Something You Should Know - Get Things Done Without Feeling Overwhelmed & How To Master Self Confidence

Episode Date: June 12, 2023

We are all pretty clear on the dangers of driving while intoxicated. But there also appears to be some danger in driving while dehydrated. Who knew? This episode begins with some fascinating research that shows a link between dehydration and driver error – and the results will surprise you. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/driving-while-dehydrated-can-be-just-as-dangerous-as-drinkdriving-study-suggests-10187670.html  How do you get a lot of things done without the feeling of being overwhelmed? Part of the problem is understanding why you feel overwhelmed. When you do, it is easy to stop it according to my guest, time management expert Sam Bennett author of the book Start Right Where You Are: How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers, and Recovering Perfectionists (https://amzn.to/2ZKmwDs). Listen as she reveals how to take control of your day and accomplish the important tasks – and how NOT to be one of those people who is always complaining about how busy and overwhelmed they are.  If you don’t have enough confidence in yourself and your abilities, it is hard to succeed. Yet having too much confidence can also get in the way. So how do you get the right amount of confidence and use it to your advantage? Here to discuss that is Don Moore, professor of management at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and author of the book Perfectly Confident (https://amzn.to/3cuzZTr). Have you ever felt really intense loneliness. It can be excruciatingly painful. And that turns out to be a good thing. Listen as I reveal how to use the pain of loneliness to not feel lonely anymore. Source: Dr. Pat Love author of Never Be Lonely Again (https://amzn.to/2TKC3zq) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! Keep American farming going by signing up at https://MoinkBox.com/SYSK  RIGHT NOW and listeners of this show get FREE filet mignon for a year! Now your ideas don’t have to wait. Dell Technologies and Intel are creating technology that loves ideas, expanding your business & evolving your passions. Find out how to bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com/welcometonow ! Discover Credit Cards do something pretty awesome. At the end of your first year, they automatically double all the cash back you’ve earned! See terms and check it out for yourself at https://Discover.com/match Let’s find “us” again by putting our phones down for five.  Five days, five hours, even five minutes. Join U.S. Cellular in the Phones Down For Five challenge! Find out more at https://USCellular.com/findus If you own a small business, you know the value of time. Innovation Refunds does too! They've made it easy to apply for the employee retention credit or ERC by going to https://getrefunds.com to see if your business qualifies in less than 8 minutes! Innovation Refunds has helped small businesses collect over $3 billion in payroll tax refunds! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The search for truth never ends. Introducing June's Journey, a hidden object mobile game with a captivating story. Connect with friends, explore the roaring 20s, and enjoy thrilling activities and challenges while supporting environmental causes. After seven years, the adventure continues with our immersive travels feature. Explore distant cultures and engage in exciting experiences. There's always something new to discover. Are you ready?

Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, you know that driving while intoxicated is bad, but driving while dehydrated? This will surprise you. Then, great ways to get things done without feeling overwhelmed. Stop using the word overwhelmed and stop getting into conversations with people about how overwhelmed and busy you are. Like, we wear busy like it's a badge of honor. And, you know, you don't get bonus points for being

more busy, nor you may notice you get more done. Also, how the pain of loneliness can help you be less lonely and the importance of self-confidence. You can have too much of it, too little of it, and you really can't fake it. You will be strongest. You will be most confident. You will be most persuasive when you have the goods to back it up. It is a brittle confidence that puffs itself up without substance to actually deliver on the promises you're making. All this today on Something You Should Know.

Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful as Eglinton Crosstown LRT train testing is in progress. Please be alert, as trains can pass at any time on the tracks. Remember to follow all traffic signals, be careful along our tracks, and only make left turns where it's safe to do so. Be alert, be aware, and stay safe. Something you should know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. As the weather warms up, it becomes easier to get dehydrated. And it turns out that if you drive while you're dehydrated, that may be just as dangerous as driving while intoxicated. Scientists tested dehydrated drivers and found they made double the number of errors compared to those who were properly hydrated, but roughly the same number as someone who had consumed the legal limit of alcohol. They found even mild dehydration can have a negative impact on mental functions

from reduced concentration and alertness to changes in mood. While we recognize the dangers of drinking alcohol and driving, it may be just as important to stay hydrated while driving. The recommendation is at least 6.8 ounces of water an hour. And that is something you should know. There are two types of people in the world, it seems. Those people who are really busy, yet they get it all done, and they seem to have it all under control.

And then there are people who are really busy, and they seem overwhelmed by it all. They're And then there are people who are really busy and they seem overwhelmed by it all. They're constantly talking about how busy they are and their life is so chaotic. So how do you make sure you're one of those people who has it all under control? Well, here to help is time management expert Sam Bennett. She's author of a book called Start Right Now, Where You Are, how little changes can make a big difference for overwhelmed procrastinators, Bennett. She's author of a book called Start Right Now Where You Are, How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers, and Recovering

Perfectionists. Hey, Sam, welcome. So if we were to take those three groups of people in your title, overwhelmed procrastinators, frustrated overachievers, and recovering perfectionists, and we throw them all in a pot. What percentage of the population do you think we're talking about? Well, from the amount of head nodding and hand raising and smiling I see when I say the title, I'm going to go like 90%. Yeah, that sounds about right, I think.

Yeah. We're all in that, just about in that group somewhere. Yeah, and some of it, you know, has to do with the amount of self-punishment that's involved. I mean, I think a lot of people call themselves procrastinators, when in fact, it just hasn't been the right time yet. You know, you can go a little easier on yourself sometimes. Still, though, there are a lot of people who seem really busy and stressed out by it. So what do you think the problem is? What do you see the problem as?

Well, one of the problems I hear most often is this word overwhelm. And I hear it more and more, more in the last couple of years than I've ever heard it. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm so overwhelmed. And, you know, overwhelm is when everything feels like it has the same level of importance. You know, when everything's just kind of coming at you with the same tone, with the same rush, with the same ping, ping, ping, ping, that's when we feel overwhelmed, when we can't discriminate between what's important and what's not important. So to understand that, in fact, it's a choice. Overwhelm is a choice. It needs to be done now. And I keep

telling myself, yeah, but you can still only do one thing at a time. So even with those things, you're going to need to prioritize them. But that feeling of overwhelm that everything has the same importance sometimes feels very real. It does. It does. It's a very, very convincing illusion. And you're exactly right that you can only do one thing at once. And I would actually urge you to take one step back even from that and make sure that you are taken care of. Make sure that before you try to do anything, you are fed and rested and meditated and cuddled and walked and creatively satisfied. You know, this concept of self-care, you know, shows up a lot in women's magazines and stuff, but really

it's about making sure that you are calm in the center of your life. And when you get that way, then it's much easier to discriminate between what's important and what's not. It's much easier to prioritize. You have a sense of humor. You're flexible. You can listen when other people are talking. You have good ideas, but when you let yourself be constantly in output mode, and you're constantly putting out fires, and you're constantly dealing with everything, and you're stressed out and exhausted and have no sense of humor, well, the rest of us have to deal with you like that, which is exhausting. And you get to the state of diminishing returns.

But if that's how you have dealt with things for a long time, it's wonderful to tell people to take care of themselves, calm down, take a break. But they don't. And instead, what they do is they'll do that when they're done. And that's what they convince themselves is, that's when I'll take a break and take care of myself when I get everything done. So how do you get somebody who doesn't think that way to do what you're talking about? Yeah, partly, that was my issue too. And this belief that like, I'll wait and be happy in the future. I'll wait and rest in the future. I'll wait and be contented in the future. This is a big lie. You know, we think, oh, if I

just get this amount of money in the bank account, or if I just hit this goal weight, or I get this gig. And it's not true. And especially if you're not taking care of yourself, even if you do hit the goal weight or get the gig or get the money, you're not in a very good position to enjoy it. So the power in your life is in this moment right now. So to adjust your mindset in this moment right now, to take a breath in this moment right now, and easy stuff like get your cell phone out of the bedroom. Give yourself back that moment of waking up. You know that minute, like, before your eyes even open and you're not anybody? You know, you're not anybody's mom. You're not anybody's boss.

