USE THESE Steps To Be Confident IN ANY SITUATION Today!

You have to decide, like, really decide who it is I want to be. And then you have to focus on more on the person that you want to be, rather than the person that you've always known yourself to be, so to speak.

Hey, what's going on? Connor Kraft here, joined by Steven Scoggins. And today we're going to talk about how to be confident in any situation.

Confidence, I love it says this, says the guy who had to struggle with insecurities off and on this entire last, what, 30 years? You know what? I think it would actually be kind of cool to actually kind of pivot off of you a little bit. I know that one of the things that we've worked through in your own life is self confidence. Right, Right. So let's talk about a couple of the things that kind of beat self confidence up. Right. I think the first thing that beats self confidence up is an unsurmountable or unattainable expectation. Right. So when I met this young man over here, he was like, I want to be a millionaire. Like, like, it's going to happen next year. I'm like, it's not going to happen next year, but it's good. And then he would beat himself up because he didn't make a million dollars the previous year. Right. It just doesn't happen that way. Everything worth having takes time to create, including competence. So what I've tried to instill in you is this sense of understanding that little wins are where you put your focus.

Yeah.

So how has that been in kind of. Because when I met you, obviously self esteem was kind of a big one.

Yeah, well, I mean, I think. I think one of the big reasons why my self esteem was so low is for years I did put all of my confidence into, you know, I'm going to become this successful business person, this entrepreneur. And so ever since I was 15, I'm about to be 24 now. Ever since I was 15, I've been chasing that goal with everything that I have. And I neglected every other area of my life. I said, I don't care about relationships, I don't care about, you know, spirituality, emotional health. I don't care about any of that. All I care about is making money so I can get wealthy and then I'll figure all that stuff out. That was my attitude. But there's a lot of things that go into being successful. And most people right out the gate when they're first trying to figure out how to do that, especially as a 15, 16, 17 year old kid, they're gonna Struggle. So I had terrible habits that held me back. I had some business success early on, ruined it all because I didn't know what I was doing. And so I just remember year after year, I was 16, I was like, alright, next year I'm gonna be a millionaire. 17, I wasn't. And I had made no progress. And then I was like, kind of like, okay, well, that was just a fluke. I was just learning, it's 18, I'll get it. 19, I'll get it. And every New Year's Eve I would just be like, alright, these are my resolutions. But eventually I started to have this doubt because another year had gone by and I hadn't made any progress. And I was studying all the gurus, you know, this. All I was doing with my time was studying successful people. But what this also did is it led to a lot of comparison. And so I was constantly looking at Gary Vee, Andy Frisella, Tony Robbins, all the people who, by the way, I love that seems a little unfair, but I was looking at it, I was like, that's where I want to be. That's where I want to be. And so I was comparing.

Yeah. Not knowing that each of them took. It took time for them to be 20 something years.

Yeah, exactly. So then, you know. But it also poisoned my idea of how I was supposed to succeed. Like you just said, little wins compounding over time is how actual success is created. What I was trying to do is spend all my time thinking about the perfect plan that would allow me to get to a million dollars in 12 months. Because I was too lazy to just be like, well, how could I make $1,000? And then next week, you know, how can I make 2000 improve slowly? You taught me, look, dude, you gotta go one step at a time. You can't just take the elevator. I literally used to have teachers when I was growing up. They would always tell me, he just like he would tell my parents, he just wants to take the elevator, he doesn't want to take the stairs. That was basically. And I was over here like, dude, if there's a perfectly good elevator, why would I waste my time on the stairs?

Because sometimes the electricity is cut out.

Exactly. And that's true in life though. There are no real elevators. If you get an elevator, then that's luck. So I think for me it's been very, very transformative to just start taking those small steps and seeing those small wins. And as I've gotten those small wins, I've noticed that my natural motivation to do the right thing and build those positive habits. It has increased because my self esteem has gone up with those little wins. Making me think after seven years of failure or perceived failure is what I call it.

I was learning, AKA learning. Right.

I realized in the last couple years under your tutelage or I don't know how to tutelage.

Tutelage.

I don't know what that is. But under your mentorship, I've started practicing taking those small steps which were very boring for me because I was like.

I want to make millions. They're monotonous. The first steps are always a bit monotonous, but they're worth it in the end.

I wanted to make millions of dollars. I didn't want to sit around organizing my to do list. So I would never do that. But guess what? I was ineffective every day. I didn't get things done because I didn't have a to do list.

