High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 377: 6 Steps to Building Confidence with Sara Krisher, International Speaker, Coach and Founder of Stand Tall

Episode Date: October 11, 2020

Sara Krisher is the president and founder of STAND TALL, a company that helps build confidence. Her extensive work in business-to-business sales and public speaking training has been developed from her twenty-plus years’ experience presenting to Fortune 500 companies and small to medium-size businesses.   She is an international speaker, narrative coach, and developer of the “Fearless Speaker” program. She delivers training programs to business leaders who want to lead from the front of the room with more confidence.   Sara’s passion for speaking her truth is evident in her candid approach to communications. Her clients like her fun, spirited, and encouraging personality. She is a champion of bravery and doesn’t just talk the talk. She continually demonstrates confidence building in her work and personal life. She stands tall at 6’1” and looks up to her fourteen-year-old daughter, who is 6’2” tall.   In this podcast, Sara and Cindra talk: How to have “radical self-acceptance” What failure really is 6 steps to building confidence 5 parts of her confidence building habit loop How to your confidence speaking HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: www.cindrakamphoff.com/Sara LEARN MORE ABOUT SARA AT: www.standtall.com HOW TO ENTER THE PODCAST GIVEAWAY TO WIN $500 CASH: www.drcindra.com/giveaway FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2599776723457390/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-performance-mindset-learn-from-world-class-leaders/id1034819901

Hey, my name is Cindra Campoff and I'm a small-town Minnesota gal, Minnesota nice as we like to say it, who followed her big dreams. I spent the last four years working as a mental coach for the Minnesota Vikings, working one-on-one with the players. I wrote a best-selling book about the mindset of the world's best and I'm a keynote speaker and national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. And I am obsessed with showing you exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best so you can accomplish all your goals and dreams. So I'm over here following my big dreams and I'm here to inspire you and practically show you how to do the same. And you know, when I'm not working, you'll find me playing Ms. Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Ms. Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset podcast. This is your host, Dr. Sindra Kampoff, and thank you so much for joining me here today for episode 377 with Sarah Kreischer. If you know that mindset is essential to your success, then you are in the right place, my friend. This is where we talk about everything and anything related to mindset. Now, I'm excited to introduce you to Sarah Kreischer. You know, I'm personally always learning and growing. I listen to a lot of podcasts myself and love to attend virtual webinars or workshops or even in-person webinars when it is not COVID time.

And I attended a three-series workshop with Sarah Kreischer about confidence. And I knew I had to get her on this podcast to share the content with you. I loved her content and I was so excited to have her on as she said yes for you, Mindset Nation. So I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts about today's episode. Now, if you haven't already, we started a Facebook group to connect with you where we share behind the scenes of the high performance mindset, more tangible strategies and inspiration. Last week I was over there doing a Facebook live and gave away free books and I will continue to do that. Free books, t-shirts. So head on over to Facebook and search High Performance Mindset Podcast if you haven't already. Sarah Kreischer is the president and founder of Stand Tall,

a company that helps build confidence. Her extensive work in business-to-business sales and public speaking training has been developed from her 20-plus years experience presenting to Fortune 500 companies and small to medium-sized businesses. I met Sarah personally through my work and my attendance at the National Speakers Association meetings, and I got to know sized businesses. I met Sarah personally through my work and my attendance at the National

Speakers Association meetings. And I got to know Sarah there and she is also an international speaker, a narrative coach and the developer of the fearless speaker program. She delivers training programs to business leaders who want to lead from the front of the room with more confidence. Sarah's passion for speaking her truth is evident in her candid approach to communication, which you'll hear in this interview. She stands tall at six feet one inch and looks up to her 14-year-old daughter, who's six

too. In this podcast, Sarah and I talk about how to have radical self-acceptance, which means accepting all we are and all we are not. She describes what failure really is, six steps to building confidence, five parts of her confidence-building habit loop, which I loved and I share in this episode, my aha moment doing this with her, and how to build your confidence speaking. If you enjoyed this episode, we'd moment doing this with her, and how to build your confidence speaking.

