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S1, E1 The Career Coven: Confidence (and a warm welcome!)
355 Plays1 year ago
Welcome to the first episode of our podcast The Career Coven with Bec Ellul and Annie Coleridge (and Annie’s dog Susan, who loves to have her voice heard too). We want to help women in their careers shortcut the hard parts we have faced through candid conversation and sharing what’s helped us, to accelerate women into leadership.
Our first episode is a biggie and it’s on confidence. In this episode we’ll cover the role of confidence as a motivator and indicator of more likely successful outcomes; perfectionism vs the 80/20 rule; how we handle our periods of low confidence; the importance of self talk and the narrative you tell yourself; the role of coaching in confidence (including your inner coach! Yes, yours); getting a healthy dose of perspective; the spotlight effect (PSA basically no one is watching or cares); and a cheer for all the amazing silver medalists out there.
You’ll also hear us unpack and share views, tips and tricks on some great questions from women on:
- How to present confidently on a topic where you feel like everyone in the room knows more than you
- Fake it until you make it, is it easier said than done? A very divisive question as it turns out
You’ll also hear from Susan throughout, with a bonus for everyone who makes it to the end.
Are you a fan? Please like and subscribe on your preferred platform, and let us know what you think! hello@careercoven.com
Content recs, references & extra reading
- How Confidence Works by Ian Robertson
- Overcome the Eight Barriers to Confidence, Rosabeth Moss Kantar, Harvard Business Review
- Raising low self-esteem, NHS
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Career Coven Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
Hi, this is fun. Welcome to The Career Coven, the podcast that talks through the key building blocks of women's rise in leadership. I'm Beck and I'm Annie and we're your host on this journey of inspiration, practical tips and candid conversations. And we are excited to play a small part in the acceleration of women's leadership that we want to see in the rise of the next generation of fearless female leaders. So let's get started.
00:00:37
Speaker
Yeah. And should we just cover that this isn't not for
Inclusive Focus on Women's Leadership
00:00:39
Speaker
men? Yes. Yes. This isn't, this isn't not for men. We love, we love men as well as women, but we probably feel more passionate about reflecting on leadership and values and all things career from a kind of female perspective.
00:00:56
Speaker
So to all of those potential male listeners out there, you're welcome. Welcome here. Everyone's welcome. Everyone's welcome, but we probably are going to put a more female lens on the discussions. And do you want to talk about why we've chosen to do that a bit? Yes, yes. I think that there's a lot of content I feel that is about like leadership and performance and kind of optimising the way you work and
00:01:25
Speaker
I think that's dominated by male voices. I'm not saying it's only a male perspective, but I think that, you know, it's often dominated by men in my view. And that's just kind of one take on those topics. So I would definitely like to, and obviously, you know, that's why we're here, but like to see more content that is from kind of female perspective and also from the level of not the kind of ultra successful, which I also feel
00:01:55
Speaker
is probably where like a lot of the content is at is aimed at like people who are right at the top of their career rather than people in the middle. Yes and I feel like I don't know what you think but I feel like sometimes that content is inaccessible or not necessarily practical for what I want to learn or what I need to learn or what we hope others would need to hear. Yeah agreed and I think you know women do face different challenges in the workplace to men
00:02:23
Speaker
And I don't think we're the first to think that by any stretch, but yeah, I feel like there is not that much talking to women who are maybe at the start or the middle of their careers looking to take the next step, but not necessarily looking to, you know, become a CEO or anything like that. And I think like a lot of the potential from organizations comes from those levels and people that want to, you know, take that next step and aspirational, but that's just not that much chatty.
00:02:53
Speaker
friendly content that talks to those people and obviously you know at the most basic level we're women so I think that it's easier for us to give it our own like authentic perspective than to try and like balance the conversation by talking about genders that we don't represent though obviously we all want to cover intersectionality and stuff as part of these conversations.
Diversity and Inclusion in Perspectives
00:03:17
Speaker
Also really important that we
00:03:20
Speaker
both wanted to acknowledge that we are white women, we are women from middle class backgrounds, and that has obviously benefited us and shaped our experiences. So we felt it was really important to acknowledge that in this context, and we are both really aware that people who have characteristics that intersect with that, that are not the same as that, will have different experiences. And we wanted to acknowledge that upfront,
00:03:48
Speaker
know that that is an area that we continue to seek to understand and I think it's really important that we make sure that we give acknowledgement to everyone who has experiences that aren't those, whether that's through ethnicity or socioeconomic background or disability or someone who doesn't identify as necessarily man or woman and all the shades of spectrum between gender there too.
00:04:15
Speaker
we are really aware that we have a privileged background and we want to be able to contribute across everyone who is listening to this podcast and we hope to get it right but sometimes we might not and we will do our best and we always welcome feedback on this and we hope to have a whole host of diverse guests in future episodes that will help bring in those perspectives too because everyone's voice matters.
Avoiding Career Pain Points
00:04:43
Speaker
part of both of us coming together and thinking about this was what did we want to know at that time in our careers in order to shortcut some of the pain points that we went through that are all fairly common and how can we help other people shortcut their journeys and help them frame their thinking around the best approach to get there. I'm not saying that we know the best but
00:05:10
Speaker
You have some war wounds. We can definitely tell you the worst. I feel like I'm quite qualified in some areas to tell you what not to do. And that's what this is about, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay. And one thing that we spent ages talking about was what should we call the podcast?
The Meaning of 'Coven'
00:05:28
Speaker
Do you want to share some views on the use of the word coven? Yes. Well, women are
00:05:35
Speaker
obviously sometimes compared to kind of witches, particularly in history. But I think there's sort of a lot of magic around being a woman. And I like the idea of a little coven of witchy women talking to each other about their experiences, sharing their knowledge, sharing their wisdom and doing that in a safe space. And so, yeah, I guess people could interpret the career coven
00:06:02
Speaker
differently, but ours is a very kind of, I think, very positive take on the likeness of women to which. I mean, I totally agree. And I've had so many little work WhatsApp groups with women called the Coven. So it's a word for me that holds true kind of throughout my career and my relationship to women in the workplace. So I love it. I would also say that we asked Chachi Poteet to come up with some suggestions and they were all
00:06:28
Speaker
Really shit. Really bad. Really awful. Most of them were like the girl boss hour. Big boss babes. Big boss babes. I think that's a different type of podcast, you know what I mean? And a lot of like empowering women and I just don't really like the word empowering. But anyway, so welcome to the Career Coven. With our little very well qualified dog in the middle of the Career Coven season.
