High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 732: The Bravery Effect: How to Build the Courage to Grow, Lead, and Perform Jill Schulman, Keynote Speaker, Bravery Expert & Author of The Bravery Effect

Episode Date: February 19, 2026

In this episode of The High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Jill Schulman—Bravery Expert, United States Marine Corps veteran, keynote speaker, and author of The Bravery Effect—to explore why bravery isn't a personality trait, but a skill anyone can build. Jill shares the pivotal experiences that led her to study the science of fear and courage, and why so many high performers unknowingly hold themselves back by playing it safe. Drawing from positive psychology, neuroscience, and her military background, Jill explains why bravery is not the absence of fear—but the decision to act alongside it. Throughout the conversation, Jill breaks down the hidden cost of avoiding hard conversations, the myths that keep leaders stuck, and why small, repeated acts of bravery compound over time to shape identity, performance, and fulfillment. She also introduces the three core dimensions of bravery—thinking bravely, acting bravely, and connecting bravely—and explains how these skills fuel leadership, confidence, and impact. This episode is a powerful reminder that growth requires discomfort—and that the life and leadership you want sit just on the other side of a brave decision.     You'll Learn: Why bravery is a skill—not a personality trait The difference between fearlessness and true courage The real cost of playing it safe in your career and life The most common fears that hold leaders back How small, daily acts of bravery shape identity and performance Why psychological safety requires personal bravery Practical ways to take action even when you feel unsure   Episode Resources & Links Learn more about Jill Schulman: https://www.jillschulman.com/ Order The Bravery Effect: https://www.jillschulman.com/ Download our 2025 Confidence Crisis Study: https://confidencestudy.com/ Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call with Dr. Cindra or her team: https://freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ Learn more about the Mentally Strong Institute: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/  

Welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. I'm so excited today to introducing to Jill Shulen. She's a bravery expert, a U.S. military corpse veteran. Oh my gosh, a keynote speaker, the author of the Bravery Effect. Jill holds a master's degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, which I'm excited, so excited to talk to her about today. And she has spent her career studying and teaching the science behind overcoming the fears that hold people back in their careers and in their lives.

Today we're going to be talking about thinking bravely, acting bravely and connecting with your brave self. Though her core belief is that bravery is not a personality trait, it is a skill anyone can develop. Jill, thank you so much for joining us here on the high performance mindset. I can't wait to talk to you today. Yes, I am so excited to be here because we have so many things in common professionally

And then we are also girls that are born and raised in Minnesota. We're a fellow Vikings fans. So like it's just so great to be hanging with you. Absolutely. And I met Jill first. About a year ago, we were both attending the National Speakers Association meeting. And Jill made a comment about positive psychology. And I said, I got to go talk to Jill and introduce myself.

And then we were both speaking at a book thinkers event a couple of months ago. So it's been fun to get to know you. Yeah. I can't wait to just talk about. about bravery. So we want to start, Jill, and just talk about first, this idea of, you know, you've dedicated your life to studying bravery. What personal experience first set you on that path?

Well, when I look back, I believe that the thread that has been through my entire professional journey that has led to my greatest levels of not just success, but like just life satisfaction has been when I've chosen to be brave. And I didn't realize it until I was studying at Penn. And I was studying the science of elevating happiness and well-being. Yeah, there is actually such a thing as the study of happiness, positive psychology. And I think it all started back when I actually got on a plane and I left Minnesota, where we're, where we are built from. And I decided to pursue a journey to earn the title of United States Marine. You know, as I as I was heading to Southern California, I was actually pretty confident because I'd earned a full ride on the ring core.

Right. So you had to have like the academic and you had to have the GPA, the leadership, the fitness, you know, or the sports background. I had all those. So when I was going to check into my first unit. So when you go to college in ROTC, all the other kids show up just to meet other kids and have fun. But if you go to ROTC, you show up a week early for what they call ROTC orientation, which is like a mini boot camp. So I was going and I wanted to make the best impression possible, right? And so what does an 18 year old girl think about to make the best impression?

Her outfit, right? So I showed up and I wanted to look like really professional, but I don't want to be too girly. I didn't want to wear a dress. And I did research. You can't wear jeans as officers. So I can't wear what all teenagers wear, which is jeans. So I remember showing up in this hot pink with white. white Pocodot outfit with like little pumps to thinking I'd be showing up like making the best

impression. But this first day is where I realized I learned about braver because that first day was really hard because I did not look like anyone else as one of the only women who were on the Marine Corps side of ROTC. And that very first day, toward the end of the day, I had one of the top Marines come up to me and leaned over to say what I thought was going to be some words of encouragement, but instead says you will never make it as a Marine Corps officer. Right. And so let's bring this back to bravery and how I discovered bravery. Like in those moments, for me, staying there or continuing to show up the next day, you know, I had a choice.

