Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Lydia Fenet on Claim Your Confidence and Create Your Best Life EP 271

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

I am joined by Lydia Fenet, the ambassador of Christie's auction house, an inspiring speaker, and a global media force, to talk about her latest book "Claim Your Confidence: Unlock Your Superpower and Create the Life You Want." In This Episode, Lydia Fenet And I Discuss Her Book "Claim Your Confidence" On the podcast, we discuss Lydia's latest book, "Claim Your Confidence," which is a powerful manual that helps you conquer your fears and acquire the necessary skills to become the most self-assured version of yourself. Drawing on her own personal experiences, Lydia shares how to persevere when you feel like quitting, summon the courage to step out of your comfort zone, and harness the immense force of positivity. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/lydia-fenet-claim-your-confidence/  Brought to you by Green Chef. Use code passionstruck60 to get $60 off, plus free shipping!” Brought to you by Indeed. Head to https://www.indeed.com/passionstruck, where you can receive a $75 credit to attract, interview, and hire in one place. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/ylVIuwJBFW8  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. You are the only person who is the architect of what you're doing in your life. And if you're constantly looking around for other people's opinions, of course you're not going to be confident because you're just trying to please everyone else. So what are you doing to live in your truest form?

And what are you doing to ensure that you're a confident person? I believe that that is all within you. It's just going to take some soul searching to figure out what you want and then be true to that in life. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself.

If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 271 of PassionStruck. Recently ranked by an interview valet is the fourth best podcast for conversation. And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly. Listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so each and every one of you who comes back weekly. Listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world.

If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member. We now have episodes, starder packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize in the convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything that we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or PassionStruct.com slash starter packs to get started. And in case you missed it, earlier in the week, I interviewed Dr. Yuri Ganesi,

who was a behavioral economist and author of the new book, Mixed Signals, How Incentives Really Work. And I also interviewed functional medicine expert, Dr. Will Cole, about his new book, Got Feelings, feeling the shame-fueled relationship between what you eat and how you feel. And if you love today's episode, or either of those other two, we would so appreciate getting a 5-star rating in review, which goes such a long way in bringing more people into the passion-struck community,

where we can give them weekly doses of hope, inspiration, and meaning. And I know our guests also love to hear your comments as well. Now let's discuss today's episode. Have you ever experienced unwavering confidence in your life? Have you confidentely walked into a room with your shoulders back feeling like you own the place? Or maybe it's a rare occurrence, happening only once a week or maybe not at all? The uncertainties of the past few years have tested all of us regardless of how confident we may be in life. As a result, many of us struggle to trust our instincts and to find confidence. So how can we regain confidence, or even develop it for the first time? Today I'm joined by Lydia

Fennett, who has been praised by Martha Stewart for her ability to command a room. We discuss her brand new book, Flame Your Confidence. And during the interview, you will be able to learn who else to become the most confident version of yourself with guidance on how to persevere through challenges, overcome imposter syndrome, and step out of your comfort zone. Lydia Fennett is the host of the Claim Your Confidence Podcast, produced in collaboration with new stand studios in Rockefeller Plaza.

In her two decades long career as the leading charity auctioneer in the world, Lydia has changed the fundraising game, single-handedly raising over a billion dollars for over 800 organizations. At night, she graces the stage alongside celebrities, such as Bruce Springsteen, Hugh Jackman, Matt Damon, and Jerry Seinfeld, while raising money for the most notable charities. As a keynote speaker, she travels internationally, speaking to groups about unlocking their

sales potential and empowering their teams in the workplace. Named as one of New York's most influential women by Gotham Magazine, she has been featured on the Today Show and in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and more. She is the executive producer of the upcoming Netflix series, Sold, based on her previous book, The Most Powerful Woman in the Room Is You. Thank you for choosing Passionstruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

I am absolutely thrilled today to welcome Lydia Finett to the Passion Start podcast. Welcome Lydia. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Well, a little birdie told me that you'd like to start off whether you're on stage or potentially on the podcast by telling a joke. So I've never done this before, but I thought why not give it a try? Well, my jokes are often on stage, a little less canned jokes and more what I see in front of me.

So I would typically start an auction by saying something like that's my gabbled by the way. Good evening everyone, my name is Lydia Finett. I'm so delighted to be here. It's 11 o'clock at night and I can tell just by looking at you that you do not feel the same way about me being up here, but I'm charity auction air and I made up Teflon. So we're going to have fun. We're going to have a great time. All I need to do is make sure you raise your paddles as high as possible and give as much as you can so we can get out of here. Yeah, that's great. Today, we're going to talk about your great brand new book, claim your confidence, unlock your superpower and create the life you want. Congratulations so much on the release of your second book. Thank you so much.

I'm thrilled that it's coming out into the world so soon. It's exciting to see the cover in its hard cover format, finally. Yes, I can't wait to see that myself. I mean, that's got to be exhilarating when they send you that box and you get to open it up. The reality of the situation just sinks in. Absolutely, and it's funny because it comes in an unmarked box. So you don't really realize what you're opening until you open it. And when you do all of a sudden, to see your name and to see the cover in its entirety is really shocking in a way because it's something that you've created that lives forever. That's the amazing thing about writing a book doesn't matter for the rest of your life you're known as an author. So congratulations on being part of that journey. It's welcome to the club.

Thank you. It's a long process. So I will be on cloud nine when it finally comes out and hopefully I'll have an audience that is receptive to it. But I know the audience is going to love this new book of years and what better place. Do you need confidence then when you're an auction error and you're on stage and around a listers who I think would make anyone nervous. But if the audience is not familiar with you, you are the premier charity auctioner in the world spending over two decades at Christie's. But I understand that you learned a really important lesson early on on how to turn a no into a yes. When you got your start in the business, can you explain how you did that? Absolutely. I grew up in a small town in Louisiana. My parents were not art collectors.

