0:00
Hey, elevated entrepreneurs. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Elevated Entrepreneur podcast. If this is your first time here, thank you so much for tuning in, I’d love for you to check out the website, which is elevatedentrepreneur.fm, where you will get access to a whole lot of shownotes transcriptions and even some of the other amazing episodes that I have recorded for you.
0:23
And if you’re a longtime listener, thank you so much for supporting me. I’m so happy that you’re here. Because today’s topic is a topic that we as entrepreneurs don’t spend a lot of time on, and that is self confidence. How do we really work on our self confidence? And are we mistaking arrogance for self confidence? These and many more questions are exactly what we are covering in today’s episode, and I am joined by a great guest. Her name is Alia.
0:49
She’s also known on Instagram as coach Alia, because she is a certified personal and professional coach and an NLP practitioner and she specializes in helping entrepreneurs and people all over the world with self confidence and self love. As one of the leading coaches in the UAE, Alia has worked with CEOs, public figures, celebrities, lawyers and healthcare professionals.
1:12
She has conducted training sessions for organizations like ad knock the Ministry of Education, and the Emirates Foundation, and even some of the leading financial institutions like mustard bank, and first Abu Dhabi bank.
1:41
I had an amazing conversation with Alia about this topic and I asked her how, as entrepreneurs to be realized that we are low on self confidence, and what are some of the tips and tricks that she can share that help us entrepreneurs, uplevel our self confidence, and she had some amazing tips to share.
2:07
You’re listening to the Elevated Entrepreneur podcast, a podcast designed to help retailers restauranteurs and entrepreneurs simplify business operations and use modern technology to elevate their business. Here’s your host, Dhiren Bhatia. Alia. Very big welcome to the Elevated Entrepreneur Show. It’s a privilege to have you really it’s an honor to have you.
2:31
Thank you, Dhiren, really glad to be here as well. Thank you for inviting me on here today.
2:35
Yeah, thank you for being here and we have a lot to uncover, especially around self confidence. I know this is an area that you specialize in. But before I get into that, I want you to introduce yourself to the audience, please.
2:48
Sure. So my name is Alia and I’m a personal and professional development coach and I specialize in supporting professionals and entrepreneurs in building their self confidence and self esteem. So this is something I’m hugely passionate about speaker, coach, trainer, and podcasters myself,
3:07
And I know you are a phenomenal authority on this. But before I get into that, I want to ask you, this is not your original profession. You didn’t start out into this, you actually started out completely different. You were a you’ve got your Bachelor’s in Biomedical Science. You’ve got a Master’s in Public Health. Talk to me about that.
3:24
Yeah, so very different. So yeah, as you said, I have a Science and Health background and I started my career in the field of public health. So worked at a startup and in tech Fintech. I worked at Public Health England, you know, working on their National Antimicrobial Resistance Program and really, I had like my ideal job on paper.
3:51
Life had a different plan for you, I guess.
3:53
Yeah, I think so. Yeah, definitely.
3:56
I want to ask you what, all of the things that you said sounded really interesting, really fascinating. A lot of that went right over my head because a science that I had terribly at science. But when I asked why the switch from that into coaching,
4:08
To me, psychology, human behavior is all the mind is something I’ve always just been interested in myself, I thought of going down the psychology route, but then I instead went down into the science and public health route, but it’s always been something I used to read about you.
4:25
I’ve always been someone who just loves to kind of listen to people, you know, be there for people something that kind of came naturally.
4:30
So I actually just kind of thought I’d get into coaching just for myself and to explore and learn while I was really just intrigued to learn more as well, my career my nine to five, but I wanted to spend time, kind of yeah, just building on my skills.
4:43
And I know you do a phenomenal amount of workshops here in the city of Dubai and you help on Spinoza with this, why self confidence? What is that attracts you so much about self confidence.
5:05
So building my self confidence is something that’s changed my life. That’s why I’m the biggest advocate for it, you know, there was a time where you know, my self confidence a lot lower than it is now, my self esteem was a lot lower than it is, I never really saw myself as doing great things or being able to achieve great things.
5:25
So they were able to push me and provide that safe space to say, No, you can do it, you are able to do it. And they challenge me a lot.
5:43
And so from really like building myself confidence getting out of my comfort zone, achieving things I never thought I would be able to do and move my way up, you know, in my career so quickly, you know, in a short space of time.
6:03
So because I’ve seen how life changing it is, it’s what I want to be able to help others with. And the thing is confidence is people think, Oh, you either have it or you don’t. But that’s not true at all, you know, it’s a skill and like any other skill, the more you build on it, the more confident you become. So this is yeah, this is why I’m so passionate about it.
6:22
I love that and I love what you said about how coaches see some things in people that we don’t see in ourselves. I love what you said about that and I think that’s really why as people, we want to be working with coaches, we want to be able to get them to draw out the best from us rather than trying to get I think a lot of people think about coaching as fixing yourself.
6:49
Yeah, definitely. That’s essentially what it is, is, you know, I believe that we all have the resources, we have the skills, we have the gifts, the talents inside of each and every one of us. It’s about having the space as a coach, I provide the space and the guidance to help people bring that out of that what they already have inside of them.
