Real Confidence

I like to work. I work really hard, often ridiculous hours and yes, I like to earn money but I also do it because I know this confidence work really matters. When someone reappears in my life after hearing me speak 10 years ago and tells me how their life changed because of work we do at the Institute, it makes every late night and weekend concretely worthwhile.

But I didn’t really expect one of those talks to lead to an invitation from L’Oreal’s IT Cosmetics team asking if I’d be their spokesperson. And my reaction? I was like, “You sure? You want me? Really?”

I’m 57 years old, kinda fat and here one of the most recognized cosmetics brands in the world is telling me directly that “I’m worth it.”

I don’t even know how to describe what was going on in my head because I was utterly shocked with feeling both doubtful and deserving at the same time.

And when I tell you that it was NOT Impostor Syndrome, you might not believe me because everything gets that label stuck on it these days and that is just WRONG.

So I’m going to clear up this impostor nonsense by way of telling you a little about the journey with L’Oreal and IT Cosmetics. Because in hindsight, there are a lot of things I think you can draw on when you’ve got an exciting, but perhaps, surprising or even scary, opportunity in front of you.

And well, my team here at ACI they kept saying, tell the podcast audience, tell your fans and friends. They all played a part in making the now one-year old IT Cosmetics’ Confidence at Work launch a success. I’m not about to let at least those truly awesome people down!  From the bottom of my almost-58-year-old heart, thank you ACI team and thank you for tuning in to another Real Confidence episode!

We talk about fitness like it has a capital F, like it’s one clear, well-defined state of being (or looking) that we all need to strive for.

Not only is that BS, but it’s also a surefire way to make increasing your fitness level so out of reach, so unattainable that the idea of taking control of it sounds exhausting.

I'll use my selfish self here as the poster child because going up stairs? It annoys me that my knees hurt. It pisses me off that I can’t. When my husband and I went to Greece last summer, I was huffing and puffing going up all the stairs there and part of me was like, “This is ridiculous” but the other, less confident part of me was right there, ready with the compassionate excuse of “We’ll, you’re not so young anymore.”

Well, you know what? Yes, I am.

And whether you’re recovering from a physical injury, noticing age-related changes in your body or just want to change the habits that see you, um, taking up more actual space in the world? Justin McClintock, Owner & Head Coach of Feel Strong Fitness is here with me to talk about his Cs of fitness and – you guessed it – one of them is confidence.

Key takeaways from our conversation include how to:

Listen, friends. Justin is amazing and he coaches online - and yes, I declared and did hire him after this interview to help ME! If you’re on Instagram you can find him @feelstrongfit (he answers all his DMs) or visit the Feel Strong Fitness website for more info or to schedule a consult. 

We make tens of thousands of decisions every day and most of them we’re not even aware are decisions. You get in the car to drive the store and you make the unconscious decision to go the way you always go. You might think that’s a habit, but a habit is just a series of decisions that collect over time.

So we know intellectually that we’re capable of making decisions, so why do our brains freak out when we’re consciously aware that we need to make one?

It doesn’t matter if it's a business decision, which house to put an offer on or what shoes to buy, when it comes to deciding, it’s like we forget we’re smart, capable human beings.

And that’s exactly what we do. When the amygdala takes over, we forget that a) we are capable of gathering the information we need to make a confident decision and b) that no decision we make will ever come with a 100% success guarantee.

That’s where the concept of opportunity cost, which I first learned about in business school, can be a lifesaver because with every decision we make, we’re trading some things for other – time, money, skills, access, materials.

Understanding opportunity cost – and how to apply it - helps you look at your pool of resources, whatever they are, and get closer to the best possible, most confident decision, faster.

And if you think decision making, with or without applying the concept of opportunity cost, happens only in your head, think again. Your body contains a kind of second brain that also provides valuable information when your amygdala is wigging out and you don't know which way to turn.

Want to know more? Click through to listen. That’s one confident decision you can make right now.

You wouldn’t think so, but that bit of pleasure we experience when we knock someone down a few pegs? It’s a confidence sweet spot.

