What's on Your Bookshelf?
“What’s On Your Bookshelf” is a personal and professional growth podcast exploring the intersections of passion, potential, and purpose - featuring multi-certified coach and leadership development consultant Denise R. Russo alongside Sam Powell, Zach Elliott, Tom Schweizer, Dennis LaRue, and Michelle King.
What's on Your Bookshelf?
105 - Five Bold Choices: Rise above Your Circumstances and Redefine Your Life - Chapter 4: Confidence
Have you ever wondered if your perception of confidence is truly aligned with reality? Join us as we unravel the intricacies of confidence, perspective, and humility in this engaging episode of "What's on Your Bookshelf." We draw inspiration from "The Five Bold Choices" by Jay Coughlin and Larry Julian, focusing on the fourth bold choice: redefining confidence. Through a tapestry of personal stories and memorable anecdotes, including a charming video of a confident little girl, we explore how our views on confidence evolve from childhood into adulthood.
Our discussion takes a deep dive into the subjective nature of truth and reality, as highlighted by Mo Gawdat in "Solve for Happy." With a focus on openness and humility, we share how confidence can be a powerful tool in leadership when balanced correctly. Personal anecdotes, including insights from legendary coach John Wooden, illustrate how internal development can lead to practical success and more effective leadership. We argue that acknowledging multiple truths and perspectives fosters a humility that complements true confidence.
In our final discussion, we explore the transformative power of accountability and support systems in building confidence. Through the stories of individuals who have conquered self-doubt with the help of accountability partners and coaches, we illustrate how confidence can be cultivated as a learnable skill. As hosts, Sam Powell and Denise Russo, we encourage you to reflect on your own experiences and consider the impact these insights might have on your journey. We invite you to share your "aha" moments and connect with us for further discussion, with all relevant links available in the show notes.
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Welcome to what's on your Bookshelf, with your hosts Denise Russo and Samantha Powell.
Speaker 2:Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of what's on your Bookshelf. This is a life and leadership podcast where we are living out loud the pages of the books that are on our bookshelves. My name is Denise Russo and I'm here today once again with my friend and co-host, sam Powell. We are discussing a book called the Five Bold Choices. This book is by Jay Coughlin and Larry Julian, and we are all the way now to the fourth bold choice, and I'm confident that this is going to be a great time together over the next 30 minutes. Sam, how are you doing today?
Speaker 1:together over the next 30 minutes. Sam, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. I feel like we learned how to think about being adaptable last week and this week, moving right into confidence. So I am very excited to talk about this with you, and I think that they, the authors, really define confidence in a little bit different of a way than I think. Maybe I had thought about it before, so I'm definitely excited to dive right in. But yeah, so they confidence, and then the subtitle for this bold choice. Number four is keeping your thoughts in proper perspective. So what did you think as we started this chapter?
Speaker 2:Well, I was thinking about the word perspective and how the things that we see may not always be the things that we see. Have you ever driven in the car and noticed that there's little words on the rear view mirror or on the side view mirrors that say objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear, or something like that? So that's one perspective. The other perspective is have you ever seen, like those memes, where there's a person standing on one side of an object and another person is standing on the other side of the object? It's the same object, but the way they're looking at it is different. And so, really, what got me to think about this, with confidence and proper perspective? It was really around how, what you said earlier how do we define confidence as not being something that's arrogant, but something that is grounded, and how do we have the perspective of how confidence is a choice, a bold choice into whatever it is that we want in our life or our leadership?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that confidence is such an important thing, and I think that sometimes we do. Some people will try to shy away from it, right, because they don't want to be in that arrogant sphere. And then some people are overconfident, like I watch my nine-year-old often be overconfident with some of his choices and I think, oh, like, do I stop him or do I just let this one have some natural consequences? So it's, you know, I think it's such a balancing act when it comes to confidence of you know, where's that sweet spot, Where's that just right, and I believe in myself, but not to a fault, right, like, not to the point where I, you know, doing things I shouldn't be doing because I'm thinking I'm right and there's no other way, or I'm, you know, this is the way to do it.
Speaker 1:And it's, you know, maybe maybe not, but it's interesting because they define this book. In this book, they define confidence as keeping things in proper perspective, knowing the truth and being prepared. So I keep like thinking about that as confidence is knowing the truth and being prepared, and that's just such an interesting way to think about this For me. I don't know, like, when you read that, what, what was going through your mind?