If you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear from you. Take a screenshot. You can tag me at cindracampoff on Instagram, on your Instagram stories, or you can tag us, both Sarah and I, on Twitter. I am at mentally underscore strong, and Sarah is at Stand Tall LLC. We look forward to hearing from you and enjoy the episode. Sarah Kreischer, I am so excited to have you on the High Performance Mindset podcast today. How are you doing? I'm doing fantastic. Thanks for having me.

I was so impressed in terms of your content. I just attended three online virtual workshops with you about confidence at work. And so I'm really excited to share this with the audience and share with people all over the world about how they can improve their confidence. So thank you so much for joining me today. Yeah, awesome. Thanks for having me. So I want to start, Sarah, and just give us a little insight on what you're passionate about.

Thanks. And when I hear the word passion, I think, what is it that I love? And to answer that, what I love is anyone who is working on building confidence so that they can do something that they've always wanted to do or they have, you know, kind of this dance with bravery in their life going on. And I like to be the one to kind of step in and say, yeah, you can do this. This is, you know, this is available to you. And so I've really taken that on and really put that into a package around public speaking, honestly. So I find that most people have a great fear of public speaking. And so that's a great place for me to spend a lot of time.

Yeah. Isn't it the number one fear that people have when they fear that over other things you think they'd fear more? You know, we hear that all the time. I have done some research and there's no single list that says it's the top, but it is definitely known for being one of the top three for sure. For sure. Before I did a lot of speaking, it was one of my fears as well. So tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now in terms of just, you know, helping people be more confident while they're speaking. And I like this idea of like dancing with bravery and towards bravery. Yeah, well, I was in a 16 year sales career. And although it was interesting and fun, there was just this piece of me that said, I want to do more in life, I want to positively affect humanity. And so I started paying attention to what, what could I do, you know, if I, there wasn't any like specific launch to anything from where I was, you know, there wasn't a natural progression into any sort of thing. So I had actually seen Diane Amundsen. I don't know if you know her. Yeah. A local great speaker on leadership. She was speaking. And I, for the first time I saw myself doing this

because of her authenticity and her humor and, and everything I saw in her, I went, I wonder if I could do this. And it just created this opening for me to explore. And then I found that I really enjoyed speaking, but I needed to be better at it and I was scared of it. So there's always that piece of, I am fascinated by speaking and the fear that surrounds it because I am constantly struggling with it, challenged by it. Yeah. Why do you think in your opinion, just working with others, why do we, why are we so afraid of speaking? Like what is, is it the fear of what people will think? Like what, what are your thoughts on like, what makes it one of our top fears? That is an amazing question that I answer in my new book called The Confidence to Speak. I have been thinking about this fear of public speaking. We always refer to it as the fear. And when I work with individuals, I've noticed that it's not a fear. It's not a fear. It's multiple fears. There are quite a few fears involved

here. And part of it is, you know, some people don't want to be judged. They really want to be an expert in their field and do all the things that speaking, you know, can deliver, but they don't want to be judged by their peers or others. And for some, it's they just don't want to be seen. You know, the judgment and the criticism aren't as big a deal, but they don't necessarily want to stand up in front and be seen by all these people. And so there's seven fears that I've identified and kind of pulled apart and share stories around. And it's just fascinating, fascinating stuff. So today we're talking about this idea of confidence and how we can build our confidence, not only when we're speaking, but just our confidence in ourselves in general. And let's kind of just define what confidence is to you first as we dive into this topic. Yeah, confidence to me has to do with radical self-acceptance. So those words put together, they kind of, it's like, what,

what is that? Well, what it means is that when we accept ourselves fully, we are okay with failing. We are okay with making mistakes. We are okay with our brilliance, the ability to perform and win. And we're accepting ourselves for all that we are and all that we aren't. And that I find is the root of confidence. And we often mistake it, confidence for something that's like done perfectly. Like if you can, I don't know, you name it, if you can run a marathon and you are the first one in and you're confident with what you're doing, that's, I mean, we see it and we go, that's confidence. But confidence can show up in the slightest of ways, the subtleties, the nuances in life. And it's really being willing to show up your full self, whatever that means. I think that's so beautiful. What you just said is like radical self-acceptance. There's two

kind of words together, radical and then self-acceptance. So let's unpack that a little bit. And I also appreciated what you said about like accepting ourselves for what we are and what we aren't. So I could, when I think about how that relates to myself, I think that's like a lifelong journey, you know, for me. But how, how do we do this? Yeah, great question. I make it sound pretty easy when I say, oh, it's just accept yourself. And it really, it really isn't easy. If it were that easy, all of us would be confident. And the truth is we can be confident in certain areas of our life. We can come to terms with who we are and our value fully at home and not at work or at work and not at home.

