Busting Confidence Myths: 8 Truths to Empower Your Life

Most of you don't actually lack confidence. You don't. You just might not understand what real confidence is. So today, I'm gonna break down eight of the biggest myths surrounding confidence. And I'm gonna show you how you can use this knowledge to your own advantage, to grow your confidence and to be more successful in life.

Hey everybody, I'm Art. I'm a former founder. And by all accounts, I'm probably one of the most confident people that you will ever meet. But don't let that fool you. I've seen the other side. I've lived without confidence. I've had my businesses fail, I have seen so many rejections, and I've had to rebuild my confidence a number of times throughout my life. And the way that I've done it each and every time is I've just reminded myself of these eight things. And for me, all of them are effective. Number five tends to work really well for me, but I'm going to go through all of them one by one to make sure that you find the tips that work best for you, the myths that you're believing, and the real truth behind it.

Every single person fails. Failure is not even the right word for it. Failure would be something that's permanent. But 99.9% of the time, the thing that you're actually afraid of isn't a true failure. It's something that may just not go according to plan. And it's true for me too. Anytime that I'm scared, I just ask myself, and you could do the same thing, what's the worst that could possibly happen? And the answer is usually something pretty trivial. They might say, no, I might not get a call back. Maybe I'll be a little embarrassed, but that's not actually a failure. That's just trying something, having it not work out, learning from it, learning what works and what doesn't work. So learn to embrace that. Understand that confidence comes from learning and learning happens when you actually try something. So not only will you build confidence from the new things that you've learned, you'll also grow confidence from knowing that you're someone who is willing to try and willing to experiment. That is something that is rare and special and something that you should be proud of and feel confident about.

Listen, this might work for some people, but personally, I have my doubts. Looking into the mirror and saying, I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dogged on it, people like me. Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me. Probably isn't going to instantly give you the confidence that you want. If it does, more power to you. But more than likely, the reason that you're doing it in the first place is because subconsciously you don't actually believe it. That's why you need to think about the stories you tell about yourself in passing. Those are the stories that you actually want to change. You may not realize it immediately, but every single time you recount your childhood experiences or the past work things that you've done or failed at, you're shaping how you see yourself and how others see you. For me, I always tell people about how things just always seem to work out for me or about how luck follows me around no matter where I am. And do you know what? Even if I'm in the midst of a huge losing streak, I still believe those things to be true and I derive confidence from it. You should try it yourself. Just think about the stories you tell, change them, and really quickly you'll realize that you have a new belief in yourself. You get to pick these stories anyway. You get to choose the stories you tell about yourself when someone says, tell me about your childhood, tell me about your last job. So why not pick the good ones and start believing them?

This one couldn't be further from the truth. No one can avoid rejection. It comes for all of us at any time. And confidence isn't about avoiding it. Confidence is about seeking it out and being able to keep moving forward when it actually happens to you. I probably shouldn't tell this story, but

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Most of you don't actually lack confidence. You don't. You just might not understand
what real confidence is.
So today, I'm gonna break down eight of the biggest myths surrounding confidence.
And I'm gonna show you how you can use this knowledge to your own advantage,
to grow your confidence and to be more successful in life.
Hey everybody, I'm Art. I'm a former founder. And by all accounts,

(00:22):
I'm probably one of the most confident people that you will ever meet.
But don't let that fool you. I've seen the other side.
I've lived without confidence. I've had my businesses fail, I have seen so many
rejections, and I've had to rebuild my confidence a number of times throughout my life.
And the way that I've done it each and every time is I've just reminded myself
of these eight things. And for me, all of them are effective.
Number five tends to work really well for me, but I'm going to go through all

(00:45):
of them one by one to make sure that you find the tips that work best for you,
the myths that you're believing, and the real truth behind it.
The majority of people that you meet at work or in life, they just aren't that smart.
Honestly, they're not. Most people are idiots. The reason that they moved up,
the reason they got promoted or that they succeeded wasn't because of their

