High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 780: How to Silence Self-Doubt and Build Confidence with Jenn Donahue, Retired Navy Captain, Keynote Speaker & Bestselling Author

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

What if the voice telling you that you're not ready, not good enough, or not capable is actually trying to keep you safe? In this episode of the High Performance Mindset, Cindra Kamphoff talks with Jenn Donahue, Ph.D., a retired U.S. Navy Captain, international keynote speaker, business coach, and author of Becoming the Warrior: Harnessing Your Inner Strength to Silence Self-Doubt. Jenn shares how a difficult leadership experience in the military shattered her confidence and ultimately led her to develop the Warrior Framework: Perceive, Assess, Ready, and Act. She explains how to recognize your inner critic, understand where self-doubt comes from, retrain your brain toward more positive thinking, and take action before you feel completely confident. You'll also learn why writing down one win each day can help shift your brain's attention toward what is going well, how to use a "battle buddy" when self-doubt creeps in, and why your next step should be so small that it feels almost impossible not to take it. In this episode, you'll learn: Why self-doubt and imposter syndrome can affect even highly accomplished people The four steps of Jenn's Warrior Framework How to recognize and challenge your inner critic Why taking action before you feel confident matters How to use a one-win-per-day tracker to build confidence The difference between a failure and a setback How a "battle buddy" can help you stay accountable and keep moving forward Jenn's website: https://www.jenndonahue.com/ Buy Jenn's book "Becoming the Warrior" Mentally Strong Institute: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/ Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call: https://freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ Download the National Confidence Research Study: https://confidencestudy.com/ Order Cindra's new Book: https://www.confidencetools.com/

Welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. I'm so excited to have Jen Donahue on the show today. Jen has a PhD, which is exciting, is an international keynote speaker, a retired U.S. Navy captain, a business coach, and one of the America's leading experts on leadership and personal growth. And so her mission is to walk alongside leaders, quiet the voice that is holding them back, and help them show up to become the leader that they're meant to be. because Jen, you believe that leadership isn't just about a spotlight, right? It's about service, courage, and building others up. And so today we're going to be talking about her new book, Becoming the Warrior, harnessing your inner strength to silence self-doubt,

which is such a perfect topic for the high-performance mindset. So, Jen, thank you so much for being on the show today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Well, I want to ask you first, tell us a little bit about being a Navy captain and what that takes in terms of pressure and confidence and belief in yourself. That's a really good question. So being a Navy captain, that's an 06. So the services we try to confuse each other. So it's basically the same as a colonel in other branches, basically as a full bird. And only about 3% of officers actually achieve becoming a Navy captain.

And there is a lot of pressure. I was in charge of 1,800 personnel. Some of them were at home. Some of them were dispersed all over the world. And you're responsible for them. You're not necessarily just responsible for projects, but you're actually responsible for their lives. You know, do they have a place to stay?

Do they have enough food? Do they have enough water? You know, do they have the tools and the resources and everything else that you need? And so whenever you're looking at, being a Navy captain, And you really have to have a lot under your belt and a lot of really good people around you so that you can make sure that everybody is healthy, that they're getting done what needs to be done,

and really that we are accomplishing the mission. Absolutely. 1,800 people, that's a lot. And so tell us what, you know, you were tired from the Navy and then you wrote your book, becoming the warrior, harnessing your inner strength to silent self-doubt. Tell us about, like, why do you? you decided to write this book about inner strength and silencing self-doubt? I had been speaking for a couple years at that point.

And I'll first off tell you, like, I'm an engineer. Like, I'm an engineer's engineer. And so the thought of writing a book was so daunting. I mean, I can make an entire book out of like charts and graphs. And I'm like, that makes me super happy. But actually sitting down and writing a book, it's like, ooh, that's a big job. But I was noticing that whenever I was giving my keynotes, people were, coming up afterwards and saying, hey, do you have a book? Do you have a book? I'm like, no. Then it was

