier it becomes to rely on that external evidence. But in the beginning, you just have to say, "I'm going to go for this no matter what happens. I'm going to go for this."
Now, here are some thoughts that might prevent you from having self-confidence. "People will hate me." This is what I keep telling people all the time, "Well people are going to hate you anyway." If we could just make peace that people are going to hate us, like there's just haters that hate. That's what they do. They're like, "I'm going to wake up and hate today. I'm going to hate everything. I'm going to hate you." You can't control people hating. You have to allow there to be hate in the world. There is hate in the world. You not allowing it doesn't make it go away.
I let people be wrong about me. I let people hate me. I don't really have a choice, but you know what I do right back? I love them. Make sure you listen to the special podcast. Hopefully ... oh, it won't be out, but I talked about how people can be racist, people can be sexist, people can try and offend us, and we don't ever have to answer with hate. We know. We know what's going on for them. Just a model. They just have thought error happening. Another one people have is, "I won't have friends if I do that." This was mine, you guys. My huge belief system was, "If I get too big in the world, I won't have any friends."
Look at all my friends. Hello, my friends! Hundreds of thousands of friends. More friends than I could ever spend time with at their homes, right? The exact opposite was true. "People will think I'm too big for my britches, arrogant." They will. They're going to think that. It's okay. They can think that. I always say, "People are either going to think you're too big for your britches or you're going to be too big for your britches." That's what was true for me. When I was so afraid that people were going to hate me, I was so afraid that people weren't going to like me anymore when I did my work in the world. I was really literally too big. I was constantly just buffering with food.
People do think ... they say, "Who does she think she is?" I'm like, "Brooke Castillo." That does not make them like me more, just so we're clear. But here's what I decided. I can't make people like me. The best way for people to like me is for me to show them that it's fun to like me. "I like liking me. You should try it." When people say they don't like me, I'm like, "That's so unfortunate because like feels good. If you liked me, you'd be so happy. I'm happy." It really is as simple as that, my friends. People will think I'm trying to be better than them. They will think that even though it's not true.
I love the way Wayne Dyer says, "I'm just trying to be better than I was yesterday. I just want to keep growing." There is no human being…can I please tell you this? There is no human being that is better than another human being, so we can just give it up. Who's better? Who's winning? Everyone. The human experience is a win, so if somebody is struggling with drug addiction and they're homeless and someone is the CEO of Apple computer, neither one is better than the other ... in any way, right? As a human. Now, they may be better than them at spreadsheets or something, right? Maybe be better at being homeless. Those are different categories of activities and capabilities.
But our humanness is 100% equal and absolute. There are no better humans than other humans. When you know that, your life can explode because we constantly tell ourselves that other people are better than us. It's never true. They may be better at some skill that you could learn too, but they're not better as a human, and I think that's one of the most important things we can remember when we're building our own self-confidence. "Listen, you're not better than me. You're not better than me because you have more money or more success or anything. We are the humans and all of that is subjective."
The last one people say is, "I don't want much attention." You have to ask yourself “why?” If you're going to go out there and do amazing things in the world and make a contribution, people are going to notice that. Here's what I've found. When you give yourself your own attention, other people's attention is okay. Now, some people want other people's attention because they think other people's attention will provide them with self-confidence. It doesn't happen that way, right? Your attention to yourself, your ability to manage emotion is what will generate your own self-confidence. I wish that for all of you. If you feel like someone who is insecure and has low self-esteem, and a low opinion of themselves, I want to tell you that the only thing you need to generate self-confidence is the belief that you can handle any emotion.
I've talked a lot about this on the podcast. The only thing that prevents action, the only thing that prevents you from going out into the world and living the best version of yourself and showing the world what you've got and making that contribution, showing yourself what you've got, is your fear of feeling the emotion if it doesn't work. That's it. When you understand that feelings are just vibrations in your body and there's no emotion that you can't handle, the life that lays out in front of you is limitless, if you are willing to experience any emotion. I'm talking about experiencing the most miraculous joy you've ever experienced, and I'm talking about experiencing the terror of being who you're meant to be.
That's what we've been handed as the humans. Half and half baby. Half of it's going to be just awful, but that's okay, because it makes the good stuff better. That's what your life is. Stop trying to hide from the negative emotion. That's why you don't have any self-confidence. You don't think you can handle it, but I promise you, you can. Okay my friends. Did I mention that I love you all? I do. So much. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Thanks for being part of my life, and most importantly, thank you for working on yourselves. Your mental health is the most important thing you can invest in, your time, your energy.
Taking 15 minutes a day, 30 minutes a day to invest in your mental health matters, and I'm telling you not just listening to the podcast, but really applying what I'm teaching you, going out there and doing it. Have an amazing week everybody. Take care. Bye-bye.
Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.
