This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - VI4P - Own Who You’re Not and Embrace Yourself Anyway (Chapter 5)

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

To get your FREE Confidence Building workbook, click here. In today’s episode, we’re covering topics related to pages 9-12 for those of you doing the work to build YOUR confidence!  Every Monday for the next several weeks (as long as it takes to get through Validation Is For Parking: How Women Can Beat The Confidence Con), I’m going to bring a chapter of the book to life!  This week we work our way through Chapter 5 (pages 9-12 of the workbook) and discuss the opportunity of Owning Who You’re Not and Embracing Yourself Anyway. Here’s what you can expect: Recognizing and honoring your purpose (hint: your purpose is never to be all things to all people) How owning what you’re not helps you build internal trust We walk thru a powerful exercise that helps you identify what you’re not so you can begin to let go of who and what isn’t meant for you  I invite you to embrace all of it, so you can embrace all of you Like what you heard? Please rate and review

I am Nicole Kalil, and if you're listening to This is Woman's Work for the first time, what you'll be hearing today is a chapter of my book, Validation is for Parking. Because rather than creating an audio book, I'm releasing a chapter each week, every Monday, in addition to a regular episode on a not-at-all-book-related topic on Wednesdays. And while a book is meant to be read from the first chapter to the last, I believe each of the chapters work as standalone topics and that you can find value, even if you listen to them, out of order. So today, we're going to cover chapter five,

which is a big one. It's about owning who you're not and serves as the next step in the confidence building process from the previous chapter, which was all about knowing who you are and listening to your inner knowing. My definition of confidence is when you know who you are, own who you're not, and choose to embrace all of it. So chapter four covered the first part of that definition, and today we cover the rest of it. For those of you following along in our confidence building workbook companion, we are on page nine and moving our way through page 12 this week.

If you haven't started using the workbook yet, you can download it for free in our show notes. Okay, I kick off this chapter, as I always do, with a quote that says this, when you know yourself, you are empowered. When you accept yourself, you are invincible, by Tina Lifford. Now that you've learned about reconnecting with your inner knowing, you can work on the first step of the definition of confidence we're using in this book, knowing who you are. In my experience in working with women, this step can be challenging, but it isn't the step that tends to trip us up the most. The greatest challenges we face have more to do with steps two and three, owning what you're not and choosing to embrace all of it. of who and what we are not, who we don't want to spend our time and energy on becoming,

and the things in life that simply aren't meant for us. In this chapter, we talk about how to do that and still make the choice to embrace it, to embrace all of you. I find that when I'm coaching women, they tend to turn this part of the confidence building process into a beat up session. When I ask them questions like, what's on your that's not me list, they take it as an opportunity to name all their flaws, shortcomings, and weaknesses. Oddly, I get the sense that this is even easier for them to identify than what their strengths are. They say things like, I'm not smart enough. I'm not

talented enough. I'm not a good enough mother. I'm not engaged enough with my family. I'm not where I wanted to be in terms of my career. I'm too this. I'm not enough that. By the time they're done, they're feeling less than and wondering what's wrong with them. And any momentum we've built from the things I know to be true about me exercise has come to a screeching halt. I want to say right now that that's not what we're going for here. This isn't meant to be an opportunity to beat yourself up. The goal is empowerment, self-awareness, and acceptance.

It's also about being lovingly real and honest with yourself, which is always a trust builder. It's about sussing out the things that you're not here on this planet to do or to be so that you can have a healthy sense of your own desires, obstacles, and boundaries. I think of this process in the same way I think of friendships. As is true for most adult women, I've had many friendships throughout my life, but only a handful of them are lifelong. In some cases, some of my friendships ended with hurt feelings and disappointment. In most cases, I can appreciate those people

who were in my life during a time and in a way in which I needed them. I'm grateful for them them and based on evidence, we were only meant to be in each other's lives for a season. It's from those friendships and those experiences that I began to subconsciously create a list of what I didn't need or want in a lifelong friend, like someone who needs to talk every day or who isn't excited for me when I have something to celebrate, or someone who gossips about me or shares personal information with others, or who doesn't have the courage to have difficult conversations when one of us has messed up. By figuring out what I definitely wasn't looking for, I've been able to narrow

down and refine my vision of what I did want in a lifelong friend. Doing this helped me recognize which friends I want to invest love and energy into and ultimately create healthy relationships with that work for both of us. So think of this next part as an exercise in forming a healthy relationship or friendship with yourself. In this chapter, you'll be setting yourself up to build that trust. Honoring your purpose. You might be thinking, why should I focus on what I'm not rather than telling myself that I can do and be it all?