Yeah. The quickest way to raise confidence to that point is going to be raising your standards of what you accept in your life and what you don't. Right. A lot of times confidence is built slowly over time with those little wins. But in order to get those little wins, you have to decide. You have to decide like really decide who it is I want to be. And then you have to focus on more on the person that you want to be rather than the person that you've always known yourself to be, so to speak.

That's really powerful.

Okay. So if you think about the person you've always known yourself to be, typically that's going to be somebody who's got limiting beliefs. That's going to be. And we've all, just so we're clear, we've all faced this. Okay. It might be somebody who's struggling with analysis paralysis, meaning they're trying to analyze all the variables and trying to control the variables variables before they take over. Take the first step. There are relationship issues that we might have to, we have to roll up through. I find, in fact, I find that most of the lies that people believe about themselves were actually spoken to them and, or over them by people who were supposed to love them and care for them. That is, I see that with a lot of friends and family specifically and mentors along the way.

What's an example of that? Like, like, like what kinds of things are they saying?

It could go as bad as, you know, something along the lines of I wish you had never been born. Right. From, from someone who's supposed to be a parent. Now what they don't realize in the moment is that, that that moment actually impacts the child at a very, very deep level, which that child eventually becomes an adult. Okay? So if you take that a step forward, if that person say, hey, look, I wish you'd never been born. And that person says, well, I guess I'm worthless. I have no value, I have no worth. And they grow up thinking, I have no value, I have no worth. In reality, they always had worth.

They just let someone else's story.

Exactly. Now here's the crazy part. People often speak out to others, what they feel about themselves.

So people with a lack of self worth often create other people with a lack of worth because of what they say, how they handle how they do. And what people need to understand is self confidence starts in the subconscious. And the self conscious is a direct record player of all the stuff that's happened to you up until this point.

Which I think is another thing. You talked a lot about your upbringing and your influences early on. How big of an impact on self esteem does your past have?

I mean, if you think about it this way, it's where the foundation was laid and created to begin with, right? There are children that have fantastic parents. They grow up in a very secure environment and they do really well. And then for some reason they go off the deep end later. Okay? Typically that means the encouragement and everything was so strong that it was almost overindulgent. So people, so for example, the people that grow up in a very secure household, various stuff like that. A lot of times there's what I refer to as over security. It's teaching the children a sense of entitlement, okay? And then they hit the real world and they very quickly discover that crap. Nobody gives me crap. No one's going to help me just get stuff. Yeah, okay. Conversely, the same, another family might be the family I mentioned before, which is like you're constantly being berated with negative things that your parents say to you about you, all that kind of stuff. And that takes a toll on your self esteem. So they enter the world as adults also feeling like they have no value because they've never been told they have value. So the one thing that I want to tell you watching right now is that you have immense value. My goal, our team's goal here at the Journey Principles Institute and everything that we do here is to help you discover that for yourself so you can amplify it in the best way possible. So make sure you keep listening for that, okay? Because we really want to help you succeed. That being said, one of the things the other thing that they run into is this essence of standards that I mentioned earlier. Standards create the stability. All right? I know that I want to feel good about myself. I don't want to be so wrapped up in my exterior shell. It's very easy. I'm five foot nothing, right? It's very easy for me to have the short guy, Napoleon Bonaparte mentality. I'll talk louder, I'll be more braggadocious, I'll be more condemning and hurtful to other people so you don't tread on me kind of thing. Right? I'll go. That is not going to help me open the doors that I need to become successful. It's also not going to help me with my overall self esteem. In fact, people who are the most braggadocious and most arrogant typically have the weakest self esteems because they feel like they have to elevate themselves to undervalue someone else in a way to make them feel like they're actually more worthy of connection.

Well, I know you, we were talking about me a little bit. But you yourself, your past is filled with overcoming self esteem issues as well. I wanted to ask, how did you personally overcome your own self esteem issues?

Well, first of all, the first thing that I did to overcome my own self esteem issues and mine were pretty bad. I mean, I was bullied as a kid and the whole deal. I've been through some pretty terrible things growing up. And the first thing that I had to do is I had to go backwards to go forwards. I had to go back and look and say, okay, why do I feel this way about myself? Because I know I wasn't born with it and no one else listening is born with it either, or watching is born with it. Why do I feel this way about myself? And I had to really dig into it. We call that the gaining perspective phase. That's one piece of gaining perspective. The next thing that I had to do after that is I had to counteract every negative thought with a positive statement. Okay? So if my negative thought says I'm not worth it, my positive statement said, I know I'm worth it and I'm going to discover how you see what I'm saying every negative. So if the negative, typically negative, subconscious thoughts come across in whispers, but the response back to them has to be like power, like I am worth it, right? So much so that I list. I remember I spent one afternoon, I was listing out all the things that I believe about myself. And I would ask myself, does this help me get to where I'm Going, how success? How does this let me be? You know, sometimes I spent time like.