like, no, not yet. And then I was like, no, I need to. And then I finally realized that if I just sat down and wrote out what was what's going on in my head, I could actually help a lot of people. And that's what is really all about. The book is not about me. It's about how can I help others transform themselves to get over that self-doubt, to be the greatest person that they can be. And whenever I took that that mindset of like, you know, just sitting down and having to write a book as opposed to being able to help people, that made all the difference. And so that's why I sat down and I wrote it. Well, excellent. What does becoming a warrior mean to you? I think all of us have a warrior that lives within us. It's always that little voice. It's like, I can do this. We can do this. Hey, let's go try something else. Let's go be the best that we can be. Because we have all these mean little voices and, things like that. But if we really embody that, that little voice is like, hey, let's go. Like, you know, we are going to be awesome. We are going to do this. We are going to be excellent at it. That, to me, is the warrior. That's the piece of you that is undaunted and is like ready to take on

whatever challenge that might be. And I think we all have that in us. We just have to uncover it a lot of times. Yes. And you know, Jen, last year we did our national research study on confidence. and we wanted to see, like, what were the trends going on nationwide around confidence? There was actually incredibly surprising. I want to share with you a few things, because I think it really connects with your work. We found 70% of working Americans struggle with a harsh inner critic and have difficulty letting go of mistakes, right? So that's why, you know, I'm thinking about becoming a warrior, harnessing your inner strength and self-doubt, and reducing that self-doubt is so key. We also found one in two Gen Zers.

So a Gen Z is defined as ages 18 to 29 in our study. We found one and two consistently or frequently feel like they're not enough. You know, and people can go get our, and download our Confident Study at Confidentestudy.com. But like, what are you, are you surprised by that when you think about the speaking and the coaching that you do? And, you know, you speak all around the world. So what are you hearing about what's going on with people in terms of their confidence? and their difficulty letting go of things. I'll tell you that in the military, we never talk about it.

You know, it's just one of those things where it's like you just have to have this kind of exterior armor on that you always look confident. And so you never really talk about it without like, ooh, like I might not feel confident or I might have an inner critic. But whenever I retired and really started to talk to a lot of my neighbors and friends and things like that, and I brought up this topic. And I said, this is what imposterouser. syndrome is, this is what self-doubt is. They're like, yes, yes, we totally have that. And even as I speak

internationally, whenever I talk about this topic, you know, people are coming up to me all the time, like, hey, that's me. And so the statistics that you said don't surprise me at all. I actually found one study that said that almost 82% of the entire world has had imposter syndrome from one time to another. And that's men, women, old people, young people, different races. So if you think about that, that's like one in five people in the entire world, you know, have had these types of thoughts before. And whenever I did this research, I realized that's a lot of people. That's a lot of people who are struggling. Some people are able to get over it. You know, some people are like, hey, I just don't, I just don't know what to do. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious, when you think about your background,

right? In terms of in the military, I'm not surprised that people there don't talk about self-doubt and a lack of confidence for many reasons. But I think about just having the confidence as a female in the Navy. So tell us about how did you grow your own confidence in that space? Okay, I will tell you that I've actually had kind of a roller coaster type of life. Whenever I was younger, man, I was so brash. Like, I had. had all the confidence in the world. Like, there was not a problem. You know, I was like, I am going to be an engineer. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. There was no self-doubt. I'm like, I'm joining the Navy. I'm going to go see the world and I'm going to do all this thing. And it didn't really bother me that I was pretty much the only woman in the room my, my entire career. I had that self-confidence and I was ready. But what happened was is that I had, I had actually had a really horrible bad boss while I was in Afghanistan.

then. And there was a lot that was going on. There was an assassination attempt on my life. I was shot at and I had a boss that basically told me I was horrible every single day, you know, of the week. And all of that really started to break down all of my self-confidence and really shattered all sense of self that I had. And that's when it really started. That's when all of a sudden all those voices started to come in and I let them in. And I now understand what a lot of people go through. You know, we do have a lot of people who, whenever I talk about self-doubt, they're like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

I was one of those. But then, you know, through this really kind of traumatic several months, I understood it. And I had to figure out a way to kind of dig myself out of the hole that I got into with the self-doubt and the self-loathing and the aposture syndrome. I mean, everything was like running rampant in my head. And so that's really where it came to, like that's kind of that lowest point.