00:06:53
Speaker
I think you technically need three to make a coven. So Susan's third. Yeah, that makes, that makes perfect sense to me. And she's actually very, very wise. So baby. Okay.
Meet the Hosts: Beck and Annie
00:07:04
Speaker
So maybe it's helpful if we kind of introduce ourselves. Um, we thought it would be cute to introduce each other. So Adam and I met, how many, let's maybe six years ago and let's basically go across each other.
00:07:18
Speaker
What I love about Annie is she's a straight shooter and like totally fearless in all aspects of her life. And she's got like the cutest job. He's currently sniffing the mic. And I'm really not afraid to advocate for what she wants. And, and she's also a two-time CEO of Femtech companies. One that she set up herself during the pandemic and raised a million pounds, which is obviously absolutely incredible. So.
00:07:47
Speaker
She's got a lot of accolades on her, but she's generally just a cool person. Well, thanks. Well, it's always nice to know someone else's interpretation of who you are. Is that how you think you just find yourself? Absolutely not. No, no, no. I think very generous call me absolutely fearless in all aspects of my life. Would love for that to be the case. So pleased that's how it comes across. Possibly not how I feel, but obviously we'll talk about that some more over the course of the podcast. But yeah, otherwise,
00:08:17
Speaker
factually correct that's what we hope for robust content yes exactly and yeah it's good to hear as i say it's good to hear other people's interpretation of your personality okay well now me on you i guess right i would say that you are the person that i always want to talk to when anything goes wrong in my career and that's because when you talk i just trust and believe the things you say you say them with a lot of authority a lot of like
00:08:46
Speaker
reflectiveness and a lot of humility, which is I think something I personally really value. Obviously you're also an epic corporate warrior.
00:08:57
Speaker
having kind of climbed the corporate ladder so quickly in your 20s and early 30s working across government and like some of the biggest media companies in the world so many brand names on your CV but most recently obviously at the BBC and I think that what you've achieved in your career is so impressive but I know that it's involved
00:09:21
Speaker
navigating a lot of really complex situations. And I want to learn about those through this podcast. You're also a huge ambassador for women's rights, the rights of disadvantaged people, and you're super interested in the climate, having just been to Antarctica. So I think you've just got a really broad perspective on the world that I value, I think other people will value. And in general, you're just fun.
00:09:49
Speaker
Oh, I love that. That's maybe my favourite bit. Yeah, it's important. It's really important to bring good vibes. Yeah, especially to this. I mean, imagine like it would be so dry if you weren't fun. Yeah, if you're not interested in a fun podcast with like, probably too much swearing, then you're in the wrong place. Yeah, yeah. That's
Sharing Opinions and Experiences
00:10:10
Speaker
a good disclaimer. Actually, we will be swearing on this podcast.
00:10:13
Speaker
have an absolute filthy mouth. I'm like Australian so that's basically just my cultural heritage so I can't control it and I don't really ever apologise for it. Yeah and I think I was just a sort of angry teenager that never grew out of it and interestingly I think that is part of what makes people think I'm really confident is that I swear in inappropriate scenarios a lot but I'm absolutely comfortable with it it's not going to change I don't think now. I think the other thing we should probably mention is that we're not experts
00:10:43
Speaker
No, no, I would say we're just two people with some learnings that we'd like to share on a bigger scale than just the two of us. So, you know, we're not, we're not like scientists, we're not academics, you know, we both kind of enjoy reading different types of content. And I'm sure that will come out, but like, we're not, we're not claiming
00:11:07
Speaker
to be any sort of kind of coach or scientific expert.
Embracing 'Difficult Women' Label
00:11:13
Speaker
We're just people with learnings. And opinions. And opinions. And those opinions have got us places, good and bad. Good, bad, really hairy situations. But like, you know, love being difficult women. Yeah, love being difficult women. I was actually thinking about that a lot. My mum is a difficult woman, very proud.
00:11:36
Speaker
I have definitely kind of wrestled with the idea of being a difficult woman, definitely in my early 20s did not want to be a difficult woman and now I feel like absolutely want to be a difficult woman and very very comfortable with it. But yeah we got some we got some good questions around that kind of thing so we should we should save that content. We should save it yeah that's a teaser if you didn't know.
00:12:05
Speaker
This episode is on confidence and we picked this one because that I think is one of the most important things to helping you progress and making you feel good while you do it and helping you achieve the things that you want to achieve. I think we should probably start with what what is confidence to us? Yes yeah very good question. So I
00:12:32
Speaker
I like to do a bit of research, as you know. I feel more comfortable talking about things when I've done a bit of work, which is something we will probably talk about. But as I was doing that reading and preparing for this podcast, I read this really good book called How Confidence Works, which helps help to explain to me that confidence has two parts. It's not just the belief that you can do an action, like that you have the skills to complete a task.
00:13:01
Speaker
It's like that belief combined with believing that that will lead to a positive outcome and that outcome in the future. So it's actually the combination of kind of being able to look into the future and see the thing that you want and believe that you can take the actions and steps to like get to that outcome.
Defining and Building Confidence
00:13:19
Speaker
And I think that like nuance and understanding of confidence, yeah, it gave me a really different perspective on what it means. Because I think if you just asked me kind of
00:13:30
Speaker
off the cuff I would have said you know it's feeling like assured in yourself knowing that you can do the work knowing that you can do the job and it's not something that you innately have or don't have it's definitely something that you can like learn and kind of teach yourself over time but yeah this two-part framework kind of helped me understand that it's not just that it's also believing that those actions kind of will lead to something will lead to a positive outcome. Interesting and we will link
00:13:58
Speaker
that book into the show notes. I think recognising that confidence is like a muscle that you can grow and strengthen is really important. I really don't believe people are inherently confident unless you're probably a narcissist. And that's just a slightly different topic, maybe for another day. Plenty of narcissists in the workplace. But I think it's really important
00:14:24
Speaker
to reflect on how you can build your confidence. I also read a Harvard Business Review article on a similar theme on this, which really put out the position that confidence is the belief in the positive outcome, but because you have that motivation and belief, you are therefore more likely to take the actions that would make you succeed and be motivated to do that.
