High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 459: Creating Confidence with Tina Van Steenbergen, Keynote Speaker and Conference Host

Episode Date: October 10, 2021

Today on the podcast we hear from Tina Van Steenbergen who is a keynote speaker with a passion and purpose for working with women. She helps women tear down the walls built between us. Her speaking style gives women permission to open up, have honest conversations, and connect. With a combination of authenticity, storytelling and humor, she has helped hundreds of thousands of women build relationships with one another, believe in themselves and take up space at companies, campuses and organizations. In this episode, Tina and Cindra discuss: Her life-changing question to build your confidence Why this conversation also pertains to men How confidence is a team sport What makes you badass Ways to not sacrifice your authenticity Her Persist Conference online on November 6 and 7th HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE: https://www.cindrakamphoff.com/429-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2/ FB COMMUNITY FOR THE HPM PODCAST: https://www.facebook.com/groups/highperformancemindsetcommunity FOLLOW CINDRA ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/cindrakamphoff/ FOLLOW CINDRA ON TWITTER: https://twitter.com/mentally_strong TO FIND MORE ABOUT TINA AND HER WORK: https://www.tinaraevan.com TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT TINA’S PERSIST CONFERENCE: https://www.tinaraevan.com/persist    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 Miss Pac-Man.

Yes, the 1980s game Miss Pac-Man. So take your notepad out, buckle up, and let's go. This is the High Performance Mindset. Michelle Obama said, your success will be determined by your confidence and fortitude. Blake Lively said, the most beautiful thing to wear is confidence. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. I'm pumped that you are here today, ready to listen to an interview about creating your own confidence. And today on the podcast, we hear from Tina Van Steenbergen,

who is a keynote speaker with a passion and purpose for working with women. She helps women tear down the walls built between us. Her speaking style gives women permission to open up, have honest conversations, and connect. And as you will hear in this interview, with a combination of authenticity, storytelling, and humor, she helps hundreds of thousands of women build relationships with one another, believe in themselves, and take up space at companies, campuses, and organizations.

In this episode, Tina and I talk about her life-changing question to build your confidence, why this conversation today also pertains to men, so keep listening, how confidence is a team sport, great concept I love from Tina. Ways to Not Sacrifice Your Authenticity. And her Persist Conference, which will be online November 6th and 7th that you don't want to miss. To get the full show notes and the transcription of this interview, you can head over to cindracampoff.com slash 459 for episode 459. And to leave a rating and review for the show, you can just scroll up wherever you are listening and leave a rating and review there. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm pumped that you're here. Let's welcome Tina.

Thank you so much, Tina. I'm so excited to talk to you here on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. How is your day going? Thank you so much for having me. My day's going great. It's, uh, it's been, what's today? Tuesday? Wednesday? Doesn't matter. It's, uh, it's been a day with a six, a sick baby, but for a day with a sick baby, it has been a good day. So that's perfect. I'm so excited to talk to you because your topic is really applicable for all of us. And, you know, I got to see you at influence on the main stage. So influence for those people who don't know is the national speakers association, national conference that was held in Vegas in July. And I was very impressed with everything that I saw and everything I've

heard about you. So I'm pumped to get started. And so how about you just start and you tell us what you're passionate about? Buckle up. I can do that for a long time. Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I really appreciate that. I'm excited to be here. I am passionate about a whole lot of things, but where my passion and my work and my identities all collide is in womanhood. I deeply in my bones believe that women need women. And I was someone that didn't connect at all to my femininity when I was younger, all through middle school, high school, college, all my friends were men. I would never have sat down in a room full of women. I would never have gone to like a women's event. Like this was just never my space because when I was really little, my mom said, boys are

dumb. Girls are mean. Pick one. And I vividly remember having this competition. I was really little, my mom said, boys are dumb. Girls are mean pick one. And I vividly remember having this competition. I was like, I don't want to be around mean people. And I just sort of convinced myself or was convinced that girls are mean. And so I spent all of my time with men and didn't, wasn't connected to my womanhood or womanhood in general. And then it wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized I had a couple moments, a couple random friendships and experiences with individual women and groups of women. And I was like, hold on. I'm not crazy. Like all these thoughts that I thought I was the only one that I was, I was the only one that had them. Turns out other women had them, all the things I thought I was struggling with alone. It Turns out all these other women were also struggling with alone. And I didn't realize

