285: 5 Things That Are Secretly Destroying Your Confidence with Nicole Kalil

[00:00:00] Nicole Kalil: Validation is nice, but if I need it to feel confident, then I've outsourced my confidence to somebody else. And then when somebody does validate my work, it'll feel good, but then that feeling's gonna wear off. It's temporary. Yeah. And then what do I need to feel confident again? I need somebody to come along and validate me well, objectively, outside looking in that you can see how that's not confidence, right?

[00:00:23] Nicole Kalil: If I need somebody to validate me in order to feel confident, then I am not confident.

[00:00:29] Tiffany Sauder: I am Tiffany Sauder, entrepreneur, wife, mom to four girls, and a woman figuring it out just like you. If you're tired of living a life of half to and finally ready to build a life of want to, then you're in the right place.

[00:00:41] Tiffany Sauder: Come on, let's go Build your Life of And.

[00:00:53] Tiffany Sauder: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Life of And. I'm your host, Tiffany Sauder, and I am so excited for the conversation we're gonna have today with my friend and fellow podcast host, Nicole Kalil. We got connected. She's just a natural connector of sort of collecting people who have similar goals and has been really generous to share.

[00:01:12] Tiffany Sauder: A little bit of her behind the scenes journey in becoming a podcast host, and I wanted to bring her on because she has written a book about this word that, for me, has been really important in my own journey on confidence. And if you've been listening to the feed for a while, you know that I started out the feed, it's called Scared Confident, and this pursuit of this.

[00:01:35] Tiffany Sauder: State where you were pursuing the things that you were called to do and not the things that the outside world or other expectations were driving you for? Was a freedom that I had not felt in really my most of my adult life. And so I have learned that when people write books and when they go deep on topics, it's often born of their own.

[00:01:56] Tiffany Sauder: Bumper car moments in life. And so I invited Nicole to kind of join us and share her story a little bit. So Nicole, welcome. Thanks for joining me.

[00:02:04] Nicole Kalil: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here and to talk about confidence and bumper car is kind. I would say like total low point is where my interest and confidence stemmed from,

[00:02:15] Tiffany Sauder: but

[00:02:16] Nicole Kalil: yeah, I'm with you.

[00:02:17] Nicole Kalil: Well,

[00:02:17] Tiffany Sauder: let's talk about before. Moments of inflection point where you said, life is trying to get my attention. What would you have said your relationship with that word was before this sort of moment of reckoning?

[00:02:30] Nicole Kalil: Yeah. There's a lot I could say, but the simplest version of my relationship with confidence, uh, to that particular pain point was.

[00:02:41] Nicole Kalil: The fake it till you make it, except the making it part never actually happened. Internally, I was constantly faking. I was constantly proving, I was constantly trying to look confident and could not quite figure out how to get the feeling to catch up to that, you know, what I was projecting externally. So,

[00:03:04] Tiffany Sauder: yeah.

[00:03:04] Tiffany Sauder: And what was your particular brand of looking confident?

[00:03:08] Nicole Kalil: I mean, it was across the board. I am a recovering perfectionist, so I mean, you name it. I was trying to. Look it. So I at, I was an executive at a Fortune 100 financial services company. I was the only woman, the first woman to be in my executive role, and the company's over 150 year history.

[00:03:29] Nicole Kalil: I was making good money. Right?

[00:03:31] Tiffany Sauder: No. The first woman to be in an executive role in 150 years in this particular executive role chief of, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Yeah. Crazy case. Fine. Yeah.

[00:03:42] Nicole Kalil: I bought my second home by the time I was 30. You know, I had the nice clothes. I looked the part of the independent successful woman on the rise.

[00:03:50] Nicole Kalil: I kind of put myself out there as this, you know, Uber independent who needs a man. You know, I, I lifted, shaped sculpt physically, everything I could, I mean, I really do think across the board I looked the part. Of confident woman, but how it felt on the inside didn't match at all in any sense of the word, how it looked on the outside, and it was frankly killing me like it was weakens.

[00:04:25] Nicole Kalil: I didn't ever attempt suicide, but I had the thoughts of how long would it take for somebody to notice, would it be Monday morning? Because that's when people actually. Pay attention to me or need me when I come into work, you know? And it was just, I mean, it was dark, it was really bad. So when, but it didn't look bad.

[00:04:45] Nicole Kalil: Yeah. That was what was crazy.

[00:04:47] Tiffany Sauder: So when you weren't at work or in sort of this like performative moment. Like the world felt really dark to you and lonely. Is that, yeah, their interpretation.

[00:04:57] Nicole Kalil: I was incredibly lonely waiting for Monday morning to arrive so I could have purpose again. And I was incredibly silent about it because I didn't wanna let my parents down.

