Increasing Confidence Through Curiosity | Emily Jaenson | 537

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today, my guest is Emily Jansen, and give you a little bit of background on her. She's got a book out called Let's Go: A Guide to Increasing Your Confidence. She's a keynote Speaker who's obsessed with goals and helping you achieve yours. She's a former AAA GM in Major League Baseball, which is kind of cool, and a consultant in strategic marketing and partnerships with an emphasis in sports, entertainment, brand, and nonprofit, and a podcast host. So instead of talking about her, I'd rather talk with her. So welcome. Thanks, Emily. Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for having me, Peter. I really appreciate it.

Yeah. So first thing for you, given that for, I don't know, like 99.9% of the people I talk to, thought leadership is not a linear long-term plan from, you know, they had the Halloween costume when they were 5, that that's what they wanted to be. How'd you get here? How did this happen?

Yeah. Uh, it's, I'm gonna try to make this story as brief and exciting as possible. Uh, I grew up in a really small town. 3,360 people, about 90 minutes north of Chicago. And while I did well in school and did great in sports, I was very shy and very sheltered. But inside of me, there was this idea kind of burning for more. I had no clue how to get there. I was just taking the next right step, but oftentimes hiding behind my mom to get there. I couldn't even call to order a pizza when I was in high school because I was too shy to talk to a stranger. And I went to college at the University of Illinois. And wow, that was an exercise in breaking out of my shell. I would've been way more comfortable just staying home because I went from kind of big fish, small town, or big fish, small pond in my hometown to like a minnow in the ocean. Um, the girls who lived across the hall from me and 415 Scott Hall were already sophomores because they had so many credits from their AP tests. And I was like, girl, it's time to level up. I didn't really know how to get there, but I knew what I needed to do was to become more confident. And that's kind of where the principles of adapting these behaviors of confidence can, can change your attitude. And so slowly but surely over my career, one uncomfortable situation after another and one growth opportunity after another, I grew and I, I had some, earned some great opportunities in my life and was put into leadership roles. And what I loved most about that was how I could help other people grow. And that's really where thought leadership blossomed as kind of my next career move.

Awesome. So when people move into the business side of thought leadership, that creates more questions than answers, right? Because if you say I was studying to be an accountant and now I am an accountant, like you kind of get it, but you, you could declare that you're a thought leader, but the business side of that is tricky and not a one-size-fits-all. So how did you, how did you come to the current business models that you, you're working on?

Yeah. Well, I think if I look back on my life, everything happened through performance. Through hard work and proving what I could do. And I had an opportunity to do that because I did TEDx and I spoke on confidence.

Okay.

And in a year it had 3 million views. Wow. And people were reaching out to me from around the world and that was a very valid moment in my life where I was like, wow, I, like, I feel like this is, this work is all validated because it'd been you know, 18 years since I was in college. And it's sort of this culmination of knowledge and experience and interviews from my Leadership is Female podcast and experience in the workplace that is all like distilled down into this 12-minute impactful talk. And with that sort of explosion of, ooh, I want more, that's really where it was born because companies started to reach out to me and say, hey, can you share this message? With our employees. We're gonna pay you. And I was like, oh my gosh, you're gonna pay me to talk. This is no more free talks to the Chamber of Commerce. This is like, they came to you.

So, so you, you just did it kind of for the love of doing it and then people came to you because I've heard that story as well where someone said, oh, would you do this for money? I'm like, oh yeah, of course. Like, that's pretty cool. So once that happened once or twice, How did you sort of flip that and say, well, it's probably easier if I go to them than wait for them to come to me in terms of making this a real business? Yeah.

And that's, that's really where it flips from, wow, this is a cool opportunity to, ooh, I should, I should and could make a business out of this. And for me, all of my career growth was built out of sales. I experienced such growth in my personal and professional life by being able to sell. Like, I was so shy I couldn't call and order a pizza, to selling, you know, millions of dollars over my career in tickets and sponsorships and, and doing that outreach. And so really leaning back on those skills that I had, I was like, you know what, I can get on the offense with this, and I should be reaching out, um, on behalf of myself, promoting myself. I found the best ways to make make a website, you know, what should I do for this? Who should I be reaching out to? Who should I be Googling? Who are these contacts? How should this pitch look? And the great thing about where we are today is like you're not opening up an Encyclopedia Britannica to find out how to do something. You can search online and find great information to put together your business if you have the drive and the willpower and the, the tenacity and dedication to do it.

Got it. So what's next then? So you've got, you know, when I look at it as an outsider, which I am, right? You've got the book, you've got the speaking, you've got whatever. Where do you envision taking this to in a year, 18 months? And, and you could, you know, sort of answer that in terms of impact or business growth or, cuz they're not mutually exclusive, right?

Yeah. Well, really with this, for me, it's been about taking the next right step forward. I've started to hire people to help me out when the capacity got too big. It was time to reinvest back into the company and, and get the help so I could work on the business rather than just be the taskmaster all the time. And that is crucial. So that's, that's a huge milestone for me. It's gonna free me up to do more of the work that's gonna earn money for the company. Not just keeping it afloat. The second thing is I preach curiosity. I really believe, like, you have to stay curious, you have to stay current, you have to keep learning. And I decided to do that in a more formal way. So, um, I'm getting my master's in positive psychology over the next year to kind of back it all up, right? Like, I, I really believe in the research piece, um, My book contains so much research because if you're not going to believe what I say, like, believe what this— maybe believe what this study says.

Is there a relationship or a connection between curiosity and confidence?