7:07
Yeah.
7:08
And you know, people come to me they have this fire inside of them, you know, they know that they can do so much more they know that and it’s just like, I don’t know how or I don’t know if I can. So that’s really what I do to to build that up. So absolutely, we have all the greatness inside of us.
7:22
There was something very interesting. You also said about self confidence, being a skill, something that you learn and honed over time, as opposed to being born with it, because you hear it this all the time.
7:40
Yeah, so first of all, I just kind of give a definition of what self confidence is. So Self confidence is very much about your belief, what you believe about your ability to achieve something. So it’s a bit different from self esteem. So self esteem is, you know, how we feel about ourselves as people. So how much positive regard how much self love we have for ourselves.
8:01
And then Self confidence is about how we feel about our abilities to achieve something. So it’s interesting, because you can have, you know, quite, you know, low self esteem, for example, you can have quite a bit of confidence. So yeah, I can do that there’s a challenge, there’s an opportunity, I’m gonna go for that, but your self esteem can be quite low.
8:19
So on the whole, you feel pretty good about yourself but then your confidence when it comes to, for example, starting a side business or putting yourself out there that can be, you know, quite low, so.
8:37
But on the whole as your self esteem starts to increase your confidence builds as well. It’s not like one shoe fits all, there are some areas of our lives where we feel very confident, you know, we’re in flow, it comes naturally to us and then there’s some areas that we’re not so confident in.
8:52
And the reason why confidence is important is because without self confidence, you know, this is something I say a lot is that, you know, you can have like the best degree, you can, you know, have all the qualifications.
9:04
I think nowadays, we love to ramp up all the qualifications to get all these tools, these courses, you know, be really good at what you do, you know, you could be the hardest working person at your job even.
9:13
But if you don’t have the confidence to go with that you will always hold yourself back, you will never reach the full potential without the self confidence that goes alongside that and that is why self confidence is really important.
9:26
I completely agree with you. I think there’s a side to that which is being overly self confident, which I think lends into arrogance, right when you see someone’s really huffed and puffed about themselves that may come off as self confidence, I think but I don’t think that to be the case. Is that true?
9:40
Yeah, definitely. This is one of the things I see the most and I think more so in women. Is that why people don’t want to work with there’s hesitation around working on their self confidence because they think oh, if I work on my confidence, I’m going to come across as arrogant, but they have two different things. I mean, there’s a fine line but there are different things.
10:01
So just to be clear on that, I mean, I honestly believe you can be the quietest person in the room and the most confident, you know, confidence doesn’t need to be loud and bold, and in people’s faces of anything, that could be a lack of confidence if people try to make up for lack of confidence.
10:29
Whereas confidence, the difference between confidence and arrogance is confidence comes with humility. It’s knowing that I don’t know everything, I do make mistakes, you know, I do need help sometimes.
10:52
You’re absolutely right and I think a lot of people mistake the two and I’m glad that you actually spelled that out because it’s very different, to be self confident and it’s very different to be arrogant.
11:13
But I love what you said that actually, it’s the other way around. And also, I think, a big part of that is I know, another area that you love talking about which is self love. And I think that’s a second episode that we can record together. But coming back to being self confident, I want to ask you, what is not being self confident, look light.
11:32
So there are a number of things. For one, you know, when we don’t feel very confident in ourselves, we all have an inner critic to tell, we all have this inner critic that goes on in our mind and you know, there’s a really shocking statistic by the human science foundation, which found that, you know, on average, we have 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, and 80% are negative, and 95% are repetitive.
11:56
So on the whole, you know, a lot, most of the dialogue that we have is not doing us any good. But we have a choice. But when you lack confidence in yourself, there’s a lot more of the negative inner critic that takes over, you’re putting yourself down a lot, you’re focusing on what you believe, or they’re not so good qualities about yourself.
12:15
You know, when you lack confidence in yourself, you often compare yourself to other people, because you think they’re better than me, I’m behind them, I’m not doing as well as them, I’m not good enough for them. So comparing yourself to other people. When you lack self confidence, you might have all these opportunities around you.
12:33
There’s something you want to do, but you don’t allow yourself to take that step you hold yourself back, you know, you let fear take over. You let judgment take over. What if they say this about me?
12:42
What if they think this about me? So these are some of the signs of you know, low confidence is running away from opportunities, holding yourself back from opportunities, not speaking up for yourself.
12:52
Well, that’s a big one not speaking up for yourself. I think there’s so many of us that will keep quiet because we think that we may come across as impolite or, and I think it’s not really about being impolite or being arrogant, it’s just being clear on what you want, because that confidence comes from within.
13:23
So I mean, I’ll actually give an example of a client of mine, actually, so she is an entrepreneur, and I just recently started working together and, you know, she came to me because she, you know, I was invited to give a talk at this event, you know, here in Dubai,
13:40
And I train people on public speaking or confidence, and you’re giving talks and so we had a session together and she even told me this event that she’s had other opportunities before, but she said no to them in the past.