Speaker 2:Did you ever see the video? It's probably years ago now and there was this little girl standing on her sink in her bathroom and she was like I'm amazing and you're gonna have a great day and you're awesome I love that little video because I was like man, she's bold, that little girl is bold and she believes it, and I was thinking to myself when I watched that video.
Speaker 2:I hope she never loses that little spark. And what it got me thinking in here is what have I done in my life to prepare myself? That? That was my truth when I was a little girl as well. Has that ever dwindled or faded or twisted? Of course, yes, as we get older. But it really struck me with what you were just saying, as far as how he moves from going into being prepared to whatever truth actually is, because there is a truth that sometimes we disguise as a lie, meaning in the first part of the chapter he's talking about how he was getting ready to publish his book, and so I know this feeling because I had a similar feeling when I was getting ready to publish my book 12 days.
Speaker 2:When I got ready to publish the book the night before I uploaded it into Amazon, the first thing that went through my mind was not you're going to be awesome, and you're going to be a bestseller and you're going to be great. It was who's ever going to read this? How many spelling mistakes did I miss. What if nobody buys it? Like those were the things my head was saying.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until two weeks later that a friend of mine called me up and she said congratulations. And I and I was like, oh, thank you, you know, I appreciate that. She said no, you don't know, do you? And I was like what are you talking about? So she said let's do a quick zoom meeting, so we get on the webcam. And she opened up the page and she said Denise, your book has been on the bestseller list as the number one new release for the last two weeks.
Speaker 2:And I had no idea. And so think about how different my experience might have been if I had gone into it saying you know what People do want to read this, this is going to add value. And it's the same way even with the podcast. Right, like when we did our very first episode, I think we all thought is anybody going to even listen to this, or is it just going to be us listening to this? And so, week after week, when Scott gives us our data, it's so encouraging. Not because we want likes and shares, it's not that. It's just the affirmation that what we're doing is helping us and maybe it's helping other people as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And I think that you know how many different decisions would you make if you could step into something with the confidence that like this will be a success. I had a follow to coach. He was like a coach of coaches, but one of his big things was like success is inevitable if you're willing to put in the work. And I just like I wrote it down on a post-it note of, like success is inevitable. I was like it's up on my desk, I can look at it right now. And it's that thought process of being confident enough to know that, like success can be inevitable if you're willing to put the work in right. The only thing you don't know about it is like when will that happen right? When will the success come? But if you're confident that it can and it will and you're open to learning and things like that, then it really you know it can, it can find you quite, you know quite easily. But I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 1:One of the things I thought about when I was thinking about the the truth part of this right knowing the truth and being prepared. The thing that went through my head was Mo God at solve for happy, and we spent, I think, a whole chapter on truth and I and one of the things that he explored in that is I think it was one of the, or he had a bunch of different truths, I think. But it was this idea that, like your truth and my truth right, like your reality, my reality are different. Like there's there's no one reality, there's no one truth. It all comes down to perspective right At the end of the day, like so putting things in proper perspective. But I think that, like thinking about it through this lens that, like Mo taught us about, there's not one one truth. Here there's not one reality. Here there's the reality that you experience, the reality I experience, reality this person experiences, and that person's experiences right, and my dad's always said right, the truth is always somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1:It's never what you think or I think it's somewhere along that spectrum um, you know, of our, our perspectives and things that come along. And so when I think about it that way and I think about confidence in that context, it makes me, it makes it easier to stay humble. I think inside of context, like, instead of confidence, it really puts it in the right context to move forward. When it's like, you know, I might not be right on this, but like I'm going to be bold enough, I'm going to believe in myself enough, I'm going to believe in my abilities enough to move forward. But I'm going to stay open to listening, to learning, to figuring out what's going on, to reading the room to understand, you know, the inputs that are coming at me, because what I think right now might not be 100% the truth, right, and so I need to be constantly seeking that, while I maintain confidence and, you know, to carry me through to my next actions.
Speaker 2:I like what you're saying about the word humility, because there's a real difference between confidence and cockiness, and I can recall in my career there was one time I had this manager and the manager was so arrogant, and it wasn't until that manager was not my manager anymore that I really stepped back and I thought to myself that arrogance came from a place of lack of confidence. And so when you're thinking about it from the lens you just said, is that if you have a humble spirit, you're going to exude confidence, not cockiness, and you're not going. And if you're an arrogant person, then you're also not leading people well, and it's a slow climb to the top of the mountain when you're going by yourself, and so that's kind of interesting to think about how to practically apply this in your own situation, whether it's in life or leadership. And one of the things that he said that I think could help anyone that's going through a hard time at work right now is that he was talking about just this being prepared before knowing the truth and what he said was that being prepared gave him the confidence to do the job that it was entrusted to him.