You're not, you're just you and your mind is sort of wavy from dreams. And, you know, it's a beautiful time. And there's a real lovely feeling and like letting yourself just wake up and roll over and cuddle and doze and like give yourself back the gift of just that minute or two of waking up. There's nothing happening on your phone that cannot wait another couple of minutes while you start your day in a civilized manner. Even though you think there is. Even though you think there is. And it's a trick because, you know, we love, you know, we love to do things for other people and we love to feel

busy and accomplished and like we're checking things off the list. And Simon Sinek writes very eloquently about that, that endorphin hit that we get, you know, when, and that ding, someone needs me, you know, my message app has pinged. But I really urge you to turn that on its head and take care of yourself first, even just in the sense of taking a deep breath, and then move forward on all the projects and all the people who need you. But that staying in bed and enjoying it for a minute

and taking a deep breath are momentary band-aids, but what about a more of a long-term approach to fixing this? Well, that's the funny thing about it, is those little band-aids, those little moment-to-moment, one-degree shifts, create long-term effect. Like, sometimes the question, what do I want, can feel kind of overwhelming. You know, like, what do I want? I don't know. What do you want? What do you want me to want? What can I do for you? Like, that's really, you know, it's hard to ask ourselves sometimes the question, what do I want? But to ask the question, how can I make this moment more me? How can I make this moment right now more me? How can I

make this conversation more me? How can I make this outfit more me, this email, this dinner, this, you know, whatever it is I'm working on? Like, how can I just show up just 1% more? How can I be just 1% more authentic and real and present in this moment right now? And the more, it's a tiny shift, but the more plugged in you are to your own self, your own natural human beingness, and this present moment, the more people will start to respond to you, the different kind of results you'll get. And you've had this experience. Like, you know, you're in line at the grocery store or at the airline counter,

and all of a sudden you have like a really human moment with somebody. You know, you make eye contact or somebody makes a joke and it's like, oh, right. We're just people here in the grocery store. And all of a sudden the whole tone changes. Your whole day can change. Your whole life can change. But not if you're not there for it.

I can imagine though some people saying, well, what the hell does she mean by be more me? You know, I mean, yeah, maybe you say hi to somebody in the grocery store. And again, that's a nice little momentary distraction from your day. But it seems like this is a deeper thing, that to be more me. Well, I don't know what that means. What does that mean?

Well, I think it's going to be different for every person. So for some people, it's going to mean showing how seriously you take things. For some people, it's going to mean being as sarcastic as you are, or being as funny as you are, or being as kind-hearted and complimentary as you are. You know, whatever it is, those things that you do, that person you've always been, you know, you have ways that you are in the world, and people tell you about it all the time. Oh, Mike, you're so insightful. Oh, so-and-so, you ask such good questions. Oh, you're so funny, right? So just lean into those things just a little bit more. You know, who am I? Well, I'm a friendly person. Oh, good. Maybe I can look for a moment. How can I make this email that just one degree

more friendly? You know, or actually I'm kind of a cynic. You know, I love, I think of the dark side all the time. Good. How can I lean into that? How can I make this moment just a little bit more, you know, bring that to light just a little bit more, because we need all of it. And the result is what, and more importantly, how do you know that, how do you know this works? I mean, it sounds good. Is this just a theory? Or how do you know this doing the things you're talking about really has some sort of lasting impact on people? Well, I know it took me from, you know, crying on a tattered couch in Sherman Oaks, California, learning earning less than $20,000 a year to, you know, mid six figures, and I live by the beach,

