Guaranteed Tips and Tactics to Help You Feel More Confident | Elle Russ on Women of Impact

when you get hit like that from people you got to use it to fuel like I just have this belief system that when you get hit at like that you're just raising me up you've just propelled me another level and I always say it's not necessarily about proving them wrong it's about proving yourself awesome I'm Lisa Pina and I went from housewife to co-founder of the billion dollar company quest nutrition and now president of impact theory our mission with this show is to empower you and all women to recognize that you really can become the hero of your own life welcome to women of impact have you ever had one of those days where you woke up feeling like you can take on the world you jump out of bed with energy you get dressed in a sassy getup and as you catch your reflection in the mirror you give yourself a little smile damn pretty decent today you're confident today you thought you can take on anything absolutely crush it then your day happens that person in line at Starbucks isn't very nice to you you make a silly mistake at work that you know you could have avoided you forget someone's birthing you feel guilty you're stuck in traffic and every freaking Lane you get into is always the slowest one someone writes a hurtful message on an Instagram post and before you know it you're walking through your front door as your morning counterparts evil twin you're grumpy feeling badly about yourself and like a skipped record you're playing over and over and over in your head all the things you did and said wrong what happened what trains you're the exact same person you were this morning but the thought you have about yourself a literally polar opposite you were Union you're now your yang in your confidence disappeared faster than a Criss Angel magic trick and now we're back to square one so what would it take to become confident AF well that's what today's women of impact is about to teach us speaker and author of the new book confident as she dives deep into identifying and ditching bad vibes and negative people who are keeping us back from building our self-esteem as well as addressing shame and limiting beliefs we tell ourselves so guys if you're looking to understand yourself and avy you need to abandon in order to build your confidence this episode is for you sit up lean in take notes take more notes because the day's guest is about to show us how to step out of the shadows kick ass and take names the ever confident L was welcome to the show girl thank you so much for having me I'm excited to talk about this topic the best place to start is talk to me about what confidence is so you know a lot of people misunderstand confidence and they think it's an outward bravado like you and I can perform and be in front of people and this is performance confidence that is not necessarily confidence because sometimes the quietest people in the room are confident so when I talk about confident as f I mean inside and outside let's talk about what it truly is it's an overall sense of feeling like you're gonna prevail feeling comfortable with yourself at any given time alone in a room walking into anywhere and it's not to say that confident people don't have moments but those moments are so fleeting and so quickly and self talked out that they're not lasting and you know seeping away at your soul all right so what are the things that you've noticed confident people do have you know there's several so confident people are often the most authentic they don't give a about what other people think of them that's the ultimate and not caring about what someone's opinions are of you they are also they're kind confident people are often more successful they prevail because they it's never hurts to ask they're not afraid to speak up if you don't speak up in life from the bedroom to the boardroom you're not going to get what you want so a confident person will admit either shortcomings or moments where they they need to learn something they also it's really interesting confident people on so many levels take any kind of challenge or hit as a lesson they don't internalize it and beat themselves up you know what I mean so confident people will often get through these challenges it's a very like primal ancestral thing back to like the first book I wrote Paleo thyroid solution talking about ancestral health but you listen we need to be valued by a tribe you can be a confident person and just be a wonderful friend okay to people and be loved and valued my book is not meant to be like go out and be a badass you can be a wonderful confident stay-at-home wife but guess what you might have to stand up to some kids mother at that PTA meeting you're gonna need confidence for that you're going to need self-esteem for that you still are need you need to navigate through life with this or you're not going to get what you want and people want to be around confident people the one thing that I've learned is first of all they're most-admired not just because of their authenticity but confident people often get done when I used to be an employer I would rather hire a confident individual than someone who actually had the skill set and not the personality because confident people are proactive you know they take on situations you know that they're confident in their ability to learn a thing even if they don't know it but one of the pitfall there's pitfalls of confident people I had a - and a lot of alpha females do which is the pitfall of feeling like vulnerability or showing any kind of weakness is out of the question right the last thing a confident alpha woman or man wants to feel is that they are weak in any way but I argue in the book that being open and being okay with vulnerability is actually confident as because it is the utmost