Latest / Impact Ready / 192. Confidence vs. Ego: Create Authentic Self-Trust

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192. Confidence vs. Ego: Create Authentic Self-Trust · Impact Ready

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  Welcome to Impact Ready, a show dedicated to helping you elevate
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  your impact in the world. I'm Steph Safra, your host.
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  Let's explore the power of showing up with intention and
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  energy each day. This is for those who seek to
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  make life truly meaningful. Get ready for impact.
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  Hello, welcome to the show. I hope you're having an awesome
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  week. If you are in Portland right
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  now, you're experiencing the first of the spring weather and
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  it feels a little early, but it's so exciting.
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  It's actually somewhat warm out and people are wearing shorts
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  and laying everywhere on the sidewalks in parks.
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  It's like the second the sun comes out in Portland, people
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  lose their minds and do crazy things and all of a sudden
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  everybody's on skateboards and you know, wearing tank tops and
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  even though it's 55°, but it's beautiful and it's a good sign
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  that winter is lifting. Here we go in this episode
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  today, I want to talk about a very big topic for people in
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  general that the idea of confidence.
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  But I want to look at at the through the lens of confidence
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  versus ego, because people get a little confused about this.
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  People will get into the zone of confusing it with other things,
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  namely arrogance, ego, bravado, etcetera.
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  And the distinction between the two is very powerful and most
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  people blur the line without even realizing it.
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  Confidence and ego can look similar on the surface.
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  Both can show up as certainty, as strong opinions, as a
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  commanding presence, but what's driving them underneath is
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  completely different. But let's first talk about what
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  confidence might look like, and then we'll go into what ego
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  could look like. Confidence comes from self
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  trust. It's built through experience.
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  Follow through like we've talked about, keeping your word to
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  yourself, being an integrity, A willingness to face reality,
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  seeing, looking back and seeing the experience that you've had
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  and seeing the wins and the evidence of yourself winning.
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  That all builds confidence. Someone who's confident doesn't
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  need to prove anything. They're more open, they listen.
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  They can be wrong without it threatening who they are.
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  And something that I always think about is this perpetual
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  cycle, the confidence competence cycle.
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  Competence in something builds confidence in oneself and vice
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  versa. Confidence will then lead you to
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  build more competence. It is a self fulfilling
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  prophecy. It just keeps going round and
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  round and round. And I show this to clients.
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  I have this on a little sticky note, this diagram, it just says
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  confidence with an arrow builds confidence with an arrow.
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  And it just goes round and round.
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  And I know that you've experienced this in your life.
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  The more you do something, the more reps you put in the
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  practice that you get, the better you get at it, the more
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  confident you feel doing it. And then with confidence, you
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  then go out and do more things and try new stuff and and keep
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  working on stuff until you become a master at it.
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  There are a lot of other things that build confidence as well.
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  But in this episode, let's focus on this idea of seeing the wind
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  stack up, the value in that, and feeling competent at something.
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  You may have heard of the four stages of competence.
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  It's a graph. It's a learning model that
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  describes the different psychological stages that we go
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  through when we're learning a new skill.
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  You have unconscious competence or ignorance, conscious
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  incompetence or awareness. Conscious competence, which is
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  learning and unconscious competence, which we would call
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  mastery. And when I'm teaching this to
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  people, I use this metaphor of learning how to drive.
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  And what I'll describe to people is when you are at the beginning
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  of this learning model and you are in unconscious incompetence
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  or ignorance, It's like when you would sit in the back seat of
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  your parents car and think, oh man, driving so easy.
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  It's just, it's no problem at all to be driving around.
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  Look at my parents. It's just, it must be so easy
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  because all they do is press a few buttons and maybe a few
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  pedals and turn that wheel around and looks like a piece of
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  cake. That is unconscious
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  incompetence. You don't know what you don't
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  know. Second level conscious
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  incompetence or awareness is like turning 15 and getting your
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  driver's permit and starting to drive for the first time.
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  You get out on the roads and all the sudden you're like, holy
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  shit, I have no idea what I am doing.
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  I could kill someone. How did someone let me in this
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  car? It is that feeling of I don't
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  have any idea what I'm doing and I'm very aware of that.
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  Then after a while, you're practicing, you're putting in
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  the reps, you get to conscious competence, which would be akin
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  to getting your driver's license at 16 and being able to get out
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  there in the world on your own. This is that level of learning.
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  It's you know what you know and it doesn't mean that you've
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  mastered it. You're still having to think
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  quite a bit about driving. You have to pay close attention.
