Let's Talk About Confidence

Watching someone build confidence in real time is far more interesting than hearing slogans about “believing in yourself”. I sit down with Stuart Cuzner, now a partner at Menzies, a top 20 UK accountancy firm, to trace the long, quiet path from a teenager who skipped A levels and university to someone leading teams, advising clients, and owning the weight of partner-level decisions.

We talk about the apprenticeship route in accountancy, what AAT and ACCA really do for your skills, and why a lack of traditional credentials does not have to cap your career. Stuart shares how it felt to be the note-taker in meetings, how he earned progression step by step, and the moment he discovered his ACCA was broadly equivalent to a degree, giving him a new kind of satisfaction and confidence grounded in evidence.

The conversation gets honest about imposter syndrome, especially after a merger into a bigger firm. Stuart explains the “not good enough” feeling, how a mentor and trusted colleagues helped, and why learning and relationships are the fastest way to rebuild self-trust. We also explore the boring middle, the part where growth feels slow, and how that shows up today in business development, networking, and public speaking.

Then we connect it all to an unexpected place: running. From hiding on a treadmill in the garage to training for the London to Brighton 100k, Stuart shows that confidence is built the same way every time, with small steps that compound.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Subscribe for more grounded conversations on confidence, share this with someone playing the long game, and leave a review with the skill you are building next.

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💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

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Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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The most dangerous moment in any change is rarely the crisis. It’s the quiet Tuesday when nothing is obviously getting better and you start to wonder if you’re wasting your time. We’re near the end of Season 3 of Nervous Not Broken, so I want to sit with the part nobody posts about: the boring middle, where motivation fades, progress looks flat, and people drop out even though the work is actually doing its job.

We unpack why confidence and nervous system regulation don’t improve in a neat, day by day line. You’ll hear why researchers describe a plateau of latent potential, how skills become automatic through silent stacking, and why the period that feels least productive can be where the deepest learning is happening. I also name the “threshold” moment: that wave of doubt around week three or four (or month two or three) where the urge to quit can peak right as new patterns are consolidating.

Then we get practical. I share five grounded ways to move through the middle without resorting to grand resets or dramatic gestures: measure showing up, make the process your identity, look for tiny signals, lower the bar without guilt, and tell one trusted person where you are so you have a witness to your momentum. If you’re working on anxiety, confidence building, exposure therapy, habit formation, or simply trying to become steadier under pressure, this is the episode that helps you stop misreading silence as failure.

If this lands for you, subscribe so you don’t miss the finale, share it with someone who’s stuck in the middle, and leave a review. What are you in the middle of right now?

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🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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A terminal diagnosis changes the way you hear the word “confidence”. When Ron Cox joined us, he brought the headline results (helping turn a $2.5m deficit into a business generating $1m a day) but he also brought the human story behind them: how facing mortality forces you to get honest about time, priorities, and what is actually worth building. We talk about where confidence really comes from, and why your family, your mentors, and your friends can either strengthen your backbone or quietly drain it. 

We dig into the leadership mechanics Ron uses to build high-performance teams and rebuild workplace culture: moving beyond command-and-control, choosing humility over authority, and making “people first” more than a slogan. Ron shares practical tools like mapping roles with a “bus seats” exercise, using values and behavioural profiles to get the right people in the right seats, and measuring both customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction. If you care about organisational turnaround, employee retention, and scaling through mergers and acquisitions, you’ll hear how values alignment can make growth easier rather than messier. 

Then the conversation turns deeply personal. Ron walks us through being told he might die more than once, including Wilson’s disease and a later pancreatic cancer scare that was ultimately linked to medication and severe pancreatitis. The through-line is resilience: discern the situation, go back to your tribe, and let the right people hold you accountable. We also unpack the emotional and cultural reality of selling a legacy business, and why it can feel like watching someone else raise your child. 

If this resonates, subscribe, share the episode with a leader who needs it, and leave us a review so more people can find the show. What’s one change you could make this week to build a stronger tribe around you?

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

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🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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Somewhere behind most “confidence problems” sits a quieter story: you tried something, it went wrong, and you never quite did it again. I’m John M. Walsh, and today I’m getting honest about the moment when the fear comes true and the hard thing doesn’t work. Not the neat, motivational version of failure, but the kind that leaves you replaying it in the shower, hearing a harsh verdict in your own voice, and slowly retreating from the risks that used to make your life bigger.