I didn't know anything about the auction world. And when I was in college, I read an article in Vanity Fair magazine and a lot of people remember reading this or they remember the cover. It was about Princess Diana selling her dresses at a place called Christie's Auction House in New York City. And I don't remember the specifics of the article,

but I can tell you that they talked a lot about the people who worked there. They were glamorous, they traveled around the world, they interfaced with all the a-listers. I had no art background whatsoever, but it absolutely captivated me. And I remembered thinking even in college, I need to work at this place. So I started researching and asking everyone about this place called Christie's

and ultimately got the number for the internship coordinator who was providing internships for the summer. Because I didn't grow up in New York, I didn't realize that New York City internships are very competitive. And people typically start applying early in the beginning of the college year, so September, October, November, and no by January, whether or not they're going to be able to intern there. I think I called her in April, and I got an immediate no. I'm sorry, we are already wait list only. There's just unfortunately no way. We only have 30 interns. But I don't always think the word no is meant as a no. It just means that maybe you haven't found the right angle, which is probably why I love sharing so much because it's

always about finding their angle. I ended up calling her for two straight weeks to chat with her every morning, and because this was over two decades ago, she didn't have caller ID, so she didn't know who she was picking up the phone to receive and it was me. And I would call her every day and just ask her a little bit about the internship program if there was potentially any wiggle room on the wait list. And finally, after two weeks, I could tell she was getting fed up with it.

She's the loveliest person in the world. Even after two weeks, I think she was completely fed up. And I said to her, I understand that everything is full, but can I just ask you a question, why does the internship cap at 30, why 30 people? I mean, you're not paying anyone, why does it have to be that number? And she could cause, and she said, well, to be honest, the interns take museum field trips in the afternoon. And we divide the groups into 15 because the docent's don't want to take more than 15. So we can't have more than 30, otherwise the interns can't go to the museum. And that was the angle for me, because I said to her, I don't need to go to the museum. And obviously, if you have 30 interns leaving, someone needs to do the work. Someone's halfway

through a project. It would be helpful to have a floater intern. Somebody who comes in and just does the work, nobody else wants to do. And for her, it was all she needed. She didn't say no, I mean, she didn't say no at that point. She didn't say, yeah, she said, let me call you back. And within an hour, she called me back and said I could do a modified internship, which essentially meant that I could come in, but I wouldn't go to the museums

unless somebody else didn't go. But of course, these were college students. This was 20 years ago, most of them didn't take the internship that seriously. So I went on pretty much every museum field trip as well. And once I got in there, I was never leaving. So I returned the next year for a brief internship and was hired out of that internship to work full time.

Now, I think it's a great story. And I just had a guest on the podcast yesterday, retired Colonel Kim Campbell, who's a fighter pilot. And she had always wanted to go to the Air Force Academy, and worked so hard to get in, and then went to open her acceptance letter, accepted said rejection. And at that point, instead of taking it as a no, she doubled down and kept contacting the Academy, asking if anyone else who they had accepted was not going to take that acceptance and she retested, did more things, kept updating them to eventually they said yes and she got in and ultimately

became the wing commander, which was the highest leadership position that you can have. So I think it's both are great illustrations that don't take no as the final answer. But if you do get the yes, treat it for the opportunity that it is, take advantage of it. And that I really do believe is the greatest point that I tell people all the time. I hear a lot of people say, well, I don't wanna do that

or I don't wanna do that. And I had a woman who started working on my team because she saw me, I was running the event's team. I don't want to do that. And I had a woman who started working on my team because she saw me. I was running the event steams. This is about 10 years after I started at Christie's and I walked in the middle of an event. I saw something on the floor and I just grabbed an napkin, scooped it up and kept walking because ultimately I was in charge of that event. The look and the feel and the client experience all came back to what my aesthetic was.

So anything that didn't look like that was not okay. And it didn't matter who picked it up, in my opinion, it would just have to be picked up off the floor. And I remember her saying she was like, I fell in love with you at that point. I wanted to work for you because I loved the fact that you didn't really care. It wasn't about a position or a level or I can't do this or I can do this. It was, this is mine. I own it. It needs to be perfect. can do this, it was, this is mine. I own it. It needs to be perfect. Well, I love that. And I loved how you started out your book was so much vulnerability talking about your own book tour on your initial book. And you would start it out on the east coast. And it was almost like

a New York moment because you're on Cloud 9, everything is going well and then you start your West Coast leg and you're ready to hit opening day and give a book talk and you think you're walking into a packed bookstore and I'm reading this myself thinking about my own future book tour, hopefully, and getting to speak to a pack crowd. And I hope you could tell the audience what happened instead and what did it teach you about how to project your most confident mentality by putting up a Teflon shield. It's my favorite story to tell

because people think that success is all encompassing. They think that success is once you've made it, you've made it. And in fact, that is not the case at all. So as you said, I started on the East Coast. I had two weeks of my first book tour. Christie's launched it with this beautiful dinner. I went on the today show. I had an event every single night. It was just more and more. I had never been so excited in my entire life. I was running on a adrenaline and I flew out to the west coast and my publisher had arranged for a book tour at a bookstore. I'm in the ferry building and I was staying with a friend. I got

into full hair and makeup, which is very much a part of me showing up as my full self. I'm always completely decked out. I love being the center of a moment at a book tour and a event or a party where I get to speak. And I want to show up for my audience in the best way that I can and the way that I do on stage. And that day, I think I start the chapter by just telling about how perfect it is. And then I say, you guys sick of this perfection because this is about to take a real you turn.

I get to the fairy building. I am five minutes, I think, before the entire speech is about to start. I go sprinting down the hall, throw open the door to the bookstore, and there's a semicircle of chairs, and there's one person sitting in the front. And there was a local DJ who was a charity auctioner at night who'd agreed to do a moderated talk

with me. And so he was there, too, and there was was one person and I said to the bookstore owner, did I get the time wrong? It flown in the night before so I thought maybe I was on the wrong time. She was, oh no, there's just one person here. And then my sister's friend showed up so then there was a witness to it. And then there was another woman who came in and I asked her, she'd like to join. And I said, love for you to join my book talk for the most powerful woman in the room.