how much I'd been missing having this connection, this community of women. I, I'm, I was missing so, so, so much. And for me, that timeframe shifted everything and put me on a path to talk about what I talk about now, which is helping women live life less alone, which is we need one another. We need that empathy, that community, that connection. And I want to help other people discover it either before I could, or long after I did, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're nine or 99, it just, our lives are better when we live them together. And that is the mission I'm on in the world. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I'm thinking about, all right, so as people are listening, right. And let's say there's some men listening

that say, oh, I'm going to turn this off because I'm not a woman. Well, why would you tell them to keep listening to us? Well, first of all, women are wise and brilliant. So you should listen to women because they have a lot of answers and know a lot of things. But I think the reason I would say keep listening is because I believe we need empathy and community in identity. And so I think for as much as women need women, I think men need spaces designed for men to have some of these conversations, all of the ways that we have been taught to be walled off and deal with life on our own. That's not a gendered experience. That is a human experience.

And so because I connected with my gender and that ended up being my path, that's what I specifically talk about. But the principles, the concepts apply across identities. People who identify as non-white, as Hispanic, as black deserve to be around people that understand that lived experience and can validate it and make them feel connected and not alone. Men need that. Women need that. Gay people need that. Non-binary people need that. Like we just, you need people who understand where you come from. And so regardless of your gender, regardless of your, any identity, I want you to find some people that make you feel less alone in that identity. Yeah. I love that. And I'm also thinking about

maybe if you're a leader, right. Um, also taking in our conversation in terms of how can you strengthen maybe the community that you lead or maybe, maybe women's community and how that's really important. So, um, so tell us a bit about Tina, like how you got into keynote speaking then. Yeah. Well, I, uh, went to, I got a master's degree in, uh, higher education and student development. My goal, my plan was to work on a college campus and to work with college students for my life. And college students have a lot of programs they have to go to and sessions and speakers and trainings. And so while I got my master's degree and in my first job in higher education, I did a lot of that, a lot of training,

a lot of development, a lot of getting up in front of students and, um, take that with my very impressive mock trial resume from college syndrome. I don't want to intimidate anybody on the call, but it's pretty impressive. Okay. So I was, uh, practicing like oration as a, as a, as a skill, as a, as a competitive place in college. And then learned in, when I went to grad school, how to connect those skills of being great on the platform, right. With something I was deeply passionate about. And then as soon as I started to realize that higher education is exhausting and not very lucrative at all. And that my passions might push me to other places. My first job speaking was actually as a corporate trainer. So I worked for a company that gave me their materials, said, learn them, put your own spin

on it. We'll send you all over the country. So I spoke for them on behalf of them and this company and this brand for about three and a half years. And that's when I got really good at speaking and got a lot of reps. Yeah, exactly. And was able to start to figure out what I wanted to talk about because up to that point, that was still the big question mark. And so I left that company in September of 2016 and started my own speaking business. So I just crossed my five-year solo speaking business, Mark. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, you know, the date and then you celebrate it. Yeah. I was never that person. I don't know about you. I'm genuinely curious. I was never that person that was like, I'm going to be my own

boss someday. Like I was never planning to be an entrepreneur or to work for myself, right? Like I just never saw that for myself. And so doing it, making the leap, making the decision was a big deal and is a day that I celebrate every year because it's the scariest thing I've ever done. It's the coolest thing I've ever done, but it's the scariest thing I've ever done. Cause I never saw it coming. Did you plan to work for yourself someday? So this is kind of my story. I, uh, I was just looking at this. So I've had my own personal coach since 2014, same coach. And I just had a session with her today and pretty wild. In 2013, I was at the Boston Marathon bombing. So I'm a marathoner and I was at the bombing and long story, but it changed my life and my trajectory and my path and just got me more connected to my passions. And I went to a Tony Robbins event in 2014.