00:14:52
Speaker
Confidence isn't necessarily the success factor in achieving the positive outcome, but it helps your motivation towards those tasks. I think if you think about the counterfactual and say, I don't believe I can do something and I'm going to try to do it anyway, that will feel so much harder. And therefore I probably will feel less motivated to do it. But what I will say though, one of the things that I think about confidence is just
00:15:22
Speaker
looking at someone, maybe it's more senior than you and the more senior you get, you realise most people don't know how to do a lot of things. It's actually about how you approach them. It's about how you structure and go about resolving a problem rather than having a particular knowledge about a topic. And so I think it's really helpful when you think about when you're ready for a promotion or if you don't feel confident
00:15:50
Speaker
going into an interview or anything like that, people are really looking for how you approach something you don't know how to do, rather than you know 100% of the knowledge area on a particular topic. Yeah, I was thinking about this earlier. I think lots of people, I think, worry a lot about being right all of the time. And I feel,
00:16:16
Speaker
I feel like that leads to a lack of confidence because no one can be right all the time. And like, you know, that's not really what life is all about. I think it's about, as you say, like taking steps, making progress, also like making decisions and knowing knowing that some decisions will be wrong, but that most decisions only have like a controlled set of consequences. And, you know, if you are wrong about an idea or a decision, especially one that has, you know, bigger consequences,
00:16:47
Speaker
then someone challenging you on that and finding a better solution is actually a good outcome. And what you should expect, it's what you should expect as you get more senior, it's not that you have to have all the answers, it's that you are comfortable being challenged, you're comfortable with there being a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncertainty. But I certainly didn't really fully, I don't think, understand that until
00:17:15
Speaker
seven or eight years into my career where I was like actually no one is expecting me to be right all the time, everyone's just expecting to see like how I think and most of the time like someone challenging me will lead me to think better about something or to think about something that I haven't before and that is not a direct kind of
00:17:32
Speaker
reflection on me not being good or me not knowing an answer, but it's actually just a good outcome for everyone. And if you're in a job where someone expects you to have a computer brain and know all the answers to everything, that's just nuts. That's an unrealistic expectation on yourself. This reminds me so much of something that I was taught quite early. I don't know if I was explicitly taught it or just picked it up through osmosis.
00:18:01
Speaker
roles I've had in my career have involved pulling together executive powerpoints which I can tell you is like not a glamorous task and it has like 50 people feeding in and all of it's looking a bit like a dog's dinner and when you're pulling those together or a piece of work or a presentation before I send it anywhere I always pick a lens of basically someone who I know is going to critique the work and I'll be like what would
00:18:31
Speaker
John, what would John say about this deck? And I'd be like, John would be like, these numbers don't add up or like, I don't agree with the phrasing of that sentence. And I think that isn't about being self critical. I think that is also about being prepared for the challenge that you're going to receive. So by the time you get to give your presentation, you've already thought about it. You already know what you're going to say. You've already tailored it and you close the opportunities for
00:19:00
Speaker
sort of onslaught of feedback that you might not necessarily want, especially if you're giving a presentation. And I would also say just for me, preparing is the absolute critical key to feeling confident about anything. It's about really knowing, knowing what I know really well and knowing what I don't know and feeling really comfortable about saying, I don't know this, but I will work it out and I will speak to X person or
00:19:28
Speaker
I will do more work to unfold that. It's not the right time for me to be able to have done that at this point, but that would be a next step. And I think that also makes you look good. Yeah, agreed. Totally agree with that. I mean, whenever I've seen anyone in a big room or a big presentation say something like, I don't actually know that, but I can get you the answer or, you know, these are the reasons we don't know that yet, but this is what we're working through.
00:19:56
Speaker
the ability to like be able to say what you don't know with confidence and authority to me is like the ultimate reflection of confidence. And it definitely makes me think, you know, okay, cool, they're not lying to me. And that's like, that is a big part of like, I don't really want someone to kind of bullshit and pretend that they know things, it's like bluster and answer, because then as the audience, I'm taking away like wrong information. And actually, it is much better to just say, I don't know that we don't know that
00:20:26
Speaker
in a way that doesn't sound apologetic, it sounds kind of really confident. Oh, never apologize for the presentation. Yeah, I hate the thing that I see happen so often, and it makes me absolutely crushed and sorry, just when someone starts the presentation by apologizing and saying like, this isn't very good, or, you know, I know this isn't where we expect it to be.
00:20:50
Speaker
I mean, for God's sake, just say this is a draft or just say this is a work in progress and wanted to give you a status update, but do not ever apologize for the work that you've done. I hate it. I hate it.
Overcoming Perfectionism
00:21:01
Speaker
Yeah. And that's actually something else that I learned about this week in that book was like part of confidence is the narrative that you tell yourself. If you start something by telling yourself this isn't good or telling other people this isn't good or like this isn't where it should be.
00:21:19
Speaker
you know, you're really focusing on all that, all the negatives right from the start. And it is therefore, it's more likely scientifically that there'll be a less good outcome because you've been telling yourself like this isn't good. And, you know, I see this in people I've managed as well, like focusing on all the things on your to-do list that you didn't get done. And that leading to like this mental fatigue and exhaustion of just like, well, you know, I wanted to get these
00:21:48
Speaker
50 things done this week and I've only done 20 and it doesn't matter that the 20 are absolutely like smash hits and there's still more than most people would do or like still represent amazing performance in that role, it's actually that you know the focus is all on those 30 things that you didn't get done and therefore you're constantly telling yourself I'm behind and behind should be doing more should be doing more and that leads to this kind of perpetual cycle of
00:22:14
Speaker
anxiety and then like lack of confidence, which, you know, I think it is a bit of a hack to just say what it like to people try focusing on for a few weeks, just the things that you do get done. Try starting your meetings with your line manager by saying the things that you did get done rather than the things that you didn't get done. Um, and I would definitely say if I was on the end of someone telling me all the things that they had done to start a meeting as the recipient
00:22:43
Speaker
that information as the manager. That makes me feel more relaxed to start that one-to-one, even if there are actually big things that have been missed in that prioritisation list, because they've explained to me, I prioritised this because of these reasons, and this is how that went. And I'm feeling like, okay, this was thought through. We've only got a certain amount of time. This is why they did it. This was the outcome. I'm just more relaxed.