and I spend all day doing work that I love. So I know it worked for me. And I know it's worked for thousands of clients. It may not, you know, but I don't claim that to have the solution for everybody, but you could at least try it. I mean, we all know how painful it is to not be us, to feel like our authentic self is not welcome, to feel like we're not showing up fully in our lives. We all know the pain of that, right? I used to have that. I had a day job where I felt like I was leaving half of myself at home. And that was really depressing. So try it. If it doesn't work, then stop. But it's just a little bit and just for a minute. So give it a whirl. So for the person who fits the description,

who's overwhelmed, who uses that word a lot, I'm overwhelmed, I'm overwhelmed. Give me a place to start. I mean, you've given me lots of places to start, but give me one easy place that somebody who's identified with what you're talking about could do right now. Stop playing overwhelmed poker. Stop using the word overwhelmed and stop getting into conversations with people about how overwhelmed and busy you are. Like we wear busy like it's a badge of honor. And, you know, you don't get bonus points for being more busy,

nor you may notice you get more done. You know, and this, I hear it all the time, this, oh, I'm so busy. I'm so overwhelmed. I had to be up at this hour. And then I had to go take the kids. And then I had this at work. And then it's like, you're just, you know, at church, we used to call that praying the problem. You know, you're not looking for a solution. You're just looking for sympathy around the problem. Let's, let's talk about it. You know, look at this problem, look at this problem, look at this problem. Instead, take some responsibility for it. If you're, you know, if you're busy because you're doing a lot of things that you'd love to do, then say that. Say that. My guest is time management expert Sam Bennett, and her book

is Start Right Now Where You Are. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet.

Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool. And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today.

Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. So I think a good question right here is, where do you start? How do you put your toe in the water? Because I can understand that some people might say, well, you know, this all sounds good, but I don't know where to begin. I like to put a time limit on things. So I tend to return phone calls, emails, even text messages. I will often wait 24 hours to respond because I don't want to train people to expect that

they can always hear back from me right away. I'm not available all the time. I have office hours. I'm available during office hours. If you contact me outside of office hours, you're not going to hear from me until the next day. I have office hours. I'm available during office hours. If you contact me outside of office hours, you're not going to hear from me until the next day. And that takes discipline. You know, I'm a solopreneur. I'm an author. I'm a writer. I've got, you know, it's really just me here. And I have that feeling just as much as anybody else does of like,

oh, I've got to get back to them right away. No, no, I don't need to contribute to the franticness. They'll still be there tomorrow. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, and I think people who suffer from being so busy being busy look at those people who actually take a day to return an email and wonder, you know, what the hell's wrong with them? I mean, how nice that would be to be able to do that,

but some people just can't go 30 seconds without responding to an email. And yet, wouldn't it be nice if you could actually take that deep breath and say, that can wait? Exactly. Exactly. And to spend just a little bit of time every day on the projects that matter most to you. And again, I know people are going to hear that and go like, oh, that's selfish. That's selfish. I couldn't do that. That's selfish. It's actually the opposite of selfish.

Because when you spend time doing the stuff that really lights you up, and whatever that is, maybe it's a couple of minutes of playing guitar, or maybe it's doing some writing or doodling or running or praying or whatever it is you like to do. When you spend just a little bit of time every day doing that, you're lit up and we can see that. Then we get to see this part of you that's engaged and that loves life and that is in doing fun things where, you know, your whole day isn't just an obligation, but there's joy in it. And then the things that are obligations become more joyful. You bring that joy into those moments as well. You know what I'm hearing here, and it's kind of interesting, is that, you know, people don't realize that that overwhelm and that busy

being busy thing is in many ways self-imposed, but they don't see it that way. That's right. And you've got to take 100% responsibility for the results of your life. It's you. People say, oh, I'll get to it when it's not so crazy. Honey, the crazy is not out there. The crazy is you. You're the one saying yes to all this stuff. You're the one responding to things every day in the way that you do. And, you know, it's an important part of growing up is learning to self-manage and to say, you know, I will keep my cool. I will keep my commitment to what I know is important to me.

