Speaker 1 (00:00):

[inaudible]

Speaker 2 (00:12):

Welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. I’m your host, NYCLA Buckley. And today we’re on episode number two, and we’re going to be talking all about confidence. And

Speaker 3 (00:26):

I’m super excited to talk about this day, because I think this is something that I see come up again and again, and again,

Speaker 2 (00:34):

I’ve had clients that are

Speaker 3 (00:36):

Had severe barriers. I’ve had clients that CEOs MDs and in all different ways in their own different language and with their own different story at the heart of what they’re struggling with is actually with their confidence. So if you’re a woman and you’re leading in the corporate world and you’ve got big ambitions and you really want to be a force for good, but you feel like your confidence is holding you back, you might feel like one day you can take on the world and just change. Well, you might feel like the next day, you just want to come up under a DV and just hide away. Then keep listening because we’re going to be delving into why you might not be feeling confident, the truths about confidence. I’m going to share my confidence some. So where does confidence actually come from? And I’m also going to be giving you six super simple tips might be simple, but incredibly powerful so that you can start to really work on your confidence right here right now.

Speaker 3 (01:34):

And the FEMA today is really all about, it’s not confidence being from a confidence building course or a self-help book, or from what people are saying about you. It’s actually confidence from within and at the heart of today’s episode is that confidence is about really and truly knowing yourself. So the brilliant thing that you’re going to take away is that actually you can feel confident in any moment when using these hints and tips that I’m going to give you, and you can really come back home to who you are. So it’s not about anything external, it’s not dependent on anything, it’s you having that surety and confidence from women. So let’s get started, but I wanted to start just by saying that a number of my clients that I’ve seen just struggle with confidence. And I know for me, I used to really struggle with my confidence in the corporate world.

Speaker 3 (02:30):

So for me, it would show up with maybe not speaking up in meetings or not challenging when my boss was saying something that was wrong, it would show up by not going for that promotion, not going for the big next step. Um, and just not really showing up as fully as I could do and not speaking up as much as I could do. And that meant that I wasn’t shaking things up in the way that I really had the potential team. So if you are struggling with your confidence, you’re certainly not alone. Um, there was actually a study that was done by Hewlett Packard. I think it was five years ago now that I always go back and refer to, and this demonstrates the difference in confidence between men and women in the corporate world. And there was a job interview and it had a job advert.

Speaker 3 (03:13):

And for that job advert for women to apply for it, they felt they needed a hundred percent of the skills that match that job criteria for men that were applying for that same, very same job with the same job advert in the same job specification, they would apply for it with just 60% of what matched the actual criteria. So you can see straight away from that report and from the findings that this is almost a 40% gap in confidence between men and between women in the corporate world. And I often use that and refer to it because I think it’s incredibly powerful just to see that difference, that the men in that scenario, which is willing just to give it a go and see what happened and just have enough confidence, just not attach anything to the meaning or the outcome, whereas the women needed to have absolute surety and certainty for them even to apply for that role.

Speaker 3 (04:08):

And I think that kind of demonstrates the big difference in the corporate world between how men are feeling and how women can feel. So I want to talk a little bit about why you might not be feeling confident in your corporate role and as a leader, and really to start with there’s two different parts of this for me. And the first part is about just the corporate structure and the framework, and the fact that a lot of the corporate world is still a man’s world is still very male dominated. And the more senior you become, the more of a leader you become with more responsibility and more of a budget and more of a team. The more that you’re alone, the more that there’s, there’s not as many role models, you don’t have as many peers and it become, become incredibly lonely. So that might mean that you don’t feel as supported.

Speaker 3 (04:53):

It might mean that you don’t feel as appreciated for those inherent female leadership qualities that you have. It might mean that you feel like there’s a bit of a boys’ network and there’s conversations that go on without you, or there’s just an immediate connection between your male peers, rather than you being part of that same peer group. It might feel like you’re not as appreciated. It might feel like you’re not as hurt. And all of those come together just it’s demonstrated a gang in the numbers. And if you look at footsie, one 500 companies, only 8% of companies that have CEO, female leaders. And I think this is part of what I want to change. And that’s part of what this, this podcast is really going to help revolutionize. So I think there’s a corporate structure and the corporate framework, and this isn’t about burning the patriarchy.

