In this solo, motivational monologue Steve Lichtman argues that confidence is not a vague feeling you wait for, but a collection of concrete evidence—"receipts"—that accumulate as you repeatedly succeed at small, uncomfortable actions. He illustrates the idea with a driving analogy, showing how repeated safe trips turn terror into nonchalance. Lichtman then introduces the practical tool of an "evidence journal," where listeners record nightly one action that scared them (cold DMs, raw videos, price hikes, etc.). Over time the journal becomes a stack of receipts proving they survived hard tasks, which can be revisited when doubt arises. He emphasizes that confidence builds through tiny, repeatable actions that compound into larger achievements, and offers his personal support, encouraging listeners to start the journal and chip away at their goals brick‑by‑brick. The episode ends with a call to action to adopt the journal habit and a reminder that his belief in the audience is a temporary bridge until they build their own confidence.
Chapters
All right, let's talk about something. I'm going to give you the title first for episode 16 here. Confidence isn't a feeling, it's evidence. So look, one of the things that we see everywhere, right, it's the biggest lie, probably in the land of hustle culture, entrepreneurship, being a business owner, yada yada yada. I'll start posting when I feel confident. You've heard that and probably seen people say that a million times. But the truth is confidence. It's not a feeling that you sit around and wait for. Confidence is the evidence that you stack up. So as you have wins, that's where you build your confidence. Confidence doesn't get manifested. You might be able to write that you want more confidence on your dream board if you have one. If you're a 13 year old girl like my daughter, you might have a dream board on the wall and confidence might be something you write on it. But the truth is that confidence comes from stacking wins. That confidence comes from being successful, from doing things, from making progress, right? So think about it like this. Remember when you learned how to drive? First time you had your hands on a wheel, they're shaking. You just that death grip, just, oh, just tight on the steering wheel, freaking out, radio is off so you can concentrate better and you were just absolutely terrified. Now think about it. You're driving one handed while eating a taco, you're changing your playlist, same skill, you just stacked thousands of reps of I didn't die. Right. Like, think about it, how many times have you driven now? And you're so much more nonchalant than when you were, when you were first getting on the road at 15, 16, 17, depending on where you grew up and where your state is and whatnot, city or suburbia, whatever, that took time. You built confidence, it stacked. You kept getting home safe, you got through the rain safe, you made it through the snow safe. So your confidence wasn't something that you just felt day one. It was something that was built over time from having success. So as adults, we naturally forget this at times. You know, we want that taco driving confidence. Boom. Finger snap, day one on LinkedIn. I hope that finger snap came through you. You get it the same way though, right? It's at the end of the day, like if you're on LinkedIn every day and you're not knowing what's going on and you're, you're freaking out just to hit post once a month, well, then you're missing it. You need small reps, you need to have those little wins, you need to have that proof that you survived. It's no different. It's just like driving down the street, taco in hand, coffee in the other, cigarette on your ear, whatever it is, right? Depending on what decade we're talking about. So let's start something that we could use. I don't know. For people that are into writing. Not everybody is. I'm kind of one that's in between. Admittedly, I have a dozen different journal books. They're all like a third started, and then I move to the next journal book with a new idea. I do keep trying to work on this. I'm maybe not the best, best at it. I'm not going to pretend that I am. But for many people, this is the type of thing that works. It's what I would call like an evidence journal. And every night write one thing you did that scared you. So maybe it was you sent the cold dm, maybe you posted that raw video like from the, you know, from the five minute content, you know, episode from a couple days ago. If you go back into that episode, maybe you posted that raw video with minimal edits, right? You just put your, you put your transcription text at the bottom and then you just, boom, hit send. Maybe you raised your price after you for what you're offering. Maybe you were raising your prices and now you're sitting there wondering, confident, you know, lack of confidence of what's going on. Mark, all these things in your evidence journal, after a month, you're going to have a stack of receipts and they're all going to say the same things. I did hard things and I survived. Right, because you did that cold dm, you made that video, you raised that price, you started that new series. You, you know, you rebuilt your website to fit your current business model, whatever it might be. But that stack of receipts is your confidence. And every time you start to overthink, every time that you get overwhelmed, every time that you feel like the walls are closing in and that you can't do something, flip open that book and just read it. Read those stack of wins of the things that you did that built that confidence to where you are now. And with that, we're gonna say today's riff of the day. Confidence isn't something that you feel. It's the receipts that you stack. Yeah, that's real right there. That's as real as it's gonna get, man. I mean, you have to take small action. You always have to take small action and get to the big action. People dream of the big action. But it's the work you don't see. It's the work that we all do that nobody knows about. It's all the other BS tasks that are connected to your day that. That you stack those. That's your confidence. So that way, when you're ready to step up and do something big, you're already feeling on top of the world. So, look, you can borrow my belief in you until you build your own belief in yourself, because I'll always believe in you. That's just my personality. I'm somebody where when I meet people, I love to hear what they're up to. I love to hear what they're doing. I also love to hear where they feel stuck and what they're not doing. Some I could try to help them make that little, you know, get a journal, chip away at it, do that one little brick. Because every brick that you add is going to build your foundation. So with that in mind, thank you guys so much. I always appreciate this. I know I say this at the end of every episode, but it's because I mean it. I wish I was reading something. My life is just. My brain doesn't operate like that. I'm not a. What would you call it? I'm not a transcription reader. I'm not a. Yeah, I'm not the scrolling iPad kind of guy. I would be terrible on your nightly news, but I would probably be wildly entertaining. But thank you so much. This was unfiltered and unshakable. I'm Steve Lichtman, and you can find my universe at stevelichtman. Com. And thank you so much for being here today. Take it easy.