I think so, because confidence is competence and you gain competence through curiosity. So if you are curious about, hey, you know, I'm not feeling confident about X, whatever that might be. Like, I, I'm not sure if I can finish a 5K. I'm not sure if I could successfully present to ownership. If I can get curious about how to do that thing, okay, what's the best way to train for a 5K, or what's the best way to make an impactful presentation? If I can research what that is, practice that skill, become more competent in that skill, I can be more confident when I do that activity.

Got it. If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as at thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. So I'm just playing that back in my head. So it's not— it's kind of a once removed relationship, right? So curiosity leads to exploration, leads to education, leads to whatever. And now I'm not just curious, but I know the answer to the Earth is round or whatever it is, and therefore I can speak with confidence. So is the inverse true or people not? Because I've seen a lot of people that are incredibly knowledgeable about their domain area but still lack confidence. So I guess maybe like, what's the—

so that's—

but there's a Venn diagram there.

Yeah. So Peter, that's where really the behaviors come into play. Oftentimes we can be incredibly competent about a certain area, but we lack the confidence to go forward with that idea for, for whatever reason that might be. So I really talk about the behaviors that you can practice in order to get through those tough times to expand your comfort zone into new and, and bigger areas for yourself. So, you know, maybe you would—

I'm not Is that not a newer version of fake it till you make it, or what's— what's—

I don't think so. I don't think it's fake it till you make it. That runs out of juice, um, and it, and it requires a certain type of confidence to even fake it in the first place.

Yeah.

So if we can just kind of will ourselves, like, think about, uh, there's all this talk about future self, right? So I use a bunch of examples of my previous positions, like I was the general manager of a AAA baseball team. I was the first woman to do that in 20 years. And in order to like successfully keep and lead in that role, it required a certain kind of behavior. And I didn't necessarily possess all of that when I got the job. I had the business acumen to run the business, but I didn't necessarily have, I don't know, I guess in the old days we'd call it like the chops. You know, like, I wasn't like, I wasn't like ready to go in, in that arena cuz it was new and, and foreign to me. But when I thought about like, who was I, how did I wanna perform, how did I wanna represent my team on an even more grand scale, how did I wanna represent women who got an opportunity to hold this role in this industry? I wasn't someone who shied away from conflict. I wasn't someone who like hid in her office and pretended that she didn't see that the teams were dressed incorrectly for the game. Like, I had to go and like have those conversations. And in order for me to do that, I needed to become a more confident person. And I did that by practicing behaviors. Like, one of them, as an example that I talk about a lot, is counting yourself in. So a lot of us probably played sports, you know, growing up. I think that's a, that's a good memory to sort of reference in this regard. Is we performed by the clock, right? And there's something to a countdown. We use— everyone uses a countdown. So what if you did that? What if you had to enter a critical conversation and you said, 3, 2, 1, go, and you either started walking towards that person or you started talking to that person?

Yeah.

Counting will get you started. Momentum will get you going. And at the end, you'll probably still be alive and you have survived that conversation. And you've expanded your comfort zone just a little bit further, gaining confidence in that area.

I think that's interesting because I think what happens a lot is if we're stressing over something that we might not be confident about, we say we're going to do this this week or next week or whatever. But a game, right? Says start time is 7:30 PM on Tuesday. So, you know, showtime is when the red light goes on and it hit record. But the things that are stressing us out that we have control over, sometimes we keep kicking that can down the road. And the fact that it's hanging over you is worse than, you know, 10, 9, 8, or tomorrow at 10:00, I'm going to sit down with my boss and have that tough conversation. So I love the start time idea. And I think the other thing from a sports standpoint, we keep score. We want to improve performance. We go, you know, we obsess over the good, the bad, the ugly to get better the next time, not to to beat ourselves up, but to say, okay, wow, I did some really good things this time. Here's a couple things that might have been a little better. And so be it. Cool. So, well, actually, two questions. One is, when you think about curiosity and you think about confidence, and I would throw charisma in there and a couple of other things, some people believe some of those things are just innate. So, you know, Emily is a curious person. Emily is a confident person. And Peter's not. Well, okay. Well then if I'm not, I'm not, then I, you know, I have other skills, but clearly there are ways to develop those, right? So I might never be as confident as you or the most confident person, whoever that is, but I could be more confident than, than I have been, right? If I follow through these, this framework and these processes.

Yeah. Well, the, that's essentially the hypothesis of the book is that people believe you were born with it, or you, you were born with confidence or you weren't. But what I would say is I, I don't think that's true. I, I do think that confidence is a spectrum, right? And, and even today it can waver for any of us. You can feel the most confident in one moment and not so confident in another, but it's a skill. Confidence is a skillset. And a skill can be developed, increased, honed, not perfected, but worked at over time.

Yeah.

And that's really what we address in the book is that, you know, you're not born with it or not. You have a certain level and you can increase it if you, if you practice these things and go through these exercises and ask yourself these questions. And, you know, to be frank, I think we give ourselves a lot of cop-outs, you know. Oh, that's for him, not for me. Yeah, that's for her, not for me. When really, like, the only competition is yourself. You have to take responsibility for what it is you want in life and move towards that. And it's not easy, which is why a lot of us make excuses, right? Many of us would rather, you know, have a beer and talk about why we couldn't do something than celebrate our success when we got there.

Exactly. Well, this has been great. I appreciate your time and the candor. That's another one you could actually develop.

Yeah.

And thank you for sharing your story and your journey with us. Appreciate it, Emily. Thank you.

Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks, Peter.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.