Well, that's a good question. There is, of course, a ton of value in believing in ourselves and our potential. However, pushing ourselves to do and be everything ends up hurting us because it's unrealistic and unachievable. We only have so much time, talent, and energy to work with. When we're focused on trying to be something we're not,

we rob ourselves of the ability to focus on what really matters. We've got to figure out and prioritize what we really want so we can give those pursuits, desires, and passions proper time and attention. As an example, if Frida Kahlo had spent her entire life trying to be everything, she would have never developed her expert skills as an artist or become a prolific painter. If perfectionism had been her goal, she never would have painted her trademark unibrow. She accepted and painted what was as she saw it. Anyone who's ever achieved their desired level of success has had to make decisions about which pursuits will serve their purpose and which ones will end up being a distraction. And how boring would the

world be if we were all the same? In my mind, very. I didn't come here to be anyone else. I came here to be me, the best damn me I can be. And guess what? I'm the only person who can do that. You too, by the way. When it comes to owning what I'm not, there's plenty I could mention. I know, for example, that I'm not a patient person. Patience is a virtue, they say, and that's certainly true. It's just not a virtue of mine. I'm also not tall or a star athlete. I will never be in the WNBA, and that's something I've accepted easily because basketball was never one of my passions, and I can see that it's not part of my purpose. We all have things that we know we're not, as well as things that are easy for us to accept. Where it gets tricky is when we don't know what we're not, or even more likely, when

those things are not easy for us to accept. As an example, accepting that intelligence may not be your gift is not easy. I know an abundant number of parents that do just about everything they can to ensure that their kids are smart. Why? Because our culture puts a premium on it, and because they themselves probably experienced feeling unintelligent at some point, or at many points during their own educational experiences. I'm quite sure our school system has failed many

people, but I'm also sure we're surrounded every day by people who aren't smart in the traditional academic sense. I know it's painful to consider, but intelligence may not be yours or your child's gift. Because of this, so many people over-rotate, over-compensate, and turn themselves inside out to prove that they are smart. And in the process, they may miss out on developing their unique gifts. For the record, I own that I'm never going to be the smartest. I'm not a Rhodes Scholar. I'm a decent test taker and figured out how to get by in school with good grades on minimal effort, but my IQ and SATs have never had anyone banging down my door. Let me give you a more personal example. I can be polarizing. People either like me or they don't, but likability and charisma have not ever and will never be

my superpowers. I spent years fighting this, thinking it was a major design flaw and trying so hard to be likable. I did my best to be nice, sweet, and bubbly. I attempted to create instant rapport, be endearing, and display oh so much energy, multiple exclamation marks on everything. But it was exhausting and I was painfully bad at it. I had fears that I'd never be successful if everyone didn't like me. And I detest networking because I don't have that initial attraction power that draws people in. I have a friend who has this gift in spades. She is a master at her craft. I am in awe, but being around her has also made it painfully obvious that I don't share those same strengths. Jay likes to joke around that when he meets people who say,

oh, I've met your wife. She's so sweet. He'll automatically know that they've never actually met me or they're confusing me with someone else. I'm just not that uber likable sociable gal who makes an amazing first impression. If you're reading this and feel tempted to say, oh no, I'm sure that's not true, or you're really nice, or don't buy into that, everyone loves you, stop. I can't tell you how often I own something that I'm not and a woman will come along and swoop in and try to make me feel better about it. The truth is, I'm totally good with this.

I've embraced it. I actually like this about myself now because in accepting it, it's allowed me to focus on what I can be really good at and what really matters to me. No, I'm not someone anyone would ever describe as sweet, but I am kind and I take good care of the people I love. I'm never going to show up at my best in a large room of people with a desire to network, but I can build the shit out of one relationship at a time. I'm not bubbly, but I'm focused and a great listener. I can be polarizing, which means I get to find out pretty quickly who my people are

and who I shouldn't waste any more time on. Letting go of trying to be an extrovert helped me to find out how to best manage my energy as an introvert. Knowing, accepting, and embracing what I'm not, even though it was painful for many years, created the freedom I needed to double down and fully trust who I am. I'll offer one more example that's bound to get a reaction. I'm not a great

mom. I won't be winning any mother of the year awards. I've never done anything Pinterest worthy and my lack of patience is a less than desirable trait in this context. Here's the real kicker though. Being the best mom is not even a goal of mine. I don't aspire to it. Don't lay awake at night thinking about it. And I don't waste a lot of energy trying to win mom points with other moms. Yikes. Before somebody develops a hernia, let me say that I love my daughter every second of every minute of every day. I always think about what's best for her.