13:54
But now her business is getting a lot of traction, it’s getting a lot of PR, it’s getting a lot of media attention and now these inquiries are coming through and she’s realized that it’s absolutely important that she needs to start building her confidence.
14:05
So we worked on this, we did the session together, and we worked on her mindset, you know what all the stories she was telling herself, especially about this presentation, because she didn’t actually want to do it.
14:14
She had all these stories of, I really don’t want to give this talk. I really don’t want to be there. I don’t want to go to this event. To the talk. We worked on her story. Like why is this important for her as an entrepreneur?
14:25
It’s suddenly no longer became about oh, I’m giving this talk it was wow I have so much to give to all these women who are going to be at the event. And you know, we visualize that you manifested it going really well and literally she and I still let me know how it goes.
14:54
It is it is and I’m just amazed at the statistic that you shared earlier, because big part of that is, what she was going through is what most of us entrepreneurs go through all the time, the self critic, the inner critic, keeps shouting all these negative thoughts.
15:23
So 80% of 60,000 thoughts a day are negative. I wonder why that is any thoughts about why do we do that to ourselves?
15:31
Yeah, I mean, it’s a lot of it stems from childhood, for example. That’s one thing, the way we’re parented, the way our parents, you know, raises how what we saw growing up in our household, a lot of it can be from school days, you know, we had children around us, you know, unfortunately, your kids are not very nice at school, you know, there could be some things that we hear at school, and that stays with us into our adulthood.
15:57
Some things, you know, it can be one or two comments from when we were young, even, you know, we might have parents, for example, that all about, you know, yes, you know, study and study and study, you know, our parents have best intentions, but what can then end up happening is, we can easily, for example, tie our self worth to our achievements, you know, yes, you’re good when you achieve a lot.
16:15
And when you don’t, you know, you’re not good, you’re not doing enough, and all that. So, there’s a number of things, I think, also, now we just were bombarded, you know, by social media, we’re constantly, you know, we have to do is open up our phone, and, you know, have so many reasons to believe why we’re not good enough, or why we’re falling behind, you know, in life.
16:35
So I think just the kind of, there’s just so much noise as well, nowadays, a very fast paced society, we constantly feel like we’re not keeping up and so the thing is accumulation really of these things and, you know, also, for example, if we have a knock back in life, you know, we’ve had rejections we’ve had, no, we’ve had knock backs, if we don’t kind of work through that, that can end up building walls around us these over time, or block us and dampen our self confidence.
17:02
So it’s about being aware, it’s constantly, this is why I really believe that self reflection is very important along the way. Because if we’re not aware of like, the impact of our experiences or circumstances on us, then they’re just gonna keep having an impact without us even realizing,
17:18
I love what you said about growing up with all that trauma, not necessarily trauma. But all of these influences make a big part of who we become as adults. I recently, my wife and I worked with a money coach on money mindset and it was such a telling session, there was so much that we carry with us as kids, just unbelievable, how much shifted in my mind, just from that four sessions that we did with her.
17:50
Well, I mean, as an entrepreneur, I think self confidence is one of the most important skills for sure. I think you have to be a slightly crazy to be an entrepreneur, right? You know, you have this big dream, this crazy idea in your head, and in your mind, you’re just like, No, this is what I want to do. This is my goal. This is my vision, and you believe so passionately about what you want to do and that’s very important.
18:12
But the journey is very hard. As you know, as you’ve been entrepreneur for many years, you are going to have many knock backs. Along the way, you’re gonna get knocked down, you’re gonna have a lot of nos a lot of rejections, and if you don’t, I think, also resilience ties into this, if you don’t have the self confidence and self belief to keep going and the resilience, you know, you have your first or second no, you’re going to be like, Okay, well, you know, this isn’t for me.
18:39
This isn’t my path but when you have that belief, it’s like, okay, no matter what is it going to happen, I believe I can do this. So you need to be your biggest cheerleader, because the world around you is tough. You can’t always impact the external circumstances but what you need to do is constantly have your back throughout the whole journey.
18:58
So again, I know you can relate with this as well is, you know, you then come into entrepreneurship and suddenly have to wear all of these different hats. I mean, for me, I just wanted to help people, like I was like, I just really want to help to make people’s lives better. That’s really what I want to do.
19:13
But then I got into this and suddenly it’s like, oh my gosh, like I’m doing videos on social media, I should share that story as well actually, you know, becoming a brand on social media, I have to meet people have to go to networking events.
19:26
None of these things came naturally to me at all, like honestly speaking this is not something that’s just you know, built in me, but I knew I was like, but if I want to be successful in what I do, I need to become really good at this. I need to build my confidence you know, closing you know, meeting clients and learning sales that requires a lot of self confidence and because you know.
19:50
I think everything is energy because if you don’t you know believe that you are good enough or if you don’t believe entirely in your service your product or you don’t believe that you’re good enough to have this client
20:00
That all of that will be given off in your energy and people will take in that energy. And subconsciously, that’s the message that they’re taking in as well. So you absolutely need to be believing in yourself that everyone around you believes that as well.
