Ep. 4 Confidence is Currency

Anisa Johnson  00:00

You stopped doing those small things, you stopped making those confidence deposits. So it's not really like, the bank account goes from a million to zero in, in, in two seconds it, it happens over time because you let one moment of a lapse in confidence mean that you're no longer worthy of all the confidence you've built up.

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Jordan Johnson  00:27

You're listening to Live Alive podcast, a weekly dose of motivation right in your back pocket. I'm Jordan Johnson,

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Anisa Johnson  00:34

and I'm an ISA Johnson,

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Both  00:36

we're your hosts. 

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Jordan Johnson  00:38

Every week, we share thought provoking conversations created to inspire you to bring the best version of you into everything you do. Think of us as the guide as you journey towards realizing your vision of successful and fulfilling life. Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, building a business, or dreaming of being a stay at home parent, we are here to help you cultivate passion, purpose and motivation in your everyday life. All right, moving into what is this episode four? We're gonna talk a little bit today about confidence. The big C word particularly confidence, is currency. Confidence is currency. Oh, yeah, there it is. So I mean, I don't know. If we will do an episode on on goals, we might, we might, I'm not saying we won't, that may come. But you know, typically, around this time of the year, going into the end of the year, going towards a new year, everyone's setting goals. Everyone's saying like, Oh, I'm gonna do this. So I want to do x, y, z 123. And I'm here to just say that, that that's a challenge without confidence. That's a challenge without confidence in, you know, really anything that we're trying to do, we've got to have confidence. And we've got to have confidence in ourselves, particularly, particularly. And we're going to get into a little bit more about what that means, as a currency and viewing it that way. But as we start to set these directional pathways forward for ourselves on what we want to achieve, we're going to need to make sure your confidence is a key part of that. So we're gonna get right into it. Talking about confidence is currency today. And if you're thinking about that big C, that confidence. You may be wondering like, oh, when's last time I was last time I saw that C word, or I see it all the time. But one of the huge miss that I think is out there is that you're born this way, like you're born with confidence, or he or she, they're just like that. Yeah, they just glide when they walk. Now, let me be clear and honest. I think there are some people out there that just they do glide in a way, where they've got a unique charisma. But charisma is another conversation. In terms of confidence, though, we feel like that it can be created. 

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Anisa Johnson  03:25

Absolutely. 

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Jordan Johnson  03:27

So that's where we're gonna kind of start to take the conversation today. And Anisa, I kind of want to pitch that to you from a engaging question. I'm literally throwing the ball across the table here, when it comes to confidence. And you know what that what that means how you created from from that perspective? Let's talk about that. Let's kind of dive in and break that down a little bit.

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Anisa Johnson  03:51

Absolutely. I love this topic. So I'm so excited. But to me, I think building up your confidence. What I know about confidence is that it is built up by keeping promises to yourself. Because the promises that you keep yourself provide evidence to your brain about what it is that you think about yourself. So, you know, you talked about goals earlier. And one of the things about reaching goals is you have to have habits. And so one of the things that I've noticed about myself is that my confidence grows and develops as I keep my habits. As I keep promises to myself as I do the things that I said that I'm going to do. I said that I was going to wake up and go to 5:30am Pilates class, and I did that I didn't hear the alarm and think about last night and how I maybe didn't get as much because I want it, I just get up and keep the promise to myself. And the more and more you do that, the more and more that you consistently keep those small promises that when you get up, when you don't snooze, what you eat for breakfast, if you're, you know, not doing takeout or whatever your disciplines are, the more and more you keep those promises to yourself, it builds up your confidence, it just does. Because you know that you have integrity, and you know that when you say you're going to do something big or small, you're gonna do it.

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Jordan Johnson  05:36

Yeah, man, I heard a lot of really fruitful things in there. I think one of the big nuggets, you talked about discipline and keeping promises to yourself. Yeah, maybe expand a little bit on the on the discipline aspect of that. And in its relation to, to confidence?

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Anisa Johnson  05:59

Hmm. That's a good question. So, I mean, are you asking something specific?

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Jordan Johnson  06:08

I'm not okay.

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Anisa Johnson  06:10

Is there a right answer?

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Jordan Johnson  06:12

Let me pull out my grading rubric!