And she just said, no. And then over, I think the next five or 10 minutes, I was able to recruit two more people. And then the bookster owner was there. And then I say in the chapter that a woman who I believe was homeless pulled in a shopping cart and sat down. And the bookster owner said, she comes in sometimes and she's disruptive. Is it okay if she stays and I was like, listen, an audience is an audience.

I'm using the heckled up in charity, an engineer and she started heckling me from the minute I spoke. So for 30 minutes, I gave this keynote speech to a crowd of five people and one of them was making fun of me the whole time. And it was, as I say in the chapter, that is the moment when confidence is born. Those are the moments that you

fear because you put yourself out there in such a big way. I mean, this is my book. This is my life. I'm so excited about it. There are five people who care about it. Two people who I've recruited. One is my sister's friend and somebody who literally doesn't even like it, is never read it, and it's just making fun of me while I'm out there. And that, to me, is ultimately what I look back on as what I've had to steal myself against on this next book tour that's upcoming. I know I'm going into book signings again. Will there be people? I don't know, but guess what? I've already been through the worst case scenario. And that is where confidence comes from. So don't make a mistake in life by not putting yourself out there for those moments because you don't get more confident

unless you've been through moments like that. And when I talk about the Teflon shield, you've got to think about putting on a shield and everything positive stays within that and everything negative bounces off of that. Get in a moment like that, you have to put that Teflon shield up and sink into that feeling in the inside and let everything else go, because otherwise you'll never get out of bed again. Well, that's definitely a great situational awareness of an event that went terribly wrong. I'm sure given all the auctions that you've done, it's not the first time you've run into something like that. I was hoping you might be able to give the audience some advice on

if they find themselves in a conversation or in a situation that's going terribly awry. How can they turn into something positive? I always find humor to be the most important way to get out of a situation that feels uncomfortable. I find it on stage all the time. I'll often say, if I'm walking across a stage and I trip, everyone's seen me trip. So why am I going to ignore it? The bigger the fall, the bigger the jitter. So if I walk out, and I'm just talking even

from a sort of public speaking standpoint, so many people fear it because they're scared they're going to say the wrong thing. What I always say is, it's almost a gift to say something wrong because it allows you to be human with the crowd to show, as you said earlier, vulnerability. And everybody's in it for the shared human experience. So don't shy away from it. So what I would say is the next time you're in a conversation, if something goes terribly wrong, talk about it. If I'm walking across the stage and I trip and I stumble,

I'm like, I'm almost six feet tall. So I'll say something like, wow, that would have been a big fall guys. You don't want to see a 5-11 person fall from a standing position all the way to the ground or something like that. And just make a joke about it. Or next time I think that wire is going to trip me up guys, something like that, that I've acknowledged it and I've moved past it. And I've showed enough confidence in myself

that it didn't bury me and make me put my head in the sand. Well, thanks for sharing that. And I've recently done a couple of solo episodes on the importance of creativity and how our self-expression is really our superpower to convey to the world. And you talk about superpowers also in the book. And I think this whole lens of creativity and self-expression kind of correlates in many ways to confidence, because oftentimes we're not confident enough to express ourselves in the true way that we should. So I wanted to ask you, how do we become the superpower of our own life story?

I believe that confidence is something that everybody has inside them. is something that everybody has inside them. It is up to each of us to claim our confidence and to truly believe in ourselves and what we, as a person, want to express to the world. And so what do I mean by that? I find people constantly ask for permission to do things instead of asking for forgiveness after they've done it. It's such a fundamental issue with so many people.

Do you think that I could do this? Do you think I should try this? What does it matter if I think you should do it? What does it matter if I think you should try it? Turn that into a statement. I should try this. I should do this. Don't ask other people and hang on their every word

that they're giving you the gift and the keys to life. This is your life. You have to take ownership of it. And if you're not living the life you want, then change it. People think it is not that simple. It is actually that simple. You are the only person who is the architect of what you're doing in your life. And if you're constantly looking around for other people's opinions. Of course, you're not going to be confident because you're just trying to please everyone else. So what are you doing to live in your truest form? And what are you doing to ensure that you're a confident person? I believe that is all within you. It's just going to take some soul searching to figure out what you want and then be true to that in life. Yeah, and I think that's so difficult for many people to do

because it often feels like we're an autopilot in our own lives and we get so used to just going through our days. I like to call it that instead of playing the game of pinball, we let it play us and we get accustomed to all the distractions, everything that's going on. We listen to what other's opinions are. We let them decide our trajectories instead of just taking root of what it is we really want to do and pursuing it pull out. And I think that's what leads to people having regrets or not regrets is really taking that step forward into the abyss, which can be extremely scary, but on the other side of it, so rewarding because that initial step is the hardest one I find, and then each consecutive step after that gets easier and easier along

the way of finally releasing that superpower to the world. Absolutely. And I think the more you allow yourself to be in truly uncomfortable situations, the more you rise and the more confidence you will see after you do something. I mean, even in the smallest way, and I talk about this in the book, it's all about the smallest things that you can do in your own life to test yourself. The next time you feel scared of trying something, try it anyway, and then see what that feels like on the other side of fear, because fear is what stops us in our tracks. The fear of doing something wrong, of saying something wrong, of being looked at in a way that you don't feel like you want to be looked at. That's why we don't try things. I mean, how many people won't write a book because they're scared of putting themselves out there.

I said what I said, the book is written. There's nothing I can do. I can't take it back at this point, right? But at the end of the day, I felt strong enough and confident enough to put it out there. And I'm going to back it up because that is what I've said and that is how I feel. And so I think in life, if you really think about what you can do to take ownership of your life, and not as you said, be the person who's constantly receiving the pinball, but rather be the person who's pressing the buttons, that's when life gets really good. I'm going to bring up something that you wrote in the book that I love. You said, confidence means that you are secure in who you are and what you are doing regardless of what is happening in your life. Why is that so important to remember?