And the many roles that we play, it can show up differently. So that's what makes it not easy to measure and not easy to get after. But ultimately, to accept yourself, you have to believe that you are worthy, that you're enough. And that involves much more than just this idea or this thought, this thought that, okay, well, I'm enough. And so I should be confident. We get feedback from others that we care about and love, and we trust their opinion. And sometimes we just, we hear that and we say, well, maybe I'm not enough. So we're constantly getting feedback for not only others, but we're comparing ourselves and we look to the left, look to the right and we go see the evidence I'm collecting here is that I'm not enough. So it is our measurement, our measurement that truly can be the deterrent to accepting ourselves radically. How to do it, like you said, it's a lifelong journey. And there are some pieces that I think are important to note. As we get talking here,

I have some confidence building steps that will be helpful. But again, it isn't just an all encompassing, like say two dimensional path or journey. It is three-dimensional. It is multiple different pieces of our lives that this comes into play. Oh, awesome. So let's kind of dive into how do we build our confidence? And maybe we'll go back up at the end to this idea of like radical self-acceptance, if there's anything else we missed and we can kind of revisit that again. You know, Sarah, when I have people on the podcast, I usually ask everyone about a time they failed and what failure means to them. And I think this question is powerful for you in this term, this idea of confidence, because at least what I see when I'm working with my clients is that failure can actually be one of the things that decreases confidence, right? And one of the things I talk a lot about is like, can we move on quickly

from failure so that we can protect our confidence, particularly with like athletes. So what do you you think failure is to you? Failure is nothing more than unmet expectations and letting ourselves or others down. Yeah. I truly believe that failure is, it we do something and we look at it and we say, I've failed. I've failed big time on this one. What we can do is we can say, I'm a failure. Without saying the words, I'm a failure, we take it in and we say, I have failed, therefore I am a failure. And that is devastating and hard to get past, hard to get through. But if we were to look at the situation and say, you know what, I'm not a failure. However, I could have made a better choice here. I didn't meet the expectation I wanted to. Or I flat out failed at this thing that I tried. And that's okay because I'm going to fail. That's part of who I am and the human nature.

So it's really trying to figure out for ourselves when we get really disappointed with this word, this term failure, is it really about us and who we are, the person that we are, or is it more so the thing that you tried and it's information that can lead you to the next epiphany, the next great step. And honestly, when I hear the word failure, I have replaced the definition of failure with learning. So when I hear others talk about failure, I just think, oh, well, they learned a lesson. And it's on us to figure out what is that lesson that we learned so that we can, you know, do something else the next time. And I think, well, two things I'm thinking about, I'm thinking about this quote by Zig Ziglar. And he said like failure is an event, not a person. Oh, I love that.

Yeah. And I think that's kind of what you're saying is that it's not who you are. It's just something that happened or that you did, that you could have made a better choice in that moment. And I'm thinking about how, when we beat ourselves up after a failure, that is not radical self-acceptance. Right. And it's, it's you, the higher high achievers out there, the ones that are getting after it. You are the ones that I'm most concerned about. Yeah.

Because you are up to big things. You're constantly moving and shaking and trying new stuff and being brave. And you have more opportunities to fail and more opportunities to beat yourself up. So this is a stronghold we need to definitely pay attention to. I like that point that these high achievers who are listening have more opportunities to fail because they're pushing their boundaries, they're pushing their comfort zone, they're acting with bravery. Yeah, absolutely. So Sarah, you have six steps to improving confidence. Tell us what those are. And then perhaps we can kind of dive into maybe one or whatever you'd like to do. Sure. The six steps are, they start with

intention and intention is really about what is, what is it that you want? And I know it sounds simple, but we focus so often on what is it that we don't want? You know, I don't want this to happen. I don't want that. And we don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about what is it that we truly want in each situation. So that's the first place to start. And then purpose is the next one. And that really has to do with what difference will it make if I get what I want? And it's that difference that keeps us working towards what we want and building that confidence. Number three is plan. So what I know about every person I've ever coached, they always have a plan in mind. And it's the plan that they're scared of or they don't want to do.