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Anisa Johnson  06:17

Um, when it comes to discipline, and like how that plays into competence. I mean, it really is just about doing what you said you're gonna do. And like that builds confidence in yourself. It just, it just does it. I don't know what I don't know any other way to say that

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Jordan Johnson  06:41

now love it. In even if even if that was a compounded way of saying, and pushing forth on that point, I love it like that building confidence. And that action, we're build with confidence, I think means a lot for all of us. We talked about creating it, building it. The point being is, you're not stepping out of the womb, and you and I'm the most confident baby has ever graced this earth.

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Anisa Johnson  07:09

Interesting, because I mean, you might be right, like, actually, kids are very confident. Like we were all probably pretty confident kids that there was something that happened along the way, a story that we started telling ourselves a story, somebody else started telling ourselves that we started to believe and when I go back and talk about like that evidence thing, like your brain looks for evidence for the stories that it hears. So if you were told by somebody that you that you are just a certain way, or you tell yourself that you are just a certain way, your brain immediately will look for evidence to define whether or not that is true. And sometimes it makes correlations and connections that just really aren't logical, but it's like, oh, well see, that person said, I'm always a procrastinator, and then I'm lazy. And see, here I am, you know, doing my homework at the last minute. Again, I guess I'm just a procrastinator. 

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Jordan Johnson  08:01

Wow. 

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Anisa Johnson  08:02

So if that's the story that I'm telling myself for, you know, all these years of my life, then when it's time to get stuff done, I immediately tell myself the story of "Well, I'm just a procrastinator, I'm just gonna wait on whatever it is that my goal is..." when in actuality, like as soon as you start telling your brain a different story, and then create the evidence that it is true. So as soon as I start telling myself, I wake up at 5:30am, and I go to Pilates, because that's just the person that I am now. And then I do it. My brain is like, yeah, no, we just wake up at 530 That's what time we wake up, and we go to Pilates. Hmm, that's what we do. We eat shakes for breakfast every day. That's what we do. We meal prep on Sunday. That's what we do. And all of that, like ladders up into the confidence that I built for myself in so many other areas. 

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Jordan Johnson  08:57

So it's almost like, are we all trying to gravitate in this is opening a question. I think we all potentially trying to gravitate back to that truth of ourselves where we don't have these lines of evidence, right? Yeah. I mean even if you think a little bit about that aspect of like, you know me and maybe because you challenged it and I love that like you know our kids may be some of the most confident individuals that walk this face of the earth. You know, if you asked a kid like a kid who's faster you are Usain Bolt, the kid will probably say themselves like I'm I'm Flash, like I'm Superman, whatever their whatever their child like brains, conceived as being the fastest new creature on the face of the Earth. Only because they don't have that tainted evidence of, as you say stories that they'd be telling themselves that proves otherwise but I think it gives us opportunity though. Opportunity To insert activities to to create evidence for the positive.

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Anisa Johnson  10:06

For sure. I mean, I think that's yeah, yeah. You said it.

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Jordan Johnson  10:10

so I want to go, I want to go to we want to go to the, the currency, the currency aspect of this of this a little bit too, right? You know, I think you'll wind up with this rich bank of confidence, this richest, you know, just rolling in confidence as a child. And sooner or later, when we have these stories from the world from society, push towards us, telling us or seeing maybe what isn't possible, or finding ourselves in these confined restrictions of possibilities. The the credits get withdrawn, there's debits from the bank, that that holds our our confidence. But as we grow, and we reach our adulthood, for example, we have all this opportunity to and I love the way you said, keeping these promises, keeping these promises to ourselves. And what that does is add credits to this bank of confidence.

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Anisa Johnson  11:17

Yeah. And you talked about like, debits of like, you know, things like things coming out, which I think is interesting. Are you talking about things being taken out? Or are you talking about spending it?

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Jordan Johnson  11:33

Oh, that's a good question. What I think about that, it's, it's amazing, right? This is the one magical piece of confidence. I mean, excuse me, this is one magical, magical piece of currency that I think that is out there in the world, that we can apply to situations. And it actually compounds. Okay, meaning they like every time I'll slap my confidence card on the table, and I do what I said I was going to do, or I step into something without fear and and happens. The  card actually increases the level of confidence within me, the more I " use" it grows it compounds.

