How to Eliminate Self-Doubt Forever & Build Unshakeable Confidence

Hey, it's your friend, Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so thrilled about the conversation today because you're going to learn, based on research, a four-part framework to help you build unshakable self-confidence. And you're going to learn it from a globally renowned expert who has flown halfway around the world to be here in our Boston studios for one reason, to be here for you. And she is going to tell you that, based on the research, you want to know how you build unshakable confidence? Well, first, you do that by learning how to identify exactly where self-doubt is holding you back. And here's the thing about self-doubt. It is sneaky. That's why you need this four-part framework because self-doubt shows up as lots of different things. Overthinking.哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 See self doubt in an entirely new way and give you the tools to finally break it apart and build Unshakable self-confidence in its place. I am so excited for you to be a part of this extraordinary conversation Because aren't you tired a block in your own momentum? Aren't you ready to start building trust in yourself? I know you are that's exactly why you're here And you're in the right place because today you're gonna get the research the science and the tools and support To know exactly how to start showing up like the person you want to be Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast I am so thrilled for the conversation and the fact that you're here It's just an honor to be together and spend this time with you And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you I just want to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family Today's guest is one of the most sought-after experts in the world on confidence self doubt and high performance Today you and I are gonna learn all about this four-part framework that helps you build unshakable self-confidence with dr. Shadeh Zari Dr. Shadeh is a behavioral researcher and best-selling author with a PhD in organizational behavior From Monash University in Australia one of the most prestigious universities in the world She has built programs and coached leaders inside some of the biggest brands and companies in the world and more than five million People follow her online because her research back frameworks and tools help you succeed at work build self-confidence and Finally teach you how to stop allowing self-doubt from hijacking the results the happiness and the life that you are capable of building Please help me welcome dr. Shadeh Zari to the Mel Robbins podcast. Thank you so much for having me I am so excited you're here. Thank you for traveling halfway around the world to be here today And here's where I want to start your research around self-doubt building confidence Feeling worthy it is so important. We're gonna dig into it and here's where I'd like to start Could you speak directly to the person who's with us right now and tell them what might change about their life? If I take everything to heart that you're about to teach us today and I apply it to how I feel about myself If you actually apply what we're going to be exploring today your life will fundamentally change because everything will feel lighter People don't realize how insidious self-doubt is and when you're living every day And you've got the insecurity and those negative thoughts and the self-criticism and the feelings of I'm not worthy I'm not good enough. It is a weight. It makes everything more difficult It leads to so much hesitation and second guessing and missed opportunities If you can learn to recognize and you see the beauty of this work is that you don't actually have to eliminate the doubt You just have to strengthen parts of yourself that allow you to move through it And then success becomes easier Fulfillment in your relationships becomes easier happiness becomes easier and this is based on decades worth of research So it's so incredibly important and that's why I'm so excited to have this conversation with you Well, I'm excited for you to teach us some of their frameworks in your best-selling book big trust and you know in your work you work with CEOs of Fortune 500 150 CEOs in terms of who you are coaching who you were advising but the journey To doing all this research began with you having a crisis in your own confidence and Feeling like you weren't enough. So let's just start there. How did you begin this? So my journey with self-doubt is really the driver of why I do what I do because I have felt the pain over the entire course of my life I mean, I'm still shedding the doubts that I developed early on and I think if I really reflect on where it started It started really early for me. Okay, so I would have been about three four or five years old and I am part of this beautifully supportive family and every Friday night We would have dinner at my grandparents place and then after dinner There was this family tradition where the little kids would dance for everybody So I would hear Shah de Bayad bed-ah-seh, which is Shah Day is going to dance for us And you know as a young kid I loved the attention and they put on the music and it made everyone so happy What then happened though is over the years as this became just this regular thing that we did every Friday I started to feel less comfortable Doing that being the center of attention as I became a little bit more self-conscious about Who I was in my body and you know, I was maybe eight nine maybe ten But I saw how happy everyone was when I was in this position of performing for them And I didn't want to let them down So I didn't know how to say no and it was around that age that I internalized this belief that I am only of value I am only worthy when I'm making other people happy even if I'm not happy So for me that was that early life experience that instilled this sense of lack of enough And then that just kept becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy when I was at university When I started working in the legal industry when I moved into banking and finance it followed me into every meeting Every conversation every interaction. I never felt like I was good enough to be there But I've also discovered over the last five or so years as I've really deep dived into this as I was doing PhD research into this Almost every single person experiences self-doubt It is not uncommon at all and yet those who are able to truly succeed It's not that they eliminate the doubt It's that they found a way to strengthen who they are to move through it. It brings me to a question. Dr. Shade What drives self-doubt? Okay, so I have been fascinated by this question for over a decade Even before I did my PhD research I was seeing self-doubt in action in the workplace at every single level Because I genuinely believed once you become a leader once you achieve a certain thing You don't have self-doubt But I actually found that sometimes those at the more senior levels sometimes those who have achieved a lot They have even more self-doubt because they feel like there's even more Opportunity for them to fall more reputational damage if something doesn't go well So I thought what is actually driving this and that's when I started looking into the research What do the most esteemed minds have to say about this and I want to share with you one particular study Which I have never forgotten from the moment that I came across it. It's from the late 70s early 80s So a psychology professor by the name of Robert Cleck at Dartmouth He conducted this fascinating experiment which really reveals how self-doubt works and where it comes from He brought people together and with one group He drew a scar on their face on the right side of their face between their ear and their mouth This really noticeable visible disfigurement. Yeah, he let them see themselves in a mirror Okay, so they can go okay I have this scar on my face and then he sent everyone out into conversations with strangers Now after the conversations he then asked everybody how did you feel the conversation went the group without the scar? Felt like it was a fine conversation. Yeah, the group with the scar reported feeling judged They felt like it was tense their conversation partner was cold and they felt like they were treated differently because of that scar now that in itself would have been a really interesting experiment on Prejudice and discrimination or perception or perception of exactly and that's where we get to the interesting piece Because if I pause right now and I take you back right before these people were sent into these conversations So they've just seen themselves in the mirror, right? Right before they're sent into it the researcher said I can go apply some moisturizing cream to the sky To set it so it doesn't crack. Okay, what was done though was the scar was removed entirely Whoa, there was no scar these people went into these conversations believing they had a scar and they didn't they didn't and that led Them to have an expectation about how people would treat them Which then led them to pay attention to things that objectively did not exist It changed how they showed up. They created the reality. They expected and this is called expectation bias We don't see the world as it is. We see the world as we expect it to be Now when we think about what that means for us when you're thinking about this from your own perspective Anyone who is watching or listening what kind of scars are you carrying? Into every single conversation every interaction every meeting every interview every conversation with your loved one How is that affecting how you not only show up? But what you're interpreting and noticing that may not even be there Because until we're aware of these scars we don't realize just how much they're creating the world that we're living in Dr. Shaday, how do you? Rewire these moments of self-doubt So I have an analogy that I love to share to help us understand what we're actually rewiring Okay, talking about self-doubt great. So what I have here is two glasses filled with yellow water Okay, now I want to narrate this because the majority of you listen and I don't want you to miss a thing So dr. Shaday is sitting here at the table for the podcast. She has two To the brim bright neon yellow glasses full of yellow water sitting on a tray and In one hand you