20:13
Yeah. And you know, being your own biggest cheerleader is a skill that we hear a lot about, we will never practice it. I want to go back to something you said earlier about making videos on social media. I just started doing YouTube videos, and I cannot tell you how hard it is to keep putting myself out there.
20:30
Because there’s so much chatter in my head about is this good? Is this actually going to be like, am I actually giving value? But I want to hear your perspective. I know you put amazing content on Instagram. How’s that started? And how’s it going?
20:42
Yeah, so I have an interesting story about that. So, you know, qualified as a coach and I just knew early on, like, I want to, I’m serious about this, I want to start my business and there’s this one, I want to do full time.
20:53
So then I had a mentor who is a coach and mentor, and worked with him and we basically had this conversation where, you know, we were talking about building up my brand.
21:03
And he was like, You know what you need to start this was five years ago, this isn’t 2017 He was like, You need to start doing videos on Instagram and I said to him, No way. I was like, No way.
21:18
Am I going to put my face on Instagram? You know, what will people say? You’re going to judge me? I don’t want it you know, all these examples, someone who’s like very private, you know, just have my close friends family that’s it didn’t want to ever be seen.
21:30
And I was like, No, I just went blank refuse. You know, I used to look at people who did videos, and I was like, wow, how do they do that? That’s a ball. They’re so confident, and he challenged me. He was like, No, you’re going to do this and it was argued back and forth for a while and then he chases Okay, first of all, I want you to you record some videos by yourself, and send them to me.
21:52
So we did some exercises around that getting comfortable on camera and every day I send a video and you know, day by day, I get more confident and then he challenged me and said right, what I want you to do is I want you to do your first video on Instagram, and I want you to do 10 tips for the next 10 days, you’re going to post a video or sharing a tip or confidence tip every day.
22:12
So here I am, I decided to do it one day and by the way, that video is still there on my Instagram for anyone who actually wants to go down five years of content. So I’m there, right? And it’s like a raw video of me and I’m like, Hey, this is my first video. I was like, I feel sick right now. You know, I’m shaking, I’m very nervous. But you know, I’m helping people with confidence. I need to walk my walk and talk my talk.
22:38
And here I am, you know, filming this video. and, so I kind of did that, like, you know, it was dying inside and then and then I said to them right for the next 10 days, I’m going to share a tip with you on how to build your confidence. So can you imagine in my mind, I’d already committed to this now there was no getting out of it, right and that’s exactly what I did. So day one for the next 10 days, I did a 62nd video.
23:01
And it’s really interesting because day one, I was very, like hesitant. Day two, and then by day three, or like day three, day four, day five, you know, so much energy. And it’s just like, it just got easier over time and then obviously doing you know, more videos and a YouTube and I started doing lives. You know, and I do a lot more positive on video now. So something that says scary initially just becomes easy.
23:25
It was such an interesting story. Because you know, I hear you to be a self confidence coach and I’m thinking, Yeah, you got this down path and here you are yourself going through the motions that come with not necessarily being not self confident. But anytime you do something new anytime you putting yourself out of the comfort zone, all of these questions just well up you all these emotions just come up and so thank you for sharing that.
23:46
And I just add to that, I look, I’m human. So this still happens even now. I mean, this is why I always say we’re not striving for a destination. You know, it isn’t like, right, I’m fully confident. Now I’m my most confident self because, you know, I’m someone who likes to challenge myself. So basically, when you challenge yourself, you get out of your comfort zone, right? So now it’s like, okay, I’m doing this now I’m out of my comfort zone, I’m out of my depth.
24:10
So naturally, the inner critic will come in Am I good enough? Can I do this at all? But the difference is you learn how to manage it. So before would have been you know, in the past, maybe it would have let that inner critic takeover. But when you start to build your confidence in yourself, you’re like, hey, hey, I see you. It’s okay and you can you start working away through that and moving forward instead of letting it hold you back.
24:35
I love that and you said something about this earlier. You know, people think that we’re born with self confidence. You see someone really confident you see them doing a really good job. We think that he or she’s got this because they were born with it or they’ve had it, you know, since they were kids, like I know you said this is a skill and what you just said was you’ve got to catch yourself.
24:54
And you’ve got to remind yourself and talk to that inner self to say I see you and I love that example where you say like you make it a person, you give this a name. I see you, I see what you’re doing there and then you throw that thought away? Is that what you would recommend as a tip for entrepreneurs to start with?
25:08
So definitely becoming aware of the thoughts, one, you know, otherwise, your thoughts will just run you. So becoming aware of the thoughts. I guess just sitting with them, really, first of all, I’d say you don’t even need to just jump to doing anything else right away. So just become aware be like, what is actually going on? In my mind right now?
25:27
How is this making me feel, because it’s very likely that some of the things are saying or maybe making you feel very unmotivated, and making you feel very down or upset, maybe very stressed out? So just kind of sit with that and have that awareness?
25:40
I was gonna ask, do you recommend writing these thoughts down? Is journaling a big part of this?
