Digital Social Hour - Social Media's #1 Confidence Coach Ben Clark | Digital Social Hour #66

Episode Date: August 6, 2023

Hey there, podcast fans! Are you ready to transform your life and unlock your true potential? Well, look no further because I have an absolutely mind-blowing episode for you today. In this episode, I have the pleasure of welcoming back our amazing co-host Wayne Lewis and our special guest, the one and only Ben Clark. Ben is a confidence coach who knows exactly what it takes to live life to the fullest and radiate that irresistible energy. We kick things off by diving deep into the topic of confidence and its incredible power. Did you know that confidence is the missing piece in many people's lives? It opens doors, creates opportunities, and allows you to live your life awesomely. Ben shares his personal journey of overcoming social anxiety and transforming into a genuinely confident individual. Through changing his mindset and embracing his true worth, he discovered his calling as a confidence coach, helping others find their own power. But hold on, confidence is not to be confused with cockiness or arrogance. Ben delves into the difference between genuine confidence and inflated egos, teaching us the importance of staying true to ourselves without comparing to others. We explore the concept of people-pleasing and how it can drain us and hinder our own self-worth. Ben shares his own experience with people-pleasing and how he mistook it for genuine help. He enlightens us on the importance of filling our own cup first to truly serve others. Now, let's talk about balance. Are you ready to tap into your feminine energy without feeling insecure or ashamed? Ben guides us through embracing our innate balance of both masculine and feminine energy, allowing us to nurture ideas, make connections, and flow effortlessly through life. But it doesn't stop there. We delve into building a strong relationship with our bodies, our selves, and others. By taking care of our physical and mental well-being, we awaken our confidence and create a compelling vision for our lives. And guess what? We even touch on the secret power of meditation. It may be underrated, but it's a game-changer for increasing confidence and finding inner peace. Ben shares his insights on visualization and manifestation, helping us understand the power of a clear mind. As we wrap up this eye-opening episode, Ben leaves us with a powerful message of self-love and spreading positivity in the world. Trust me, this episode is a game-changer and a must-listen if you're ready to unlock your confidence and live your best life. So, what are you waiting for? Tune in now and join me, Wayne Lewis, and the incredible Ben Clark as we guide you on a journey to unleash your inner confidence. Don't miss out on this life-changing episode. Remember, your dreams and true potential are just a listen away. BUSINESS INQUIRIES: [e-mail] SPONSORS: AG1: https://www.drinkAG1.com/DSH Hostage Tape: https://hostagetape.com/DSH --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Why do you think a lot of girls say they like confident guys? When you're confident in yourself, when the guy's confident, we project that onto the people around us and we help girls feel confident. Girls don't want to deal with insecure guys, bro. That's when you get domestic violence. It's where you're going, why you dress like that. You're fighting guys at the grocery store because they're staring at her. Insecure guys are a problem.

With confidence, you unlock doors. You open opportunities. You can do more things. You can take risks. So, man, I just think confidence is a missing piece for so many people to, like, actually live an awesome life. Welcome back to the Digital Social Hour. I'm your host, Sean Kelly. I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis. What up, what up?

And our guest today, Ben Clark. Stoked to be here, guys. Thanks for having me. What's poppin'? Flew in from Denver today. Yes, sir. Figured first time in Vegas. Make a couple days out of it.

Yeah. See how it's like. We'll show them a good time. Yeah, we will. Is it still cold in Denver? It's warming up. Yeah, we got 70s. Sun's out 300 days a year.

Why did you choose Denver? I'm curious. Dude, growing up, we did a ton of trips to national parks and i just love the outdoors and uh denver's it's got the mountains it's got you know places just where we can just adventure and it's just a slower area um i've never been like a huge city vibe like to be able to sustain myself there so denver is kind of something i picked in college and just made it happen right when i graduated the same way about washington state yeah that's Somewhere I have not been. I've never been.

Oh, my God. Naturistic there? The air quality is amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I will say the air quality here is not that good. No. Denver's not great.

