Increasing Your Confidence

Hey, my friends, it's Brendon Burchard and welcome to a best of edition of the brendon show. These best of episodes feature training that I have done live, sometimes on online to tens of thousands of people or live on stage where I was speaking on some stages across the world. Or these might be some of my monthly training programs and highlights of those that I do every single month with our monthly students. So I know you're gonna really enjoy these because these are a little bit more of a deep dive look at some of my training as a personal and professional development trainer. You know, I focus so much on helping you find that deeper level of motivation and start practicing some of those high performance habits with. Well, you hear me talk about many of those concepts in these special episodes here. These are my best of trainings only and exclusively right here on the Brendon show. So I hope you enjoyed them. Please note that as you hear me speak in many of these, you'll hear me reference something because sometimes I'll have been training live or on video or on stage or through a broadcast. So you might not be able to see something that I'm suggesting or motioning to or maybe even drawing out on a flip chart or motioning towards on a presentation, but you'll get the gist of it. So make sure you bust out your journal. Take some good notes here because this is really valuable insights on the mindset or the strategy that you need to adopt in order to improve your life. And if you want to go and get more content like this, but much more deeper and have more of an interactive relationship with me in this type of training, make sure you join our high performance monthly training program. That's our monthly subscription program where I go live with you and our high performance students every single month and I try on a new topic or a new piece of research that we've created from the high performance institute and I train on that and then I do q and a and actual live coaching, interactive coaching with people every single month. That's called high performance monthly and you can Access it at brendon.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly B-R-E-N-O-N.com monthly to get deeper dive training similar to this. So if you like this, you would love that training program. But without further ado, let's jump in right now to one of the brendon show's best of trainings. I'm really thrilled and honored to have you here about one of the Most important topics that we can possibly take on together and that is your levels of confidence. And listen, I know right off the bat when you say confidence, some people say, well, I have this much, so I don't need to hear this, Brendan, I'm good on it, or hey, I dealt with confidence when I was a teenager. I'm fine. But listen, your current bank account is tied to your confidence levels in reality, right? Your current success, your current progress, your current level of joy, fulfillment, satisfaction, relationship depth. These things are all coming from confidence. Confidence is like the foundation of so many of the extraordinary feelings we want to have in our life, so many of the extraordinary results we want in our life, and we know from all of the research it is critical to your ability to maintain high performance, which is again, succeeding over the long term while maintaining positive relationships and well being. I'm really excited about talking about this with you, especially if you're here and you have struggled over the last couple months to feel your best. Especially if you know you're going to have to get another level of confidence to achieve that next level of success. You are in the right place, my friends and I'm obviously pumped. Number one, this is super important for confidence, for your confidence. This one. Don't tie confidence to image. Don't tie your confidence to image. Don't tie confidence to image. Okay, now some of you, this is super basic, right? We'll go deep, but this is a really basic one and that is a lot of people tie their confidence to what their to image. Like, how do I look like? You know, this is that old thing, it's like, oh well, if you're not in the per weight, there's perfect size jeans or you don't have six pack abs, or you hate your hair that day or you know something in terms of your image is not what you want, then what ends up happening is you lessen your sense of self and you feel like your confidence is lowered. And this is happening in not just physical manifestations for a lot of people. Like, well, I don't like, you know, I don't like my body, Brendan, so I'm lacking confidence. I'm like, why is your confidence tied to your body, huh? Or they say, well Brendan, you know, I'm embarrassed by, you know, my website. It's not as nice as other people. So I've lost confidence in my dream. I'm like, why is your confidence tied to your website? Oh, Brendan, you know, we just got divorced and you know it's embarrassing when I walk the dog because I'm not with my husband anymore. And, you know, I know what the neighbors are thinking, so I just feel like I'm lacking confidence. I'm like, why is your confidence tied to what you look like when you are walking a dog? You know, there's all these things or. Brendan, I don't know. I'm so embarrassed. My Instagram thing is, you know, I only have 55 followers, and it's so embarrassing. I'm like, why is your confidence tied to the number of followers? What we do is we externalize our confidence, and it causes so much pain. We got to change this deal, y'. All. You listen. That's okay when you're in high school because you don't know better and you're immature. But everybody by the end of high school had better learned that confidence should not be tied to external measures or to perception of others based on our image. And I know where this is going to go with a lot of you because I've been