How to Eliminate Self-Doubt Forever & Build Unshakeable Confidence

Today, you and I are going to learn all about this 4-part framework that helps you build unshakable self-confidence.

There are 4 attributes. We have acceptance, we have agency, we have autonomy, we have adaptability. Self-acceptance is fundamentally accepting that you are a work in progress. You don't need other people to validate your worth. You are worthy just by existing. Agency is that attribute that allows you to trust that you can do the thing. And if you don't know how to do it, you will learn how to do it. Autonomy is the belief that you have a degree of control over your life. Adaptability is actually so much more than what we think it is.

Dr. Shaday is a behavioral researcher and bestselling author with a PhD in organizational behavior.

Some studies have found up to 82% of people have felt like an imposter at some point. And the beautiful thing about feeling like an imposter is it is a sign that you are growing. You don't realize how you're keeping yourself stuck when you complain about the things you have no control over. Show up for the life that you want now. Don't wait for it. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait till you feel ready. Don't wait till you feel worthy. If you show up for the person that you want to be now, your life will fundamentally change because everything will feel lighter.

Dr. Shadeh Zarai, welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Thank you so much for having me.

I am so excited you're here. Thank you for traveling halfway around the world to be here today. And here's where I want to start. Your research around self-doubt, building confidence, feeling worthy, it is so important. We're gonna dig into it. And here's where I'd like to start. Could you speak directly to the person who's with us right now and tell them what might change about their life if I take everything to heart that you're about to teach us today and I apply it to how I feel about myself?

If you actually apply what we're going to be exploring today, your life will fundamentally change because everything will feel lighter. People don't realize how insidious self-doubt is. And when you're living every day and you've got the insecurity and those negative thoughts and the self-criticism and the feelings of I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, it is a weight. It makes everything more difficult. It leads to so much hesitation and second-guessing and missed opportunities. If you can learn to recognize, and you see, the beauty of this work is that you don't actually have to eliminate the doubt. You just have to strengthen parts of yourself that allow you to move through it. And then success becomes easier. Fulfillment in your relationships becomes easier. Happiness becomes easier. And this is based on decades worth of research. So it's so incredibly important. And that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

Well, I'm excited for you to teach us some of the frameworks in your bestselling book, Big Trust. And, you know, in your work, you work with CEOs of Fortune 500, 150 CEOs in in terms of who you are coaching, who you are advising, but the journey to doing all this research began with you having a crisis in your own confidence and feeling like you weren't enough. So let's just start there. How did you begin this?

So my journey with self-doubt is really the driver of why I do what I do, because I have felt the pain over the entire course of my life. I mean, I'm still shedding the doubts that I developed early on. And I think if I really reflect on where it started, it started really early for me.

Okay.

So I would've been about 3, 4, or 5 years old, and I am part of this beautifully supportive family. And every Friday night we would have dinner at my grandparents' place. And then after dinner, there was this family tradition where the little kids would dance for everybody. So I would hear, "Shaade bayaad baad aakh se," which is, "Shaade is going to dance for us." And you know, as a young kid, I loved the attention and they'd put on the music and it made everyone so happy. What then happened though is over the years, as this became just this regular thing that we did every Friday, I started to feel less comfortable doing that, being the center of attention, as I became a little bit more self-conscious about who I was in my body. And, you know, I was maybe 8, 9, maybe 10, but I saw how happy everyone was when I was in this position of performing for them, and I didn't wanna let them down. So I didn't know how to say no. And it was around that age that I internalized this belief that I am only of value I am only worthy when I'm making other people happy, even if I'm not happy.

Hmm.

So for me, that was that early life experience that instilled this sense of lack of enough. And then that just kept becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy when I was at university, when I started working in the legal industry, when I moved into banking and finance, it followed me into every meeting, every conversation, every interaction. I never felt like I was good enough to be there. But I've also discovered over the last 5 or so years, as I've really deep-dived into this, as I was doing PhD research into this, almost every single person experiences self-doubt. It is not uncommon at all. And yet those who are able to truly succeed, it's not that they eliminate the doubt, it's that they've found a way to strengthen who they are to move through it.

It brings me to a question, Dr. Shadeh, what drives self-doubt?

Okay, so I have been fascinated by this question for over a decade. Even before I did my PhD research, I was seeing self-doubt in action in the workplace at every single level, because I genuinely believed once you become a leader, once you achieve a certain thing, you don't have self-doubt. But I actually found that sometimes those at the more senior levels, sometimes those who have achieved a lot, they have even more self-doubt because they feel like there's even more opportunity for them to fall, more reputational damage if something doesn't go well. So I thought, what is actually driving this? And that's when I started looking into the research. What do the most esteemed minds have to say about this? And I wanna share with you one particular study, which I have never forgotten from the moment that I came across it. It's from the late '70s, early '80s. So a psychology professor by the name of Robert Kleck at Dartmouth, he conducted this fascinating experiment, which really reveals how self-doubt works and where it comes from. He brought people together, and with one group, he drew a scar on their face, on the right side of their face, between their ear and their mouth, this really noticeable, visible disfigurement. He let them see themselves in a mirror so they can go, okay, I have this scar on my face. And then he sent everyone out into conversations with strangers. Now, after the conversations, he then asked everybody, how did you feel the conversation went? The group without the scar felt like it was a fine conversation. The group with the scar reported feeling judged, they felt like it was tense, their conversation partner was cold, and they felt like they were treated differently because of that scar. Now, that in itself would've been a really interesting experiment on prejudice and discrimination.

Or perception of.

Or perception of, exactly. And that's where we get to the interesting piece, because if I pause right now and I take you back right before these people were sent into these conversations, so they've just seen themselves in the mirror, right? Right before they're sent into it, the researcher said, okay, I'm going to apply some moisturizing cream to the scar to set it so it doesn't crack.

Okay.

What was done though was the scar was removed entirely.

Whoa.

There was no scar. These people went into these conversations believing they had a scar.

And they didn't.

They didn't. And that led them to have an expectation about how people would treat them, which then led them to pay attention to things that objectively did not exist. It changed how they showed up. They created the reality they expected, and this is called expectation bias. We don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we expect it to be. Wow. Now, when we think about what that means for us, when you're thinking about this from your own perspective, anyone who is watching or listening, what kind of scars are you carrying into every single conversation, every interaction, every meeting, every interview, every conversation with your loved one? How is that affecting how you not only show up, but what you're interpreting and noticing that may not even be there? Because until we're aware of these scars, we don't realize just how much they're creating the world that we're living in.

Dr. Shadeh, how do you rewire these moments of self-doubt?

So I have an analogy that I love to share to help us understand what we're actually rewiring when we're talking about self-doubt.

Great.

So what I have here is two Glasses filled with yellow water.

Okay. Now I want to narrate this because the majority of you listen, and I don't want you to miss a thing. So Dr. Shadeh is sitting here at the table for the podcast. She has two to the brim, bright neon yellow glasses full of yellow water sitting on a tray. And in one hand you have a ping pong ball.

I have a ping pong ball.

And on the other hand, she has a bright yellow golf ball. Okay.

Now, if I were to take the ping pong ball—

And what does the ping pong ball represent?

The ping pong ball represents self-doubt. In fact, both balls represent self-doubt.

Oh, they do.

And what's going to happen in the cups is it's going to help us understand different approaches to self-doubt.

Okay. All right, great. So, so self-doubt might be— let's just take one we can all relate to. We've all had those mornings where you look in the mirror and you just go, ugh. And because you've shared the scar example, Let's just go with this perception that how we look has something to do with our value to the world. And so the form of self-doubt that the ping pong ball or the golf ball might represent is just this belief that because you look ugly today or your acne's on fire, or maybe what's happening for me, I constantly notice the jowls that seem to be forming and, uh, I don't like them. And I feel a little bit of judgment and weight, and I doubt myself. Am I looking older? Are people gonna judge me for that? And so is that what these represent?

