Unlock Your Confidence with Nicole Kalil: Building Unshakeable Self-Worth

I encourage you that, that different, that thing that's unique, that is your blessing and that is what you have to lean into. But the only way we can do that is if you ultimately have confidence in who you are first. What is your definition of confidence? Like, when you say confidence, what does it actually mean to you?

Ultimately, what confidence is? The actual definition of the word is firm and bold. Trust in self. Though the word confidence is most closely associated with the word trust.

And when you fake it, you actually never make it. That's. I hate that saying. It actually bothers me.

I would replace that with choose it until you become it. For me, ownership is deciding, determining, and creating my own success. It's being responsible for all of it.

If you choose confidence, if you give yourself grace and keep the commitments to yourself, it is only a matter of time before you can own your confidence. This is the ownit show where we tell stories of how everyday people made ownership theirs. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Own It Show. I'm your host, Justin Rothling Schoffer. And if you're new here, first thing I have to say to you is welcome, welcome that you found the Own it show. Either somebody sent it to you who absolutely loves you, or you happen to stumble upon us through some other form in the social interwebs. But either way, we're so glad you're here because we tell stories of people who have made ownership theirs and have realized their true potential. Potential and have realized life the way it was meant to be lived, which was differently. And so as we step in again, there's over 300 episodes that you can go and take a look at, just whether it's solo episodes with me, whether it's great guests that we bring on, really just wanting to educate, empower and equip you to take ownership of your life so that you can realize again something that is so unique and so different. And today I couldn't be more excited to bring on Nicole. And as we got connected through somebody about six months ago, and if you've listened to the last two or three episodes, I've dove a lot into the power of relationships and the meaning of relationships, and not just for networking, but true connection. And when Nicole and I first met, there was like an instant connection, just like a kindred spirit from the same heart, the same purpose, the same mission driven focus in which we. In which we dove into life and just understanding what Nicole is doing and her journey, I hope really inspires you today and helps give you a different perspective of what can actually happen. When you start to live on purpose. But number two, you really start to take ownership of who you are. You take ownership of what your difference is. You take ownership of what your uniqueness is so that you can step into a life that is unique and different. Because Nicole's life doesn't look anything like it did about five years ago in the past, but we're going to dive into that deeply here. And so Nicole has a keynote speaker, an author. She hosts this is Woman's Work podcast, which my wife was on. And I think that drops here pretty, pretty quickly. But she's just done such great work in being able to help people and women specifically lean into their calling. And what does this actually look like? And again, her number one Amazon best selling book validation is for parking is something that we'll be diving into as well. So, Nicole, it is so great to have you here and just thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with us today.

Oh my gosh, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. And I'm grateful to Rachel James, who I think it was, yes, you're right next to us many months back. But lots of good things have come out of that one initial connection. And it's just amazing how when people, you know, know people where they're like, yes, there's going to be a connection there, there's some commonal commonality, they're going to appreciate and respect each other and it works out just like that.

So beautiful. I love it. I love it. And I, I think that's the, the cool part about that, right, is when you connect somebody with no expectation. And the way that I always lean into relationships, and this is from somebody who used to be terrible at building relationships, was just about how can we make it as transactional as possible and how can we fig get me forward and what can get you forward? And if that works, then great. And my new way in which I really have just taken ownership of over the last four or five years is who is it that we don't know yet that will benefit from us being connected? And if there is something that I can be like, yes, that is going to benefit somebody that I don't know yet in the future I will pursue that relationship. But if the answer is no, then it's probably just for me from a selfish standpoint and from a self fulfilling standpoint that I kind of want to lean away from. And so, Nicole, I'd love to kind of get just a little bit of your background and understanding the journey that you went on to ultimately become Nicole that you are today, the person who is qualified to write the book of validation is for parking. And to be able to speak into the lives of tens of thousands of women about what does this actually mean, to step into your calling and to be so confident in who you are and the mission, the message that's inside of you so that you can step forward into it. Because I know that this was not always the Nicole that we are seeing today.