blessed to coach so many people at high levels. I know some of you go, no, no, no, Brennan, you're totally wrong on this one because, you know, listen, there was a time when, you know, I was in terrible shape and I looked terrible. And then I took control of my health, Brendon, and I got better looking. You know, I lost some of that weight, and I'm happy in my body, Brendan. And I am more confident because I am healthier. I'm, you know, lean and mean and trim, and I feel good about that. I said, oh, well, if you think about it, psychologically, your confidence didn't come from the fact that you are lean and mean. Now, like what I said, confidence came from that process. The confidence came from your willingness to get in and do it, your belief in your ability to figure out, and the fact that you showed up and you did it. The progress through the struggle gave you the confidence, the outcome which you're celebrating. Oh, Brendan. But I've lost this weight. I'm better. Here it is. Okay. That is what a high schooler does. Oh, this external thing. Now I can be confident. I got an article on the front page of the student newspaper. Now I can be confident. It's like we get these external rewards or accolades, and we think it's the outcome that gives us confidence. But if that's your life, you'll never have the confidence that you really, really could have. Because guess what, Those external image things, the accolade, the award, how you look in the mirror, those things are going to change throughout the life and you know it, because guess what? You're now you're going to hit a certain look and you're going to want a different look or you're going to have a certain award and want a different award or a bigger award or a certain bank account and want the next level of bank account. Because those external things are always moving. If your confidence is rooted in those external things moving all the time, you feel like this all the time, right? A lot of your insecurities is because you're tapping, you're like trying to glom onto all these external things. Image, right? These external things. And I want these external things, but they're not solid. And because they're not solid and they're always shifting, you don't feel solid and you feel like you're always shifting. And even though you've actually achieved some amazing things, you have the image things, you have the award things, you have the accolade things, you have the successes, you have a bigger bank account than you used to, you still don't feel confident in self. Why? Because you are attaching confidence to that outer thing. And how it felt like in terms of image in the moment, you didn't give yourself the appropriate psychological credit and identity as a striver who strived, who knocked it out, who made it happen. You didn't reward the effort, instead you tried to celebrate the outcome. But because the outcomes are now shifting and shaping and you want more and more, you always feel deficient and deficient. Because the outward, the image, I'm just using that word image. That image thing, the accolade thing, that success thing, it's moving so much. You have to understand this. It's why I know people who are literally 40s, 50s, and they still don't have confidence. It's very important to understand right off the bat that the shifting of the external, the shifting of those things that we want, the shifting of the rewards, of the accolades, of the dollars, of the houses, of the cars, because those will always shift. We'll always want a different one, a newer one, a fresher one, a better one, including in our body. Then guess what? It's hard to ever feel fully competent or confident, to ever feel within, like a sense of goodness. You've got to start rewarding yourself based on effort and not outcome. And I know many of you are aware of those very large sociological studies that have been done and replicated of children's self esteem, right? Instead of like, good job, Johnny, that final picture won the best picture over the seven other kids. Instead of saying Externalizing his comp. Good job for that thing instead. Good job, Johnny. You kind of pointed in your unique way, you worked hard at that. You spent a lot of time on this. In other words, we got to learn to reward our effort, not the image. And so this plays out in a lot of different ways. And I know there's some nuance here we're going to go down into, but I want to kind of get your head in right away and get you nodding. Okay, I can get this, Brendan. Because if it's like, if you keep like hoping that you'll feel fulfilled or confident based off of something that you achieve or appear as your toast. So let's talk about the foundations of confidence and from my perspective because I know we've talked a lot about this in our high performance experience and communities. Number one, I personally believe that confidence, real confidence, deep confidence, soul driven confidence is really the belief in my ability to figure things out. It's not about having or even having done that exact thing. It's. I believe inherently in myself that I can learn it, I can do it, I can learn it, I can do it. And that belief and confidence in any given moment isn't notice, it doesn't say, I believe I look good. Could you imagine a kid with like broccoli growing out of his head? Look at this haircut. I mean, if I, if I like literally rooted my confidence in how I appeared in my beginning videos, when they were terrible on stages, when I'm not at my best, you know, in the moments when I was trying to build a career and I had no idea what I was doing, that image stuff, I would have never gotten here. I just always believed in my ability to figure things out. I know you already know this, everybody, but I'm going to give you 10 distinctions here that will really dive deep. But here's the thing I want you to know and just be thoughtful about. If you don't have confidence