SUMMARY

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

 

FULL TRANSCRIPT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of The Brendon Show. Please note that this episode, like all TBS episodes, features Brendon speaking extemporaneously–he is unscripted and unedited. Filmed in one take, The Brendon Show has become one of the most viewed unscripted, direct-to-camera self-help series in the history of YouTube. It has also been the #1 Podcast in all of iTunes and is regularly in the top podcasts in Self-Help and Health categories around the globe. Subscribe to the free motivational podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.)

Today it’s about you. So let’s start with this definition of confidence.

Confidence is your belief in your ability to figure things out.

Now, often you cheat yourself because you think, “Well no, confidence is: I’ve done everything I need to do in the world and I have all the successes, and I’m on the cover of magazines, and I’m rich.” And we tell ourselves “I’ll have confidence when…” But if you’re going to change your life you need to right now adopt a more confident mindset and say, “You know what? I don’t have to know everything in the room. I don’t want to be the most successful person on the block. What I need to do is believe in myself and believe in my ability to figure things out. Give me enough time, energy, resources, mentorship, study, I can achieve my dreams.” That’s where it really begins. Belief in our ability to figure things out.

Now, of course, at a deep psychological level we know that confidence is all about your sense of worth, your sense of capability or ability to do things, and your belief also in not only yourself, but your future.

And let me say those couple of things too: worth, ability, future. If you don’t believe you’re worth anything, obviously your confidence isn’t there. If you don’t believe you’re able to go do anything, obviously your confidence isn’t there. Psychologists often call this self-efficacy. You just don’t feel like you can be efficacious or be a person who gets things done in the world because you don’t believe in your ability.

And last, confidence has a lot to do with your perception of where you’ll be in the future. If you think you’re going to be broke and a loser in the future, obviously you’re not going to go for it today, right? If you see yourself as lonely and an outcast in the future, you’re obviously not going to walk up to her or him and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” And so these are big topics, your worth, your sense of worth.

Today we’re going to really dive in there. Your abilities, we’ll dive in there. And most importantly, what’s your future going to be about? So here’s how I’m going to cover that today, by talking about three big categories. I can try to give you confident energy and we can have a good time here, but I need you to do work. If you’re really going to improve your life, don’t be surprised that it’s going to take some work. And that’s what we’re here to do.

I always tell people when you knock on the door of your dreams, don’t be surprised that it is work who answers.

So let’s talk about those three big ideas. First big idea. These are foundational places where we’re going to get you more confidence. There are three big areas we can get you more confidence.

Number one, self-awareness.
Number two, ambition, seeing your future again in a big way.
Number three, action, because with momentum develops a better confident mindset.

We often think, “Well when I change my thoughts then my whole life will change.” It’s like, no.

We have to immediately start taking action because as we get more progress in life or more momentum in life, even if we are not confident, our confidence will grow.

1. Self-Awareness

So let’s talk about these three areas. Number one, awareness. This is so critical. Listen, I think that what happens is you sometimes fail to be as aware as you could about how far you’ve come. You know, you forget sometimes where you started. Sometimes you forget all the obstacles you’ve overcome. And so you never really integrated the wins into your body, and your mind, and your identity. You had some wins. You did good in that relationship. You did good at that test. You did good at that business. You did good on that day. You made that sales call. You helped that person.

But you do all these actions and you never change the perception of yourself. You just held on to like, “Well, my identity is who I was as a child, or what my parents told me, or what these people told me.” And it’s been shaped by other people versus you giving yourself credit when you do things. And you’ve overcome a lot of obstacles. But you overcame them and you were just like, “Oh, well what’s the next obstacle?” And you were reacting to go onto the next one or chasing the next one, but you never integrated confidence.

I mean, I’ve worked with major olympians, major CEOs, super celebrities on covers of magazines, and guess what? These people sometimes lack confidence, even though they’ve achieved so much. Yes, they achieved things. They overcame things. They helped people. And yet they never stopped and said, you know what? Let me tap that into my identity a little bit. Let me allow myself to feel that credit. Let me appreciate myself and how hard it was to overcome these things or even just to survive today.

Because once you start acknowledging, having awareness to the struggles that you’ve had in your life and you still survived, and you’re still here, and you still want to help people, and you still want to be good, and you still want to love, and you still want to build, give yourself credit for that. Give yourself credit for being here.

I’m so confident today shooting a video with you ’cause I can remember the tens of thousands of other videos I shot. I know how far I came. I’m like, I’m getting better at this every day. Let’s just keep going. Let’s just keep working towards this. And I think that’s important that you’ve overcome a lot of struggles. I overcame bankruptcy. I overcame harsh judgments. I overcame growing up in a place where my mother was discriminated against. My dad was dealing with basically PTSD from being in Vietnam. I grew up in an environment that was incredibly angry and economically depressed. And now I’m living in my dream place. Believe me. I only got here because I gave myself credit every time I overcame those things. I overcame a harsh childhood. I overcame bankruptcy. I overcame failure. I overcame people making fun of me. And all those things were usually—those things happen to you and you get discouraged, I say, “I’m still alive. Good job, Brendon. You still showed up today. You woke up, you got to work. Good job, Brendon. Yes, maybe at the beginning, you’re not changing the world, but you’re working each day to get there. Come on, kid, good for you. You know what? Everybody else would have quit. And here you are showing up, getting things done. Good for you.”