Speaker 3 (05:44):

It’s not about laying this the door of men and our male colleagues. That’s not what this is about tool, but it’s a state of the nation. It’s where we are right now and what I believe that we need to change. So we get more female leaders in more senior positions to really drive change, bear force for good, bring their inherent female leadership qualities. So that compassion, that fundability into leadership roles at the end of the day, also to drive more profitability for businesses. And again, the stats prove that actually businesses that are led by women have that they have stronger connections to have more loyalty in their employee base employee standards tend to stay longer. They tend to, there’s just higher levels of productivity. And there’s also more profitability in those companies. And you can’t argue with the stats. So really this isn’t about a, a cavalry charge for women’s rights and being a feminist.

Speaker 3 (06:42):

This is actually good, hard business sense as well. So the first part of why it might be hard for you to feel confident there’s that framework and structure and the challenges are there. But on top of that, there’s also the role that we own and that how we can empower ourselves and feeling more confident as female leaders. And it’s actually with every single one of us to role model, being a really confident, a really sure, a really inspiring and a really dynamic female leader and a female leader, this owning all those feminine traits and leadership qualities that are just inherently part of you. So it might be that you downplay when you’ve done something brilliant and you’ve landed a really pressured project in a short amount of time. It might be that you downplay it and you say, it’s just down to your team. You just happen to have a great team around you.

Speaker 3 (07:32):

It might be that you don’t really push yourself. You don’t push yourself for going for that promotion. That is way out your comfort zone. It might be that you’re not promoting yourself as much as you could do. And it might be that you’re just not speaking up. And you’re not just challenging those conversations that you hear when you just, you just don’t agree and you don’t believe it. And it might be that you’re not trusting your intuition and your instinct just for your share experience and for your knowledge. And you just go back to rely more on facts and figures. And those are some of the ways that we might be holding ourselves back and just not allowing ourselves to feel confident as well. And I think this can also be demonstrated and giving away as female leaders just giving our time and our energy away just to freely and just ending up with a dough that’s so busy that we don’t have any time to do the actual strategy, the big work that we really want to, and we can get caught up very much in firefighting.

Speaker 3 (08:30):

And that can result in doing more. If you don’t have those boundaries to switch off at home, it might feel like you’re getting towards the point of burnout. And really it’s down to you to own your value and worth. It’s down to you to demonstrate how powerful and impactful and influential you are as a leader. And confidence is what is really at the heart of being able to do that. So what’s the impact when you don’t that confidence, what is actually going to happen? You’re going to have days when you feel like you’re not, you’re having such a wobble that you feel like you can’t do your job, and you feel like an imposter. You feel like a fraud. That’s a whole nother subject. We’ll go into another day, but the days you’re lacking that confidence, you’re just going to maybe sit back a little bit.

Speaker 3 (09:15):

You’re not going to speak up. You’re not going to push as much. You might also overreact and take things really personally, and just be fat, feeling really emotional and a bit vulnerable. And that might make you seem like you’re just a bit inconsistent. It might make you seem like you don’t have that powerful leadership quality and that surety in yourself that is needed to be seen. So actually, when you, when you’re lacking that confidence, you’re keeping yourself small, you’re keeping yourself stuck. You’re keeping yourself just really just locked in this potential that you have that is just latent within you. That you’re just not allowing yourself to step into. You’re not really owning your brilliance. You’re not owning being bold and just standing out as a leader. And again, this isn’t about judgment. It’s not about guilt. It’s not about blaming yourself. It’s just about where you might be right now.

Speaker 3 (10:07):

So I’ve just really invite you to be really honest and really true with how you’re feeling and how confident you’re feeling right now. And what would I love to see in the corporate world? How would I love to see women behaving and feeling? I would love to see women that just own really own their feminine leadership qualities, so that empathy and that vulnerability and that compassion, but do it in an incredibly powerful way and sharing some of how they’re feeling. So they’ve got that real connection with that team, and they’re inspiring others around them to be really open. And to be really honest, I would see female leaders who are brave and bold in making big decisions that they know is right. That might just be based on intuition. It might not always be based on facts and figures. I would see female leaders who are role modeling and inspiring future female leaders.