And it doesn’t matter if we do it in an obvious way or a passive aggressive way, the underlying reason is the same: part of us is envious of the other person’s success and believes if we can bring them down to our level, we’ll feel better about ourselves.

While this behavior can go by any number of names, my guest on this episode of the podcast was introduced to it firsthand when he was working in Australia and it happened to him. Colleagues who saw him as “tall poppy” cut him down in stature as their way of limiting his – and equalizing the group’s – success.

My guest was so fascinated by this, that ultimately, he wrote an entire book about it. Listen as Dr. Doug Garland and I talk about the inspiration for The Tall Poppy Syndrome: The Joy of Cutting Others Down.

Highlights from our conversation include:

Douglas Garland, M.D. and author of The Tall Poppy Syndrome: The Joy of Cutting Others Down, practiced orthopedic surgery for 37 years in Southern California. In addition to serving as Medical Director of their total joint service at his local hospital for five years, he served as chief of four service units including spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury. Doug was also a Clinical Professor of Orthopedics at the University of Southern California. You can learn more about Doug and his book at douggarland.com.

If money keeps you up at night, you’re not alone. In fact, I’m keeping you company! Most of us have an origin story around money and not all those stories are good. Some of them are downright the stuff of nightmares, maybe even PTSD. 

Whether your mindset around money is one of abundance or scarcity, you may see money as symbol of security or greed. Maybe you’d rather have a root canal than get up close and personal with your finances. One thing we all have in common: money is one thing that has the power to challenge everyone’s confidence.

I promise this is true: your networth reflects your self worth - NOT the other way around.

I’ve invited financial coach Leah Ellis onto this episode of Real Confidence to help us reshape whatever our money mindset is into one that’s confident, secure and maybe a little bit joyful. 

Highlights from our conversation include:

Money mentor by day and financial coach-slash-bookkeeper by night, Leah Ellis of Endeavor Financial Coaching is all-in to help eliminate money stress in America's families and small businesses. You can find her at endeavorfinancialcoaching.com.

Let’s get one thing straight: I'm not actually against being popular. I’m against how the lure of popularity seduces our brains into saying or doing things that aren’t actually in line with our authentic values, needs and wants.

Our brains, all of them, love a good dopamine hit. Every time we get a like, share, follow or win at something and get a reward? Our brain does a little happy dance. But – and if you’ve been following my work for a while you know what’s coming – these little hits are like carbs. They give us pleasure in the moment but ultimately just leave us hungry for more.

More what? More of all the metrics culture and society tells us = being liked, accepted. Celebrated. And what all those signals tell our brains is that when we have those things, we belong.

Belonging is what we really crave. It’s what we’re hard-wired to want because our brains see safety in numbers.

But when that sense of belonging is built on falsehoods, i.e., acting or presenting ourselves in ways that aren’t who we really are, being liked stops feeling good and starts to be exhausting. 

And if people like us only for who we’re pretending to be, the idea that we won’t be liked for who we actually are is one of the biggest confidence killers I know.

So grab a cup of your favorite drink and join me as I talk about how to drown the conditioned desire to be popular with more productive thoughts.

The layoff headlines just keep on coming. My LinkedIn feed is filled with posts from people who have been let go or offering help to people who have been let go, whether it’s offers to make introductions, provide mentorship or just a safe space to kvetch. 

You work long enough, live enough years on the planet to ride the tide of economic upturns and downturns and chances are good that at some point you’re going to be shown the door through no fault of your own. 

So why does it feel so bad and why doesn’t some of the best-meaning, well-intentioned and so-called “wisdom” out there make us doubt ourselves and feel even worse?

In this episode of Real Confidence, I’m talking with Maureen Cidzik who, as it happens, is an ACI-certified Confidence Coach, heads up marketing for ACI and whom I wouldn’t know at all if she hadn’t been laid off right before the pandemic and had her own confidence rocked. 