in not caring about what other people's opinions of you are even showing true emotions we're human beings right you know so for many many years I didn't want to see anyone to see that I had any kind of weakness whatsoever but what that does is it removes you from people and prevents you from being accessible because when you're inaccessible you're detached from other people relationships are not as close people feel like you're inaccessible so they they want you to do the job they trust you in an emergency but we're kind of inaccessible and that doesn't fare well for personal relationships and in romantic relationships how do you then get out of that because let's say that's your natural inclination because there's always multiple areas here right the person there's - confident but then like gets in themselves into trouble because they just want to do everything in themselves then there's a person that completely lacks confidence and has no clue how to gain it so there's always like these two buckets so let's talk about then the person that is so confident that doesn't want help and then it like you said gets them into trouble what are the things that they can do - in order to open up to let people help them you know it was a tough thing for me and I I really just had to learn to be a little bit more vulnerable with people and that even meant certain friends and conversations expressing how I'm truly feeling versus glossing over an aesthetical sort of like you know professorial way and being okay with emotion and this takes practice and it could even being just open to strangers in conversation it could be really talking to a good friend and being like look there's something I haven't told you you know because there might be some secret there and again not necessarily a secret you have to tell everybody but there might be something you're holding back because you're afraid of judgment or what they might think of you and those are good moments to test it out in but it was hard for me to be vulnerable it was really hard for me to be vulnerable now you know I don't care if I choke up on camera or I don't care if I you know cry in front of someone but oh my gosh if I had I would be mortified so what was that very first step so because there's a difference between knowing it and doing it yeah so you're in that you know that this is actually holding you back you know you need to be more vulnerable with people in order to build your confidence how do you actually do that it can start so many places it depends on where you are with confidence if it's about vulnerability in and of itself and you have an opportunity to talk to close loved ones or a coach or a therapist or someone about something that you feel is holding you back or that you have an issue with now in my book I go through like there's a series of things you need to do in order to become confident as and one of those things is like talk about dishing bad vibes you got to ditch Downers and the naysayers in your life that are around you and they're everywhere and they're even going to be loved ones people are going to project a lack of confidence onto you no matter what I don't care if they're your loved one or not and what are you gonna do are you gonna internalize that and accept that I'm all about no you're not gonna let them win you're not going to give your power away to that person so that's a story you've adopted that was projected on you by your family or by your neighbor or your teacher who told you never gonna be anything and you're internalizing that well I guess what you're letting them win I'm not about to let anyone do that we've got to turn that around but the way you identify that is what are the themes that keep happening in my life when it comes to confidence where am I choked up because that could be in romantic relationships like it was with me it's not in the workplace I have zero level like of any like insecurities when it comes to you know employers or jobs or anything like that so it doesn't matter what it is for you but you got to look back at it might just be some parental garbage that needs to be cleaned up and dissected now if you had did have if you had horrible parents you parent yourself okay so I have a section of my book called your victim application has been denied and part of that is about me meaning a fifty year old woman who sat there and continued to blame her mother for the lack of success she had in her current life hurt had her mother just pushed her had her mother just encouraged her more and I said to her I said hold on a second you're 50 I said when did you kind of realize this about your mom that maybe she wasn't the best you know at parenting and she goes I don't know maybe when I was 30 and I go so you've had 20 years you had 20 years parent yourself okay so if you're at 50 and you're still blaming your parents you need to get a bunch of self-help books you need to get it together if you're 18 and you're just realizing this stuff hey good time to start raise yourself sometimes you have to parent yourself it's not fair it's not fun we all wish we had the perfect parents and so all you have is you you're it for you you're it for you no one cares more about you than you no one is gonna force you to do this this is this is why I wrote the book and while I am very confident again I had pitfalls you know and they prevented me from being all-encompassing which is what confident is is really about you know and I want everyone to get to that point I wish my confidence upon everybody you know you should be able to walk into any room and be like whatever man I'm good with who I am I don't need to prove myself no I don't need to give my resume I don't care if anyone even talks to me you know just that you're comfortable in who you are moving throughout this world and have a general