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Anisa Johnson  12:23

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. Because every time you lay down that card, it's almost like you're, you're pushing yourself. Like, it's usually if you lay down the confidence card, like there's something and I think we might touch on this later. But there's something that you are really trying to get someone to buy into whether it's yourself or somebody else. Like when you put your confidence out there, like it's a signal to yourself to follow the lead of confidence. It's also a signal to other people, if you're a leader, for those people to follow your confidence as well. And so like when you when you put it down, when you when you lay it down, you say like I'm confident, and you behave that way. And you move forward with confidence. It's like, a bit of a gamble. Yeah. Right. Because you could fall flat on your face. And we'll talk about that. Um, but if you don't fall flat on your face, it's like, ching ching ching.

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Jordan Johnson  13:22

Yeah. You don't? Yeah. Yeah.

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Anisa Johnson  13:27

But that's another thing. That's another episode.

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Jordan Johnson  13:31

Well, and I think that's part of the thing of which we will eventually expand upon. But anytime you take whatever amount of confidence that you have, and, you know, this kind of goes into like, where it applies where can I spend this? everywhere! You know, it's it's the, it's the crazy thing that like, you know, the confidence is so our confidence is so relevant to be spent in every channel and Avenue, and corner of our lives, the way that we are relationally the way we are as employees as workers, as friends, as siblings, as sons and daughters like to to step into those scenarios with belief that you have what it takes, and you can get out of it, which you would imagine, to be a good result is huge, for sure. That's huge.

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Anisa Johnson  14:34

For sure, it definitely is. And I think that one of the things on that topic, it's like confidence, for lack of better term it sells. And what I mean by that is, people who don't have confidence, are looking for someone to follow. Hmm. So if you can be the person In the room, who's confident. Last episode, I talked about interviewing for a promotion. And like, I literally went through like this whole, like, stories, I was telling myself through this whole exercise, and right before I, you know, join the meeting room on on the interview, I, I started saying some affirmations, I started saying, you know, I'm a child of God, you know, if, if, and the thing about like, my affirmations, I'm just like, if I can't find something that I believe about myself, I can find something that I believe about God, like, I know that God is already victorious. So like, go ahead, go in that meeting room before me God. And if I'm supposed to win this battle, then go ahead and do that. And so I think that, like, wherever you draw your confidence from, like it, it's wherever you draw it from, it's going to be contagious. And so bring it all back home in that in that interview, "room", quote. It was very evident that for the role that I was interviewing for, this person needed a ton of confidence. And they were looking for someone who had confidence because the team doesn't have confidence. Yeah, they have no comp, the team doesn't have confidence. And so when you look at that, then it's like, okay, well, if I walk in the room, and I have confidence, and I'm telling you like, I'm, I'm your girl, I'm the woman for this job, you're gonna believe me? Like, you're going to believe me confidence cells, and it's contagious. And you want me for the job, Because you know that I believe that I can do it. I'm not like, oh, maybe I can do it.

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Jordan Johnson  16:33

How could you not? How could you not, and that applies so many places. It's like, I'm the man, I'm the woman for this for this job. I'm the man I'm the woman for this relationship. I'm the man I'm the woman for this parenthood, I'm the man I'm the woman for whatever it is for this business opportunity, etc. How could you not buy into that is it is it is very contagious, but you didn't make me think about one point in particular, that's very interesting. It's It's like going into those scenarios, whatever they may be using the the attempt for employment, the interview aspect as an example. I don't think you have to have your confidence come from the the level of specificity that you have to have said, like, I've done every single one of these things on this job requirement list. Right? Like your confidence is coming from the fact that you've done anything and kept that promise to yourself,

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Anisa Johnson  17:38

right. And that's, that's the, that's the importance of keeping those promises to yourself. Like if you can do the small, difficult, mundane things repetitively, and keep those promises to yourself, you can do so many things, like you can do so many things. So many people do not keep habits. Like if you can keep a habit, you can do so many things.