right now at the level you need to lead, serve and earn at the next level, it is not based on what you have currently achieved right now, because you've already achieved things, because you've already struggled through things. The problem is you never gave yourself sufficient credit on the struggle, on the effort, on the heads down, on the working through, on the belief, on the desire of the hunger, on all of the stuff that was going on to get you where you're at. Because what you're doing is you're discounting where you're at. You're like, well, I'm only here, Brendan, And I want to be here. So I don't feel confident yet. And I'm like, oh, be careful. You're slipping into tying your confidence to identity. So let me put it up again. Don't tie your confidence to image number two. And I know you all know this one, but since we did have a little conversation about how silly we can be in our high school, we'd better talk about this one. Don't tie confidence to others attention or approval. Don't tie your confidence to other people's attention. That's what ATTN stands for. Or approval. Okay? Don't tie confidence to other people's attention or approval. Now, if this one is as high school as it gets, I don't know what is, my friends. Isn't it so true? It's just like if. Imagine you walk into a room. I want you all to imagine this for a minute. You walk into a room tonight. And in. In that room, gathered around like a bar, is all of your mentors and your heroes, People you look up to, who you wanted to meet or interview or do business with. Like you are. It's like a serious room to be networking in. And imagine that as you walk in that room, no one pays attention to you. No one pays attention to you. And as you talk to everybody there in that room, not only do they not pay attention to you, when you do get someone's attention and you have a conversation with them, it doesn't seem like they really give you the vibe that you belong or that you are approved of. Now, how do you feel about yourself when you leave that room? How do you feel about yourself when you leave that room? Now, isn't it true most of us would feel kind of bad? We'd be like, ugh, you know, I don't feel good about myself. I'm kind of sad. I'm kind of down. You know, I must have made a big, you know, embarrassment of myself. You know, these people don't like me. Isn't it true that most of us would kind of get down on ourselves? But there's an aspect of spiritual maturity that would ask this question, why? Why? You know, we are so desperate for other people's approval because we all want to belong. We all want to feel like we are capable, like we, you know, fit in like other people, you know, approve of us. You know, it's just part of the human story that we want that sense of belonging and approval from other people. And that's okay. When you're really young, as you get older, it's not that I'm saying don't try to connect with people. It's not that I'm saying, you know, don't try to be your best. But here's what I'm saying, Learn to walk out of that damn room with your head held high, your confidence instilled in who you are. Even if you didn't perform well, even if you had an awkward conversation, even if you weren't your best, you still hold your head high because you're like, okay, I got it. I didn't fit in here, but I don't have to fit in everywhere. Or, you know, I didn't fit in here because I kind of said this and it wasn't appropriate. It wasn't kind. I will change my behavior. Lesson learned. Because, see, learning can give you confidence, but so can discerning. You don't have to be confident in every room and in every situation and do perfectly all the time. You're allowed to have a bad night. And you having a bad night should not take down your confidence. Write it down. You having a bad night or a bad performance or bad speech or a bad zoom call or a bad broadcast or a bad conversation with your spouse or whatever else you deem bad should not take down your confidence, not in yourself, because you can believe in your ability to figure things out. You have the willingness to try again. And even if it wasn't what you wanted, that willingness is going to fuel you. That desire to improve is going to fuel you, but it's not going to take away from your confidence in self. And this really bothers people because they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Brendon, come. Brendon, how could you say this? Are you saying people's results should not affect their confidence levels? You know, and I'm like, no, I don't believe your external results should affect your confidence levels in self. I think they can be great indications to learn, to improve, to be aware. I think I would say, listen, I don't want it to decrease. Listen, please carefully listen to me because this is a coach's major distinction after literally delivering thousands of coaching sessions. Here's the distinction. If you have a bad performance, I don't want it to decrease your confidence. What I wanted to is increase your self awareness. Ooh, write that down. I don't want it to decrease confidence. I wanted to increase self awareness, to say, ah, what were the factors that led to me not performing as well as I could? What were the factors in that moment that tore me from my own presence Authenticity or confidence? What could I learn to do better? To have more confidence next time. But I don't want you to deplete the tank of confidence based on whether or not in that particular situation, on stage or in that networking situation, they gave you the attention or approval that you want. And let's have an honest conversation right here because I know many of you are incredibly successful, mature, capable people. And I just believe that the excellence driven nature of this high performance community constantly astounds me and Denise. Like, we are always super impressed with each of you and what you give