Speaker 2:So I was talking yesterday to someone I'm coaching and she is looking for a role that, on paper, the role could be perfect for this person, and so, as we were talking through the scenario and practicing the interview, I asked her do you feel prepared, are you confident that this role is your role? And at first she hesitated, like I would ask her questions, like in the role play, about things like tell me about a time such and such so-and-so happened, right. And her answer was always well, we did this or we did that. And I asked her hey, is the company hiring your team or is the company hiring you? Are you confident in your talent, skills and abilities to do this job right and well?
Speaker 2:We ended up having an amazing time speaking through it together, because that goes to the next part is really knowing the truth. That goes to the next part is really knowing the truth. This person, this client of mine, is absolutely superbly talented and qualified, but sometimes our confidence gets off balance when situations or circumstances happen that could or could not be caused by another human being. Oftentimes it happens in our workplace, and so I love that he paired those together. Is that be prepared, know the truth and act confidently?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that and I, um, I, I think that I mean we've talked about. I mean, if we go back to like the John Wooden book, right, Like he has a lot of quotes, a lot of things on preparedness and like you know, if you, you know, if you wait to get ready when the situation comes up, like you're, you know you're already missed the boat. Essentially. And I love, I loved, when they were talking in this section right before that they were talking about how personal transformation leads to practical application and I highlighted the very first part of that where he said leadership development is a process that works from the inside out. Personal transformation leads to practical application. But I really like think that I mean he's specifically talking about leadership development, but I think it's all. Personal growth is a process that works from the inside out. Any kind of development is something that really starts from within.
Speaker 1:So if you're trying to be prepared for something and you're trying to know the truth, there's work you've got to do on yourself first and foremost always. And I think about your story about that leader that was super arrogant. Probably no one super enjoyed working for that, those type of people, but there's, you know. But what you said right is it really probably comes down to a lack of confidence, and so they're, you know, just going to cling to I'm right, this is the way to do this, this is whatever, but in reality, that's inner work that needs done right, like. Those are the things where it's like you need to heal that part of you. You need to address that part of you. You need to work through the things and ask yourself the questions of why is it so important to me to be right, like I am absolutely a recovering, like I'm always right type of a person, and that's been a lot of work and I still get this wrong a lot. Just ask my husband of like I think that what I think is right, and it's often not to get out with, maybe kind of, but, like you know, it misses a perspective.
Speaker 1:And so there was a lot of work. I had to ask myself and a lot of like looking in the mirror of why do I cling to being right, right, why can't I let that go? Why do I need like, why do I have this need inside of me to do that right? And a lot of times it comes down to like protecting the way you feel right, like it's protecting a lack of confidence. It's protecting something that you know hurt you at some point in your life. Or you know it's just it's protecting something that you know hurt you at some point in your life, or you know it's just it's protecting a piece of you. It's getting you into what you know you've developed as a safety mechanism, but it's really not. But once you've worked through those things, once you, you know, start from within, then you really can move into these other phases of practically applying the lessons that you've learned. But you know there's just so much work you have to do on yourself first.
Speaker 2:That's a perfect segue to what he has in a whole chapter. It's called it's Not the Mountain we Conquer, but Ourselves, and I think I've said this to my kids in the past that it is being self-centered is not selfish if it's from a lens of self-awareness. I mean you can be a self-centered person and it'd be on that arrogant side. But if you center on yourself as you're looking at ways to to move yourself forward with these bold choices, then that's not a selfish act. It's actually a selfless act, because what you're doing in making you your best self is preparing yourself to show up at your best for other people. And so the author gives this quote from CS Lewis, which is a definition of humility, where he says true humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less.
Speaker 2:And it got me thinking about one of my favorite songwriters. This guy named Josh Wilson. He actually wrote a song called self less, itself, space less, and the lyrics say say that it isn't about thinking less of myself, just thinking about myself less. They say humility doesn't come easily, and I find that to be true. I've got a lot of pride, yeah, me myself and I, and I've still got some growing up to do, but if I want to find the very best life, I've got to learn to die to myself. There's freedom to be found when I stop and look around and think about someone else.