And then I got this coach afterwards. And I started working with her in March. And I signed up for the Speakers Academy that year because I wanted to get more confident and grow my confidence skills speaking in front of the Minnesota Vikings. So I didn't even plan on becoming a keynote speaker doing any of this. It was like, I just wanted to get more confident speaking in front of men. And then I went through the Speakers Academy at our local chapter. And then I went to these chapter meetings and I saw these keynote speakers and I thought, well, they're, they're kind of talking about similar things that like I know about, you know, maybe I could

actually do this. So I literally did not even, I got involved in speakers, you know, the national speakers association, not to become a speak, not to become like a keynote speaker to have my own business. It was just to improve my speaking skills in the sports teams that I was working with. So completely wild. Yeah. Yeah. It's an insane path. And that's what I know you get this question all the time too. People are like, how do you do what you do? And it's like, you're going to get a very different answer. Every one of us you talk to, because every one of us that has found our way into being a professional speaker has just taken all kinds of left turns on their own trail. And it's, I love hearing people's starting stories because

it's so different every single time. It is different. And like, you know, I think about you and in college, you know, and people who've maybe grown up speaking, I wasn't one of those people, meaning I didn't, I wasn't in any speaking clubs or, or anything, you know, forensics or whatever. I just found what I was really passionate about. And the Boston marathon kind of woke me up to that passion. And then I'm like, okay, I'm just going to keep doing scary stuff because I know that like, I have this purpose and this knowledge and to share. And yeah, so it is, it is pretty wild how, I wonder how many people who are speakers intended to become a speaker. Yeah. It just kind of maybe for me, it just organically happened by

following my passion. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. So one of the things I know that you're passionate about, since we're talking about passions, like you're on a mission to help women feel less alone in the world. Tell us about what that means to you and, um, less alone in the world. That's kind of what stands out to me there. Yeah. I just, women are, and again, not to alienate anyone who does not identify as a woman, but women are impressively strong and resilient. And there's so much I've especially learned this. I became a new mom about nine months ago. And so I've especially learned this in pregnancy and motherhood, but, um, there's not, I mean, we can complain, but we still have to get up and go to school the next day, right? There's so much that is difficult in our culture and our society as women in the world,

but that doesn't mean you stop, you keep going. And so because we're so resilient, because we're so strong, a lot of times what that looks like is we take this thing that's hard, that's stressful, that's scary, that's hurtful. And we just sort of swallow it and hold onto it inside and then go to work and put on our smiley face and say, I'm fine. Because we've been taught that if we go to work with our problems, if we say I'm not okay, if I cry at work, if I'm showing emotion, then I'm weak. And so we put it all away and then go to work and pretend like we're fine. And then hopefully in our personal lives, we have a partner or a best friend or a family

member that we can open up to. But what I'm learning is that that is more rare than it used to be that we have a space where we feel like we are genuinely understood and not judged because we're so used to going through life with all of this hard. And we're so used to swallowing it so that we can go to work and show up and do well and put a smile on our face. And we don't always have the personal outlets. We just suffer in silence. And we deal with some of this stuff on our own and whether that's motherhood or marital struggles or professional issues or financial issues, or my body's out of control and I can't figure out what's going on, or I don't know if I'm ever going to find love, right? Like whatever it is, there's no way I've come to believe powerfully that there is no way you're the

only person in the world who has had that fear of that stress, that concern, but we're so isolated. It feels like we're the only people with those feelings and concerns. And then we start to feel crazy, but we're not crazy. And so I just, I want us to feel less alone. I want us to feel less judged. I want us to feel less crazy. And I want us to know that you're not the only person who's afraid of that or unsure or overwhelmed. And in fact, here's a whole room full of people who see you and understand you and value you

because I think life is going to be better in that room than it will be sitting alone in this room. Yeah. The one word I heard you say a couple of times that was powerful for me is like, no judgment. Right. And, and sometimes, you know, I can think of, I thought of a couple of really close friends that I have that I will absolutely being with them because they don't judge me. You know, they, they accept me for all of my flaws. And I think that's, that's really important. And I, I know you talk about how women need women more than ever now. Yeah. What, why, why now do you think what what's different about now and what are you seeing? I think the, I don't know if it shocked me or just confirmed all of the, Oh yeah. Yep. Okay. Sure. That makes

sense. Moments of what has come out since COVID happened in all of the research has largely been focused on the role of caretaker and caregiver in families. And so women who, whether your parents are not, whether your caretakers are not, but there's a sort of a leadership expectation, um, of the get stuff done, make sure permission slips are signed, make sure grocery lists are done and not in every household and not all the chores, but in general with the pandemic shown a very bright light on is that there's so much go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go parents were safe, right? Just the number of plates that were spinning for women, the light during the pandemic was shown down on that. And I think that's when I say now more than ever is that we learned that there is real data that we've never had before that can very clearly point to