And it's, it's these, these activities that are honestly something that they're avoiding because it's scary. And when I asked them to, you know, write down your plan, you know, as far as what do you, what's sitting there right in your brain, like right down that they look at it and they go, Oh, I have, I have a better idea about how to go about this than I ever thought I did. And they look, you know, we all, we all look to others to say, okay, how should I do this? But we actually have the answers inside. We just don't always pay attention to them. Number four is sacrifice. What are you willing to let go of? If you're going to go after something and you want to add something new into your life or do something,

you're going to have to pay attention to the things that it requires you to let go. You might have to let go of a mindset that you can't do this. You know, that it might be something like that. And, or it could be that you have to let go of something that's taking up that time or space in your life. There's always a piece of sacrifice when it comes to building confidence. And then commitment is number five. commit to doing uh to building and commit often because when you fail when you uh fall flat on your face your commitment will be tested and that's part of the process so recommit as often as you need to it It could be daily, it could be hourly. And then six is belief. And what that means is believe it's possible and believe that it's worth it. So those two things, if we don't, if we're setting out to build confidence in one area of

our life and we don't believe it's worth it, we're not going to put the energy or effort into it and we're going to be, you know, stunted. And if we don't believe it's possible, then we also aren't going to make it to what we're wanting to do. And that is, that is the six steps. Now, there is a piece of this that I didn't mention, and this goes into the planning, which is the, which is others, you know, how do others intersect what it is that you're trying to do? If you set out to build confidence in one area of your life and it affects others, which it will, who is it affecting and how do you need to bring them along with you? Or how do you need to explain this and prepare them so that they're not, you know, resisting you as much or trying to slow you down and help them figure out how to be a champion of yours?

Excellent. So Sarah, do you think like when you're working with people on these six steps, do you take them one by one? Like where would you kind of tell us to, you know, go in terms of using these ideas and these steps to improve our confidence? Sure. The first place to start is the intention. And the intention has to do with, like I said, what do you want? And I think this has to do with whenever I'm working with someone, and usually I do work with high achievers, so they've already got a lot of what they want. They already understand how to get to a goal. Now, sometimes they get to a goal and they don't feel that they earned it or deserve it, or that somehow it was luck. And it just happened to be in this space and time and get what they want. So when, when you take a look at the six steps, you start to realize, you know, sometimes

the six steps go quickly. And quickly and what you think could take a long time is actually only a couple weeks away. And then sometimes you look at it and you go, oh, this could take a lifetime. And when we build confidence, we can build confidence in a certain area. Let's say public speaking, you build confidence, you get to the point where you're doing great. You love it. You're enjoying speaking, you're confident, and you don't speak for a year. If you don't speak for a year, you come back to it, and you're asked to speak, you go up there, and you're surprised by how much is gone, and how much your confidence wavers because of that. So when we build confidence, we have to take into account that this is not a destination. It's not something you check off and you achieve once and it's done.

Yeah. Do you see that? You know, I like this quote by Mia Hamm. She was a really good soccer player. And she said, like, confidence is not something that you just turn the light bulb on and switch it on. And then she said, you know, if Michael Jordan said that he'd never lacked confidence, he'd be lying. Just this idea that you can't really switch it on, that it takes constant nurturing. Do you see that as well? And what's your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I really do. It takes nurturing because, like I said, there's time and space and that competitive piece and looking at others and comparing ourselves. And we're constantly looking for evidence to inform us to really support what we believe. And if we let this little belief in that's like, no, I'm not good enough to do this, or no, I don't have what it takes, or no, I'm not going to be interesting. If we say these things to ourselves, then we start collecting evidence. And the opposite is true. We could find the evidence that is supportive and useful and helps us to build confidence, but we often, we look for the other.