(01:07):
greatness or because they were an expert at something.
It was because they just had the blind confidence to go for it.
And I know that because I'm one of those people. I'm not an idiot.
I'm not actually an expert at anything. I'm a generalist. So while everybody
else around me was working to become an expert in something,
to become the best software developer or the best marketer, I was just the guy

(01:27):
who raised his hand and said, yeah, I'll do it. I'll try.
And sure, it takes a certain willingness to fail to be able to do that.
And that's a myth we're going to talk about in a little bit.
But the key here to remember is that you don't need to be an expert to be confident.
You just have to be willing to try new things, to be the person who says,
I've never done that before, but I'm willing to give it a shot.
And if you do, your confidence will grow along with your experience.

(01:54):
Everybody, every single person is insecure about something.
Believe me, I've had the privilege to spend time with other founders,
with CEOs, professional athletes, and even motivational speakers.
And when you get past their public personas, you realize that they're just like
you. They're just regular people.
Sure, they might be confident in certain aspects of their lives,
but take them out of their comfort zone, take them to a club or a bar,

(02:16):
make them give a speech without a teleprompter.
And really quickly, they become just like everybody else. They become shy.
They become uncertain of themselves and self-conscious. The next time that you're
feeling insecure, just remember that.
Remember that insecurity is a universal experience and make sure that you're
not expecting a level of perfection from yourself that doesn't exist in anybody else.

(02:38):
What you should actually be shooting for is just a belief that eventually you'll
figure it out and that things probably will work out okay.
And if you need more proof, then the next time that you're feeling insecure,
just tell someone that's around you.
I do it all the time. Whenever I'm at a conference or an event and I'm feeling
a little shy, a little less confident than usual, I tell someone.

(02:59):
And when I do, they end up telling me about something they're anxious about
about their own insecurities and it bonds us because we realize that absolutely
no one ever in the world is a hundred percent confident 100 of the time it just doesn't exist.
Real confidence, the type of confidence you want to aspire towards is about

(03:22):
taking action when you have absolutely no idea what you're doing.
Seriously, just use me as an example. I was the co-founder of a startup a few
years ago and I went from being just one of two employees to leading a team
of over a hundred people in under two years.
I didn't know what I was doing. I was learning on my feet and I was totally making it up as I went.
But if you were one of the people that joined later

(03:44):
on one of the 80th or 90th hires that
we made you probably would have believed that i was there because i knew
exactly what to do and i was there because of my experience and knowledge but
i wasn't it was just a mirage so don't worry about always knowing the answer
you won't real confidence isn't knowing ahead of time it's believing in yourself

(04:05):
and believing that with enough time you'll figure it out.
Every single person fails. Failure is not even the right word for it.
Failure would be something that's permanent.
But 99.9% of the time, the thing that you're actually afraid of isn't a true failure.
It's something that may just not go according to plan.

(04:25):
And it's true for me too. Anytime that I'm scared, I just ask myself,
and you could do the same thing, what's the worst that could possibly happen?
And the answer is is usually something pretty trivial.
They might say, no, I might not get a call back. Maybe I'll be a little embarrassed,
but that's not actually a failure.
That's just trying something, having it not work out, learning from it,
learning what works and what doesn't work. So learn to embrace that.

(04:50):
Understand that confidence comes from learning and learning happens when you
actually try something.
So not only will you build confidence from the new things that you've learned,
You'll also grow confidence from knowing that you're someone who is willing
to try and willing to experiment.
That is something that is rare and special and something that you should be

(05:13):
proud of and feel confident about.
Listen, this might work for some people, but personally, I have my doubts.
Looking into the mirror and saying,
I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and dogged on it, people like me.
Because I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.