I could have gotten back on a plane and gone back to Minnesota around all the people I know, my loved ones and lived an easy, comfortable life. But I was going to have to show up on day two knowing that I didn't look like everyone else. I wasn't. I just, and I mean, literally it told me you're never going to be able to make it as a Marine, but I had to show up even in the presence of fear. And it wasn't like what most people think about bravery. Like usually when we think about bravery, we're like, it's Marines running into battle or, you know, like a firefighter running into a burning building. But bravery in those moments was just getting up and showing up on day. too. I was so scared, right? You know, so just kind of fast forward. So I kept showing up and it was,

it required bravery. It was hard for a couple of years until I really, my confidence emerged and then I ended up performing very well and being actually a top performer and outperforming a lot of my mail marines, right? So, you know, so that was a theme. And the reason why it's so meaningful to me as, as a human is because it was so hard. And because I overcame, that's why it was such an important moment. And then if I just fast forward, then, you know, getting out of the Marine Corps was really scary because if I'm around everyone in the military and college and then I'm in the Marine Corps activity for five years, that's all that I know. So for all of you that are civilians, I think being a Marine is really scary. Like when you're a Marine, that's all you know. When you

look at people in the business world, you're like, that's scary. How would I actually do that? So making the leap to the corporate world was a scary move, right? But I, you know, I did well. I kept, you know, showing up. And I did, I had an amazing run in corporate America. I decided I want to start my own business. I was doing leadership development in a Fortune 100 company. There might have been a moment where my kindergarten daughter had a picture of the family without me in it. I was working a little too much. So I decided, I'm like, I need to start my own business to control my own, you know, my own schedule. All of these leaps were scary, required bravery. So I've just found for myself, anytime I chose to do the scary thing that led to what I really

wanted, that brought me not only more success, but more like happiness. And so then when I finally decided to go back to school, another scary move, never thought I would get into Penn, right? You know, sometimes we have those self-limiting beliefs. I just realized there's a this theme as I was doing the research that fear so many times controls people's behaviors. They don't even try. They don't even, you know, they just, they want things, but their action is, is stunted. They say they stay small because of the fear. And when I discovered that as I was studying positive psychology, I'm like, that is what I

want to dedicate my life to. I want to help people overcome the fears to develop that bravery, you know, to help them live their best life. Thank you so much for talking about your journey, Jill, and just I love those pivotal moments that you just shared when you had to really be brave. And I love this acronym of fear. I don't know who came up with this acronym. I wish I could attribute to the right person, but I even asked chat, GPT, and Google, but I love this acronym, fear, false evidence appearing real, right? And just this idea that it's so easy to believe our own self-limiting beliefs. Tell us what bravery means to you and let's define it for everybody who's listening today yeah i think so many people

don't really understand what is bravery so the definition that i use and this is the most well-established definition in what in the academic world when we study it is bravery is voluntary action okay in the presence of fear toward a noble worthwhile goal okay so it's it's taking action when you're scared because it matters. Right. And I love that the end of that definition so much. I learned that from Dr. Cynthia Puri, a top bravery researcher at Clemson, because it really kind of separates just bravado doing stupid stuff that just appear like, oh, I'm so brave,

versus true brave things, you know? And if I think back in my own journey, like, I wanted to earn the title of the United States Marine. My grandfather's a Marine fought in World War II. It was my ticket, you know, out of small town, Minnesota and to get a college degree, right? Or, you know, for me to make the brave mood to serve my own business, you know, why it really mattered is I wanted to prioritize family, right? That was the motivation. So it's voluntary action.

It's taking the steps scared. But you do it anyway because of the amount. That's what bravery is. And it's not only in these moments of life and death. And that's where people have a very narrow definition of bravery. Like bravery is just when someone is rescuing someone. Now, those are brave acts. So those are perfect examples of bravery.

But bravery is much bigger than that. And it's many times very, it's personal. And so now we don't even know when someone's being brave, right? Like, Cinder, maybe someone is in corporate. America and their job for six months and they've got some ideas they want to share in a meeting, but they're scared of speaking up. So bravery is just something that's so much bigger than heroic moments. And it's so important. In fact, I want you to not be, I want you to be brave for yourself to create the life that you want. So, so yeah, that's what bravery is, being scared.