And that's what makes it difficult. So yeah, there's so much to it. Let's take these six steps, sarah and let's apply it to public speaking since that's what we were talking about earlier and that's the content of your book so um let's take the first one and let's say we want to improve our ability to speak in front of others the intention would be that that um i want to improve my ability. Maybe I want to be more connected with the audience or I want to have more energy, something like that. Kind of work us through the other steps in terms of how could we apply this just so that people can kind of digest it and

think about, you know, something that they want to improve their confidence on as well. Sure. If you were to come to me and you were to say, you know, I'm, I'm being asked to present and it's not something I'm comfortable with. And I need to be, I need to get better at this because I'm a leader in my field. I am the expert. Others are looking to me for this information, this knowledge. And if you were to say that to me and I were to ask you, what do you want? And you said, I want to improve my speaking. My question would be, what does that mean? And you alluded to more energy and connection.

So I would really want to get clear on what is it that improving looks like to you. And in that, that description that they come up with, it could be connection, energy. It could be the way I hold my body, my eye contact, all these pieces. And there's another piece that I would want to flush out, which is how will you know when you've been successful? And especially with speaking, it's tough. You could work really, really hard and deliver that speech. And at the end, we are the worst judge of ourselves. We will pick ourselves apart and find all the places that we did terribly. But how do we actually know how we did? And I always think that's fascinating for speakers to come up with their, basically

their success. What does success mean to you? Yeah. I used to think success meant to me getting a standing ovation. But then I realized that's out of my control yeah exactly and then you don't get it like twice in a row and you're like wait am i terrible at this yeah yeah yeah so you got to be careful what your goal what your success measurement is yeah i've i've determined that my success measurement for speaking is connection. And how I see that is my audience is nodding their head.

They're engaged. They're participating in what I'm saying. So that's good. Yeah. Purpose. So I would want to know from this person, this leader, what makes this important and their purpose might they might come back and say, I really just want to make a bigger impact in my field because I don't want people to have to struggle with it for 20 years like I had to, you know, I want this to be accessible and I want them to know that this is possible and So this purpose piece basically anchors what it is that they're working towards.

And then we'd start a plan. So the plan, they might say in their head, well, I've got a, I've got a department meeting coming up, I'd really like to start there. And I'd really like to nail this eye contact piece. And then we would, we would work on that piece or we would, you know, I would ask them, how do you plan to do that? And so it would be this, this combination of the intention, what that looks like, and then how to go about that. And often what I find is that the plan isn't that difficult. Meaning once you identify a few pieces, usually there's like baby steps in there and the baby steps are definitely something they can do. But it is, it is that starting that is the scary part. That's kind of like, Ooh, I don't know if I want to start by, you know, taking these steps. So sacrifice, you might have to sacrifice as a, as a new put it on the shelf and say, you know what, I might, I might look like an idiot today and I'm going to do my best not to, but it could happen.

And I'm going to let go of the fact that I need to be perfect, that I need to look, you know, a certain way and I'm going to do my best. So there's a lot of, you know, sacrifice is unique to all of us. We have to figure out, you know, how that fits into our plan. Commitment. Action. Taking action actually is a form of commitment. So if you are committing to doing something, you've got it. Now when that something doesn't work out, the what we call the failure piece, that's when we say okay we're gonna

commit to another action. We're gonna keep committing to working towards this improving as a speaker. And then the belief that it's possible. You know, sometimes this is the only thing that the person needs. They've been told or they've somehow assumed all this time that they're no good at it. And when they start to realize that they're actually not a bad speaker and that they actually are really great at it, you know, if they've, they can find that proof, it opens up a whole world for them and they improve exponentially in their speaking. And don't you also think that, you know, sometimes we just have to look for the proof that, you know, our mind can tell us all the things that didn't go right instead of what did go right. And so I find myself having to look for the proof sometimes. Yes. And asking the right question. We might not be asking the right question to get that proof.

So if I were to come up to you after my speech, and I said, Sindra, how did I do? And you said, Oh, you did great. You might think, or I might think, well, you're just saying that to be nice, because you're my friend. And we kind of dismiss it. But what if I were to say, Sindra, do you, did you feel that I connected with you during that part about the story on the failure? And you were to say, absolutely. I could say, well, what did you learn from that? What are you taking away? That would tell me that there was some success there.