have a ping-pong ball. I have a ping-pong ball and on the other hand. She has a bright yellow golf ball Okay, now if I were to take the ping-pong ball and what does the ping-pong ball represent the ping-pong ball represents self That in fact both balls represent self-doubt Oh, they do and what's going to happen in the cups is it's going to help us understand different approaches to self-doubt Okay, all right great. So self-doubt might be let's just take one we can all relate to we've all had those mornings Where you look in the mirror and you just go? and Because you've shared the scar example Let's just go with this perception that how we look has Something to do with our value to the world And so the form of self-doubt that the ping-pong ball or the golf ball might represent is just this belief that because you look ugly today You're your acne's on fire or maybe what's happening for me I constantly notice the jowls that seem to be forming and I don't like them and I feel a little bit of judgment and weight and I doubt myself Am I looking older or people gonna judge me for that and so is that what these represent? Yes, okay, so we got a ping-pong ball and a golf ball So if I were to take the ping-pong ball yep and place it on one of the glasses of water What would happen to it? I think it would float because a ping-pong ball is like, you know kind of like yeah, Larry Larry so if we try that look at that. Oh she just it's just floating there So this is this thing that maybe you feel a little doubt about and it's just kind of floating on top What happened to the water the water stayed the same what is the water represent the water represents how we see ourselves our self-image Oh, and so when we're talking about how doubt should be because the goal again is not to eliminate the self-critical thoughts That's too high a standard. We're setting for ourselves. We can't do that That's the function of the brain doing what it does the goal is actually to allow the doubts to exist But essentially to float on top of who we are and what dr. Shade is doing right now She's basically, you know kind of gently pushing the ping-pong ball across the top of the glass And it's floating there like you might see a little say a toy sailboat floating at it at a you know Public park just lightly drifting around and so is an example of that you look at yourself You're like not my best day, but no big deal. Oh well, okay, okay? You know if I don't like the acne. I'll just put some foundation on no big deal. Yeah Okay, focus on what I can control now what most of us experience though That's not what I experience. No, and that's not what most people experience It's a lot more insidious than that and now you're holding a golf ball now I'm holding the golf ball now a golf ball is in comparison to the ping-pong ball. It's what dense. It's heavy It's got weight to it. Yes, and if I were to drop this into this other cup of water What would happen? It's gonna sink. Oh, not only is it sink like it's water just splashed Everywhere and it's sunk to the bottom. This is what happens when we internalize self doubt We allow it to mean something about who we are so rather than just floating on the surface. We acknowledge it's there We make it mean something about who we are so instead of the oh, I feel a little ugly today Yes, oh, well you would say oh I feel ugly today. I am so ugly I am so unworthy of other people's time and energy. I'm not valuable everybody's staring at me I don't want to speak at work everybody's looking at this thing that I don't like about myself and What's so stunning about the visual and I want to really describe this for you as you're listening is on the right You have this like dopey little ping-pong ball floating around do to do to do to do to do it's there You haven't said you can't have the thought but it's not sinking into your soul and Dragging you down like an emotional weighted vest that then impacts every aspect of your day The other thing that I want to point out is that on the left, you know the heaviness of the self judgment I got some acne. I'm short my hair sucks today. Whatever it may be. I got fired from that job. Therefore. I Am not worthy of a job You can see how it's just sitting there at the bottom of the glass and then even more sad Dr. Shaday is the spilled yellow water all over the place because what you get the sense of is as self-doubt Ways you down you lose a bit of yourself To make room for carrying that doubt with you day in and day out And then what's even more worrying is even if you go through the process of working on yourself Okay, now hold on she's taking a spoon and she is now digging in and spilling more water out and she is Getting the golf ball out of there, right? She's getting it out of there. Okay, so maybe our skin has cleared up Maybe we have a better hairstyle Maybe we have moved on from the job or the breakup and now we are out there interviewing again So we took care of the thing or so we thought or so we thought but has that water miraculously Refilled itself to the brim. No. No, there's a piece missing And so what self-doubt does is it strips you of who you truly are? Because you're internalizing it you lose a part of yourself and even if you do the work you enter what's called the void So now okay, the golf ball is out. Maybe you are seeing that ping-pong ball floating above. Yep You're detaching from it But then you enter that weird middle stage where you actually don't know who you are without the doubt because for so long It has driven your behaviors and your thinking and your actions and the way that you show up in the world You've been acting to prove yourself to others or to seek their validation and suddenly You don't know what your true instincts are and who you are in the world And so there's that really interesting little space where you need to discover who that is again But it starts with changing how we see ourselves. So when we talk about rewire self-doubt It's actually not necessarily about the doubt at all. It's about strengthening How we see ourselves by strengthening these four attributes so that the doubt is no longer a golf ball no longer becomes Internalized no longer infiltrates how we see ourselves and instead it's there. Hey, okay. I can see you I know that you're that voice up there, but I don't have to listen to you. I don't have to believe everything I think and that's so incredibly powerful when people both acknowledge it and then take the steps to actually get there And I take it that what you're about to teach us not only helps us Become more buoyant with the day-to-day self-doubts But it also is going to help us fill that void with new capacities with ourselves that self-doubt stole from us That's exactly what we're going to be doing. Let's get this water out of here. Dr. Shade You have this incredible framework based on research that helps us break apart self-doubt and build self-trust and self-confidence Can you explain what this framework is? There are four attributes. We have acceptance. We have agency. We have autonomy We have adaptability. Why is having this four-part framework helpful? To breaking apart these moments of self-doubt and helping us build more confidence and self-trust Why do we need a framework? It's because we misunderstand self-doubt as being one blob of worry insecurity fear and anxiety And that means then if we think it's one thing we think there's one solution And that's why so many people are disappointed when they've tried the self-help route and they've tried this book or that approach It's not working and it's because self-doubt doesn't operate that way There are actually four distinct elements and once you figure out which one is lacking in you which one is weak Then you know exactly what you need to focus on and then you can access the tools and the frameworks to help you move through And strengthen that so that everything in life just becomes so much more freeing Let's start with acceptance. And so self-acceptance is fundamentally accepting that you are a work in progress You don't need other people to validate your worth. You are worthy just by existing now That doesn't mean that you accept that you will never change It's actually acknowledging that I can change I can grow and be that work in progress knowing that self-improvement is Possible so it's a beautifully liberating state when you don't accept yourself. That is when you self reject You self reject before anyone else can but how do you accept yourself if you don't like yourself? You know what I mean? Like you look and like and I'm just going to stay with The physical because every one of us has the example And when we start to get into psychological I don't like myself because of x y z that has happened or these things that I did it can get more complicated And I want all of us to just stay right here and be listening for ourselves And listening for the people in your life who struggle with a lot of self-doubt So if you do look in the mirror and you're like, yeah, and I don't want to accept that so there are two things that I'd recommend you do Okay, the first well actually there's three the first one is that you need to acknowledge That until you accept yourself nothing will change if you are someone who is saying I don't believe it Yes, in that case what you want to do is use other strategies and tools Okay, that allow you to strengthen the self acceptance in other ways That naturally will help you recognize that you are valuable In spite of not believing that initially. Okay, so the very very first tool is very simple. We call it the careless list What you're going to do is grab a sheet of paper Yeah divided into two columns on the left. I want you to write down all the things you want to care less about I want to care less about my physical appearance. I want to care less about what people in the street think of me when I walk by I want to care less about what my family keeps saying about my acne or my weight or how I look Actually acknowledge it give it a physical outlet A lot of people don't actually want to acknowledge their fears because they're afraid that they'll make them real But I'm a proponent and a lot of evidence suggests that if you can just make them real It gives you something to work with you're not hiding from it So you write down everything you actually want to care less about put it in the left And then just reflect on how you feel