Yes.

Okay, so we got a ping pong ball and a golf ball.

So if I were to take the ping pong ball. Yep. And place it on one of the glasses of water, what would happen to it?

Uh, I think it would float, cuz a ping pong ball is like, you know, kind of light. Yeah. Light, airy, airy.

So if we try that, what's happened?

Oh, she, it's just floating there. So this is this thing that maybe you feel a little doubt about. And it's just kind of floating on top.

What happened to the water?

The water stayed the same. What does the water represent?

The water represents how we see ourselves, our self-image.

Oh.

And so when we're talking about how doubt should be, because the goal again is not to eliminate the self-critical thoughts, that's too high a standard we're setting for ourselves.

We can't.

You can't do that. That's the function of the brain doing what it does. The goal is actually to allow the doubts to exist, but essentially to float on top of who we are.

And what Dr. Shadeh is doing right now is she's basically you know, kind of gently pushing the ping pong ball across the top of the glass and it's floating there like you might see a little toy sailboat floating at a, you know, public park, just lightly drifting around. And so as an example of that, you look at yourself, you're like, not my best day, but no big deal. Oh well, okay.

Exactly.

I'll just, you know, if I don't like the acne, I'll just put some foundation on. No big deal.

Yeah. Focus on the good.

Like we got this. Okay. Focus on what I can control.

Now, what most of us experience, though—

that's not what I experienced.

No, and that's not what most people experience. It's a lot more insidious than that.

And so now you're holding a golf ball.

Now I'm holding the golf ball. Now, a golf ball is, in comparison to the ping pong ball, it's what?

Dense. It's heavy. It's got weight to it. Yes.

And if I were to drop this into this other cup of water, what would happen?

It's going to sink. Oh, not only does it sink, like, water just splashed everywhere and it sunk to the bottom.

This is what happens when we internalize self-doubt. We allow it to mean something about who we are. So rather than just floating on the surface, we acknowledge it's there. We make it mean something about who we are. So instead of the, oh, I feel a little ugly today.

Yes.

Oh, well, you would say, oh, I feel ugly today. I am so ugly. I am so unworthy of other people's time and energy. I'm not valuable.

Everybody's staring at me. I don't wanna speak at work. Everybody's looking at this thing that I don't like about myself. And what's so stunning about the visual, and I want to really describe this for you as you're listening, is on the right you have this like dopey little ping pong ball floating around. Do do do do do do do do do. It's there. You haven't said you can't have the thought, but it's not sinking into your soul and dragging you down like an emotional weighted vest that then impacts every aspect of your day. The other thing that I want to point out is that on the left, you know, the heaviness of the self-judgment. I got some acne, I'm short, my hair sucks today, whatever it may be. I got fired from that job, therefore I am not worthy of a job. You can see how it's just sitting there at the bottom of the glass. And then even more sad, Dr. Shadeh, is the spilled yellow water all over the place, because what you get the sense of is as self-doubt weighs you down, you lose a bit of yourself to make room for carrying that doubt with you day in and day out.

And then what's even more worrying is even if you go through the process of working on yourself—

okay, now hold on. She's taking a spoon and she is now digging in and spilling more water out and she is getting the golf ball out of there, right? She's getting it out of there. Okay, so maybe our skin has cleared up. Maybe we have a better hairstyle. Maybe we have moved on from the job or the breakup, and now we are out there interviewing again. So we took care of the thing, or so we thought.

Or so we thought. But has that water miraculously refilled itself to the brim? No, no, there's a piece missing. And so what self-doubt does is it strips you of who you truly are because you're internalizing it. You lose a part of yourself. And even if you do the work, You enter what's called the void. So now, okay, the golf ball is out. Maybe you are seeing that ping pong ball floating above.

Yep.

You're detaching from it. But then you enter that weird middle stage where you actually don't know who you are without the doubt, because for so long it has driven your behaviors and your thinking and your actions and the way that you show up in the world. You've been acting to prove yourself to others or to seek their validation, and suddenly You don't know what your true instincts are and who you are in the world. And so there's that really interesting little space where you need to discover who that is again, but it starts with changing how we see ourselves. So when we talk about rewire self-doubt, it's actually not necessarily about the doubt at all. It's about strengthening how we see ourselves by strengthening these four attributes so that the doubt is no longer a golf ball. No longer becomes internalized, no longer infiltrates how we see ourselves. And instead it's there. Hey, okay, I can see you. I know that you're that voice up there, but I don't have to listen to you. I don't have to believe everything I think. And that's so incredibly powerful when people both acknowledge it and then take the steps to actually get there.

And I take it that what you're about to teach us not only helps us become more buoyant, with the day-to-day self-doubts, but it also is going to help us fill that void with new capacities with ourselves that self-doubt stole from us.

That's exactly what we're going to be doing. Let's get this water out of here.

Dr. Shetty, you have this incredible framework based on research that helps us break apart self-doubt and build self-trust and self-confidence. Can you explain what this framework is?

There are 4 attributes. We have acceptance, we have agency, we have autonomy, we have adaptability.

Why is having this 4-part framework helpful to breaking apart these moments of self-doubt and helping us build more confidence and self-trust? Why do we need a framework?

It's because we misunderstand self-doubt as being one blob of worry, insecurity, fear, and anxiety. And that means then if it— we think it's one thing, we think there's one solution. And that's why so many people are disappointed when they've tried the self-help route and they've tried this book or that approach and it's not working. And it's because self-doubt doesn't operate that way. There are actually 4 distinct elements. And once you figure out which one is lacking in you, which one is weak, then you know exactly what you need to focus on. And then you can access the tools and the frameworks to help you move through and strengthen that so that everything in life just becomes so much more freeing. Let's start with acceptance. And so self-acceptance is fundamentally accepting that you are a work in progress. You don't need other people to validate your worth. You are worthy just by existing. Now, that doesn't mean that you accept that you will never change. It's actually acknowledging that I can change, I can grow and be that work in progress, knowing that self-improvement is possible. So it's a beautifully liberating state. When you don't accept yourself, that is when you self-reject. You self-reject before anyone else can.

But how do you accept yourself if you don't like yourself? You know what I mean? Like, you look at— and I'm just going to stay with the physical, because every one of us has the example. And when we start to get into psychological, I don't like myself because of XYZ that has happened, or these things that I did, it can get more complicated. And I want all of us to just stay right here and be listening for ourselves and listening for the people in your life who struggle with a lot of self-doubt. So if you do look in the mirror and you're like, yeah, and I don't want to accept that.

So there are two things that I'd recommend you do.

Okay.

The first— well, actually, there's three. The first one is that you need to acknowledge that until you accept yourself, nothing will change. If you are someone who is saying, I don't believe it.

Yes.

In that case, what you want to do is use other strategies and tools that allow you to strengthen the self-acceptance in other ways that naturally will help you recognize that you are valuable. In spite of not believing that initially. Okay, so the very, very first tool is very simple. We call it the Careless List. What you're going to do is grab a sheet of paper, divide it into two columns. On the left, I want you to write down all the things you want to care less about. I want to care less about my physical appearance. I want to care less about what people in the street think of me when I walk by. I want to care less about what my family keeps saying about my acne or my weight or how I look. Actually acknowledge it. Give it a physical outlet. A lot of people don't actually want to acknowledge their fears because they're afraid that they'll make them real. But I'm a proponent, and a lot of evidence suggests that if you can just make them real, it gives you something to work with. You're not hiding from it. So you write down everything you actually want to care less about, put it in the left, and then just reflect on how you feel when you look at that.

How— I love that.

It's simple. So that's our care less list. We've identified all the things that we wanna care less about.

Yeah.

The next step is, okay, what do I wanna care more about?

Hmm.

What do I actually want to shift my attention to? Because attention is such a superpower. If we're not aware of it, we're going to be stuck in patterns that keep us stuck. But if we can become more aware of it, be a bit more curious about how we're thinking, this is called metacognition.