There's so many things and didn't we see the stirring COVID that we cannot control. There's so many things that happened to us over the course of our life. I write about a lot of those in my book about things that have happened to me, even in the past couple of years, that I couldn't control. So what is the only thing you control you, right? Your reactions to things, your ability to be confident in who you are and the actions that you're taking. So think about COVID. You probably could look across the spectrum and see people who rose during the occasion, right? People who really dug in during COVID created something new,

kept things moving, and you also probably saw a lot of people who weren't able to do that. I believe the difference between those two people is that there are people who are confident enough even when everything is unknown and scary and shifting, who can still stay true to what they know and keep moving forward. But if you're the kind of person who's looking around at all the outside forces, then ultimately if the outside forces that you think are so predictable start to your whole world is going to fall apart. So what I would say is again going back to that piece about your ownership of your life and your confidence in your life. Think about what you can do in your own life to control the situation that you're in. But don't worry if things don't go well around you.

I think again, I learned a lot of this on stage as a charity auctioneer. I used to get on stage and hold onto that microphone so tight. I'd be so worried about what the audience was doing. I would be so concerned that we do everything exactly when it was supposed to be doing. And then when it didn't happen, it was devastating to me. I would get off stage. I would cry.

I would be scared getting on stage. And I talk in the book about having this moment I'm going into take an auction. I was very young in my career. I probably had taken a dozen auctions at this point. And I went into take an auction. I was very young in my career. I probably had taken a dozen auctions at this point and I went into a school auction and school auctions typically parents tend to be nice. They drink a lot for sure, but they tend to be nice and they tend to bid. And in this case, I walked into a crowd gymnasium of about 350 people and I walked up to the event coordinator and I

was so excited. I done all my prep work. I had 17 lots, which if you don't know anything about a charity auction, it's a lot of lots. Each of them takes about five minutes to sell. An audience doesn't have an attention span for that just so you know. You do charity auctions just understand that. It's way too long. But at the time I didn't know. And I went to take the auction and I was standing stage right and the crowd just was not being quiet. They were all at the bar empty seats as far as I could see. Nobody wanted to sit down. They did the bell. They did everything. And finally, I said to the woman, do you want me to get on stage and make an announcement to try to quiet the crowd and get them to sit down? She's like, yeah, that would be great. And I said, great, just let me know where

the microphone is. And she was like, the microphone. That was a, well, there are 350 people here. Obviously, there's no microphone. And I mean, I was young. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was in a full adrenaline. The kind of adrenaline you feel when you pass a cop going a hundred miles an hour and a 30 mile an hour zone, you know, like ice in your veins. And they sent a dad to Wolf Whistle the crowd. They did a video. I got up and people started talking. And then by the end, there were three people still seated. No one was bidding. It was one of the most mortifying experiences of my life. I remember going home and just crying.

I cried in my roommate. I got in bed. I was like, I never doing that again. I'm never doing that as long as I live. And interestingly, a couple of weeks later, I got a call about another auction. And I didn't respond for probably a week, and the guy kept following up, and I have a client coming to town,

can you please take this auction? So I finally said, okay, fine, I'll take your auction. And I went back and I got up on the horse again, and it was fine. And interestingly, about a year later, I went back to another auction, and the microphone worked, but only part of the time. It would cut out while I was talking.

So I put it down and I went out and did it without it. So it's happened to me nine times over the course of my career where people just didn't have mics or the mic stopped working. And now I don't think I'm like, don't worry about it. I'll just do it without. It doesn't matter. And I learned that because I went through that and got to the other side of it, right? I didn't not ever get back on that stage again. I didn't refuse to take auctions where there weren't microphones. And so I learned to get uncomfortable and be okay with it.

And as I was saying to you before, during COVID, when I had to do things on a screen in my home, instead of standing in front of 700 people, I got to practice that again. And I would walk into organizations and say to them, listen guys, I want to be honest, something will go wrong while this is happening. I have not a doubt in my mind,

something will go wrong with the technology, the live stream will not work, it doesn't matter. I'll recover, it's fine, just keep moving forward. And when you go in with that attitude to life, like, I'll figure out, I've got this, it makes it so much better in with that attitude to life, like, I'll figure out I've got this. It makes it so much better in everything that you do. Yeah, I just had that happen to me. Earlier this week, I have been trying to get this guest on the podcast for 18 months, finally

lander. Then she joins and she doesn't realize it's a video podcast. So she says, can I have 15 minutes because I have to change, I have to get everything set up. Then she comes back, I'm now wondering does she only have 45 minutes, I'm gonna squeeze this into.

And then we start recording and about five minutes into the interview, the recording software I was using completely dies. The first time this has ever happened to me. So then I get her on again, and we go for another five minutes, and I forget to hit record. So now I'm thinking, here is this prominent doctor, and I'm like, she must think I'm an invasal, but she was so gracious.

We ended up doing the interview and she ended up giving me more time, but it's times like that that you just have to persevere and not let the situation take you over. I was gonna say and also remember that people are human. I mean, who hasn't been on the other side of that problem? I can tell you firsthand, I have been on so many things in the course of my life

where the technology has gone wrong and everyone's sitting there and you're well, I can either be the person who falls apart right now or I can just be the person who smiles and keeps going right and that's what you did ultimately five minute increments got the whole interview. way to jump into chapter three, because as we've been talking about today, you're the host of these biggest events. However, it didn't start out that way. And many of our careers don't start out that way. It's very few people who are ready to start up or do something and it becomes a massive success right out of the gate. Most of us have to crawl our way to the top. And for you, similar to that situation where you were giving that auction and didn't have a microphone, you started out your career having to beg to take auctions and you face countless

rejections, but you would take any auction or you write that you would take any auction that came your way. But I'm sure people see me do this podcast or maybe they see Jay Shetty or they see you on stage or they even see Adele and they think it looks effortless. But I brought up Adele on purpose because I think we all remember that famous moment that she got on stage, started to sing and realized she wasn't doing it to the level that she thought she was and had the vulnerability in front of millions of people to say, I want to start this over again because I'm not honoring the person I'm singing about.