When I moved there a couple years ago, it was like some of the worst they'd ever have. Wow. Man, I mean, anywhere you go with a lot, big population, a lot of buildings nowadays, you're going to have a hard time getting great. Yeah. So you're a confidence coach. How did you get into that? Yeah, man. I mean, I struggled with anxiety for a long time in my life back in college. I mean, I grew up always kind of being like the nice guy, always being the people pleaser, trying not to rock the boat. And so like, what comes with that is really

always seeking validation from people. And, uh, I always kind of felt like growing up that I wasn't confident in myself. I like knew I could be, I just didn't feel like I was and could just express myself authentically. And coming into college, I just really was struggling, like feeling like I could fit in with what I deem kind of the cool crowd. I just wanted to be confident in myself. And really, that kind of spiraled me down into a lot of social anxiety, getting to a point where I felt depressed in my life, man. And I didn't want to go do things, didn't want to interact with people. And kind of just one night sitting in my dorm room, avoiding going out and hanging out with people. Um, and, uh, kind of just one night sitting in my dorm room, avoiding going out

and hanging out with people. I really just kind of came across this idea where like, I could change my life. Like if I start doing things differently, operating a little bit differently, um, I could make a help myself become confident. And so I just kind of went on a journey of like figuring out what is this game what is this game of like how can i be confident and slowly over time started finding a part of myself that was a lot freer able to express myself more authentically and not feel like i had to compare myself to everyone else and worry about what all people were thinking of me and all these things and like in that journey became confident myself and like a really awakened this kind of confidence that I always knew I had deep in me. And with confidence, you unlock doors, you open opportunities,

you could do more things, you can take risks. And, um, so man, I just think confidence is a missing piece for so many people to like actually live awesome life. Um, and because I had went through that journey myself and figuring out like what it takes. And because I had went through that journey myself and figuring out like what it takes and I found that I'm good at kind of creating a space for people to feel confident in themselves when we're just talking. I just was like, this is what I'm supposed to do.

And I kind of had this internal intuition that I just kind of allowed to guide me. And here I am. Nice. Do you think there's a line in between confidence and cockiness for sure but i i cockiness is definitely not confidence because i think confidence truly is being able to walk into a room and not need to compare yourself to anyone in the room it's an energy it's an energy exactly where you just like you know that you're good and there's other

people in the room that might have done really it might be great and whatever but like when you show up for yourself and when you know who you are you don't need to compare yourself to anyone so i mean cockiness and arrogance is like ego it's confidence and ego it's the it's the it's the cake it's ego and confidence you stir it up now you have confidence yeah like really it's it's like it's that inflated sense of yeah yeah where you just have to and arrogance is really actually the opposite of confidence in a way because when you're cocky when you're arrogant you have to express that like you're better than people you have to make yourself because you don't feel like you're enough just as you are you have to make your presence felt be known exactly i feel like

a lot of people have that hey uh for sure i made this much this year yeah once you start dropping numbers yeah it's like you got something you talk to somebody who made a hundred million they're like you made a million that's it yeah yeah so real real g's don't talk about yeah no they don't sure for sure they don't it's like taboo you don't want to bring it up yeah would you say being a people pleaser is a bad thing? Because we just had on a guest, Charlie Rocket, who is, that's all he does. But it seems like there is a limit where it's kind of taken away from you.

Yeah, I mean, I kind of refrain from the idea that it's a bad thing, right? Because when we say it's a bad thing, then people start to feel like, oh, I'm a people pleaser and it's bad. And then they feel more guilty about it themselves. And they feel like they're not good, right? i think people pleasing is kind of this this line of like people pleasing itself is really just seeking validation it's really just you don't feel okay just as you are

so you need to please people you need to not rock the boat not cause conflict help be the first to raise your hand i was that guy for plenty of years um but ultimately like helping people is great right of course being in service to people it's totally different than people pleasing exactly because people pleasing is really a way of manipulating that person into getting validation not that the person's intentionally trying to manipulate for that validation it's all happening subconscious right um and so, I think that genuineness of like wanting to help. And that's part of like, what I experienced was I loved helping people and like being a people pleaser and that nice guy gave me the like desire to want to serve people. But I just didn't realize that there was so much

