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Why Confidence Isn't Always What You Think · Bro-ing Pains

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there was all kinds of negative thoughts in your head, and I'm just curious how did you get through those?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Trust yourself, I guess.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: What's up, world?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Browing Pains, where we have the conversations that live somewhere between your therapist's office and the group chat.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Chad, a licensed marriage and family therapist, but my friends like to call me Papa Chad.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm Carlos, theater kid or self-proclaimed corporate puppy.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: And a quick reminder: this podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health care.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: If you're struggling or know someone who is, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional in your area.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, well, welcome back, everybody.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is season three, episode two.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Last episode, we talked about becoming your own person.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: How so much of who we become is shaped by our childhood, families, culture, and the stories we inherit before we're ever old enough to question them.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: But once you start asking, who am I?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: More questions naturally follow.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because knowing who you want to be isn't always enough.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of us carry invisible beliefs about ourselves that quietly shape every decision that we make.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Am I capable?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Am I worthy?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Do I belong?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Am I enough?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: Those questions don't just affect our confidence.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: They influence our relationships, our relationships with ourselves, careers, goals, and the lives that we build.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're unpacking two ideas that are often lumped together, but are actually very different: self-esteem and self-efficacy.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: One is about how we value ourselves.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: The other is about whether we believe we can actually do hard things.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So today we're exploring more where these beliefs come from, how they're shaped by childhood, success, failure, and relationships, and most importantly, how they're not fixed.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Because the stories we tell ourselves about who we are often become the limits we place on who we can become.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We introduce to you vignette number 009.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mindset shift.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: For as long as he could remember, Vicente believed he was good with his hands.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: Need a deck built, he was your man.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: Bathroom remodel, he got it.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_02: Custom cabinets, that's where he did his best work.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_02: Running a business, that was a totally different story.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_02: At 33, Vicente had spent five years growing his own construction company.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: He had a wife, two young kids, and more work than he could personally keep up with.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Friends told him he was successful, but every time someone complimented the business, he'd shrug it off.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just figuring it out as I go.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: The truth was he still felt like an employee pretending to be an owner.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: His parents had immigrated with little more than a willingness to work hard.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: They taught him that if you showed up early, kept your head down, worked harder than everyone else, things would work out.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: They never talked about leadership, delegation, marketing, or building your dream so that you're not continuing to build somebody else's.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: Business owners were people with degrees, investors or connections, not guys like him.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: So Vicente kept doing what he knew.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: He worked longer hours instead of raising prices, took on more jobs instead of hiring help, solved every problem himself because he wasn't convinced anyone else could.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: Eventually, he hired his first full-time employee out of necessity.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: Vicente spent the weekend putting together what he thought was a basic training binder job expectations, safety procedures, customer communication, equipment maintenance, even how he'd like the truck organized at the end of each day.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: On the employee's first afternoon, the new hire flipped through the binder and looked up.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've worked for three separate contractors before, he said.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_02: None of them had had anything close to this.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, you've built a really impressive operation here.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_02: Vicente laughed.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_02: You think so?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the employee replied.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: You act like this is normal.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_02: Vicente didn't know what to say, didn't know what to do with that.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: For the rest of the day, he couldn't stop thinking about it.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: How could someone else see a capable business owner when all he saw in the mirror was a guy hoping nobody realized he didn't know what he was doing?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: How could someone else see a capable business owner when all he saw in the mirror was a guy hoping nobody else realized he didn't know what he was doing?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: The first things that like stand out to me, the discrepancy between how you see yourself and how others view you, right?