And that evidence comes through that question so yeah yeah and sometimes yeah you're right that instead we might ask the wrong question and you know then maybe more like I remember uh one time I think this was at the National Speakers Association I was in um kind of walking to my room with some other speakers and I said who was the best speaker you heard today and one of the speakers was like, that's a really bad question, Cintra. Then you're comparing all the speakers. And I thought, oh, you're right. And maybe how I might just ask that question or ask a comparing question and not even try to. So I like what you just suggested that you, you're connecting your intention with your belief. The intention is like, you know, when you kind of suggested that it was

connection was your intention, and then looking for ways that you connected instead of the ways that, you know, or looking for affirmation of the ways based on your intention. Absolutely. And that piece of looking for affirmation is fairly natural, especially for new speakers to look to their audience to say, Hey, did I do a good job? Right. And the answers will be all over the board. You'll get, you know, let's say 70% will say, oh, you did pretty good. 15% will say you sucked. And 15% will say, oh my gosh, this is the most powerful thing I've ever heard in my life. So you can never rely on that piece of validation. So that is why connection is so important is we're not looking for validation. Instead, we're looking to find out, are we actually serving in the way that we want to? Because speaking is a form of service to your audience. And if you're teaching them something, now you can look to them to say did I teach you this and that tells you if you connected or not

not if you're a good person or a good speaker but did you actually learn what I taught yeah and I I'm thinking about the last workshop that you did Sarah for us and uh one of the you know you're talking about how um when you're speaking, it's about the audience and it's like serving them and keeping them front and center. And I think when I first started speaking, you know, as a keynoter, I was in my head a lot. You know, what are they thinking about me? But when I turned it to more my heart and just work to connect with people and serve, I'm here for you. And I had this incredible

face-to-face keynote in August where I was speaking to teachers and it was, you know, the week before they went live with students and there was so much fear and uncertainty. And I just was fully present there from my heart, you know, and it was, it was incredible. It was incredible for me and it was incredible for them. And there, you know, and it was, it was incredible. It was incredible for me, and it was incredible for them. And there, you know, there was a comment, I remember during the last workshop that somebody said, I'd never thought about when I speak that it's not about me, that it's about other people. And that was a really big aha moment for her. So do you see that happen a lot where people, maybe just when you just

mentioned that they're like, oh, I never considered that. Yes. And the, the concept of that is in our brain, we can cognitively understand it, but going up and demonstrating it or intrinsically knowing it is completely different, but it's, it's when we make that shift that we start to really step into our authenticity as a speaker. And that's when we can have the most impact. That's when we can be our best on stage. And yeah, so that, that subtle shift takes a while to get to, you might have to, to speak a hundred times to get there. I think I was, I mean, if I'm truthful, let's see, I was tracking every single one of my speeches for the first like three years. And I think I was at just over a hundred speeches before I went,

you know what, I'm actually enjoying this. Yeah. I feel like I'm truthful. I'm, I'm myself up there. I'm connecting with these people and it was no longer about me. Yeah. That's where that enjoyment comes from. It's like finally letting go of that ego piece. Yeah.

And yeah, letting go of that ego piece. Yeah. And yeah, letting go of the ego piece. And like, I just heard you say the authenticity of a speaker that it takes a while to develop that. It takes some reps or, and I think it also takes, you know, working to be yourself and not anyone else. And I do think when you're authentic, you're not questioning, Did I just say the perfect thing or did I said ums or uhs or, you know, right, right, right, exactly. Yeah. And the audience will love you for it. That's the great thing is they want to see someone real. They don't want to see a robot or some, you know, deadpan face and monotone language. They want, they want personality and realness. So good. So I really like these six steps and thanks so much for giving us just an example of how to go through those when we're

thinking about an area we want to improve our confidence in. The second workshop that you did with us, you talked about this confidence building habit, and I want to spend some time talking about that and maybe after you go through this with us this idea I'll share what I experienced doing this myself and I had a pretty big aha moment to be honest when I was doing it so tell us first of all how you designed this idea of the confidence building habit and just what it is in general. The habit loop is what I call it, and it consists of five parts. And if you've done any studying on habits, typically it's looked at as like three parts, the trigger, the cue and the reward. And what I started to think, and I've been through a lot of coaching training. And one of the things that and because I get to coach others, I get to

be a part of this process of change. And when I look at behavior, a lot of times it's not about the specific thing that we're doing. Like, let's say I want to lose 20 pounds, but I'm eating cake. You know, those two things don't necessarily go together. I mean, there are some exceptions, but there are things that we want to work towards, but ultimately our brain and the way that we think can sabotage us. And so this habit loop is five parts of really kind of teasing apart what it is that you're thinking so that you can have more thoughts that support your confidence building. So the first part is the trigger. There's something that sets you off.