Mm-hmm.

It's the ability to think about your thoughts, and it is a fundamental superpower cuz the moment you start thinking about your thoughts, you're no longer in your thoughts. So consciously write down, what do I wanna care more about? Well, I wanna care more about being of value in my life. I wanna care more about having the kind of courage that allows me to take the step even if I've got the acne or I look a certain way. You map them down.

Mm-hmm.

And then it's a super simple practice. You just bring yourself back to this regularly to remind yourself, okay, my attention is going onto these things, but I really wanna care less about them. How do I actively shift my attention to what I wanna care more about? When you consciously take control of your thoughts, You're re-engaging the prefrontal regions in your brain. We get more activation, more blood flow going here, and then it fundamentally shapes how you're showing up. So that's a really, really simple practice if you're struggling with any kind of physical element.

Well, it's also really helpful if you're moving through something emotional.

Completely.

If you have just gotten laid off, your job already was something you cared about for years. If you no longer have it, even if it was devastating to lose the job, don't you wanna care less about that job that's no longer here? And don't you wanna care more about the future you and your future value and the next chapter of your career? Same thing with a breakup. You already gave years or months or however much time and energy to the relationship that's over. Don't you want to care less about it? Have it impact you a little bit less? Don't you want to care more about all of the things that could bring you happiness, about reinventing yourself, about stepping into this? It's such a beautiful and simple illustration because it's true, Dr. Shadeh. We live in our heads. And I love that when you get out of your head and you put it on paper like this, it allows you to not be in your thoughts, but to examine them and direct them differently. It's brilliant. Dr. Shadi, could you walk us through just what does life feel like for somebody who has low self-acceptance?

So we see 4 really painfully familiar patterns with people who have low self-acceptance. The first one is what we call the pressure to prove. So this is where you feel like you're not enough, so you have to prove your worth through achievement. And setting and achieving the goal and getting the recognition and the title. But what happens is you tell yourself, when I get there, then I will feel like I'm enough. And you get there and it doesn't feel like you thought it would. And then you just set the next goal. So you're perpetually chasing this feeling of enoughness and you're proving yourself, but it's not having the effect that you want. That's the first pressure to prove. The second one is what we call the likability trap. So if you don't accept who you are, you outsource your worth to how other people see you.

Mm.

And if they can like you, if they can see you as acceptable, then maybe you can see yourself as acceptable. But then this leads you to sacrifice yourself. You say yes when you really mean no. You over-apologize for things you shouldn't be apologizing for. You don't speak up in the meeting. You don't ask for what you deserve, and you end up sacrificing what you want and need because you're prioritizing everyone else all the time and you don't know who you are. So that's the likability trap. We prioritize being liked over being true to who we are. And I say we because I struggle with acceptance. I speak from experience here. Now, the third one is what we refer to as the shrinking syndrome. So this is where you see someone, and you might resonate with this if you're watching or listening, where an opportunity comes your way, an incredible opportunity, But suddenly your brain starts magnifying all the ways it could go wrong, the ways you might fall short, the ways you might fail, the what will other people think. And so you know what? It's safer just to shrink back and make an excuse as to why you're not ready or why the timing is not right. You shrink from those incredible opportunities. And then the fourth is the Schadenfreude cycle. This is a German term, and it refers to that feeling that some people get, that feeling of pleasure when they see other people struggle or other people stumble or other people fail. And it's ego-driven, and it's because when they don't accept themselves, they like to see other people suffer too. Oh, it's terrible.

It's terrible.

It's absolutely terrible. It's more common than you'd think. It's why people love gossip. It's why people love reading headlines that are tearing other people down. It's very much a human experience, but it reflects that someone doesn't fundamentally accept who they are.

Oh, I hate that.

I hate that too. Wow. It happens.

You know, in your book, Big Trust, you cover 10 different ways that you can start to build self-acceptance. Can you just give us a handful of them?

Absolutely. I'll share some of the simplest ones that are really, really tangible for people. So what we see with anyone who struggles with acceptance is they will over-apologize.

Mm-hmm.

Sorry, I'm talking too much. Sorry, I'm so emotional. The simplest thing you can do here rather than apologizing, which highlights an inadequacy, and makes you feel less.

Yeah.

Is to shift into appreciation. So instead of, sorry, I'm talking too much, you would say, thank you so much for listening. Instead of, sorry, I'm being really emotional right now, thank you for bearing with me. I'm passionate about this. And this is the power of the words that we use when we're engaging with people, because it not only shapes how we feel, suddenly we're not apologizing for existing, we're actually acknowledging the other person. So we feel better. But it makes the other person feel better too.

I needed you yesterday as I was crying over something and then apologizing to everybody for being emotional about something that was stupid.

But it's because you care.

And then saying to everybody, and you're probably judging me that I shouldn't be stupid. So now I'm making them wrong when I— and it made me feel worse and it made everybody feel uncomfortable. And it would have been way better to just say, thank you for bearing with me. This is just a lot. And I really appreciate your patience and your kindness on this. I need a— as soon as this interview's over, I am making a phone call and saying that to somebody because I didn't use that. And it's a very powerful shift because I can see how stomping on myself and not accepting my emotions and then inadvertently stomping on everybody sitting there trying to comfort me. Wow. Okay, what's another one?

Simple, powerful. Okay, the next one is if you struggle with acceptance, you also tend to say yes before you've even processed what you— is this resonating with you, Mel?

Yes. I didn't think I struggled with self-acceptance though, but I guess I do.

Well, interestingly, a lot of really high achievers who have done incredible things in their life struggle with self-acceptance.

Huh.

And it's one of the things that keeps them pushing, but it's also one of the things that really tethers them and is weighty.

Yeah.

So if you, like me, like Mel, tend to overcommit because you're saying yes to everybody else because you don't want to let them down, what's really valuable is learning how to say no. But what you want to do first is not just an automatic no. You create a little bit of a delay so you can actually process what they've said. We know from research that even a few seconds, a few milliseconds, allows us to make a better decision when the pressure is on. So what does that actually look like in practice? You start with, thank you for thinking of me. So positive first response. You move into, let me check with my schedule. Let me check with my husband or my wife. Let me confirm I have capacity. And then step 3 is, I will get back to you by X time, right? Thanks for thinking of me. Let me check. I'll get back to you. And then you reflect on whether you actually want to do this thing. Now then the next part comes. How do you actually say no? If you want to decline. When we just think about the saying no, it can feel very selfish if you are a people pleaser, if you struggle with approval and acceptance. So what you want to be thinking about is, okay, how do I make this not a no but a yes to myself? Oh. If I can make this a yes to myself, I don't have to say to the other person I'm saying yes to myself, but it makes the process so much easier.

So give me an example.

So an example would be, okay, I don't want to spend the whole weekend helping someone move in, because I'm going to say yes to the fact that I need recovery this weekend.

Yes.

So then when you go and give the decline, it's not just a no because I'm selfish. It's actually, again, thank you for thinking of me. This weekend I'm focusing on rest and recovery, but let me know how you go. I'd love to see it when you're all set up.

Right. Or this weekend I had plans to go to the museum, or this weekend I already had something else going on and can't help you out.

So simple.

Yes.

So simple. Amazing. So that's the second tool. I wanna share just two more really quick ones. Please. The third one is a really counterintuitive one. If you wanna accept yourself more, Go and get a hobby.

Why?

Because people who struggle with self-acceptance tend to identify with their jobs. So if you're watching or listening right now and you're resonating with this, you probably identify with the work that you do, which means if things are going really well at work, you feel fantastic. If things are not going well, you're going to feel terrible because you're internalizing it. Does that resonate?

I feel called out. I'm just going to say it right there. Yes. Given that I was crying yesterday morning and objectively things are going amazing.

When you do something outside of your day job, outside of your business, outside of whatever title you've attached to yourself, it reminds you that you are so much more than what you're doing in that business at work. Now, we also need to acknowledge sometimes this is to do with your role as a parent.