of it where I just didn't feel like I was okay. So when you compare that, that you love helping people with knowing that you're okay, saying no, speaking your mind, having opinions and causing a little bit of conflict with people, then you start to kind of get into that magic space where now you're actually able to serve people. Cause when you're people pleasing, you're just draining your cup, saying yes to everything. And you're just like you start to build resentment like you're like oh i have to help this person i really don't want to i have all this to do and so then you have this negative energy towards these people and again it's like it's all this energy so when you fill your own cup up when you put yourself first in a lot of ways and make sure that your needs are met then you can really serve at a high level yeah absolutely so are a lot of people calling you selfish i i don't think so no but people do have that fear right but when is there a fine line

between being selfish and just putting yourself first because if sean puts himself first if and i'm at and i'm pulling from sean but he's like, I can't do it today. And I call him selfish. Is he being selfish or does he just have shit to do and I want him to do what I want him to do for my own pleasing and my own ego. So yeah, selfish is more so a word that's being thrown at you when

you don't appeal to his needs. Interesting. I didn't think about it that way. That makes sense though. You would never call yourself selfish. But once that word is thrown at you, it gives you a guilt trip. For sure. That's true. It's the other person trying to get you

to meet their needs. There you go. Because they don't feel, again, like they are not just as they are. And they feel like, it's like, oh, you're not validating me. I need help

and you're not going to help me. But it's like, if Sean's got to do and Sean's got, you know, things on his list or whatever. And it's like, if he, if you know that that's going to drain energy, it's like, we got to make sure that we have good energy because then I can show up, especially in relationships, you know, and that comes up so often people not helping others, but it is this line, right? And I think at the end of the day, whatever your intention is, if your intention is to serve people, you're going to have to put yourself first. Sometimes you got to do right. You got responsibilities.

Um, but a lot of people are afraid that they're being selfish when we're putting ourselves first. Oh, if I like, that's a lot of people come to me in order for you to serve the proper way, you would have to have serve yourself first. For sure. I can't serve you until I'm put in a position to serve you. So you have to put yourself first. It's almost like it's inevitable, right? 100%.

Catch 22. Right? You are no value if you haven't placed value on yourself in order for you to be a value to him to me fox fox it's we live in a weird society we do but and that's the point though like you were making is people shame selfishness they say you're selfish you're being selfish so then people are afraid to put themselves first because then they have this connotation that if i put myself first i'm selfish but exactly as you said you can't serve anyone if you've got no no energy yourself and you don't put this value onto yourself more value you feel within yourself that you know you have you give that to the world

right and you help other people feel more valuable so the greatest act of service is no like taking the time to love yourself to be confident in yourself and uh and yeah so i mean that's that's what i love helping people do because we have these conversation it seems so obvious right yeah but to so many people we don't learn this it's just like guilted onto us well because it's these these kind of gimme gimme mentality that we live in especially now bro i mean you even just look show on social media it's so what so what you can do for me first yeah never like what you can provide for the world what you can give to the world it's like what you can do for me right so that's the society that we grow up in i mean that's the side that we're bringing up in the

society that we're actually raising for sure so now you have this gimme gimme gimme type of mentality so it's kind of hard not to someone not to call you selfish if i want you to do what i want you to do facts yeah one of the things you talk about on your social media is energies you believe there's masculine energy and feminine energy do you believe guys should tap into their feminine energy more absolutely i mean we all have a balance of masculine and feminine energy. Like, I mean, everything in the universe has a masculine and feminine energy. We talk about, you know, God or the universe or source energy as the father. We talk about nature, the earth as mother, right?

It's like we all intuitively know it. But again, society has shamed this idea of men having a feminine side because it's so bad to have it. It's like – but there's – the words masculine and feminine have a connotation to us. But like we just make it out to be something that it's not because we hear masculine, we think man. We hear feminine, we think woman. But it's not. It's masculine is the sense of drive. It's the sense of us putting our will into things and making stuff happen and moving forward.