25:45
Absolutely. So this is something I do, for example, in my coaching sessions, where they come to me with a specific area that they want to work on, and they’re not feeling so confident, and they’re like, you know, I’ve got this presentation, or I’ve got this meeting with my boss and I’m like,
25:58
Okay, right, you’re feeling all these different things about it, feeling very anxious, really stressed down on paper, all the stories that you’re telling yourself about this right now to get out, even just by getting it on paper, and like singing in front of you that in itself, you have that detachment, you know, and you have that realization well, I’m not my thoughts, these are just thoughts that I have.
26:19
And then a great question to ask yourself, then is like, is this true? Because a lot of time we make up these stories, you know, this is all we make up scenarios about what is to happen, or what’s happened? Isn’t that essentially a fact? It’s just something we’ve created? So ask yourself, ask yourself, what impact is having on me? And then, you know, work backwards?
26:39
Like what you know, Stephen Covey’s seven habits, he talks about starting with the end in mind, it’s like, well, what is the end of mine? What do you actually want to achieve here and then instead, what that was, what would be a different if you could choose a different story, because we choose our stories, what would be a different story that you choose instead?
26:58
Amazing, a recent practice that I started doing that I learned from someone was called Morning pages, where you get up in the morning and you write down just a constant stream of consciousness down on a piece of paper, incredibly liberating.
27:09
And I think, to your point, if if somebody who’s listening to this wants to give that a shot, just get up in the morning, write down your feelings, acknowledge what you’re feeling, and start building that habit. Cuz I think this too, is just a habit, it gets better over time. Any tips that you want to share about writing things down? And journaling?
27:25
Definitely. I mean, as he said, it’s just, it’s an outlet. It’s a really powerful outlet. And I also think, a lot of the time, it just neutralizes it, you might be feeling quite charged about something.
27:35
And you just get it out there. And it just I express anyway, it almost becomes neutral. So we don’t always need to think like, what’s the solution? What do I do, and we don’t want to force positivity either. We’re not like, Hey, I’m gonna be happy and write happy things.
27:50
If you’re not feeling happy, don’t worry, everything’s right to be real with yourself, you know, write it down, I actually have this thing where I say, like, you can get an angry journal as well get a sad journal, get a journal where you don’t feel so good. And write all the things there. If you’re sad or upset, you’re stressed. And it’s like, you know, put all that energy into that journal.
28:09
And then you have a nicer journal where you maybe feel good calm, where you can write some goals or manifests write it in that journal. It’s like two different energies and different journals,
28:17
I love that’s a great tip, have a sad journal, have a happy journal, really, really interesting way to manage that those emotions, and also what you said about, we tend to jump to decision making as you’re writing down, or as we’re thinking to ourselves, like, decision making is so integral to our psyche, that the minute we’ve acknowledged the thought the next thing becomes decision making.
28:35
But what you said there was very important, face the thought as it is, leave it out there, let it hang, no need to get to a decision just yet, acknowledge that feel. Let it see how you feel about like, see how you feel about it, by just letting it out there. So that’s a really interesting tip
28:51
100% and I think, like nowledge is power. You know, when I run these workshops, we do a lot of like group coaching and we do these exercises, where it’s like, okay, what is your belief about the situation? Or what are you doing in this area of your life right now? How are you holding yourself back? And having this awareness, it’s like, wow, now you are empowered.
29:13
Because before this, this was just running you you hadn’t consciously kind of sat down and looked at yourself almost to say, What am I doing? What am I thinking? How am I feeling? What am I relationships like, What is my work? Like all of these different areas, but now you have this awareness, you are you are now empowered, you’re in a different place, you can now make a different choice.
29:31
And so exactly, I think, you know, often we tried to jump, like jump a few steps and say, what solution what should I do? What should I do? But actually, you know, have more trust and faith in yourself that if you just kind of really take a step back, ask yourself these deeper questions, trust that you will actually come up with your own answers and it gives you a different perspective.
29:52
Just as I’m listening to you, my shoulders or I just took a really heavy breath because I saw
29:56
Yeah, there is so much of that decision making going on in our heads going instantly, I took your advice and literally I just let everything loose and I just let a big breath out. Can’t tell you how good that felt.
30:07
Love it. Good.
30:09
Yeah, thank you for that.
30:10
Just do more of that, right? Just be just was just still, like, there’s so much within us. We just feel like we need to be racing going all the time.
30:18
What’s tip number two? How does an entrepreneur increased self confidence.
30:22
So this one seems kind of maybe obvious or basic, but if I mean, if it was, we would be doing a lot more of it. And that is really, if you want to build your self confidence, you have to take action. You know, people often think this is something that comes up, it’s like, Oh, I’m not confident enough yet to do that. I’m not ready to do that right now. These are stories.
30:47
Now, if you want to build your confidence, it’s very important to realize you only become ready after doing the thing that scares you. You know, if I waited to be confident enough to do those videos, five years ago, maybe I’d probably be waiting now five years just sitting here, like, oh, maybe I’ll do videos one day, it was only after the doing the taking action, then I was like, oh, okay, done that now, I didn’t die.