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it's often very, very different, you know, for you know, for the better or for worse.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes if you're like a mediocre white man, you know, you think you're the fucking God's gift to world to the to the world.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_02: You know, you could be you could be presenting too much egotistical and everyone else is like, dude, you're not that special.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: To love.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: The parent aspect also resonated with me, but also just the idea that he solved every problem himself because he wasn't convinced anyone else could.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's very real, right?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Where like especially with like because I feel like I have that same mentality too, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Of uh, and that's where like for me specifically, I have a hard time asking for help.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also because I would rather just get it done right.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because I know that I can do it right, as opposed to risk letting somebody else take it or, you know, handle that and and not do it the same way.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this is the growing pain that I would say is underneath that, right?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Is yes, that's probably part of it.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_02: But another part that I often find is that deep down there's a lot of fear and insecurity that if your name is behind this and you don't do it right, your reputation and how people look at you is going to be judged.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: So it's not so much just like, oh, I I can't count on anybody else.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, if I if you want to do something right, you gotta do it yourself and fuck it, I'll do it myself kind of thing.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's to me, it's also like this fear of like maintaining this this image of of yourself for people.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that is that's exhausting.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it all plays into So today's topic of self-esteem and self-efficacy.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to break down what self-efficacy means?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: This is your time to shine, so don't fuck it up.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I heard of the concept first from my wife's um PhD advisor, Dr.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Dana Ferris.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: She's one of the world-renowned leaders in ESL, English as a second language, um, and more particularly in the uh teaching writing aspect.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things she's really big in is the idea of self-efficacy that literally they've done research where if you believe you are a good writer and and get the positive feedback, then students perform better.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if you grow up in a family or an institution, or if you're in a work culture where you're not given a lot of that positivity and looking at you from a strength-based perspective, then you're, I guess, statistically not looking at being able to perform and just feel better about your capabilities.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it just it's crazy that like, you know, when you put a belief out there, how much it actually comes to fruition.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_02: Or do people even believe that they deserve to have it of themselves?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, are they are they somebody who should have self-esteem of themselves?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like that a lot of times actually what I deal with in the room is is starting from that.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_02: Not a lot of times, but I guess it's sad and hard to to start from that from that groundbreaking thing is like this is the base level.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to understand that you have value to even have self-esteem.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: You have value because you exist.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's because you're here.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: But that's a mind-blowing concept for people, right?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so like just that value and that equals you should feel some sort of self-esteem because you bring value into the world is is a foreign concept to to and it's particularly with men.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I think that's you know, the the basis of being able to build that self-esteem.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_02: Um and me and you and in our growing up, you know, had to I think develop that mostly independently and having to challenge our upbringings to be able to think that, you know, we we do have value.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's an ongoing process for the both of us.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I've always said that confidence is for me something that fluctuates, you know, and and like I may feel super confident one day and and like be struggling with it the next day.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: At least for me, it's part of like my life journey, I guess.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that like the idea around um fake it till you make it, I think it's something that I've held on to.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually very recently I heard somebody say that concept of fake it till you make it is bullshit, you know, and and you should just kind of just own it, basically.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: The only example that I can sort of put this into context is is like being being an artist and being a creative.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I had a lot of imposter syndrome when I was first starting out in my, you know, because I didn't start acting until I was 19, 20.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I was at UC Santa Cruz with a bunch of kids that had been acting since they were literal literal children, you know what I mean?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so me going into it, I just felt like I had so much to catch up on and just felt like I didn't really belong, you know?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: What were the the ways in which you like um internalized that messaging?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would also say that it was call them out.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Call them out.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: What are the names?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can give you names, bitch.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: It was a layered experience because it was difficult initially to find community in the theater arts department at UC Santa Cruz.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until I found Rainbow Theater, which was like the multicultural theater group on campus, that everything changed.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's that's I've made my like lifelong friends from that theater troupe.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: In these classes, it's mostly white kids.