Ep 89 What determines your success?

You are listening to episode number 89, What Determines Your Success. I am Travia Steward, and I want to help you move past barriers and obstacles that are preventing you from getting what you want in life. This is Breakthrough. Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude. First Lady Michelle Obama. See, confidence is the feeling or the belief that one can rely on and/or something that you can rely on, that you have firm trust in. And what she means by fortitude is the courage that we have within pain and adversity. So your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude. So when I think about who I am today, I immediately think about how I feel about me. You know, do I look good? Do I sound intelligent? Am I likable? These parameters have been put in place by what I think others think of me. As a society, we judge ourselves by comparing ourselves to, to someone else, to the person who just got the car, the person who just earned the award, the person who just won the war, the person who just won the race. And then when we have our performance or a work presentation or some type of activity where we want to do our best, and if you share with someone that you're nervous about it, like, you know, I'm nervous about that presentation, what's the first thing that you're going to hear that, you know, the person is going to respond with? Be confident. Right? That's what I normally hear. You gotta be confident, you know? And that is actually something that I've told my students for 24 years. Be confident. And so what does that really mean? When I think about confidence and Miriam, dictionary helps as well. And so confidence is present when you're sure about your ability to do something. We're optimistic about how things are going to turn out. And we're optimistic about, you know, our level of success that will— we're optimistic that this thing is going to happen the way we want it to happen. Because why? Because we've done that thing before. And with the optimism and the certainty in our skills and our ability to succeed, then we take action without, you know, that nagging fear of failure that prevents many of us from taking the next step. And where does confidence come from? We're born with it. We grow up with it. But as we grow up, we are molded by our family members. We're molded by our friends. We're molded by our environment, you know, that has to, you know, that is akin to your fixed or growth mindset, you know, that I'm gonna talk about in another episode. The confidence also comes from challenges that we face, the risk that we take, and our responses to those challenges that happen in the past. And if you try to do something, like maybe in the past, like you tried this, this, you know, you tried to start a business, you try— you went for a role in a show and you didn't get it. And so what we do is we attribute that one time, we store those feelings in our body. And then when we recall that experience and how we felt about it, the thing we want to avoid feeling is those feelings again, are those feelings again, right? So how do we break out of the pattern of reliving those past events over and over again in different situations? Because that's what happens. We fear that failure coming up. And then in a similar situation, we think that that's how it's going to end up. Again. And it takes us, you know, it motivates us or demotivates us to take more steps back. So today, the first important tip I want to give you is, you know, the past no longer exists. It only exists in our memory, and it exists when we think about it, and when we think about that experience and the meaning that we gave it. So the first thing is we have to forget the past. You have to forget that that thing ever happened. Be in the moment as if it's the first time you're doing this thing, as if it's illusion of the first time. Just like performers who get on stage and do play after play after play, like Broadway performers who have, you know, 100 performances, 8 performances a week. And if they get on stage like with the attitude of, oh my God, this is my 89th time singing this song, song, I'm over it, right? Don't you think the audience will be able to tell that? Absolutely. So we have to take on life with the illusion of the first time, just like theater, just like Broadway, just like performers, right? And then viewing it from this is the first time that ever happens, it takes away those things that it's been tainted by. It takes away the feelings that we've stored in our body. It It takes away the when so-and-so chuckled when that happened the last time because you fell flat on your face. And instead of laughing with them, you made it mean that you weren't good enough. So we have to forget the past and give this moment an experience, a first-time experience, and then give it the meaning that you want it to have instead of the old meaning that we keep digging up like from some old file cabinet The old landfill. Give it the meaning that you want it to have. By what? Deciding in advance what meaning you will have. Visualize it. Visualize yourself successfully completing the thing and then loving every minute of that. What do I mean by that? Let's say you have a talk and you know you're nervous about it. It's the first time you've ever spoken to a large audience and decide in advance that it's going to go so well. Go well, you're going to learn from it. No matter what happens, you're going to be successful at this thing. Decide in advance that you're going to turn this opportunity to learn and grow and be even better the next time. And number 3, commit to who you need to be in order to achieve success in that endeavor. This— you can do this by maybe choosing a word that you can embody, like a characteristic You know, I want to be bold. I want to be approachable. I want to be fierce like Beyoncé, who channels her alter ego, Sasha Fierce. You know, I always love that about acting. Love that you can go out there, leave all your junk off stage, all your junk outside, and be that character 100%. But we can do that in life too. So Number 1, forget the past. It no longer exists. Decide in advance what the experience will mean to you. And number 3, choose, create, and commit to who you need to be in order to create the best experience possible. You too can have a breakthrough in your confidence, how you show up, and how you approach things. Your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude. Michelle Obama. Peace. Thank you for listening, and I hope you have a fantastic day, and I appreciate each and every one of you.