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  You, there's still stuff that you're working on and you're
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  trying to elevate your skills, but you can get around, you can
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  get around the world. You've got a skill that is high
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  enough that somebody's going to give you permission legally to
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  do this thing. And then finally, the last level
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  of learning is unconscious competence or mastery.
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  And I always think about this as you know, those times where
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  you're driving around, you might be driving to work or you're
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  driving to the store and all of a sudden you realize, hey, I'm
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  here. I'm in the parking lot.
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  I parked and you don't even remember how you got there.
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  You don't remember driving there because it was so automatic.
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  You were on autopilot. Just muscle memory driving the
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  car, you know, making the turns, you know the route to where
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  you're going. You don't even have to think
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  about it. That is the essence of
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  unconscious competence or mastery.
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  It is such a part of you. The skill is so ingrained in you
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  that you don't have to think much about it.
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  And that is this highest level of confidence that you can get
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  to. And I love the four levels of
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  learning because I think it really illustrates this
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  competence confidence cycle. And it's just a big, big way of
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  how people can build their own confidence in self.
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  And, you know, out in the world, people get really confused about
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  the difference between confidence and ego at times.
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  They might use the words interchangeably, or they'll say
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  things like, I don't want to come across as too confident.
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  What they're really saying is I don't want to come across as
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  arrogant. I don't want anyone to presume
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  that I have a big ego or that I'm walking in here being
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  presumptuous, but we can feel the difference.
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  As humans, we can sense and feel when somebody's coming at us
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  with confidence or if they're coming at us with ego or bravado
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  or arrogance. It is a different feeling in the
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  room. And so let's talk a little bit
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  about what ego is all about. First of all, ego is not random.
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  We all have ego. Ego has a job and at its core,
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  protection is the job of the ego.
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  It develops very early in childhood as a way to keep us
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  safe and feeling accepted and valued.
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  And when we're a child, when you're, when we're young, it's
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  you start to learn very early on what gets approval and what
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  doesn't, what earns praise, what avoids rejection or teasing or
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  bullying, what keeps you from feeling exposed or like you're
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  not enough. Ego will form around those
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  patterns. And when I think about people
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  who I felt had a lot of ego, I can recognize that at the root
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  of all of that was their childhood experiences, their
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  feelings of fear or that they didn't belong or that they
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  weren't seen as valuable or loved.
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  And and so you can see that it's essentially a built in defense
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  system that says, let me help you manage how you are seen so
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  that you don't get hurt. And when I'm talking to clients,
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  I often say, hey, give thanks for your ego.
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  It is a wonderful tool to help you survive in this world.
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  Let me pause here for a second. If you're listening and thinking
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  I'm capable of more or this is the level I want to operate at,
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  this is for you. I work privately with a small
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  number of high performing leaders who are ready to elevate
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  how they show up in their business and in their lives.
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  This isn't motivational coaching, it's precision work.
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  We refine your energy, strengthen your ownership, and
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  eliminate inconsistency so your impact becomes undeniable.
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  If you're ready for that level of growth, book a private call
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  through the link in the show notes.
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  We'll see if it's a fit. All right, back to the episode.
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  And there are a few places that ego will come from commonly,
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  like I said, early experiences of being validated or lack of
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  it. So if approval was inconsistent
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  or conditional or tied to your performance, Eagle will step in
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  to create some certainty. It will build an identity around
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  being right or being impressive or successful or in control.
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  Not because you're an arrogant person, but because part of you
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  learned that being those things equals safety.
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  I don't know if you know anybody in your life, but I have a
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  friend who very openly says I was always seeking my parents
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  approval. They didn't pay a lot of
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  attention to me as a kid, so I tried to be the best version of
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  myself in order to get that attention.
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  And a lot of people feel like they have those patterns in
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  their life. The second thing that can create
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  this sense of ego is fear of not being enough.
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  A lot of ego driven behavior can trace back to avoiding that
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  feeling. So thinking to yourself, if I
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  can look competent, if I can win, if I can be in control,
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  that I don't have to feel inadequate.
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  So ego can work overtime to maintain a specific image that
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  you're trying to create. Another reason ego can be very
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  forward facing is because of social conditioning.
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  You know, we're rewarded for standing out.
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  We are rewarded for achieving or winning or being the best and
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  there's nothing wrong with that. But without awareness it can
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  shift from having having a healthy drive into becoming your
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  identity. And then it's no longer, yeah, I
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  did really well, I achieved. It becomes I need to be seen as
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  someone who always does well and achieves.
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  Another reason this comes up is because of comparison.
