00:08 Hi, I am Denise Simpson, a master life and leadership coach who helps women step into their authentic and feminine power so they can lead like visionaries, influence with grace, and create a legacy of contribution and service. You'll hear about real leadership clients with real problems navigating their success in life, business and career. If you're ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.00:50 Oh my gosh, we have music. Wow, did you all hear that? So excited. Oh my gosh. Hey, listen, welcome. I hope you are doing okay, dear leader, there's a lot of crazy things happening in this world right now, and I just want to support you in any way that I can. And so this live podcast theories is for you. It is for you. If you are in the pipeline of leadership and you are having challenges, you are having to face obstacles that you've never had to face before. You are experiencing bouts of self-doubt. Some of it is debilitating, while other times it's intermittent. You are someone who caress deeply and passionately about serving. You are a leader because you raised your hand and you said, I can do it better. I can do it better, and I'm willing to try. You are the person who said, I will step into leadership despite the bad role models I had in leadership, despite my programming, I was told as a little girl to stay quiet and in the corner despite how you've been conditioned by society.02:14 You said, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to raise my hand and I'm going to try this out. And so here you are. Now, you call yourself a leader. You're leading your families, you're leading your communities. You're leading your organizations, your departments. You are using leadership as a form of activism, which is music to my heart and my brain because I use leadership as a form of my activism because listen, I got tired. I got tired of the unfair injustice, the systemic systems and oppressive systems that were put in place for women that looked like me, right? And so I got tired of trying to fight the organization. So what did I do? I said, I've got another way around this. Actually, I'm going to go through the back door of that organization. I'm not going to go in through the front door.03:20 I'm going to go through the back door of this organization and I'm going to offer them my services as a consultant, as a organizational behavior and leadership consultant. And I'm going to share with them workshops and trainings. I'm going to design curriculum for them and their people so that we can start unraveling the bias, unraveling the toxic leadership theories and policies and behaviors that we typically see. And so I said, I'm going to do something different. I'm going to go into consulting and I'm going to go into executive coaching, and I'm going to go into leadership and training development. I'm going to work this in a different way. And so that's how I'm using my leadership as a form of activism. And so I bring you this podcast. This episode in particular is called Courage over Confidence because this is one of the many themes in the clients that I serve.04:20 This is one of many themes that we talk about at all levels of leadership. So it does not matter where you are in the pipeline of leadership, whether you are brand new to leadership, good for you, how brave you are, whether you are in the mid career stage and you're entering for the very first time a position as a leader because you've been around the block, dear leader. And you said, okay, I think it's time. I've been in here for a good bit. I think it's time I take on a leadership role. And you have, you're here and I'm so excited for you and I see you. Or you could be someone in the senior level, executive level position, right? You've seen some things. You've been around the block and you are there making organizational changes because you are looking behind your journey and you are looking at all the others who are coming up behind you.05:17 And you realize that it takes more than a community. It takes commitment, it takes allyship, it takes sponsoring other women that are behind you. And so that's you if that's you in the senior level position and you're looking back at us, thank you, thank you. I'm glad you see us and I'm glad you're here for us. So wherever you are on that pipeline of leadership, this episode, this podcast series is for you. We're going to talk about courage over confidence because this, like I said, is one of the typical themes we talk a whole lot about with my clients, and I wanted to bring this to you. So if you don't know who I am, hello, my name is Dr. Denise Simpson. I'm looking at the comments here. If you're here, say hello. Tell me where you are watching from. I gave you a brief, really a brief history of how I got into what I'm doing today.06:21 As a leadership trainer and executive coach, I have founded an amazing institute. It's called the Masters of Leadership Institute. It's an exciting place for women leaders to be. We are doing some amazing things this January, and so again, leadership is a form of my activism, and this is exactly what I'm doing. I'm using my organization, my institute to make changes, one student, one client at a time. And so welcome to the Dr. Denise Simpson podcast. Again, if you're here, let me know you're here. It's not fun when you don't have people responding. It's not fun when you don't have feedback. So if you're watching here live, say hello or you're going to watch the replay do the same. But let's talk about our topic today, which is courage, overconfidence. So like I said, I wanted to come to you today to teach you how high performers have found a way to use courage to overcome fear, to overcome self-doubt, to