Well, Joe, when I think about just the examples that you shared, right, that were really scary, but you really wanted to go after them. I think about my own experience and the experience that I've had that most helped me do what I do today and kind of woke me up to my purpose. And you heard me speak about this at the Book Thinkers event, but I was at the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013

and I had just finished running the race. And, you know, it was really scary because I mean, I could tell you more details, but I didn't know if I was going to get home. I didn't know if I was going to see my kids again. I was just like a block from the finish line. And that woke me up to my purpose, which helped me still helps me today being brave. Because I felt like at that moment I was holding myself back.

And I had these really big goals of working for the Minnesota of Vikings and as their mental performance coach and writing a book and speaking. But all that was just scary. And so I think this pivotal moment in my life, maybe some people would call it a crucible moment, woke me up to brave and being. brave. So I'm curious, like, what have you found in your research? Does it, have you seen this where a crucible moment helps people wake up to their bravery? Yeah. How do, yeah, how do people, like, move towards it? Yeah. And you know, everything I talk about is, is based on the research. So, you know, a lot of times we, we know that here's a life that I want and here's a life that I want, and there's a gap between where I am now and where I want to go. But like a lot of people allow fear to hold them back.

So now this is research that's been done when people have made the brave move and they've been interviewed and asked, what is it that caused you to actually take action toward it? And the most common answer is that when people imagine what their life would be if they don't take the brave step. So like the reason why fear controls us is because we see the risk, the risk of taking action. Like, I don't want to fail. I don't want to look silly. I don't want to look stupid. So sometimes the immediate fear or risk is. what is controlling our behavior. So it's actually thinking out further, thinking into the future and say,

what is the risk if I don't take this action? So it's actually taking the larger future risk and making it larger than the risk that's right in front of you. So that is the most common answer. So many times I will, as I speak to my audiences or talk to my clients and teach in workshops, I will ask, then that question, what does your future self want you to do in this moment? Because if we ask herself that, usually your future self is going to give you the right guidance on what to do. Like let me even give you another example because sometimes we become like, Cindera and I, I think both are type A women and we are just go, go go geters. Right. And so sometimes you can ask your future self like, okay, what does my future self want me to do right now in this moment?

and it's going to say, do the hard thing right now, do it. But then also, maybe it's a Saturday morning and you've got more work to do and you're going to say, what is my future self want me to do in this moment right now? Kids want to play. Kids want to do this. Should I spend time with the kids right now? I know. Should I work?

So that future self is such a wise guide. So use your future self as one to help you decide when you're going to do the hard thing. right so two things i just wrote down for what you just said ask yourself what's the risk if i don't take this action and then also another question you could ask yourself is what would my future self want right now in this moment yeah exactly yeah exactly because what we all want to avoid is the pain of regret you know you always hear the stories when people are on their deathbed right usually what they say is i wish i would have gone after this i wish i wish i would have pursued being an artist. I wish I would have, you know, whatever. So it's, we want to

avoid the pain of regret. We don't want to just live small and allow our fears to just live. It's like living a life, like life sometimes just will take you to wherever life leads you. This is about agency. Bravery is really about agency deciding what is the life I want. And I'm going to steer this life in the direction that I want versus just letting, ease and comfort like, oh, well, like, this job is easy and this is just what's happening. So, you know, bravery is so that at the end of life, you're like, I lived my best life and I have no regrets. And how would you answer this question, Jill? Like, what happens when people have bravery that's missing in their life?

Like, what do you think it really costs them? And let's think about like cost them personally, but also in the workplace or, you know, within a team. Yeah. I mean, it is, it's really kind of devastating. stating when you look at the cost of cowardice. And I sometimes use that word purposefully. It's a little harsh, but it sometimes gives people a wake-up call. Because when I tell people, like, what do you really want?