Speaker 3 (10:58):

I see more aspiring female leaders, really stepping into and challenging and putting their hand up and not just waiting to be asked to have a seat at the table, but just dragging that chair, even sitting at the table anyway, and just being asked to be big part of those big conversations and pushing for those promotions and those sideways moves that are going to give them the experience. So for me, it’s really about changing, changing, and helping women just feel empowered with their own confidence because it comes from within it’s all within you to find that surety and to find that confidence, but just want to talk a little bit about the myth of confidence, because I think there’s a lot of pop psychology around confidence that just makes it seem like it’s just a really easy thing to do. And once you have confidence, that’s it. And that’s it

Speaker 2 (11:48):

Forever, but that’s really not true.

Speaker 3 (11:51):

And confidence. Isn’t a thing that is learned or taught. You’re not just going to suddenly wake up one day and the sky is or part, and the sun will burst out and suddenly you feel cold. It doesn’t work like that. It’s not about doing another confidence building course. It’s not about another self-help course. It’s not about learning the tips and the tricks that are just going to help you. It’s not about those things are useful. Course. It’s useful to know tips and ways of feeling more confident in the moment, but the best way, the most certain way to feel confident and to build a lifetime of confidence and surety is about knowing yourself. It’s about having that certainty in yourself. It’s about knowing yourself inside out the black and the white, the gray, the fun and the serious and everything in between. And it’s about owning all of that.

Speaker 3 (12:45):

Let’s just share some things true, some confidence as well. So I just want to be bust some of those confidence myths here as well today. So truths about confidence. Confidence is internal. It’s not external. There’s nothing, there’s no qualification. There’s no super simple hack. There’s no workshop that is going to just help you to suddenly feel a hundred percent confidence. These things will all help. They will move you forward, but it’s something yeah, his confidence has grown into. It’s not something that is taught confidence is about anyone being above or below you. I truly believe confidence in yourself is all about you knowing yourself an inside out and back to front, because that’s even when the corporate world it is changing every day. Even when you’re having a day where your boss is just demanding so much, you even, you are having a day where your team, maybe isn’t giving you the support that you need, even in those days, when you just have something land in your diary that just makes your whole day just not run the way that you need it to.

Speaker 3 (13:47):

You can still have that certainty in you when you have that inherent knowledge of yourself. So I wanted to talk next about the confidence. Some, and this sounds a bit of a strange thing, but I think it’s a really super simple, but powerful way to understand what I believe confidence is and what I teach and coach my clients. And that is all about, if you imagine a sum and it’s confidence equals truth. Um, and when I say tree, what you believe about yourself, what you believe about others, what you believe about the world, what you believe about your style of leadership. So it’s truth and certainty, certainty about you certainty about your skills and your value impacts, certainty about your knowledge Lynch, plus clarity, clarity in the saying yes to what’s important to you saying no to what isn’t for you, uh, knowing what is really important to you and clarity yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:43):

In who you are, that is a confidence sum. And if you’re having a day where you’re not feeling so confident, just come back to think which one of am I not owning right now? Which one of those am I finding a bit of a challenge right now? Because to walk into rooms, walking into that big board meeting and be the most confident person in the room is all about certainty in you. Like I said, it’s about knowing yourself so well that, you know, the light and the dark, you know, your triggers, you know, the gray and everything in between, you know, the deep and the shallow, you know, your fun side, your serious side, and that certainty in you becomes an anchor as the corporate world, as it changes every day around you, as people come and go, as your boss is having a good day or a bad day, demanding more or less of you that becoming that number one, leading expert in the world, in you, that is where confidence lies.

Speaker 3 (15:38):

And that is what I teach and coach my clients in. So let’s finish off today by going into six tips, to help you to feel more confident right here right now. So the first one I wanted to talk about, talked a lot about confidence, being very much about you knowing yourself. So my first tip is to go on that journey of self discovery and get to know yourself. And it might sound like a law. It might sound like sort of how do I actually do that? So super simple way to get to know yourself and to really know who you are. Know what’s important to you. It’s just to ask yourself, just check in with yourself every day before your day starts full of zoom calls. Before you start your day, maybe you need to get the children off and go to school, walk the dog, and you start everything else for everyone else.