sense of I'm gonna prevail okay so that's super interesting and because if you don't have to prove yourself like I totally hear that I still struggle with excite all ways find myself like either trying to prove or explain why or given reason where is the difference between not having to prove it and someone saying to you can't do it and you sing like defending yourself like where's that fine line you know yeah that's an interesting conundrum so confident people choose their battles wisely confident people who haven't gotten confident as yet will take every battle you know in a man yeah now the people that are not as confident they won't take any battles right and then they're set their left and regret for a lot of their life going I wish I would have spoken up I wish I would have said something now here's the thing a lot of spiritual books talk about the ego get rid of the ego the ego is bad okay so if you don't have an ego you've been an insane asylum we all need an ego we need that contrast as well it allows us to differentiate between the conscious self and there's so many other things while it is a cause of a lot of problems I also feel like it is meant to be indulged on occasion but here's the thing I don't think it's defending oneself if let's say someone's offering you a job and they don't think you have the skills that's just selling yourself that's the confidence is it defending or is it selling or someone's like you can't do that I guess I can but it depends on who they are what the circumstance is do I care do I need to be right here most of the time you don't need to be right but sometimes you're like no you know what I mean I'm applying for this job or I want this thing and you have to go after it with confidence as well as gonna say how do you define what is actually worth going after or just letting go I think after after after time and once you get through these levels of ditching bad vibes and cleaning up parental stuff and you get to this point where you're starting to develop more self-esteem you'll find out because you'll choose a wrong battle and it'll feel bad okay won't feel good I've chosen some battles and I'm like man I should have let that one go should have let that one go and you know yours the thing I have something in my book called be careful on this end now this is something that I have been a victim of I think we all have you write an email it's content you know you're you're in an argument of some kind or trying to prove something to someone and you shoot it off and then you're like oh man you sleep on it the next day you wake up and you're like I just started something I didn't need to could have let that go or I could have worded that better my tone wasn't right now and so that's what I call be careful on the send you know I've learned that lesson so again highly confident people can sometimes this is a pitfall you jump to react and so these are times when you have to take your time take a breath reassess it that usually will let you know did I need to come at them hard like that can I say it another way again it's discernment and you know every situation is different for example I talked about in the book I have a member of my family who says like I can almost given examples but just illogical stuff about everything and just really well I could prove it out in a logical proof for them if I really wanted to prove that they were illogical for many years that bothered me and I would always be like that doesn't make sense you just said this and it just was further insane illogical and we'd get into a thing and I was like this is not worth that I just dropped my vibe for this insane stuff this is a person that says illogical stuff I'm gonna be the insane person if I keep trying to convince them but they're not so over time I just let it go they say something totally insane and illogical I don't have to see them that much I just would be like that's what you're saying or oh yeah I see it you're saying there just let it go you know and competing is a part of this too sometimes we can get into competitions with people confident people don't compete they're not jealous so being jealous is actually hoping the person that you're jealous of fails and that is that's gonna come right back to you and it's a bad vibration so confident people are not jealous jealousy is really putting your self-esteem and self-worth in the hands of the failure of another person and this leads into competition too so confident people don't compete I always say when you compete you lose and this is what I mean because almost like well you're a sports competition yeah you're competing it has to be a winner there has to be a loser you're gonna have to beat people and I'm like down I've been in a sports competition but here's the thing the difference is is that I only think about I'm gonna be the best in number one and I'm gonna win I don't think about my self-worth and winning associated with your defeat I'm not like I'm gonna kick her ass right it's more like I'm just gonna I'm gonna kill it I'm gonna win those are two very different vibrations one is dependent on your failure and really kind of a negative vibration and one is just I'm gonna win and when you compete too you are really what you're really saying is that there's a lack and not enough for everyone to go around and that's someone again it kind of connects with jealousy like oh no someone else wants to be a writer and a podcaster like me well what if they get better than me or what guess what you keep that up they will they'll prove you're right and you get is exactly what's gonna happen so which one comes fast then because if you if you sense the jealousy and you sense like oh my god I don't want him to beat me blah blah blah and you try to change it do you build your confidence that automatically leads into being