Part 2. Rico Sharp Bringing out The Best in You Mental Health Wellness Leadership Conference 8/27/26

Build your three areas of confidence. Build your three areas of confidence. Number one, build your personal confidence. What does that mean? That means know your value, know your identity, know your strengths, know your worth, trust your judgment, and refuse, ladies and gentlemen, to let difficult days, criticisms, or mistake, or any challenge that you face. To determine what you're able to accomplish or have you to question who you are. In the first 4 or 5 of my slides, I'm going to deal with you first because I got to bring the best out of you before you can bring out the best in someone else. After you build your personal confidence, now you have the fortitude To step into the workspace, right? You have the courage, you have everything that you need to do what needs to be done to help others. How does your personal confidence benefit others? It brings stability, authenticity, patience, and emotional security to the people that you are there to serve. You become a safer person Who can help someone else to feel safer about their own lives and the things that they're dealing with or are challenged with. Number 2, build your professional confidence. Have confidence in what you know and in what you do. Know that when you stand before a client that you have A greatness that you'll get ready to release from your heart. You have something that is so unique and so special that when you open up to share with them the things that they need to hear from you, that it's going to come out in the form of power. You have a greatness within you. You're not just somebody who is working a 9 to 5. This is more than a career. You're not just there to get a paycheck. You're saving lives, you're changing people, you're building a future, you're restoring hope, you're creating a path forward. And this greatness that is in you that you have built through personal development, through your personal confidence, it comes out of you Into the area of professional confidence. It starts at home. You build it up at home. You build it up through life. You build it up through training. You build it up through looking in the mirror and having that one-on-one chat with yourself. And then you carry it to the workforce and you pour it out of you in the form of greatness. And so now you're on the job, you're sharing with people, you're giving solutions, you're giving answers, you're restoring hope, and you're helping people to realize that life is not over. Like, this is— my life has just been a book. This is a chapter, and I'm about to turn the page. That's what you bring. You bring hope because you built up your personal and your professional confidence. And so when you're on the job, you're trusting your training, you're trusting your experience, you're trusting your skills, you're trusting your professional judgment. When I speak around the world, I have to trust that what I have is valuable enough that people pay money to come and receive it. That's my professional confidence. That's my confidence. You have the resources and the ability to make sound decisions. Trust what you've learned over the years. Trust what you've been taught. Trust what you've developed within you, because your personal confidence then becomes professional confidence, and your professional confidence becomes interpersonal confidence, which means when you sit before your clients, you listen, you communicate, you empathize, you build trust. And you connect with people from all walks of life. And you know that you are a changemaker. You know that what you're doing is a great service in the lives of others. And now you're showing them how to build their lives. You're showing them that you understand emotions. You, you navigate through difficult conversations. And you create an environment where people feel heard and people feel valued. That's right. I've had many times in my life as a young teenager where I had to undergo counseling and therapy because I was raised in a very difficult situation. My mother was very young when she gave birth to me, and my father was not around. My mom was only 15 years of age when I was born. And she had a son older than myself and another son after me. And so I had to be given up. And when I was given up for a little while, for the first 5 years of my life, I had some problems and some issues that I dealt with. And by the time I made it back to my mother, I was shifted around from family member to family member, church member to church member, house to house. And I grew up feeling unloved and unwanted and uncared for and underappreciated and undervalued. And I started to look at it like, what's wrong with me? But one day I remember sitting in front of a lady and she started counseling me. And she came to me and she began to share with me how that there's nothing wrong with me. And she began to point out some things about my life that I had overlooked, that nobody had ever talked to me about. The fact that I am somebody, that I do have something to live for. that I can do something with my life. Her personal confidence became professional confidence, and then her professional confidence became interpersonal confidence, and then she poured her confidence into my life. And it was that confidence that helped me to be able to realize I can do something good with my life. Now, it would be a journey. I would have some moments of falling and relapsing and going astray and trying to do things my way, but that began the journey to who I have become today. Her personal confidence became professional confidence, and her professional confidence became interpersonal confidence, and she planted a seed in my life that has helped me to be confident today. Can I share with you that sometimes People have to borrow your confidence in them until their personal confidence kicks in. It is safe to say that all these years later, I am still living off a percentage of that lady's confidence. And I can still hear her voice in my mind saying, Rico, one of these days you're going to make something of yourself. You're going to do something good with your life. The next thing that is important is to know who you are, to know that you are someone that is the difference, and then you begin to focus on what you know and of course how you connect with people. Point number 2,