Mm-hmm.

You might identify so closely with being a parent if you are a full-time carer. And so getting a hobby gives you that separation. It activates different parts of the brain. There was a study with over 93,000 people in 16 different countries. And they found that people who have hobbies accept themselves more. They have higher self-esteem. So there's that evidence. There's also another super interesting study of Nobel Prize-winning scientists. They found that those Nobel Prize-winning scientists were 3 times more likely than regular scientists to have a hobby and 22 times more likely to have a creative hobby.

Now, what does that tell you and why is that important?

It tells us that, well, what these actual scientists told the researchers, which then leads into what that tells us, they said that having those hobbies gave them something outside of work to make connections. It gave them an outlet when they were having a bad day at work, and it allowed them to realize that their identity is not just what they're doing in the lab. They actually can go and have fun and give themselves permission to play and be a beginner.

Could you talk specifically to a person who's listening right now who may be in a moment in life where they are a caregiver for somebody aging, or they've got super young kids at home and they are stretched so thin. Could you speak directly to why a hobby right now, when it feels like you have no time, is the exact thing you need to make time for when it comes to your self-doubt and everything that you're doing for everybody else?

Because hobbies are a form of recovery.

Mm-hmm.

And they remind you that you are important too. And when you give yourself the permission to recover and go and have fun and play, it allows you to be a better carer, to be a better parent, to be a better whatever it is in your life. You give yourself that permission. You're honoring the fact that you accept who you are and that you need these things. We know the research tells us that play is important. Hobbies are important. And honoring that can be one of the most powerful things that you do.

Dr. Shadeh, you also say that to build more self-acceptance, stop using positive affirmations.

This is a big one. So we see all the time online that we should use positive affirmations. If you don't feel like you're enough, tell yourself, I'm enough every morning.

Yep.

Now that doesn't work if you struggle with self-acceptance. Research shows us that if you struggle with self-acceptance and self-esteem, using positive affirmations backfires and makes you feel worse.

Why?

Because it contradicts how you see yourself. And there's a part of your brain, your mind that goes, "Nuh-uh, you're faking it." And you can become even more self-critical.

Wow.

Wow. So what do we do instead? That's not to say the positive affirmations—

Well, it kind of makes sense because if you hate the way you look in the mirror and you're like, "I look beautiful, I'm enough, I'm this, I'm that." and you don't believe any of it, then there is this disconnect. You know you're lying to yourself. So if you can't say positive things, what does the research tell us that we should say if we're struggling with self-doubt and self-acceptance?

To use a self-affirming, growth-oriented statement instead.

That's a mouthful.

That is a mouthful.

So what is the sentence?

In simple, simple terms, it's simply don't lie to yourself. Just flip it into something that's growth-minded. For example, one of the areas that lack of self-acceptance shows up in is this belief of, I'm boring. I'm actually boring because people don't want to be too much for others. And so that looks like them believing that they have nothing of value to share, nothing of meaning to share. And so they tell themselves, no, I'm boring. So a simple way is not, oh, I'm the life of the party. Everyone loves me. That's a positive affirmation that will backfire. You would say, okay, I bring a calming and grounded presence to my conversations. You see how you're not trying to one-up with something positive, you're actually just sidestepping it and flipping it. And that suddenly makes you feel very, very different. If you feel like you're unlovable, instead of, no, I am lovable, which may backfire, you would say, I have certain qualities that the right people value. So again, it's so simple. It's not flipping it with something that's almost toxically positive.

Yeah.

It's just shifting into something that is growth-oriented and anchored in truth. And it doesn't require you to become someone else, which is the beautiful thing.

Well, it sounds like the test is, do your shoulders drop?

Yes.

Versus, I'm lovable.

Yeah.

You know, your shoulders up. I don't know, am I?

Yeah.

But if you say, I have qualities that the right people really love and appreciate. Oh, like your shoulders just drop because there's truth in it. I love that. I love that. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Spring always feels like a reset, clearing things out, simplifying what you don't need. Apple Card is built with that same idea in mind. No annual fee, no late fees, and no foreign transaction fees. No fees, period. Get started and apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Variable APRs for Apple Card range from 17.49% to 27.74% based on creditworthiness. Rates as of January 1st, 2026. Existing customers can view their variable APR in the Wallet app or at card.apple.com. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. Terms and more at applecard.com. So let's move on to the second A in the 4-part framework of rewiring self-doubt and building more confidence, and that is agency. What is agency?

So in the context of self-doubt, agency is that attribute that allows you to trust that you can do the thing, and if you don't know how to do it, you will learn how to do it. And so if you trust that you can do that, you're going to take the step. You're going to say yes. You're going to persist when things don't go well. Because deep down you believe that you can. Now, when this is weak—

Yes.

Let's explore what this looks like. So if this is weak, if you struggle with your agency, we see a number of patterns here. The first one is the dreaded imposter syndrome, where you have achieved things in your life, amazing things, maybe recognition, maybe awards, maybe an amazing job title, and yet you feel like you don't deserve it. You feel like someone is going to highlight that you shouldn't be where you are. And so essentially what it comes down to is that you believe other people think you're smarter or more competent than you really are. Now, a few things about imposter syndrome. The term imposter syndrome was not the term that was used initially when it was discovered. Back in the '70s, '80s, when it was first observed, they called it the imposter phenomenon. Now, what's the difference between a phenomenon? So a phenomenon is basically where you observe something in a population of people. Right? A syndrome is something that seems medical and seems pathological and seems like something is wrong with us. Yeah.

Phenomenon seems like something that can appear occasionally.

Yeah.

Syndrome feels like a life sentence.

Well said.

Okay.

And so we need to think when we feel like an imposter, it's actually far more common than you'd expect. Yeah. In fact, some studies have found up to 82% of people have felt like an imposter at some point.

Wow.

And the beautiful thing about feeling like an imposter is it is a sign that you are growing. You are stepping out of your comfort zone. Because anyone who has ever done anything new will be in a position where they haven't had all the skills or they don't know all the answers. And it's very easy for them to then feel like, I don't deserve to be here. But you have to honor the fact that you bring a track record with you. And maybe we'll talk about a few tools to help with this a bit later.

Yes.

So that's the first one. The second one we see a lot of here with anyone who struggles with agency is social comparison. They're comparing themselves to other people, not in a positive way, but in a, you are so far ahead of me and I'm inadequate. I could never do that. And we see this a lot when people again are leveling up in their lives, moving up in their careers, achieving more things in their business. Suddenly, as soon as you take that step to the next level, you're now comparing yourself with people at that level, which naturally means that there's more for you to develop and do and grow because they've been there longer than you. Maybe they are better at certain things, but if you start fixating on that and feeling like, I can never do what they do, you undermine your agency. So that's the second one. I mean, comparison is natural, but we need to get better at making sure it's not filling us with self-doubt.

Yep.

And then the third area here is where people are just constantly waiting to feel ready, to feel prepared. So they procrastinate by busying themselves with planning. And reading and preparing. And they say, I just wanna learn a little bit more. But we know that the more you learn about something, the more you realize how little you know about that thing and the more doubt you have.

Mm-hmm.

And the less likely you are to take the step.

I think this is so fascinating. I just wanna reflect back two things to you. So if you're somebody that struggles with agency when it comes to self-doubt, you may feel imposter syndrome. You may struggle a lot with comparison, and you may also be a big planner. And one of the things that struck me that I've never thought about before is that when you identify and get very clear about a goal that you have, whether it's getting in better shape or it's dressing in a more styleable way, or it is earning more money, or it is changing your career and getting into real estate or learning how to make money online, Simply identifying a new goal or a change means that you have a gap of having to become more capable in that area. You've never done this before. And so what are the tools other than saying, I can figure this out, or saying, hey, comparing myself is part of this. Like, it means that I want this. Like, how do you deal with imposter syndrome in particular? Sure.