And then I started to think about how do I dig myself back out? And so now I'm to a place where I'm definitely a lot healthier, but I still have imposter syndrome from time to time. It still kind of creeps up on me. And I think a lot of it comes from when we have so much on us, things just kind of keep piling on and piling on. And the self-doubt just starts to leak right in. And we have to figure out a way to transform that into something more positive.

Thank you, Jen, for sharing that with us. Because, you know, you are the average of the five people you spend time with, right? Which is a great Jim Rohn quote, but the research also shows that. And our research, it's interesting because we found, like, a third of people have actually quit a job because it was hurting their confidence. And like 67% of people would take a lower-paying job for a boss that grows their job. confidence. So like what a great, like, I appreciate your example of just like how a boss can make or break confidence. And so can you specifically describe like what are the things that he did or didn't do? What did he say? Because I think this is just so helpful for people who are listening,

who are leaders. And, you know, we just have to really think about maybe what we do or say and how that impacts the confidence of the people that we lead. Sure. And I don't think he necessarily had it out for me. I think he had it out for everybody. But honestly, he was a yeller. First off, he was, I think about like six foot eight, probably weighed like 280 pounds, just like this huge human being. And he would yell at people in meetings. I mean, if the tiniest thing went wrong, like he would just eviscerate that person in front of everybody. So what happened was that people were trying to hide their mistakes, that other people were pointing fingers. so that, you know, that they wouldn't get in trouble.

For me, I was in charge of 800 people. Now, he didn't like the fact that I was so close and ranked to him. And so I think he also just sort of had it out for me for that reason also. And then I heard later on that he doesn't like women. But I think that's kind of beside the point. But, you know, he would just tell me all the time that he was always questioning every single judgment that I made. You know, it's like, hey, is that even the right thing? I would have done it this way.

You know, a lot of things like that all the time. When it came time for the performance review, he definitely didn't hold back, you know, what he felt about me. He, you know, said that, you know, I wasn't even ready for, you know, the next promotion, anything like that. I mean, he just really, like, nitpicked everything that people did. And then if he didn't like it, he would just embarrass you in front of everybody and just call you names. I mean, it was really, really an unlawful.

ugly situation. I think in the military, even sometimes in high level sports and sports in general, like I do a lot of work in like football, Jen. And I think sometimes those cultures, maybe those kind of leadership behaviors are more accepted, you know, but I can see how those things definitely did not grow your confidence or create psychological safety for you. So I'm curious about, you know, obviously this experience led you to write your book about the warrior framework. I'd love to actually learn more about your four steps of your warrior framework and which ones do people tend to struggle with most and why? Absolutely. The warrior framework is actually based off of what we do in the military for real bad guys. Okay. It's actually called the

rules of engagement. And what it is is it's four steps. And while I was trying to figure out, like, how do I pull myself out of this, you know, psychological lull? How do I actually, how do I build back up? And I started to think about what I did in the military, whenever there was any type of enemy. So the first part is just paying attention. And it's about perceiving. Now, in the military, we call that situational awareness. Paying, just paying attention to what's going on around you. when we're talking about, you know, trying to pull ourselves out of, you know, whatever we're in, it's about just starting to listen to what's going on in our head. So many people have all of these thoughts and they just believe all of them.

And a lot of people aren't even thinking about the thoughts that they're having. They just have them and they keep going. So perceiving is all about starting to listen to what's going on in your head. The second part is assessing. So in the military, you know, that's, is this person coming at me a friend or are they a foe? That's all it is. It's just, you know, black or white, friend or foe. Okay, now in our heads, we need to start to figure out, hey, is whatever this that we're thinking, is this based on instinct?