less jealous or do you with attack being jealous and then build your confidence you know what I think you got to attack the being jealous cuz what that really is it it is low self-esteem and it's a lack and it's a competitive nature that again is really truly hoping for someone else's failure we do this a lot we do it a lot anytime you or me or anyone that's watching has rolled their eyes that someone's dream and said something like good luck with that oh damn you literally are kind of saying you're gonna fail watch we got to check ourselves now that's just ego popping up it's a moment we all have it we're human beings but you got to check that cuz that vibration is no good and you know any time you say stuff like that you're really hoping for someone else to fail and you better watch it so I'm down with OPC other people's confidence stop jumping on other people's confidence or it's gonna come back around and you know it's just a natural thing for us to kind of get into a mmm good luck with that and it's happened to me many times when you're in a creative profession of any kind you're gonna get hit even more with people projecting lack of confidence onto I mean I don't care if your actor writer musician you feel it you feel it from the person so that's what I was gonna say like they're so articulate by the way thank you because even just that if you roll your eyes if you say this word like use that as a trigger to say oh hang on a minute the vibe you're giving off isn't nice first of all and it's not serving you to build your self up so I love those like things and now I want to take us to then that's assessing yourself project on other people but what about the Downers are coming to you so you're trying to be confident you're trying to work on yourself you're doing everything that you just said and now you've got other people coming to you being the naysayers how do you react and what are what is your advice in those situations it depends on how severe if it's a stranger or loved one okay but in fact I need to both yeah so it depends like there's times when I've spoken up to a stranger for example a stranger asked me what I what I do like hey what do you do and I said I'm a writer know just forever watching if you're in LA and you say you're a writer like absolutely nobody right and they're like they're usually like whatever like what have you done they want your whole Road man you know if you say you're a writer anywhere else in the country they're like oh my god that's so cool what do you write you know I'm more interested so I said I'm a writer and he said literally verbatim you said this he goes okay so are you like a real writer that makes money at it or do you like work at Starbucks and do another job but like just write on the side and I said that's rude as dude would you go up to a real estate agent and good you just have your real estate agent agent license and not sell houses but like live at home or do you actually like make money at it and he goes oh well well that's different I go no it's not dude it's just rude and I said but the good thing for me is that when I come across a naysayer like you I use it to fuel my confidence and you've just propelled me to a level of success so thank you very much so I also choose to believe I think I would love it if everyone did that when you get hit like that from people you got to use it to fuel like I just have this belief system that when you get hit at like that you're just raising me up you've just propelled me another level and I always say it's not necessarily about proving them wrong it's about proving yourself awesome so we can stop sharing our as Steve Harvey I think it was his quote stop sharing your million-dollar ideas with hundred-dollar people if you keep coming up against the brick wall your sister keeps being unenforceable you've either achieved it but even once you achieved it you might get Downard by that person you know I mean so many examples in my book of this but one that I got hit with was by a family member who I love who's normally normally encouraging who's not necessarily a downer but it can come from anywhere and so when I wrote my first book I was really excited about pitching it to Mark Sisson and I told the family member I'm like I'm really excited about pitching this book to mark and they said well you've never written a book before like just skeptically and I was like okay I've written screenplays whatever like it's it's it's not a different it's just a different genre like I just like whatever I'm not worried about it but it was a little bit of a hit because it's kind of like in that comment there being like well I don't know if you can do that so then I got hit again mark agreed to publish my book I went back to the family member and I said hey you know what Mark agreed to publish my book I'm so excited and they were like well now you have to right it was like mama Hopkins God like now you've kind of in that comment you've relegated me to a point where I have failed and not followed through hmm that's kind of what that is I was like of course I'm gonna write it I finished everything I start like what so then then I got hit again the books about to be published it's not out yet Barnes Noble calls they want to buy like a thousand copies and I don't think they even read it but they probably trusted whatever you know copy we gave them and they trusted the publisher and I told the family member this this story and again I got here with another downer they're like well that's silly like why would Barnes and Noble publish a book they never even read yet I mean that's a big risk I mean again now they're basically propelling me into a state where now I'm so embarrassed because big corporation took a chance on me and they're gonna maybe regret it because they were so stupid to buy it without reading