So the very first step, let's look at the feeling that you are fraudulent, that you don't deserve to be where you are.

Okay.

What you want to think about is, okay, this is actually super common. This just means I'm stretching and growing. So how do I give myself time? And a very simple reframe, because we know how powerful it is when we're changing the language that is going on in our heads, is instead of, I don't feel like I deserve this, or I don't feel like I belong, immediately shift to, What an incredible opportunity I have to learn and grow. So simple and yet so effective because you're shifting your attention to everything you think you lack into, cool, I can fill some gaps. Amazing. Again, you don't have to lie to yourself. You're being really pragmatic about that. So that's the first step. The second one is to actually talk about it when it comes to imposter syndrome. So many people have experienced it. Just feeling undeserving. It's so common. And when you speak about it openly, you realize that everyone is on this same journey and that sense of collective can be really helpful. So in the 1980s, Citicorp was merging with Travelers Insurance and they needed a graphic designer to come up with their new logo. So they hired the firm and Paula Scher was a partner at this firm. She's an incredible graphic designer. She comes in and she's sitting at the boardroom table with the decision makers, and they're all talking about what they wanted for the logo. She grabs a napkin from the side of the table, and she starts scribbling on that napkin. A few seconds later, she slides that napkin across the table, and she says, "Here is your logo." Now, the room was stunned. People were thinking, how is it possible that you designed a logo in just a matter of seconds? And she says, "I designed this in a second and 34 years." I designed this with everything that I have learned. So yeah, you got it in a few seconds, but it took me 34 years to be able to do that.

Hmm.

And they ended up paying her $1.5 million for that logo. Now, what is the message behind this that we can take away? So often when we feel like imposters, we are just looking at the here and now. The spotlight is on this current space that we're in, and we forget that we have this incredible track record behind us. In Paula Sher's case, it was 34 years of work that got her to that point. But a lot of us will sit there in that meeting and think, oh gosh, I need to design something. I don't know if I've done this before. We fixate on all the gaps. I don't deserve to be here. So that's a really powerful lesson from that. Shift the spotlight back to everything that you have developed over the course of your life and your career. That reminds you, hey, maybe I do have certain capabilities and skills that I've earned that allow me this seat at the table.

All right. I have 2 truths and 1 lie to share with you. Here we go. I high-five myself in the mirror every morning. I'm an exceptional fly fisher woman. And I have been a Verizon customer for over a decade. All right. I lied. They're all true. And, you know, Verizon is not as expensive as you think. In fact, if you bring your current carrier bill to Verizon, they'll give you a better deal. That's right. A better deal on the best mobile carrier network with more ways to save on plans, streaming, and phone deals. So take your current bill to your local Verizon store today. Get your better deal and start saving for real. And one of the reasons why I and my entire family have been Verizon customers for over a decade— they have the best cell phone coverage network everywhere and anywhere. I travel so much for work. I also live in a rural area. Verizon is always there for me. Based on RootMetrics, best overall mobile network performance, U.S. second half 2025. All rights reserved. Must provide a recent consumer mobile bill from AT&T or T-Mobile in the name of the person who's redeeming the deal. Additional terms, conditions, And restrictions apply. The third A in this framework around self-doubt and building confidence is autonomy. What does autonomy mean, Dr. Shetty?

So in the context of self-doubt, autonomy is the belief that you have a degree of control over your life.

Hmm.

You feel personally powerful. Now, that doesn't mean you can control absolutely everything because not everything can be controlled, but you focus on what you can, and because of that, you feel like you have more control. Now, if you don't have a strong degree of autonomy, we see a number of common patterns here. And if you're paying attention, if you're listening to this, you will probably be able to identify at least someone in your life who is struggling here. We are less able to identify in ourselves because part of low autonomy is not taking ownership. So, okay, let's look at these patterns. The first one is if you struggle with autonomy, you complain a lot. You complain about everything wrong in your life because it's easier to complain than to do something about it. Because to do something about it requires you to take ownership, and that is what low autonomy doesn't allow you to do. So you complain. Now, people don't realize when they complain about things, they are reliving the situation in vivid detail in their brain, which is creating deeper, more efficient neural pathways, which makes complaining your default. You basically become a negativity magnet because you notice more of the things to complain about. So we get complaining is the first pattern. The second one is blame. People are blaming others, the situation, the traffic, the weather, my husband, my wife, my boyfriend, my team. There's no personal accountability, and they will share that with everybody else. The third one is resentment, where again, they are resentful to other people because they feel like everyone else has an easier life than they do. And that also leads them to play into this victim mindset. Why me? Life is so difficult for me. And the fourth is, okay, so you know those people that come to you and they share with you their objectively difficult life stories? And the first time they share it with you, you are so filled with empathy and compassion for what they've been through. And then by the time they've shared it with you the 20th or 30th time, You realize they are keeping themselves stuck by ruminating on it.

Yes.

And because it's safer for them, they feel safer when they can hold onto a wound because it reinforces this view of, I am a victim, I am powerless, look at how terrible my life has been. And they get sympathy from that. So it's socially rewarding. So this is what we see. So the next question is, well, what do we do?

Yes. If, yes, what do we do? And I wanna take 'em one at a time.

Yeah.

Because so many people struggle with each one of these. So Dr. Shadeh, what do you do if you are constantly overthinking everything?

So if you're constantly overthinking everything, overthinking is a sign that you do not feel like you have control, and it's your brain's attempt to try and manufacture certainty when there is none. Your brain says to itself, 'cause the brain likes to be really efficient, it wants to save energy, and so it's fundamentally lazy. And so there's this part of it that goes, if I can anticipate everything that could go wrong, then I have to expend less energy when the consequence eventually happens. And this is why we get stuck in those loops of everything that could be out of our control. It's also what reinforces low acceptance because we start overthinking, do they like me? What did that mean? How come they haven't replied to me? Or agency, what if people find out I can't do this? What if I mess up there? So it's all a reflection of low autonomy. So when we're overthinking, something that is terrible advice is to tell yourself, just stop worrying, stop overthinking. And yet you might have someone in your life that says this to you, just stop worrying. Bad advice. What we know is much more effective is to give your overthinking an outlet. What does that mean? Every time you have a distracting thought that pops up during the day, a worry, you're ruminating on something, grab a notebook and a pen and actually write it down. And then you say to yourself, I'm not going to worry about you now. I will worry about you during worry zone.

Okay. Okay.

So you're parking it somewhere.

Got it.

Then at the end of the day, you want to actually schedule in your calendar about 10 minutes of worry time, not too close to bed because it might keep you up. So a good time is around 5, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, whenever works. You schedule it in your calendar. When that time comes, you set an alarm for 10 or 15 minutes. You bring out your worry list and you allow yourself to worry. Now, this does a few things. It's called stimulus control for worry. And research has found this is an incredibly effective technique.

It is?

It is.

Because I'll be honest, it sounds dumb.

It sounds completely dumb.

It sounds like what?

It sounds completely counterintuitive. But what happens is when you're not worrying about something in the moment, the emotions attached to it when it initially came up are no longer there. And when you're not worrying about it in the moment, when it comes up in the moment, it's driven largely by default areas in the brain, by, you know, there's greater activation in the threat detection centers, in the fear centers of the brain. And so naturally we don't have access to the front regions, which allows us to process that rationally. But when you review it later, you suddenly, well, it shrinks the fear to size. And the research tells us that you can so better manage your emotional state and actually assess, okay, well, are any of these actually going to happen? And do I have control over any of these things? Now, the next step is once your alarm goes off, you actually close it and you, that's it. Like you're done with your worries. End of the week, you reflect. What could I control? What couldn't I control? And if there's something I can control, what am I going to do about it? It's a really effective way to deal with that overthinking.

Dr. Shadi, what do you want to say to somebody who's a chronic complainer?