when you look at that It's simple. So that's our care less list. We've identified all the things we want to care less about The next step is okay. What do I want to care more about? What do I actually want to shift my attention to because attention is such a superpower If we're not aware of it, we're going to be stuck in patterns that keep us stuck But if we can become more aware of it be a bit more curious about how we're thinking This is called metacognition It's the ability to think about your thoughts and it is a fundamental superpower because the moment you start thinking about your thoughts You're no longer in your thoughts. So consciously write down. What do I want to care more about? Well, I want to care more about Being a value in my life I want to care more about having the kind of courage that allows me to take the step Even if I've got the acne or I look a certain way you map them down And then it's a super simple practice. You just bring yourself back to this regularly to remind yourself Okay, my attention is going on to these things, but I really want to care less about them How do I actively shift my attention to what I want to care more about? When you consciously take control of your thoughts, you're reengaging the prefrontal regions in your brain We get more activation more blood flow going here and then it fundamentally shapes how you're showing up So that's a really really simple practice if you're struggling with any kind of physical element well, it's also Really helpful If you're moving through something emotional completely if you have just gotten laid off Your job already was something you cared about for years If you no longer have it Even if it was devastating To lose the job Don't you want to care less about that job that's no longer here? And don't you want to care more about the future you and your future value and the next chapter of your career? Same thing with the breakup. You already gave years or months or however much time and energy to the relationship that's over Don't you want to care less about it? Have it impact you a little bit less Don't you want to care more about all of the things that could bring you happiness about reinventing yourself about stepping into this It's such a beautiful and simple illustration because it's true doctor shatay We live in our heads and I love that when you get out of your head and you put it on paper like this It allows you to not be in your thoughts, but to examine them and direct them differently. It's brilliant Dr. Shaday, could you walk us through? Just what does life feel like for somebody who has low self acceptance? So we see for really painfully familiar patterns with people who have low self acceptance The first one is what we call the pressure to prove So this is where you feel like you're not enough So you have to prove your worth through achievement and setting and achieving the goal and getting the recognition and the title But what happens is you tell yourself when I get there Then I will feel like I'm enough And you get there and it doesn't feel like you thought it would and then you just set the next goal So you're perpetually chasing this feeling of enoughness and you're proving yourself But it's not having the effect that you want. That's the first pressure to prove The second one is what we call the likeability trap So if you don't accept who you are You outsource your worth To how other people see you And if they can like you if they can see you as acceptable then maybe you can see yourself as acceptable But then this leads you to sacrifice yourself You say yes when you really mean no you over apologize for things you shouldn't be apologizing for You don't speak up in the meeting You don't ask for what you deserve and you end up sacrificing what you want to need Because you're prioritizing everyone else all the time and you don't know who you are So that's the likeability trap We prioritize being liked over being true to who we are and I say we because I struggle with acceptance I speak from experience here Now the third one is what we refer to as the shrinking syndrome So this is where you see someone and you might resonate with this if you're watching or listening where An opportunity comes your way an incredible opportunity But suddenly your brain starts magnifying all the ways it could go wrong The ways you might fall short the ways you might fail that what will other people think And so you know what it's safer just to shrink back and make an excuse as to why you're not ready or why the timing is not right You shrink from those incredible opportunities And then the fourth is the schadenfreude cycle This is a german term and it refers to that feeling that some people get that feeling of pleasure When they see other people struggle or other people stumble or other people fail And it's ego-driven and it's because when they don't accept themselves They like to see other people suffer too. Oh, it's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. It's more common than you'd think It's why people love gossip It's why people love reading headlines that are tearing other people down It's very much a human experience, but it reflects that someone doesn't fundamentally accept who they are. Oh, I hate that I hate that too. Wow, it happens You know in your book big trust you cover 10 different ways That you can start to build self-acceptance. Can you just give us a handful of them? Absolutely I'll share some of the simplest ones that are really really tangible for people So what we see with anyone who struggles with acceptance is they will over apologize Sorry, I'm talking too much. Sorry. I'm so emotional The simplest thing you can do here rather than apologizing was to highlight an inadequacy and makes you feel less Yeah, is to shift into appreciation So instead of sorry, I'm talking too much. You would say thank you so much for listening Instead of sorry. I'm being really emotional right now. Thank you for bearing with me I'm passionate about this and this is the power of the words that we use when we're engaging with people Because it not only shapes how we feel suddenly. We're not apologizing for existing We're actually acknowledging the other person So we feel better, but it makes the other person feel better too I needed you yesterday as I was crying over something and then apologizing to everybody for being emotional about something That was stupid But it's because you care and then saying to everybody and you're probably judging me that I shouldn't be stupid so now I'm making them wrong When it made me feel worse and it made everybody feel uncomfortable And it would have been way better to just say thank you for bearing with me This is just a lot and I really appreciate your patience and your kindness on this I need to As soon as this interview is over I am making a phone call and saying that to somebody because I didn't use that and it's very powerful shift Because I can see how stomping on myself and not accepting my emotions And then inadvertently stomping on everybody sitting there trying to comfort me. Wow. Okay. What's another one simple powerful Okay, the next one is if you struggle with acceptance you also tend to say yes before you've even Processed what is this resonating with you mouth? Yes It's I didn't think I struggled with self acceptance. So but I guess I do well interesting They're a lot of really high achievers who have done incredible things in their life Struggle with self acceptance And it's one of the things that keeps them pushing But it's also one of the things that really tethers them and is weighty. Yeah. So if you like me like mel tend to over Commit because you're saying yes to everybody else because you don't want to let them down What's really valuable is learning how to say no But what you want to do first is not just an automatic. No you create a little bit of a delay So you can actually process what they've said we know from research that even a few seconds and few milliseconds Allows us to make a better decision when the pressure is on so what does that actually look like in practice? You start with thank you for thinking of me. So positive first response You move into let me check with my schedule. Let me check with my husband or my wife. Let me Confirm I have capacity and then step three is I will get back to you by x time Right. Thanks for thinking of me. Let me check I'll get back to you and then you reflect on whether you actually want to do this thing Now then the next part comes how do you actually say no if you want to decline When we just think about the saying no, it can feel very selfish if you are a people Pleaser if you struggle with approval and acceptance. So what you want to be thinking about is okay How do I make this not a no but a yes to myself? Oh If I can make this a yes to myself, I don't have to say to the other person I'm saying yes to myself, but it makes the process so much easier. So give me an example So an example would be okay. I don't want to spend the whole weekend Helping someone move in because I'm going to say yes to the fact that I need recovery this weekend Yes, so then when you go and give the decline, it's not just a no because I'm selfish It's actually again. Thank you for thinking of me this weekend. I'm focusing on rest and recovery But let me know how you go. I'd love to see it when you're all set up, right? Or this weekend I had plans to go to the museum or this weekend I already had something else going on and can't help you out. So simple. Yes, so simple So that's the second tool. I want to share just two more Really good ones. The third one is a really counterintuitive one If you want to accept yourself more go and get a hobby Why? Because people who struggle with self-acceptance tend to identify with their jobs So if you're watching or listening right now and you're you're resonating with this You probably identify with the work that you do Which means if things are going really well at work, you feel fantastic If things are not going well, you're going to feel terrible because you're internalizing it. Does that resonate? I feel called out. I'm just going to say it right there. Yes Given that I was crying yesterday morning And Objectively things are going amazing when you do something outside of your day job outside of your business outside of whatever title you've attached to yourself It reminds you that you are so much more than