I provide for her. I'm there for her and I'll protect her with my dying breath from the worst life has to offer if I can. I am an engaged mom and I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I also wasn't sure I wanted to have a child until I did. I'm not the most maternal person you're ever going to meet, and I have never once considered leaving my career to work inside the home. I'm not your baking sugar-free cookies with carob instead of chocolate, creating crafts and playdates, label reading, research gathering mom who reads parenting books and thinks her child can do no wrong or that she's my whole world. Yikes, again. Why didn't my editor talk me out of writing this? Now, if any of those things describe you as a mom, good for you. I'm not saying that any of this is wrong or bad. I'm just saying it's not me.

Early on, I panicked when I realized none of those things came to me naturally and that I didn't enjoy any of them. I tried for a bit to play the part, but as you now know, playing the part has never really worked out all that well for me. I can vividly remember JJ being six days old, which for me meant six days of being tormented by breastfeeding. I've literally never experienced anything that hard. She wouldn't latch, but when she did, she got accosted by breast milk. I was an overproducer, but didn't quite know it yet. She was losing weight, I was in pain, and I dreaded the next time I'd have to attempt to feed her and then ultimately pump. I was told that it should just come naturally if you're relaxed. I was told breastfeeding was the

only way to go if I cared about my kid. Okay, that last part was never said, but always implied. So on this sixth day, I sobbed in my mom's arms from a place so deep I hadn't known it even existed and said from a place of absolute fear, I don't think I was meant to do this. I genuinely thought it was a sign that I wasn't supposed to be a mom, which I could just add to all the other ways I was bound to fail her because I wasn't going to do maternal in the way I felt and had been told I was supposed to. It took a long time, but around 10 months in, coincidentally, when I also stopped breastfeeding, I decided that my child had come through me and that could not

possibly have been an accident. So somehow, some way, what she needed from me was me. I began to think, as I often do, what would I want for her if she was in this situation? And what I would want for JJ, should she choose to have children children would be for her to be her best and to be herself. I'd want her to ignore all the unsolicited advice, trust that she's enough, and give the finger to anybody who had the nerve to judge her parenting or what she would do with her own breasts. So I began to model that. I'm a mom who's long on love and commitment, but short on patience. I demonstrate my love and commitment, but short on patience. I demonstrate my love and commitment, not just with her and with Jay, but in my career and with my family and friends.

She didn't get the best mom, but she did get me. If you don't like or agree with my approach to parenting, that's all good. I'm not here to impress anyone with my mad parenting skills. If your goal is to be a great mom, then pour yourself into it like anyone does when they want to be great at anything. But please know that perfect mom is not an available option to anyone. Great moms make the world and our future better. I'm owning that I'm not one of those moms and embracing that my way is good enough. This makes life less stressful for me, which ironically makes me a better mom.

Owning what you're not can be hard, especially if feelings of fear, shame, and guilt come along with it. But it can also be incredibly freeing and rewarding. Women haven't been taught this skill and we're expected to just stack role upon role and skill upon skill and we're expected to just stack role upon role and skill upon skill and somehow be great at all of it. It's not healthy and it's not achievable. We need to learn the skill of acknowledging what's not for us, accepting it without judgment, and embracing it as part of what makes us great, or at the very least, creates the space we need to focus

on what does make us great. If you have a daughter, niece, or young woman that you care about, I'm going to ask you to consider this. We don't tell JJ that she can be anything she wants. She can't. And I don't want to be there for the heartbreak and disappointment when she figures out that she's been lied to about something as important as that. She'll get over Santa Claus, but this is way bigger. I will encourage her with every fiber

of my being to try new things, chase her dreams, put in effort, energy, and passion into whatever matters to her. But telling young girls that they can be whatever they want is both bullshit and problematic. What they're actually hearing when we say that is that they can be whatever they want is both bullshit and problematic. What they're actually hearing when we say that is that they're supposed to do it all. They're hearing, be amazing at everything you do, and we're setting them up to fall short. We're setting them up to think that there's something wrong with them, and there isn't. It's not a them problem.