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're one of like maybe five students in in uh students of color in in those classrooms.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's just very easy to feel othered because you don't look like them.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: Also, even with faculty, it was very it felt like nepotism, you know?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like they all just kind of like looked out for each other.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: I was even thinking about just like even the idea of self-esteem is the concept of like you're you you have these capabilities, right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: And you you believe in yourself type of thing.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: That isn't constant.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like when when you're learning, we we as humans learn through trial and error all the time.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's how we learn how to spell.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's how we learned like that this is how humans learn.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just funny how now, as as people get older, when you step into an environment like a theater club or a theater group, there's this feeling of imposter syndrome because I'm not like already at the destination.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's like to me, that should be celebrated.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, oh great.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're recognizing your limits on your on your capabilities.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how do we get there?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what what would be the next like challenge, like growth opportunity for Carlos?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: But we don't look at it like that.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: We look at it as a deficiency of, oh, if you, you know, don't know, then then you're less than.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: Or or don't belong.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or don't belong, too, which is even the bigger one.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and then also you had another experience recently with acting.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if you wanna you wanna talk about that.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: You I mean, I was just thinking about all the potential pitfalls of low confidence and low self-esteem that you could have had entering this recent shoot that you did, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: You could have been like, oh, it's been so long since I've been on a set.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: You could say, like, um, you know, this there's no point to this.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there was all kinds of negative, you know, thoughts in your head.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm just curious if you can recall or or share, you know, with us, you know, how did you get through those?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: How did you find your self-efficacy through those challenging negative thoughts if you had them, which if I know you, then you did have them.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, not as bad as me, not as bad as me.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: I will give you that.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: But like, you they're they're there.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: They're there.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen them, I've met him, I've met them before.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, motherfucker.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I can recall being on previous sets and having the the jitters and having and feeling a little more nervous for some reason.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think that just comes from like inexperience.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that comes from age.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it goes back to what you said earlier of like I I don't really feel like the the need to prove myself in any way.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I've overcome that imposter syndrome of of like not being an artist or not being a creative or whatever.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that like I've actively been pursuing it and and refining and working on my craft for all this time, you know, ever since I started at you know, 1920.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so that has built the confidence for myself, you know what I mean?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I can trust in my instrument and trust in my craft that I that I know what I'm doing and that I'm here for a reason.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking too, like, I mean, your craft as an actor, as an artist is very tied to your like personhood, you know, like the same thing as a therapist.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: We always say that like you can't not bring yourself into the room.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you're gonna see me as a therapist, like I'm gonna cuss.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm I'm sorry, like that's gonna happen.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I think as you get older, you start to be more comfortable with who you are, and that that gives you that self-confidence because it's not just the actual acting skills, it's all the soft skills that you've learned along the way.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's all the people's skills, it's all the you know, conflict uh management skills, it's it's all the skills that you've developed through your life that that is funneled into your personhood, into this moment of being an actor.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so you get to bring that up, whether that be actually when the when when when it's recording or just even talking on set to people, you know, you you get to you get to flex those those muscles.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that a lot of people don't realize that it's not just the actual skill of you know Vicente's construction business.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's all the things that led to him, you know, building his construction business.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to like the discrepancy of of how he sees himself versus how his employee saw him.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: And like that's I mean, that's that is so impressive to have somebody who like has started their own business and has like full-on binder with like these, you know, these standard operating procedures or whatever.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, to to where somebody can go in blind and you know, open up this this binder and figure it out.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's more than I think most people have.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Most like early business owners have.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do it.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna bring up your you and and your private practice.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I remember the conversations that we had before you opened your your private practice.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I mean, uh like it's understandable, right?
