How to Build Limitless Confidence | Jim Kwik

So let's start by defining confidence. In the comments down below, how would you define confidence? Please put it down below. Confidence is what? What is confidence to you? So confidence for me is this belief in oneself. You know, self-worth is you, or self-esteem is you, you knowing your value, your worth. I think self-confidence is us trusting. In fact, the Latin root for confidence is which means to trust. So self-confidence is trusting yourself. I think part of the journey we're doing is self-awareness is having the curiosity to know yourself. So we're getting to know yourself, but also trusting ourself, right? And later on, it's about loving ourself, right? And also being ourself. And that's really the goal. Self-confidence is about trusting yourself. And when you trust yourself, really a lot of doors open. a lot of limits fall by the side because all of a sudden we've transcended, we're ending this trance. And what's the opposite of not trusting ourself or not having confidence? That's where we're in doubt. You know, when we're not confident, we are doubting ourselves or doubting our knowledge, doubting our skills, doubting our own abilities. Maybe we're even doubting our own self-worth. The opposite of confidence might be not just doubt, but fear. Yeah. And how does that show up? We might be painfully shy like I was. We might, you know, turn down opportunity. We might not take risks. We might be so fearful of taking on new projects to learn something, to do something, to be, do, have, share in a way because we're afraid of making mistakes, right? If we don't have confidence, we're not gonna take on things and make mistakes. And from that, we're not gonna learn anything. Yeah. And I really do believe that, you know, there's this quote that I have on my desk that says that if failure is not an option, then neither is success. I think Seth Godin said that, that if failure is not an option, then neither is success. So the opposite of self-confidence is where we are limiting ourselves. We're somehow putting a constraint. And part of what we're doing here is redrawing the borders and boundaries of what's possible. You know, what's possible for us? You know, what is possible that we could do? What's possible for what we deserve in our, in our learning and also in our life? When we have low self-esteem or low self-confidence, we could feel anxiety. We could have social anxiety. You know, going out for me, when I was first starting out, I was doubting myself. You know, I was only 18, 19 years old when I started this. And I would think, you know, this was a few decades ago, but I was like, who am I to teach these people who are twice and 3 times my age? You know, I would be at a networking event, maybe a Chamber of Commerce event or a Rotary Club event when I first got started. And I would have this anxiety, this social anxiety. And I would always be the one standing in the corner or going, you know, going 5, 6 times to the restroom just to kind of compose myself. And because I just didn't believe in myself, I didn't have that self-confidence. Because I didn't go through what I needed to go through, or maybe it's not even going through it; it's growing through it. You're like, I like that. I'm gonna write that down in my in my confidence journal, right? Make sure you're taking notes, right? And so the opposite of that is not feeling assurance. You know, I don't feel maybe not feeling safe. And again, all that doubt. And I think really what we need to do is sometimes we need to be too optimistic to doubt. You know, we have to be too determined to doubt, and that's really the goal. of this program. And so we're talking about right now, we define confidence, right, as a trust in oneself. We know, you know, that the root is about trust and trusting in our own abilities that we'll be able to figure it out. And if we don't, well, we will eventually be able to figure it out. And the other side of it, where you might feel like even, you know, most awareness is maybe, oh, when you don't have confidence, it's a little bit awkward, it could be a little bit frightening, but how do you get past this? One of the main principles I want to really land home right now is the same that we talk about in our memory and our reading program, the work done on positive psychology, you know, really pioneered by Dr. Carol Dweck, who wrote the book Mindset. I told you in each lesson I'm gonna mention a book here or there because leaders are readers, right? And it's the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Because remember, we're going out of the limitless model. We're looking at mindset first because that's the first thing that needs to be addressed to be able to open up. Because you can learn a great method, Right? A great method for having confidence in a room. But if your mindset is, oh, I don't think it's possible, or I don't believe I'm capable of having confidence, or I don't believe I deserve it. So here's the thing. Confidence is not something that's just a noun. Remember, a big principle of Kwik Brain and quick learning is taking nouns and training yourself. Every time you, you say to yourself, I have, or I don't have, try taking those nouns and turning them into verbs. What do I mean by that? You do not have confidence. You're like, yes, I know, Jim. That's why I enrolled in this program. I don't have quick confidence. You do not have confidence, you do confidence. And confidence is a muscle. The more you exercise courage and faith and confidence, the more it shows up in other areas of your life. Because please write this down if you haven't already, how you do anything is how you do everything. How you do anything is how you do everything. So just like we teach in the other programs, you don't have focus, you do focus. You don't have memories, you do memories. There's a process of encoding. storing, retrieving. You do not have creativity as we teach in the Kwik Thinking program. You do creative things. There's things to access your creativity, to write poetry, to write books, to make music, right? To start a business, to solve