It's a society problem. And the fascinating part, JJ seems totally good with finding out that she's not great at something. Her class gives out an award each week, like the persistent award, courageous award, or confidence award. I've asked her a few times if she thought a certain word described her and she's told me, no, I don't think that's a good word for me. Or yes, I am that, but I think so-and-so in my class should get that one. The week they gave out the confident award, I secretly felt a little disappointed when she didn't get it, but that was totally a mom projecting onto their kid kind of thing. When she won the reliable award, she was so proud. And she literally called everyone in her family to tell them.

She was proud of herself. And she told me, I like this one. It fits me. And yes, I cried. How could I not? At the end of the day, I'm never going to be the charismatic person in the room that everyone loves. And I'm never going to write a book on motherhood.

I could feel bad about that, but it would hold me back from all the work I'm doing to connect women to their confidence. I could want everyone to like me, but that would make chasing my passion of eliminating gender expectations impossible. The God I believe in didn't give me the attributes and talents she did if I wasn't meant to embrace and do something with them. So I'm here to make the most of them. Whenever this life is over, I want to stand before God and say that I used every bit of the gifts I was given. I didn't waste any of it. Before we move forward, I want to address something I briefly mentioned earlier, and that's women trying to, quote unquote, save other women from owning what they're not.

I see this all the time. If I mention a mom fail, it's only a matter of time before someone tells me that I'm a great mom or that they have done something worse. If a woman even hints at being bad at something, there will be a string of comments saying they're awesome at it. And a go-to response seems to be to tell women they're beautiful no matter what's going on. I know we think we're being encouraging when we do this, but what we're really doing is reinforcing the idea that confidence is given through external validation and that women should feel good, perfect, beautiful, and awesome all the time.

Please think about that the next time you feel tempted to make someone feel better by giving a generic response. And for the love of God, stop fishing for compliments by publicly bashing yourself. It may feel good temporarily, but it will do major damage to your confidence. By identifying situations in your life where you can look and say, that's not me, you'll build confidence and it will help you make the most of what you have been given to. Owning what we're not builds trust. People who struggle to own what they're not often run into difficulty when they're out of their depth, both at work and in their personal lives. We've all dealt with situations

where we ask someone a question that they weren't qualified or prepared to answer, like a speaker or a sales rep. When they fudge their way through it and give inaccurate or incomplete information, we end up disappointed and we lose trust, right? It's way more desirable to be told, that's not my area of expertise, so let me connect with someone who can get you that answer. Or great question, I'm not sure, let me look into it and get back to you. Confident people don't fudge. When they don't know, they say so. Not being able to acknowledge our limitations when we're out of our depth can have incredibly harmful consequences. Imagine being president of a country and having very little knowledge of foreign policy. Acting like you know it all could result in a war.

You want to consult the people in your cabinet with experience in that area before making a big decision, right? Or imagine being a doctor and treating a patient with symptoms you've never seen before, thinking, I've got this. I can do it all myself. That could end up killing them. When we trust ourselves enough to say, I don't believe my product or service would be the best fit for you, but let me recommend you to somebody who I think could be. We get to make space for people who are the right fit and who will become raving fans, as well as the added benefit of gaining trust with the person we were honest with. We continually get better when we make owning who and what we're not into a habit. This in turn boosts our trust in ourselves and allows us to be more confident moving forward. The benefits of owning what we're not build on themselves over time.

Owning what we're not can also help us stay on solid ground in times of uncertainty. Take the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance. One thing I'm completely certain of is that I'm not an expert on the virus or how it works. When it first appeared, no one was. Frankly, as I'm writing this book, I'm still not sure if anyone is, but we know there wasn't a single person who had all the answers about how the virus would spread, the damage it would do, and how we should handle what was happening in 2020. It was really hard on us because generally speaking, we humans do not do well with uncertainty. In a time when we can Google just about anything and answers are just a couple clicks away, we seem to have lost the ability to sit with the unknown.