So all of us have these moments where we want it to appear effortless, but it doesn't, because sometimes you reach that point when even in these situations like we've been talking about where you want it to feel effortless, it doesn't, you still get through it because you've done the practice. And what led to your own transition to making it look effortless because it wasn't an easy ride to get to where you are? No, charity auctioneering is really one of the most humbling things you can ever imagine because it's not that you're failing in front of one person, you're

usually failing in front of hundreds of people. So an audience can easily overpower you with their talking and things can just go wrong left, right, and center. I do believe, and I will say this forever, that you can never be good enough. So you always have to practice. People are only at the top of their game because they keep learning. And in my case, I started taking auctions at the very beginning of my career. I was 24 when I passed the class.

I didn't look like any of the other auctioneers. I mean, everybody else was at least 10 years older. They were all male. For the most part, I think there were maybe one or two other females. There wasn't an expectation or a want as much for female auctioneers because they didn't think that we were strong enough to handle the crowd. When people tell you that, then you think, okay, well, I guess I'm not strong enough to handle the crowd. I guess what you learn is it's practice that gives you that ability. So I ended up passing the class and when they passed me they said, you've got something. We don't know what it is, but there's something interesting about you on stage. We'll just give you the auctions that nobody else wants to take. And I was like, hot damn,

here we go. All the auctions that nobody wants to take. And I started taking auctions. I mean, there were nights I was taking two, sometimes three auctions a night. I would just bounce from stage to stage. And later in my career, Chrissy sold the collection of Joan Rivers. And I remember reading, this is an interesting comparison, because I don't think of myself anywhere near Joan Rivers. But I did think it was very interesting, because she said in a quote that they used, that it didn't matter where she was getting on stage.

If there was an opportunity, she was always on stage. And I've thought about that a lot over the course of my career, because I've learned to handle things on stage. If there was an opportunity, she was always on stage. And I've thought about that a lot over the course of my career because I've learned to handle things on stage because I have been on stage so many times. And it becomes effortless because of all the practice. I truly believe for me a charity auction is one of the most easy and natural things for me to do in my life now. But I have probably been on stage, I mean, I've done my Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 hours twice over, if not three times over.

I'm taking, I'm leaving, I'm in California now, I'm going home to be with my children this for two days and then coming back to California to take the auction for the Elton John AIDS Foundation at the Oscars this year. And everybody keeps saying, are you so nervous? And I'm actually not, I love being on stage. I don't get that nervous burst before I get up, but I see that is energy I can bring to the stage. But no, am I nervous about having a microphone and getting on that stage and raising money in front of people. No, because that's what I do all the time, because that's what I've done it for many years. So when you say effortless, and I think you probably would agree having done as many podcasts as have you done,

you've learned, and you continue to learn every time you do something, and you apply that learning over time. So you can never stop practicing because you can never stop getting better, and that's the truth. No, I think there's so many great points in your message there. I recently had Oaksana Masters, who's the most decorated

Paralympic and Winter Sports. She does four sports now, so she does the summer games and the winter games. And I asked her, after all this time, does it get easier to train? And she said, no, it gets harder. It gets so much harder as I get older. You would think it would get easier,

but I just don't recover it the same way, and it's become so much more difficult, and it just takes so much willpower and to get me to where I need to be, and so much pain and aches. And I think you can apply that to anything, because I found, just when I thought I was on the top, something always comes along, and whether it's having to reinvent yourself or having to pivot or do something. I think that's why a lot of companies fail is they reach this point where they get to the pinnacle and then they don't make the necessary changes and before long you have a start up remember starbucks coming under the scene and taking Maxwell House and Folgers out of their own game, but the same happens in professional careers and relationships, whatever you want to call it. So I think your point is a great one. And success doesn't last. It has to be something that you evolve over time. I realized that after my first book came out because to talk about the first book tour was so successful, except for that one event and so forth. I had such a wonderful experience and it really changed my own perception of what my career could be. It gave me this new

Understanding of the broadness of this platform that I created and if I continue to follow the white space in different directions I might find new things to do but a book over year over year Starts to go into the back around like that's great. You read a book four years ago So you realize you read another book. You have to update that book. You have to do a podcast. Like there's so many ways to continue to evolve, but you as a person, especially if you're running

your own business, have to figure out what those white spaces are and continue to follow them and continue to evolve. Otherwise, as you said, you become the person who everybody passes by. So it's really about keeping up with what you see in front of you, looking at that white space, following that white space, being also not afraid to try a lot of different things, because a lot of people are like, oh, this is what I do. This is who I am. I mean, I have like nine different businesses going at all times. I mean, I have books. I have my

podcast. I speak professionally. I have auctions, I mean, it just keeps going and I still have five new ideas that I'm kicking down the road to see if there's any way that I could do those as well in time. So don't ever be afraid to understand that you don't have to be one person or one thing. I think that way of thinking is long gone and it's a lot more fun, honestly. It is and I've got the privilege of interviewing one of my friends, Dan Pink, a number of months ago,

and Dan is New York Times number one best seller time and time again. And he told me, I am only as good as my last book. And every single time I put one out or I do something new, I have to approve myself, which is a great message for anyone to understand. We can't ever underestimate the importance of thinking about the excitement to have those opportunities. I always think about that, even as I was walking back down here as I

told you, I'm speaking at a conference right now, and I was walking down here to sit on this podcast and it's such an honor to be speaking at a conference. It's such an incredible honor to be on this podcast. And these are all things that have been created because of the steps that I've taken to get here. And so this is what you ultimately want out of your career. And so don't don't bypass and shortcut the journey because the journey is what brings you here. And I think truly in my opinion, it's sweeter because it did take all that work to get here. I definitely was backstage at things two and a running two and a half hours late freezing backstage because I didn't

have a seat at the dinner and nobody called to ask them if I could have one. And there are just so many moments over the course of my career that things were later. Things weren't going the way that I wanted them to. And now I'm in a place where I control the narrative and the message, and I enjoy it. And that's a great place to be in your career as well, and feels like a true gift. It definitely does, and to do what you do, you have to know the power of words.