No, not. Not at all. And I think that that's so true for so many of us is our calling or our purpose is often discovered through pain or, you know, a tough experience that made what was missing so obvious and then like we became hyper focused on it. At least that's true for me. So my background is as an executive at a Fortune 100 company in the financial services industry, which is a very male dominated industry. And I worked with a great company and great people and I learned so much. And I was very often the only woman in the room. And what I learned about what it is to be successful, what it is to be professional, and what it is to be confident, I learned almost predominantly from the masculine lens. Now, I am not saying that that's a bad lens. I'm just saying it wasn't totally authentic to me. And I spent a lot of those years basically ignoring, avoiding stuffing down any of my more feminine qual. And in that, I think I just lost myself. I was trying so hard to be like the people around me that I stopped being me and I stopped valuing the nuances, the differences that make me who I am. And I think of this moment where I got promoted to chief development officer at the firm and everybody was congratulating me and there were hugs and high fives and somebody actually leaned over to me and said, I wish I had your confidence. And it was at that moment that it became so clear to me that I, A, didn't even know what confidence was and B, was just certain I didn't have any of it. It was all for show. It was all about how it looked. And so I began the personal journey to figure out what confidence is and how we actually build it. And then because it was so revealing and so life changing for me, it became to become more of a mission, a purpose to share about confidence, what it is, what is it, what it isn't, how we actually build it, and to make sure to include it from that feminine lens. And when I say that, yes, I do mean for people who identify as women. But I really mean for everybody because I do think most of us are made up of both masculine and feminine qualities and ways of being.

I couldn't agree with you more. And you've gotten obviously to know both my wife and myself and we, we talk about this often actually where you. I think this is why we, we connected so quickly is because Elise obviously came up as an executive VP at fashion shoe company and in a very male dominated industry. So very, very similar in that concept. But Elise has always been just so confident and just has this very masculine confidence about her. Where me, on the other hand, I'm a little bit more sensitive, I'm a little bit more wearing my heart on my sleeve type of guy, but at the same time, I'm a guy's guy. And so like I've. You've got this, this dichotomy that plays back and forth very well. And this kind of leads me to this question that you, you posed kind of just, I forget the word of what I'm trying to say, but you, you pose this question without answer, providing the answer. But I'd love to know what your perspective on this is. Is what is your definition of confidence? Like when you say confidence, what does it actually mean to you?

Yeah, so I geeked out and went to the etymology of the word and then I went to how it translated from Latin to Middle English into other languages, all because I wanted to understand what it is that we're actually talking about. Because the word confidence gets thrown around a lot.

All the time.

All the time. And I mean, it's used in sales all the time because people know we want more of it. Right. And so ultimately what confidence is, the actual definition of the word is firm and bold trust in self. The. The word confidence is most closely associated with the word trust. If you think about how it's used or its iterations. Like confidant is a person you trust confidential, keeping information safe and within a code of trust. Even con artists, the way that they perpetuate their crime is by getting you to trust them first and then taking advantage of that trust. So ultimately what we're talking about is firm and bold trust in self. I have a working definition that I often use. It's. It's when you know who you are, own who you're not, and choose to embrace all of it. And for me, there is that measure of self awareness and self appreciation that needs to exist in order for you to trust yourself. There is also that siphoning off of what isn't meant for you. What you're not meant for letting go of this idea of perfectionism or we are supposed to be all things to all people all the time by owning what we're not. And then that opportunity, we all have to embrace who we are exactly as we are.

I love what you just said there because I think so often we're okay owning who we are because when we own who we are, it's leaning into maybe what our strengths are, leaning into what it is that we're called to. Leaning into what is that we see ourselves as. Right. Even though that may not necessarily be true in the moment. But owning who you are not, and I think that's the harder one for people, is sometimes you can pretend to be someone you're not. You can pretend to want something that you actually don't want. You can pretend to lean into this newfound version of yourself that quite frankly, you know that this isn't who you're supposed to be becoming.

Yeah.

And how. How do you step into that ownership level of owning who you are not and doing it in a confident way?