There are people, and I think I see myself in this sometimes too, that, you know, by having a crazy day and doing a million things and feeling overwhelmed, when it's over, it feels great. You feel like you've accomplished so much. And if you really de-stressed your life, you wouldn't get that end of the day high that feels so much. And if you really de-stressed your life, you wouldn't get that end of the day high that feels so good. Oh, I wouldn't confuse the deep satisfaction that comes from productivity with adrenaline. Those are two different things. And the adrenaline rush does feel kind of good. And I'm a busy bunny myself. I mean, I wrote and published this book in 11 months. I mean, my first book was called Get It Done.

I mean, I love to get things done. Don't get me wrong. But what I'm suggesting, I'm not suggesting you reduce your productivity at all, but rather be busy without the story of busy. So be busy like a trapeze artist is busy, right? You just go smoothly from one thing to the next thing, like a neurosurgeon is busy, you know, concentrated, clean, with some grace, you know, be busy without being rushed, be busy without being stressed. And then, yeah, you get to the end of the day and you do you have that deep satisfaction and people will people will um be amazed i mean i i just had we just had a team meeting this

morning and one of my team members sam said sam i can't believe how busy you are like i was just looking at your calendar it's crazy and i'm like oh is it like oh i don't i don't feel that busy i feel fine well there it is right there in a nutshell. You just said it. I mean, what we do is we have this backstory going in our heads all the time about how busy we are and how overwhelmed we are. But still, you can only do one thing at a time. You move from A to B to C to D. And you can either do it and act all stressed out, or you can do it and

not act all stressed out, and one is a lot better than the other. And a lot more pleasant for the rest of us. Exactly. Well, that's some great insight. I've been speaking with Sam Bennett. She's a time management expert and author of the book, Start Right Where You Are, How Little Changes Can Make a Big Difference for Overwhelmed Procrastinators, Frustrated Overachievers, and Recovering Perfectionists. And you will find a link to her book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast.

And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue. It's a great conversation.

And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes. Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit

holes, Disney themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Confidence is a tricky thing. In the right amount, confidence is very attractive in other people. But too much confidence can be a problem, and too little of it can be a problem. And it's interesting how you can be quite confident in one situation and with some people, and much less confident in other situations with other people. And something I've always wondered about, are successful people confident because they're successful,

or are they successful because they're confident? Don Moore is a professor of management at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and he is an expert in confidence. He has a new book called Perfectly Confident. Hey Don, welcome to Something You Should Know. Thanks, great to be here. So what is confidence? How do you define it? What does it look like? Confidence is about your belief in your abilities, your prospects for the future, your comparison with others, or your certainty that you're right. And where does it come from? Are people born confident and we become less confident?

Are people born less confident and they earn their confidence? How do we get it? Good question. My research documents the ways in which different situations elicit different sorts of confidence from others. There are some types of confidence where most of us appear overconfident and other circumstances in which you can count on most people to be underconfident. Can you give me some examples of that? We tend to think that we're better than others on easy tasks where most people perform well. Most of us think we're better drivers than others. Most people think that they're better drivers than others. Most people think that they're more honest than others. On the other hand, when I poll my students and ask them to rank themselves relative to the rest of the class, they think that on average, they're below average

jugglers. They think they know less than their classmates about Latin, and they expect to save fewer lives than their classmates. Well, that's interesting. Well, it doesn't surprise me that someone would say they're, if they've never juggled, they're going to say they're worse than the average juggler because they've never juggled. something and you're not so sure about others, there's the temptation to think, well, maybe one of my classmates had a previous career in the circus and I'm going to be worse at juggling than they are. And that points the way to the circumstances under which all of us are prone to underconfidence. The imposter syndrome, when we encounter some challenging task and we're tempted to think, maybe I'm not cut out for this, maybe I'm not good enough. And the truth is that everybody else is suffering exactly the same challenges and exactly the same hits to their self-esteem.