What is holding you back in saying, like, when fear controls you, you are there being brave and stepping forward or you are deciding to allow fear to control you, which we, that's called cowering, right? So what is the impact? Okay. Let's think about careers. Someone has a career. And remember, bravery isn't in big bravado moments. They're in all the little moments. So let's say someone wants to speak up in a meeting with an idea. But in the moment, they decide, like, oh, I don't want to, I'm not going to speak up. I'm just going to wait until I'm ready later. And then a couple of days later, they decide like there's a lot of tension between them and another coworker. And it's affecting the entire team and even customers. So I need to have a difficult conversation. I need to get this salt. And so they want to have the conversation and they decide, oh, this is uncomfortable. I'm not going to have it. And then on Friday, they announced there is a project that's exciting. And it would be just the perfect that would stretch their skills and it would be exciting. But they decide, oh, just not ready yet. Oh, I'm not going to do it. So imagine like those three decisions that week. And now take that choice to shrink back. And think of the compound effect of that decision over time. Where will that person's career be in a year from now?

And in three years from now, five years from now, ten years from now, if they're always allowing fear to control their behavior. Right. They're probably going to have a good job and okay career. But imagine the potential of their career if in those moments they do the brave thing. They're a little bit nervous remember bravery is active reaction in the presence of fear. So they're a little nervous to show their idea, but they do it anyway. Imagine the career trajectory of that person if they're choosing to be brave, right?

And it's, you know, it's kind of, I think of like saving for retirement. If you keep doing the thing over time, you've had the compound effect of money over time. It's the compound effect of bravery. That's why I called the book the bravery effect, right? So it's got huge impacts. And then, okay, so that's on career. but let's just talk about on the well-being of the individual, on the happiness of the individual. Like this is where I get even more passionate.

So if you want to do things and you keep breaking a promise to yourself and you allow fear to control your behavior and you don't do what you want, when you look in the mirror, what do people think of themselves when they don't do what they want to do? This is the sad part of the low-going fear. to control you. Like, now, the impact of this is our self-confidence, our self-efficacy, our self-esteem decrease. Yes. Yes. And that doesn't, that doesn't feel good. Now, this is a little bit outside of my expertise. So I'm going to make a statement, but then make sure I cite somebody else here. But, you know, like Jonathan Haidt from NYU has says in his book called The Anxious Generation that the reason why we have the highest levels of anxiety and depression, especially in our younger

generation is because kids run away from what they fear and we allow them to do that, right? And we are so afraid of making someone uncomfortable in 2026 that we just, oh, if it makes you nervous, makes you uncomfortable, okay, we're going to create a safe space where you're like, we are being, we are overdoing it on comfort and ease. And it's making, it's taking the mental health of our country and and it's it's declining again jonathan has research that's cited there um you know so the cost of not being brave or long fear to control you is it's going to limit your life satisfaction your happiness your well-being right and i always take pride and like i did study positive psychology but i am not woo-woo at all i'm not because most people think of like oh you study

oh, you study positive psychology. Oh, here we go. Like you have... You always always has to be positive or something, you know? Exactly. There's rainbows coming out of your rear end, right? You're just like, this is, and I am not a woo-woo girl, but really at the heart of my research is, you know, what I care the most about is I care about self-love. That's the promise of bravery is, you know, when you decide what you really want who you are and you take the brave steps to go there, like you end up look in the mirror with pride and you love yourself more, and you need to have a great relationship yourself to live a happy life. So that's the cost.

It's huge. Well done. And, you know, I think about our confidence research study we just conducted this year. It's a national research study. And we found one in two Gen Z years. So that's the ages of 18 to 29 consistently or frequently feel like they're not enough. So, you know, it connects back to what you're just saying about the anxious generation. And particularly our youth need to keep on.

doing things that are brave, and, you know, fear is what holds us back. If you had to identify the types of fear that you see most often, what are those two? Yeah. The most common fears that we see are all just social fears. It's not like back in our evolutionary days when the most common fears, you know, were physical, like, I'm going to survive. Can I survive? You know, the edge of a cliff, a saber-toothed tiger. And that's actually why, fear is so challenging is our nervous system doesn't know the difference. So I'm going to add a little caveat and then I'm going to get to your question is for those of you who are listening that feel like, ah, like I do allow fear to control me. I do sometimes cower like, oh, there's something wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with you. You are a human being and in our evolutionary psychology, we were designed to be motivated by fear to avoid risk so that we survive. The only difference is now the fears that we're experiencing now are not putting our life in danger, their social fear. So it is the fear of really failure, the fear of rejection. So it's all these social fears. We just, oh, we care so much like, what are people going to think of me if I try something new that I've never done before and I'm not perfect out of the gates? So it's the social fear. And again, I feel like maybe social media is part of this. I think we just see people who are great at things and we're like, Well, they just, I just see this example where they're just so skilled at it.