We need answers and we need them now. This need became apparent during the pandemic as people with absolutely no rational reason to think they had the answers started acting like they did. We had our opinions, our righteousness, and our arrogance. We were surrounded on social media and in conversations with people who could not, would not own what they're not. This turned people into armchair experts, lunatics, and judgmental assholes. Would it not have been refreshing if the non-infectious disease medical experts in our lives said, there is so much that's unknown at this time, and I'm

hearing conflicting information as we learn more. I'm uncertain of who to trust and it's scary. So I'm going to try my best to do what I believe is right for me and my family. I'm happy to share my reasoning, but I'm not the decider of what's right for everybody. I'm not a policy or a medical expert. So I will consider what those people say. I'd ask that you respect my decisions as I'll respect yours, even if what you do goes against what I believe. I'm sure you have your beliefs and reasons too. I'd have fallen off my chair if somebody had said that to me and then probably listened intently to whatever else they had to say. At the very least, there would have been a lot less ranting, hatred, and foaming at the mouth. Owning what we're not as a global population would have allowed us to keep an open mind and

seek information from those who are most qualified to guide us through. It has been a mess, but speaking for myself, owning that I don't have the answers allowed me to go with the flow a lot more and not waste whatever precious energy I had left on arguments where everybody loses. As adults and parents, Jay and I had to make decisions about how our family should handle the pandemic without letting it drive us crazy. That approach has gotten us through it and maybe even made us better, as difficult as it has been. Though it may seem counterintuitive, the byproduct of building confidence by owning what we're not is an increase in other people's trust in us, which is a bonus

on top of the trust you build with yourself. When you can admit what's not your area of expertise, the people around you will take notice of your integrity. They'll believe the things you tell them and know that they can rely on you to speak the truth when it matters. Understanding that no one has everything figured out is a conclusion we should all come to when we reach adulthood. You better ask your teenagers now, by the way, while they still know everything. We should be skeptical of people who insist they have all the answers, are experts in every subject, or who claim to be happy and successful all the time. People like that are either masking a whole lot of insecurity,

have no self-awareness, or have narcissistic personality disorder. They don't own or communicate the whole story. They won't share anything that will make them look bad and are only aware of what needs fixing in other people. The finger never points inward. When you can't own what you're not, it's like you're giving someone a false picture perfect product pitch and you're doing it with your entire being. No one wants that and it does horrible damage to you. People who buy a product want to hear the pros and cons. They want to know what it can do for them and what it can't. They want to know what to expect. In the same way, people we encounter in life want to know what they can expect of us. But all of that is less important than this.

Knowing the pros and cons, knowing what to expect, knowing what you can count on and what you shouldn't from yourself builds trust. Every attempt at perfection will damage your confidence. Embracing your imperfections will build it. Kind of mind blasting, right? An exercise for owning what you're not. When it comes to owning what we're not, some things are much easier to accept about ourselves than others.

If you're struggling with this in certain areas, you are not alone. I found it's easier to get to the other side of this challenge by asking myself three questions. Is it true? Does it matter? And what do I wanna do with it right now? Let's take a couple of the examples

I've given so far. I'm not tall and I have no trouble accepting the fact that I'm not tall. I have, however, often struggled with the fact that I'm not patient. So taking those two examples, here's how this might work. Step one, ask yourself, is it true? Okay, well, I'm five foot two on a good day, so based in fact, I'm not tall. I might be taller than a few people, but it's pretty easy to accept this as fact. By asking myself whether the statement, I'm not a patient person, is also true, I can consider whether it's a fact, a matter of perception, or just a random thought. I can figure out whether I'm operating from an idea that was only true once or under certain circumstances, or if there is a pattern, theme, or consistency. If it's not consistently true, I let it go.

In this case, not being a patient person is a matter of perception, but it has been consistent enough and I have lots of evidence of it in my life, so it feels like a truth to me. If I can answer that with a yes, then I move on to the next question. If the answer is no, then I let it go. For example, if somebody were to tell me that I'm a flaky person, I'd ask myself, is it true? Yes, I've flaked on some things and some people at some points in my life, but on the whole, I'm somebody you can count on. The answer to is it true in this case would be no. So I'd move on with my life. Step two, ask yourself, does it matter? Does not being tall

matter to me? Well, for a time in my early teenage years where I thought being a model was the key to happiness, it mattered far too much. But outside of those painful months and the challenge of grabbing things off of really tall shelves, it has never impacted my life. Since not being tall doesn't matter, I let it go. Does being impatient matter? Well, it affects my relationships, parenting, my purpose, goals, connections with other people, and my overall happiness. So yeah, it matters. It can impact the quality of my communication, which in turn can harm my professional credibility

and the ability to help those I want to serve. If being impatient didn't matter one way or the other, I'd let it go, but it does. So I move on to the third question. Step three, ask yourself, what do I want to do with it right now? Is it something I want to work on? Do I want to focus on growing or developing that specific skill? Do I want to try to improve myself in that area? Can I leverage someone or something else to support me? Or do I want to delegate the tasks that I don't have patience for to someone else to give myself the space to focus on my strengths?