We break down what a setback actually does to the mind and nervous system: the replay loop, the identity-level conclusion, and the long, careful avoidance that can last for years. I explain why the brain clings to negative experiences for survival reasons, how the spotlight effect tricks you into thinking everyone still remembers, and why modern visibility and highlight-reel culture make ordinary mistakes feel permanent. If you’ve felt shame after a presentation, interview, meeting, rejection, or creative knock, you’ll recognise the pattern quickly.

Then we move into recovery tools you can use straight away: name what happened in plain facts, deflate the imaginary audience, go again but go small and go soon, separate useful lessons from self-attack, and interrupt rumination by changing your state and giving attention a better job. The deeper takeaway is simple and powerful: confidence is not “nothing ever goes wrong”; it is the earned evidence that when it does, you can handle it and come back. If this helps, follow or subscribe, share it with someone who’s been knocked, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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The child who sits quietly and hopes not to be noticed is often the child who needs the most care. I’m joined by educator and author Bridget Kengler, who spent her early school years feeling invisible, then walked into her own classroom and made a deliberate promise: no child in her care should feel unseen again. 

We talk about what low confidence can look like in real life: fear of being called on, perfectionism, and the loneliness of blending into the background. Bridget shares the surprisingly small moments that changed everything for her, including a teacher who listened, remembered what mattered to her and publicly recognised her effort even when she “failed”. That kind of encouragement is not sentimental, it is practical. It plants a seed that can become an internal voice over time. 

From there we get concrete. Bridget explains how she builds connection and trust with every child, why she never forces participation, and how morning meetings create a safe routine for student voice. We also dig into partnering with parents, including a simple question that helped one of her son’s teachers connect with him for the first time. And we widen the lens to adults: how confidence grows through hard things, why stepping into the uncomfortable matters, and how taking the first small step can change the shape of your story. 

If you care about child confidence, classroom culture, encouragement, resilience and finding your voice, you’ll take away ideas you can use straight away. Subscribe, share this with a teacher or parent who needs it, and leave us a review. What’s one moment of encouragement you still remember?

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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Three words can make capable people do strange things: “I don’t know”. I’ve seen someone brilliant sit on a solvable problem for weeks, not because they lacked skill, but because admitting uncertainty felt worse than the problem itself. That moment captures the theme here: what looks like confidence can be a mask, and what looks like arrogance can be fear. 

I walk through why our threat system treats not knowing as a risk to belonging, and why that same nervousness sends one person quiet while it makes another person dominate the room. We also talk about the modern forces that keep the mask in place: social media certainty, the myth that leadership means always having the answers, and workplaces where everything feels recorded and remembered. If you care about confidence, imposter syndrome, workplace communication, and psychological safety, this will land. 

Then we get practical. I share four small ways to build real confidence: practise “I don’t know” when the stakes are low, use the word “yet” to keep a gap from becoming a verdict, ask for help while the problem is still small, and if you lead, go first so others feel safe to tell the truth. Real confidence is not knowing everything. It’s being able to admit what you do not know and collaborate anyway. If this resonates, subscribe, share it with someone who carries too much alone, and leave a review with the moment you realised you could drop the mask.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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One small word can quietly decide which rooms you enter and which chances you never take. We start with a common line many people say before a work social or a big meeting: “I can’t, I get really anxious in big groups.” Then we slow it down and look at what happens next, when a passing sensation gets given a heavier name, and that heavier name hardens into a label, then an identity that starts writing your life for you.

We take clinical anxiety seriously and make a clear distinction: anxiety disorders are real and deserve qualified support. What we’re tackling here is the everyday, situational nervousness that arrives before something that matters and leaves after it, and how it can get accidentally dressed in the language of a disorder. I walk you through the “ladder” from “I feel nervous” to “I’m an anxious person”, share a story of how self-labelling can shrink a career without any crisis, and explain the psychology behind it: the brain is a meaning-making, pattern-matching machine that treats your words as instructions and then hunts for evidence to prove you right.

To make it practical, I give you four fast tools you can use in real time: choosing the truer word, asking what the nervousness points at, separating the physical sensation from the scary sentence your mind adds, and catching identity statements before they set. Try the one-week experiment at the end and see if the feeling gets lighter when you name it accurately. If this helps, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s been self-labelling, and leave a review so more people can find the safety check.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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You know that moment you walk into a crowded room and instantly forget what to do with your hands? Your heart kicks up, your brain starts narrating your every move, and it feels like everyone has noticed you arriving alone. I want to dismantle that feeling properly, because it’s not a character flaw. It’s a very old, very loyal threat system doing what it evolved to do, only it’s applying tribal rules to modern rooms full of colleagues, strangers, and warm wine.