But what we don't see is the struggle of where they first started and they were awkward and they were failing and they were growing along the way. So, you know, when you're when you have a dream or you want a life that you don't have now and you're going to move over toward it, it is not going to be easy. It's not like you're going to just start a new career and it's going to be perfect. The path to achieving hard things or ambitious goals are going to have their ups and downs, right? So, and I forgot your question.

We were talking about fears. And, you know, Jill, I was thinking about the term I heard first for Michael Gerva, who is in sports psychology. I don't know if he coined this, but I heard him talk about faux, which is like the fear of other people's opinions, right? I think, yes. Yeah, I think what you're saying is like the fear, rejection of fear, failure, the fear of people's opinions.

And those are all social fears. They're all social fears. Musical fears. Yeah. Like who's the gentleman? I can't believe I'm forgetting his name. But yeah, the phopo that you talked about or the gentleman who wrote the book, like this subtle art of not giving up an F. Yeah.

And that really is the same thing. It's like we care so much about what other people are going to think of what we say, what we do. That fear of other people's opinions. is what holds us back. So yeah, that's the primary one. And we got to get comfortable, like, just you're not going to be perfect. You're going to make mistakes. And if you, if that's what you're always thinking about, it's going to be hard to overcome. Yeah. And what I tell people when I'm, like, you know, doing coaching and working with them one on one is because I hear a lot of this. And I talk about, like, isn't it more important what you think about yourself than what other people

think about you? And so many times we let those people hold space in our mind when it's, more important what you think about yourself and because that's what's going to drive your behavior is your self-esteem and your self-confidence. So true. I love that. Yeah. What is your future self want you to do right now? And what are you going to think about yourself? And I even sometimes say like just think of your future self at 6 p.m. tonight. What are you going to do so that at the end of the day you're like, I feel great about myself. I had this story like, you know, we use these with our clients, but also with our family. I was talking about one of my daughters, they're both in college now, but one of them was just having a rough day. She got a little bit behind in school because,

you know, things piled up and then she was sick for a few days, right? And sometimes when you get overwhelmed and you get behind, this is where, like, you just get in your own head. And so many times when we're stressed and we're in that state, we just sit there and we ruminate and we think about, like, what should I do and what are people going to think? And we get in her own head. And sometimes the thing that I try to say to get people unstuck and I did this with my daughter, I just said, I want you to think about your 6 p.m. self tonight. And what does that future self want you to do today so that you feel good about what you accomplish today so that you feel like you're making progress to get out of this?

And so I just asked that question. And she came up with, I'm going to get this assignment done, this assignment. I'm going to talk to this person, this person. I'm going to go do this. So she came up with this to-do list of six things. And I'm like, at the end of the day, will you feel better about yourself and will you make progress toward this goal if you do those things? She said, yes. I'm like, okay, you came up with them.

I'm like, stop thinking, start doing. And at the end of the day, I'm like, call me back, right? She got five of the six done. And it was so bad that she was like, she couldn't even sleep because she got so behind. Like, I can't sleep because I'm thinking about things. I'm like, do you want to sleep well? Notious. Like, exactly.

The anxiety there. And at the end of the day, when I said, she's like, she's like, she's like, she's not. said, how do you feel? She's like, I feel really proud of myself. I feel great. I'm like, do you feel like you're going to be able to go to sleep without as much worry? She said, yes. So, you know, bravery is all about action. Sometimes we just, you know, as we talk about, like, what is the fear? We keep just thinking about and thinking about and thinking about. Stop thinking, thinking, start doing things that are going to make you feel better. Hi, this is Sandra Campoff and thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that

the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing. If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's free mental breakthrough call.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. So, you know, one of the things I love about our podcast, Jill, is we really dive into the how.

think that's important to me, mostly because when I was struggling in college and particularly in sports, like I didn't have the how. So how would you describe in terms of people who are listening, how can they be more brave in their lives? Yeah. All right. Yes. Because I like to be super practical too. So if you want to build the skill of bravery, I've got like, I'll give you a tip in three different buckets. So basically there's three different things that you can do. One is on mindset trying to get you to believe that you can do hard things. The second thing is going to come from behavioral psychology to actually take the step on shaky knees. And the third thing is going to be based on social psychology.