Yeah. I mean, how we get good at anything. And the answer is practice. Right. And it really is an. An awareness that you're going to be surrounded. We all are surrounded by messaging of all the shoulds and the supposed tos and, you know, the be everything to everyone all the time. And so it's counterintuitive in a lot of ways. I often suggest starting with the easy things. So for me, owning that I'm not tall is super easy. I mean, this is just a matter of fact. I'm five one and a half on a good day. And, you know, it is what it is. Which leads to the next question of does it matter? So this is what I'm not. And then the question is, does it matter? In this case, the answer is no, it doesn't matter at all. So I just let it go and move on because I am not in the wnba and other than reaching things on really tall shelves, it doesn't impact my life at all. But let's run a different example through that. So I am not patient. I'm not. It is just not something that is. Comes easy to me and all the self assessments that there are out there, I'm low on the patient scale. Then I have to ask the question, does it matter? Yeah, it matters. It matters as a mom, it matters as a partner to my husband Jay. It matters as a business owner, it matters as a leader. There's so many aspects of life where that matters. And so Then I have to ask myself, what do I want to do with it? Do I want to grow? Do I want to leverage? Do I want to delegate? And in the matter of patience, the answer is all of the above and taking ownership of, I'm not ever going to be the most patient person. This isn't about swinging the pendulum so far the other direction. This is about being aware of where my lack of patience is impacting me negatively or hurting or harming what really matters to me, and figuring out how to leverage different parts of who I am or, you know, set myself up better, ask better questions. And then there's a lot of things that require patience that I delegate to other members of my team or leverage other resources or people. I'm not a researcher. I don't have the patience for it. So if I need something researched, I'm finding somebody else to do it as an example.

But so it's, it's so good when you think about, like, okay, knowing what confidence is, firm and bold, trust in self, Making sure that you can create undeniable evidence that you are who you say you are, owning who you are, but also owning who you are not, and learning to embrace it all. Where does this concept, okay, how do you actually build confidence? How do you actually build this over the course of time? How do you actually lean into this and start to have somebody who doesn't think they have confidence, get them to a point of where, oh, like, this is starting to feel a little bit easier. This is starting to feel a little bit better.

Yeah. So I identified five confidence builders. There are more than five, but I think these five have the most effective and quick impact. And fundamentally, just a reminder to all of our listeners, what we're talking about is building trust. So if what I say does or doesn't resonate with you, I would just go back to how do you build trust with other people in your life? How do they build trust with you? Whatever matters to you in that context will probably give you some pretty big insight into how you can build trust with yourself. Just turn it inward. That's really good. The five things that do seem to work. First, action. Action builds confidence. You can't think or hope or fingers and toes. You cross your way into it. You must get into action towards it. Action builds confidence. The second confidence builder is very surprising, and that's failure or fear or doubt or any of those sort of icky feelings. If you think about it, we build the firmest trust with people we go through hard things with. And it's really easy to trust ourselves when everything's going according to plan, when we're winning, when we're achieving. It's when the. You know what hits the fan. It's when you're faced with fear or doubt or you've messed up or whatever. That is where accessing trust and self is so much more challenging and therefore so much more rewarding. It's really about choosing to trust yourself when that could just be like, I don't know how this is going to work out, but I know that I'll be okay.

Yeah.

The third confidence builder is choosing confidence, which I know sounds sort of simple, simplified, but I think a lot of times people think confidence is a feeling. Confidence is not a feeling, it's a choice. There is that expression in business we hear a lot, fake it till you make it. I would replace that with choose it until you become it.

That's great. That's good.

Choose it moment by moment, day by day, however often you need to, until the feeling catches up. The fourth confidence builder is giving ourselves grace. It's really fundamentally how we talk to ourselves about ourselves. It's speaking to ourselves as if we are someone we love because we should fundamentally, first and foremost, be someone that we love. And then the fifth confidence builder is really about internal trust and things that we can do. So I'll give a few examples. Keeping your commitments. We trust people who keep their commitments more than we trust people who flake all the time. And yet, and I think women do this a little bit more often than the other genders, but what I find is we are doing damage to our confidence when we don't keep the commitments we make to ourselves.

Yeah, that's good.

We tend to be good about keeping commitments to other people, our colleagues or our children or whatever, but the ones we make to our own, like prioritizing our health or taking care of ourselves, or self care, whatever it might be, that tends to go by the wayside and we're doing damage to our own trust in ourselves. So keeping commitments is a big one. Standing up for yourself, speaking your truth, using your voice, planning, preparing, practicing. There are lots of things that we can be doing to build internal trust.