what you're doing in that business at work Now we also need to acknowledge sometimes this is to do with your role as a parent You might identify so closely with being a parent if you are a full-time carer And so getting a hobby gives you that separation. It activates different parts of the brain There was a study with over 93 000 people in 16 different countries and they found that people who have hobbies Accept themselves more. They have higher self-esteem. So there's that evidence There's also another super interesting study of Nobel prize-winning scientists They found that those Nobel prize-winning scientists were three times more likely than regular scientists to have a hobby And 22 times more likely to have a creative hobby. Now, what does that tell you and why is that important? It tells us that well what these actual scientists told the researchers which then leads into what that tells us They said that having those hobbies gave them something outside of work to make connections It gave them an outlet when they were having a bad day at work And it allowed them to realize that their identity is not just what they're doing in the lab They actually can go and have fun and give themselves permission to play and be a beginner Could you talk specifically to a person who's listening right now? Who may be in a moment in life where They are a caregiver for somebody aging or they've got super young kids at home and they are stretched so thin could you speak directly to why a hobby Right now when it feels like you have no time Is the exact thing you need to make time for? When it comes to yourself doubt and everything that you're doing for everybody else Because hobbies are a form of recovery And they remind you that you're important too and when you give yourself the permission to recover and go and have fun and play It allows you to be a better carer To be a better Parent to be a better whatever it is in your life. You give yourself that permission You're honoring the fact that you accept who you are and that you need these things We know the research tells us that play is important hobbies are important And honoring that can be one of the most powerful things that you do Dr. Shade you also say that to build more self-acceptance Stop using positive affirmations. This is a big one So we see all the time online that we should use positive affirmations If you don't feel like you're enough tell yourself i'm enough every morning Now That doesn't work if you struggle with self-acceptance Research shows us that if you struggle with self-acceptance and self-esteem using positive affirmations backfires and makes you feel worse Why because it contradicts how you see yourself And there's a part of your brain your mind that goes. No, you're faking it and you can become even more self-critical Wow, wow. So what do we do instead? That's not to say the positive kind of makes sense Because if you hate the way you look in the mirror and you're like i look beautiful i'm enough i'm this i'm that And you don't believe any of it Then there is this disconnect. You know, you're lying to yourself. So if you can't say positive things What does the research tell us that we should say if we're struggling with self-doubt and self-acceptance? To use a self affirming growth oriented statement in said that's a mouthful. That is a sentence in simple simple terms It simply don't lie to yourself. Just flip it into something that's growth-minded. For example, yes One of the Areas that lack of self-acceptance shows up in is this belief of i'm boring I'm actually boring because people don't want to be too much for others And so that looks like them believing that they have nothing of value to share Nothing of meaning to share and so they tell themselves. No, i'm boring So a simple way is not oh, i'm the life of the party everyone loves me That's a positive affirmation that will backfire you would say, okay I bring a calming and grounded presence to my conversations You see how you're not trying to One up with something positive. You're actually just side stepping it and flipping it Yeah, and that suddenly makes you feel very very different if you feel like you're unlovable Instead of no, I am lovable which may backfire you would say I have certain qualities that the right people value So again, it's so simple. It's not flipping it with something that's almost toxically positive It's just shifting into something that is growth oriented and Anchored in truth and it doesn't require you to become someone else which is the beautiful thing Well, it sounds like the test is do your shoulders drop. Yes versus i'm lovable, you know your shoulders up. I don't know am I? Yeah, but if you say I have qualities that the right people really love and appreciate Oh, like your shoulders just dropped because there's truth in it. I love that. I love that dr. Shadei, I am so thrilled to be learning all of this research about self-doubt Let's take a quick pause so that we can give our amazing sponsors a chance to shine And I want to give you a chance to share this episode with someone that you love that you think is playing small Don't go anywhere. Dr. Shadei is just getting started with these frameworks and the specific tools She's going to give you so that you can build unshakable confidence. We'll be right back This is a paid ad for Shopify when you're starting a new business. Oh my god, it's so exciting But setting it up online Holy cow, can that be overwhelming because in order to make this dream come true You got to build a store. You got to reach customers. You got to ship products. You got to get paid You need to manage returns. You got to look at reviews. That is a lot And that's where Shopify comes in Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of brands worldwide including Mattel and gymshark and now your business With hundreds of ready-to-use templates Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style You can also create email and social media campaigns and Shopify helps with operations like keeping track of inventory International shipping processing returns so you can focus on your business Turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side Sign up for your one pound per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.co.uk that Shopify.co.uk Welcome back it's friend Mel Robbins today you and I are here with dr. Shadei Zarae Who's teaching us a four-part framework to build unshakable self-confidence and that first step is understanding the source of your self-doubt And learning how to break it apart step by step. All right, dr. Shadei, let's just jump right back in Let's move on to the second a in the four-part framework of Rewiring self-doubt and building more confidence and that is agency. What is agency? So in the context of self-doubt agency is that attribute that allows you to trust that you can do the thing And if you don't know how to do it you will learn how to do it And so if you trust that you can do that you're going to take the step you're going to say yes You're going to persist when things don't go well Because deep down you believe that you can now when this is weak. Yes, let's explore what this looks like So if this is weak if you struggle with your agency, we see a number of patterns here The first one is the dreaded imposter syndrome Where you have achieved things in your life amazing things maybe recognition maybe awards maybe an amazing job title And yet you feel like you don't deserve it You feel like someone is going to highlight that you shouldn't be where you are And so essentially what it comes down to is that you believe other people think you're smarter Or more competent than you really are Now a few things about imposter syndrome The term imposter syndrome was not the term that was used initially when it was discovered Back in the 70s 80s when it was first observed they called it the imposter phenomenon Now what's the difference between a phenomenon? So a phenomenon is basically where you observe something in a population of people Right a syndrome is something that seems medical and seems pathological and seems like something is wrong with us A phenomenon seems like something that can appear occasionally Syndrome feels like a life sentence well said okay, and so we need to think when we feel like an imposter It's actually far more common than you'd expect in fact Some studies have found up to 82 of people have felt like an imposter at some point And the beautiful thing about feeling like an imposter is it is a sign that you are growing You are stepping out of your comfort zone because anyone who has ever done anything you will be in a position where they Haven't had all the skills or they don't know all the answers It's very easy for them to then feel like I don't deserve to be here But you have to honor the fact that you bring a track record with you and maybe we'll talk about a few Tools to help with this a bit later. Yes. So that's the first one The second one we see a lot of here with anyone who struggles with agency is social comparison Oh, they're comparing themselves to other people not in a positive way But in that you are so far ahead of me, and I'm inadequate. I could never do that And we see this a lot when people again are leveling up in their lives Moving up in their careers achieving more things in their business Suddenly as soon as you take that step to the next level You're now comparing yourself with people at that level Which naturally means that there's more for you to develop and do and grow because they've been there longer than you Maybe they are better at certain things But if you start fixating on that and feeling like I can never do what they do You undermine your agency. So that's the second one. I mean comparison is natural But we need to get better at making sure it's not filling us with self-doubt Yep And then the third area here is where people are just constantly waiting to feel ready to feel prepared. So they procrastinate By busying themselves with planning and reading and preparing And they say I just want to learn a little bit more But we know that the more you learn about something The more you realize how little you know about that thing And the more doubt you have and the less likely you are to take the step I think this is so fascinating. I just want to reflect back two things to you So if you're somebody that struggles with agency When it comes to self-doubt