problems. And our goal with all our programs with Kwik Brain really is taking the unconscious, taking what looks like magic and showing you the methods behind the magic. So remember this principle when it comes to quick confidence. Take the noun and turn it into a verb. How can we take it? It's not a magic pill that will give you confidence, but there is a process that will give you confidence. Because here's the thing, confidence is not fixed, and your confidence can wane depending on your energy levels, depending on how you're connecting with your purpose, depending on strategies and the tools and the resources, depending on also like how well you slept last night, depending on who you're spending time with will affect your confidence. You know, there are people that you spend time with that would erode your confidence. So remember this as we go through this process of strategies and tools and skills and abilities, that your confidence is not fixed. Yes, you are born with actually with great confidence. You're not very fearful about what other people think. But then part of it is we're going through a process of unlearning. I call it unlimiting ourself, right? A big part of success is getting out of our own way so then we can just flow, getting through like all the noise. So like we can, we know things. But sometimes they're buried under other people's opinions and their expectations, and it's there, right? But it's been sedated who you are, and part of this is really remember who you are, right? And for me, I needed to stop hiding, and that was that was my thing that I was dealing with. I was hiding. I was trying to become invisible. I didn't want to be called on in school because I didn't know if I had the answers or not, right? You could fake it. Right? That you hear fake it till you make it, and part of it has legitimacy. You know, when you pretend, uh, or you, or you try to embody somebody who you know is confident and breathe the way they're breathing and smile and what would they do, part of it is your imagination doesn't know the difference between something you vividly imagine and something that's real. But it's not just, it's not just fake it till you make it. Really, it's face it till you make it. Face it till you make it. Remember, through challenge comes change. Through adversity becomes an advantage, right? Through your struggles, you get strength. Because while the beauty is in the butterfly, the growth is happening in the cocoon, and that's where the creature is struggling to get out. But it develops strength, and when it actually emerges, what does it do? It soars. And I want you to soar to new heights, new heights of confidence and belief in yourself. Another important thing I want you to write down before we get to this exercise is know this. that if you do not have confidence in a certain area of your life or you have an extreme amount of doubt in yourself, it's not your fault. Just like in our other programs, I talk about if you don't have a great memory, it's not your fault. If you're not a great reader, it's not necessarily your fault. If you don't have great focus, it's not your fault. You were not taught, right? At least I was not taught. There was no class called memory back in school. There was no class called focus back in school. Going to a child and say, focus, Or concentrate is like looking at someone saying, play the ukulele, who's never taken a class or a training like you're doing on how to play the ukulele. Well, that's like going to someone and saying, focus, who's never taken a class called focus or concentration. Looking at someone and saying, study and remember this, who's never taken a class on studying and remembering things. Well, if somebody, you know, you talk to yourself in the mirror and say, you know, you gotta be confident, right? Or somebody looks at you, step into your courage, be confident, motivate and inspire you to be confident. Yeah. You've never taken a class until now, right? And so it's not your fault, right? So I want you to own this. You're not a victim. But now that you know it's not your fault— because where did they come from? Where did our fears and our doubts come from? Well, it could come from childhood trauma. You know, trauma. It could be an emotional trauma, physical trauma, sexual trauma, right? It could be some kind of trauma on our system. It could have come from our environments. Right? A lot of marketing and media is saying you have to look this way. And again, it makes like, oh, this comparison standard, you know, like, oh, you have to look a certain way or be a certain way, or there's, you're broken and you need to be fixed. They wanna sell you something, you know? So it could be through trauma, it could be through the external environment, mental health, right? Anxiety, depression can really erode on our confidence, on our self-confidence, on our perception of ourself. It could also have been, you know, for me it was in school. I remember times I remember times where I was bullied. I remember times where I was teased or I was maybe harassed, right, for being different or not knowing something or not fitting in, right? I was always the last one picked in school, you know, first for sports, you know, this little kid that was, you know, kind of awkward, right? You know, I would always be not doing well in class. I would say, oh, 'cause, you know, I have the broken brain, right? I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself. I remember when I was a kid, So wherever it is, here's the truth that wherever we are now, you know, our past has shaped who we are now. But here's the other side of it though. Now that you are aware of it, we are 100% responsible for who we are today, right? And who we are moving forward. So I wanna remind you, this program, like all our programs, is about agency. It's about personal responsibility. It's about self-awareness and self-management. Right now that you know that your past, you know, through your environment, external systems, your experience, other people's expectations shaped you, you and you alone are responsible for who you show up for as today and also