women have a lot going on and they need some support. And I don't think that necessarily means we need a trip to the spa. I need to sit down with somebody who understands what I'm going through, who can say, yep, that sounds really stressful. And I'm here for you. And that's the kind of support that we're lacking. And COVID made, obviously that support more difficult to find. It's, uh, the mommy groups, even just your friends who get together once a month and sit down, right? Like church groups or sports, right. People that used to go to spitting class and find their, like wherever your people were COVID made it harder to find your people. And so I don't know that that's just a women thing. I think we all need connection now more than we did two years.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you, I mean, I'm sure you've seen the stats about mental health issues on the rise and I think it's just because, well, one of the reasons, there's multiple reasons, but because, you know, we spent so much time isolating and then how do we, you know, re-engage? And it was harder for us because we were less social and less out connecting with friends and colleagues even sometimes. Yes. And then other people became a threat at one point, right? Like, I don't think I'll ever forget being afraid of interacting with a stranger, right? Like, yeah, don't come near me. Right. Like there was a moment where that, and not just a moment, several months where that was scary. And so then the idea of like,

let me go to work and sit next to Barb and take off my mask and have a deep emotional conversation that feels like such a far departure from don't come within six feet of me and don't breathe on me. Right. So it's just all of our habits and it wasn't just a month of quarantine, right? Like we did this COVID we've been, many families are still doing it for a very long time. So the habits need to, I think we need some drastic shift in some of those habits because we had to shift them so hard and so fast in March, 2020 that we just, I don't know. I don't know how we get fully back, but it's going to take us some time. The image I'm thinking about was the first time I went to the grocery store with no mask,

like when our mask mandate was lifted and then you could see people's faces. And this one guy just kept on smiling at me and he's like, how was your day? You know, in the vegetable aisle, he was so excited to talk to me. And I was like, that buddy's probably not been around too many people. It's just like so excited. Yeah, he, yeah, for sure. So Tina, I know you talk about, um, helping women kind of not just take up, well, taking space up in the world intentionally instead of the kind of shrinking themselves.

Tell us, you know, what, what are you seeing in terms of, um, women maybe having a tendency to kind of shrink and what, what should we do instead? And how do we do that? Well, like I said, so my original intent was to work in the college student space and in my speaking career now much, I spend plenty of time on college campuses working with young women. And I'm sure if I spent time in high schools and middle schools, I'd see it there too, but it starts when we are younger and we are taught to say when somebody compliments you to say, oh, I just got lucky or, well, it was a team effort instead of just saying, thank you. Or in class, it's such, this is such a weird phenomenon, but if you listen or even ask

your children about it, I promise you'll hear it. Women say, I'm sorry, can I ask a question? Right. There's always an apology. There's always a diminishment. And that comes through academically, that comes through professionally, that comes through in relationships. The number of times we feel the need to apologize for our feelings. I'm sorry, I'm so stressed. I'm sorry, I'm so sad. I'm sorry. I'm so overwhelmed. Uh, they're just, there's so much apology happening in our every day to day language. And for a while, I just thought it was a word we were just using too much. That's how my crusade to take up more space started. It was

just like, just stop apologizing all the time. Apologies are good, but you don't need to apologize for existing. Right. Yeah. So that's how it started. And then it turned into, it's not, it's not just the word, sorry. It's I want to make sure I don't bump into that person on the plane. And so I'm going to shrink my body as small as possible. Cause I don't want that person to think I'm trying to take up their space. It's, um, Oh, I'm so sorry. I got too close to you, especially at the grocery store in COVID it's, I don't want to pee too much, too demanding, too loud at that business meeting. Cause I don't want people to think I'm aggressive, right? It's the list. I could give you examples like this for

hours and for whatever reason, and whenever the trend started, the expectation has been placed upon women from a very young age to be small, to be palatable, to be liked, and to be polite. And none of those things are bad, but when those things come at the sacrifice of who you are, now we have a problem because you can be big and bold and still be polite. You can still be proud and loud and still be nice. You can still be proud and loud and still be nice. You can still be passionate and be palatable. But for a long time, we've lived in a world where those things are mutually exclusive. And so we turn down our authenticity so that we make other people feel comfortable. And I think we can live in a world where you can be a nice person who has manners

and still take up the space that you are entitled to. I love what you just said about turning down our authenticity to make other people feel comfortable and not sacrificing who you are. I think it takes a lot of reflection to really get at, you know, who are you? You know, that's like a really big question. I think for me, it's been a journey to like help me show up in my, you know, in my authenticity. It's, I think it's a continual journey. And I also read about how, Tina, you talked about how like sacrificing who you are. Sometimes we can do that when we lack confidence, but I also believe that confidence ebbs and flows and that confidence is really like a choice that we make. We have, no one can make us feel less or more confident, right? Without our consent, it's really up to us. But what are ways that you think women or people