It's so good because I think, like even what I said earlier was building undeniable evidence that you are who you say you are. And I think that evidence comes out in what you talked about. It's the actions, it's the keeping your commitments. And I, I mean, I know when things were not going well in my life, I would sit and say oh, you know what I'm gonna like, somebody would say, hey, I've got a party that I've got going on. I'd love you to come. Oh, you know what? Yeah, I'll be there. Yeah, I'll be there. And then Friday night rolls around and I'm like, man, I'm not going to this thing. Like, I don't want to go to this. Well, that's something that I didn't. Now that's a commitment that I didn't keep. And then all of a sudden it's, hey, I'm going to get up and get my workout in in the morning to hit the alarm. And now I didn't get the workout in. And now, hey, you know what? I'm going to go and spend 30 minutes in the Bible this morning. Well, I didn't do that either. And so as you slowly start to chip away at these things and you realize that you've missed out on all of these commitments that you've made because you've over committed and said yes to too many things, or you've just ultimately chose not to do something and it actually steals your confidence. It steals the confidence in yourself because you don't have undeniable evidence that you are who you say you are. And you actually become this person that's trying to fake it till you make it. And when you fake it, you actually never make it. That's. I hate that saying. It actually bothers me. And so, and so this is why when you said choose it till you become it is so much more like on point and on brand and on mission. Because, hey, I'm choosing to go this way. I know I'm not there yet, but hey, understand that I'm putting in every rep, every effort, every intention, every focus to get to where I need to go. Because I'm building undeniable confidence of where I want to go. Because the person I am today is not who I want to be, but the person that I want to be is the person who I'm chasing. And when you ultimately show up with that every single day, and your habits, your behaviors, your lifestyle choices, all influence that you have nothing to do other than to be confident, you hit the.

Nail on the head. It's really about keeping your word and the power of our word. And when we damage the power of our own word, we lose trust and we lose confidence. And I also want to just reiterate exactly what you said. I think we think so often that the result is what is going to bring us confidence and it's more often than not the things that we do that lead to the result that create the confidence in ourselves. So, you know, you think about. We get a lot of advice about how to look confident, right? And so you think about all the ways that you could lose weight or gain muscle or fit into a certain size or get a certain number on a scale. There are so many ways to do that. There are ways that will build your confidence, and there are many, many that will not. And it's really about the actions that you take and the trust that you build in and for yourself in those actions that make the difference. So, you know, I could go take a pill and I would look better, but it would impact my confidence. Zero. In fact, it might actually hurt it more than it helps it. But the actual getting up, committing to a certain amount of times, a certain amount of days, a certain amount of reps or a certain whatever, that's where the magic happens. Because I'm keeping my word to myself.

This is so good. And I can give an actual, tangible example of this is I was speaking the other day at a annual event for a real estate company, and there's about 4,000 people there. And I had this lady come up to me after, and she had lost close to 85 pounds. And she came up to me and she just had this look of concern on her face, and she goes, justin, like, what you said today just spoke to me so heavily, and I feel just convicted to come up and talk with you. And this is about. I said the other day, this is about eight months ago. And she came up and she said, I, I. Over the last year and a half, I've lost 85 pounds. I was like, congratulations, that's so amazing. Like, outstanding. Like, bravo. And she's like, yeah, but I. I didn't do anything other than take Ozempic. And she's like, I have a deep fear of putting the weight back on. I haven't established any new habits. I don't. I hate working out. I don't even walk throughout the day. I literally just take this needle, and that's. That's what I do. And that's what's gotten this outcome. And I said, well, what do you want to do about that? And she's like, I want my confidence back. I want to feel like I'm worth something. I want to feel like I can do this myself. I want to feel like I have some agency and control over my health. I said, well, it looks like we have to just start building some habits in well, eight months later, she's down a total of 160 pounds. So she's lost another 80. But this time she didn't use Ozempic at all. And it was all habit and behavior driven. And I asked her, I said, how do you feel? She's like, oh my God, like, I don't even feel like the same person. And it's not the number, it's not the weight, it's. Which is why I love what you said. It's not the outcome, but the process and the work that you put in to get towards the outcome. Because guess what, there's always going to be another outcome you desire. There's always going to be something else you want to shoot for. There's always going to be another finish line that you're going to start pursuing. But if you don't know how to love the process, if you don't know how to lean into the system, if you don't know how to ultimately build the steps to get there, you're never going to have the confidence that it ultimately takes in order to do anything consistently.