And if you do a mindset trick and a behavioral like hint or hack and a social thing, if you do all three, they have this cumulative effect. So let's start with mindset. So I'm just going to cite what you and I both know based on Carol Dweck's. work on growth mindset, which is so simple, but it is so effective. So if someone thinks like, I could just never speak in front of a group of people, right? And that is their belief. Like so if you believe you can't or you believe that you can, you're going to be right. So the first thing we need to do is win the battle in our mind first to at least believe it's possible, right? And so what Carol Dweck did in her research, she's from Stanford, she really

identified the difference between people who have a fixed mindset that believe they're just born a certain way and they can't change it and people that have a growth mindset that believe that they can they have agency that they can put in hard work and effort to be able to develop a skill and then she's you know she talks about the power of the word yet so I would ask them you know so if you believe like there's there's no way I could stand in front of a group of people and present just say okay say the exact same statement and add the word yet to it I can't speak in front of a group of people yet. Love it.

And then we just asked for something like, what? So what does that suggest for you? That it's possible, right? You're not good at it now. Like, we can both acknowledge that. That's the reality. This is not Pollyanna thinking, not like, oh, I'm a great public speaker. That's ridiculous.

That's not true, right? But the truth is you're not a confident public speaker right now. You're just not there yet. What are the things that you could do that could develop that skill? So use the power of yet, right? And just realize you're not there now, but it's possible. And once we believe it's possible, then we're more apt to actually take the step. So everything I do on mindset is all in service of you taking the step, the action.

So we need to not make you, we're not waiting until you feel confident to speak. We're just making you feel like, let's make you feel like it's possible. So you take a step even if you're not perfect yet. And then we let's go to, so that's one tip in mindset. One tip in the behavioral side. Okay. So in my tip for everyone here is do not wait until you feel ready or motivated because that is a misnomer. People feel like, okay, once I get this, this sensation or this inspiration that it is now time to, I'm going to get up and speak to the group.

I'm motivated, I'm confident, then I speak. And that is absolutely not true. The way that we build confidence, and I am speaking to the master, you know more about confidence than I do, is you have to when you take the action and you practice and you learn, that's what builds confidence. So confidence doesn't come first and then you act. The actions lead to confidence. And that all comes from Albert Bendura's research on self-efficacy where he said, we could say forever like, you're a great public speaker. That's not going to happen. So I want people to understand that there's nothing wrong with you if you feel scared before you get up in front and speak in front of a group for the first time, maybe for a just at a meeting. If you're feeling a little unsteady and scared,

then you're just being brave. In fact, if you weren't scared, then you wouldn't be brave because the definition of bravery is doing it scared because it matters. So, you know, brave action. So I give him that tip. And the other thing, another just little tip, too, is looking at Roy Baumeister's research in like cognitive capacity and saying do the hard thing first thing in the morning. Like we wake up in the morning with like a full battery of like, think of the oomph, that willpower and it depletes over the day. So whatever the hardest thing that you're the most scared of, plan to do it first thing. in the morning. If you don't, you will keep putting it off. You plan on doing it at the end of the

day when your batteries of willpower at almost empty and you won't do it and you'll push it to the next day. I can say that because I am a absolutely world-class procrastinator. I have done this myself. So I have to just attack the day. I would use all these military things because of my military background, but you have to decide to attack the day what's the scariest most important thing and get to it. There's that book that Brian Tracy wrote called Eat the Frog. I know. I love that book. I love that book, too. So that's on the behavioral side. So if you use the power of yet and you do it scared, and that's bravery first thing in the morning, all right, we've got some momentum, but these two things are both things that's got to come from you. I'm going to give you my third

practical tip that's actually going to make it easier for you instead of harder, which is leaning on people that are going to help you become brave. It's what I call building your brave tribe. And I'm very strategic, you know, when I talk to people about the strategy. So you need to look at what is my goal. Let's say my goal is I want to be able to speak in front of a group of people. Then you need to find a small group of mentors that will help you do the brave thing, right? A lot of times these are not the people that you hang out with after work, right? Because they're going to say, like, don't, why do you need to go and prepare for the meeting? Let's just go out and have drinks. Like, don't be hard on yourself, right? So a lot of the people

you surround yourself, they're going to be telling you, take the easy path. Just be comfortable, right? So you need to surround yourself with the right people who understand what your goal is, why it's important to you, and have the wisdom and experience to give you the advice to be able to do right so maybe it's a mentor at work maybe it's your boss that knows that this is a goal of yours and they're not going to let you tap out when you're scared they're going to say it's okay try again so you need to surround yourself with people who will encourage you encourage means to put courage into you so people that you know like if people want to start running so cinder's got this running background right so let's say someone wants to run their first 5k if you hang out with people