could like build their confidence? And, um, what do you think gets in the way of our confidence? Yeah. I love it. You said it's a journey and that it has been for you. That makes me feel more human. So because it's not, especially because we get up on stage in front of people, right? Like you stand in front of the freaking Minnesota Vikings. So people probably assume that you're the world's most confident person. And that's just not real, but that's not, that's not the way that it works. And in my opinion, most adult women, I know in my life have spaces or areas or times where confidence is hard. Um, and so thank you for saying that because I think it's helpful to show people that it's not all the time. It's not

just like this switch. No, I wish I remember my first speaker showcase. Wow. I was so nervous and confident. I wish I could redo that day, but you know, I learned a lot. I bet you learned so much. And now when you go watch yourself speak and you think about that version of you, I'm like, girl, that version of you. Yeah.

Look at how far you've come. There's so there's cool. There's greatness in holding on to that first experience. My first ever YouTube video of me speaking, I am so embarrassed by, but then I watched it. I'm like, hold on. I mean, nobody else should see this ever, but look how far I've gone. I am so much better than I used to be. I get to feel good about that. So I hope everyone's listening is thinking about how far they've come as well. I literally wrote this. Um, I was just writing a letter to a friend the other day, but there's some cool, the language that came out of it that resonated with me was that

think about how proud 15 year old you would be. And I don't know that we're good at thinking about me, 34 year old Tina being proud of 34 year old Tina. And I don't, that we're good at thinking about me, 34 year old Tina being proud of 34 year old Tina. And I don't, that's a whole nother thing. But when I think about 20 year old Tina and what she thought her life was going to be like, and now I'm here, I think she'd be proud of me. And that's pretty cool. That makes me feel better than if, you know, the client is proud of me. Right. Like, I mean, I want the client to be happy, of course, but I don't know. There's something that literally just came out of my head the other day. And I wrote that down and I was like, that is a sentence that I need to spend

more time thinking about. Cause I don't really talk about it. Yeah, that's really powerful. And I think about 15 year old, you're kind of, you know, when I was 15, my 15 year old self would have never even fathomed that I would be here doing what I'm doing now. Wouldn't it even, they would have said that's, that's, that's impossible. Yes. No 15 year old Tina would have laughed at 34 year old Tina, like laughed out loud. Been like, that's hilarious. Okay. Yeah. I'm sure you spend time in rooms full of women on purpose. That's really funny. What did you think that they were before? I mean, they're all mean. So I genuinely believe that confidence that our struggles with confidence

are not our fault. I think we live in a culture of perfectionism. I think we live in a culture of unreasonably high expectations and maybe more than all that. We'd certainly live in a culture of perfectionism. I think we live in a culture of unreasonably high expectations and maybe more than all that. We'd certainly live in a culture that teaches you to per this conversation we're having right this second to fixate on your flaws, not your accomplishments. Right. So there's a lot of energy in the world about like, look in the mirror and find something you like about yourself, but that's not really what we're taught to do. We're taught to look in the mirror and nitpick. We're taught to look in the mirror and find the things that we want to change about ourselves. And so I think having a society that is dripped in those kinds of expectations is what makes confidence hard because when all I see on the internet, all I see on Instagram is what people's, you know,

highlight reel looks like. And then I go look in the mirror and my brain has been taught to rip myself apart. Like it just, it's not easy to just generate confidence. Um, I do believe we have the capability of finding it within us. However, I also deeply believe that confidence is a team sport because I just, I think I here's what I believe I'm willing to bet, even though center that we're just hanging out, we've had a conversation for about 45 minutes today. I'm willing to bet. I could tell you something about you. I could compliment you meaningfully in a very authentic way. Like I can see magic and light in you that maybe you don't see in you because we don't live in a world that tells you to look in the mirror and see magic and light. But I can see it in you. And so my job as

your teammate is to tell you what makes you great and what makes you bad-ass, what makes you magic so that then you give it back to me. And then over time, I can start to believe that what you see is there. I can start to see it too, but the blinders are just really big and I need people, humans in my corner in my life to help me lower the blinders so I can start to see what everybody else sees because, uh, we all have a friend who has no idea how great they are, you know, you know, that she's just freaking the best and she has no idea how cool she is. Yeah. We all have that friend and we are all that friend to somebody else. And so we just need to more meaningfully be able to teach people about their magic so that they can start to see it in themselves.