What about just in everyday life? How common is it for people to sit at their desk or wherever they work and sometimes think, what am I doing here? I don't belong here. I'm way out of my league. Is that normal or is that unusual? everybody has had those feelings, and we're most prone to have them when we experience some private challenge and are tempted to think, oh, this is so hard. Surely it's not so hard for other people. One example that most of us are painfully familiar with is writing. Writing well is hard. I believe it was the writer Eudora Welty who said, writing's easy. We just sit and stare at a blank piece of paper until droplets of blood appear on your forehead. These days, you sit and stare at a blank screen until droplets of blood appear on your forehead. Writing well is difficult for everybody. And when you're suffering its challenges, it's easy for you to think, oh man, I'm so bad at this, not realizing that it's hard for everyone. I've always found it

interesting how the same person can be very confident in one situation and not in another. You're really confident at work and on your job. You're top of your game. And then you come home and at home, your kids are a mystery and you don't know what you're doing. Confidence is really domain specific. And whether your beliefs are accurate or whether they lead you to be overconfident or underconfident really depends on what information you have at your disposal and the specific details of the task or domain or what sort of feedback you've gotten recently. Obviously, if things have just gone wrong at home and your kids have misbehaved or responded in some way that made you unhappy,

it's easy for you to think of all the ways in which that part of your life is going wrong and lose confidence in yourself. But it does seem to bleed over a little bit. Like if you're feeling unconfident about something, it kind of has a dampening effect, I think, on everything to some extent, don't you think? It can. Yep. Yep.

Those feelings bleed over and often in completely misleading and uninformative ways, right? So we'll feel, we'll mess up on something in particular, a writing assignment, we forget an appointment, and there's a temptation to overgeneralize and think, oh, why am I so incompetent? Why am I so forgetful? Well, the truth is you're remembering lots of other things and overgeneralizing from that one instance is a mistake. How big a role is confidence or lack of it or too much of it? how much does it actually help or hurt you perform? That is a great question and a topic that I've thought a lot about because there's so much advice out there about getting confident, staying confident, figuring out ways to boost your confidence as if confidence were the ultimate cause that led to your success. And I think people are prone to confuse correlation with causation. We observe all

around us confident people succeeding, confident athletes more likely to win, confident politicians more likely to get elected, confident business people more likely to succeed. And it's easy to neglect the important abilities that lead to both confidence and success. We observe the confidence and think, oh, I want that sort of confidence. The truth is, fooling yourself into being more confident doesn't necessarily translate to success and can actually undermine your success if that feeling of confidence leads you to be less motivated to invest in the effort practice and hard work that actually increases your abilities to perform well so when i see that you know know, a confident, successful businessman, is he successful because he's so confident or is he confident because he's so successful?

The evidence that I know is more consistent with the latter. That is that success leads you to feel better about yourself and display more confidence. Now, of course, there have to be circumstances in which the causal direction goes the other way. Feeling capable leads you to enter the competition. And as Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Sometimes you just have to have the courage to enter the competition to be eligible to win. But that by itself isn't enough. And there are plenty of circumstances in which being overconfident can get us into trouble, entering competitions that we can't win, or setting ourselves up to look like

idiots when we are so assured of our success that we fail to prepare and therefore increase the chance of failure. In relationships, professional or personal relationships, people who have that confidence are attractive. And I think in part they're attractive because they seem to know what they're doing. They seem comfortable in their own skin, in the situation. They seem like they've got it handled. And there's something not only appealing about those people, but there's something appealing about that quality and wanting to have it. Beware of your attraction to people who are alluring at the beginning.

Their confidence is so attractive. After 10 years of marriage with someone who is often in error but never in doubt, their confidence will drive you crazy. Yeah, but if you don't see that confidence in people, you may pass them over. You may never get a chance to see how their confidence drives you crazy, because if you're not attracted to them in the first place because they have no confidence, it does seem that confidence helps in romance, in business, it helps in everything to at least get your foot in the door. That is true. It is the confident pitch that attracts investors, that can attract employees, that can attract customers.