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  You know, the moment you start measuring yourself against other
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  people, the ego can get louder. It either inflates you or
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  deflates you. So if it inflates you, it's
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  saying I'm better than them, I'm better than that situation, I'm
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  better than that person. Or if it deflates you, it says I
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  need to prove that I'm good, that I belong, that I'm
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  valuable. Either way, it's focused outward
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  on external validation instead of grounded inward on your own
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  self concept. And then lastly, if we're
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  thinking about what creates ego in people, often it's a lack of
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  internal stability. So just when someone doesn't
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  have a strong sense of self trust, ego will fill that gap
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  and it tries to create control through a sense of certainty or
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  having strong opinions or having, you know, a really
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  inflated image of oneself. Here's the thing that I think
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  about often. Ego is not the enemy.
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  As I said, I tell my clients all the time, it's actually an
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  ingenious creation to protect us and help us survive in the
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  world. The thing is, as we get into
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  adulthood, it becomes outdated protection.
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  We don't need that type of protection once we have a fully
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  developed brain and a larger context of the world.
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  It was useful at one point. It did help us navigate
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  environments where being liked or right or successful felt
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  necessary to belong or feel safe.
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  But at a certain level, especially for high performers,
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  it starts to limit growth. Why?
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  Because the same mechanism that protects you from feeling small
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  also blocks you from being open, curious, vulnerable, creative,
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  joyful, coachable. And that becomes very
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  problematic for people. The work to do around this is
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  not to get rid of the ego. It's impossible.
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  That never works. You can't fully get rid of the
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  ego unless you are one of the few who have had just
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  transcendental experiences that have taken them to that place.
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  The work is to instead recognize the ego in real time and decide,
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  OK, there you are, hello, is this protecting me or is this
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  holding me back? That's where the maturity shows
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  up and that's where the growth is possible.
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  If I were to summarize this, I would say that confidence is
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  rooted in self assuredness and truth.
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  It doesn't need validation from outside sources.
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  Confidence makes other people feel safe or inspired or
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  empowered. And the idea behind confidence
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  is I know who I am and I'm OK if you don't.
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  I'm secure in that. In contrast, ego is rooted in
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  insecurity. In comparison, ego craves
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  recognition and superiority. I know that you've seen that in
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  relationships at some point in your life.
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  Ego makes other people feel less than or dismissed.
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  And it would say things like, I need you to see how great I am
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  so I can believe it too. We're talking about this today
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  because confidence is one of the things that people report
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  wanting to have more of almost across the board.
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  And I think one of the things that holds people back is that
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  they're afraid or they have some unconscious beliefs about what
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  confidence might turn into. And so I want to bust the myth a
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  little bit here and create these powerful distinctions between
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  the two, ego and confidence, so that we can truly understand
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  this is the way to get to where we want to go.
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  This is the way for me to have the self assuredness and to be
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  free of external validation. This is how I can make people
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  feel safe and inspired and empowered.
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  And so I hope this helps. My challenge to you this week is
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  to just ask yourself continually, when you're out in
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  the world and you're having these situations, is this
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  protecting me or is this holding me back?
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  It's such a powerful question to assess ego in any situation.
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  We all have it. So why don't we just assess it
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  and see if it's getting in our way or if it's allowing us to
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  grow before we end today, I want to remind you about a project
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  that I'm starting called Proof of Light.
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  It's a collection of real stories that I am gathering from
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  people about the moments in their life where there was some
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  sort of beauty or light. Someone made a difference in
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  their life. Maybe it was a act of kindness
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  or someone showing up at the right time.
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  It's just something that reminded you of the good in
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  people. Because when you start looking
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  for light, you get to see more of it.
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  You start to look and recognize that it's all around.
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  And then you also start to realize how even the smallest
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  actions can create very powerful ripple effects.
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  So if you have a story like that that inspired you, that where
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  you felt like that was a moment of light, send me that story.
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  Send me your proof of light and you can e-mail it to me directly
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  at steph@stephsaffer.com. You can go through my website
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  and the contact link there, or you can go to my Instagram page
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  and find the link in my bio. I want to be sharing these
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  stories out in the world. I want to be putting them on
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  this podcast and out into the socials because I think people
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  need to remember that there is so much light and that there is
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  always light, even when things feel heavy or dark.
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  So thank you for being here. I appreciate you.
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  And as always, thank you for being ready to Impact.
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  Thanks for listening to Impact Ready.
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  I hope today's episode inspired you to own your impact and
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  recognize that you are powerful. By elevating our energy and
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  awareness, we can create exponential change in this life.
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  If you enjoyed today's insights, share them with a friend and
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  subscribe to the show for more. I truly appreciate you.
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  Thanks again for being here.