00:23:10
Speaker
Whereas when people start with like, here's all the 18 things I didn't get done. I feel like, okay, well now I'm on edge because I feel like you're telling me I'm behind. I, as your manager, I'm thinking, how can I unblock this person? How can I like clear the way? Is she overworked? Are they overworked? You know, it's a completely different meeting because it starts in that way of like,
00:23:33
Speaker
negative start rather than the positive start. Yeah and I think that's a really good point about just how you frame what you've achieved. I think there's two things I would say on that. One, some really nice guidance that I had last year as a tip around this was at the end of each week just writing in a journal
00:23:56
Speaker
what have you done really well this week? And I think there's a lot of evidence around neural pathways and positive thinking, but I think it's really important to reflect on the things that you have achieved rather than those that you happen. And the second thing I would say is that I suspect, I don't know this person, but I see a bit of myself in them in that I suspect this is rooted in
00:24:21
Speaker
them having really high, too high standards and expectations of themselves. And also being a perfectionist and being a perfectionist is something that I've recently had coaching on. And, um, it takes a lot of retraining your brain to not focus on the 1% of things that went wrong. I can do 99% of things amazingly. And if there's like a typo in my email, I will like spin wheels about it and be like, you fucking idiot.
00:24:50
Speaker
Um, when I've obviously just completed an enormous piece of work. So I think it's really easy to be super hard on yourself, especially if you're wide like that. Yeah. And, and that's something we're really different in that way. I am like not a perfectionist at all. And so definitely, I think when I see that trait in others, yes, this is more likely to spin out about small things, but definitely more likely to hold themselves to these
00:25:15
Speaker
extraordinarily high bars and always be focusing on what didn't go well, what wasn't, what wasn't what they expected, what could have gone better. And like, that's cool. You know, I think people, organizations need perfectionists. There's like huge value that people like that bring, but definitely like life is easier as an ACI 2020 year, which I totally am. That's my aspiration. Yeah. Just get it done. Get it out there. Like nothing's perfect in the world. Even the perfect things.
00:25:43
Speaker
won't be perfect, or they won't be perfect to everyone. And no one's above feedback. So just like, get it out. I mean, I would also say that, like, that, that, that level of like 80-20-ness can annoy people. And I know that. So can I 100-0. So I think there's, there's probably pros and cons to both of those. Yeah. But I am, I'm trying to
00:26:09
Speaker
release myself with like that crippling overthinking about the 1% which is just not helpful and I bet no one notices. I wonder if they do they don't care right? Well I can certainly tell you that I never notice the things that perfectionists point out to me and I certainly never care like um you know small things to me like just just pass me by um but you need a balance right like it's not it's not like one way or the other but definitely
00:26:36
Speaker
I guess, you know, if I was managing you, it would be so helpful to like, know that right from the start, you know, you're a perfectionist, you're working on it, this is how it manifests, because then you'll kind of understand like, okay, this is some of the things I'm likely to see that they're possibly going to focus on, like the the small things that didn't get done, rather than the absolutely huge things that that you did get done. So I think being able to articulate like,
00:27:03
Speaker
why your perfectionism or why your like, you know, focus on detail can lead to these other things is always a really good way to like start a manager relationship if you if you can, and vice versa, right, if you're an 80 20 year, what that means is you probably will make bigger mistakes because and sometimes stupid ones for sure. But you'll possibly make a lot of progress with that, like, you know, mindset, but
00:27:33
Speaker
sometimes I think in like making that progress you miss things, you miss important details and those important details sometimes are really significant and I guess that is why you know in teams it's very useful to have both of those like personality types or both of those characteristics to sort of balance each other out. But yeah I mean definitely the perfectionism trait can I think be really hard to
00:28:01
Speaker
to manage your boundaries, but also manage confidence. But I would just encourage people to think like nothing, even if something is perfect to you, it won't be perfect in everyone's eyes. It never is. People have different opinions. And I think that's why you should only really spend a limited amount of time thinking about can I kind of please everyone. Oh, people pleasing. Part that for another episode, but that is a great one.
00:28:26
Speaker
I think we should talk a bit about times when we have had low confidence and how we handle that. I'm happy to start. I was going to say a bit of prep. Warming up.
Personal Stories of Confidence Challenges
00:28:41
Speaker
So I think I felt particularly low confidence when I was in the civil service. I was sort of routinely told by one camp of people I was ready for a promotion.
00:28:55
Speaker
Some other camps that people told me, you know, it's really young to get promoted. You need to get another job at a grade six before you're a deputy director. You didn't grow up in the civil service, so you don't have the kind of background training. You need a bit more time, blah, blah, blah. I applied to loads of jobs. I got interviews at like maybe 20% of them. And then the feedback that I got in the interviews was fairly
00:29:23
Speaker
consistent with I'd say the naysayers of being able to get that promotion. And it took me like a lot of digging deep. I was really upset at this time. And I had a really, really reflective moment. I was going through CBT at the time. It was during the pandemic, super low mood. And one of the things that the CBT practitioner taught me through was this concept called taking the thought to court.
00:29:51
Speaker
love this which is like super cheesy but super catchy and I kind of love it and that's around digging a few layers below the thought or feeling that you're having and understanding what the underlying point is that you're telling yourself much like what you said earlier about the narrative that you tell yourself is really important and the conclusion of all of these circumstances was that I told myself I'm never going to get a promotion.