And even on those bad days where I’m not doing anything, I’m like, “Well, you know what? At least I’m still a good person. I didn’t turn to the dark side when all these people tried to pull me there.” You just have to give yourself that credit. You’ve come so far. So start with that self-awareness. What obstacles did you overcome? Also give yourself credit for what you’re good at. See, you’re good at things, but you don’t recognize you’re good at things ’cause sometimes you’re waiting to be the best in the world, or you’re waiting to be like a kaBillionaire at it. You’re good at things. People tell you you’re good at things. You know that you’re good at things, but you just think, “Maybe one day I’ll give myself credit when I’ve made it.”

If you don’t give yourself credit now, don’t fool yourself and think you will when you get external recognition.

That’s what I’m telling you. The movie stars I work with, guess what? Sometimes they never gave themselves any credit. They’re on the 10th movie, or this big entrepreneur who’s on their fifth business just sold another one, doing really great, still lacking confidence. Why? They didn’t give themselves credit. So please make sure you do that.

Self-awareness, being aware of what you’re good at and giving yourself credit for how far you came, is a foundational element to confidence.

And you need to do that every time you go into a new situation. Even if you don’t know the situation, even if you don’t know how it’s going to go. Go be like, “Well, I survived all that. I can handle this.” You’re scared to go to a networking party tonight? You survived your childhood. If you survived your childhood, you can handle a few trips to the punchbowl and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” So give yourself a little credit here my friend, you can handle this.

2. Ambitions

The second big idea, I really want you to focus on is your ambitions.

Often when we really lose confidence, we’ve really lost sight of the future.

You know, we’re so trapped in today and doing things and we’re busy, and we’ve lacked that ability to really connect with the dream, to see it, to feel it, to touch it, and let the dream energize you even if you don’t feel good about yourself. There are days, I don’t feel good about myself, even today. I’m a human just like you. There are days, ugh, there’s so much going on. I messed up this thing. It’s easy to do that.

But if I detach from the future, I can guarantee my performance goes down, and I can guarantee my confidence goes down. See, part of confidence is you see yourself in the future in a good way. You see yourself in the future having good things, doing good things, feeling good things, making meaning, making a difference, having good relationships.

So here’s all I need to challenge you to do, if you would. I want you to, every morning that you wake up, every morning that you wake up for the next five days, when you wake up in the morning before you get out of bed, I want you to lay there and just visualize your life 10 years from now being great. I wanted to be a public speaker. So I would literally lay in bed in the mornings and I would just see myself on stages and I’d imagine myself speaking. It would make me sweat and get all nervous and weird because I had a lot of anxiety about that at one point in my life. I would see myself in front of video cameras on television. Even though I had a lot of anxiety and fear about it, I would force myself to see myself doing it well over and over and over. I would force myself, seeing myself, making my difference. I would force myself, seeing myself writing books. I would just visualize that every morning.

Were there mornings I didn’t believe in it? Absolutely.

But by seeing and being in the dreams in your mind, it trains your mind to be a little more confident.

Because when you understand something or see it, you get a little more confidence. Familiarity by itself can breed confidence. Think about why you’re so confident in the things that you do all the time. Like if I ask you to tie your shoe or ride a bike, you’ve done it enough times, it’s real to you, you can see it, you can imagine it, you can feel it, taste it, experience it in your mind, so you’re confident about your ability to do it. Well now, the future, we need to pull that to your mind today and start having you visualize it more. See it more, ’cause if you can see it, you can achieve it. You’ve heard that in personal development. I know you have. So that’s really important.

3. Action

And then the third big thing I want you to think about today is action.

I said at the very beginning, momentum develops the mindset. Momentum conditions the mind to confidence.

Like just moving forward every day, even in small things. If you just said, “Every day I’m going to do three things to move my life forward.” And you just did those three things every single day. “Today I’m going to do these three things to move my life forward.” It could be sending an email, calling somebody, having that prospect meeting. It could be as simple as, “I’m going to work towards this goal. I’m going to finish this presentation. I’m going to create this thing.”

Whatever it is for you, do that thing. Maybe it’s, “Oh, today I’m going to work out today. Great, you worked out. Your mind goes, “I said I was going to work out, I worked out.” You develop a little more confidence ’cause you are congruent with your intentions.

Action is what makes us congruent with our intentions.

That old thing you’ve heard me say, if you’ve been studying my work for a long time. Intention without initiative is just sorry hopes. It really is. Intention without initiative is just sorry hope. You have to apply yourself again.

And I know you already know, listen, a lot of people watching this, you’re already a confident person. Okay, what’s the next level of action that will raise you up to the next level of success? What’s the next level of action and bold decision-making that will change your life? I know you might already be a confident person. So what’s your next level action? “Well, Brendon, I already feel confident going up and talking to a person.” Great, now go up, talk to four people. Good job. “Well, Brendon, I already feel good trying to put out this message.” Great, do it again, be more vulnerable. “Oh, Brendon, I already feel good. I started my business, I built it.” Great, double the business, let’s see you do it.

So when you challenge yourself to take actions that are a little bit outside your pay grade, a little bit outside your comfort zone, and you actually follow through, congruence comes in.

And you go, “I set that intention, it was hard. I took the challenge and I made it happen.” That’s it. It’s really truly it.