Speaker 3 (16:29):

Think about you spend a little bit of time connecting with yourself. So super simple way to do that every morning. When you get up, just ask yourself, how do I feel today? What is going on for me today? What do I need today? And like I said, this is all about that. Daily check-in is a connection to you. That daily check-in is going to help you to understand yourself and what is going on for you. So if you woke up at certain day and you’re not feeling great, and maybe you’re not feeling, feeling tired because the children have woken up and you just understand that maybe that’s not the day, you’re going to feel at your most confident and that’s okay, but you have this understanding of yourself. So you have an expectation of how your day is going to play out and how you’re going to be in that day.

Speaker 3 (17:15):

So that’s number one, number two, understand your beliefs. And this is absolutely huge. So I think we’ll do a whole podcast, separate episode on beliefs at some point, but it’s very much about you knowing your beliefs and beliefs have really set in place when we’re children. So they’re set in place when you’re seeing your parents having experiences with people around you, maybe your grandparents, maybe a teacher, and they are formed between the age of about six and 16. And those beliefs, the ones that really stay with us are the, that we see evidence, most of the ones that we hear and we see, and we feel the most. So for example, it might be that when you were growing up, you quite often heard little girls should be seen and not heard, or don’t be too loud, or don’t be too bossy, or it’s not attractive to be arrogant.

Speaker 3 (18:10):

No one likes anyone who’s overly arrogant. So those beliefs aren’t beliefs that fit with where you are now. So almost like the clothes you wore as a child, the beliefs you had as child don’t serve you now as an amazing female leader. So it’s really important to, first of all, understand your beliefs, to be able to start to change your beliefs. And this is something that I work on my clients, which is absolutely huge. So how to start understanding your beliefs. We spend a lot of time in our subconscious brains. We spend a lot of the time just on auto cruise, if you like. So it’s really about spending some time when you’ve had maybe a trigger and you’ve reacted to something in a way you didn’t expect and really think about where did that belief come from? What is that big belief? Whose voice do I hear when I, I see that, or I feel that belief is that my belief or someone else says.

Speaker 3 (19:03):

So if you just think about your, your, when you’re reacting to something and you’re feeling a bit stuck, or you’re feeling a bit frustrated with yourself, go back to and really think about what is the belief that sits there. Is this a belief that I’m not enough? Is this a belief that women girls should be seen and not heard where’s this coming from and really start to delve into it? Like I said, I think we’ll cover it on a completely separate core podcast because it’s a huge topic how to shift and change your beliefs. So that’s number two, number three is own and know, and own your values. So the more that you aligned to your values, the more that you’re going to really show up as yourself, the more that you’re going to set those boundaries for, what is for you more isn’t for you?

Speaker 3 (19:46):

The more that you’re going to say no to the things that are maybe outside your remit or doing that extra work or taking on that development opportunity where you don’t have the energy to the more that you’re going to say yes to the projects that really excite you. The more that you’re going to say yes to going for that next step or the big promotion, or having that conversation with your boss about the pay rise. So really start to think about what are your values and how, how aligned are you to them right now, and a super simple way to get started, because this might sound like a huge thing, but actually it’s a super simple way to get started is just think of three words that you would love to live your life by. If you could choose three words that you could just have the best life you could imagine, what would those three words be?

Speaker 3 (20:33):

And values is a huge part of the work that I do in my clients to create a really strong self identity. Because when you have that strong self identity, that is where your confidence lies. But to start with today, just think of your three words that you would love to live your life by and think about how you’re aligning to those right now and how you can shift towards them and what things can you stop to help yourself be more in them? So, number four, I love this one because it’s super simple, but it’s so powerful. It’s just about listing out your wins. So the brain is negatively wired. So I’m a neuroscience geek. So you’re going to be hearing all about neuroscience. I call it the noggin knowledge, but the brain is actually negatively wires. So the brain is far more focused on anything that is negative over positive.