(05:34):
Probably isn't going to instantly give you the confidence that you want.
If it does, more power to you. But more than likely, the reason that you're
doing it in the first place is because subconsciously you don't actually believe it.
That's why you need to think about the stories you tell about yourself in passing.
Those are the stories that you actually want to change.
You may not realize it immediately, but every single time you recount your childhood

(05:56):
experiences or the past work things that you've done or failed at,
you're shaping how you see yourself and how others see you.
For me, I always tell people about how things just always seem to work out for
me or about how luck follows me around no matter where I am. And do you know what?
Even if I'm in the midst of a huge losing streak, I still believe those things
to be true and I derive confidence from it. You should try it yourself.

(06:18):
Just think about the stories you tell, change them, and really quickly you'll
realize that you have a new belief in yourself.
You get to pick these stories anyway. You get to choose the stories you tell
about yourself when someone says, tell me about your childhood,
tell me about your last job.
So why not pick the good ones and start believing them?

(06:41):
This one couldn't be further from the truth. No one can avoid rejection.
It comes for all of us at any time.
And confidence isn't about avoiding it. Confidence is about seeking it out and
being able to keep moving forward when it actually happens to you.
I probably shouldn't tell this story, but we're friends at this point.
So here goes. When I was in college, I helped run the orientation for all the incoming freshmen.

(07:04):
And to this day, I still remember watching a young guy, a guy that wasn't particularly
handsome or didn't seem cool in any discernible way, work his way through a
nightclub asking every single woman that he saw if they wanted to dance.
He was rejected at least 20 straight times before he got a single yes.
Now that is a massive, amazing amount of confidence. And if it's not confidence,

(07:26):
then it's just really, really good understanding of math and probability.
And the reason that I tell that story, the reason it sticks with me all these
years later is because it reminds me that people are going to say no to you.
They're going to say no to you for the job you want, no to your advances,
no to you asking them to help you move.
But that doesn't mean that you should avoid life and trying things because of it.
You just have to accept that you're going to get some no's and be confident

(07:49):
that eventually you'll get a yes.
Confidence is never about what other people say or think about you.
It's about how you feel about yourself.
Just think about my guy, the guy that was asking out every single person that he saw.
It didn't matter what we were saying about him. It didn't matter what we thought
about them. He was confident that eventually he'd get a yes.

(08:10):
In fact, for me, I'm less confident when the people around me are saying positive
things. When they're saying, you've got this, you're going to do a great job.
I get in my head. I start worrying that I'm going to disappoint the people around me.
So I try not to do that. I try to focus on my real confidence,
the things that I believe about myself.
And you could do the same thing. What you should do is set personal goals and

(08:30):
measure yourself against those, not against the opinions of others.
Just start looking back at the things that you've done well,
about your unique quirks and passions, about the things that you've accomplished,
the things you care about.
And eventually you'll find the things that you're good at, anything, and then lean into that.
Let that carry you forward. Let that be the thing that drives you to try new things.

(08:52):
And when you do, you'll discover even more things that you're good at and your
confidence will grow on top of confidence. It's that easy.
People want to believe that confidence is some innate quality,
something that we're born with, but it's not.
It's something that is and can be built up over time.
Not only that, but it's something that if you want to, you can just decide to have.

(09:16):
Honestly, every single one of us has met someone with blind, unfounded confidence.
I'm not saying that that's how we should all be, but if there's people,
people that you know aren't special or attractive or smart
in any way whatsoever if they're walking around
thinking that they're the greatest thing the world has ever seen well
then clearly confidence can be a choice you

(09:37):
just have to forget about what other people think and you have to figure out what
it is that makes you special where your confidence comes from
and lean into that and you can do
that by just understanding all of the myths that
i just went through honestly if you need to go back and watch them again
because sometimes videos like this come off as trivial the
first time but when you listen again you'll identify the

(09:59):
myths that you've been believing the ones that you should
take an action to replace with the truth and then
once you've done that once you're ready to move forward with a little bit more
confidence when you're ready to take the next step to try to go for something
bigger in your life well then communicating your ideas becomes extremely important
so if that's you then i recommend you watch this video now because Because this

(10:21):
video will show you how to frame every single conversation you have in a confident,
productive way to make the people around you want to support you better,
even follow you, no matter what it is you're trying to accomplish.