And I loved in the book, how you brought up that as a child, you fell in love with words, and you said that there are words that have stuck with you from the moment you heard them and will stay with you forever. I happen to go to the Naval Academy and for those who've never visited underneath the Naval Academy Chapel is the crypt of Drere Admiral John Paul Jones, very famous in naval history lore, and he has this famous quote, surrender. I have not yet begun to fight. And that's one of the many quotes that, at the Academy, they instilled inside of us.

And I understand your family grew up with a similar phrase, never give up. And why has that phrase or those words motivated you throughout your life and taught you to truly never give up no matter what the odds? Yeah, that was definitely my dad's phrase. I say in the book that in high school, we were, I was in a lacrosse team and the coach was giving us the whole,

like, here we go. Guys, we're going to win. You need this and you need this and you need tenacity. And we're all like, yeah, wait, what does that mean? It's that stick to it. This is that just come back to it. And I remember thinking, oh, yeah, I learned that my dad soccer team when I was little, it's never give up.

And it was one of the cardinal rules of our life. It wasn't about winning the game. It was not about being the best. It was that you just got in there and tried. And I truly believe that has defined my life. I say in the book, I played on three sports teams in middle school, where we never won a game, not even close to winning a game.

I mean, I played on a basketball team. There were five players, and then we would be playing the big public schools that had 100 people on their bench. We would lose 52 to 2. We'd had no offense, we had no defense, we were not good. But man, we thought we were gonna win every time we went out on that court. I mean, we went out there like we were about to win an Olympic goal and we would get crushed.

And there was no mercy at that point. Nobody said don't shoot, don't run at the score. No one cared. So it was crushing, however, we went back to out there a week after week. And I like to say to this day, I am the best loser. I am so competitive But if I lose I'm like whatever it doesn't matter and I learned that from a young age So to me never give up doesn't mean that it has to be the end goal that you win every single time

It's that you go out there and you leave it on the table the floor whatever it is Every single time. It's great way to live life. You can be mediocre at a lot of things That's okay, too. Just don't stop trying because you are scared. It's not you're not going to win. That's not always the ultimate goal. Yeah, and I think the flip side of that is knowing when to pivot. And I recently interviewed famed professional poker player Annie Duke on the behavioral science around knowing when to quit. And she told me that the thing that differentiates elite players in the poker world versus non-alete is that they fold considerably more than players who are not elite do. And she says she feels that things in life happen and often we stick to them too long whether it's a career

relationship, a goal, etc. And there's this whole thing about never giving up, but there's this other science of knowing when we should quit and pivot. Why is it so important to know why not staying with something or altering your course can sometimes be the better approach than trying to stick with something too long? I think that applies in every way, shape and form to both personal and professional lives. You have to understand, as I said before, you're not going to win everything. That's not the way life works for anyone. So at some point, you have to realize it may not work. I used to say this in partnerships, when I was running partnerships for Christie's, there

would be instances where it was like no matter what we did to try to make the partnership work, it wouldn't work. And what I would say to the team is round pegs or whole walk away. And I think that understanding and that not digging a line in the sand and sticking to it and never giving up in the sense that you don't ever stop trying something and you're trying to push something that doesn't work is not going to do you any favors of the course of your life. You can try and try and if something doesn't work, that's okay. And it's okay to walk away and to have the confidence to do it and not be ashamed of it and not be embarrassed by it, but rather to understand that it's all part of a learning process.

Right. If something doesn't work out, you've learned as much from it, not working out as you have from if it does. And that's the truth. There are many things over the course of my career that I can look back on and point at and say, okay, the reason that I ended up here was because those three things that I thought were going to be the success or the win didn't happen. My first book, Martha Stewart wrote this great case study and she said one of my favorite lines in my last book, she wrote, success seldom comes in the form that you think it was.

Well, and I think about all the time, because what you envision to be your life, if I were to talk to my four-year-old self, I would be like, I'm going to be a movie star. Well, that didn't work. So I've had my own success in a completely different arena. And time again, I thought it would go in a different direction than it did. But that's the beauty of life. It can surprise you at thought it would go in a different direction than it did.

But that's the beauty of life. They can surprise you at every turn. So you have to be open to it and ready for it. And I think that's a really important lesson too. What's interesting, you brought up Martha Stewart, because I have a really good friend, Donna Stone, who's a best-selling author herself. But she happened to go on season three of the apprentice, which was the

year that Martha Stewart was the host. And she got into this lineup and everyone besides her was a chef or somewhere or another in the culinary industry. And Donna was an MBA graduate before that, had worked at Deloitte Consulting. I think at the time was a chief marketing officer. She said for such a long time, she felt like an imposter compared to these other people who were there with her. She told me about this one time where the producers went down the line and they asked every person

who was a contestant who is going to be the first person who gets kicked off and every single one of them said Donna. They came to Donna and Donna said, how many of you know what the profitability is of Martha's business? How many of you know the number one selling item that she has? How many of you know the number one area that she's wanting to take her business into and not one of them knew the answer and she goes, that's absolutely the reason I'm going to win. And she ended up winning and then becoming Martha Stewart's right hand person. But I think as many of us ascend our career ladder, no matter how deserving we may be of our

new position, which is why I highlighted Donna because she's incredible. We feel we truly don't deserve it. And I was talking to Dr. Valerie Young, way back, episode 173, who invented the word imposter syndrome. But what are some of the telltale signs I'll listen or could recognize in themselves that they're experiencing it? And how do they use what you call slam to get rid of it? Ambassador syndrome is that feeling when you're sitting in a

room and you're looking around thinking, wait, why am I here? Everyone is probably thinking to themselves, why is she here? Or he, why are they in this room? They don't deserve to be here. And then you go into that negative spiral where all of a sudden you don't open your mouth because you're scared that if you open your mouth you're going to reveal what everybody already knows to be true. I say you should slam it down. And I say this having worked in a company for over two decades and having not only risen through the ranks, having really struggled with imposter syndrome for a long time. But then in addition, looking back in the sort of second half

of my career there and watching other especially young women walk in and not talk in meetings, turn bright red when they start to talk, get completely nervous and flustered and unable to articulate their point. And I know that all goes back to imposter syndrome because you don't feel like you should be there. And therefore, if someone asks you a question and you're not Uber prepared, then you're going to be completely flustered and not be able to get through the sentence.