you may feel imposter syndrome You may struggle a lot with comparison and you may also be a big planner And one of the things that struck me that I've never thought about before Is that when you Identify and get very clear about a goal that you have whether it's getting in better shape Or it's dressing in a more styleable way Or it is earning more money or it is changing your career and getting into real estate or learning how to make money online Simply identifying a new goal or a change means that you have a gap of having to become More capable in that area. You've never done this before And so what are the tools other than saying I can figure this out or saying hey comparing myself Is part of this like it means that I want this like how do you deal with imposter syndrome in particular? So the very first step let's look at the feeling that you are Fragulent that you don't deserve to be where you are. Okay. What you want to think about is okay. This is actually super common This just means I'm stretching and growing so how do I give myself time and a very simple reframe because we know how Powerful it is when we're changing the language that is going on in our heads is instead of I don't feel like I deserve this Or I don't feel like I belong immediately shift to What an incredible opportunity I have to learn and grow So simple and yet so effective because you're shifting your attention to everything you think you lack Into cool. I can fill some gaps Amazing again, you don't have to lie to yourself. You're being really pragmatic about that. So that's the first step the second one is to Actually talk about it when it comes to imposter syndrome So many people have experienced it just feeling undeserving. It's so common and when you speak about it openly You realize that everyone is on this same journey and that sense of collective can be really helpful So in the 1980s City corp was merging with travelers insurance and they needed a graphic designer to come up with their new logo So they hired the firm and paul ashore was a partner at this firm. She's an incredible graphic designer She comes in and she's sitting at the boardroom table with the the decision makers and they're all talking about what they wanted for the logo She grabs a napkin from the side of the table and she starts scribbling on that napkin A few seconds later. She slides that napkin across the table and she says here is your logo Now the room was stunned people were thinking. How is it possible that you designed a logo in just a matter of seconds? and she says I designed this in a second and 34 years I designed this with everything that I have learned. So yeah, you got it in a few seconds But it took me 34 years to be able to do that And they ended up paying her 1.5 million dollars for that logo Now what is the message behind this that we can take away? So often when we feel like imposters, we are just looking at the here and now the spotlight is on this current space that we're in And we forget that we have this incredible track record behind us In paul ashore's case, it was 34 years of work that got her to that point But a lot of us will sit there in that meeting and think oh gosh, I need to design something I don't know if I've done this before we fixate on all the gaps. I don't deserve to be here So that's a really powerful lesson from that shift the spotlight back To everything that you have developed over the course of your life and your career that reminds you hey Maybe I do have certain capabilities and skills that I've earned that allow me to seat at the table I just love how you teach dr. Shade because self-doubt is one of these big amorphous things that we all experience But you don't quite know what it is and I feel like I have a really good Understanding the more and more you're teaching us and I'm sure you're feeling the same way And don't go anywhere because I'm confident that what you're going to learn after the break is going to make you even more Unstoppable so stay with me. We'll be right back This is a pay to add for Shopify when you're starting a new business. Oh my god, it's so exciting But setting it up online Holy cow, can that be overwhelming because in order to make this dream come true You got to build a store. You got to reach customers. You got to ship products. You got to get paid You need to manage returns. You got to look at reviews That is a lot and that's where Shopify comes in Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of brands worldwide including Mattel and gymshark and now your business With hundreds of ready-to-use templates Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style You can also create email and social media campaigns and Shopify helps with operations like keeping track of inventory international shipping Processing returns so you can focus on your business Turn your big business idea into reality with Shopify on your side Sign up for your one pound per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.co.uk That's Shopify.co.uk Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins. You and I are here with Dr. Shaday Zarih And we're learning about this four-part framework to build unshakable self-confidence Okay, Dr. Shaday, the next thing I wanted to ask you was this The third A in this framework around self-doubt and building confidence is autonomy. What does autonomy mean Dr. Shaday? So in the context of self-doubt autonomy is the belief that you have a degree of control over your life You feel personally powerful now that doesn't mean you can control absolutely everything because not everything can be controlled But you focus on what you can and because of that you feel like you have more control Now if you don't have a strong degree of autonomy, we see a number of common patterns here And if you're paying attention if you're listening to this you will probably be able to identify at least someone in your life Who is struggling here? We're less able to identify in ourselves because part of low autonomy is not taking ownership So okay, let's look at these patterns. The first one is if you struggle with autonomy you complain a lot You complain about everything wrong in your life because it's easier to complain than to do something about it Because to do something about it requires you to take ownership And that is what low autonomy doesn't allow you to do so you complain Now people don't realize when they complain about things they are reliving They are reliving the situation in vivid detail in their brain Which is creating deeper more efficient neural pathways which makes complaining your default You basically become a negativity magnet because you notice more of the things to complain about so we get complaining is the first pattern The second one is blame People are blaming others The situation the traffic the weather my husband my wife my boyfriend my team There's no personal accountability and they will share that with everybody else. The third one is resentment Where again they are resentful to other people Because they feel like everyone else has an easier life than they do and that also leads them to play into this victim mindset Why me life is so difficult for me? And the fourth is okay So you know those people that come to you and they share with you their objectively difficult life stories And the first time they share it with you you are so filled with empathy and compassion for what they've been through And then by the time they've shared it with you the 20th or 30th time You realize They are keeping themselves stuck by ruminating on it. Yes And because it's safer for them they feel safer when they can hold on to a wound Because it reinforces this view of I am a victim. I am powerless Look at how terrible my life has been and they get sympathy from that so it's socially rewarding So this is what we see So the next question is well, what do we do? Yes, what do we do? And I want to take them one at a time Yeah, because so many people struggle with each one of these so dr. Shade what do you do if you are constantly overthinking everything? So if you're constantly overthinking everything overthinking is a sign that You do not feel like you have control And it's your brain's attempt to try and manufacture certainty when there is none Your brain says to itself because the brain likes to be really efficient. It wants to save energy And so it's fundamentally lazy And so there's this part of it that goes if I can anticipate everything that could go wrong Then I have to expend less energy when the consequence eventually happens And this is why we get stuck in those loops of everything that could be out of our control It's also what reinforces low acceptance because we start overthinking. Do they like me? What did that mean? How come they haven't replied to me or agency? What if people find out I can't do this? What if I mess up there? So it's all a reflection of low autonomy So when we're overthinking something that is terrible advice is to tell yourself just stop worrying stop overthinking And yet you might have someone in your life that says this to you. Just stop worrying Bad advice What we know is much more effective is to give your overthinking an outlet. What does that mean? Every time you have a distracting thought that pops up during the day a worry You're ruminating on something grab a notebook and a pen and actually write it down And then you say to yourself I'm not going to worry about you now I will worry about you during worry zone. Okay, so you're parking it somewhere Got it Then at the end of the day you want to actually schedule in your calendar About 10 minutes of worry time not too close to bed because it might keep you up So a good time is you know around five four o'clock five o'clock whenever works You schedule it in your calendar when that time comes you set an alarm for 10 or 15 minutes You bring out your worry list and you allow yourself to worry Now this does a few things. It's called stimulus control for worry and research has found This is an incredibly effective technique. It is to read it is because I'll be honest. It sounds dumb It sounds completely dumb. It sounds like what it sounds completely counterintuitive But what happens is when you're not worrying about something in the moment The emotions attached to it when it initially came up Are no longer there And when you're not worrying about it in the moment when it comes up in the moment It's