Or is this sort of like a mean little voice that's trying to tell us something that's trying to keep us small, that's telling us that we're not worthy, that we're not ready, those types of things. And so the assess part is really looking at what actually is that thought. Is it rational? Is it irrational? Is it something that I'm making up? And understanding really who's talking. The mean little voice or is it truly instinct trying to keep you safe? The next part is all about being ready. And this is, you know, so in the military, you know, if somebody's coming at you, they are a foe, there's definitely a lot of things that we can do. You know, we can do hand signals, we can shoot flares, we can do all kinds of things to get them to. just back off. In our heads, and this is probably the hardest part, is, you know, everybody can kind of understand, like, are the thoughts, you know, good or bad? But it's like, how do we start

to transform from a negative bias over to a positive bias? And really what that is is understanding how do we train our brains? How do we discipline our brains? How do we exercise our brains? so that they start to rewire the neural pathways instead of having a negative thought that it actually turns more into a positive thought. And so that's what being ready is all about. And that the final step is act. And the military, act means stopping the bad guy

no matter what it might be tackling to ground, whatever military has many ways that we can try to get rid of bad guys. But in our head, act is all about taking the first step. Just taking that first step. You know, we might be stopping. stopping ourselves for not doing something, but act is all about just taking that first step. And I put in a whole like little separate framework for how do we get to that first step,

and then what do we do along the way? It's like celebrating all of our wins and really understanding that's like take that first minimum viable step, that step that is so easy that it seems silly not to take it. And so that's what it is. It's perceive, assess, ready, and act. Well, what I appreciated about what you just said, Jen, is like when you thought about the enemy. And that's such an interesting word to say because it's like the enemy so many times is in our own head, right? Like this inner critic that you're suggesting. So pay attention, assess, be ready, and act. And you also talked a little bit about like this negativity bias that we have, right?

Can you describe like how you might use this framework, maybe how you did use it to move forward from this tough boss? Well, one of the things that I did is I actually just went over to the printer. And I know this is going to sound silly, but I grabbed a clean piece of paper and I just started writing down a couple of good things about myself, thinks that I had accomplished. And what's interesting is neurologically, whenever we're doing this, is something that we can see, is something that we can touch, and it's something very tactile. So whenever you're writing something out, your brain is starting to remember what it is that happened.

And so I started there of just writing down something good about myself, something that I had accomplished, something that was very positive. And I started to do this day after day. You know, and maybe an easier step to that is I call it my one win per day tracker. You know, so what I do for a lot of my clients is I just ask them, write down one win per day. So what they do is at the end of the day, they just write that down. And then day after day, what happens is that the brain actually starts to rewire the neural pathways to try to look for that one win during the day. And what happens if you do this day after day after day, that pathway gets easier because you're using it more and more.

And so by the 28th day, you're coming up with those winds like left and right and you're realizing I am doing really great things throughout the day. And that's one of the easiest steps to try to turn that negative into a positive because your brain is already starting to think about, hey, here's the good things that I did today. Excellent. Yeah, and your brain is already looking for what's wrong or what's missing instead of what's right, right? So I like that idea of just writing down one win per day. My dad was just in the hospital and Jen, we created a wind wall where every day we put a little sticky note on a poster board and it became that. And it was helpful because obviously when you're in the hospital and the ICU, there's lots of, you know, tough things that are. happening. So I appreciate what you're saying about like rewiring those pathways and then so it becomes a lot easier for you. I'm curious your your framework, your war, your framework that you're talking about. You, you know, I know it's backed by science and social proof. So what studies did you come across in your work that surprised you the most? And how have you implemented these findings into your work and how you coach others? I do. Okay, so I am a nerd. So whenever I

I'm interested in something. I go pretty deep. So I found several different studies that had to do with the simple act of writing. Like, what is actually whenever you write something down? So I found a couple of studies that were done. We're trying to remember her name. There was, she's in California. I can't remember the name of the university.

But what they found is whatever, people just have a goal. You know, what is the percentage of the people who actually achieve it? What is the percentage of people who are? write down the goal. What is the percentage of people who write down the goal and talk to a friend about it from time to time? Then, you know, it gets to the point of they have the goal, they write it down, and then they talk to a person on a weekly basis for accountability. And the amount that that is like so, it was something like 87% of the people who actually went through all of those steps were able to accomplish whatever the goal was. Because they have the accountability,

the writing things down, and it went through all of that. I also looked at a lot of the neuroscience behind why we have the type of thoughts that we do. And it's all kind of coming from the frontal cortex. And it's actually a bit of a residual is the way that they kind of describe it, a residual on the brain for if we maybe had a past failure or something didn't go well or somebody said something mean to us. And it basically sticks in our brain. and our brain tries to go to that because it really is trying to keep us safe.