Feminine energy is the intuitive, creative nature within us. It's when we get present and we calm down. We stop with all the thinking and the planning and the problem solving. And we just allow something greater than us to kind of work through us. And I think a lot of people in a lot of ways, when we slow down, we kind of reflect on our life. Like there's moments where you're like, wow, I like, I don't even know where that idea came from, or I don't know where that deep connection that I had with someone came from. And that's really what's where the feminine energy is coming

into play. It helps us nurture the things that we're doing. And so, yeah, I think absolutely men should take the time. And here's the thing is like, you don't have to go act like a woman, right? It's just like, slow down and just like, stop trying to fix everything and solve everything and try to find the solutions. And if we quiet ourselves down and we just stay in the moment, we find that solutions come to us more naturally. How do you feel about women exuding masculine energy or bragging about I have masculine energy? How do you feel about that? Granted, you saw men should have a not I'm not gonna say equal balance of masculine and feminine but you like yours you were saying that it means that you kind of settle and you kind of allow things to kind of pass you yeah but how do you feel about a woman exuding

masculine energy i think it's beautiful right because we all have a balance within us and it's not 50 50 for everyone it could be 20 60 40 whatever right and so every woman has masculine energy and here's a thing is i mean we talk about it's the same thing as yin and yang right that's masculine and feminine and so when women start to embrace that masculine energy their drive to do things that excitement to actually solve things and go in and make things happen you're helping balancing the energy and so but i think at the helping balancing the energy. And so, but I think at the end of the day, it's like, whatever really feels good. Like that's, I mean, cause we can't, I can't say, Oh, I have 60% masculine. And so I'm going to lean in 60%. You just like allow

yourself to find the balance of what feels good. And so like, if a woman has a drive to go do something, to, to make something happen, to build a business, all the power to you. But at the same time, like a lot of women aren't necessarily going to have that drive to want to do that lot, have a lot of feminine energy, want to nurture and be creative and support people that have more masculine energy and are building something. So, yeah, man, I mean, I think I support everyone leaning into what feels good and not shaming women for being in the workforce or not. It's like we just get, we create all these conversations to try to, it's like this kind of toxic energy to try to figure out what's right versus wrong.

Whereas like we just allow ourselves to flow through life and do what feels good and is of service to others. And like, I think it really comes down to that without overthinking too much more. So someone comes to you, lack of confidence. I mean, in all aspects, let's just say they have no confidence. What's the start of building that self-confidence? What's the first thing that you tell them to do? First thing is focusing on what I call life force. And Tony Robbins talks about life force as well.

So it's not just my thing, but it's really this idea that we have this underlying energy that emanates through us. And there's times in our life where we feel fired up, excited. We feel really good. And there's times when we feel really down. We feel like actually contracted and compressed in our energy. So what I want to do with someone that's really feeling low energy, low confidence is start just getting that life force flowing because that's something that we can naturally get going in our lives. And when we have that energy flowing, it makes really awakening this confidence that's already within us so much easier. So really, the life force, I look at it as like a three-tiered pyramid. At the bottom is our relationship with our body.

Then it's our relationship with ourself. And then it's our relationship with our people. A lot of people try to go right to the people because they want to have friends. They want to have a relationship because they don't feel whole inside. And they think that that's going to complete them, right? But when we get our relationship with our body right, the base of the pyramid by eating healthy, moving daily, getting sleep, like the simple things. Like, I mean, my background is in evolution and ecology, right? And so what I like to think about is like how did our bodies evolve?

We evolved out of the savannas. We ate natural, organic foods. We slept with the sun. We were moving daily. Sean's big on that. Yeah, man. And you probably have noticed the more that you get into it, the better you feel. By far.

Once I started grounding, once I started eating organic, getting sunlight as soon as I get up, my life changed. Sean is literally – I'm surprised he got shoes on. Yeah, dude. Sean, I'm surprised he's not naked in here. I go pretty hard. Yeah, you've've been going hard i'm out barefoot as often as i can man and like but the more we do it the better we just we start to tap into something within us that like again i keep talking like awaken confidence right we have this innate confidence within us but starting to awaken it and by getting our life force right but treating

our body well we start to do that. And then we start building our relationship with ourself. And then our relationship with our people will come more naturally when we get this flowing. So that's the first thing we're doing, man. We're step one. Yeah.