Let's say you, let's keep that same example. You want to be a great speaker. You want to improve your speaking. And when you are told that you have to speak in front of your boss and his peers, or, you know, there's a high stakes situation that triggers you to be extremely nervous or anxious. The story comes next, the story that you're telling yourself, you know, often I'll have a workshop. And at the beginning, I'll say to everyone in the, in the room at the very beginning, I'll say, we'll have an opportunity for everyone to

get up and present today. And I'm really looking forward to it. And I can see the energy shift. And then I'll make the point, cause you know know the shift of energy is kind of like this nervous resistance like tightening of energy and what happens is I'll say you know nothing in this room changed nothing about this environment nothing about you there is no not one thing that changed except for you got information and then you played a story out. That story is what gave you the feeling that you're having right now. And so if you're nervous, it's because you're telling yourself a story such as the last time I did this, I really screwed up. I can't do that again. What if I do that again? Oh my God, I'm going to do that again. And so you kind of go in this swirling, yeah, chaotic mess of thoughts. But that brings up the feeling of now I'm anxious. Now I'm stressed. Now I, you know, I can't sleep.

My stomach is bothered. So now I'm, you know, I'm having a hard time eating. And, you know, this process, this can kick in two weeks before your presentation. So, I mean, I'm not, this isn't always like 11, you know, the 11 seconds before you get to the stage. This is, this can start months back. I've actually had people tell me that six months in advance, they've had these feelings, this trigger, this story play out for six months. So now we have a way to look at it and try to reshape and rethink. After feeling comes action. So we have this feeling of anxiety and stress, and then we act. Let's say, you know, somebody interrupts us while we're trying to think about our, you know, speech and trying to write our speech. Then we get angry because, you know, we're just ornery because like I'm stressed out and, you know, back off. This is what I'm doing. I know this because I've actually struggled with this the first few years of my speaking. It would take me hours to prepare.

And as it would get closer, my anxiety would ramp up even more and more. And so the actions I was taking were actually, you know, I'd overthink things. I'd over-research. I'd over-prepare, over-plan. And you would think that those might be a good thing because, oh, I'm getting ready. But honestly, they just fed my anxiety. And yeah, and then I got to the day of and I wasn't calm and relaxed and authentic. Yeah, no, I mean, I got through it, but man, I could, you know, it was painful. And then the

reward for doing all that. That's the last piece, the reward. We are rewarded for our habits. I mean, they wouldn't be a habit if we didn't repeat them, right? So we're repeating them because we're rewarded for them. The way I'm rewarded is I get ready. I see that as a, you know, all of that helps me prepare and get ready. And it got to the point where I finally had to tell myself, you know what, there's got to be a better way. I can't, I can't continue to put myself through this every time. And I learned that this feeling of anxiety was, I was mistaking it for productivity. I was thinking, I can only be productive if I'm stressed to the max and I'm like freaking out. And yeah, the two would play hand in hand. And eventually I got to the point where I'm like, okay, I need

to be productive and I don't have to bring that anxiety with me. And it's, it's made the process of preparing so much more enjoyable. Awesome. Yeah. So, um, habit loop or confidence building habit and your, uh, the five parts were trigger story, feeling action reward. And when you had us do this in the workshop, so my intention, you asked us to set our intention first. And I said, well, my intention was to share more freely, like videos on social media and just like share my work. And the trigger for me is what gets in my way. Sometimes I think, well, so-and-so does it so much better, you know, so comparison, um, or, you know, I'm probably not going to get this,