that mainly like to game and Netflix binge all day and that's all they do, that's not the right people that you're going to listen to advice from if you want to run a 5K. You need to find people who are runners that run 5Ks to be your brave tribe when you do. So bravery is contagious. So intentionally build a little bubble of people who will encourage you. If you do those three things, right? The brave tribe, guess what? They're going to help you take action. So mindset helps you take the steps, right, and gets you to take the action. And the brave tribe helps you take the action. When you take the action, that's when you become brave. And the more you do this, and again, Sandra, you know this, but to remind your audience, what we have found based on the neurological research on bravery and

doing hard things. And this is where it gets so exciting. I get to nerd out on neurology for a moment, is when you build bravery, it's like a muscle, right? When you take that step forward on shaky knees or you do something that you really don't want to do, your brain is going to notice and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're making me very uncomfortable. It's just like when we go to the gym and we lift maybe some weights, like maybe our bicep muscles, and we haven't really done it. We haven't given it that type of workout before.

Your muscles are going to go, ow, this hurts. And the next day it's going to be sore and you need to kind of recover. But your muscles are going to say, we need to get ready for this to happen again. So we're going to build the muscle to be a little bit stronger. The same thing happens in our brain, in our ACC, the prefrontal cortex and then all the wiring in between. So the more you take these uncomfortable steps, our human body will change to adapt. So it'll become easier to do hard things. the thing's still going to be hard, but you're going to be more prepared to do the hard things.

So, so great. Really practical. I love the mindset, behavioral, and social and helping people think about when you do all three, it makes it even stronger. A power of the yet doing it scared and then leaning on people. And Jill, I was thinking about our confidence research study actually shows like finding mentors, coaches, supporting people who support you is one of the top eight drivers of confidence, right? Because when someone knows what your goals are and they can say, Jill, you got this. I know you can do this. And then they cheer you along after you've done it, right? That does build confidence. I was also thinking about, I was listening to Andrew Lieberman's podcast. And he was sharing research about when we keep doing hard things, it actually builds our mid-singular cortex. Yeah. And then actually when we stop doing hard things, that part of our brain gets smaller. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. You got to keep, you know, continuing to be brave. Just like you have to keep going into the gym.

You need to keep doing the brave things. Yeah. Well, and as we're talking about the social, I want to add on that a little bit. And I want to share a story for myself. So one of the scariest things I've ever done is write a book. It is a scary thing. It is really scary. You put yourself out there like, is it going to suck?

Is it going to bomb? Like, what are people going to think? And it's a lot of time and effort. So when you have the brave mentors, like your research found that. But the other thing, here's what I feel. found and then the research is consistent here is when you find the brave mentor and you share a struggle, usually that brave mentor is going to share their journey. So when I started writing my book, Ken Blanchard was a mentor of mine who's written many, many books, right, best-selling books.

And when I was sharing that I was kind of getting writer's block and, you know, I was getting stuck and didn't know if I could do it. He said, Jill, the same thing happened to me when I first started. I just could not write and I had a blank mind. So when someone that you look up to that's a mentor that's and successful tells you that they struggle the same way, then you normalize this journey of ups and downs. And I'm like, Kent Blanchard struggled like I am. And he made it. So now I can do it. This is making sure, like, we talk to the mentor and the mentor is going to share their journey. They're going to encourage you. They're going to have the wisdom. And so a brave act is being vulnerable enough to ask for help. A lot of people think that, oh, no, no.

No, being braves, I figured out on my own, asking for help as weakness. That is BS. The research does not support it. If you want to be brave and accomplish ambitious hard goals, you need to be skilled at building a brave tribe and leveraging them the right way. You're going to build that bravery muscle faster. You're going to be able to accomplish goals faster. So please, please, please look at asking for help vulnerability as an act of courage or bravery like Bray Brown says.

Yeah, I love it. All right, one other question I want to ask you before we close. And I was thinking a lot about this idea of psychological safety, which is this ability to make a mistake and talk openly about your mistakes and not feel ridiculed or shamed when you make a mistake, right? And that research is based on woman in Amy Edmondson's work who I'm thinking about you're probably familiar with the study about called Project Aristotle. Absolutely.