tomorrow moving forward. Do I have a yes on that? Yes. If I— if you feel like this resonates with you, put yes in the comments, please. Put yes in the comments. So what I'd like to offer you right now is a challenge. I want to ask you this question. That you might never really consider before this. In order to feel a certain way, feel focused, feel love, feel respected, there are certain rules. You have certain evidence that has to happen in order for you to feel like you're allowed to feel a certain way. So if you wanted to feel love, what has to happen in order for you to feel love? For some people, it's different, right? They have different love languages. They have to be told that somebody loves them. They have to be gifted something. Maybe some people, their language is touch, right? There's some kind of service or something. Everybody has different rules for feeling something, feeling loved, feeling respected. Some people, feeling respected is, if you respect me, you spare my feelings. Other people feel respected, they're like, oh, you gotta just let me have it. Like, don't hold back, right? Tell me what's on your mind. Well, same thing is you have rules for So I want you just to think about for a moment, if you need to pause this and think about, what are my rules for feeling confident? How do I know I am good at something or good at making progress in some area of my life? What are my rules for confidence, right? Just like you have rules for respect, rules for communication, rules for trust. Your rules for trust in a relationship, what has to happen? Right. And how can somebody violate those rules to take away from your trust? Well, you have rules for confidence, and part of this journey is knowing yourself. I, I mentioned this before, but the process we're going through is you have the curiosity to know yourself, and once you do, do you have the courage to be that person? So this thought experiment we're doing right now, you can put in the comments if you want, but what has to happen in order for you to feel confident? Like, think about this thing that you have. Okay, let's go back to the confidence challenge, right? In an earlier lesson, I said, hey, at the end of these 7 days together, I'm gonna ask you to commit to making progress in something that you're fearful of, right? The confidence challenge. This thing that you're just like nervous about doing, you've always put off, and that you want to accomplish, right? Well, how confident do you feel about that right now? And what is your rule for feeling confidence in that situation? Right? How do you have to think or feel or be, or what do you need to learn to feel more confident in that situation? What skills or methods, abilities, techniques will give you more confidence in that area? You know, what support from the outside world, how much energy, how connected to purpose, right? So this is the thought experiment, because how do you show up when you're confident? Right? You feel unstoppable. Imagine walking into a room and you want to feel confident remembering people's names, right? A lot of people have fear around that. They don't feel very confident remembering people's names. So what has to happen in order for you to feel confident? Well, well, I need to practice with one or two people, right? I need to go back and watch quick recall so I could watch those videos again where Jim brings people on stage and I get to practice remembering their names. And if I could get just four out of five, then I feel very confident, right? So let's get specific. When somebody has confidence, they feel they're. They don't feel necessarily unstoppable, but they say, okay, I could figure this out, right? If you give me enough time and I'm willing to study through discipline and effort, I could figure this out. So what has to happen in order for you to feel confident? And then finally, I want you to, in here, I want you to actually in the comments fill this out. Actually, not even just in the comments, take out, even better, take out your confidence journal. Take out your confidence journal right now. And now that you have your confidence journal, I want you to fill this out. If I were more confident, dot dot dot. That's all. And I want you to list twenty or thirty things. All right? In your journal, if I exact words, if I were more confident, dot dot dot. Fill in the blanks. All right? I want you to put at least twenty things down, one per line. If I were more confident, I would ask for that raise. If I were more confident, I would ask for that date. If I were more confident, I would be making more money. If I were more confident, I wouldn't be so nervous going to social events. If I were more confident, fill in the blank. And I want you to fill in at least 20. You can do it to 30. If you want to go more, go more. But remember this, reasons reap results. Things have to go from your head to your heart to your hands. But if you're not acting with your hands, meaning you're not implementing the things, you're not confident, you could do the things in your mind all day, but you have to access your heart, right? The rewards that come, right? So the reasons reap rewards. So fill it in. If I were more confident, dot, dot, dot, what changes? What are all the benefits that would come? What are all not only just the pleasure you would receive, but also the pain also as well? You know, like what are you gonna get out of? Right? What what are you going to be able to avoid all the great things that come, right? Because that's what's coming waiting for you on the other side of this program. So do it right now. Open up your journal. This is your homework assignment. Remember, just hearing this is not going to make a difference in your life. Doing it will. Write down twenty or thirty things. Fill in the blank. If I were more confident, fill in the blank. All right. And then also when you're done, put your confidence level down below on a scale of zero to ten. How confident do you feel now? Just do a little gauge. How confident? do you feel right now in your life? All right, I'm your confidence coach, Jim Kwik, and I'll see you in our next lesson.