I’m JD McGibney, and in this episode I’ll be chatting with the mighty, the moosey, the hilarious, funny, and endlessly loving Matty J. Moose of Psychostick!

Today we are going to be talking about “Confidence.” This term is thrown out a lot in regards to encouraging people to take action where they might feel hesitation. As adults, it almost feels as though confidence is something we should all be carrying in our back pocket and take out when we need it. When talking about teens and younger people, we tend to use the term “Self-Esteem.”

There is a lot of talk about self-esteem in schools to try and deter kids from bullying one another, teach kids to stand up for themselves, be creative, try new things, and overall just believe in themselves. From my own personal experience, confidence and self-esteem have been things that I have struggled with for as long as I can remember. Looking at some statistics from the Self-Esteem School, 85% of the world’s population struggle with self-esteem issues in some way.

Our self-esteem and confidence levels can be affected by a number of factors ranging from internal to external. Whether we are struggling with anxiety, or depression, or we happen to be in an environment that is not supportive of us at home, our social group, or even our work place.