I think when we do confidence as a team, we can make greater headway faster. That is beautiful and smart. I appreciate that you said that. I like the idea of that confidence is a team sport. I think you said, right. And when we give people compliments, it comes back to us, but we do need to, we do need to teach people that more often. Cause I don't think we naturally do that. I was thinking about a couple of things. Uh, I don't know, maybe like eight years ago, actually, when I started speaking, I was listening to this Jack Canfield, you know, Jack Canfield, he wrote

Chicken Soup for the Soul, this like DVD on my way to one of my engagements. And he was talking about looking in the mirror and, and giving yourself compliments every day. And I thought, well, that's such a strange thing. Really? And then what was really interesting is this, this weekend I was speaking in California, Tina, and I, I don't, I'm like, what did, what was, I came back and I thought I didn't need to lose weight. And I thought what in the world, because I was in California, I saw all these skinny people in California and I was like, wow, look at how my, like what could, what influences me. And it's just really interesting how, what you're saying is you're right, that we're more likely to look in the mirror and think about

what we don't like instead of celebrating that we have this beautiful body, um, and celebrating what we do like about ourselves. Yes. And I don't taking compliments is not easy for anybody. Nobody is great at taking it. Well, if you are get it and help us all get better at it. Um, but if we try, and this is what I do when I bring this topic of confidence to companies, right. Is if we can acknowledge that the compliments we extend come from a place of authenticity, then we can start to imagine that like, if I complimented you and I meant it, it's probably fair to expect that you meant what you said to me, right. You're not lying to me to make me feel good about myself. You're not just doing it for the sake of doing it. Like you're not sitting there being like, how can I trick Tina into thinking she's smart

today? Like, that's not how it works. I mean, the compliments that I offer to you, and it's fair to assume that you mean the compliments you offer to me. And so if we can try to start to give people the benefit of the doubt that maybe I don't see what you see, but you really do see something there instead of just assuming that you're just saying that to make me feel better. I doubt it. I bet she's saying it because she sees something in you that you can't see yet. And then you should keep her around

because then you need her in your, in your life to help you see your life because it's going to take some time. But the more I surround myself with women, with people, my husband is on my team as well, right? The more I surround myself with people that help me see who I am through their eyes, instead of just through my own, I just become a better person and a more confident version of myself. I think we all need to look through someone else's glasses in the mirror, maybe for a second. And I also think it helps you become more of an authentic version of yourself because then you're seeing kind of these great things that about you that you can keep celebrating and bringing more out, you know? Um, so I know, uh, you also talk

about how women are great leaders and I think, well, first of all, just tell us about your perception about that first to kind of get us rolling. Yeah. I just, again, in my incredibly masculine version of myself, um, I thought that leadership, the only leadership I'd ever been taught about or ever seen in my life was men right in positions in the government and positions in companies and CEOs. And right. Like I was just, and then I was, I went to a small private university and I was student government president. And I, all of the administrators I were, I was meeting with were men and my vice president was a man. And we'd go to these meetings and the administrators would look at my vice president and communicate with him as if I wasn't sitting in the room. And I was so frustrated and confused. I asked the question, it came out of my mouth. I don't understand.

And, and so it taught me that what I needed to do was be more like men. I needed to lead more like men. I needed to make it less about me and my intuition. And I needed to make it more about, uh, efficiency and aggression and quick response, right? Like there was just so much and not that all men lead that way. Cause they don't, but like, I just, I went to a very, very, very stereotypical corporate version of what I thought leadership was. And then put on that costume because I thought that was the only way that I was going to get taken seriously. And so just like I've learned to let women into my life, just like I've learned to love my womanhood in my own self, I've learned that being a great leader is not about putting on anyone else's costumes. It's about acknowledging that whoever you are, however you show up in the world, is capable of leadership. It's just a matter of tapping into what makes you, you. For me,

that's a huge part of who I am as my womanhood. And for me, my womanhood comes with empathy, comes with humanity and kindness and openness. And if I can lead from those places, instead of the places I thought I had to lead from, I make better teams. I make better decisions. I do more good in the world and around me when I stopped trying to be what I thought leadership looked like and just be Tina. Yeah. I love that. And I think also the empathy piece I heard you say, and then I was thinking about, you know, this, this word love in the workplace and how, I don't know, sometimes we think, well, we shouldn't love the people that we work with or we shouldn't care about them. Because, you know, what if maybe those don't, they'll fit in the workplace? What's your,

