Florencia Andrés argues self-doubt is normal and won't stop you if you manage it right. She teaches a three-step method called LSD: Listen to the doubt, Stop it, Declare a new identity. A medical student used it before an exam with 1,000 candidates and placed first instead of expecting to fail.
Questions this video answers
1,000 candidates.
Top 10.
Listen; Stop; Declare.
Half a million copies.
Chapters
What would happen in your life, in your business if you could crush self doubt and gain real confidence? The confidence myth. The myth that says that all successful people are confident all the time. And that if you have self doubts there's something wrong with you. You know. As part of my job I work with some of the best athletes in the world. These are superstars, talented, disciplined people. These are people who have won world cups. And these are people who struggle with self doubts on a daily basis. As part of my job I work with celebrities, men and women who get hired to do films, famous films, to host TV shows. They have hundreds and thousands of millions of fans around the globe. They have self doubts. As part of my job I work with entrepreneurs, people who have created and sold their businesses for millions of dollars. And yes, they have self doubts. Self doubt had me almost talked me out of writing my first book. And the interesting part is I wrote the book, the book sold half a million copies, translated to many languages. I got awards for the book. And then when the time came for me to write the second book, guess what happened? They were all back. All the self doubts were back and they were stronger than ever. If you have self doubts, welcome to being a human. That is how we are. The problem is not having self doubt. The problem is what you do with that. Doubting yourself is not a problem. The problem is letting those self doubts run the show. Decide what you're going to do or not going to do. That is a problem. But we have solutions. Today write the word chance. Chance, capital letters, got it? If we want to have a chance to crush our self doubts, if we want to have a chance to gain real confidence, there's one thing we need to do. Grab your pens. Ready, steady, go. If we want to have a chance, we need to change. We need to change. Mohan Lakiani taught me this and I loved it and I wanted to share it with you. We need to change. But you know what? Our brains are wired, hardwired not to change, to avoid change. Four steps to crush self doubt and gain real confidence. Step number one, Believe in yourself. I was once coaching a while ago, a young man, young doctor. He was in his last year of medical school and he had a dream. And his dream was to work in the most prestigious hospital in his country. And he said in order to achieve this dream, I need to sit for an exam. But there's 1,000 candidates sitting for the exam and I need to come out among the top 10. And the first thing he tells me is I have never been a top 10 student. And so I told him, I know exactly what you need to take. I know exactly what you need to do. And he says, what is that? And I tell him, you need to take lsd. The guy's a doctor. He looks at me like drugs. And I say, nope, no drugs involved in this LSD approach. And this is what LSD looks like. And so I tell him, the L stands for listen. I want you to listen to the thoughts you're having. You're saying, I've never been a top 10 student. Listen and ask yourself, is that thought giving you confidence or stealing you confidence? I said, well, yeah, but it's the truth. I've never been a top 10. Is it giving you confidence or stealing me? Well, stealing confidence. Can you realize that with that thought you're affirming an identity that you actually want to change? And he says, well, yes, let's move to the second step. And the second step is stop. You need to stop those thoughts the minute they appear. Stop them right away. And he goes, how? How? They're popping up all the time. And I tell him, you will have to train yourself to stop them. And this is how you can do this. I told him, I want you to wear something like this, a wristband. And every time you listen to the thought, you go, snap, stop, snap, stop, snap, stop. And he goes, it hurts. Good. It's a good reminder that those thoughts hurt your identity. So stop them right away. And the D. The D stands for There you go. Stop. The D stands for declare. There is a huge difference between listening to yourself and talking to yourself. You see, listening to yourself is something. It just happens. You're going to have automatic negative thoughts popping up all the time. Maybe you can't help that. But when you listen to them and you stop them, you can talk to yourself and you can say something that serves you and you can declare something that is in line with the new identity that you want to have. And so I told him, how about your new declaration is I deserve to perform at my best. And he said, I like that. Okay, I want you to do this for the next ten days. Listen, stop. I deserve to perform at my best. Exam day finally came. Thousand candidates going into this very prestigious university sitting for the exam. Two days later, the results were there. He told me, I walk in there and I start looking for my name. And I go straight to the top 100, which is a place I would normally fall into. My name is not there. Top 80. My name is not there. I keep on going, keep on going top 50, my name is not there. Top 30 my name is not there. By now I'm sweating, my palms are getting all sweaty, my heart is racing. 20, my name is not there. Top 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 my name is not there. And he goes, did I not even make it to the top 100? And so he says as I'm walking, dragging myself back, feeling so frustrated and sad that this didn't happen. And I'm walking myself back and suddenly I get a bump from a friend who carries me by the hand and says, come, come and look this, check this out. You came out first. You came out first. And you see this was more than a wristband and an affirmation. This was a change of identity. And a change of identity can happen fast. I have seen this happen hundreds and thousands of times. It can happen fast when we understand that the formula of success that we were taught is incomplete. Sam.