I mean, ideal example, especially given, you know, one set of £80 versus the other set of £80 and probably the completely different experience that this woman has between the two. I call that the false equation of confidence. And we see it everywhere. And it goes like this. If X happens, then I'll feel confident. And X can be literally anything. It can be a number on a scale. It can be perfectly behaved children, it can be certain amount of followers on social media. It can be, you know, achievement, income, fill in the blank. But the problem with that equation is A, it never works long term.

Yep.

And B, you end up addicted to X. Right.

Go back to say that again. That's very interesting. So give that outline again. You become addicted to X like that. That hit something for me. So hopefully it hit something for somebody else. So go through that again.

Yeah. So if X happens, then I'll feel confident. Well, when X happens, what we typically feel is temporarily excited, happy, confident, whatever we want to call it. And then the feeling wears off.

Yep.

And then what do we need more of? X. Right. So like, let's take compliments as an example or validation. It's like, yes, it feels wonderful when somebody says something great about you or your work or your purpose or how you matter in this world. I'm not suggesting that that is a bad thing. I'm just suggesting that it's icing on the confidence cake, not the cake itself. Because if validation needs to exist for you to feel confident, you get the validation, you feel good, the feeling wears off, and then what do I need more of? More validation and probably more better, right? Like now I need even more of it. And now I'm a junkie to validation and I need it. And objectively, that's not confidence. Confidence isn't something that someone or something else will give to you. It is something that is built internally.

That's so good. And I'm going to give another example here because it really hit for me on this one. But I want to come back to validation in a second because you wrote a book that was just so convicting in Validation is for Parking. And I want to come back to that in a second. But example of what you said, basically when X happens, then I'll feel good is I see this all the time with like breathwork, meditation, mindfulness, where people are like, I'm going to go do my breath work in order to feel this, to have a certain feeling, right? You feel calm, you feel in control, you feel like the person, you feel like you're connected deeper, maybe to God spiritually. And then I'll feel good. Well, the rest of your day is not built around connection. It's not built around hearing the voice of God. It's not built around being still. It's not built around connecting to what matters. And so really you just become more addicted to more breath work. You become more addicted to more of these experiences instead of building the processes and systems in your day in order to have that be of come a lifestyle. And so I'm sure that, like, hopefully that resonates for people in terms of the example of what we're talking about here, because you just become more addicted to X. You become more addicted to whatever that thing is that gets you the feeling or the outcome that you're desiring rather than building a process or system around that. And so that's so, so good. But I want to go back to your example of validation because I think in this culture, in our society, validation is this crutch that we lean on. And you talk about it so heavily in your book, Validation is, is for Parking. Help us understand what happens when we seek validation. And when we push validation, we put validation as the number one thing in our life and what that does to our confidence.

Yeah. So first, you know, let me acknowledge that I chose that title because it's a little snarky and it's a little bit like me and it kind of sucks people in. Right? Yeah. So it fit me. There are A lot of things in the book outside of validation. But I think it is a beautiful example of ultimately what we're talking about here, which is this notion that we're being sold on a very regular basis from a very young age, that our value or our worthiness is dependent on someone or something else. Someone needs to deem me valuable in order for me to be or become valuable. And I just think that that's counterintuitive to confidence as it relates to confidence. I trust myself firmly and boldly and I get to make that choice. And there is this sort of implication that I came into the world that way. A baby trusts themselves. They're not second guessing whether or not they should cry or whether or not their needs are worthy or whether or not they, you know, are valuable enough for the love and attention that they, they get as babies. That's not how it works. And I think, you know, if you are spiritual or believe in God, this idea that we are valuable and worthy because we are, because we exist, because God or the universe chose us to be here at this time and there is no other you in history and there will never be another you in the future. And that makes us freaking magical in my mind. And so there is this belief that I have that our, our worthiness and our value is inherent and doesn't need to be proven or earned or observed or appreciated by another person in order for it to be so. Having said that, I acknowledge again, it is so important that we get like evidence of the matter that we, or the, the difference that we make and how we matter and, and that our work is good. And so I'm not suggesting that validation is bad or that it is doesn't feel good or that it doesn't serve a purpose, especially in business. I'm just suggesting that it's not as closely connected to our confidence, our internal trust in our own value and worth and as society has led us to believe.