31:09
I survived. And you know, you do it again, you do it again, you do it again, this is how so the thing that scares you, you’ve got to face it and say, I’m gonna do it, you know, you’ve got to go to a networking event, you’ve got to got to someone at this networking event, for example, got to do some cold calling, do it. That is the way to build your confidence. If it scares you, you have to do it.
31:30
I love it and the way you were doing your videos, the example that you shared earlier, the story, your coach actually made you do this in steps and I think that’s a big part of that, too. So you don’t have to take a huge leap of faith on day one, you want to do this in smaller steps.
31:43
Maybe like you, if you’re trying to put videos out, maybe just talk to yourself on a camera, just record yourself and then watch that the next day, and then do that a few times or send that close friend, a close family relative or a friend. Great, great, thorough way to ease yourself into it.
31:57
Yeah, absolutely and I think this is another area as well. Another tip is, is focusing on you know, progress over perfection. Because one massive thing that hinders our confidence is when we strive for perfection. It’s like it’s either nice to be perfect or forget about it. That is being very harsh, very hard on yourself.
32:18
You’re setting unrealistic expectations for yourself. So I ran this public speaking workshop, a training a couple of weeks ago and you know, this did come up, you know, so basically the participants, you know, we really, we spent a whole day together, working on their fears around public speaking, we looked at their mindset, we worked on body language, we looked at tone, we did a lot of improvisation exercises.
32:41
And that you could see the confidence build throughout the session, it was really incredible to see them just loosen up, be more bold and then they did a presentation at the end and they did amazingly well. But some of them still had that inner critic come up was I could have done better. And I said, Yeah, and you will do better.
33:01
You’ve just got to keep doing this, you practice even more like, why would you expect it to be at 100%? When you’ve only been doing this for a few hours today, like five, six hours. Imagine, look how far you’ve come in six hours. Imagine if you spent another six hours, another six hours. So it’s just like focusing on the progress and knowing the more you do it like the naturally the more confident you will become.
33:24
But you need to do things as you said, like, watch yourself. So for example, all the participants, they had a video and now I you know, I sent the video to them and they’re like, oh, I don’t want to watch myself. I said watch yourself.
33:35
That is the way like get uncomfortable with watching yourself. Because then you can see what it is that you’re doing and how you need to improve. It’s better that you see it rather than other people than you know seeing it before you get to work on it.
33:49
Yeah, absolutely and something in there also very insightful. And you mentioned this earlier, right? We come with this childhood emotions of we have to be perfect because we grew up that way.
33:59
I had to be perfect in school, I had to get 100 marks on something only then was I deemed was deemed to be good. I think we carry that into our adulthood and we said everything that we need to do or have to do has to be perfect out of the gate, but that’s never really going to happen.
34:14
Yeah, definitely. So just focus on how you’ve improved over time. So you know, not so for example, another client that I work with on this, she is really wants as she’s been wanting to work on her public speaking skills on her confidence and so we’ve been doing that together. And she came to one of my emotional intelligence workshops, actually.
34:34
And she really started to really loved it. She took a lot from it and then in her, her team, she just decided to volunteer to give a talk to them all on emotional intelligence. And that was huge because like, this isn’t something she would have ever done before. She’s someone that would volunteer just to give back.
34:52
But obviously working together I’ve told her you need to be visible you need to be seen in the workplace. That is the only way that you’re going to be seen in just to get a promotion, people need to see you.
35:02
So she did that and it was just amazing. It’s like, see, look at that even a few months ago, you wouldn’t have done that. So just keep looking back and this is also going to build your confidence.
35:13
Yeah, absolutely love that and especially from a career perspective, I’ve served in a career for almost 15 years of my life. And what you said was so, so interesting to hear, most of us just want to get the day done, be in our little corner, do a little thing, do a good job, and then hope that our bosses will appreciate what we did.
35:31
But quite to the contrary, it’s actually the other way around. If you show up and you actually become more visible by doing things like these, your good actually stand a much better chance of getting that promotion. It’s actually showing up and getting out of your comfort zone.
35:42
Definitely and you know, people this phrase, I’m sure you’ve heard of it, it’s like fake it till you make it. It’s like, oh, what do we think of that term? Should we fake it? But I mean, I think you can in a way, because it’s like, do it, you know, you might not be ready, this might not be something that’s easy for you. Like, for example, you go to a networking event, you switch it on.
36:01
Now, I’ll give you an example of this. So I actually remember, this is back in when I was living in London, again, actually, this is kind of bringing something else in. This was a particular networking event that happened, and I really didn’t want to go again, you know, all networking, people all of that. But I decided to go, so I decided to go I got out of my head and went to this networking event and then when I was there, I met this videographer, and he loved what I do.
36:27
And he was like, Look, I’m going to London Fashion Week in a couple of weeks. Why don’t you come with me, we’ll spend the day backstage and you can interview the models, you know, bloggers, fashion designers, all of that on confidence. And let’s do a piece together about it. Sounds like awesome, amazing. So we did that, you know, spent the day backstage.