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's that fear and that unknown, that uncertainty.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think that like goes away completely that that fear.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I feel like you're such a natural at all the soft skills that come with that, right?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like all the all your people skills and and being able to talk to people and being incredibly organized.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: I trust you to not let things like slip through the crack and and things that like would be detrimental to your business.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I think you should not only be very proud of yourself, but also um be confident and that you will figure it out.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's been it's been a big journey.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, growing up, you know, my dad, you know, had his own business.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, there were, you know, challenges working with the within family and things like that.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, one of the cool things that I got to do was to interact with people and the public and being able to talk on the phone and call businesses and things like that.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that to me was was invaluable and and kind of I think sets the stage for how I run my business now is like I think I take customer service really, really, really seriously.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be able to make sure that people feel good when they interact with me in my business.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so that, you know, through the entire line of how people interact with me, I I try to make sure that that is at the forefront.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I had that privilege to be able to do that at a young age and and learn that.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I try to remember that like those are part of my skills.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that actually when I look back at the reason why I didn't have the self-efficacy and I was lacking confidence, is not so much because I didn't think I had the skills.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: It was because I think that I wasn't focused on my values and about what was important to me.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_02: In all seriousness, I I would think I was just worried about like being able to financially sustain my household and not focused on viewing this as a long-term, you know, project and career that like there's gonna be ebbs and flows.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to be willing to kind of roll with the punches on that.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that the upsides of being your own boss fit with a lot of the other values that me and my family want to be able to enact.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think I've grown a lot in that aspect of trying to not worry so much about, you know, am I bringing the money home type of thing.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: I still fall in that trap sometimes, but I try to fall, I try to like stay grounded in number one, the privilege of me being able to do this job.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: And number two, um, being able to say that, you know, I'm much more than my job and that it provides me the opportunity and the flexibility to focus on health, you know, reassurance, self-fulfillment, those kind of things, being intentional with my time with my family, especially being a dad now.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: Not that it's less important, but it's like there's not so much stress about it, um, I think that I was having before.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: In regards to me like not being as confident in my business was really rooted in like deficiency language of like fears of not providing enough financially for the household.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: As I've grown into the business and it's been two years now, the those fears were less about my abilities and more about my lack of focus on like what's important to me and and how I want to move through the world.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_02: So like for me Okay For me, it's it n on a good day, it needs to be less about you know the fear of financial security, but more about the intention of me, you know, being proud of the work that I've done to be able to get to this point to even do this job.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, to be able to have the flexibility to do the family time that I want to do.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, there's much more than just the financial insecurity part.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: I could find the confidence and the self-esteem in more parts of the business than just like, am I gonna survive type of thing.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: On the same theme of confidence and self-esteem and things, what what are some of the things that you're most confident about?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I think I'm most proud of about myself is my willingness to be bold.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of take it as like a personal mission of mine to utilize my privilege to make awake in some of the inequalities or some of the dynamics that I think are not appropriate, whether that be on a mining level in the room, or whether that be with uh a customer service person, or um whether that be with family.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: I think I try to not settle for um, oh, it's okay, or I don't want to upset them.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm I'm very willing to upset people?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: To to be pushy.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, to be pushy and to um demand more.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_02: And um it hasn't always worked out, and I don't think.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I do it, you know, with grace all the time.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm sitting there in a room and I'm with a couple and I'm seeing the woman in the heterosexual relationship feel timid, um, feel scared of ridicule, feel unheard by the boisterousness of their partner.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it is sad that it takes another man to be able to check him.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I I view it as a as part of my work, part of my secret sauce to kind of rattle the cage a little bit and to say, hey, this is what I'm watching happen right here in front of me.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_02: And like you are doing these specific behaviors that are attributing to that.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think that that is your intention, but we need to change that.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, like I'm I'm comfortable with that confrontation, like very much so.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm doing it for the betterment of the both of them, I think, to be able to have that better relationship.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm using my a lot of privilege.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: You're using your white male privilege for good instead of evil.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't know.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like very white knight-ish, but uh maybe that does make me sound egotistical.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: I um Yeah, now you're making me second guess whether I uh I should be proud of that or not.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of your strengths, so yeah, own it.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah, we make fun of that, you know, of the of the the white knight idea or whatever, but I don't I wouldn't classify you as that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_02: Good.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: So I got the pass is what you're saying.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I speak for all people of color.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: You you you get the pass.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting to hear your your perspective.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: Again, going back to, you know, like the difference between how you see yourself versus how others see yourself to you.