Speaker 3 (21:20):

You think about it like this, the brain is like Velcro for the negative and it’s like Teflon for the positive. So if you’ve had a really great day, but one thing’s gone wrong, where do you focus? You generally focus on the negative because that’s, that’s your brains bias in action. So this is super simple. Tip is just to list out your wins so you can list out your wins. At the end of each day, you can list out your wins as you go through your week and just keep a note of them and just remind yourself, even though some things haven’t gone so well, these are the things I’ve delivered this week. This is the impact that I’ve had this week. This is what I’ve achieved this week. You know, it’s really challenging time and own those wins and know that down to you and really just accept them and just be proud.

Speaker 3 (22:07):

So list out your wins. So how to get started with that, have a think about what you’re going to do that every day or every week and how you’re just going to, how are you going to write them? Are you going to write them down or record them somewhere? How are you going to make sure that you can keep coming back to them and keep rereading them? Number five, start a brave streak. So I love this one. And actually I had a client who this became her thing. Um, she became, she went from being off work with anxiety and depression. She’d been signed off work and she became this brave, brave heart, Beyonce artwork stressing around the office saying no to things that weren’t for her pushing for the next step. Um, and she just went on this brave streak and we actually called it that, and it was so powerful for her.

Speaker 3 (22:54):

And a brave streak is just every day doing something that scares you a little bit, doing something where you need to be a little bit brave, where it might be a bit out of your comfort zone and just know that once you’ve done that, then your confidence grows as you step out of your comfort zone. So your confidence grows in alignment where your comfort zone. So as your comfort zone grows, so does your confidence, so start that brave streak, how to get started with that. Just think of one thing that you could do today. That is a little bit brave. That is a little bit bold, is a little bit scary, makes your heart race a little bit more and go and do it. And then the final one, number six is about owning your magic. So your magic is the thing that you do in owning the way that you do it.

Speaker 3 (23:37):

That has a big impact on other people and owning your magic when you know it and you really step into it and you own it. That just means that you stop comparing yourself. It means you stop trying to keep up with other people. You’re not as focused on everyone else, but you’re very much about this is what I’m brilliant at. This is what I know that I can just do better than anyone else. And it’s not about anyone being better or worse. It’s about you owning your magic and because your magic is the way that you do it. No copy that. No one can compare to that. And actually once you own your magic, you can start self promote more. What you do, what is brilliant. You can start to not downplay something that you’ve delivered, that you put down to your team, and it would just start to shift and change things for you.

Speaker 3 (24:27):

And it moves away from that very traditional corporate model strengths and weaknesses. And instead there’s that mixture, that magic of what you’re brilliant at and what you do so well. And your magic, we’ll go into that a separately another day again, but your magic is, it’s like a, almost think of it like a Coltrane, and there’s a mix there. And you’re putting in some ingredients that your expertise, some ingredients, your experience, some of don’t natural talents, and you mix them all together and you make this incredibly powerful magic that only you have. So that’s it for today. So just to go back and just to re summarize those tips that we talked about. So the first one is just really be you and connect yourself every day. The second one is all about knowing your beliefs. So take some time to understand your belief framework.

Speaker 3 (25:17):

Number three is really know and own your values. Number four is list out your wins. So let’s celebrate those wins. Number five is about going on that brave streak and stepping a little bit outside your comfort zone. And then number six is really owning your magic. So final thing to say is your confidence is your responsibility, but also your confidence is within your gifts to create and to nurture and grow and develop, and it can grow and develop as you do. And it all comes down to you knowing yourself and you becoming the world’s leading authority in yourself and even in the corporate world, which can be challenging, which can be, can be really challenging. You could still keep that confidence even on a day. When you have a wobble, we have a knocks your confidence. It just means that having that certainty Insurity in yourself, you will always bounce back and you bounce back quickly and powerfully. So final line is to say, confidence is all within you. Confidence is all about you having certainty in yourself. I would love to know what you thought of today’s okay. Episode. So if you’ve enjoyed today, share with your friends or subscribe for future episodes

Speaker 2 (26:31):

Or leave us a review, the more reviews we get, the more that we’re going to be able to reach more women and really start this revolution of a new way to lead. That’s it for today. Thanks so much for joining me. Bye [inaudible].