#22: Stuck in Self-Doubt? How to Lead with Lasting Confidence

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dawn:  Recording.

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We are, we are  absolutely going to come face to face. Insecurity. It's easy to get stuck trying to prove ourselves instead of leading from confidence. And that's where for us, one of our core tools, the EQ matrix comes in, especially as it relates to self-awareness. The more we name what's driving us, the more power we have to shift it.

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Right? Yeah. Easy. If we wanna stay stuck, if we wanna stay comfortable, we probably could protect ourselves most of the time  from experiencing insecurity, imposter syndrome. But when we're growing and learning, this is a normal part of the experience. So let's talk about what it looks like in the moment.

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Anytime we're venturing into uncharted territory. We are bound to experience some  level of insecurity. Do I have what it takes? Am I good enough to, to get something done, or do I belong here? Whatever those key core questions are, those are gonna come up. And I think insecurity tends to hijack how we show up.

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We take, when we're leveraging conversations, we're name dropping, we're self-promoting as an attempt to make ourselves feel better. That's not serving the environment right. That is an attempt to serve our own ego,  our our own pride. To make ourselves feel safe and secure again. That's, that's, and, and it's crazy how often I'm in any environment and I can watch how people are interacting with others and you can see them taking from the other people around them.

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We start over swinging. Either way we stop leading  from authenticity and we're gonna come back to that in just a moment. 'cause what is authenticity? Right? The way we deal with imposter syndrome is by heading straight into it through the skills of honesty. Humility and self-love, which that's, you know, when we talk about self-awareness, those are the three core skills that we, we, we push our clients to learn.

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Mm-hmm. I can't guarantee that when I'm in a coaching session that I'm gonna have what I need in that moment to unlock or help somebody solve a problem. Right. But we can control. Who we show up as and what we bring to the table. Yes. And so, you know, a  key point for our, for our listeners, and again, I'm probably preaching to myself more than anything else, is that the danger of this conversation is not insecurity.

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dawn: draws us away from ourselves, right? That, that need to connect with ourselves. And it draws us away from connecting with others who can really help us leverage some  truth about ourselves when we need it most.

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eric: Yeah, yeah. When, when our sense of identity, who am I, my, my, my personal self worth, my value  when it is.

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I, you know, it's a treadmill. It's a never ending kind of, uh, journey to overcome those insecurities that we feel internally when, when actually, I think we get off the treadmill when we realize that our performance is a reflection of who we are today, but not a reflection of our value today. Right. So like we, it, it may be a reflection of skills that we've developed, may be a reflection of things that we have or have not learned.

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eric: And so now I'm pretending, now I'm putting on a facade.  Now I'm trying to project an image of myself that is disconnected from reality.

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I practice honesty, humility, and self-love. Mm-hmm. Which sounds a little bit like this.  Honesty is having an accurate assessment. Of who I am today and what I bring to the table today. In other words, an honest and accurate assessment of my best bits and my worst bits. My strengths and my weaknesses are what we often call our gold and our dirt.

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I can't be who others wish I was. And so embracing and accepting this is who I am today, and that, that's where we talk about playing our cards and letting the chips fall where they may, right? This is who I am. I'm gonna bring the best of what I have, but I also  understand that the cards I play today may not be quote unquote a green hand.

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What is there to learn? How can I grow and develop and become a better version of me tomorrow than I am today? And so these  three working together, honesty, humility, and self-love. Is how we press into insecurity that allows us to overcome the fears and, and temptations that get us derailed into either gutter, overcompensation, or shrinking back.

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We  notice what's happening and then we move through it, right? And so talk to us maybe about how do we then, once we've done the noticing, the honesty, the self-love, the humility, how do we move ourselves? Through that.

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dawn: I love that. I love that. So, I wanna start with stories because I have one that just happened yesterday and I was telling you, Eric, before we hopped on, that it's maybe my single greatest achievement in  life. Certainly in motherhood. So I have a 13-year-old daughter, which if any of you out there have or have had 13-year-old daughters it's, uh, it's a jungle out there, folks.

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My daughter goes, so, you know, what's kind of cool is that my friends have been asking me this week they were, they have a text group, you know, how, how are you so confident? They, so her, my daughter's friends were asking her, how is she so confident and. Just a little backstory. I  was a very unconfident child and teenager.