Okay. And then after that, what's the move? Yeah. So the next is really starting to create some clarity on our lives because I mean, most people are just, we're funneled through a school system we've got our parents are telling us this is what makes sense this is what we're

going to do we've got society we've got the government like all of these things telling us what to do right food black and clarity everything and it's so it's like we're funneled down this path and we're never really taught to say, what do you really want to do? And like maybe in college, they ask us like, well, what do you want to pick a major? But it's like, these are the majors where you're going to be able to make money. These are the ones where people are going to look like you're not that great, right? These are the ones that are going to give you high status. We're pressured into this, like what does everyone else really wants to do? So helping people step back and see what do you want to do? What are you

passionate about? What are you good at? What do you love to do? What could you get paid for? What does the world need from you? And just helping people start to tap into like this innate sense of reason for being right. The Japanese call this icky guy, a reason for being, it's like our purpose. So helping people kind of tune into to what makes sense with their strengths their weaknesses what they're interested in and then just like say okay if your parents weren't here like telling you this is good this is bad if society didn't say it's like what do you want to create in your life what would you want to do and a lot of people get paralyzed with the sense of clarity because it's like i don't know what i want to do or you start you write something down and a week later you're like but is that hit it's like you just need something

So then we so we've got our energy flowing right our life or starting to get going now We have a vision for ourselves. That's compelling that excites us right now We've just got this fire lit under us and now you know Then we can start diving into kind of the deeper spots of really helping ourselves awaken confidence But like that, we got to have clarity and direction over where we're going. Cause otherwise we're just floating around, like trying to figure it out. Do you ever get frustrated on your,

like on your mentorship or your coaching calls when, when you can't really like penetrate people or they're not really grasping the concept. Do you ever get frustrated? You know, sometimes I'm, I'm more frustrated not that they can't but that i can't help them see something that i might be able to see but here's the thing is like it's not about me and it's not about me getting them to see something

it's about me helping them see what they already know but maybe forgot like so again when i get frustrated it's about me right it's about me wanting the validation i got it yeah i don't know your life i don't know your life right there's so much that's involved in other people's lives and so it's really just when that happens i slow down and i see like what am what outcome am i trying to get them to that i want them to get to and it's just like how can I ask better questions that just helps them start to illuminate things that make more sense to them? But yeah, I mean, for sure, because I'm like, this could really help you see it this way. But, you know, and part of it, man, is just like giving that energy of listening helps people actually start to see it. What would you say percentage wise, like how much how many men do you speak to that just aren't confident like

i mean out of let's say out of 20 what are we looking at man i mean it's tough because the people that come to me aren't feeling confident right so they come to you purposely because they're not feeling confident yeah i mean that's you know people are coming and it's like hey you talk about confidence right all the time and i don't feel confident i feel anxious but i mean i think there's more people that really don't feel confident in themselves, truly confident than we think. I mean like I don't know, 15 out of 20 people. It's got to be high because the obesity rate is 60%. So those people aren't confident in their body most of them.

It's got to be pretty high. Yeah, and we're all caught up in kind of this narrative in our minds, the story that the ego really tells us. We talked about ego earlier, but ego isn't necessarily arrogance. Ego is just the part of our mind that's really creating all the stories. It's producing these thoughts. And so like people and that part of us never feels like it's enough. It always needs more, needs validation, needs this outcome. It never feels enough. And so the more that people are identified with the ego, that part of us, the more that we're not going to feel whole and then we're not really going to feel confident but i think a lot of people do a good job of putting on a facade of confidence for sure when we really get into it there's a sense of lack there yeah so what

advice do you give for guys it's like when when it comes to dating do you deal with those guys too you know yeah because everyone wants like so many people especially when we're not feeling confident we want to be in a relationship it's like because we're trying to feel a part of us that feels empty so truly like that's the hard part is i'm kind of like we like we talked about earlier like we got to get our relationship right with ourself before you're trying to seek out someone else to help you do that because like that's a sense of object consciousness where then we start to project onto someone else this person makes me feel good then we get a relationship and we haven't completely became whole within ourselves or recognize that within ourselves and then we

start putting our feelings like giving that person control of our feelings so i mean because when you really learn how to love yourself yeah i mean we reflect onto the world what we're feeling about ourselves what we think about ourselves so if we don't feel whole within ourselves we project that onto people and so i mean i you know all the power to people that want to go and be in relationships and explore that but at the end of the day man like working on yourself spending some time with you, getting that masculine, that feminine energy balanced with you, it's going to help you have a much more meaningful relationship.

