Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / The Most Reliable Way to Build Confidence With Carly Taylor

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The Most Reliable Way to Build Confidence With Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Everyone, it's Curly here for this week's Mojo Monday. So
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  Speaker 1: today I want to talk about confidence, not the kind
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  Speaker 1: that kind of comes and goes depending on how things
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  Speaker 1: are working out. It's more stable, grounded kind of confidence
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  Speaker 1: that you can draw on or rely on no matter
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  Speaker 1: what's happening around you. Because, let's be honest, most people
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  Speaker 1: tie their confidence to outcomes, and I certainly can do
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  Speaker 1: this if I don't kind of catch myself. You know,
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  Speaker 1: you feel confident when things are going well or when
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  Speaker 1: you're winning, or when you're getting the result that you
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  Speaker 1: hope for. And what happens when you don't when things
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  Speaker 1: fall apart and they don't work out. You know, when
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  Speaker 1: you don't get selected for something, or if a meeting
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  Speaker 1: doesn't go as well as you wanted it to, or
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  Speaker 1: when you tried your best at something and it still
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  Speaker 1: didn't work out. Confidence kind of by default, it can
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  Speaker 1: really disappear. And I wanted to keep with the stoic
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  Speaker 1: theme for this week. We talked about a stoic practice
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  Speaker 1: last week, and this week I want to offer something
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  Speaker 1: that I think is really incredibly useful for confidence, and
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  Speaker 1: that's a concept called the reserve clause. It's been written
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  Speaker 1: about in modern terms by Jonah Salzberger, who wrote The
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  Speaker 1: Little Book of Stoicism, which is I think one of
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  Speaker 1: the best books on Stoicism that's out there, So you
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  Speaker 1: can check that out if you're interested. Paul actually had
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  Speaker 1: him on the podcast a couple of years ago, but
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  Speaker 1: it goes all the way back to epictetis. So the
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  Speaker 1: idea is simple. You commit fully to what you're doing
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  Speaker 1: with one condition in mind fate permitting, so or more practically,
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  Speaker 1: I will do everything I can to succeed. I will
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  Speaker 1: focus on the process. I will work hard, but I
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  Speaker 1: accept that the outcome is not fully in my control.
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  Speaker 1: Because this changes everything, because now your confidence is no
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  Speaker 1: longer built on whether you succeed or fail. It's built
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  Speaker 1: on something much more stable. It's built on effort and
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  Speaker 1: intention and how you show up. So you prepare, you train,
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  Speaker 1: you care, you give it everything you've got, but you
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  Speaker 1: don't demand a specific result from the world. And that
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  Speaker 1: means when things don't go your way, which can happen,
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  Speaker 1: you don't collapse, you don't spiral into that I'm not
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  Speaker 1: good enough. You don't avoid the next opportunity because you've
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  Speaker 1: got this narrative going on in your head. You were
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  Speaker 1: just kind of like pivoting and you keep moving. So
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  Speaker 1: this is where the second part comes in. The Stoics
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  Speaker 1: didn't just say accept whatever happens, so it's not a
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  Speaker 1: passive acceptance. They said accept it and continue to live
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  Speaker 1: with ar atay. So what is artay? Well, our atay
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  Speaker 1: means excellence of character. So moment to moment, regardless of
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  Speaker 1: the outcome, you keep asking what does courage look like here?
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  Speaker 1: What does integrity look like? Here? What does my best
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  Speaker 1: self do next? Because success doesn't make you a better
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  Speaker 1: person and failure doesn't make you a worse one, but
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  Speaker 1: how you respond to both is what matters, because that's
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  Speaker 1: where your character is shaped. So here's a simple way
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  Speaker 1: to apply this this week, before you go into something
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  Speaker 1: that really matters, you know, whether it's a conversation or
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  Speaker 1: you know, a workout or a presentation or whatever it is,
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  Speaker 1: say to yourself, I'm going to give this everything that
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  Speaker 1: I've got fate permitting. And then afterwards, instead of asking
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  Speaker 1: did I win or lose? Ask did I show up
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  Speaker 1: the way I wanted to? Because that's where real confidence
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  Speaker 1: is built, not in the result, but in knowing that
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  Speaker 1: no matter what happens, you can trust yourself to respond well.
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  Speaker 1: And when you have that, confidence stops being so fragile
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  Speaker 1: and it becomes something that you carry with you. So
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  Speaker 1: I really hope that is useful. It's certainly a really
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  Speaker 1: useful concept for me, and I hope you all have
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  Speaker 1: a great week. I'll catch you next week. See you