36:45
And it was very interesting, because you know, all the models that were there. You know, I asked them, can I just ask you a few questions? Can I interview you about competence? And they will a lot of them, you know, they were just giggling they were laughing? They were like, no, no, no, no, no, I don’t want to do an interview. They’re really shy.
37:01
And then you will see them on the runway. And they’re there. They’re just losing confidence, you know, their fears, their bowl, they’re doing their thing. And I was like, wow, you wouldn’t think that that same woman behind stage was like, no, no, I’m too shy to come on camera and do an interview. So you know that they just put it on, I like to call it like putting it on almost where your confidence suit.
37:25
And like, you go to a networking event, for example, you just put it on, like you put on right, I’m here, I need to do my thing, putting all my hats, do what I need to do speak to people get into this role and then when I come up, okay, I can just be me again and I think that also helps, then what really happens is, by doing that, it again becomes easier over time.
37:45
Absolutely true. There’s I know, we talked about this offline, there’s this book called Alter Ego, and that to what you were just saying is if you need to be in a situation where you can’t show up and you can’t play, think of yourself as an alter ego, think of what would x do, if you were an, maybe it’s a role model, maybe it’s a superhero that you love, just think about and envision what that person would do, and then put that suit on, and then do what you got to do.
38:06
And then you see that becoming a big part of your own personality. I love that tip. So we’ve covered four tips. So far actually know we’ve covered three tips so far, be a stronger supporter, do the doing so get, get out of your own way and get things done and start small,, and the next thing was progress over perfection. All of these are fantastic tips. Are there any others out there that you want to leave the audience with?
38:30
Sure, I say you know, if you want second kind of instant, as as a shot of confidence, you know, work on your body language, this interesting findings as well that show that, you know, only 7% of our communication is verbal.
38:45
So you know, we get so obsessed with like the right thing to say whether it’s a presentation or in a conversation socially or professionally or in a meeting, because I want to be you know, perceived well, but only 7% is verbal, you know, 55% over half of our communication is our body language.
39:03
And then the other 38% is like our tone, the way we say things. So it’s not just about what you say. But if you want to feel more confident work on your body language change your body. So you know even look at your posture. So you know, doing things like putting your shoulders back, your standing upright, smiling smiling is the biggest one.
39:23
So I guess my kind of big takeaway for you is and people hate this which is why I say do it is when you look in the mirror. Start looking at yourself in the mirror and smiling at yourself. Give yourself a big smile when you look at yourself, look yourself in the eye and smile to yourself. It’s very uncomfortable initially but if again, anything uncomfortable is pushing you right and making you grow.
39:46
So smile at yourself and say some encouraging you know words that you feel you need to hear right now. Because often when we look in the mirror we start criticizing ourselves, oh look at me I look tired and this and this, but just start to change the relationship you have with yourself when you look in the mirror, and even just smiling at yourself will give you such a big boost in your day.
40:05
Yeah, huge and what you talked about body language, it brought back a memory I was I had attended a Tony Robbins event thing a few years ago, it happened in Dubai, and it was very interesting because when Tony Robbins came on stage, he was completely full of energy that like that guy probably felt like he must have had 40 Red Bulls before he came on stage.
40:24
And he actually talked a lot about that when he came on to say, he’s not normally like tha a nd he does a lot of work on his body language, his state, as he calls it, he changes that state and a big part of what you do and say comes from the state you’re in.
40:36
So like you said, if your shoulders are drooping, or your head’s not in the right space, you’re going to come off as negative. But if you were to change that state, you’re automatically going to bring a lot of positive energy into that conversation.
40:46
Oh, 100% I think I was at that event as well. Tony Robbins, I think he does things like ice baths and things before his events. You know, he does he jumps on like trampolines and gets into an ice bath it Oh, yeah he’s all about the state, and yeah, I think you’ve got to get into the right state before anything.
41:01
I mean, even before this call, now, you and I this podcast episode, I like I really quieten things down, you know, 5 – 10 minutes before I just, you know, we’re just breathing I just kind of slow things down so that I’m, you know, really calm and present for this conversation.
41:17
Because if we’re constantly our mind is just racing, we’re going from one thing to another to another, we’re not really focused, we’re not really present. So yeah, 100% get yourself in a confident state boost yourself up, smile, you know, 100%
41:30
Yeah, we all gotta remember, there’s no such thing as multitasking. We’re all doing one thing at a time, we just think that we’re multitasking and I loved what you said about quieting it down before you get into something big or major, or even something that you knew at so true.
41:42
Yeah, I think calm equals confidence. If you feel calm, helps you to feel confident your mind is racing, you’ve got 100 things going on, it’s going to impact your confidence. So just yes, slow everything down and you will feel a lot more.
41:57
Love it a couple more questions for you earlier, you start to wrap up and this is my favorite question. Because you’re on the Elevated Entrepreneur Show, I want to ask you, what does it mean for you to be an elevated entrepreneur? You’re an entrepreneur. So what does that mean to you?
42:08
Oh, wow, I love that question. So to be an elevated entrepreneur, I would say it’s about looking at yourself, being clear on where you’re going, and seeing yourself as the version that you want to be and where you want to go. So what I mean by that is, it’s not just about looking at your current situation where you are now and making decisions on the present you but looking at what your goal is for the future and making decisions based on heart.