So I think a lot of impostors syndrome, in my opinion, has something to do with the way that we come to the table. So the first thing I say under slam as an acronym is stop adding words to what someone said. So I use an example of something I often heard when I would go back after I had children, like one child or two children or three children, I can't remember which one it was, but people would say, it would so nice to see you back in the office. It must be nice to be back here and you're not at home all the time. It's nice to have you around again. And I would immediately take that to mean, oh my gosh, they think I'm not doing my job. I'm doing a terrible job. People don't think that women who have children work very hard, they must not be thinking that

I'm working. And it would just go into this spiral. And all of a sudden, I would be, I'm going to have to come in on the weekends. I'm going to have to send late night emails to make sure everybody knows that I'm doing exactly what I did. No. Stop. What did they say and cut it off there? They literally said, it's nice to see you back in the office. Stop. Don't let your imagination and take it from there.

And then I say, L, listen to what they said. And if you are going to create a narrative that goes into a cycle and a spiral, make it a positive outcome. What did they say? Lydia, it's nice to see you back in the office. You have the children at home. That must be tough juggling all of that or something along that line. So what I would say to myself instead of saying into that spiral, I just took you down into I would say, Lydia, what they were saying to you is, you must be one hell of a multitasker,

dealing with all that at home and dealing with all this at work. Good for you. A plus. That's what I mean by listen. Turn that narrative around. Stop the negativity. You don't need it. Go to the positive and boost yourself up. Give yourself that confidence, Pepp talk. In terms of A, accept in life as adults, this one might sting. In terms of A, accept in life as adults, this one might sting. No one gives you gold stars for showing up to work. No one gives you a gold star for doing the laundry in your house. No one gives you a gold star for anything as an adult. Let's be honest.

Outside of a random job that you might have done incredibly well and someone says something. Except that there are no gold stars like you got when you were a child and give them to yourself. If you know that you've done a good job, give yourself that positive self-love. Be happy with yourself for what you've done. I say a lot of times if I go on stage as a charity auctioneer, I know an auction has gone well because I'm confident in my abilities. Just as I know an auction didn't go well because I've had an off-night or the crowd was talking, I don't need anyone to tell me. And I used to say that I would walk off stage,

this still happens to me. If it's super chatty or the evening's been long, someone will say to me, woof, that was a tough crowd. That used to send me into a spiral of self-doubt. I used to be like, oh God, they didn't think I did a good job or blah blah. And now I literally, as they touch my arm to tell me that,

that must have been a tough crowd. Or that was a tough crowd. I'll say on the charity action here, every crowd is a tough crowd. And I just walk straight. Right. It's all the way you approach the inbound and put it into your mind and what you put back out there. And then my last point is make your point and don't back down so many times we can be dissuaded because we think other people have a better opinion. If you believe something and you know it to be true, don't back down. And that's what the M's for. A great example of another person just so the audience can relate to this who experienced Imposter syndrome. And once you hear the story, you're going to think how in the heck with this person, everything that they were in Imp poster is astronaut Kayla Baron. And Kayla's story is she went to the Naval Academy, finished at the top of her class, Marshall Scholar, herself, ends up becoming one of the first women to go on submarines, becomes the aid to the superintendent

of the Naval Academy. Has her degree from Oxford in basically how do you advance nuclear energy in a safe way. And she gets selected to be part of the astronaut program, I think eight out of 18,000, but she shows up and she's looking around and she looks at her classmates and starts thinking, I don't deserve to be here. They are all so much better than me. I'm just a peon when it comes to any of them. And you sit back as a person, listening to this, thinking about what she's done.

And even a person who has the background that she does felt an imposter in that situation. So I think you're slam acronym and how to apply it is great for the listeners to take from this. And I was gonna pivot here to another astronaut. Someone I love to highlight on the show is my long-term mentor, Captain Wendy Lawrence.

And Wendy was the first female to graduate from the Naval Academy to fly in space as an astronaut, but she loves to tell people that you have to give yourself permission to dream your dream, and that starts and ends by taking action. And this is something that you yourself cover in chapter six, and I want to ask you how does action lead to action? Action leading to action is the critical part that so many people are missing in their life and in their business. People think that success comes to people that in business clients will just find them. If you are in a place where you're in a rut, in your business, in your life, action leads to action. And I mean that in the sense that if you have a business and you aren't getting a lot of clients, you sit back and think about what you're doing to get clients. Are you setting aside time to cold call people

to reach out to them? Are you setting aside time to network with people and let them know what you're doing? Every time you take a step, you are pushing your complete and total package forward, you're informing people about what you're doing and making them part of your network, you're looking for new clients by telling people what you're doing. So even if they're not a client, they could potentially refer someone else to you. So don't sit around waiting for things to come to you. You have to make things happen. And that is what I mean by action leads to action. I tell a story in the book about a friend of mine who during COVID and just gone into the cycle about money. She was concerned

about her family's money and not being able to make any money. But at the core, she's a very talented artist and she's sitting on so much inventory and she couldn't see the forest from the trees. And I said, I said, what are you doing to let people know that you're doing? She's gone quiet on social media. And I was like, you just have to let people know that you have plenty of artwork ready to ship and ready to go. And even just having that one minute conversation with her, I guess it was longer than that. It's probably more like 15 minutes.

It sparked something in her. Like you have to be the spark in this entire fire, right? And she just started going crazy. She was doing flash sales. She was doing customized work. to be the spark in this entire fire, right? And she just started going crazy. She was doing flash sales, she was doing customized work. I mean, all of a sudden it created this chain reaction, which is what action leads to action means. You start it, you spark it, and then watch it fly.