And let me explain that a little bit. You know, instinct of tuition, those two, they really keep us safe. They're the ones like, hey, if we have to go to the bathroom or we're hungry, if we're tired, you know, we don't go down dark alleys. You know, that's all instinct into intuition because it keeps us safe. Well, these mean little voices, the inner critics are born out of that, and they're also trying to keep us safe. but they're trying to keep us safe by keeping us small. Because if we go when we try something new, there's a possibility of a failure.

There's a possibility that we could get hurt. There's a possibility that we might look bad in front of our friends or family or whatever that might be. And so these intercritics, these being little voices, are born out of that. And so they're trying to keep us at a status quo so that we might never have that future heartbreak. And so really reading into a lot of those types of studies to understand why we have these types of voices.

Yeah, that's really helpful. And the residual on the brain, tell us more about that because I think that's the reason to move on more quickly when you do fail or you make a mistake so that it doesn't kind of stay on like Teflon and your brain sort of like. I know we need more non-stick, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah, so that residual is basically the brain remembering something hard. The brain remembering something painful, and it doesn't want to go through that again. And so it says, no, I don't want to do it. You know, this person said that I wasn't ready. I just had a client who, you know, had a boss also that was like,

you're just not good at this. And it really kind of hurt her and like her moving forward in completely different jobs because she remembers what this one boss had said because it basically gets in there and it sticks. Or, you know, if you did have that future failure, you know, like for me and I had that boss, you know, if you did have a failure in going after something that seemed great and it didn't work out,

you know, the brain holds on to those types of things. And like I said, we have to basically say, okay, we've recognized that this has happened in the past. But what's more important is we have to realize all of the other great things that we have done in our lives. There's probably only a small, small fraction, you know, of our entire life. We've probably done a million wonderful things. But the brain is like, yeah, but remember that one thing?

Remember that one thing? Yeah. You know, instead of remembering all like the thousands of great things that we have done. Yeah, isn't that so true? I mean, I study this and teach people many of the things you're talking about, but I also have a hard time moving on quickly, you know, especially when things are really important to me, and, you know, I didn't meet my own expectations. Hi, friends, Dr. Sindra here, and I'm so excited to announce that my new book, published by Simon

Schuster, is now available titled The Confidence Habit. Our national research study on confidence showed there is a confidence crisis in America today. One in two Gen Zers and young millennials feel like they are not enough. Women still scored lower on all markers of confidence. compared to men. And this book provides the tangible research-backed strategies to grow your confidence, and I can't wait for you to read it. You can head over to ConfidenceTools.com to purchase your copy where there's over $594 of bonuses over there. Again, check it out at ConfidenceTools.com, and I can't wait to hear what to think about it. You know, I think about Jen, there's so much

power about the power of positive thinking and kind of facing this inner critic, like you said. but you think about these topics a little bit different. How do you distinguish your work from, you know, let's say the self-help space or the psychological work that maybe you've read it that other people have written about? And so a lot of people are, they kind of get to the assess step and say, is it like, is it good or is it bad? And they're like, okay, recognize it as bad and move on. Okay. I really think you need to get like a couple of layers deeper than that. I really think you need to keep going and saying, okay, I know and I understand that this has happened.

Let's get into it. Let's start uncovering it. It's going to be ugly. There's probably going to be crying. There's going to be lots of Kleenex. It's going to be used. But let's get down to it and understanding where it's actually coming from and get to that point. So don't just say, oh, that's a bad thought.