You don't realize how you're keeping yourself stuck when you complain about the things you have no control over. It's cathartic. It feels good in the moment. It's rewarding, but it's actually keeping you stuck. The moment you find yourself complaining, The first step is to become aware of it, which is sometimes the hard part. The next step is to ask yourself, okay, well, I essentially have a few options here. I can accept the situation as it is. I can change the situation. I can leave the situation, or I can change how I see the situation. They're the only 4 options I have. So you pick one and then acknowledge that if I keep complaining about this, I'm only going to feel worse.

Yes.

It is not going to help me. So what is fantastic for anyone who tends to complain a lot, you will also hear language of should. Oh, I should have done that. I should do this. Mel, how do you feel if I were to say to you, oh, you should so-and-so? What would you, how would you respond to the word of should?

I would feel like I've done something wrong.

And you might feel a bit resistant.

I did immediately when you said, Mel, you should. I was like, now what did I do?

It's because we experience something called reactance. Which is this deep internal feeling of resistance. Don't tell me what to do. We want to feel like we're in control.

Uh-huh.

When we are saying should to ourselves, when we struggle with autonomy, it makes us feel terrible.

Hmm.

Now research also shows that the language of should cuts off divergent thinking. We don't think as clearly. We don't think of solutions. We don't think of options. There is one swap. Move from should to could. Okay, what could I do right now? You're not committing to anything. It's really low stakes. And again, I encourage people to grab a sheet of paper, divide it into two. On the left, you write down your could list, all the things that you could do in the moment. Then you move into your I will list. Pick 1, 2, or 3 things that you've identified and actually do them. Actually take the step. This is how you increase your autonomy. You bring your locus of control back inwards. And it's so incredibly simple and it gets you out of the complaining spiral because sometimes all you need in that moment is to feel powerful and to do something.

I love that. You can catch yourself by saying, oh, there I go saying I should have done this, making myself wrong, increasing self-doubt. Reframe it to I could and then identify something that you will do. I love that because it's so simple.

So simple.

So simple. What if you're somebody that blames? The world isn't fair. My boss is a jerk. It's my ex that's ruining my life. And you may have a lot of things going on, but talk to us about blame and self-doubt.

Blame is attributing responsibility to everybody else. And we hear a lot of always and never from people who are blaming. You always do that. This never works out for me. It's always them. It's never that.

This is something I struggle with. I have very, like, black and white language, and it's something that I'm working on a lot. Because I tend to be like very precise, like it's always or it's never or it's this. Not with people, but a lot when things are happening with work or with myself. And so this is an area where I will admit, uh, it's not blaming other people. It's in the way that I talk probably has a lot of weight and blame to it.

Ooh. So what's actually really interesting, and I was gonna say this about you, I think that your doubt profile from what you've shared with me, yeah. Acceptance is your weak one. Mm-hmm. Autonomy is your absolute strength. Yes. Sometimes what happens when autonomy is so high and people take so much responsibility for things, they actually end up personalizing things that are not theirs to take.

Well, as the CEO of the company, I think everything's my responsibility.

Perfect example of that.

Yes, I do.

And so you get into always and never because it's your way of holding yourself accountable, but sometimes it's not actually helpful in terms of how you feel and what you do. Yes.

And I think parents do this too. That we think everything is our fault and take it on the chin like that. So let's talk about blame and how you deal with that if you're somebody that's recognizing it in yourself or you're thinking of somebody that's a big blamer and you're about to send this conversation to them.

So the first thing to think is, okay, let's change the language, the intensity of the language that we're using.

Mm-hmm.

So instead of, this always happens to me, let's bring that fact checker back in. Is that factual? Does that always happen to you? Usually the response will be, well, no, it's not always. It's maybe some of the time, maybe often, but it's not always.

Okay.

What's a more realistic way of looking at that? Okay. Well, instead of, you always cut me off when we're speaking, you would say to yourself, I've noticed that there are times when I do get cut off when I'm speaking. Then you shift responsibility to you. How can I speak differently to this person? To reduce that happening? How can I change what I'm saying or how I'm saying it or when I'm saying it to reduce the chances that they're going to be interrupting me? That's your first thing. So you take full ownership. The second stage is, okay, have I made this person aware of something that they're doing? You could go to the person and say, look, I've noticed when we speak, you either get really excited or you're not aware of it, but you do cut me off a lot. And I would like to be part of a conversation and a relationship or a friendship where both of us feel valued in what we say. Were you aware of that? A lot of the time people are not even aware of it 'cause they're so stuck in their worlds. So there are just a few little tools that you can use. If you're blaming, try and bring it back to you instead of, ugh, he never takes the trash out. Okay, is there something I could be doing to remind him to take the trash out or put it in a different place so he takes the trash out? Just bring it back to you again. That boosts your autonomy.

So the last of the 4 A's is adaptability, the ability to kind of go up and down with the curveballs of life. Why is this important for rewiring self-doubt and building self-confidence?

Because adaptability is actually so much more than what we think it is, which is just adapting to life. In the context of doubt, it's adapting to the emotions that come with life.

Okay.

Because emotions are generally experienced when we do something and it doesn't work out. I mean, look, emotions are experienced all the time, but when it comes to self-doubt, there's something that we will have done or will be thinking of doing and then it doesn't work out and there's an emotion attached. The disappointment, the, that feeling of I'm a failure, I'm not enough. These have emotional profiles attached to them. And so when we're deciding whether to do anything, to take the step, to say yes, to ask them out, we're going through this checklist of, can I deal with the emotions of this thing if it doesn't work out? Because our brain is going through that process of all the ways that won't work out. And if we don't believe that we can handle whatever emotion comes, we will not take the step. And that's why getting better at handling and harnessing the emotions that come makes everything in life so much easier.

Well, that makes perfect sense, cuz if you don't feel like you can handle the emotions of going in and asking for a raise or having the hard conversation, or putting yourself in a situation where you're gonna try something that makes you feel anxious or nervous, then you're not gonna do it. And your self-doubt is gonna increase and you're gonna be stuck in this gap between what you know you want or what you know deeply you're capable of, but you keep blocking your own momentum in life. And so that makes perfect sense. Is there one thing that if somebody recognizes that they, are stuck in this aspect that they should do today?

I'm gonna share a super simple strategy here. It's called the opposite action strategy. It's so easy. When we are overcome with some kind of a negative emotion in relation to a self-doubt that we have, what usually happens to our body?

We freeze. We like kind of go into like a nervous reaction.

And what usually happens to shoulders or neck or posture?

Oh, we kind of shrink and like feel like we wanna hide.

We wanna hide.

Honestly. Yes.

Exactly. And so what the opposite action strategy tells us which is from Dialectical Behavior Therapy. It simply says, when there is no physical threat, do the opposite of what your body's telling you to do. Do the opposite of what your body's telling you to do.

So in a situation where you feel that tension 'cause you want to have the conversation, you want to do the thing, but now you're blocking your own momentum, do the opposite of what your body's telling you to do. So what do you do?

So instead of withdrawing, sit at the end of your seat, engage, look at the person, bring your shoulders back. I'm gonna share again another really interesting tool that comes from the world of research. It was just published recently. Mel and everyone listening and watching, can you put your hand at the back of your neck? Okay, you're going to feel a joint.

Yes, it's like a bony thing.

It's like a bony thing. Give it a little massage.

Yes.

Now I want you to just tilt your head down and you're going to feel more of that. Okay, and then bring your head back up.

Pointy bones is what I feel. Pointy bones. Great. Bring it back up. Now I'm putting my head back up.

Now this is a great stretch. I encourage everyone to do it regularly. But this right here, that action of chin to chest and back up, that is called neck flexion.

Neck flexion.

Now we know that there's this connection between what our bodies are doing, our postures, and how we feel.

Should I keep my hand here?

Oh, you can remove your hand.

So that's neck flexion.

Neck flexion. There is a connection between what our bodies are doing and how we're feeling. We know that if you have a big expansive posture, you tend to feel more powerful and confident. This study found that it's because of neck flexion that we feel that way.