00:30:21
Speaker
And that was the, the root judgment that I had made on myself. And they said, okay, what evidence do you have to support that? And I was like, well, I've had loads of projections. And they were like, right, that you've put the word never in. What does that mean? And I also at the same time had some coaching around, it was right before an interview. And my coach had just said, if you were talking to a friend, what would you say to them? And yeah, always a great one.
00:30:49
Speaker
always a great question. Just to just be asking yourself all the time, whenever there's any negative self-talk, would you say that to a friend? Would you say that to someone you manage? Yes. And I would never in my life tell anyone they would not get a promotion. No. Or never get a promotion, let alone won't. And I had reframed that as it only takes one yes. And then I did get a yes and slay, slay, slay.
00:31:17
Speaker
Slay, gently director at 30 and like had the most intense job of my life running crisis response. So during COVID, thanks very much. During COVID, it was really intense. So, you know, bit of a double edged sword there, but you know, it, it does only take one. Yes. But it is really easy to get into patterns of behavior and cycles of thinking that are really unhelpful to you helping me forward. Yes. Agreed. Agreed.
00:31:44
Speaker
And, you know, that like does only take one yes, like in the world in which I have worked more, which is startups, like fundraising is another really obvious example of that is like, you know, you do get so many no's in general before you get a yes. And that is kind of part of the process. And I know, like a lot of great people who have found that process very difficult because it just is for basically everyone. And you do have to tell yourself like that kind of
00:32:12
Speaker
positive outcome, which is like, it only does take one yes, because that is very, very true in that environment. Though, you know, fundraising for women and all of that stuff is definitely a completely different topic that we shouldn't go into in this one. Not right now. One of the things that I think I have really worked on, especially as I've got more senior, is working on not having your confidence hinge on other people's
00:32:40
Speaker
I think earlier in my career, my ego would be blown up or shrunk down directly proportionate to the amount of positive feedback I had or negative feedback. And actually, as you get more senior, you just get less feedback because you're expected to perform at a certain level and people who are paid more than you, one rank up from you, aren't really paid to give you compliments.
00:33:06
Speaker
they're there to manage your performance. And so sometimes I think it took a while for me to realise that absence of feedback means that I'm doing a good job.
00:33:16
Speaker
also thought about this this morning I think this is really really important definitely as you're progressing up it's so true that you get less feedback you have to really seek it out and really ask for it even then people aren't that comfortable to give it to you always but yeah I also think that for a lot of people at any level they just have a management style of like no feedback is good feedback
00:33:40
Speaker
And I'm not saying I think that's good management, like I definitely don't. I think feedback is very important and it's good to be very specific about it, good and bad. But like, yeah, I think no one really tells people coming into the workforce that sometimes the people that manage you, that will be a sign that things are going okay. Because usually, and maybe you can talk about more kind of larger environments or corporate environments, but like
00:34:05
Speaker
usually you fucking know if things aren't going okay. You just do know, you'll get the sense that things are not going okay pretty quickly when they're not going okay. And yeah, I do think especially for people pleasers or people that don't have a strong self narrative and are looking for validation from other people was also the same at the start of my career, by the way.
00:34:27
Speaker
Um, it's exhausting if you're waiting for feedback from people that just don't give feedback. I mean, everyone is compliment thirsty, but you have to sort of give yourself compliments. And sometimes it's basically just me being like, you sent a fucking good email. Like that was a chef's kiss email. Um, or just being like, this PowerPoint is the bomb. And I know it's the bomb and I don't need anyone else to tell me that it's the bomb, but I know it's the bomb. Or like, I have a lot of confidence in that position.
00:34:57
Speaker
And I feel really, really secure in my own judgment. And I think being confident is really about seeing the value in your capabilities and your decision-making. And it's so important to have that within yourself rather than relying on others because you could be in like the sub-Saharan compliment desert.
00:35:21
Speaker
And you're going to get nothing. That doesn't mean that you're not doing amazing work. So I would just encourage everyone to think around what are the ways that you can be in a coach around your capabilities and your judgment and your skills and your handling rather than in a critic. Because I think that is really what makes you feel secure yourself rather than rely on others.
00:35:45
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that if you find that kind of thing really hard, which I would have at the start of my career, I would have found it really hard to tell myself like, I did a really good bit of PowerPoint, or I did a really good bit of thinking. I think the other thing that you can do is like, evaluate success based on what you've learned. And like, if you have learned a lot through doing a piece of work, like, that is a good personal outcome for you. And it probably does mean that the work is pretty good because
00:36:14
Speaker
because you're being really active in your participation of that work. But like, I think thinking about, if you find it hard to say like, I'm really good at this, or I've done a really good job, feeling satisfaction from being able to say like, I learned loads on that, and actually like, I will do it differently next time, and I will be better the next time, is a really good way to also start telling yourself a more positive story that maybe isn't the leap from like, no confidence to like,
00:36:41
Speaker
more confidence is kind of the gradual step in between is maybe by focusing on learning and I've certainly you know had to use that a lot in various different absolute catastrophic phases of my career where I've like lost all of my confidence and reframing all of the like tragic and bizarre consequences that have come from my lack of confidence as like learnings has been a way to help me feel much more positive about those things without like
00:37:11
Speaker
you know, I still won't be able to tell myself compliments about those times in my career, but I will be able to be like, I learnt loads. Yeah. And I think you make a really good point about it's difficult to be confident when something is completely new. Yeah. Because you don't know how you're doing. Yeah. And so the more that you learn and the more that you develop, the easier it becomes to be confident, but the more you see. I think, you know, I still do things now.