it and I mean you get hit at every turn right now the fourth one on the book was from one of my best friends who we've like never got into an argument with but this isn't this is a perfect example of someone projecting their lack of confidence onto a subject on to you he called me as I was in the midst of writing the Paleo thyroid solution and said almost like a frantic parents 12:00 midnight before a kids project was due like frantic called me and was like dude what are you doing are you writing the book like how's going like how far are you just like kind of projecting this lack of confidence and I just called it out I said hey man just because you're not confident in writing a book don't project that on me you're my best friend I don't last thing I need is your town I'm doing it I don't not finish things I start and so he knows it's about me and I just called it out like that who's like oh sorry dude yeah you're right and that's the other thing about having confident as friends because you can have a little mic drop moment like that and it's over so you're saying that they're coming from someone who's super confident and I freaking love that story so much um but what about someone that isn't necessarily clear it was in the process of trying to develop their confidence and they have a 1-2-3 punch here and they're like I can't take any more of it all these people just don't believe in me I barely believe in myself so maybe I'm not good good writer maybe I'm not gonna be able to do this what advice do you give to those people yeah you know and I talked about this in detail in the book in little mini ways which is that's where you really have to sit with that and go first of all am I gonna continue to share my dreams and my hopes and my like creative ideas or whatever it is or my business ideas with this sceptic with this downer with this person you got to start there and then if you don't have anyone else then you get an unbiased coach or a therapist or someone who can encourage you or you try to find a new tribe trying to manifest a new tribe of people but also to it's like in that moment what's really true there are you going to allow their opinion of you to dictate your success that's what you are doing so you might get hit a bunch but that can be an indicator to go okay you know what maybe I need to kind of keep this close to the vest maybe need to share this idea if I keep coming up against this brick wall my friend Mary keeps you know not believing in me you know I have a quote in the book it's a it's a take on a finished composers quote who said no one ever built a statue to a critic and my version is no one ever built a statue to a skeptic you know what I mean but if you say like oh I'm really thinking about starting a new business and your friends like I don't know you know be careful like 50% of new businesses fail well that I'm gonna be on the 50% of the side of the people that win again you have to turn this around you know like this is so again you can get a coach like me or anyone else to kind of talk you through the stuff but these are about like you've sitting through something why am i aggravated why do I feel put down and usually it's because so-and-so doesn't believe in Mears and it's not about proving them right but it's about proving yourself awesome because if you're always trying to prove everyone wrong again you are still projecting outward that everyone else's opinions are more important than the opinion you have of yourself so you have to develop this opinion of yourself everyone has some area that they're confident in with you know you could be like a wonderful friend you could be a wonderful mother that's enough it doesn't need to be like accomplishments on a resume you know and again this is for everybody because people just have issues speaking up and if you don't ask you're back to where you were before you have to get okay with some rejection you've got to learn to be okay with people coming at you and being Downers it's not to say that it's not a hit I just want to do one small lie though I'm something that you you just killed like the 50% a fail you're like but why am I in the failure but bucket why am I not in the success bucket and you even said it all comes down to perspective I'm such a advocate for perspective because I think literally by just switching that like alright you're in the 50% that fail now how do you feel and if I told you in the 50% that succeed how do you feel completely freaking which is so different right so and actually I have a quote of yours I so love so much this needs to be a quote card of yours by the way on your social instead of hoping you're worthy of people liking you turn your perspective to let's see if they are worthy of me liking them dude when I read that I was like it's freaking perspective like just by changing your mindset in that very simple thing it really does change the way you would then behave which would then change your results the universe God whatever you believe in I truly believe when you do pro you moves whether it's step up and ask for a raise whether it's declare your worth in something the universe delivers they will deliver things to propel you forward but you get nowhere unless you start now that comes from a few things but one is that I had spoken to a woman many years ago who said to me you know this online dating thing is so depressing she's like I'm like why she's like what's all this rejection and I'm like well hold on a minute like give me a rundown she's like well I email all of these guys and and like then no one gets back and it's just a lot of rejection and I said well hold on a minute what if you found out if you could just like have psychic abilities and you found out that all of the guys that didn't email you back were wife beaters criminals like murdered somebody