what's your thoughts on that? And why do you think that maybe we fight showing empathy or bringing love and caring to the workplace? Yeah. I'm actually learning a lot about this from my partner. My husband's also a professional speaker and he wrote, I mean, he did several things with his pandemic time, but one of the things that he did was wrote a new speech called love and leadership. And it's all about bringing love to work and into the relationships and especially the supervision relationships that you have, because to your point, Sandra, it's always this like, no, no, no, no, no feelings exist at home. Productivity exists at work. And those things don't like, that's just the way it works. And I think that contributes to so much of our loneliness as women, as humans in the world,

because I feel like I have to check a huge part of who I am at the door of my job. Because somewhere someone said that if I have a feeling at work, I'm not productive. Or if I care about my coworker, I'll be less efficient with them. And the research has proven over and over again that that's not true. People that have a best friend at work are like something crazy, like 60 or 70% more likely to retain the company they work at because they have somebody there that they love would need love at work because we're not, we're not that on off switch type of humanity anymore. I don't know if we ever were,

but if we were, it's not where we are now. It doesn't work that way. And I think we need relationships, connection, friendship, love at work, because then we can bring our whole selves. And when we can bring our whole selves, we actually show up and do more productivity and are more efficient. It doesn't hinder any of the things that we thought it did. We just need to, I think, rewrite some of the rules about the way that we show up at work and the way that we build relationships because we need each other at work. Turns out also. Yeah. Isn't that true? And I think we are humans and we bring our emotions to work because we're

human, you know? So I think it also feels like, oh, I'm just do this job, be productive. It's like, there's no connection or maybe even psychological safety to, to speak your mind and share the ways that you failed. If it's just all about the productivity. How do you see that? And I know that you work with a lot of teams. I know that you work with a lot of different clients. And so when I think about sports, I think about there's emotion in it, right? Like there's no way to detach emotion. Maybe there is. I don't know. I think about as a sports fan, for me, when I think about sports, there's a lot of emotion in it. So in the, in the spaces that you work in, there's those expectations, the check your emotions and feelings at the door and just

does that still exist in the world you work into? Well, not with the teams that I work with. I probably wouldn't work with them because I'm like, how can you check your emotions at the door? I mean, I think, you know, there is a psychological skill of like emotional control. So I work with the college football team that I am speaking to tomorrow. I really love working with. And, you know, we talk about using our emotions in a positive and productive way. So it's like bringing the momentum and being intentional with the positive energy that we bring. Right. And then, you know, everybody has their own energy profile when they're actually at their best. And, you know, so helping them kind of figure out that

when they perform at their best, like even actually, probably in speaking, you know, I might need just a little bit different energy than maybe you do to be at my best versus James, right? So, so it's more about individualizing, like helping people understand what leads to their peak performance and their optimal performance. But I mean, emotions, right? Are, are failures part of, part of sport and because we bring our whole person to what we do. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you said about channeling it for good, right? Like if I love the people I work with and it makes me want to work harder for them. If I feel connected at work and passionate and involved, then it makes me want to show up even better, right?

As opposed to this, like, well, nobody here knows who I am or cares anything about me. So why would I try? Right? Like if we can bring our whole selves and our whole emotions to work, we can channel them into places and into productivity and efficient. We can put them in all the places that we're actually trying to find success instead of taking them out of the equation. It sounds like they're a part of the equation in so many ways.

Absolutely. Yeah. So I want to talk before we close about your retreat, your women's retreat called persist on November 6th and 7th. And I was looking at this and I thought, Holy $79, no $97 for this. I got the opposite numbers, but $97. I'm like, um, I, can I join please? And how, yes. So persist is, uh, uh, even just saying the name of it, persist, a bad-ass women's conference brings me so much joy. Every time I say it just brings me so much joy.

I wanted, I wanted to create what I was missing in the world. And what I was missing in the world was sitting in a room full of women feeling connected and loved and, um, understood, especially in COVID, especially as becoming a new mom, especially in trying to figure out how to manage my family and my work and my dreams, right? There's so many layers. And I wanted to create a space where women could come and get what they need. And whether that's a jolt, whether that's a, a, a check of their time and energy and their priorities, whether that's a, uh, a check of their time and energy and their priorities, whether that's, uh, just some new voices and some new thoughts to bring into the rotation.