this X amount of watches. So why even do it? Right. Um, and the story that I tell myself of how I can't do it is basically that I can't do it. And, you know, these kind of these maybe more excuses. And when I say them out loud, I know that that's not accurate. And I know, as I'm saying it out loud, I'm like, if only if one person watches, you know, that's worth it. So as I talk through this, it's I mean, even as you write through it, you realize, okay, well, here are the ways I'm getting in my own way. And then the feeling is anxiety and frustration because I didn't do it. And then the action is I keep putting it off, right? I'm not serving. I'm not sharing my knowledge. I'm not helping people, which is my purpose. And so ultimately I'm not living my purpose. And that's like the most important thing

in my life is to live my purpose. And then my reward is I don't post so that, you know, maybe people can't disagree or not like it. Oh my gosh. Awesome. I mean, you did great. Yeah. With that teasing it out. But it was like this aha moment here. And then you asked us to like share kind of this vision of what we wanted. And, you know, I wanted actually kind of crushing it on videos on social media and posting regularly. And then you said, like, what could your fortune, what would your fortune be if you kind of ripped open a fortune? And I said, well, people need me and my gifts. I will step into that every day. And so you'll be so proud of me. Like I posted a video the next day on social media. That is so awesome. Congratulations. Oh, thank you. And it's that, I mean,

for you, for that thing, it was that easy as that awareness brought you to, this is not going to stop me anymore, you know? Yeah. And that sometimes that's enough yeah right yeah so how do you see people using this idea of the confidence building habit like how would you suggest us using yeah uh well i created a confidence coaching card deck specifically for coaching yourself through these five pieces so it looks like this nice. And you can get that on my website. But what's in there are powerful questions to ask yourself to kind of lead you through these five pieces. Cool. What I will say is that the best way to start with this habit loop is to access from feeling. Because it is the feeling that we have that creates the awareness that,

okay, something's not right here and what just triggered me. So you're going about your day, you're having a great day, and then somebody says something and now you're pissed. That feeling of being pissed is your recognition of something happened. And that's when you go to, okay, what triggered me? What is the story I'm telling myself? How is that, you know, in alignment with what I want or not? And then we get to make decisions on action and reward. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Sarah, I'm going to have to have you back again. You have way more content that we haven't even got to. And I go back up to this idea of confidence being radical self-acceptance. Do you have any kind of final thoughts on that or just final thoughts on like how to

improve our confidence? Yes. So I was thinking about you high achievers that are listening. And like I said earlier, it's, it's you that are, that's really hard on yourself because, you know, you beat yourself up because you could have done better. You will do better next time. And this is how you're going to do it. My advice to you is to be good to you and extend yourself the self-compassion that you would a best friend. And that alone will help you start with that radical self-acceptance piece, that confidence piece. And you got this. That's powerful. Thank you, Sarah. So you have a book,

new book coming out called The Confidence to Speak. It's going to be available mid-November. So people can check out that. I love that idea of the confidence card deck that you just shared with us. Tell us how people can find you, reach out to you, hire you if they'd like more confidence in speaking. Like just tell us. Yeah, absolutely. I'll keep it really easy. So you can go to my website for the book, for the coaching card deck, even to email me. My website is standtall-llc.com. And my business name is Stand Tall because I'm six foot one.

Those of you who are watching don't know that I'm sitting, I'm sitting, sitting, so you can't tell how tall I am. But one of the reasons why my business is called Stand Tall is because of my height, as well as the confidence piece of it. So yeah, definitely reach out to me. You can also subscribe to my newsletter to stay in touch. Is there anywhere on social that you'd like us to connect with you on? Yeah, I'm most active on LinkedIn and Facebook. So definitely check me out there. Sarah Kreischer, stand tall. And I'm just now getting on Instagram. So I'm experimenting with that. It's been fun and you can catch me there too.

Excellent. Well, Sarah, here is what I got from today's talk as a summary. I love this idea of confidence as radical self-acceptance for accepting us for who we are and what we're not. I thought that was beautiful and powerful. We talked about these six steps to build confidence, intention, purpose, plan, sacrifice, commitment, and belief. And then we ended with this confidence building habit and just giving you some ideas on how that you can use that habit loop to better understand yourself and ultimately improve your confidence. And just the last powerful thing about being good to yourself is one way to have this radical self-acceptance.

So Sarah, thank you so much for bringing it here on the podcast today. We're all grateful. And thanks everybody for listening today. Thanks. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe.

And you can head over to Dr. Sindhra for show notes. And to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindhra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.