overcome imposter syndrome.07:28 This is so interesting because again, like I said, no matter where you are in the pipeline of leadership, you will experience a form of fear, a form of self-doubt, because you are faced with a very challenging adverse situation in the workplace. And so I just wanted to bring this topic to you today because it's important that we talk about why confidence is not available for us, especially when we are faced with very difficult circumstances and we are faced with a cascade of fear and a cascade of self-doubt running in our bodies that instead of trying to tap into confidence, what I want for you to do instead is to look at an emotion that is much easier to access. And that emotion is courage, courage, courage, overconfidence. Yeah, I told my client the other day, I want to tattoo it somewhere so I could see it.08:25 So I could see it every day. Because even I, as someone who has summited many mountains, many situations, I've accomplished amazing goals and achievements. But yes, there was a whole lot of sacrifice by the way along that journey. But even someone like me who's a founder and ACEO, I too have to deal with self-doubt. I too deal with fear and the imposter syndrome because anytime that your brain buds up against the edges of your comfort level, trust me, the fear will come through. The self-doubt will rush through your body. Know that the brain is a predictable predictability machine. It likes to predict outcomes. And when your brain is faced with uncertainty and it's not able to see the step-by-step path to accomplishing a goal, your brain will flood with all of these interesting emotions. And there's your body feeling all of these feelings. And so when your brain doesn't know the next steps and doesn't know the outcome, it triggers fear. You then get activated in all kinds of ways. And so your brain is flooded with these emotions, and it's almost impossible to think through those emotions of fear and self-doubt. And so I just want to tell you that this is so normal. This is normal.09:59 My husband and I were watching the country Music awards. We're not huge country fans. We're here in Austin and we love to listen to live music. And sometimes there's some great country folks like Cody Johnson and a few other people. But he showed me this article because we saw the opening performance of, what is this person's name? Wynonna Judd and Jelly Roll. So they opened the award ceremony and Wynonna Judd was holding onto Jelly Roll for Dear Life. Go YouTube it. I'm sure you can find it. And she looked unsteady and she looked like she was going to topple over and she's grabbing onto jelly roll's jacket for dear life. And I commented on that the other night. I said, whoa, what's happening here? And of course, my mind went to, Ooh, is she on something? What's happening? This is out of character. She's a legend, she's an icon.10:59 What's going on with her? So she put out a statement the following day because many people commented on that and she put out a statement and she said, I was terrified. I was terrified, and I was afraid to fail, and I was afraid to embarrass jelly roll. And I'm thinking, this is an icon. This is a legend in country music. And she's terrified at this stage of her career. Yes, this is typical. It is normal for anyone who is going into a situation of uncertainty, going into a situation where it stretches the edges of your neurological boundaries. It's where you are at your most uncomfortableness because this is new. This is something new that you're doing as a new situation or circumstance you're facing. So of course your brain is going to react this way. So if you are someone who is saying, this isn't normal, this shouldn't be happening to me.12:03 I'm in the C-suite. I am ACEO and a founder. How is it that I'm still feeling this way? I just want to tell you, it is normal. It is normal. It isn't how we use the self-doubt and the fear in these particular circumstances that will determine your success. It's okay. The brain is flooded with fear and the body is flooded with all these negative emotions. And so what do we do? So I'm going to show you how we could do that because I've taught my clients how to use courage instead of confidence in these situations. So cool about confidence. However, if you use courage to take action steps in these uncertain circumstances, know that confidence is the byproduct you will attain, you will gain. You feel confident as you take these actions during these uncertain, uncomfortable circumstances. But you have to have courage to take that first step because how many of you out here say, oh, I'm not going to apply for that job until I know I'm a hundred percent qualified.13:15 And by the way, there's that famous study that showed that women will apply for a job only if they meet all of the qualifications while men get this, while men will apply when they fulfill only 60% of the qualifications. So here you are saying, well, I'm not perfect yet. I can't apply for that. I don't meet all the requirements. I just might as well not do it. Well, the dood over here is 60%. Sure. Yeah, okay, I'm 60% qualified. Yeah, why not? I'll apply for that position. And they get the job, not you. And so by the way, that's a great study that so many of us quote because it just gives you just an overview of what the problem is for women in the pipeline of leadership. We have a problem self-promoting. We have a problem self advocating. We have a problem with perfectionism, we have a problem with people pleasing, but it all stems from, I believe it all stems from you not having the confidence.14:18 So fine, we don't have confidence in certain situations. So now what do we do? Denise? Tell me, what