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Jordan Johnson  18:00

That sounds a lot like process. If you haven't listened to The Process, Episode, shameless plug, I would encourage you to go and give a listen to that as well, I think very relevant to this 

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Anisa Johnson  18:12

Defintely very relevant. I mean, it's all it's all connected. And so when when we start to talk about confidence, and like how you use it, you first it begins with yourself, it begins with keeping promises to yourself, whatever those may be big or small, and even small ones, small, small, tiny promises that you keep to yourself, can go a very long way. But that helps build confidence in yourself. And then every single time you're like, you tell yourself, you're going to do something, you have evidence that you do what you say you're going to do. And so that's where the confidence comes from. And then you have buy in on yourself. And if you're bought in on yourself, if you are bought in on what you have to offer, whether it be employment, whether it be entrepreneurship, whether it be parenthood, whether it be you know, relationally, like whatever it is, if you are bought in on what you have to offer, you can get other people to buy in too. but you cannot get other people to buy into if you are not confident.

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Jordan Johnson  19:22

I'm pulling my chair back up to the table. I was blown away from from that aspect. Yes. That's, that's awesome. I'm going to I'm going to put that in my personal notes, just just so everyone knows that down to write that

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Anisa Johnson  19:36

write that tweet that right.

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Jordan Johnson  19:39

We think about confidence and confidence is a currency. You know, it also begs the question to think about, you know, what happens if that bank account runs out, or if it breaks Like, Oh man, I was confident going into this scenario XYZ happened in I don't have it anymore, or I've like kind of lost my way. And maybe a better way to say it I've lost lost my way. It's an interesting thing to think about, though, because I mean, I've certainly been there. And I think it happens. But the really cool part about confidence is it in it being so related to a habit, because you have created that confidence through these commitments through these actions that become habits. Since confidence is derived from there, it makes the return feasible. Because we're rhythm creatures, by nature. And I found that and this may be just just for me, but it is it is a way or a approach to this, like I've found when those moments where I'm just questioning myself, right of like, Man, I'm about to step into this conversation or this scenario. And I just, I just don't, I just don't feel confident. I would encourage people in those moments to think about the things that you have done. When you have felt confident those actions, you've taken those small things, you said, it didn't have to be huge. It could be the small thing that you've worn, the specific affirmation, you've told yourself, we go back to those things when you have these opportunities, or you have these challenges better said, we have these challenges or lapses, where it's like, dang, man, my confidence broke. And I don't know what to do in this situation.

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Anisa Johnson  21:49

Yeah, well, it's interesting to think about, like, what breaks your confidence? and then typically is like, our perception of what breaks our confidence is like, probably not the reality. So like, you might not be exactly where you want to be, or like maybe certain situation or circumstance didn't go a way that you wanted it to go. And so you're attributing that to like your confidence, and maybe even your worth, in some cases, if you failed in some area, right. And so, let's say I have this, I have a notebook, I have several notebooks, but have a notebook. And I, as I remember, but at some at some point, during this past year, or maybe it was last year, I started writing down every accomplishment I've ever had, ever, every accomplishment I've ever had,

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Jordan Johnson  22:40

Where? I need to find that list

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Anisa Johnson  22:43

Why? it's mine. It sounds interesting. Anyway, every accomplishment that I've ever that I've ever had ever, ever done, whether it's like related to AAU basketball, or, you know, I ran track, like, it's literally from like, third grade stuff 'Til now. Wow. And the reason why I say this, the reason why I bring this up is because it's a bit of a brag book, right? Like keeping a bit of a brag book, and not just in relation to like your job, or I know sometimes people keep like brag files, lipstick, good stuff you've done on the job. But like that aside, like let's take a broader, I have stuff written down from the third grade, about good things that I've done, like positive accomplishments that I've had. And when my confidence breaks, when I'm having thoughts of doubt, when I'm questioning my worth, I go back to my brag book, I go back to look at of all of the years of my life, what have I accomplished, because I think sometimes we over we magnify this one instance that like, really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things like you didn't hit a deadline at work, you maybe lost the company, some money, like all things that should have gravity behind them, but they don't mean anything about you as a person. And I think a lot of times we take moments where we we have failures, and we make them mean something about us. And that's where our confidence bank starts to have a little bit of a vulnerability. Because once we start to it's almost cyclical, because once we start to make these, these failures, or these, you know, shortcomings that we might have experienced mean something about us and what what our worth is, then we stop keeping promises to ourselves. So we start telling ourselves so same stories that we were telling ourselves before Oh, and you know, I don't deserve that our own just to procrastinator, I never do the things and blah, blah, blah, we start telling ourselves those things as soon as we have one thing that we could have 10 things in a week that you did that prove to yourself into your brain, that you are super worthy, you are all of whatever your affirmations are you have all All these things that like, give you evidence of that. And there will be one thing that affirms a previous story that you've told yourself, and your confidence goes out the window, your perception of self goes out the window. And once your perception of self goes out the window, then you stop doing those small things. And once you stop doing those small things, you start making those confidence deposits. So it's not really like, the bank account goes from a million to zero and in, in two seconds, it it happens over time, because you let one moment of a lapse in confidence mean that you're no longer worthy of all the competence you've built up. Whoo