Get rid of it. Now, actually, keep going. You know, whatever I think about, you know, that's how I kind of got to the warrior framework is I felt so horrible that I wanted to, I didn't just say like, okay, well, that's a bad thought and move on. I had to come to grips with like myself and the way that I felt whenever I was being spoken to like that. And then also, like I said, you know, I was being shot at and, you know, and I was in charge of keeping 800 people alive and getting projects done. And there was an assassination attempt on my life. there was a lot of trauma that was going on, and trying to get through all of that,

come to peace with it, and then at that point saying, okay, I know and understand this is what happened, this is why I reacted that way. This is what we need to do going forward. Whenever we have this thought, we need to remember all of these other good things that have happened. And basically say,

okay, this is a point in time. This is something, we're not going to let it grow, but we're going to acknowledge, it and then we're going to keep going. So, but you have to get all the way down to it as opposed to just saying, oh, well, you know, I had this thought. No, keep going.

Get all the way down to it. Get to the ugly part. Come to peace with it and then start to move forward. And I appreciate this part, the fourth part of your framework of like act, right, taking the next step. And so tell us a bit more about like why that is so important. And I think to myself, like sometimes we wait for the. feeling of confidence to like act, right? But we have to act before we actually feel it. That's

what I would say. But why do you think that part of the action is so important? You know, if you're waiting for 100% confidence, you're just going to continue to wait forever. You really are. It's amazing. If you just decide, you know what, I'm scared, but I'm going to just take that step anyway and you take it and it works. It's like, oh my gosh. Like, I just did that. And it's amazing what the body feels whenever you're able to just take the step that you're afraid of and it's okay. And a lot of people don't realize, you know, I kind of use the military metaphor of like you're not standing in a minefield. Like you're not standing around. And so if you take a left instead of a right that you're going to, you know, blow yourself up.

You're not. You take a left and it's like, okay, maybe you should have taken a right. So then you just course correct yourself and then you go right. You know, the world will not fall apart. your world, your world will not fall apart if you take one tiny little step in the right direction or in the wrong direction or backwards or whatever it might be, but just start moving. We call it, you know, paralysis by analysis. I've seen so many people who are like, I can't do it yet.

No, I need more time. I need more data. All of these different things, they basically are just stalling. And what I'm asking for people to do is just take a tiny, I mean, tiny, inconsequential little step. something that has no risk, no real consequences, but just something to just start. And then it'll start to give you momentum so that you can start taking the next step and the next. And those steps can get bigger and bigger and bigger as you go. But that first step and make it so easy that it's maybe you're just Googling,

hey, how do I do something? You don't have to do it. Just maybe Google it, you know, or as chat, GPT or whatever it might be. But just take, you know, that's one step. You know, just asking. That's one little step. Just take that first step. How have you done that, you know, in terms of maybe give us an example of a client that you've worked with or how you've just taken that next step? Because I could imagine it's writing this book and being a keynote speaker,

you have to keep on acting confidently. Take that first step. I always back it up with some type of celebration. I always do. So for instance, I also own an engineering company. I know that sounds crazy that that's that's what I love to do as well. And I didn't just like open an engineering company. There's several little things that had to be done. You know, I had to get, you know, the EIN and you had to get this and you had to get that. And so I tried to break it all down. And then I would just took like the first tiny little step.

You know, it's like, hey, I'm going to just find out if like my engineering company's name has already been taken. Like that's a tiny little step. But I did it. And what you do afterwards is, you know, you know, you. you celebrate. And you just, you know, maybe that's just like go have an ice cream or something like that or go walk the dogs, you know, around the park or something like that, just to sort of reward yourself for that tiny little step.

And then the next step, you know, starting to fill out the paperwork. But if you break it into all of these little steps and if you celebrate at the end of each step, what you realize is that that helps the movement and the momentum to get going. You know, for keynote speaking, there are things that are going on all the time. I need to talk to this person. I need to talk to that person. I need to get my flights booked. I need to do all these different things.

And so I also break it up all of those little tasks. And so maybe at the end of the day, I do something really nice for myself that I actually was able to get all of these different things done. But that's how you keep moving. And so many people, and it drives me crazy, as they do something, and then they just keep going.