Maybe it's a community, maybe it's understanding, maybe it's love. I don't know what you need, but I know that if you come and sit with me in this room full of women and listening to these bad-ass speakers who are going to come be a part of this event, you're going to get something that you need, even if you didn't know that you needed it. So the event is two days. Uh, it is very cheap because it's virtual. And so I don't need you to show up at a certain place and I can't feed you. Uh, but if you sign up, uh, I can send you some swag and there'll be some candy in it. Cause I care about you. And, uh, well just my favorite part of the conference outside of the incredible women that I get to be a part of this with some of the speakers, all of the speakers

that come to persist have such fantastic perspectives to share so much passion, so much, uh, charisma. And like, I just, I'm, I look at the roster of women. I'm like, how did I, how am I? Yeah, that's awesome. I sit here. This is amazing. So I love those humans, but my favorite part about it is the connections that we make with other women. I did a version of persistent June specifically for college aged women. And even though we did it virtually the energy that we were able to create the level of connection, the level of community that we were able to create in that virtual room over two days was, uh, intense and overwhelming and powerful. And so I'm excited to do it again. And this time

create it for women, regardless of your age, because we all got a lot of stuff that we need to talk about and listen to and process. And, um, I think it's going to be transformative. I think it's going to be meaningful. And, uh, I think it's, I, I genuinely believe that women will leave feeling more bad-ass in their lives. And that, yeah. So what if someone can go one day, but can't go the other, like let's say they can go on Sunday, but they can't go Saturday. Would you still welcome them? Yes, please still come. It's obviously up to you as to whether or not you want to spend the money. If you can't get the full experience, some of the sessions will be recorded. For instance, all of my stuff is recorded because, but some of our speakers do not record their sessions because it's their own

proprietary content. And so we want to be respectful of that. So you may not get access to every single piece of the experience, but you will get access to many pieces of the experience. Plus just to get access to the community itself, the Facebook group, the humans that you meet, right. There's still plenty of networking opportunities in one day versus the other day. So we'd love to have you, um, even if you can only be there for part of it, because I'm just getting warmed up with this persist business, Sandra. I like, this is going to be a whole thing. This is, we are not done persist will happen in person in 2022, assuming we can get it together in the COVID department. I just, um, I think this

is going to be something that happens at least once a year, um, in at least one city in the country. And I think it will continue to grow into something that brings women together in purpose. And so come join us for a little bit this time and the next time, just come with us and hang out with us in person. That's the dream. Awesome. So November 6th and 7th, um, here are the things I took from our conversation, Tina. As I wrap up,

I'm going to summarize. I loved how you're talking about how sometimes we sacrifice who we are and turn down our authenticity. So instead, kind of thinking about bringing our whole self and asking ourselves, how proud would our 15-year-old syndrome be, right? And celebrating the progress that you have made to continue to build your confidence. Love how you said how confidence is a team sport. And when we compliment other people genuinely, we get that back. And teaching people how to do that more,

I think is really powerful. And there's so many other things. Tell us how we can find out more about persist and follow along with what all, all that is that you have going on. Well, first of all, that summary just made me feel very smart because I was listening to you say it back. And I was like, I agree with everything you just said. So thank you. That was a really meaningful compliment. I'll take that all day. That makes me feel really wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, also want to say I took a lot from our conversation. Your curiosity is really inspiring and I'm really

grateful that you just listened to me talk for a while, but I'm also really grateful that you shared some of your journey and how you wound up in this crazy world that we work in and found confidence in the work that you do. So I'm really grateful for you. You can find me. I am Tina Ray van on all social media. My last name is too long and too much work. And my middle name is very short. And so it was my first name. So Tina Ray van on all that's my website, Tina ray van.com. It's my email address. It is my Instagram, Twitter, everything. So that is where you find me. If you'd like to know more information about Persist, you can find that on my Instagram or on my website at tinarayvan.com slash Persist. So that's me everywhere on the interwebs. for your presence today and your authenticity and how you really pushed us to think more about who we truly are and gave us some great strategies.

Confidence is a team sport. I'm going to take that one. And how proud would the 15-year-old blank be? So grateful for your time and your energy and your spirit. So thanks so much for helping us build our own mindset today. Thank you for having me. 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. Sindra 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 dot com.

See you next week.