and how you serve and how you show up for your own personal professional development. I mean, the fact that you're here says so much about you and I applaud you for that because there's thousands of people who also got this invitation who aren't working on themselves today and tonight. But you are, and that's a big deal. And I also know, though, one of the reasons that many of us are set out into the world of personal development is because too often, too many times we know we took other people's opinions about us too seriously and we allowed other people's attention, or lack thereof, to hurt us. We, you know, when we were kids, we didn't get the attention of the parent we idealized. It hurt our feelings and it could hurt our confidence if we let it. When we were, you know, in a job and our manager didn't like us, we could let that hurt our confidence and our feelings. We take things so personally. But I also think that we're often unaware of how little people care. But I'm here to tell you, most of the world is not thinking about you, not observing you, about you, not interested in you. And as much as you are, like, hoping that they will give that attention and those accolades, they're not. And it's not saying anything about you at all. Listen, the fact that other people aren't giving you attention almost has zero to do with you. It has to do with the human story in which each person, almost all of us, are more concerned about our own selves and our lives, our families, our goals, our dreams, our obstacles. We're so concerned in ourselves, we don't even see other people. I mean, if you don't believe it, go walk down a major city and see how many people are paying attention. No, here's what the world looks like now. They just walk around like this. They're not even looking at you. And you think, you think that, oh my gosh, they're not paying attention to Me or I don't fit in or I don't belong. You think that matters? Most of the world could care less about you. And I know that sounds terrible, but there's 7 billion people on the planet. I know that sounds funny, and I'm teasing on this a little bit. However, I'm conscious enough as an adult, and you should be, too, that most people are really interested in their own lives. They're not even paying attention to you. So why are you so upset that you don't have someone else's attention or approval? Why? Your confidence should not be tied to other people's attention or approval. Right. I mean, if I think of my life and I tied my confidence to other people's attention or approval, I would be toast. I mean, imagine I go to speak, you know, to. You know, just a couple weeks ago, I was in front of another four or five thousand people, and I think I spoke to whatever was over 75,000 people in the last year and a half or so live. Let me give you an example, what most of these arenas look like. Like, I go out on the stage, it's dark out there. There's usually like. Like lots of lights and everything. But as I'm talking, if I look down at people, a lot of people are just kind of. That's it. They're just kind of. They're not like, yeah, tell me more, Brendan. Yeah, yeah, they're just kind of like, this is how most people observe the world. And their eyes are vacant not because they're not smart, not because they're not capable. It's because their eyes aren't out towards you. I know that. They're in their head. Most people are in their own heads. So it would be a dangerous thing to tie your confidence to whether or not other people engage with you. Other people care about what you're doing. Other people approve of what you're doing. Other people give you the attention that you want. You can be a fully confident person even if you don't get the attention you desire from your husband. You can be a fully confident person even if you don't get the attention you desire from your boss. You can be a fully confident person even if everybody makes fun of you. And that's so important. All right, my friend. I hope that you enjoyed that best of episode. Was that inspiring? Were you fired up? Did you love it? If you did, make sure you do me a favor. Go out on social media somewhere and share that episode. You know, just go out, post it somewhere, post yourself, listening to it. Make sure you hashtag the Brendan show because when you do that, I can look you up and we can find you on Instagram and post that in the social media. And sometimes we do all expense paid trips to people we find. We just randomly select people, we send them gifts, autograph books, swag T shirts, all expense paid trips to some of my seminars. So make sure you let us know, share what you thought about this episode out there on the social media worlds and then we can find you and celebrate you. And also I would love to invite you to join us in our high performance monthly program. So just go to brendan.com monthly. That's brendon.com monthly. That's where we do deeper dive trainings like you just heard. But we do that every single month and there's some live Q and A there and I do some giveaways and we give students in that monthly program tickets to my seminars and some extra special training on leadership. So make sure you check it out@brendon.com monthly. I appreciate you being part of this community of so many people dedicated to finding that deeper drive of motivation and practicing high performance habits so that they can become extraordinary in their careers. In your personal life, in your health, you can live an extraordinary quality of life. And sometimes you just need a little bit more training and a little bit more nudge, a little more energy, a little bit more drive and consistency. And I'm hoping that being part of this community with the Brendon show, I'm providing that to you in some way. So thank you, my friend, for listening. I look forward to seeing you or listening with you on the next episode of the B R E N D O N show. Sam.