would you feel so rejected then or would you feel like you dodged a bullet of course the answer is I feel like I dodged a bullet so bright so now you're letting your projection of what a stranger you think might think of you yeah allow you to dictate your self-esteem now you feel rejected and less then I didn't know any these people are no you go out and you meet them so that goes for dating right when you I've heard people have talked with male and female go on a date and they're like oh I hope they like me no no no the opposite you you like them you're looking to see whether they're worthy of your time that's a pro you perspective and that's all you have you're it for you if you don't get this straight in there and get it in here it's not going to be projected outwardly into the world and so in judging other people too especially whether it comes to dating or business etc is be careful of like the the fake confidence or the outward confidence you need to look a little bit further and see like well are they also confident on the inside you know because this is a problem there's a lot of really successful alpha male and females out there who have what we think is confidence but they are it's messy on the inside and they are not there and that's what's most important is like our interpersonal relationships with people in every way like friends our tribe our co-workers etc so if you don't have that right it really doesn't matter if you can speak to 50,000 people your life's gonna suck it's so true and it doesn't really matter like ultimately what you look like or what you if you exude confidence people perceive you in a certain way and I learned this actually before it she had two growth mindset Tom and I had probably been married for about a year and we're at this restaurant or we go to this special we'd been dreaming about this dessert and so weird like planned it all and we get there and they'd closed and we're like oh no we came all the way here to get the dessert of LA and there's this um older gentleman sitting at the bar and he looks over and he's like heavyset and you know older and and he looks at me and he's like did you want a dessert and I was like yeah we came all the way here and he turns she's just sitting in the bar he turns to the guy and he's like get them a dessert and he's like yes sir and I was like what just happened found out that was the owner and I'm very open with my husband so I turned to him I was like that was kind of sexy look I don't actually find him sexy but the confidence he exuded was eternal and since then any time I'm feeling you know not great with us women like I even said in the intro we have our moment and it's like you're not feeling good maybe your skin's not grey or you've eaten crap and so you just don't feel good yeah and every time I go to say to Tom as almost a do I look good do I look good in this every time I go to say I'm just like that's not freaking sexy even if you do even if your skin does look bad right now if you own that and you're just like yeah buddy I'm still here I'm still the bee's knees they won't even notice your skin and so every time I'm not confident I remind myself of that so glad you brought this up because confidence is sexy but think about it an ancestral perspective okay like for example when you're a kid and you're on the playground and they need you to choose people to be on your team do you choose the the like people that aren't confident about it no you choose like all the bullies and then whatever like the the bold people because you're like knowing it because you know it's attractive also it's reliable we trust it more we trust confident people because they're showing us that they're confident in almost anything or this ability to prevail or they'll figure it out this is what we look for it's say it's safer to us right you'd much rather be with someone who's confident if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and you know whatever the situation is like are they gonna feel like they can get out of it it doesn't really matter what the scenarios it's so attractive and again I'm a very confident public speaker and I also have performed onstage and sketch comedy la many times I have no problems with being in front of an audience however when I go to pay the effects to speak or other times there are moments like some nerves there and I even it'll come up for a second and then I have to self talk out of it and the self talk of something like look you know you wanted this in life like what do you do it's like you asked for this you signed up for this you wanted this this is what you wanted now you're sitting back here oh come on you're gonna go out there and kill it okay you know and I just self talk it out look it's me I'm it for me or I could have let that take me over me like oh my god who do I think I am oh my gosh audience and let that steamroll but I gave a great speech because I cut myself off backstage it was like hey no oh come on like and that is the truth the truth is that I signed up for this the truth is that I love this the truth is that I want to do this even as an actor you get rejected so many times as an actor in Hollywood it happens all the time and there's been moments in the waiting room before auditioning that you're like who do I think I am know that you have even confident people do and again it's just self-talk it's like come on you've done this before going there it's I'm pep-talking myself no one's gonna do it for you in these moments you have to learn to do it and again learning to shift the perspective how do we know that because the other side doesn't feel good it doesn't feel good you get out of a conversation doesn't feel good then you go why don't I feel good right now it's not about did I just kind of hope for something failure am i trying to be right am i upset