00:37:39
Speaker
that I've never done before that kind of scared the shit out of me. But you have to do those in order to progress and grow and accelerate your career path. And part of it is, as you said earlier, the H word, humility. You have to go in with a full learner's mindset. You're like, I don't have a clue how to do this, but I'm going to ask four people that do and I'm going to learn how to do it. And then I'm going to get them to check my work and then I would have done it. And then the next time that I do that thing again,
00:38:07
Speaker
will feel easier and I will feel better and then I will know what good looks like and I can self-manage but I would say if you're learning something new it's totally fine to not feel confident about it but also just ask for help. Yeah yeah agree with that and I think even the most amazing successful whoever you admire you know they're not getting things right all the time you know they're constantly learning and they're learning by
00:38:32
Speaker
you know, pushing through and making a lot of decisions, sometimes high stakes decisions, but that they are learning and they are, you know, not, not, you know, making perfect decisions at every step by, by any stretch of the imagination. And I think as soon as you start to see the people around you, but I think in particular the people above you as like fallible and like make mistakes, it also hopefully can like help you take the pressure off yourself a bit, like not to make any mistakes, which is, you know, where I think,
00:39:02
Speaker
lot of people in the workplace lack of confidence comes from is like a real fear of being wrong fear of making mistakes fear of judgment if you do make a mistake and I'm not saying those things can't but there can't be consequences but like you know if you're in a pretty reasonable working environment most people know that mistakes happen and
00:39:22
Speaker
It's just about how you learn from them and don't make the same mistake again.
Annie's Journey with Startup Confidence
00:39:26
Speaker
That is usually what people are kind of looking to see from you, I think, especially at the start of your career. Like no one expects new people.
00:39:33
Speaker
new into a role, new into a job, new into the workforce to just be able to like, know what to do, but they are like, definitely looking for you to not make repeat mistakes time and time again. Because what that shows is like, you're just not learning, you're not processing information. But yeah, I mean, to go back to your question about times in my career, I got less confident. Yeah, I would say that a really interesting one for me was
00:40:01
Speaker
When I was doing my startup, Alva, and, you know, it was a very stressful time, same time that you were doing your civil service job in the middle of the pandemic, definitely, you know, mentally, I was not in a good place. And that's sort of a story potentially for another time. But what I've realized through a lot of coaching
00:40:27
Speaker
last few months of that role was like I was never not confident in my abilities to do tasks but what I lost was that belief that the task would lead to this positive outcome. The positive outcome for me was to build you know a world-changing like menopause company and really you know the pressure I put myself every day was to like help millions of menopause or women you know not leave their jobs, not leave their partners, not have these kind of
00:40:55
Speaker
sometimes disastrous consequences that that period of time can have for women. I think that, yeah, as I got closer to my decision to stop that company, I still believed that I was able to do the role of a CEO and a founder. I knew that I could do the tasks that everyone else was doing, but I stopped believing that I was ever going to be able to push this boulder up the hill and make a big company.
00:41:25
Speaker
soon as I'd really taught and I was telling myself like all sorts of batshit narratives at this point like completely insane things that no I would never say to a friend I wouldn't even say them to my worst enemy but I was you know saying them to myself every day the first thing I woke up is like a version of like it will never work like you you know you can do everything but like nothing you do will be enough like it will never be enough it will never be enough oh my chest feels tight as you're saying that like
00:41:53
Speaker
Yeah, and it was like bleak. And I think to everyone around me, they just couldn't see it. I hit it very, very well. Like I just kept, you know, I kept moving. So I kept doing the things that I knew I knew I could do the actions. I knew I was doing the actions every single day. I would like get up and do the work, but I just lost that belief that it would lead to this positive outcome that I was striving for. And then to be honest, you know, my days were pretty numbered because it just started to feel, you know, really awful
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah, I made a decision to not continue with that and sell the business. That was the worst period in my career, the worst time for my own confidence. It has genuinely taken me years to recover from that, but also probably that much time to really understand what was happening in that moment. There were lots of different
00:42:46
Speaker
factors to that period of time. But the real, I think, loss of confidence was the loss of that second side of it, which is the belief that my actions would lead to this big outcome. And I lost the ability to see into a positive future. And in startups, but definitely, if you're the entrepreneur in the startup,
00:43:12
Speaker
Like that's sort of your job. That's your vibe. It's like, you have to think about the future you want to create and you have to have that like vision for what the company is like doing. And, um, once you sort of lose that for any reason, I think it becomes, you know, really cripplingly painful, um, thing. Can I ask you a couple of questions? Yeah. Okay. So in this, in this moment, I remember seeing you as, I hope you didn't like me saying,
00:43:40
Speaker
shell of a human. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not the first. Okay, first question is around, let's say one of our listeners is experiencing the same type of confidence break that you have where you think you're able but you're not confident of a positive outcome. Yeah. What would you advise them to do?
Regaining Perspective and Balance
00:44:02
Speaker
I would really advise you to take a break. So like, I
00:44:06
Speaker
It was very quick for me, actually, once I had taken a break from that moment. You know, I would say within two weeks, I had probably seen that I had really distorted thinking about what was going to happen, but I didn't take a break. And, you know, there were people telling me that I should take a break for various reasons. I didn't feel that I could take a break in that moment. And that was a big mistake. And I think
00:44:32
Speaker
you know, taking a break, getting away from your phone, getting away from your laptop and thinking about really like why you're doing the things you're doing and whether like any of those kind of underlying things that you had once in your confidence and your belief in the future, whether any of those underlying foundational things have actually really changed. I would definitely say look at that because for me, I feel like if I had been able to do that,
00:44:57
Speaker
And I'm actually genuinely not sure I would have been able to given where I was mentally. But if there was a world where I could have done that with a break, I think what I would have seen is none of the fundamentals had really changed from when I started to when I stopped. The state of menopause was still the same. The opportunity was still there. We hadn't really had anything go massively wrong.