driven largely by default areas in the brain by with you know There's greater activation in the threat detection centers in the fear centers of the brain and so Naturally, we don't have access to the front regions which allows us to process that rationally But when you review it later you suddenly well It shrinks the fear to size and the research tells us that you can so better manage your emotional state And actually assess okay Well, are any of these actually going to happen? And do I have control over any of these things now? The next step is once your alarm goes off you actually close it and you that's it like you're done with your worries End of the week you reflect what could I control? What couldn't I control and if there's something I can control what am I going to do about it? It's a really effective way to deal with that overthinking Dr. Shadei, what do you want to say to somebody who's a chronic complainer? You don't realize how you're keeping yourself stuck when you complain about the things you have no control over It's cathartic. It feels good in the moment. It's rewarding, but it's actually keeping you stuck The moment you find yourself complaining The first step is to become aware of it, which is sometimes the hard part the next step is to ask yourself Okay, well, I essentially have a few options here. I can accept the situation as it is I can change the situation I can leave the situation or I can change how I see the situation They're the only four options I have So you pick one and then acknowledge that if I keep complaining about this, I'm only going to feel worse It is not going to help me. So what is fantastic for anyone who tends to complain a lot? You will also hear language of should Oh, I should have done that. I should do this. Mel. How do you feel if I were to say to you? Oh, you should So and so how would you respond to the word of should? Oh, you should feel like I've done something wrong and you might feel a bit resistant I might feel immediately when you said mel you should I was like now what did I do? It's because we experience something called reactance Which is this deep internal feeling of resistance. Don't tell me what to do. We want to feel like we're in control When we're saying should to ourselves when we struggle with autonomy, it makes us feel terrible Now research also shows that the language of should cuts off divergent thinking. We don't think as clearly We don't think of solutions. We don't think of options. There is one swap move from should To could okay. What could I do right now? You're not committing to anything It's really low stakes and again I encourage people to grab a sheet of paper Divide it into two on the left you write down your could list all the things that you could do in the moment Then you move into your I will list pick one two or three things that you've identified and actually do them Actually take the step. This is how you increase your autonomy You bring your locus of control back inwards and it's so incredibly simple and it gets you out of the complaining spiral Because sometimes all you need in that moment is to feel powerful and to do something I love that you can catch yourself by saying Oh, there I go saying I should have done this making myself wrong increasing self doubt Reframe it to I could and then identify something that you will do I love that because it's so simple so simple so simple What if you're somebody that blames the world isn't fair my boss is a jerk It's my x that's ruining my life and you may have a lot of things going on but talk to us about blame and self doubt blame is attributing responsibility to everybody else And we hear a lot of always and never From people who are blaming you always do that. This never works out for me. It's always them. It's never that This is something I struggle with I have very interesting black and white language And it's something that I'm working on a lot Because I tend to be like very precise like it's always or it's never or it's this not with people But a lot when things are happening with work or with myself. And so this is an area where I will admit It's not blaming other people. It's in the way that I talk probably has a lot of weight and blame to it So what's actually really interesting and I was going to say this about you I think that your doubt profile from what you've shared with me Acceptance is your weak one. Mm-hmm Autonomy is your absolute strength. Yes, sometimes what happens when autonomy is so high and people take so much responsibility for things They actually end up personalizing things that are not theirs to take Well as the CEO of the company, I think everything's my responsibility Perfect example of that. Yes, I do and so you get into always and never because it's your way of holding yourself accountable But sometimes it's not actually helpful in terms of how you feel Yes, I think parents do this too that we think everything is our fault And take it on the chin like that. So let's talk about blame and How you deal with that if you're somebody that's recognizing it in yourself or you're thinking of somebody That's a big blamer and you're about to send this conversation to them So the first thing to think is okay Let's change the language the intensity of the language that we're using So instead of this always happens to me, let's bring that fact checker back in right is that factual? Does that always happen to you? Usually the response will be Well, no, it's not always it's it's maybe some of the time maybe often, but it's not always okay. What's a more Realistic way of looking at that. Okay. Well instead of You always cut me off when we're speaking You would say to yourself I've noticed that there are times when I do get cut off when I'm speaking then you shift responsibility to you How can I speak differently to this person? To reduce that happening How can I change what I'm saying or how I'm saying or when I'm saying it to reduce the chances that they're going to be interrupting me That's your first thing. So you take full ownership the second stage is okay. Have I made this person aware Of something that they're doing You could go to the person and say look I've noticed when we speak You either get really excited or you're not aware of it But you do cut me off a lot and I would like to be part of a conversation and a relationship or a friendship Where both of us feel valued in what we say were you aware of that? A lot of the time people are not even aware of it because they're so stuck in their worlds So there are just a few little tools that you can use if you're blaming try and bring it back to you instead of Oh, he never takes the trash out. Okay Is there something I could be doing to remind him to take the trash out or put it in a different place? So he takes the trash out just bring it back to you again that boosts your autonomy So the last of the four a's is adaptability the ability to kind of go up and down with the curve balls of life Why is this important for rewiring self-doubt and building self-confidence? Because adaptability is actually so much more than what we think it is which is just Adapting to life. Yep in the context of doubt. It's adapting to the emotions That come with life. Okay, because emotions are generally experienced when we do something and it doesn't work out I mean look emotions are experienced all the time, but when it comes to self-doubt There's something that we will have done or we'll be thinking of doing And then it doesn't work out and there's an emotion attached the disappointment the that feeling of i'm a failure I'm not enough these have emotional profiles attached to them. And so when we're deciding Whether to do anything to take the step to say yes to ask them out We're going through this checklist of can I deal with the emotions of this thing if it doesn't work out? Because our brain is going through that process of all the ways that it won't work out And if we don't believe that we can handle whatever emotion comes We will not take the step And that's why getting better at handling and harnessing the emotions that come Makes everything in life so much easier Well, that makes perfect sense because if you don't feel like you can handle the emotions of going in and asking for a raise Or having the hard conversation Or putting yourself in a situation where you're going to try something that makes you feel anxious or nervous Then you're not going to do it and your self-doubt is going to increase And you're going to be stuck in this gap between what you know you want or what you know deeply you're capable of But you keep blocking your own momentum in life And so that makes perfect sense Is there one thing that if somebody recognizes that they are stuck in this aspect? That they should do today. I'm going to share a super simple strategy here. It's called the opposite action strategy It's so easy when we are overcome with some kind of a negative emotion in relation to a self-doubt that we have What usually happens to our body? We freeze we like kind of go into like a nervous reaction And what usually happens to shoulders or neck or posture? Oh, we kind of shrink and like feel like we want to hide we want to hide Yes, exactly. And so what the opposite action strategy tells us is from dialectical behavior therapy It simply says when there is no physical threat Yep, do the opposite of what your body is telling you to do do the opposite of what your body is telling you to do So in a situation where? You feel that tension because you want to have the conversation you want to do the thing But now you're blocking your own momentum. Do the opposite of what your body's telling you to do So what do you do? So instead of withdrawing? Yes at the end of your seat engage look at the person bring your shoulders back I'm going to share again another really interesting tool that comes from the world of research It was just published recently mel and everyone listening and watching can you put your hand at the back of your neck? You're going to feel a joint. Yes. It's like a bony thing. It's like a bony thing. Give it a little massage Yes, I want you to just tilt your head down and you're going to feel more of that Okay, and then bring your head pointy bones is what I feel bones great now. I'm putting my head back up Now this is a great stretch. I encourage everyone to do it regularly But this right here that action of chin to chest and back