because someone projected their lack of confidence onto me and it takes talking through that and you can do that all right here or with someone else but you must do it to forge ahead and that in and of itself builds confidence because it's the self-talk yeah that's actually a good weapon I'd be really bummed if we didn't talk about shame mm-hmm talk to me about that because it's such a hot topic and something that I think a lot of people struggle with yeah a lot of people struggle shame so shame does disable confidence so I have a 20-year story when I was 22 years old I was working the corporate world and I was making six figures I was gonna be retired by the time I was 35 with like five Porsches in the driveway I mean it was going well my next promotion was to be for a quarter of a million dollars at the age of 23 oh that's huge and that's to talk about confidence I had a corner office I had you know Armani suits and I was like I'm killing it I'm killing it more than anyone ever graduated with and I did get kicked out of high school my sophomore year so I was even extra vindicated like yeah you know what showed you already very moment this 22 year old moment of being like oh you know what whatever doesn't even matter hahaha look at me now right I'm doing great and then one day literally my arms stopped working did you overnight like kind of overnight I was carrying a chair that was very light but bulky just a block away from my house from a store I kept having to put it down I had so much weakness in my wrists then almost immediately after that I was in chronic pain both of my arms and hands leading all the way up to neck were so inflamed I couldn't even talk with my hands like I'm talking now I could not lift a fork to my mouth I could not hold a cup in my hand I could not run fingers through my hair I had severe tendinitis and tenosynovitis in both of my hands and arms now normally in that situation you would just put in in a workman's comp and let them go heal or figure that out but I kind of sealed this injury and probably for like an extra year which really made it permanent unfortunately so my first horrible thought of shame was I was sitting in my apartment San Francisco at the time and I had these dead arms and I was in so much pain and I literally thought oh my god who's gonna ever want me I'm not gonna be able to be a wife or a mom or anything I can't even I know what it takes to take care of kids I used to work with kids my whole life I couldn't even get a kid out ready for school in the morning much less than feed myself or do what I need to do when you wake up in the morning using your hands every five seconds if you're watching this now you have probably adjusted your hands a hundred times during this interview so I had this it's an immediate sense of unworthiness shame and so here I am like oh my god who's gonna ever want me I'm 22 I'm defective and I said to myself I don't know that I would choose a guy with dead arms I don't want to be hypocritical I would understand that someone wouldn't want me like who the would want someone who's 22 and their arms are dead you know and at the time I didn't know was gonna get any better so I'm sitting there going okay well how am I gonna make more money now and what I'm gonna do with my life and that's the moment when I thought well I have my voice I have my voice and the funny thing is is that I'd always wanted to be like an actor or speaker or in this arena when I was a kid but I thought I'd honored myself and I was like this is so unrealistic right like no but the universe cut the golden handcuffs off of me kind of forced me into using my voice however during this time I was so ashamed and embarrassed of being defective I was so ashamed that I'd be rejected by a guy so it really affected me in romantic relationships so six seven years ago I was in a relationship I really thought I was gonna marry this person very close I met the kids a wonderful person but he was kind of like an emotional robot and in a way it was kind of cute at first cuz it's really professional about it but just no words of intimacy and words of appreciation and if you don't have emotional verbal intimacy with someone you know it's not gonna go very well over the long-term and so we broke up I called my coach and I am bawling my eyes out and I'm like the universe played such a cruel joke on me why would they do that I've done all this work in my life I meet this perfect guy and yet there's one little thing that's wrong with him is like such a big thing and and he said to me did you tell him about your disability story and your whole thing and I said no he goes well then guess what you're the emotional robot what did you expect to attract if you want someone who's emotionally available you have to be emotionally available and I mean I bawled my eyes out you cannot even imagine I was just a mess because it was so true and I was like damn it me and that's where if you think there's some area of your life you think you're getting away with shuffling it under the rug you're not it's gonna come in there somewhere and I did a speech called the shame of disability and the disability of shame because the shame was more disabling than the disability itself and so not only just romantic relationships but it kept me outside of friendships because I'd always want to be on the outside and not let anyone get to know me too well in accessibility right it doesn't breed well for friendships and romantic relationships it really doesn't and so here's where I started after that conversation with my coach and being like oh my god I got to start to be vulnerable we have to get over the shame the other side of this too is that some of the best gifts in life come wrapped in I would never take back hypothyroidism or my hands getting injured from what they have given me I