You know, they fish it. And it's a huge project. And then they just go on to the next one, And they never sit back and say, hey, you know what? Hey, I did something good there. I did, you know, this actually, this was very positive. They never do that and they just move on to the next. And so I think that's one of the things that we need to remember to do is, you know,

just celebrate when we get to those tiny little milestones. I think also it's, you know, we have this negativity bias. So that's one reason we don't celebrate. But I also find like people get so caught up in how far they have to go, you know, that they don't, they don't, like, look at how far they've come. And Jen, we have the, you know, my book comes out September 1st, so we have this huge goal of getting on the New York Times list. And it's already a national bestseller given the amount of pre-orders we have, which is amazing.

Great, great. But I found myself like, yeah, I mean, right? I should celebrate that. But I found myself a couple weeks ago just, like, feeling so much stress and anxiety. And I was headed to get food with my older son who's 20. And he was like, mom, why are you so crabby? And to be honest, like, I'm not very crabby very often. And he was taking it really personal.

He's like, why are you mad at me? And I couldn't even really articulate how I was feeling because I just felt so much pressure on this, like, based on this outcome goal, you know. And we got Chipotle, we got in the car afterwards. And, you know, on the way home, I was telling him how I was feeling and just, you know, I was feeling really overwhelmed. And you got out of the car and he gave me this big hug in the garage. And he was like, Mom, you never give up on your goals. You've got to like keep pushing, you know, which I thought that was pretty cool because like sometimes confidence is borrowed. Like I felt like in that moment, just like my 20 year old son saying like, mom, this is who you are. You don't give up. And I was like,

yeah, I don't give up. But I think it's so hard to like, you know, especially when you're, really thinking about like those long-term goals. So I, that's a personal example I can think of in my own life. You know, I call it my battle buddy. I have a battle buddy. Have that person who's like, just like your son who's like, hey, you know, you're being ridiculous here. You're actually pretty awesome. You need to keep going. You know, and, you know, battle buddy is great because you can just bounce ideas off of them and they can help keep you accountable. They can help, you know, steer you on, you know, keeping you on the right path. You know, so. So I would always tell people like, go get a battle buddy, whether it's your son with your spouse, friend, mentor coach, whatever that might be.

Have that battle buddy. When you're in those kind of positions where it's like, I don't know if I can keep going, grab that battle buddy. And you ask, tell us how you might use that battle buddy. And is it somebody who's like kind of your cheerleader always by your side? Do you suggest that we reach out to them? They reach out, you know, how would you just tell us a little bit more? For me, you know, I have two battle buddies. One of them is my husband. And so would it had anything to do with, you know, setting up, you know, the speaking business, the book, whatever it might be, whenever I was just like, I just don't know if I can. He's always that person. It's like, okay, well, let's look at that a little bit better. And, you know, he helps. It's sort of like a sounding board where so you can ask the questions that you need to. And there was several days where it's just like, okay, I'm going to write, you know, somebody words. And then on, Friday, we're going to go out and we're going to have a beer. And he's like, okay, let's do that.

And I could tell him everything that was going on. I have another battle buddy, and he's from the military. And, you know, quite literally, he went everywhere with me. You know, even though I'm a girl, like he'd have to escort me to the bathroom. And I'd have to escort him to the bathroom because you go everywhere with this person. But it's also the person, whenever it's like, whenever I was going through all of those things from Afghanistan, I could call him and I could just sort of lay it all bare and is somebody who knew and understood. You know, not, you know, they were there. He was there like a year or two before me,

but he knew and understood and could empathize. You know, but at the same time, he's known me my entire life, and he's like, I don't know what that other guy's talking about, but if you ask any person who's ever worked for you, you are a great boss, and you are always taking care of people, and you're always making the right decisions. And so it's that person who knows you, who can kind of see through the BS.

and can help you get yourself righted again. And then you do the same for that other person. Yeah, absolutely. I thank you for just like sharing that example. And I think you're right, we do need to surround ourselves with people that are going to hold us accountable and like tell ourselves the truth.

Because so many times that inner critic doesn't really tell ourselves the truth. You know, Jen, one of the things I really appreciate it about your book was like how you distinguished failure and a setback. And I had never really thought about that, how those might be different. So what is the difference between a failure and a setback and how should we react to failures versus setbacks? For me, a failure is complete. Like if everything just falls apart, to me, that's actually a failure.