up that is called neck Flection neck flexion. Okay, we know that there's this connection between what our bodies are doing our posture Should I keep my hand here? Oh, you can remove your hand So that's that's flexion. There's a connection between what our bodies are doing and how we're feeling We know that if you have a big expansive posture, you tend to feel more powerful and confident This study found that it's because of neck flexion That we feel that way what it is the connection between chin and chest the distance between your chin and chest Is what determines how you feel now? What does that mean for all of us? It means that when you're going into a high pressure situation when you feel the self doubt when you're wanting to withdraw You don't even have to think about posture. All you have to do is elongate your chin Think about how to expand the distance between chin to chest. That's it. Oh, I just thought of a rhyme Lift the chin. Let's begin. I love that Perfect that could go in a mug. See I'll remember that Okay, I'm feeling myself collapse. I'm getting nervous. I'm blocking my momentum. We got to lift the chin. Let's jump in Beautiful. Oh man. Okay. I love that Dr. Shadei, what does research say about your voice and clarity and how other people perceive you based on how you speak? Okay, so research and speech communication looks at the various tones that we have And what we've identified is there's generally two overarching ones One of them is very much a throat voice Which happens when we're not really breathing very deeply and our voice entirely comes from our throat. It's very shallow You see how it sounds friendly. It sounds warm, but maybe there's not a lot of credibility to it Let me try that. I'm now trying to talk through my throat and it's like a different voice that you hear completely different Wow, and that changes how you're perceived now the other type of voice It feels different too. It feels really different This is what a lot of people do when they're nervous because their bodies tense up So they're not able to get the oxygen in to fill up their lungs and when you don't have a lot of breath Because you're trying to retain it That's when you get that higher sound. The other one Is a more breathy voice where you're breathing into your diaphragm Which is much easier to do when you're not stressed and you're not feeling insecure And so you've got breathy voice, which is generally higher pitched Which a lot of women unfortunately do when they're nervous or in loud spaces Because they feel like they can be heard better, which is very interesting But what we know is that this deeper diaphragmatic voice which comes with breath It comes with gravitas this leads to perceptions of greater credibility You come across as if you're more credible. You come across as if you're more confident You come across as if you're more grounded And so a really simple tool for everyone or something to practice is to actually hear the difference in those voices In one of them just speak with a little bit of breath don't allow a lot to come out It's not super breathy allow a lot of vocal fluctuation And then the other one which is going to be from the diaphragm Hear the difference now if you're in an interview if you're in a high stakes environment Try and really breathe into we call it breathing into the stomach You're not actually breathing into the stomach But when you take a deep breath into your lungs your diaphragm drops down So you feel your belly coming out and when you breathe through that breathe through that voice It does wonders for how you're perceived How can I train myself to speak more eloquently? Well, I came prepared Mel here is a pen. Okay What you're going to do is grab this pen and put it between your teeth like this Okay, so everyone watching and listening We're basically holding the pen between our teeth a bit like a dog would hold a bone. Okay, great That's exactly what it looks like. So dr. Chade is put it in between your teeth like a bone and you know are stuck here We go, okay now with with the pen in your mouth So everyone make sure you clean your pen before you do this I highly encourage that you're going to grab a book. Okay, you're going to read Any sentence or paragraph from that book? And you want to pay attention to pronouncing every single sound clearly Mel would you like to do us the honors? I would great. Okay I am reading from page. Oh, this is really hard. It's really hard. I'm reading from page 219 of your book big trust Yes, you can do the hard thing Of all factors that have been studied to understand Motivation the most potent one is simply feeling like you're making progress Let that sink in Beautifully done Now you can take the pen out you can wipe it. Can you try reading just another paragraph right now? I'm gonna read from page 219 of big trust Yes, you can Do the hard thing of all factors that have been studied to understand motivation The most potent one is simply feeling like you're making progress Now melt tell us how it felt once you took the pen out Well, how it felt when the pen was in that start there was like being at the dentist when they're trying to take x-rays And your tongue is in the way and you're trying to move everything around And it feels very awkward and saliva is falling around and your mouth is not making the shapes that you want But as soon as I took it out it was as if I had a mouth that had been warmed up and stretched out And the words just felt more intentional and this is exactly what this exercise does So you're warming up your entire facial muscles You're warming up your throat and your tongue and stretching what otherwise doesn't get stretched very often And that's what leads us to mumble. That's what leads us to be difficult to understand Communication really comes down to how well your message is received by the other person And that can influence how confident you're perceived to be how credible you're perceived to be how people respond to you When we're nervous Everything tenses and so we tend to mumble So if you're somebody who mumbles or you have somebody in your life who is Does this pen trick and practicing it? Is this something that you can do for free at home that will help you speak more clearly and eloquently and that will change the way people Perceive you absolutely. Yes, and I encourage you to do it often Do it in the morning do it at night do it before every meeting before every phone call Because that's how you're training yourself to be able to pronounce far better to enunciate better Which is going to improve how you're perceived. I love this simple pen trick Holy I hope you share this with everybody It's so cool and I've just started working with a voice trainer and I'm going to tell you there were so many things about this I didn't understand but what you just showed And what I felt in terms of the difference is like having a professional voice coach And it's so important to take this seriously so that people Take you seriously when you have something to say Dr. Shadei, can you explain to me and to the person that's here listening or watching? What's Courage versus humanness scale. What is that? So this is a scale that we will share with leaders and teams that we work with at the fortune 100 companies that we're So blessed to support Basically when we look at teams, especially high performing teams, we find that there are two general qualities that come up The first one is the humanness qualities. What do you think some of these are? warmth, yes, um care. Yeah positivity confidence humor exactly all uh collaboration Empathy empathy compassion. Yes, all of these qualities that make us human and allow us to come to work in a place that we enjoy Yes, then we also have the performance based qualities. We call them courage based skills What are some of these? What would a team need in order to make sure they're actually leadership? uh decision making clarity feedback Very like definition of goals process Am I getting it? Absolutely. Okay, got you so expectations ROI Here we go. Here you guys all of those acronyms And when we look at the research, this is looking at a scale. It's called the trust versus assertiveness scale Some of them call it the compassion versus performance scale We call it humanness and courage because it's just it's easy to understand now if we were to map these out So I have a little visual. Okay. She's pulling up a white board as you're listening white board. Don't worry. I am going to explain this So we've got she's got on this we can't see it yet But for you listening imagine four square the game that we played in elementary school. You're on the playground There's four squares. We're standing in the squares. She's got four squares on one side. It says humanness on the other side It says courage and we're about to find out what are in these four squares So where we have teams or individuals. Let's look at it from an individual level first Someone who is very low. No, let's start with high someone who's very high on humanness Yes, so a lot of that warmth and the empathy and the compassion But very low on courage. Okay. What we get is the classic people pleaser It's the person who wants everyone to like them and validate them And so they don't say what they mean in the meeting and they sit on their hands and yes, but everyone's happy with them What about someone who is really high on courage? But very low on humanness. I think everyone who has worked especially in corporate We'll know someone like this and unfortunately a lot of these people are in positions of leadership Yes, which is not great. They're a steamroller steamroller. They're cold. They're calculated You don't like working with them and they make you feel insecure. We call this the agitator Oh god, some days i'm like that. I'm just gonna admit it Usually it's because I haven't eaten or i'm getting over an illness or something disappointing happened And I don't mean to do this but some days I am I find that if you find yourself in this state Do your checklist. Have I had a nap? Have I had a snack? Have I done my exercise? Am I doing my breathing? Sometimes that's all you need By the way, this works in a marriage and in a family and in every relationship. It does and this is what happens when We don't have the balance of these two qualities that we need to be functioning people team leaders Team members in a relationship as as as a parent