Between the two of us, we’ve racked up enough pink slips to cover, well, a good-sized window? And not all of them hurt less than the one before – sometimes they hurt more.

Listen into our conversation on job love and loss as we talk about:

Maureen Cidzik is a Life Coach, Corporate Ex-pat and marketing consultant. If your self-help feels more like self-judgment she’s the coach for you. You can find her on the web at muddylotuscoaching.com, on Instagram @muddy.lotus.coaching or follow her on LinkedIn. 

I go on about perfectionism a lot, I know. Someone out there is probably rolling their eyes and thinking, “Alyssa, you gotta get over this.” 

My relationship with perfectionism and competition, well, it’s partly how I was raised and partly the educational and professional environments I put myself in. So needless to say, this expectation of performance, perfect performance, has been kind of drummed into me. And subsequently, I have a real dilemma with it.

I want to ask you what I’ve recently been asking myself: 

Have you ever stopped to wonder if the high bars of achievement you set for yourself are really yours? Or alternatively, if your relationship with high performance is sending a message to your family members that they’re only as good as their last win? 

Every day we send and receive signals about performance and productivity and our brains use that data to guide our decisions about education, career paths and even what we eat, where we live and how we dress.

I got to thinking about this on a recent vacation with my husband. We met another couple, both doctors, whose children were following in their footsteps. Were they proud parents? Of course. But when the wife/mother started wondering aloud what her life would have looked like if she’d chosen another path of study in life, it occurred to me that one day her children may be wondering that, too. 

Is it bad to have high standards? To be driven? Absolutely not, but where we can get into trouble is when we reach a point where nothing is “enough”, that point where we say to ourselves, “You know what? I’m badass. I did it and I did it on my terms.” 

We are perfect together when we make the decision that we – and our family members - are enough and that’s what I’m talking about in this episode of Real Confidence.

You know, despite its ups and downs, even on the really shitty days, I love my life. But it wasn’t until I sat down with Lino Martinez, author of A Little Less Fear, that I fully got what it means to love LIFE. All caps. Full stop. 

This episode of Real Confidence truly is unlike any I’ve recorded before. In our time together, Lino not only shares his incredible story of medical complexities, mental health challenges, and gender identity but we get INTO IT ALL:

Psychology.

Spirituality.

Buddhist philosophy.

Neuroscience.

Higher selves.

And of course, the nuances of fear, our relationship to it and how the experience of pain does not automatically lead to suffering. 

What does this have to do with confidence? You’ll just have to listen to find out. 

To learn more about Lino visit alittlelessfear.com where you’ll find information on his book, podcast and how to connect with him on TikTok and Instagram.

Raise your hand if you like making mistakes. Anyone? I didn’t think so. Whether we identify as perfectionists or not, no one wants to find themselves in error.

Now, mistakes come in all sizes. Sometimes the consequences are nil or maybe mildly embarrassing. Other times the cost is high, and we may be humiliated or traumatized. 

So what is it about getting something wrong that causes us to skip over the lesson while we watch our confidence go down the drain?

For starters, we like to make it about us – what we did or didn’t do – and when we do that, we forget to look at the anticipated result of our action or inaction. We get caught up in blame - maybe even shame - and we lose sight of what we can and should do with the result. 

Here’s my mantra: The only mistake is to allow a mistake to uncontrollably drive your future behavior and decisions. 

What do I mean by that? When we’re tired, cognitively depleted or stressed out, even a normally unremarkable oops activates the caveperson reaction inside each of us. Even if no one else notices the error, our brain kicks into survival mode which does not allow us to be conscientious or in control. As a result, we respond harshly, make rash judgements, act passively-aggressive or take out our failure in uncompassionate, inconsiderate and undeserving ways.  We wind up treating ourselves and others unfairly and then add a bonus of regret.

And this accrues so that the next time we need to make a decision, our confidence gets kicked just by remembering that we messed up last time.

That’s why I’m pulling from my own personal library of gaffes and, in this episode of Real Confidence, share how I finally figured out a way to more productively - and actually confidently - deal with failure.