00:45:24
Speaker
I so I think that like that would have really helped me and I think the yeah I think always trying to step away from the thing that is causing you this kind of intense anxiety or this intense kind of loss of being able to see a positive outcome is useful. I definitely had probably too late some really good coaching sessions that helped me
00:45:52
Speaker
re-understand what sort of happened with that narrative and I think coaching is really really useful but I also don't think you have to like pay for a coach, not everyone can do that. I think having people like I had you, I had other people that I could talk to that would generally tell me that like I was probably not okay and that these things that I was saying did sound quite like extreme. My mum was definitely one of them and I think having a coven or having like
00:46:20
Speaker
a group of people who aren't related to your job, but they can, they know enough to be able to say like, actually it sounds like maybe you've gone quite far in this direction and like that might be a problem. I have to say I didn't, I didn't talk to anyone when I was feeling this. I only really talked to myself just as things were probably getting too far. I was too dangerous. So dangerous. And like now whenever anyone like steps into a really big role and they ask my advice, I'm like,
00:46:50
Speaker
make sure you have a group of people to talk to, make sure that you have people that you can just say the things out loud and then they're out in the open and sometimes you realise how insane they sound once you say them. And then yeah so I would say take a break, externalise your thoughts with someone else or a group of people if you can like
00:47:13
Speaker
Coaching is a really useful tool in these really quite extreme moments particularly, but also I think that there are other tools like journaling, like writing things down, kind of starting again to externalise from your brain what you are thinking and then look at that as a, try and look at that as a third person and be like, okay, that is really, that is really off, that is a really warped thought. You preempted my second question, it was gonna be about
00:47:41
Speaker
around the role of coaching. You and I have had lots of coaches in our career, very lucky to and have kind of also informally coached people a lot as well. I really love your point around the support network. I kind of think of it as like, who's on your personal board. Yeah, I've heard that. And I totally feel like, you know, you're on my board, I've probably got
00:48:06
Speaker
a handful of other people, my parents are on there, my sister's on there. She's terrible. Susan thinks she's terrible. And I think it's also really good to have a board when you are facing some really big decisions, but you're not in a good mindset to be able to take that call and you can test your judgment with them in order to feel confident in your decision and that it's consistent with how you would normally be talking to yourself.
00:48:35
Speaker
I would also, uh, another bit of CBT that really reminded me of when you were talking about externalizing it, they asked me to say out loud how I was feeling. And, um, and that was where for me, a real penny drop moment happened when the CBT therapist read it back. And I was like, holy fuck, you are so mean to yourself. When I heard someone else's voice.
00:49:02
Speaker
saying it to me i was like wow that's really messed up so i think that's always really helpful to get out of your head and make and sense check that narrative to yourself yeah and i definitely have a tendency to tell myself like quite insane stories and my coach will always he always is one of the first people to be like uh okay i'm just gonna say this is actually what you think is happening and then i'm like well not actually and he's like okay well that is what you said
00:49:31
Speaker
I think that's a really good tip. So when I was in this quite bad state, very low in confidence, one kind of surprise, useful thing to me was on my board is probably my brother. My brother and I are very different. We have very different
00:49:53
Speaker
lives, careers, perspectives and but we're really close and I would call him, I had a pretty bad habit I think of calling people when I was like pranging out for lack of a better term and we would have these kind of two two hour long phone calls where he would basically say to me
00:50:17
Speaker
but nothing really matters.
Managing Work Stress and Self-Perception
00:50:19
Speaker
And I think that although that's not something I like believe, like nihilism day to day, which is like nihilism is the belief that really kind of nothing has any consequence. And like we're all just a tiny speck in a very big. We're all just dust and snow. We're all just dust and all of that stuff. And although like I don't believe that my life has no meaning, for example, and I would personally find that a bit too far, it did really help me understand that like,
00:50:47
Speaker
the level of like seriousness I'd attached to what was at the end of the day just a job and just a small part of what was going to be a very long career, what had got like so disproportionately so disproportionately kind of important and was really you know it was just like
00:51:08
Speaker
The effects on my wider life was, well, I didn't really have a wider life, right? I could barely sort of speak to my friends and stuff at this time. But yeah, it did help me, you know, him repeatedly telling me that like nothing matters and it's not important. And he has this quite like interesting mantra around that, which I find
00:51:24
Speaker
both incredibly insightful and a little bit cringe at the same time, but, you know, he always says that all that really matters is your relationships and how you treat other people and the fact that you have love in your life and you give love to the people that matter to you. Oh, it's so lovely. Yeah, and it is really lovely and it's really unexpected from him and it's quite a big turn, I would say, of this overall demeanor from when he was a teenager to now.
00:51:47
Speaker
his life and I think that he does have this like fundamental important belief that like at the end of the day like all you have is like how you treat people and what you do to the people you love and none of that in my world none of that was like that linked to my job or what was happening like I still had people I loved I probably wasn't treating them incredibly well but I certainly wasn't treating them incredibly badly yeah and I think it did help me
00:52:13
Speaker
It did help me get the perspective I needed to make the decisions that I then made that I totally, although I sort of make it sound like maybe I have some regrets. Like I actually don't, I did make the best decisions I could at the time and those decisions have ended up being the right ones for me and for I believe everyone involved. And so it was really helpful to have a perspective of actually like nothing matters. And sometimes now when I get stressed about work or like I get stressed
00:52:41
Speaker
about specific meetings or specific things that maybe didn't go well or like I'm worried about I do actually like think about that about which is nothing matters no one's thinking about this as much as me and yeah you've got to like ground yourself in like one bad meeting for most people is not going to be the end of the world and it probably feels worse to you because you're thinking about it more than most other people and I think that is an important
00:53:07
Speaker
an important tool that can help people build confidence. As I would say, I think it's personal opinion, whether you go to the extreme end of nihilism, but he is very happy in that extreme end. But the extreme nihilism is a great Instagram account called Disappointing Affirmations. Great. That was really fun. Anyway, you touched on it there, but I think there's also an important point around
00:53:31
Speaker
spotlight effect and assuming that everyone focuses on 100% of you when actually like most people are thinking what am I going to have for lunch? What am I going to have for lunch? Yeah. Can I get a coffee after this? Can I get a coffee? I'm feeling really tired. How's my B12? So specific, how is my B12? Is the new episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills out today or tomorrow, you know,
00:53:58
Speaker
and that's what's going through most people's head all day and it's not actually just you that people are thinking about all the time people don't pay attention to what shoes you wear or how you pronounce something or whether there was a typo no one actually gives a shit only you care about yourself yeah exactly no one is thinking about yourself as much as you are no one cares as much as you are everyone else has busy lives like you do
00:54:22
Speaker
that and they take up the majority of space. You know, I think that that's a really important, I think that's a really important thing to always have with you is that even if you think it was a disaster, probably most other people didn't even notice. 100%. Yeah. And the other thing that I would say on confidence, and this tracks back to what I said earlier about job interviews, when people are looking for new jobs and not able to get them for whatever reason, market could be tough.