And as the person making that pitch, you will be strongest. You will be most confident. You will be most persuasive when you have the goods to back it up. It is a brittle confidence that puffs itself up without substance or product to actually deliver on the promises you're making. There is this idea, though, that there are a lot of very competent people who could do better if only they had the confidence, if only they could let the world see how great they are. But, you know, it's like the quintessential nerd who's brilliant, but doesn't really have the social skills and the confidence to go out and

be successful with their brillianceiance because they lack that confidence. Amen. Yeah. And what that lesson it's really hard to get perfectly calibrated, but it's a challenge worth striving for for all of us. And you do that by doing what? Questioning your assumptions, listening to others, asking yourself why you might be wrong, both in your overestimate and in your underestimate of how good you are. Being willing to be self-critical and thoughtful. Asking what others who disagree with you know that you don't know. These are all useful tools for helping you get closer to the truth and getting accurate information. Is there value though? How often have people been told, you know, we're going into this meeting, act confident, act, be confident.

And if you're not feeling it, is there any value in trying to act it? Fooling yourself and others into being more confident when you lack the substance to back it up comes with real risks. On the other hand, bucking up your confidence so that you can outwardly portray the substance, the accuracy, the strengths that you truly possess, that is wisdom. And calibrating that right means getting closer to perfect confidence, which, as I said, is always a challenge, but always worth striving for. But isn't the lack of confidence not only not having the goods to back it up, it's also, you might have the goods to back it up,

you just don't have that self-worth or that belief in yourself as a person. You may have all the evidence to make your case. You may have invented the next best mousetrap, whatever it is. This is a personal problem. This is a personal issue that has nothing to do with how good you are. Your question makes me think of a story that the psychologist William James tells in an essay that he wrote, in which he imagines himself on an alpine journey, stuck at a spot where he's got the confidence in himself to know that he'll make it. He jumps, he makes it across and lives to tell the tale. In the other scenario, he imagines that he lacks confidence and apprehensive, fearful.

He attempts the jump, but fails it and falls into the crevasse. He advises, in such a situation, I would be a fool not to believe in myself. Yes, there are some circumstances in which your faith in yourself will help you jump a little bit farther. If the fearful apprehensive William James could only jump a five-foot crevasse, and the bold, confident James could make it across a six-foot crevasse, and the crevasse is actually six feet wide, then he should believe in himself and he should go for it. But it does not follow from that argument that you should always believe in yourself. If the crevasse is 20 feet wide, no amount of self-confidence will help him make it across. And deluding himself into the belief that he could make it, while admirable, if it leads him to jump to his death, still qualifies as a mistake.

Okay. Well, that's fair. I get that. And I would imagine that the same is true on both sides of that, that confidence is a delicate balance between not being underconfident and not being overconfident. Exactly. And finding that balance requires figuring out how good you are and what your potential actually is. Wait a minute, I want to stop you there. I want to stop you there because you said that before too. Do you think I'm going to be that good at figuring out how good I am that it really needs to come from someone else's opinion because I'm too close to myself to actually objectively determine how good I am at anything.

Yeah, there are lots of biases that interfere with our ability to evaluate ourselves. We want to feel good about ourselves. We prefer to attend to affirming messages and praise. And so it takes real courage to actively seek out honest information, truthful feedback, and advisors willing to criticize us for our weaknesses and point out ways that we could get better. If you do that too much, though, I always think that, you know, if you're always looking for people to tell you what you could do better, it starts to wear on you that, gosh, I'm really not very good because all these people keep telling me what I did wrong and how to fix it. I do worry that the advice I'm giving could be taken as a recommendation to lower your sights or to aspire to less. And that's not what I intend at all. That would be a mistake if I make you underconfident. The truth is, all of us have vast untapped potential. And being able to take advantage of that potential and the real magnificent opportunities before us require appreciating what we're capable of.