What?

It is the connection between chin and chest, the distance between your chin and chest is what determines how you feel. Now, what does that mean for all of us? It means that when you are going into a high-pressure situation, when you feel the self-doubt, when you're wanting to withdraw, you don't even have to think about posture. All you have to do is elongate your chin. Think about how to expand the distance between chin to chest.

That's it. Oh, I just thought of a rhyme. Lift the chin, let's begin. I love that.

Perfect. That could go on a mug.

See, I'll remember that. Okay, I'm feeling myself collapse. I'm getting nervous. I'm blocking my momentum. We got to lift the chin. Let's jump in.

Beautiful.

Oh, man. Okay. I love that. Dr. Shadeh, what does research say about your voice and clarity and how other people perceive you based on how you speak?

Okay, so research in speech communication looks at the various tones that we have. And what we've identified is there's generally two overarching ones. One of them is very much a throat voice. Which happens when we're not really breathing very deeply and our voice entirely comes from our throat. It's very shallow. You see how it sounds friendly, it sounds warm, but maybe there's not a lot of credibility to it.

Let me try that. I'm now trying to talk through my throat and it's like a different voice that you hear.

Completely different. Wow. And that changes how you're perceived. Now, the other type of voice—

It feels different too.

It feels really different. This is what a lot of people do when they're nervous because their bodies tense up, so they're not able to get the oxygen in to fill up their lungs. And when you don't have a lot of breath, because you're trying to retain it. That's when you get that higher sound. The other one is a more breathy voice where you're breathing into your diaphragm, which is much easier to do when you're not stressed and you're not feeling insecure. And so you've got breathy voice, which is generally higher pitched, which a lot of women unfortunately do when they're nervous or in loud spaces because they feel like they can be heard better, which is very interesting. But what we know is that This deeper diaphragmatic voice, which comes with breath, it comes with gravitas. This leads to perceptions of greater credibility. You come across as if you're more credible. You come across as if you're more confident. You come across as if you're more grounded. And so a really simple tool for everyone or something to practice is to actually hear the difference in those voices. In one of them, just speak with a little bit of breath. Don't allow a lot to come out. It's not super breathy. Allow a lot of vocal fluctuation, and then the other one, which is going to be from the diaphragm. Hear the difference. Now, if you're in an interview, if you're in a high-stakes environment, try and really breathe into— we call it breathing into the stomach. You're not actually breathing into the stomach, but when you take a deep breath into your lungs, your diaphragm drops down so you feel your belly coming out. And when you breathe through that, breathe through that voice, it does wonders for how you're perceived.

How can I train myself to speak more eloquently?

Oh, well, I came prepared. Mel, here is a pen.

Okay.

What you're going to do is grab this pen and put it between your teeth like this.

Okay.

So for everyone watching and listening, we're basically holding the pen between our teeth a bit like a dog would hold a bone.

Okay, great. That's exactly what it looks like. So Dr. Shadeh has put it in between her teeth like a bone and, you know, our stook. Here we go. Okay.

Now with With the pen in your mouth— so everyone, make sure you clean your pen before you do this. I highly encourage that. You're going to grab a book.

Okay.

And you're going to read any sentence or paragraph from that book. And you want to pay attention to pronouncing every single sound clearly. Mel, would you like to do us the honors?

I would.

Great.

Okay. I am reading from page— oh, this is really hard. It's really hard. I'm reading from page— 219 of your book, Big Trust. Yes, you can do the hard thing. Of all factors that have been studied to understand motivation, the most potent one is simply feeling like you're making progress. Let that sink in.

Beautifully done. Now you can take the pen out and you can wipe it. Can you try reading just another paragraph right now?

I'm gonna read from page 219 of Big Trust. Yes, you can. Do the hard thing. Of all factors that have been studied to understand motivation, the most potent one is simply feeling like you're making progress.

Now, Mel, tell us how it felt once you took the pen out.

Well, how it felt when the pen was in—

Let's start there.

—was like being at the dentist when they're trying to take X-rays and your tongue is in the way and you're trying to move everything around and it feels very awkward and saliva's falling around and your mouth is not making the shapes that you want. But as soon as I took it out, it was as if I had a mouth that had been warmed up and stretched out, and the words just felt more intentional.

And this is exactly what this exercise does. So you're warming up your entire facial muscles. You're warming up your throat and your tongue and stretching what otherwise doesn't get stretched very often. And that's what leads us to mumble. That's what leads us to be difficult to understand. Communication really comes down to how well your message is received by the other person. And that can influence how confident you're perceived to be, how credible you're perceived to be, how people respond to you. When we're nervous, everything tenses, and so we tend to mumble.

So if you're somebody who mumbles or you have somebody in your life who is, you know, kind of, does this pen trick and practicing it, is this something that you can do for free at home that will help you speak more clearly and eloquently and that will change the way people perceive you?

Absolutely, yes. And I encourage you to do it often. Do it in the morning, do it at night, do it before every meeting, before every phone call. Because that's how you're training yourself to be able to pronounce far better, to enunciate better, which is going to improve how you're perceived.

I love this simple pen trick. Holy cow. I hope you share this with everybody. It's so cool. And I've just started working with a voice trainer, and I'm gonna tell you, there were so many things about this I didn't understand, but what you just showed and what I felt in terms of the difference is like having a professional voice coach. And it's so important to take this seriously so that people take you seriously when you have something to say. Dr. Shadeh, can you explain to me and to the person that's here listening or watching what's courage versus humanness scale? What is that?

So this is a scale that we will share with leaders and teams that we work with at the Fortune 100 companies that we are so blessed to, support. Basically, when we look at teams, especially high-performing teams, we find that there are two general qualities that come up. The first one is the humanist qualities. What do you think some of these are?

Warmth. Yes. Care. Yeah. Positivity. Confidence. Humor. Exactly. Collaboration. Empathy. Empathy.

Compassion. Yes. All of these qualities that make us human. And allow us to come to work in a place that we enjoy.

Yes.

Then we also have the performance-based qualities. We call them courage-based skills. Okay. What are some of these? What would a team need in order to make sure they're actually performing?

Leadership, decision-making, clarity, feedback, very like definition of goals, process. Am I getting it? Absolutely. Okay, got you. So expectations, ROI. Oh, here we go. KPIs. All of those acronyms.

And when we look at the research, this is looking at a scale. It's called the Trust Versus Assertiveness Scale. Some of them call it the Compassion Versus Performance Scale. We call it Humanism and Courage because it's just, it's easy to understand. Now, if we were to map these out, so I have a little visual. Okay. And I will—

She's pulling up a whiteboard as you're listening. I'm pulling up a whiteboard. Don't worry, I am going to explain this. So we've got, She's got on this, we can't see it yet, but for you listening, imagine foursquare, the game that we played in elementary school. You're on the playground, there's four squares, we're standing in the square. She's got four squares. On one side it says humaneness, on the other side it says courage, and we're about to find out what are in these four squares.

So where we have teams or individuals, let's look at it from an individual level first. Someone who is very low, oh no, let's start with high. Someone who's very high on humaneness humanness, so a lot of that warmth and the empathy and the compassion, but very low on courage. Okay. What we get is the classic people pleaser. It's the person who wants everyone to like them and validate them, and so they don't say what they mean in the meeting and they sit on their hands, but everyone's happy with them. What about someone who is really high on courage, but very low on humanness? I think everyone who has worked, especially in corporate, will know someone like this. And unfortunately, a lot of these people are in positions of leadership. Yes. Which is not great.

They're a steamroller.

Steamroller. They're cold, they're calculated. You don't like working with them and they make you feel insecure. We call this the agitator.

Oh God, some days I'm like that. I'm just gonna admit it. Usually it's 'cause I haven't eaten or I'm getting over an illness or something disappointing happened and I don't mean to do this, but some days I am.