Speaker 2:And so when I thought about this chapter about conquering this mountain which is in ourself this is what we're talking about, I think last week, which is that there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom, and this is about gaining wisdom. And he says even wisdom is a two part equation. It's not just knowing the right thing to do, it's about doing the right thing. And so even when you were talking about this idea of wanting to say to Dan, you know you're right or I'm right, I do the same thing, and I think that's kind of maybe in our personality, nature, but but luckily we have people that love us, that are around us, that challenge maybe our thinking about being right on certain things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I and I think that that's it is like if you surround yourself, I think that's. I think that that's it is like if you surround yourself. I think that's. I think that's a lot of. The key to confidence is surrounding yourself with people who, one, build you up and, two, will love you.
Speaker 1:When you are in the overconfident space or in the underconfident space, right, when you're not balanced, when you're not in the right you know space of. Am I, you know, being too humble? You know to where I'm, you know not thinking enough of myself, or am I in the space where I'm thinking of myself too much, right? I think that having people around you who support you and call you on that is is just so, so, so, so very important, because sometimes it's it's hard for us to just find that confidence on our own. Sometimes you need somebody else telling you it's you know it's fine, or you've got this, or yeah, what you're feeling is totally like, been there, done that, like you know I get it, and um, and sometimes you just need that along the way until you've got those skills built up in yourself to be able to do that. You know, all the time, and I think that that's a lifelong skill that we're always sort of building in that space.
Speaker 1:But I loved the way that they and this is a Sir Edmund Hillary quote of it's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves, which is what this part of this bold choice is called, and I think that I don't know in my life experience so far. That rings very true to me. Despite the circumstances, despite the things that have happened in my life, every one of those has shined a light on an area or areas of me that I needed to work on right. It was my reaction to the events of my life. That really was the actual mountain that I was climbing. Right. That was the choice that I had to make. It was to confidently move in a direction instead of letting the circumstances run me. I had to run through the circumstances and I don't know. I loved, I love the way they pulled this together and I love that it's under confidence too, because I think that this, you know, it's not the mountain we climb. You know it's not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves really is.
Speaker 1:I think for me it's all of the bold choices here, but I love that it's inside of confidence because I think that if we know that fact of really it's not the, it's not the thing that's happening to you, it's your reaction, it's how you're dealing with it, then I think that gives us the confidence to move forward, right? It's not that you can't publish a book and become a bestselling author. Right, it's that. How are you going to handle this, regardless of when you click that button and things get published? Right, you did the work. Right, you did all those things. So, like, how do you step into confidence in that space, knowing that you know it's?
Speaker 2:it's really about you conquering yourself at the end of the day, you remember, years ago there was like this little toy that you could get at Office Depot that said that was easy. You know there's. I wish there was a little toy button that says is that true? So in other words, like, oh, I don't, I don't know if I'm going to be able to get that promotion. Is that true? I don't think I'm qualified for whatever the project is. Is that really true? I'm not going to make the team. Is that true? And if those things are true, then why can't you do those things? Like think about this.
Speaker 2:We see people that seem so unlikely to have become either massively successful in business or online. God knows there's a bunch of people online that have become very financially successful that you would never imagine would have become that way, but they believed in themselves and they were confident. But if there was a little button that just said to you, when you're second guessing and when you feel like you're having adversity or you feel like somebody has said something about you that you know just isn't exactly right to just remind yourself, is that really true? And so he goes on in this chapter before he ends this lesson in confidence by giving some examples of a guy who was questioning himself, and he goes through the questions like I'm not good at this, or I've never been good at that, and how can I really do this? And well, I've only been designed for this or that. In every case, there was a response of is that really true? And it come. It accompanies it, though, with something you said which is is a two-fold piece, one. I love your word, accountability, because if you don't have an accountability, then get one. There's got to be someone that you trust, that loves you, that's going to tell you the hard truth as well, so not just the little cheerleader standing on top of the sink in her bathroom saying you're going to be great, because sometimes the things you want to do maybe you really aren't that great at.
Speaker 2:You were telling the story about Austin, and I'm thinking to myself. There were times, definitely, that I thought to myself about Vincent, that thing I'm so happy, you're confident in it, but that's not your thing. And so luckily, we were able to get to the next thing. But there's accountability buddies, and then there's coaching, and I know we often talk about this in our episodes, but if you're listening and you've never experienced the power of having an engagement with a qualified coach. I really encourage you to look into that, sam, and I can help you. And if we can't, we know hundreds of coaches in all parts of the world that could likely help you.