So, yes, grabbing opportunities with both hands, believing in yourself when you can succeed, imagining a better world that's possible, that is part and parcel of being well calibrated in your confidence. Is it fair to say, based on what you've seen, that people who are more willing to try, more willing to allow themselves to make a fool of themselves, to give it a shot, try new things, tend to be more confident than people who don't? Yeah, and that causal arrow goes both ways, right? So people who start out with a little bit more faith in their ability in some domain, they're just more likely to give it a try. But it's also the case that people more willing to give it a try often figure out that the things that they had been afraid of, fear of failure, fear of embarrassing themselves, eh, that's not such a big deal. And the potential upside of trying some new activity and finding out that you love it, that's huge.

I think everybody's probably done that, and it's a real rush. It's a real great feeling to realize, hey, I've got some talent here. This is pretty cool. Is being underconfident equally bad as being overconfident? Or if you're going to be one, is it better to be a little overconfident than a little underconfident? Or it's just too situational to say? Yeah, it really depends on the situation. Overconfidence will lead you to commit errors of commission, where you do something that you subsequently regret. Underconfidence is more likely to result in errors of omission, where you fail to take action

that you subsequently wish you would have. It's easy to think of leaders who were overconfident and led their organizations or their countries into situations that wound up being disastrous. But it's also the case that near the ends of their lives, the things that people regret most is not errors of commission, where they did something that they were subsequently embarrassed about, but errors of omission, the things that they wish they'd tried, the jobs or risks that they'd wish they'd taken that they then subsequently regret having missed out on. Well, I've heard that.

Yeah, that that's, you're better, you're better off giving it a shot because, you know, and plus nobody's ever going to remember forever that you tried something and failed. And I often look at people who try and fail and think, good for them. I mean, at least they gave it a shot. And I don't think ill of them. And so why do we think people will think ill of us if we do the same thing? Yeah, yeah. There's that distinct asymmetry in how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive others and reflecting on that, appreciating how others see you, can help you get better insight into yourself.

Well, confidence is one of those things I think people think about a lot. You know, do I have enough? Do I have too much? I wish I had more. And it's good to hear what the research says about it. Don Moore has been my guest. He is a professor of management at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. And his book is called Perfectly Confident. You'll find a link to that book at Amazon in the show notes.

Thank you, Don. Pleasure talking to you. And finally today on Something You Should Know, the feeling of loneliness. I don't know anyone who hasn't had at some point in their life that feeling of intense loneliness. And it's been described as feeling almost painful, physically painful when you feel that lonely. And it turns out that there's a reason for that. Loneliness is a motivator. According to Dr. Pat Love, author of the book Never Be Lonely Again, human survival has always depended on people working, living, and being together in groups.

Loneliness exists to motivate people to connect with other people in order to survive. This is the difference between depression and loneliness. Depression is a state where loneliness is a motivator. And the magic cure for loneliness, according to Pat Love, is to simply show up for something that means something to someone else. It works every time. Interestingly, internet relationships do very little to help battle loneliness. In fact, there is some research that shows that cyber relationships actually make lonely people feel even more lonely.

And that is something you should know. If you enjoyed this podcast, you got something out of it, I imagine someone you know would enjoy it as well. So please share this podcast, tell your friends about it, and ask them to listen. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager,

but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.

Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. and news show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lightning, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. During her journey, Isla meets new friends, including King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and learns valuable life lessons with every quest, sword fight, and dragon ride. Positive and uplifting stories remind us all about the importance of kindness, friendship, honesty, and positivity. Join me and an all-star cast of actors, including Liam Neeson, Emily Blunt, Kristen Bell, Chris

Hemsworth, among many others, in welcoming the Search for the Silver Lining podcast to the Go Kid Go network by listening today. Look for the Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.