But there's also setbacks where you're going down the path and like something happens and you have to take a couple of steps back. Either one is fine. But I always ask people, wherever you're trying to go, does it really mean something to you? And if the answer is yes, then you never back down. You don't quit.

You're allowed to pivot. Pivoting is actually fine. You're allowed to reassess. But whether it's a failure or whether it's a setback, always ask yourself, is wherever you're going worth it? You know, from awesome.

You know, we think about failures and, you know, that's part of the residual that kind of gets stuck on the brain. And at that point, you know, use all of that information, basically retool it and maybe you have to start over. That's okay. When you're in your setback, just pivot. Take a left instead of a right. You know, that's really what it's all about. Oh, excellent. And I appreciate what you just said about, like, okay, thinking,

about is where you want to go really worth it. And I would say, absolutely, where I want to go is worth it. Right. I think everyone else who's listening would also say that. So, Jen, before we wrap up, what would you tell somebody who feels stuck in a cycle of self-doubt today? Maybe they're unable to move towards these goals. And maybe they're thinking to themselves, well, I don't actually even know where I want to go. what do you think is one simple thing that they could do today? If they don't know where they want to go, I would say, go sit someplace quiet. I know that's going to sound silly,

but just unplug from everything. Go someplace where you feel comfortable and just start to think about the things that you love. And if you actually spend some time doing that, you're probably going to start to come up with a plan. You know, another way to do it is just go talk to somebody that really knows you. And sometimes people can see things within us that we don't either recognize or we don't want to recognize. And if you talk to somebody and say, hey, you know, I'm kind of struggling.

A lot of times people will come up with some pretty good ideas. They're like, hey, you know, my mom was always saying, and you would make a great teacher. You know, I was like, I want to be a teacher. Okay, turns out that I became a professor. You know, but it's one of those things that people's things within us, you know, that. And so if people are struggling and thinking like, hey, you know what, I don't know where to go, either go sit, be quiet or, you know, go talk to a loved one. Because they'll probably have a pretty, a couple of pretty good ideas for you. Yeah. Outstanding. So, Jen, where can people find your book becoming the warrior, harnessing your inner strength to silence self-doubt? And where can people find more information

about you and follow along with your work? Absolutely. So it is available. on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, pretty much anywhere books are sold. So you can get it there. It's also available on an e-book. You can also listen to it. Actually, I narrated it myself. I don't know if you're doing that for your book, but highly recommend. It's actually really hard. But yes, so you can also listen to the book as well. If you want to follow me, I'm at jenndonahue.com, Gen with two ends. But really, actually, if anything has really resonated, resinated with you on this call, I have something free for you. I actually have a book of quotes. And if you go to dare to rise.co slash quotes, you can just put in your email. I'm not going to spam you, but you can get a free book of quotes that are all based on the book and other inspirations from my life. Excellent. So dare to rise.co slash quotes. I'm going to do my best to summarize what we talked about today, Jen. Thanks so just thanks so much for just kind of sharing with us that 82% of people have imposter syndrome. So we're not alone to feel like sometimes that we're a fraud. I appreciated what you said about, you know, our enemy. And we talked about kind of our enemy can kind of be within us. But you're forced your four rules of engagement.

that are part of your warrior framework, pay attention, assess, be ready, and act. I also enjoyed what you were talking about is like strengthening that new neural pathways and how celebrating your wins or just writing down one celebration a day can really help you do that. And this idea of like this residual on our brain and why we need to let go of mistakes more quickly. And then, of course, at the end, the difference between a failure and a setback. What final thoughts or advice would you give people who are listening? I always try to tell people, hey, go do what you love.

I know that sounds crazy, but man, if you do what you love, like that means everything in the world. So have the confidence, have the courage, take one little step and go do what you love. Amazing. Thank you so much for being here on the high performance mindset, Jen. And definitely go check out her book, Becoming the Warrior. harnessing your inner strength to silence self-doubt. 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. C-I-N-D-R-A, See you next week.