42:41
So a kind of might the elevated version of myself, the one who was already, you know, a few steps ahead, thinking about her and making decisions based on heroin as if it’s already happening, really to manifest those things into reality.
42:54
Fantastic tip. I love that answer. That is such an interesting, insightful answer. I’d love it. If there was one advice that you’d give an entrepreneur, what would that be?
43:03
Okay, if there’s one piece of advice, so many, so I’m trying to think, Where do I start? Where would I start? Okay, one piece of advice, okay, that’s an entrepreneur, there are a lot of things because I’ve talked a lot about kind of your own personal development here and the skills you need to build on personally, I’m a huge believer of that.
43:19
But I would also say, make sure you have the right people in your circle, that is a huge tip. Because one, entrepreneurship can get really lonely. People that understand you, it’s it can be very isolating journey, it’s a whole different journey in itself.
43:35
But you also need people around you who understand your little wins, you know, hey, I created my website, oh, my god, like how big that is, you know, to as an entrepreneur, to celebrate that with all the hardships to be able to bounce off that with people. So get a really good solid support system around you is probably a really useful part of this journey.
43:54
Fantastic. And if there was one book, because I know you read a lot of books, and if there’s a book or a podcast that you’d recommend, for someone to tune into or read, that’s maybe played a big impact on your life.
44:06
Okay, I’ll say a book and the podcast. So the book that one of the books changed my life was “Start Withh Why” Simon Sinek that really changed everything for me. And I think as an entrepreneur, it’s definitely a book you need to read.
44:20
Because this journey is very difficult, you know, we get knocked down along the way, but when you have really clear on your vision of why that’s what keeps you going every day.
44:29
So that’s the first thing and then there’s a podcast by one of my mentors, Polly Alexandra, and it’s called the Feminine Millionaire podcast, and, you know, she talks a lot about, you know, we have like masculine and feminine energy within all of us.
44:44
But she talks about I think it’s, you know, it’s not just for women, but it’s a great one for women to learn how to tap into your feminine energy in terms of working because we have a very masculine dominated society now.
44:54
So it’s like you can actually be very successful and abundant working if you could tap into your feminine so that’s really been life changing for me that podcasts
45:02
Amazing I’m gonna give it a listen to and we’re gonna make sure the link all of this in the show notes. And last question earlier where can people find you.
45:09
So you can find me in a few places. Instagram is where I, you know, hang out the most. So coach_alie you can connect with me on LinkedIn, and also I have a podcast as well called the Women Who Flourish podcast so you know, if you you know into these obviously topics on confidence, self love, then do find me on the podcast as well.
45:27
Yeah, and again, we’ll make sure we link all of those in the show notes earlier. Thank you so much for being here and spending so much time with me talking about self confidence for entrepreneurs love our conversation.
45:37
Thank you. It’s great to be here as well. Thank you, everyone.
45:40
Thank you.
45:44
Thank you so much for staying with me till the very end of the episode, you’ve done it. I’ve got three specific asks for you only if you think that this podcast is worthy of your support and if you’ve enjoyed the content, my first request is for you to hit the subscribe button. Actually smash that subscribe button so that you can get notified when new episodes come your way.
46:04
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46:31
And finally, if there’s a question that you’ve been dying to ask me, or this pieces of feedback that you’d like to give me, head on over to elevate it entrepreneur.fm/speak, where you will be able to record a voice message that I can listen to and also maybe feature here on the podcast together with my answer. I’d love to hear from you. Thank you much love and I’ll see you in the next one.
1:23
Alia is also a fellow podcast and she runs a phenomenal podcast called “Women Who Flourish” and she talks a lot about these topics on her podcast, and shares proven strategies to help people stop standing in their own way, overcome their fears, and make their dreams a reality.
1:58
So, grab your headphones, grab yourself a cup of coffee, and if you’re driving, turn up the volume and let’s Cue the music.
3:44
So I thought that’s kind of what I studied what I thought I wanted to do. But then of course, things kind of changed alongthe way.
6:41
You’re trying to change yourself. But I think it’s more about what you said, which is drawing out the best of you, without you even knowing it.
7:30
Oh, he’s so amazing, because he was born with that self confidence. I wanted you to maybe just talk about how is it as a skill? And why is it even important for entrepreneurs?
10:17
Whereas arrogance is very much about, you know, feeling like you’re better than other people, you know, people who are again, it’s very much about me, and they get joy, and you know, feeling like they’re better and putting other people down.
10:41
And that’s okay. So I always say to people, unless you’re coming across, you know, putting other people down, it’s just about me, me, me my way or the highway, it’s very unlikely that you’re coming across as arrogant.
11:02
I think a lot of people substitute one or the other and more times, they substitute arrogance for self confidence and they think that by being the loudest person in the room, by making a lot of noise, they can actually get a lot of stuff done.
17:42
And you’re so right. So I want to, I guess, ask you, then, what does an entrepreneur do to increase up their self confidence?