What about someone who's really low on humanist and low on courage? I I mean, are they even do they even have a pulse? I mean, what's happening? This is where we get apathy and toxicity. So so if you're dealing with somebody Who has behaviors That you know people are throwing around the label toxic person I don't like that because I like I prefer to say just label the behavior A person may not be aware that there's this way but if you're if you're with somebody who is reading On the toxic side in terms of their behavior at work or in friendship What does that tell you about what they're dealing with based on humaneness and courage? They have a lot of fear. They might have a lot of fear They might also lack The agency to believe in their competence Or and this is something really important in the context of careers There's something called career imprinting Where the first few experiences we have in our career End up shaping our sense of identity when it comes to our career. That makes sense So if you're starting out in the workforce and you have a really unsupportive environment You have a micromanaging boss You have team members who are not giving you the time of day that you need You start to internalize that I'm not worthy I'm not good enough And it's always going to be like this because it becomes what's called a schema Which is like a template in our mind. Yeah, and then we go to a new company a new team and everything might be amazing Yet we expect That we're going to be overlooked and talked over like we were before and then we unintentionally create that in the new environment Wow, that's why it's so important when we start thinking about career imprinting when we think about that idea of us and ourself image and the experiences that we have Well, you just taught me something about myself. I think one of the reasons why other than just personal values I have such a innate sense of justice and fairness and injustice Is because my first real big job out of college and law school was as a public defender Representing people in the justice system who could not afford a lawyer and who had experienced systematic Discrimination their entire life. Wow. And so it is like imprinted in my soul to both respond to moments That feel very unjust and also to get the dukes up and fight When I have this sense that you know fairness is very important here. So that explains a lot So you've had that career imprinting take place and it's continually reinforcing itself. Absolutely And what happens when you have high humanness and high courage? So this is what we call the partner Okay, and we we call it the partner because we're usually sharing this in the context of leadership But this is someone who feels like they are a partner with every single person in that team When what do they say when the tide rises all ships rise? And it's someone who recognizes that by them succeeding other people can succeed and by them helping other people succeed They succeed it means that they are able to be appreciative of others and collaborative and cooperative While still giving the feedback that needs to be said while still addressing behaviors that need to be addressed So why this model is really valuable for anyone who is working in a company or working in a team or in relationships? Is just to recognize that if you struggle with any of the four elements of big trust that undermine your confidence and courage and self-trust and you have that self-doubt It means that you're going to live in one of these spaces the people pleas are being apathetic Where you can see if you're apathetic or toxic you're a blamer if you're a people, please are you're overthinking or you are comparing yourself or seeking validation seeking validation if you're the agitator you're running people over And you're blaming lots of things and you're taking control but in the wrong ways and complaining And if you're the partner you're just reaching for the tools you're adapting you are Like telling yourself you're capable of figuring it out or we're capable of figuring it I see how this all tracks directly to what you've been teaching us. It's brilliant Wonderful. So that's that that's the the matrix that we like to share And so it's great to see how this matrix maps back into big trust, you know, it's not just an impact that we get for ourselves It's an impact that we are taking into our lives because we don't live in a microcosm We're constantly interacting with other people. Yes, dr. Shade If the person listening takes just one Action out of everything you've taught us today about the research around Breaking self-doubt rebuilding trust. What's the most important thing for the person listening to do? This is something that you encourage people to do mel which is pick one thing that you have been hesitating from doing One thing that you've been holding back on because self-doubt is getting in your way Break it down into this smallest possible step And just do the thing Can I share a very quick story here? So this is a story about elizabeth gilbert who wrote eat pray love Which became a movie and a global bestseller now when she was writing it it's her memoir You'd think a memoir would be kind of easy to write it's your story But she said that she couldn't get words on paper because she had this mantra of this sucks running through her head Constantly nothing was ever good enough. She would write she would rip it up. She would write she would delete And then amidst all of that uncertainty and the self-criticism She had this moment of clarity and she thought hold on I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly I just promised the universe that I would write I would write something And so with that she made write the goal and not write brilliantly the goal And so the message behind this is sometimes we need to lower our standards We need to lower our standards. Don't aim for perfection. Just aim for good enough for now. You can always improve later So don't aim for going viral on social media aim for hitting post Don't aim for building the billion dollar business aim for setting up a website or getting one paying customer Don't aim to find your soulmate. Just aim to ask them out for a coffee When you lower the standard you make it so much more achievable and when you achieve it Then you see yourself being the kind of person who achieves these things Which fundamentally changes yourself image changes how you see yourself and what is possible for you And then that starts to change the rest of your life. I love that. Dr. Shaday. What are your parting words? Show up for the life that you want now. Don't wait for it. Don't wait for permission Don't wait till you feel ready. Don't wait till you feel worthy If you show up for the person that you want to be now There's this beautiful phenomena called embodied cognition And when you show up for it the world starts responding to you as if you already have it You see yourself speaking in the meeting going after what you want creating your own momentum And that is how you fundamentally shape your self image which shapes your identity Which shapes who you're becoming so don't wait Just show up today and it is remarkable what you will be able to achieve Dr. Shaday I just want to say on behalf of the person listening and everyone that they will share this with Thank you because it's one thing to say that it's a whole different ballgame when you show up with frameworks and tools and very specific things That you can do in order to understand the nature of how self-doubt is blocking you And exactly what is within your reach To push through it and continue moving toward the goals that you have Building the confidence that you know is within you and seeing yourself Doing the things that you had otherwise held your back yourself back from experiencing Thank you so much for having me and for everyone watching and listening. Thank you for being here Thank you for investing in yourself And i'm excited to see where you end up when you apply some of what you've learned today I am so excited too. I'm so excited that you decided to spend time listening to this or watching this Today you got tools you got frameworks you got the research broken down in the simplest ways you can start applying it today I cannot wait to see how this changes your life So make sure you tell me what happens and one more thing in case no one else tells you today as your friend I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life There is zero doubt in my mind that when you use the tools to rewire self doubt those moments that are going to keep coming and you double down on your capacity and the things that are in your control and The talents that you have inside you to push through what's happening and learn and grow Your life is going to get better. I mean, how could it not? Alrighty, I will see you in the very next episode. I'm going to welcome you in the moment you hit play I just love how you teach You make something that we all talk about self-diet. Is that good enough? Is it clunky? Did it sound okay? her research and Okay, because her research-backed frameworks. Yep, you need to develop the habit of self Let me do that again the first one to strengthen the attribute of self-esteem You need to develop and cultivate the attribute of self Self-acceptance. It happens to me. It's like my mouth feels like word salad sometimes in this place. Don't worry about it. Quick little Get a sip everybody. Yes. This is so fascinating I think so, you know, I had this moment halfway through this realization Like I'm sitting across the table from mel robbins and I had to keep myself This is so cool. Thank you. Thank you for having me Oh And one more thing and no this is not a blooper This is the legal language, you know what the lawyer's right and what I need to read to you This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional got it good. I'll see you in the next episode serious xm There are things in life we make more complicated than they need to be And things that we worry about that we don't need to like making tax digital for income tax Summups free mtd for income tax solution is ideal for sole traders turning over more than 50 000 a year It's already built into the sum up platform so you can stay compliant without paying for software or worrying about getting it wrong Did I mention it's free getting started is easy. Just search sum up mtd online