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Jordan Johnson  25:40

Whoo. I don't know, those table. We have this mics on can sustain the heaviness of that, though. I mean, that's, that's amazing. Like, I almost would think that like man thats, I don't even want to follow it. I want to kind of get the episode end right there. But it does. It does connect to the like a really important concept with this though, right? Because first of all, a couple things. One, I need to make myself one of those brag books do? 

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Anisa Johnson  26:10

Everybody does? 

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Jordan Johnson  26:11

Oh, man, if you have not, if you didn't catch that, I would encourage you know, everybody to give that a go. I'm certainly gonna give that a test you said you went back to the third grade?

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Anisa Johnson  26:19

Yeah, like everything I've ever done. Like, literally, I think it was I mean, I think it was third grade that I like went to state in like the 400 and summer track, like, that's a big deal. Yes. You know, like, you have like stuff like that, that you do. And then you just move on to the next thing. And then whatever it is, like, you got to remind yourself of like, all the hard stuff you've done ever in life, because you've done a lot.

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Jordan Johnson  26:44

Yeah, well, if that didn't if going by third grade doesn't make the point. Yeah, what goodness. And that's cool. I feel a certain type of way about third grade in particular. So I'm good to go. Um, some shining moments.

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Anisa Johnson  27:01

Make yourself a brag book.

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Jordan Johnson  27:02

That's cool. So it's like thinking about something from a sense of like an actual brag book. And you're able to see things in scale in that sense, like the, the the sports lens for life, in me views that it's like you, you you almost you can't spend so much time thinking about the past play where you then distract it from the next. And and if you have this brag book, if you have this inventory, this bank account that is that deep is that broad. I mean, you you really have riches there in your confidence. That's wealth.

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Anisa Johnson  27:53

Yeah, that's investment. That's compounding you were talking about.

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Jordan Johnson  27:56

That's compounding sense of confidence, thinking about that third grade to now, that is that confidence that has compounded every time you stepped into something, and achieve and we've all done it. Like, I'm sure that I have a challenge maybe of trying to, you know, in this exact moment, pull up my my list because I haven't necessarily taken that step. I will and I can, but we all have stuff, meaning stuff that we have swung it we've hit things that we've stepped towards how to go, and we and we did it, and we achieved it. So that creates a wealth of confidence. And if you if you think about it that way. And this the value of having a wealth of confidence? Well, wealth is is just that wealth isn't something that diminishes easily. So if your confidence has matured to this sense of wealth of which we all have, then if you lose a penny, a nickel, a dime, a dollar, a hundred dollars. The confidence, the wealth of that confidence. It's still there,

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Anisa Johnson  29:15

it's still there. It's still in the bank

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Jordan Johnson  29:17

 It's still in the bank.

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Anisa Johnson  29:18

Yeah, I mean, it's already in the bank, but you have to look at the bank. You can't just take inventory one time of all the things that you know, you've done that you're proud of, and just like leave it there and let it collect dust. Because then when you have those moments where you know, you lose like a penny or buy dollars or $100 you will tell yourself like I don't have any money. So you gotta pull out that brag book and take a look at all of the wealth of confidence that you've built up to remind yourself of who you are, and to continue to be that person because you deserve it. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We hope that it leaves you feeling inspired to actively pursue your goals and Live Alive, whatever that means to you. If you enjoyed today's episode, tell us what you think by leaving a review reviews help more people like you discover the podcast. I'm Anisa Johnson.

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Jordan Johnson

And I'm Jordan Johnson.

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Anisa Johnson 

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We'll see you next time on Live Alive podcast

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