00:54:51
Speaker
they're trying to do a diagonal move up and that's you're competing against people with loads of years of experience there or anything like that. What I would say having done loads of job interviews now that really changes my perspective on how I think about this is that just because you are a silver medalist, it doesn't mean you are bad. You can be an incredible silver medalist and I've interviewed loads of amazing silver medalists and
00:55:21
Speaker
It feels difficult when you are a silver medalist because you didn't get the prize. But I think it's about not internalizing that narrative around, I wasn't good enough for that job role. Actually, I would have happily given so many silver medalists in an interviewer job. And I don't know how to tell you that without giving you false hope as an interviewer. But there are loads of brilliant silver medalists out there. So if you are a silver medalist, don't treat not getting a job.
00:55:49
Speaker
as a reflection of your kind of capability, skill, value as a human? No, I've fucked up so many times with the first place and hired the wrong people. And often the people I didn't hire that were in that second place are the people that I remember more, that I reach out to more in future. So yeah, I mean, everyone makes hiring mistakes as well. And that's something to kind of tell yourself and
00:56:14
Speaker
Yeah, always ask for feedback in situations like that. Always try and learn from that feedback. But yeah, don't spend too much time dwelling on that second place. Like, that is a route to nowhere, sometimes I'm concerned. Like, God, yeah. In the first place, often wrong. Like, that's probably not making me seem very good at my job. But there we go. It is, that's the truth. Yes.
00:56:39
Speaker
Okay, so this is the section where we've asked people that we know that our future listeners, we hope to this podcast about questions they want us to address on confidence.
Listener Questions on Confidence
00:56:53
Speaker
This is like a quite a diverse subset of people from different backgrounds. It's not just like one age group, one demographic. It's kind of as wide a range as we could think of. And yeah, I'm going to ask back the first question, which is... I feel quite nervous.
00:57:08
Speaker
Yeah, you should be. These are tough. No, you've already talked about this a bit, but how do you present confidence on a topic you don't feel knowledgeable on, but you feel like everyone else in the room knows inside out? Okay. That's a really interesting question. I, if I was this person and I, you know, I'm trying to participate in this table, I would try and do my research before.
00:57:37
Speaker
I do really believe in preparation helps you feel more confident, but also I think it's totally fine to go into an environment or a topic you don't know and be like, treat me like a three year old on this topic for the next two meetings until I'm up to speed. I think that makes you look smarter. I think that makes you look better. It's good to acknowledge
00:58:04
Speaker
where the edges of your knowledge are really openly. And I would also just say, go and talk to all the other people in the room beforehand. People find it really flattering when you approach them in your life.
00:58:17
Speaker
I know you know so much about this topic and I'm really keen to understand it properly and I also want to hear your perspectives on this group environment, this particular programme that we're doing because I want to make sure that we capture it and I'm also able to reflect your requirements. Love that, love that. What would you say? Anything else? Yeah no I would I think I would just second the importance of
00:58:44
Speaker
being comfortable saying what you don't know, being comfortable asking clarification questions. God, I love asking clarification questions. Just to clarify, can I say it back at you? This is what you meant. And then they'll say, no, I meant something totally different. And it's like, fuck, I just saved myself so much time because I would have done that. I do that all the time now. The say it back thing is really helpful. It's really helpful. If you understand it enough to be able to form the sentences,
00:59:12
Speaker
succinctly of what they've just been talking about, it shows that you've actually got it. Yeah, and when people do that to me, can I just play back to you just to make sure I understand what you just said? I feel really safe and very heard, even if they've got it wrong, because I'm like, oh great, they are making sure that they understand my perspective, like I am now giving it to them again, like
00:59:34
Speaker
I again that makes me think that person is confident they are credible they are going to go down the right route next time even if they didn't like get what I said the first time. Got so many questions about imposter syndrome that we feel like a separate episode on imposter syndrome. So much to cover on that and it deserves like a full hour. Yeah agreed and I think hopefully some of the things that we've talked about in here would
01:00:04
Speaker
help with imposter syndrome particularly like trying to reframe how much people are actually paying attention and whether you are actually right that everyone knows more than you or like whether that's really true but I think we probably need to we probably need to do that as its own justice in a whole second second episode so um I loved this question so much oh again there's lots to go into here fake it until you make it
01:00:33
Speaker
is that easier said than done? I'm not sure how I feel about this concept. Like I feel like fake it till you make it is how men have operated themselves. Interesting. I don't necessarily think women do this that much. I'm happy to be, I'm happy to be told otherwise that lots of women do fake it till you make it. I do not find
01:01:01
Speaker
This is a principle that I've ever applied in my life. Interesting. I don't, I don't think there's anything fake about progression. I think everything that comes with progression and being good at your job and being successful is about like hard fucking work and modeling behaviors.
01:01:21
Speaker
that you see upwards. I don't think that is faking it. I think that's being fucking smart about it. And I don't like this confraining of it. I think every time I have thought about, am I ready for a promotion or am I ready to take on this like really big scary project? I just look at the people around me and I say, you know, how is it that they're conducting themselves? Sometimes they conduct themselves in a way that I wouldn't choose to. And that's also a learning, what not to be like, but you know,
01:01:51
Speaker
Am I carrying myself like a senior person? Am I escalating as a senior person? Am I responding as a senior person? Like the more senior you get, the shorter the emails they send are. Like sometimes I'm sure you wouldn't mind me saying, my boss sends like a one sentence email and I'm like, oh, that's great. I always have a one sentence email. And I think it's about consciously emulating. I don't think it's about making, I think it's about learning the behavior.
01:02:24
Speaker
Okay, we have covered so much round today on confidence. I hope if you've made it this far into the episode, you must have loved it. That's a strong opener, a confident opener to our first episode. So please like and subscribe wherever you have found us and let us know what you think. We love feedback, as we consent. That's us. Great. Oh, hi baby Susan. Oh, you're gonna give a little confidence, please. Oh, a little confidence, good.
01:02:53
Speaker
She's the most confident adult in the world.