I find that if you find yourself in this state, do your checklist. Have I had a nap? Have I had a snack? Have I done my exercise? Am I doing my breathing? Sometimes that's all you need.

By the way, this works in a marriage and in a family. It does. And in every relationship. It does.

And this is what happens when we don't have the balance of these two qualities that we need to be functioning people, team leaders, team members in a relationship, as a parent. What about someone who's really low on humanist and low on courage?

I mean, are they even, do they even have a pulse? I mean, what's happening?

This is where we get apathy and toxicity.

So, so if you're dealing with somebody who has behaviors that, you know, people are throwing around the label toxic person, I don't like that because I like, I prefer to say just label the behavior. A person may not be aware that there's this way, but if you're, if you're with somebody who is reading on the toxic side in terms of their behavior, at work or in friendship, what does that tell you about what they're dealing with based on humanness and courage? They have a lot of fear?

They might have a lot of fear. They might also lack the agency to believe in their competence. Or, and this is something really important in the context of careers, there's something called career imprinting where the first few experiences we have in our career end up shaping our sense of identity when it comes to our career. That makes sense. So if you are starting out in the workforce and you have a really unsupportive environment, you have a micromanaging boss, you have team members who are not giving you the time of day that you need, you start to internalize that I'm not worthy, I'm not good enough, and it's always going to be like this because it becomes what's called a schema, which is like a template in our mind. Yeah. And then we go to a new company, a new team, and everything might be amazing. Yet we expect that we're gonna be overlooked and talked over like we were before. And then we unintentionally create that in the new environment. Wow. That's why it's so important when we start thinking about career imprinting, when we think about that idea of us and our self-image and the experiences that we have.

Well, you just taught me something about myself. I think one of the reasons why, other than just personal values, I have such an innate sense of justice and fairness and injustice. Is because my first real big job out of college and law school was as a public defender, representing people in the justice system who could not afford a lawyer and who had experienced systematic discrimination their entire life. Wow. And so, it is, like, imprinted in my soul to both respond to moments that feel very unjust, and also to get the dukes up and fight when I have this sense that fairness is very important here. So that explains a lot.

So you've had that career imprinting take place. Yes. And it's continually reinforcing itself.

Absolutely. And what happens when you have high humaneness and high courage?

So this is what we call the partner. Okay. And we, we call it the partner cuz we're usually sharing this in the context of leadership, but this is someone who feels like they are a partner with every single person in that team. When, what do they say, when the tide rises, all ships rise. And it's someone who recognizes that by them succeeding, other people can succeed. And by them helping other people succeed, they succeed. It means that they are able to be appreciative of others and collaborative and cooperative while still giving the feedback that needs to be said, while still addressing behaviors that need to be addressed. So why this model's really valuable for anyone who is working in a company or working in a team, or in relationships is just to recognize that if you struggle with any of the 4 elements of big trust that undermine your confidence and courage and self-trust and you have that self-doubt, it means that you're going to live in one of these spaces.

The people pleaser, being apathetic, where you can see if you're apathetic or toxic, you're a blamer. If you're a people pleaser, you're overthinking or you are comparing yourself or seeking validation. Seeking validation. If you're the agitator, you're running people over. And you're blaming lots of things and you're taking control, but in the wrong ways and complaining. And if you're the partner, you're just reaching for the tools, you're adapting, you are like telling yourself you're capable of figuring it out or we're capable of figuring it out. I see how this all tracks directly to what you've been teaching us.

It's brilliant. Wonderful. So that's that. That's the matrix that we like to share. And so it's great to just see how this matrix maps back into big trust. You know, it's not just an impact that we get for ourselves. It's an impact that we are taking into our lives because we don't live in a microcosm. We're constantly interacting with other people. Yes.

Dr. Chaudey, if the person listening takes just one action out of everything you've taught us today about the research around breaking self-doubt, rebuilding trust, what's the most important thing for the person listening to do?

This is something that you encourage people to do, Mel, which is pick one thing that you have been hesitating from doing One thing that you've been holding back on because self-doubt is getting in your way, break it down into the smallest possible step and just do the thing. Can I share a very quick story here? Please. So this is a story about Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, which became a movie and a global bestseller. Now, when she was writing it, it's her memoir. You'd think a memoir would be kind of easy to write. It's your story. But she said that she couldn't get words on paper because she had this mantra of this sucks running through her head constantly. Nothing was ever good enough. She would write, she would rip it up. She would write, she would delete. And then amidst all of that uncertainty and the self-criticism, she had this moment of clarity and she thought, hold on, I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly. I just promised the universe that I would write. I would write something. And so with that, she made write the goal and not write brilliantly. The goal. And so the message behind this is sometimes we need to lower our standards. We need to lower our standards. Don't aim for perfection. Just aim for good enough for now. You can always improve later. So don't aim for going viral on social media. Aim for hitting post. Don't aim for building the billion-dollar business. Aim for setting up a website or getting one paying customer. Don't aim to find your soulmate. Just aim to ask them out for a coffee. When you lower the standard, you make it so much more achievable. And when you achieve it, then you see yourself being the kind of person who achieves these things, which fundamentally changes your self-image, changes how you see yourself and what is possible for you. And then that starts to change the rest of your life.

I love that. Dr. Shadeh, what are your parting words?

Show up for the life that you want now. Don't wait for it. Don't wait for permission. Don't wait till you feel ready. Don't wait till you feel worthy. If you show up for the person that you want to be now, there's this beautiful phenomenon called embodied cognition. And when you show up for it, the world starts responding to you as if you already have it. You see yourself speaking in the meeting, going after what you want, creating your own momentum. And that is how you fundamentally shape which shapes your self-image, which shapes your identity, which shapes who you're becoming. So don't wait, just show up today, and it is remarkable what you will be able to achieve.

Dr. Shadeh, I just wanna say on behalf of the person listening and everyone that they will share this with, thank you. Because it's one thing to say that, it's a whole different ballgame when you show up with frameworks and tools and very specific things that you can do in order to understand the nature of how self-doubt is blocking you and exactly what is within your reach to push through it and continue moving toward the goals that you have, building the confidence that you know is within you and seeing yourself doing the things that you had otherwise held yourself back from experiencing.

Thank you so much for having me and for everyone watching and listening. Thank you for being here. Thank you for investing in yourself. And I'm excited to see where you end up when you apply some of what you've learned today.

I am so excited too. I'm so excited that you decided to spend time listening to this or watching this. Today you got tools, you got frameworks, you got the research broken down in the simplest ways. You can start applying it today. I cannot wait to see how this changes your life. So make sure you tell me what happens. And one more thing, in case no one else tells you today, as your friend, I wanted to be sure to tell you. That I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life. There is zero doubt in my mind that when you use the tools to rewire self-doubt, those moments that are going to keep coming and you double down on your capacity and the things that are in your control and the talents that you have inside you to push through what's happening and learn and grow, your life is going to get better. I mean, how could it not? All righty. I will. See you in the very next episode. I'm gonna welcome you in the moment you hit play. And thank you. Thank you for watching all the way to the end. I'm so excited that you're investing your time in learning how to create unshakeable confidence. And I also wanna thank you for sharing the link to this episode with people in your life that you care about, whether it's your sister or your partner, somebody in your life that keeps shrinking and blocking their own way. One way to be a great friend or a sister sibling or a great partner is to share these resources with people. And so I just really appreciate you doing that. And one more thing, my team was just showing me that 57% of you who watch the Mel Robbins Podcast here on YouTube are not subscribers. My goal is to get that number to 50%. So could you do me a favor? If the subscribe button is lit up, would you just hit it? It's free and it's the best way for you to say thanks, Mel, and thanks to the team here at the Mel Robbins podcast. And thanks to Dr. Shadeh, who flew halfway around the world to be here in Boston to teach you this. I really appreciate you doing that. And I know that you would appreciate me recommending the next video. This you're gonna love, and I'll welcome you in the moment you hit play.