do we do? What do I do when I am feeling like a fraud, when there's so much fear riddled in my body when I have so much self-doubt about my capacity to lead, my capabilities, my competencies, my skills? So when I feel self-doubt, what do I do? And so there are three things that I have shown my amazing clients to do, and I'm going to teach them to you today as well. First, I want for you to take out a piece of paper and a pen, but if you're driving, you're going to want to either pull over or rewatch this here very soon. But here's the first thing I want for you to do. I want you to normalize self-doubt. And we do that by neutralizing the situation.15:08 I know I'm, I'm speaking like a co-chair because I am, but normalizing self-doubt looks like, well, if Denise experienced that, and she just shared a very personal story of not applying for this tenured professor position because she did not meet all the qualifications. And her peer who was a male actually didn't. But he said, I'm only 60% qualified for this. I'm going to go for it anyway. And so Denise missed out on that opportunity, and that is a true story, my friends. That is a true story. And my clients know this story intimately because it was a moment in my career where I realized I needed to do more and I could do more through the backdoor of organizations. So when you normalize self-doubt, that's when you look at role models and you look at models of excellence and you look at those around you and you hear their experiences and ask your mentors, if you don't have one, look for one.16:12 You go listen to these stories on YouTube and see somebody else's life. Hear somebody else's life and have them share with you uncertain circumstances. How have they overcome adversity when they felt so much and so much fear? This is how we normalize self-doubt. I have mentors that are not in my industry who I turn to ask for help when it comes to self-doubt into fear. I had one mentor tell me, I just put fear in the passenger seat, and sometimes fear is in the trunk, but I'm driving the car because fear has been driving the car for a very long time, and I now am behind the wheel of this car. And this fear, it could sit in the passenger seat, it can't touch the radio, it can't even talk to me, can't roll down the window, it's just going to sit there and I'm going to drive the car to my next destination.17:09 And my mentor said that to me. And it changed the way it looked at self-doubt and fear and the imposter syndrome. Sometimes I have to put it in the trunk, sometimes it has to be in the trunk because it is so debilitating, because it is something, it's an experience or a situation that I've never have experienced before. And I'm riddled with fear. I don't know what next action steps to take. I don't know what else to do. I'm feeling, I'm feeling all the self-doubt. And so what I do is sometimes put the fear in the trunk and I leave it there for a day or two until it suffocates, because it's suffocating me and it's keeping me from taking the lead in my life. It's keeping me from driving this car. So I want for you to normalize self-doubt that this is normal. It is normal for high achievers.18:00 It is also normal for someone who's entering the pipeline of leadership. It is normal. And when I said normalize self-doubt by neutralizing the situation, that just means calming your brain down. When we neutralize our mind, we neutralize our emotions. And what's wonderful about this is that there's plenty of research that shows that when emotion is high, logic is low, when emotion is high, and that even includes happiness and joy, your logic decreases. So I want for you to neutralize the situation, and I do that through just pulling the evidence, the facts of the situation. And I remove my emotional judgment, my opinion, and I just take out the facts and the evidence from that circumstance or that situation so that I'm better able to assess my next steps so I'm better able to evaluate the situation and then plan for my next steps. So that's number one.19:02 My friends normalize self-doubt by neutralizing the situation. Number two, I want for you to ask yourself, what's a tiny step I can take right now in this moment to cultivate courage? Now that we've neutralized the brain, we've neutralized our bodies, now that we've normalized that this is okay, this happens to everybody. Now you can think logically. And now you ask that question, what's a tiny step, one tiny step I can take right now in this moment to cultivate courage? I don't want for you to leave the situation. I don't want for you to leave the moment and then go numb yourself or go distract yourself or go Netflix and chill your mind out because you don't want to face the situation. So I want for you to take quick action. That's why this is step number two. You take the action in the moment so that you can train your brain to expect the self-doubt.20:01 This is another way you normalize it. You're taking a tiny step in this moment to cultivate the courage. So it's about really training your brain to expect the self-doubt and the fear to be present right here, right now. But it's not driving the car. It is here. It's right here in the passenger seat. But again, we are taking the next step. So what is the next stop on the route that we're on? So seize that opportunity and seize that learning moment. And then the last thing I want for you to do is do something differently every day. Do something different every day. That's another tattoo I'm going to put on. Do something different. This is an affirmation that we put into action. So when do or try something different, we're building the muscle of courage. We're building that muscle. Just like when you go to the