Jim Kwik shares six quick confidence boosters for high-pressure moments like public speaking or interviews. A power pose can lower cortisol, a signature song triggers boldness, and wearing colors that make you feel good has real psychological impact. He also recommends mirror high-fives, chewing gum for stress relief, and carrying a personal charm as an external confidence anchor.
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So in this session, I just wanted to give you brain hacks, little things you could do when you need an immediate, instant, quick boost of confidence. Let's say you're in a situation where somebody asks you to say a few words and you need to just kind of like get in that place, or you're going on stage and you have these butterflies and you need— or you're making videos or giving a toast at a wedding and you're getting nervous. And if you have a few minutes, what can you do? Or you're really nervous about taking that test and you want to walk in there confidently or talk to that somebody that you're attracted to, whatever the scenario is, right? So the first one is the power pose. If you need— there's a study done by Amy Cuddy, Harvard psychologist, that said that using your physiology actually affects your psychology. If you have a power pose and you did something like the Wonder Woman pose or the Superman pose, when you do it, it helps reduce cortisol levels in your body, which is the stress hormone. It helps boost your testosterone. It gives you like— it feels like you have more— some strength and some power also as well. So you can do a power pose. Something very simple. Number 2, one of the things that I do before I go on stage, 'cause I get a little nerves here or there, besides tapping into my passion of helping other individuals and focusing on like 1 or 2 people, is I listen to music, right? I'll put on my headphones and I'll just play 1 track. It could be even, it doesn't even have to be the whole 3 or 4 minutes of the song, but even if I just hear the first like 15 seconds and I hear that beat, all of a sudden, you know, you have a certain song. I posted this on Twitter the other day. It's like when you're down or you feel sad or depressed or not confident, is there a song you could listen to? And there was like 300 answers, right? Everybody has a soundtrack for their lives. So I would ask you, is there one song that could just put you in that state of boldness and courage, right? Have that in your phone ready to go. Number 3, something quick you could do is just check your wardrobe. Someone on our team said this morning, said, when you look good, you feel good, right? And a lot of psychology is actually meant around, around colors that you wear. And if you feel comfortable and you feel like you look good, You are going to act that way also as well. So there's— you could go into the study of this and look at YouTube and listen to podcasts on dress, but your external environment, which includes your clothes, it affects your internal environment as well. So choose your wardrobe. Number 4, there was a study done at the School of Biological Sciences in Liverpool that talked about the power of scents. Like there's certain scents and smells that will raise your level of courage, your level of confidence also as well. And it might be different for each person. So you might want to experiment with a certain perfume or cologne. Some people use a certain essential oil, or they'll chew a very specific kind of gum. And chewing gum, as an added one, also actually has been shown to be good for cognitive performance as well in terms of reducing stress, improving your focus. But the power of smell for yourself also, it affects other people as well. Number 5 is give yourself a high five. And I'm taking this from a podcast interview we did with my friend Mel Robbins, who has the High Five habit, saying that when you're brushing your teeth, ideally with the opposite hand to train your presence and you train the other part of your brain, after you're done, next thing you do really quickly is look in the mirror, your bathroom mirror, and give yourself a high five. Because high-fiving yourself, according to her research, this is ingrained since we're a child. You're high-fiving people throughout your whole life, and that's to celebrate, to encourage, saying you are enough, you're gonna win today. But what about starting your day like that? If you want an instant boost of courage, find yourself a mirror, give yourself a high five. But you can't just high-five your other hand because that's a clap, right? But that's number 5, is give yourself a high-five first thing in the morning. Your 6th quick tip to access more of your quick confidence is have a charm, have an amulet, as some people have. You know, for others, it's different. Like for sports figures, going back, they wear that underwear or they wear those socks, right? Or they have a certain artifact or an amulet is like their charm that they feel like gives them some luck. So have something, something that is unique, that means something to you, that you have, that it's anchored to it. Because actually in our nervous system, our external environment gets linked to our internal environment. So if you have certain music, as we talked about, or certain smells that we talked about, it actually could trigger certain emotional states. You know that, you hear a song, brings you back, right? A fragrance can bring you back. Well, objects can do that also as well. Knowing that it's in your pocket and it's on your person can help you access greater confidence. And you use that every single time. Yeah. You want to feel more confident. So that is number 6, is have some kind of charm or amulet to help trigger your confidence. There's this movie with Matt Damon. I didn't watch all of it, but it's called We Bought a Zoo. And there's this quote I remember saying, like, sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage, and I promise you something great will come from it. Right? So if you need this boost of courage to be able to go and make a hard decision, to be able to show up, to do something you never thought was possible, try one of these 10 things. And you're— that's your really your exercise. And down below in the comments, give us your feedback. You know, which of these resonate with you? And what do you do? What's a method or a small, simple step you do when you need to really tackle and feel determined to overcome your doubt, to be able to have greater confidence and really be the person you're meant to be? Put those suggestions down below. Also, rate your confidence. How's your confidence today? And are you ready to take on the confidence challenge?