Yeah, and the thing that I found is these seemingly minute actions that you take over an extended period of time is what creates your tsunami of greatness. Because after a while they start building on each other until you hit this point where it starts growing exponentially. You can see a plough out in so many different ways and I'm sure it's played out in your career as well. Absolutely. Well, I'm going to jump to a completely different topic. Right now a lot of people are talking about the difficulty of finding balance in their

life and trying to create this work life, personal life, relationship life, kid life, and having a ton of difficulty doing it all. Why do you believe that work life balance is a myth? Because if you think about balance, it's two things perfectly lined up and nobody can ever achieve that. So let's just get rid of that saying. Think about someone on a balance beam. It's just tottering back and forth, just trying to hold it together. Nobody wants to live that life. So what I like to say to people is, think of yourself as just trying to keep those two scales somewhat close to one another without having one slamming to the floor for weeks on end and the other one sky high.

But also give yourself grace in this process. I have three children. It changes over time. When they were very little, it was so physical. I mean, they were all within four years. I was still traveling a ton. I was working my job at work. I had my charity auctioneering at night. It was relentless and non-stop, and it felt like I was on a hamster wheel 24-7. But I loved it. And I thrived on it. And now that they're a little older, my three or six, eight, and ten, it looks a lot different than it did in those early days.

And so what I'd say to people about the work life balance or the lack of work life balance is give yourself race to understand that over the course of the year, over the course of years, and sometimes even over the course of a couple of weeks, you have sprints and plateaus. Just make sure your life is not a sprint 24-7 without any platos and make sure that it's not a plateau all the time without any sprints to get things going. So right now I have a book coming out in two weeks. I have a podcast, I'm speaking, I have auctions at night, I'm in a sprint and I use that phrase to my children so they understand that it doesn't last forever. So I said to them, this year, listen guys, March of 2023 is a full on sprint for your mom. Okay, so I'm gonna be around again.

You have not lost your mother, but right now, for the next three weeks, you are not gonna see a ton of me. And I know that it's gonna be tough, but I promise you come April, this plateau's out, and I will be back here, I will be picking you up from school, I will be doing all those fun things that we do together, but right now I need you guys to give me grace as I go through this sprint. And they

understand that, they get that, it's not forever. And I truly believe we have to look at life like that too. Even I speak to a lot of women about this, when you're in that process of you want to have children, it's a lot. I gunned it for 13 years in my career. By the time I had my first child, I looked around and I said, I don't need to get a promotion this year. I'm okay doing my job and that works too. So give yourself grace in life. Don't make an artificial timeline. Don't create timelines that don't exist. You don't have to be 30 under 30 in the best of whatever. Do it on a timeline for yourself and be happy and content with that. Well, thank you for that. And one of the things that you do throughout the book is you highlight different women and you give some of their advice between the different chapters. And one of the ones that really resonated with me is you highlighted Meena and La Cuella

Flynn. And the reason I brought her up is this show is all about the power of intention. And Meena writes, success is not an accident. It is earned and it is intentional. Use your voice to bring different perspectives to the table. Why is it so important to live your life for you? Because if you're living your life authentically, think about all the other people you can help. You're not distracted by trying to be someone who you're not.

You were walking through life in your purest form, living your truth, and people are attracted to that. They're drawn to that. And I think mean is completely correct. Success is not intentional. I know exactly where I'm headed, and if it doesn't work out exactly the way I thought it was going to work out, then I'll figure out another way to make it happen. But I do truly believe what one of the greatest things about living life and claiming your confidence is that you can give back to others because once you realize what it's like to live a confident life, all you want to do is help people live there. Okay. And then one last thing, Lydia, if there was one thing that you wanted a listener or a reader of the book to take away from it, what would it be? Life doesn't go on forever. So make it the life you want. And if you don't like it, change it today while you're listening to this podcast. Think about the steps you can take to live the life you want. Okay, and if the listener would like to know more about you, what is the best way for them to do that? You can go to my website, which is

LidiaFanette.com, or I'm very active on Instagram at LidiaFanette. You can follow along as I ping across the country, taking auctions and doing speeches. And please pick up, claim your confidence. And if you want to read the book that precedes it, the most powerful woman in the room is you. Because the claim your confidence picks up on the book tour for the most powerful woman in the room is you. So it's a nice, it's a nice continuity. Well, Lydia, thank you so much for giving us the honor

of being here on today's show. And congratulations on this amazing book. And I can't wait to eventually be at one of these charity events. Thank you so much, John, for the opportunity to be here. You're a wonderful interviewer, and I've enjoyed every minute of it. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Lydia Fennett. And I wanted to thank Lydia and Simon and Schuster

for giving us the honor and privilege of having her on today's show. Links to all things Lydia will be in the show notes on passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles

and PassionStruck flips. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one community place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn and you can also find me at John Armiles on both Instagram and Twitter, where I post daily to give you inspiration. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck Podcast interview

that I did with Arthur C. Brooks, who is the William Henry Bloomberg professor of the practice of public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches courses on leadership and happiness. Brooks is the author of 12 books, including the 2022, number one, New York Times bestseller from strength to strength, finding success,

happiness, and deep purpose in the second half of life. Part of the problem is that mother nature lies. Mother nature tells you that if you get the world's idols of money, purpose in the second half of life. Part of the problem is that mother nature lies. Mother nature tells you that if you get the world's idols of money, power, pleasure, and fame, that you're going to be happy. And part of the reason is mother nature wants to fool you into continuing to run on the treadmill. Why? Because mother nature all she cares about is you passing on your genes and surviving. And when you chase those idols, you're more likely to pass on your genes and survive, but you're not going to get happier.

Happiness actually predicts success. Success doesn't predict happiness. You got to get the causality right and take your happiness as seriously as more seriously than anything else. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who could really use the confidence boost, then please share today's episode with them. The greatest compliment that you can give the show is to share it with those that you care or love. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. And until next time, live life, Ash and Strang. you