would have had those Porsches and I would have had the three homes at 35 but I can tell you now based on people who are at my age who have all those things and have done all those things they are now in this time of life going what's my purpose what am I doing with my life I can guarantee you I would be unfulfilled I'd have the 401 K in the house and everything but I'd still probably be going what am i doing so I was forced into my dreams through a disability and so what I say to people is I'm not successful and happy despite my disability I'm actually happy and successful because of it it also brought me a level of compassion and empathy I never had before both of them the compassion I have for people who are sick and struggling with hypothyroidism or any kind of health disease or issue and also people who are disabled and it doesn't matter what it is what kind of disability is it could be an emotional disability for example people with traumatic brain injuries I mean you can't see that you know so or just mental-health issues depression and 100% and so I had to get over that to become confident as I was already confident but these areas whew that's what I was gonna ask like how much of shame do you have to get over in order to achieve that like utter confidence and then going back to the question that I'd asked before that what comes first is it building the confidence in order to speak up about your shame or just wrecking biting the bullet even if you're quivering inside and you're yourself in telling somebody your shame but knowing you have to get through it to get to the other side both listen it's never fun and it's not easy to speak up for the first time to the bullying boss or whatever it's nerve-racking it is so yeah sometimes you have to power through it and you go that way that will develop confidence because everyone who does it Mustard's through that uncomfortability always I've seen it every time is afterwards it's like I am so proud of they are so proud of themselves you can see how it's fueled them already in that moment and the other part too is yeah you can do it on the back end and do some of this work both together is ideal and again you can just get to a comfortable level with that where you're speaking of about something small at first like listen I know someone who's debilitatingly shy who didn't have a first friend until they were 35 years old they're now 50 and literally could not even talk to people at all not even like a Starbucks person just couldn't even talk to people if you were at Ground Zero with debilitating lack of self esteem and insecurity then in that case and this person did that they hired a social coach who took them out to like the Third Street Promenade or some mall and would help them just go make conversations with people that worked at the stores because they're often gonna be very friendly and receptive right they're not the new customer if you have to start there now if you met that person today you'd never know that they were debilitatingly shy do they have moments to where they have a shy moment they do but then they do the self talk and they go back to the coaching they had and they're able to make it through it and now they're very outgoing and you would never know so you can even go from Ground Zero where you can't even talk to people that might require though hiring someone like a social coach who really can actually help you physically go up and speak to someone but I've seen 180s in all arenas you know what I mean you can do the 180 you can't alright go well you've sports so much gold in this episode where can people find the book and when you yeah confident as is on Amazon in Kindle and also print version and you can go to El russ calm and I actually for people that are suffering from thyroid and curious about that there's a free thyroid guide there and every Monday on the primal blueprint podcast I'm the host where I interview people and mind body and health amazing so what is your superpower apart from being confident as yeah I would say the ability to make people laugh and feel comfortable you know with my background in comedy and in general I feel like I can lighten up a situation that can be heavy not in inappropriate moments right but I'm not gonna be cracking jokes at your mom's funeral but I think being able to lighten people up and get them to see the light side of things because like you said it's perspective and I'm always seeing the humor in something and I think that that is a superpower and I'm gonna say this on camera you have absolute permission to make jokes at my funeral in fact I request you make jokes in my few I want no one wears black or pink all right guys guys I hope you took away all the amazing things that I did in this episode go back we watch it follow her grab the but there's so many more tactics in the book so go check that out if you're not following me follow me at Lisa Biel and if this episode brought you guys value please please do subscribe do share and until next time guys be the hero of your own life [Music] what up guys Lisa here thanks so much for watching this episode and if you haven't already subscribed that little bun-bun in front of you click click click away we release episodes every Wednesday so be sure to get notified until next time go be the hero of your own life

Channel: Women of Impact

Views: 116,600

Keywords: women of impact, woman of impact, lisa bilyeu, tom bilyeu, impact theory, quest nutrition, motivation, inspiration, Elle Russ, Lisa Bilyeu, Women of Impact, Impact Theory, WOI, Tom Bilyeu, confidence, confident, confident as fuck, paleo, thyroid, jealousy, choose your battles, vulnerability, be authentic, disability, shame, beta, OPC, writer, speaker, coach

Id: c5J8vR0fwzc

Length: 42min 5sec (2525 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 05 2020