Cooper said that too. Work on yourself first. Why do you think a lot of girls say they like confident guys? Because like we were saying earlier, man, confidence is an energy. When you're confident in yourself, when the guy's confident, we project that onto the people around us and we help girls feel confident right so if you feel confident then that energy goes around the girl's gonna be with you they're gonna feel confident being

with you they're gonna feel more confident in themselves so it's just it's a magnetic energy when people aren't confident it's like i mean honestly you know you were with someone that you could tell really is not confident. You're just kind of like, it's hard to kind of build a really good relationship with that person because they haven't, again, they haven't done it with themselves. Girls don't want to deal with insecure guys, bro. That's when you get domestic violence. It's where you're going, why you dress like that. You're fighting guys at the grocery store because they're staring at her.

It's insecure guys are a problem. For sure. Yeah. Is meditation underrated? Absolutely. Yeah. because they're staring at her it's a insecure guys are a problem for sure yeah is meditation underrated absolutely yeah i mean when i that was one of the early things that i started doing as like uh how can i start to become more confident and people talked about meditation of like it helps you be more in the moment first of all it's huge for tapping into that feminine energy as a man and as a woman right i mean women themselves don't all have a really healthy feminine energy so allowing women a space to slow down so but here's the thing is we are not our thoughts we are the the one behind our thoughts that's aware

of all of them meditation is the practice that helps us build the muscle of coming back to who we truly are, of seeing our thoughts and saying, oh, someone cuts me off on the way to work. And I could get super sucked into that and frustrated and ruin my whole day. Or I could say, because I've been practicing meditation, I noticed those thoughts just came up and drove me to feel a way that didn't make me feel good. Come back to center, back to my breath. And when you do that, you just start to feel way more peace in your life and like I never practice meditation to be really well I've done meditation but not in a sense of like to go with it like feel confident I haven't heard it yeah there's different types I do a manifestation meditation okay yeah yeah

so you're more is there more visualization involved there? Yeah. How does that work? I'm not there yet. My eyes are closed. I'm trying to manifest good things in my life and be grateful and thankful. So is that more of the thinking about everything? Yeah.

I'm trying to manifest. So I'd say thinking. Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. Which also super powerful, right? But I think there's definitely, yeah, it's something different of just tapping into to being right here and that's the thing is when we start meditating like we get lost in thoughts it's like

you get lost in the story and it comes back but we are so used to being lost in our thoughts that it feels good it feels normal it feels familiar so like we might be sitting meditating and all of a sudden a good idea comes and we're like run with it run with it run with it but the practice is saying okay i can detach from that. That idea has now come up. It's there. I can tap into that at any point now, but I have to slow myself down and be quiet. So, yeah, in visualization, that manifesting energy of feeling what you desire now, so powerful.

And if you're not doing it, do it. So the thought of having a clear mind during meditation is certain practices. In your case, you're thinking about everything good. Your mind isn't clear. Yeah, but it's focused thinking. I'm not letting my mind wander off like you said. Gotcha. Yeah.

And you're tapping into energy. Yeah. Dude, that was a great episode. Learned a lot. It was over? Yeah. It's been 30 minutes, bro. Holy shit.

Wow. Any closing comments? Dude, happy to be here man if people don't feel confident themselves just know that you can become confident and confidence will unlock so many opportunities um yeah so that's what i'm here to do man i want to just help people learn how to love themselves and spread that to the word or to the world and so i appreciate you guys having me on and having a conversation about it. Love it.

Wayne? Follow me on Instagram at The Creator. Sean Mike Kelly, Digital Social Hour. Thanks for tuning in, guys. See you next time. Peace.