By sorting through these kinds of considerations, we can come to sensible conclusions about how we want to handle them rather than staying in beat up mode. Instead of letting my impatience be a major character flaw I'm ashamed of, I own it. Owning it allows me to do something productive about it. We can narrow down the areas in our life where we'd like to grow the most. Then we can either do that work or move on from worrying about it. This process has helped me get comfortable with owning the many things that I'm not. I'm not patient, and at this point, that's okay with me.

It's a skill I've worked on, discussed in therapy, and learned to embrace. I'll always need to work on it, but I've also discovered many ways to leverage others and communicate so it doesn't become a major roadblock for me. I've also discovered several strengths associated with it, like quick decision-making, the willingness to take risks, and efficiency. Knowing this allows me to be confident about it, even though it's a clear example

to anyone who's ever been in a relationship with me or worked with me that I'm far from perfect. The conclusions we come to in terms of owning what we're not will always be personal and unique to you. Not being tall might matter greatly to you, and that's okay. The life you want to live will require different strengths than mine. As always, you're the decider here. Just keep in mind that the things that on the surface may feel like they're not working are just as important to confidence building as the things in your life that are.

Those aspects of yourself that feel less than ideal all have their place and they provide balance. As much as it might seem embarrassing or shameful to acknowledge it, most of us figure out our purpose, our mission in life, and our value to others through pain and difficulty. And letting go of what's not meant for you creates time and space to hone in on what is. As is true in so much of life, it helps to deal with things head on. Embracing it all. Once you're able to tackle the steps of knowing who you are and owning what you're not, you get to choose to embrace all of it, all of you.

As we'll talk about in Chapter 9, connecting with our confidence is a choice. You don't have to do it. You can go your entire life feeling insecure, as far too many people do, but that will put you at a disadvantage. It will put up walls between you and everything you want. Choosing to embrace your entire self, even the parts you don't like, is part of advocating for the most confident version of you. This is all about the lens through which we view ourselves.

I don't just accept that I'm not patient. I embrace it because it's an important part of who I am. If I were patient, I'm not sure who I'd be, but I do know that my life and career would be very different. And if I hadn't learned to embrace my impatience, I would have never done the work to develop that skill or leveraged others to help me. My goal in developing myself was not to become a patient person. That's not going to happen for me. My goal in developing myself was not to become a patient person. That's not going to happen for me. My goal was to prevent it from becoming a roadblock in my life and career. But owning it has allowed me to do something about it, which prevented me from becoming an

asshole. And embracing it supported me in finding the good, the opportunity within my so-called flaw. The process of building confidence by working through knowing who you are, owning who you're not, and embracing all of it is an ongoing journey. You won't automatically feel like you're able to do it in every moment. It's a choice you get to continually make based on where you are in life, the information you're currently working with, and the circumstances unfolding around you. You get to reassess things and change your mind when necessary. At the end of the day,

when you're able to connect with your confidence, you'll be working from the fundamental belief that you're going to be okay no matter what. In part one of this book, we explore the topic of confidence through the lens of the female experience. We've talked about what confidence is, what it isn't, and why the definition matters.

We've talked about the confidence gap and its impact on our lives. We've gone through general tips for how we can use our definition of confidence to begin the process of building our own. Next, we're going to zero in on five specific things that derail our confidence and the antidotes we can use to build real, sustainable, bring it on because I have important shit to do, confidence. In a world of experts telling you to be confident, I'm going to share how you actually build it. Okay, friends, that was a longer chapter. So I'm going to be brief in my closing remarks.

Leverage pages 9 through 12 of the workbook, which you can download in show notes, and start to consider who you're not. Pro tip, start with the things that are easier to accept and feel a little bit more obvious and go from there. Confidence is firm and bold trust in self. It's when you know who you are, own who you're not, and choose to embrace all of it. And validation is for parking.