Speaker 2:And this, for me, has been the game changer throughout my career, not just because I'm a coach, but because I have one. I actually have more than one, and I know you do too, sam. You have more than one, depending on the reason that you need the coach, but in every case, I can imagine thinking back to just my most recent conversations with my own coach it was me questioning something about myself, or me lacking confidence in something about myself, and every time it wasn't just that the coach said you can do it. The question was why can't you do it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that so often, like for me, it's that feeling like when I get out of confidence, like when I'm not in the right realm of confidence, I get into this like stuck feeling. It's like I just am not moving forward. I feel like I can't move forward. I feel like I just I don't know, like right, it's this feeling of like being stuck on something and having someone to talk that through with and to question the thoughts that you've got to. You know, talk this through out loud, like that. Those are the things that just unblock us and move us forward. And you know he talks about confidence as really being a skill, as he's sort of ending this and the three things he calls out is that or has three key benefits. But confidence is a skill that can be learned and developed. Confidence is like having a built-in alarm system and confidence established precedent. And so when I think about the times where, like an accountability buddy or a coach or a mentor or somebody has been helping me, it really is that right, it's building this skill of confidence that you don't know what he. You know we all went through junior high. Nobody's confident, you know, or if they are, it's all you know all bravado, but like it's, it's something that you build up over time and it's and I love the alarm system thought process of like it's telling you, um, maybe not or maybe so, like right, like it kind of helps you figure out, like where to take the right paths. But again, like it's a learned skill that comes along. And I love the.
Speaker 1:You know, I love thinking of confidence as like an alarm system, because you can just kind of trust that gut feeling a little bit and again, like, if you feel like you can't, it's a skill you can work on and you can also get some help from some friends or coaches or things like conquer.
Speaker 1:And this is a tool I use with clients all the time is, you know they're not feeling confident in an area or they're feeling stuck, and it's well. When have you been successful in the past? Tell me about a past success you're really proud of, and what were all the things that you did? And we tease all that out and by the end of it they're like oh yeah, I can actually do pretty amazing things and do pretty amazing things. And it's like all right, go forth and go do the thing you want. Then right, like you know what, and so I think that thinking about confidence in these three ways and the benefits that they bring you is is really a great, I don't know. I just liked the way he pieced that together because I found this so true in myself and in people I've helped, you know, just along the along the road of my career.
Speaker 2:I love that. That actually gives us a good ending point. Since we're out of time for today, we'll give you some reflections, friends. And so the way the author does this at the end of each of the bold choices is he challenges you to be able to take action, and that's the purpose of our podcast to live out loud the pages of the books that we're sharing, and so he actually shares in the discussion guide, similar to what you were just saying about this alarm clock idea. So if you're listening along, whether or not you have the book, here's the gist.
Speaker 2:Think about a time when you were confident in something where you had the preparation, where you had the truth behind it and you had an outcome. That was what you wanted. What was different about that? That was not maybe what you're getting in a new scenario where you feel less confident. And if you have a scenario right now where you're feeling less confident, do you have an accountability buddy? Do you have a coach? Do you have someone that you could talk with? And even if you would have none of those things and you don't want to engage with any of those things, just still write it down.
Speaker 2:What are the things when you overcame something that you lacked confidence in, and what was that like for you? What were the things you did, what were the things you thought about, what were the belief systems that you held about whatever that thing was? And then, lastly, he says just avoid the negative self-talk. It's so easy. I'm my own worst critic and I know that there's many things that I've probably created my own obstacles and hurdles for because of my own negative self-talk over situations where, if you can unblock that for yourself, you'll get so much further ahead.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. I think that's one of the biggest things to conquer. One of the biggest mountains in ourselves we conquer is how we talk to ourselves and how we build ourselves up, and it really does make such a huge difference.
Speaker 2:So, sam, what are we talking about next week?
Speaker 1:Bold choice number five. So the fifth of the five bold choices is balance, which I love. This is a topic I care a lot about. It's a topic I talk to clients a lot about, I talk to friends about, I talk to family about. Balance is such a, I think, a hot topic in our very, very busy world and in our very connected world is finding the right balance and what they say is choosing the harder right over the easier wrong. So it should be an interesting discussion next time.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to learn with you next week. Well, friends, if you're enjoying this, thanks for being here with us today. Please share and subscribe our podcast with others that could get value from it Again. The book is called the Five Bold Choices by Jay Coplin and Larry Julian Scott will have links in our show notes where you can get a copy of the book if you're looking to go deeper, and you'll also have a way to reach us directly with any thoughts that you have or things that you've overcome or aha moments. We'd love to hear those from you. My name is Denise Russo and, on behalf of my friend, sam Powell, thanks again for joining us today on another episode of what's on your Bookshelf.