And I think it's also coming back to just this component or this like construct of relying on validation for you to feel confident. Rather, it can aid in something that helps develop it. But if that's the sole thing of why you feel like you're feeling confident is because somebody told you so instead of you internally believing it, you coming back to the exactly these five things you talked about. You have the actions, you have the choice, you have the grace upon yourself, you have the keeping of the commitments to yourself. You've gone through the hard things, you've done the hard things to ultimately build the Undeniable evidence inside of yourself that other people can see and validate. And it feels good. But you don't need the validation in order to have the internal confidence that you're ultimately seeking.

Yeah. And I think for so many of us, the confidence has to come first because we don't usually get the validation until way later. Right. Like I think about the work that I do. Yes, I released a book and I got Amazon bestseller. That was exciting. That's validation. But that was like years after the starting of the writing the book. I mean, we have so many examples. I think even again, in our physical beings, anything that we do doesn't show up in results immediately. That takes time. And so it's confidence on the road to competence or confidence on the road to validation or achievement or all the things that come. But you most likely aren't going to get the validation you want to need or seek early on anyway. So you have to replace it with something more sustainable.

Yeah. And I mean, we know that consistency compounds and there's a compounding effect. And the longer that we do something, the greater those gains become as we stick with it and we continue to lean into it. So I think as we lean into those habits and behaviors, simply the choices that you make, what you decide to do are simply a vote of who you're wanting to become. And if we can. If we can ultimately say, hey, this is who I want to become, if I've got clarity on this, if I know where I want to get, going back to what you said, don't fake it till you make it, choose it till you become it, so that you can ultimately step across that in a powerful way. So I just think that's so powerful for somebody who lives in ownership, Nicole, somebody who's taken this on so well and embodies it so well in a word or a phrase. What is your definition of ownership, I.

Will say, is that I grew up in a culture of accountability. And that was really challenging for me because what I found is I was often being held accountable to other people's goals or definitions or. Or whatever. So for me, ownership is deciding, determining, and creating my own success. It's being responsible for all of it, the good and the not so. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say ownership and confidence feel very closely aligned.

I love it. I love it. Ownership is the development of confidence through deciding, creating and determining your success and being responsible for it.

There. Hey, let's put that on a sign somewhere.

There we go. There we go. We just nailed it. Just nailed it. Where. Where can people find your book, Nicole? Where can people get access to it? Again, validation is for parking. And then where can they also get access to. To your podcast and. And you in general?

Yeah. So the book, I would say Amazon is your best bet, though, if you walk into a local bookstore and ask them to order it for you, I will love you forever. Because let's support small bookstores. And then the podcast is available anywhere you listen to podcasts. This is Womanswork is what it's called. 90% of our listeners are women. But I get the feedback very often that the vast majority of the topics are relevant to anyone of any gender. And my website's nicolecalil.com if you want to find out anything more about me.

And my work, I love it, guys. We'll put that in the show notes for you so you can reach out, you can have access and you can find Nicole and really lean in. The work she's doing is really just outstanding and just changing a lot of people's lives in a real positive way. So I encourage you to lean in and take a look there. But no matter where you are, I don't care what industry you're in. I don't know, don't care who you're working for, if you're working for yourself or you're working for somebody else. But maybe you feel like you're a little bit different. Maybe you feel like you maybe don't fit in. Maybe you feel like you stand out. I want to tell you today, I want to share a message with you. I want to encourage you that that different, that thing that's unique, that is your blessing, and that is what you have to lean into. Because the moment that we choose to lean into that is the moment that we can ultimately develop it into something that will influence, impact and affect people in a really positive way. But the only way we can do that is if you ultimately have confidence in who you are first. And the way we do that is by making sure you have a firm and bold trust in yourself, creating undeniable evidence that you are who you say you are. And even though you might not be there today, you can choose to be in it, you can choose to stay in it, you can choose to pursue it until you become it. Because we know that if you take action, if you go through hard things, if you choose confidence, if you give yourself grace and you ultimately keep the commitments to yourself, it is only a matter of time before you can own your confidence. We know, at the end of the day, success is different. So own your different, and we'll see you guys next week.