Google that like, yeah, the top performance. teams had the most psychological safety, right? And so I'm thinking about as you're as you're talking about bravery, what role does bravery play, like especially personal bravery? What role does that play in creating psychological safety in the workplace? It's so easy just to not share what went wrong or the mistake that you made. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for asking this question because this is one of the most common things I talk about in organizations or one of the challenges leaders come to me and say, we need help. People are not speaking up. And for many years, I've been teaching psychological safety based on all of Amy Evanson's work. And again, then when I go back to school,

I realize like, whoa, there are, the goal of psychological safety is actually candor in the workplace. So it's transparency, it's candor so that everyone can speak freely. That is what Project Air Settle was about is the psychological safety led to candor. So psychological safety is still very important. but think of two sides of the coin here. So leaders are responsible for creating an environment to lower the risk level that's perceived to speak up. So think of it as like this wall of risk here. So psychological safety takes the risk and brings it down

so people feel more safe, like, okay, like they want to hear my voice and I'm not going to be ridiculed. But at the same time, individuals still have fears. And again, fears are more. many times invisible because different people have different fears. So the other side of the equation is teaching people to speak up even when they're a little bit nervous or scared. So if the goal is candor transparency to drive the best outcomes and the best culture, we need both psychological safety. Let's create an environment that's safe, bring down the risk, but we also need to teach

the skill of speaking up, of bravery. And in the literature, it's called voice efficacy. So it's a skill that you teach. So that's one of the things that I go into organizations and I teach is, you know, teaching people how to speak up. So instead of just saying like, it's safe, go ahead and speak, some people are still terrified. I don't know how to see it. So it's really the two sides of the coin. If we teach leaders how to create psychological safety and we teach employees how to speak up and tell them it's a part of their job expectation is to find their voice and it's okay that you're scared, but you need to speak up anyway and here's how to do it. Let's practice it. We see their confidence, their voice efficacy increase. And then the true intent of psychological safety is that

candor. So great. All right. I got Jill's book right here in front of me an incredible book called The Bravery Effect, A Parable Teaching the Science of Conquering Fear, Achieving More and Living Life to the Fulest. So Jill, where can we find about, you know, more about your book, buy your book, learn more about your speaking or your training. Tell us about that. Thank you. Well, you can buy the book anywhere. Books are sold. So just Amazon or whatever. Please, you know, you can find that and it would be such an honor if you would read it. I wrote it as a story, as a parable, because stories hit different. That's according to Sean Aker, who blurbed my book. He wrote The Happiness Advantage. I love it. When he read it, he's like, he gave me a couple different blurbs.

He's like, stories hit different. Like, it's a bunch of science, but it's told in an entertaining story, kind of like a Lencione's Five Disfunctions of a Team or a Ken Blanchard one-minute manager. So I wrote it to a story because I want you to understand the science through a story, so it sticks. And I also want you to get to the end of the book. And it's a quick read. So that's the bravery effect.

But then also if any of the stuff that we've been talking about matters to you. In my heart, I have made. a promise to myself and my mission of what I'm trying to do is to make sure that I'm providing free content for people to learn the skill of bravery. So you don't have to buy the book. You can go to my website, take a bravery assessment for free, and download a bravery blueprint. So all the things we talked about in terms of the mindset, the behavioral, the social, there's like a five-page bravery blueprint that's going to teach you, guide you, give you the references of where it comes from. So please go to my website. It's just Jill Shulman.com in case someone does know how to spell

and they're listening and they're not on your show notes. It's just Jill, very hard to spell, J-I-L-L-L. But Shulman, S-C-H-U-L-M-A-N, go to my website, take the free assess, and then you download that resource for free, right? So please just, I just want everyone to identify and overcome your fears because I want you to be more successful, but I really just want you to live your best life and just start small. Use the free stuff. Just start small. Please, please, please. And then if it's helpful for you, just share it with others. Like, we just, we need to kind of create a new movement. I think the movement of the last probably 10 years is like, let's make everything easier and safer for everyone. I'm here to say, no, let's go after the things you want.

And it's going to be hard and it's going to be uncomfortable, but it's going to lead to your best life. Amen. All right. Awesome. Jill, it was so fun to talk to you today. I loved your definition of bravery. I love these questions about like what risk of what's the risk if I don't take action and what does my future self want me to do in this moment. I loved how we talked about fear and how most of the fears that we experience of our social fears like fear of rejection or failure or what other people might think. And then how to be brave. Consider a mindset tool, a behavioral tool. and a social tool. So thank you so much for being here on the high performance mindset. I'm just grateful to know you and grateful that you were able to provide so much wisdom to everyone listening today. So thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much 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 enjoy my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Sindra. That's dr.cindra.com.

See you next week.