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And she  said, I. The reality is if you love yourself, if you know who you are and you feel good about it, then it really doesn't matter all that much what somebody else has to say about it. And I was like, yeah. Yes, that's right. And. Again, this was just one of those off the cuff moments that I've been reflecting on in the past 24 hours.

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Taking moments of really nurturing yourself, doing that, that sifting of Yeah. You know, here's where I am and here's where I'm not and that's okay. And then practicing self love.  And from a parenting perspective perspective, I am like, did we unlock some type of cheat code here?

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eric: Ugh. Yeah. That's, that's, that's a powerful story. It reminds me of this, of  something we talk a lot about with our clients, which is. We don't realize how much we're living an outside in life versus an inside out life. And what I mean by that is too often we're looking to the world around us.

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Regardless of what the world around us is feeding back to us where we establish within ourselves an accurate understanding of who we are, our gold, our dirt,  that we accept those, that practice of honesty and humility. You know, I, I, it was a powerful thing in my life when I learned, that there's nobody's opinion on planet Earth As an adult, I'd say it.

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Or circumstances. And then it undermines my understanding and my view of myself. That's right. And so our, our ability to operate out of confidence and courage, I believe stems from the clarity, the, the, the accuracy with which we see ourselves. That's right. And that we are able to make peace with ourselves and practice that  self-love, which is not this ooey, gooey.

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When you can, when you do it, you become the most attractive person in  the room. Yeah, and I, Brene Brown says it this way, and this is like a life credo for me. It is more important what your life feels like from the inside than what it looks like from the outside.

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In the transition went from being his own boss to now having a boss from running a company to being an employee in a company. Yeah. From being the one who got to determine and create and shape the culture to now  having to adopt and embrace and acclimate to a new culture's. So many, I mean, even.

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Of insecurity. Yeah. And then obviously as the parent company now is looking into the finances and the  infrastructure and the supply chain realities and how this business has been run. Mm-hmm. And they're finding chinks in the armor again, exposing, you know, his deficiencies as a leader over the previous years.

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And it was amazing to me. But  not uncommon. I'm sure our listeners can relate to this, how often he struggled to give himself credit for all the great things he did as a leader of this organization. All the battles he went through, all the victories, they won, all the breakthroughs that they achieved.

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If you're willing to practice self-love, you're willing to learn. You're willing to fail forward because that's all we have as human beings. That's right. That's all we have is who we are today for better, for worse, and an opportunity to become a better version of ourselves, and that is what drives confidence.

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So now I just have freedom  to celebrate what I have and to grow and develop in the areas that I'm deficient.

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dawn: Where I am not defined by what I consider my, in my failings, my deficiencies, and I'm not, as you say, over swinging o in the areas that I feel  confident in. Yeah.

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Yeah. And confidence. It, like you said, it's, it's not only attractive to other people.  But it stands out. It gives you a competitive advantage in any context, which is amazing. So for, for our listeners, just practically speaking, yeah. What can we do today? I would recommend just. Try to identify one area of your life where you're showing up and you know, you feel insecurity or imposter syndrome, or some temptation to shrink back or overcompensate.

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And if you can't name stuff on both sides, this is where we get to. Find trusted friends, allies, mentors, significant others, to say, Hey, can you help me identify the gold and dirt that I may be  bringing to this situation? And then to practice humility, which is to celebrate the gold. To know what we bring to the table, but to recognize the dirt and to acknowledge that those are areas of deficiency or that require growth.

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dawn: Work then becomes learning how to lead  ourselves through it, as you said, with the right tools, with the right support, and with the clarity that then helps us grow instead of be defined by our deficiencies and spiral.

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That's, that's an inside out life. Mm-hmm. And so I do think it's worth just considering this, like reframing of success is that every day I'm becoming a better version of myself versus did I accomplish this? Did I achieve this? Did I get the performance outcomes that I was looking for?  Those matter. But those are simply indicators of what's going on internally.

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And next week we're gonna be diving into the weight of leadership and there is a significant weight to leadership and what to do when it feels like we're carrying it all  alone. Till next time.