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of my favorite, I think I talked about this like in the previous episode, the sociological turn, like the looking glass self.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: You are who you see other people see you as, and you're constantly trying to inform other people of who you are based off of how you're watching their reactions of your behaviors and interactions.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's very meta, but it's also just really cool, like, you know, that causes a lot of psychological internal turmoil when you're trying to influence how other people look at you.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like you should be grounded in who you are and not worry about trying to influence the way others see you because you can't control people.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's also very apparent when somebody is very performative, you know what I mean, and just doing doing something or behaving a w a certain way to get like a reaction out of people or or or for a you can like mold yourself into being being different people, different identities, right?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: And and like it's very easy for you to use that for good or evil.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's hard to delineate and decide decipher that too.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'll wrap up with this question of how does social media play into for good or for bad or for worse when it comes to our self-esteem?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: That's a whole topic, right, in and of itself.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm definitely not one to want to demonize social media, but I just I've seen so many people with the damaging effects of the comparison game.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: And um it's really tough.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's really, really tough.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: I I I think it's hurting our young children um and their ability to develop their sense of identity, which is what we and becoming their own person, which is what we talked about in our last episode.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: You want to push back on that or no?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: No, I don't think I need I don't think I need to push back on that.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that like I think our all most of our audience agrees, you know what I mean?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like that social media is is not uh healthy or or or like needs to be uh you need to have boundaries when it comes to social media.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: But um no, uh uh what comes to mind for me is what is it, Gen Alpha, like this new generation or well it's actually it technically as of 2025, it's gen beta.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh shit.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: So my son is is technically right on the cusp of the start of Gen Beta.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: So he's either gonna be an alpha or a beta.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And only he can choose.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: What is it, the the red pill, blue pill?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: The red pill or blue pill.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's entire generations of people that are going to grow up with social media and and the internet and just like how that just the idea that you're like your whole lifespan could be documented like that for the world to see.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of wild to think about.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I uh what comes to mind for me is just like how does that affect a person's identity and how does that affect somebody's like overall confidence?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's all pretty wild to think about.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and how that's gonna affect the way that you look at yourself and your self-esteem and your capabilities and what you should and shouldn't be doing, and other people expect this of me, and I need to do that.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just it's a lot.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: It's a lot.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think like anything else, I think the older generation is gonna demonize the younger generation because of the decisions that they make, and the newer generation is gonna adapt just like humans have always had to do in human history.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like they we we figure it out, you know, and I don't think the young generation is doomed forever just because their entire lifespan could be documented online.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I think that it's just gonna create a new set of challenges that we're gonna have to adapt to.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of times we don't want that for our children.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: We want like, you know, an easier road for our children, but yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: So give me your broing pain for the episode.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: My broing pain is how do I make sure people don't think that I'm a white knight?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's a lifelong journey, my brother.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a burden you're gonna have to bear.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I mean, I think my broing pain for this episode is grieving the fact that you never have full self-confidence all the time, you know, and that's like a tough pill to swallow, I think, is you grow up thinking that if you acquire enough skills or you acquire enough accomplishments that things are gonna get easier.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then as you get older, it's just like, nope, that's that doesn't that doesn't get any easier.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so trying to look at self-confidence as an ever-evolving thing is I think tough for especially for men, because I think we're trained to try to try to hope to get to an end goal, and uh it's not it's not coming.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: My uh broing pain for this episode is how important it is to to have like a strong sense of self.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that, you know, as we've discussed, life can change in an instant and it can shake your confidence, it can shake your identity.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that there's especially when when when your when your confidence in your self-esteem is tied to the things that can so easily be taken away from you.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so trust yourself, I guess.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us for everything.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Trust yourself, I guess.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: I that I think that's what I want in my tombstone.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: Fuck your tombstone.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks for joining us, everybody.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: We leave you with this closing question.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: If confidence isn't something we're born with, what does it actually take to build it?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Please join us on our next episode for episode three of season three, continuing on this identity development path as we explore the identity of becoming a partner.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_02: Love, romantic relationships, dating, and how we identify as someone partner in that whole process.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: So looking forward to talking about that.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, yeah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for hanging with us for another episode of Growing Pains.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: If this episode shifted your perspective at all, don't just keep it to yourself.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Pass it on.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_02: Follow us on TikTok and Instagram at GrowingPains to stay tapped in with the community.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_02: And if you've got a story, question, or a hot take you want us to unpack, slide into our inbox at growing painspod at gmail.com.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear from you.