We explore why group settings sit right at the top of the “nerves” list: parties, networking events, big meetings, conferences, weddings, school gates, first days in a new office. Then we get into the psychology of the spotlight effect, the reason you overestimate how much people are noticing you, and the freeing truth underneath it: everybody else is mostly thinking about themselves. From there, we name the modern factors that make this harder than it used to be, including fewer day-to-day social reps, the phone as the most convenient hiding place ever invented, and the comparison trap of judging your insides against everyone else’s performed ease.

Finally, I share five practical tools you can take straight into your next social situation: turning attention outward with genuine curiosity, shrinking the goal to one good conversation, arriving early to avoid breaking into closed circles, keeping the “no spotlight” reminder ready, and acting before you feel ready because confidence comes after the doing. If you want calmer, more natural social confidence without pretending to be someone you’re not, press play, try the weekly experiment, and tell me what changed. Subscribe, share with someone who dreads busy rooms, and leave a review so more people can find this.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

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🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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Your body knows exactly when the stakes rise. The heart speeds up, the mouth dries out, the mind starts writing escape plans and suddenly all your competence is trapped behind a nervous system alarm. That’s where Helen von Dadelszen lives professionally: she’s a communication and vocal coach, a speaker, and the author of Courageous Action, and she helps smart, capable people close the gap between what they know and what they can actually say in the room. 

We dig into the practical side of confidence under pressure, starting with a simple reframe: nerves are normal, but they are not a stop sign. Helen explains how to map your own triggers and symptoms so you can interpret them with accuracy rather than fear, then choose tools that work for your body. We talk breathing for regulation, quick grounding techniques you can do at a table, and why slowing your speaking pace can instantly make you sound more confident while also calming both you and your audience. 

We also get into “communicating without pretending”: setting an intention for how you want to be perceived and aligning voice, body language, pauses, and pace so it still feels like you. Helen shares a vulnerable story about pitching in French at a networking event, plus a brilliant method for practising without cringing at recordings of yourself. If you’ve been waiting to feel ready before you speak up, this is your nudge towards courageous action, one small step at a time. 

You can find more information about Helen here:

• Book: https://courageousaction.ch/
• Me: https://academy.presentpotential.ch/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helen-von-dadelszen/

Subscribe for more practical confidence tools, share this with someone who dreads high pressure conversations, and leave a review if it helps. What’s the first situation where you want to treat nerves as a go sign?

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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You know the feeling: you’re fine until the meeting starts, the presentation slide appears, or you have to say the thing you’ve been rehearsing for days. Your chest tightens, your mouth dries up, and then the worst part arrives, the story that follows: maybe I’m not confident, maybe I’m not cut out for this, maybe there’s something wrong with me. I want to challenge that. Nervous is a sensation. Broken is a conclusion. And confusing the two creates a lot of needless suffering at work.

I trace what is actually happening in the nervous system, from the amygdala’s threat scanning to why uncertainty, visibility, and fear of judgement hit so hard in modern workplaces. I also name the three pressure multipliers I see everywhere right now: relentless social media comparison, the missing “learning by being in the room” that remote work can reduce, and our new talent for avoiding discomfort through messages, emails, and delay. Avoidance feels like relief, but it quietly trains your brain to fear the situation more next time.

Then we get practical. I share five tools you can use immediately for work anxiety, public speaking nerves, and leadership confidence: name the emotion, ask what your nervous system is responding to, make the threat specific, breathe out longer than you breathe in, act before you feel ready, and keep an evidence log so your brain stores proof of courage. If you try just one small avoided action this week and write it down, you’ll start building real confidence the only way it lasts: through evidence.

If this helps, subscribe so you don’t miss the rest of the season, share it with someone who’s been calling themselves “not confident”, and leave a review with the tool you’re going to try first.

Let’s Talk About Confidence is an educational podcast exploring confidence, behaviour, leadership, communication, and personal performance. The views shared are intended for general information and development purposes only and should not be considered medical, psychological, legal, or financial advice.

While practical tools and techniques are discussed, listeners are encouraged to seek appropriately qualified professional support where needed.

Opinions expressed by guests are their own. All content © Breakthrough Change Management Ltd.

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email [email protected]

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