gym for the first time and you're starting out with the five pound weights and you are building up that muscle, and then in a year's time you're up to 30 pounds, you're up to 30 pounds, or you're going from a 35 pound barbell to a 45 pound barbell, and you're adding weights to it.21:11 So you're building the courage. And so when you do something different, that starts training your brain to start seeing things differently. Well, what is it that I want to do different today? What do I do differently today that will help me manage my self-doubt or fear? What can I do differently today? And so start looking at these challenges, these circumstances with this filter of, well, what can I do differently? Because the old self me would've reacted this way, and I still feel fear. No doubt. I still feel it, but how about I do something differently? And since I'm seizing this opportunity in this moment, because I'm not going to let this moment escape me, I want to try to do something differently. Maybe I take a different action this time. Maybe I go pursue something else this time. Maybe I go talk to somebody else about it this time.22:05 Maybe I go and advise my mentor about it before I take another action. But that's one action. So what can I do differently today? So I want for you to put that affirmation into action. What's the point of an affirmation? You don't believe it. It's not worthwhile until you put it into action. So those are three things that I teach my clients and I want to teach you right here, right now to do. So, I want for you to put this into practice right away. So again, number one, I want for you to normalize self-doubt by neutralizing the situation. Number two, I want for you to, after asking yourself, after neutralizing the situation, I want for you to ask yourself, what's a tiny step that I can take in this moment to cultivate courage? What can I do right here, right now? And then number three, do something differently.22:57 Do something different right here, right now moving forward. So here's a word of caution for you, my friend. So if you're going to put all these things into practice and your mind is going to say, oh, I don't think so, Denise, I'm still feeling fear. Well, trust me, it doesn't go away. Fear does not go away. We learn how to manage it. We learn how to use courage. We say, okay, fine. And that's the opposite of confidence. That's fine. I'm not confident in the situation yet, but I'm going to use courage. I'm going to use courage because that's easier to access. Easier to access is courage. And so that's the word of caution is you may be disappointed in that you're still feeling fear. You may be discouraged in that you're still feeling, but I just want for you to know if you're 51% courageous, just 51% courageous, this is all you need.23:53 Because over time, you'll make so much progress in your life, you're going to be amazed. That's all you need is 51% courage, not even a hundred percent. Then that goes for confidence. You don't have to be a hundred percent confident to go take action or do something just 51%, 51% over fear, over self-doubt, over feeling like an imposter. So that's my word of caution for you, is to be kind to yourself and know that this is normal, and know that at every stage of your career, you're going to feel fear and self-doubt. So I hope you found that helpful today. Dear leader, I'm so glad that you are going to put this into action. Here's what else I want to invite you to before we end our session today, we are hosting the State of Women in Leadership Summit. It's the 2024 summit. It is at the end of December.24:49 I'm so excited to invite you to this summit. We are going to talk about the current state of affairs, the current state of affairs. We're going to look at the research. We're going to look at the numbers. We're going to look at what is impeding your success as a leader. We're going to look at the cost of status quo, the cost, the cost of status quo for you and your organization. And so business as usual is what we want to disrupt because there's a better way to lead. There's a better way to encourage our women leaders. There's a better way to do things in our organizations and the state of Women in Leadership Summit 2024 is happening at the end of December. We're calling 2024 the Year of Mastery, and I want you to join us for this summit. You're going to go to dr denise simpson.com/state four.25:44 Again, that's dr denise simpson.com/state T 2 0 2 4. You're going to want to go there right now. Register. It is a free virtual summit. You will have access to the replays for a short amount of time, but you're going to want to be there live. We will have a beautiful panel discussion, wonderful lectures plus application shopping time. So it's going to be a three day virtual summit that you're not going to want to miss. If you are a woman in the pipeline of leadership, join us. If you are a decision maker in an organization at the senior level position, you're going to want to join us for this. If you're an ally for women in leadership, you're going to want to register. So again, that's dr denise simpson.com/state 2 0 2 4. All right, dear Leaders, thank you so much for your time today. Look forward to our next live podcast episode happening next week. Take good care and we'll see you then. Bye. Hey, leader, do you want weekly leadership tips, coaching and training straight to your email inbox? Yeah, I thought so. Head over to dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Again, that's dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Just submit your name and your email address and we'll get started right away. I look forward to serving you inside your email inbox. See you soon.