Kind of paying attention to the negative thoughts that are coming to your mind, writing them down and then identifying, is this taking me towards where I want to be or is it taking me away from that?

Well, and then the next thing that we did after that is that, you know, I spent time going side by side. Okay, what statement or what, what affirmation, if you will, for lack of a better word, can I write beside it? It's a polar opposite of this that I can. When this comes, I do this. When this comes, I do this. When this comes, I do this. And then I put those things in my mirror and stuff like that on a regular basis.

So if you, let's say, let's say you keep having the mental thought of, you know, low self esteem around being smart enough. Yeah, let's say that's your thing.

When your mind goes to that place and it's like you're just not smart enough, you're gonna fail. And you feel that, that whisper, but that whisper has a very profound effect on your emotions and you usually feel that very strongly, or at least I know I do. When you say you're coming back with more force with a response, how does that work?

Well, I mean, if I'm in that moment where I'm telling myself that I'm not smart enough or something like that, which I have, I used to tell myself, in fact, I've shared here before that I used to share that. I used to feel, what worth do I have? I'm a successful company, but I'm a high school dropout and all that kind of stuff. I finally learned that that crap is irrelevant. Why? Because the human brain can learn. You can teach yourself anything if you just put the right intensity behind it. Therefore, if you're struggling to learn something, then simply learn it in the way that best suits you.

I struggled immensely in school. I was a DNF student and I dropped out of high school. Yet everything that I've learned about success and all that kind of stuff is all self taught. So I think you're totally right. You've talked about how different people have different learning modalities and we won't get into all of that.

Yeah, we'll have to do that on a different episode. But at the end of the day, the only thing that would ever stand in your way is the belief about what you say to yourself. That's it.

Powerful.

So if I believe that I'm unworthy, if I believe that I'm not intelligent. If I believe that I'm not pretty or cute or handsome or whatever. If I spend all my time focusing on saying all those things to myself on a regular basis, then inevitably what I'm doing is I'm programming myself in that moment to lower my standards, to not allow me to achieve what I can absolutely achieve. What you have to do differently is you have to identify those negative thought patterns, those negative beliefs patterns, write them down, come up with a polar opposite statement, put that into practice. That will help you start building confidence, at least get you going.

What happens if you don't do that?

Well, then in some cases, you can take your knees out for money and even challenge your own life at the worst case. Best case scenario is you stay stuck where you're at right now.

Yeah, definitely. I'm going to ask you one final question. That's a question from the audience. The question is, how important is confidence for success in life?

Confidence in and of itself is not as important as building confidence over time with momentum. What do you mean by that? If you are failing to take a step forward because you feel like you have to be more confident, then you are holding yourself back. You need to realize that confidence is built over time. It's by taking a small risk and getting rewarded for that risk, and then taking another small risk and getting rewarded for that risk, and then taking another risk, another small risk, and getting rewarded for that risk. Every time that you do something that you thought in your life was out of reach, every time you actually achieve it, you automatically know you can do it again. So one of the things that I've been doing is I've been laying these little wins over and over again. I thought I could never save up $100. I saved up $100. I thought I never save $1,000. I saved up a thousand. I thought I could save up 10,000. I saved up 10,000. Right. That's why they say statistically that someone who has taken the time and built great wealth over time, even if they lose it all, they can rebuild it in a third of the time. It's because they've already proven themselves that they can do it. Right.

So they don't have that mental prison that they're building around themselves. Wow. Very powerful.

Hopefully that helps. I know we're short on time today, but hopefully that helps. I know we can, we can do some other episodes on confidence and building self confidence.

Yeah, for sure. If anybody has any other questions about confidence, relationships, really, any area of your life, leave it in the comments below, we'll collect them and see if Stephen can answer them for you.

Hey guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode. If you did, I know you're really gonna love this one, so make sure you check it out. Take care. Steve Meyrick, my first mentor, asked me one time what difference between a rich man was and a poor man was.

I thought, like probably most people do, that money's the difference. He very quickly corrected me and said money has nothing to do with.