[00:05:09] Nicole Kalil: I didn't want my. Friends and, and the people closest to me to think differently. I certainly didn't want anybody at work to know, you know? So part of the thing that exhausted me the most was holding it all together and keeping it all quiet.

[00:05:25] Tiffany Sauder: Where do you think the idea that you needed to keep it all together or have it all perfect, where do you think that came from?

[00:05:33] Nicole Kalil: The answer is a bazillion different places, but I am the firstborn daughter of immigrant parents. And so there was very much the, you know, prove yourself, meritocracy. Do everything right, get your education, be the good girl, right? I don't think very many women grow up today without getting the messaging that they're supposed to look a certain way, and that there is a perfect body type and you know.

[00:06:04] Nicole Kalil: How I looked was important, both personally a a, as far as attracting a relationship, but also professionally. Success felt really important. Proving myself felt really important. My parents were very loving and present, but there was always an expectation of doing things well, doing things right. My friends were getting married.

[00:06:27] Nicole Kalil: I wasn't, you know, there was just, the list goes on and on and on. There were so many things that I. Felt that pressure. Mm-hmm. To do everything right. I will say too, being a young woman in a very male dominated field of finance, still very male dominated, I felt a lot of pressure to show up to stuff aside all of my feminine.

[00:06:52] Nicole Kalil: Qualities and over rotate on a lot of my more masculine. So being very decisive, very confident, very powerful. You know, these things are things that I got the messaging I needed to be, and so lonely, emotional, you know, or really, frankly, even intuitive or creative or really some of the great feminine qualities.

[00:07:17] Nicole Kalil: I, I, I didn't. I, I shoved those aside, ignored those. And so I, I was really living inauthentically, which was the crux of the problem. So what

[00:07:28] Tiffany Sauder: did the crash look like?

[00:07:30] Nicole Kalil: So it, it's kind of a. I, I write about it in my book. It, it was a literal moment. I got the announcement, we got word in in our local office that I had been promoted to a chief development officer and they like did over the loudspeaker.

[00:07:43] Nicole Kalil: Everybody gathered in our main huge conference room and it was a big celebration and I. Was super excited for about three minutes until all the fear and the doubt and the worry and whatever came rushing in. But a woman in my training department gave me a hug and she said in my ear, I wish I had your confidence.

[00:08:02] Nicole Kalil: And in my internal voice said, I wish I had the confidence you think I have. And it was this I, I don't know. If I can do this job, and I don't actually think I've struggled with imposter syndrome all that much through the course of my career or my life, but in that moment I felt at times a hundred and, and I just didn't think I could move forward anymore in the way that I was.

[00:08:33] Nicole Kalil: And it became clear to me that I didn't know what confidence was. I was just certain I didn't have any of it, and I wanted to figure out what it was. How you build it. 'cause people tell us all the time, be confident, but very rarely do people come along and tell us how we do that, how we build confidence.

[00:08:52] Nicole Kalil: And on top of that, we could line up 10 different people and ask them to define confidence. And we would get 10 very different answers. So it would just felt like it was really confusing thing. So I locked in, as you said earlier on this concept of what is confidence, how do I be and become it? And then like so many of us do when we start to.

[00:09:11] Nicole Kalil: Figure things out for ourselves and it starts to make a difference in our lives. We wanna share it. And so that became my life's work. It's what keeps me up at night and also what gets me up in the morning.

[00:09:21] Tiffany Sauder: So what is your definition of confidence? 'cause can I tell you mine? I was gonna ask? Yeah. Great.

[00:09:27] Tiffany Sauder: Yes. I'll know if I have like a, uh, articulate, but I'll just export for 30 seconds and then see, we'll just compare. Uh, I'm 45. I think my, if I look back to my 30-year-old self, would explain it differently.

[00:09:39] Nicole Kalil: Yeah.

[00:09:40] Tiffany Sauder: My 45-year-old self would more say this restfulness in spite of the outcome.

[00:09:50] Nicole Kalil: Okay? That will align with with my definition.

[00:09:53] Nicole Kalil: Uh. That will align with my definition. I will tell you, I asked so many people, so many of the most successful, most, what felt like confident people to define confidence, and I got so many different answers. So I geeked out and went to the etymology of the word. How it translated into middle English and how it translates into all different other languages.

[00:10:15] Nicole Kalil: So I really like dug into what are we actually talking about here? And the word that most closely associates with the word confidence is the word trust. Faith and belief often pop up a lot too, but trust is most closely aligned. And so I define confidence, or it was initially defined as firm and bold trust in self.

[00:10:38] Nicole Kalil: Confidence. Very simply put is when you trust yourself firmly and boldly. And if we think about the iterations of the word confidence, like confidant. It's the person we trust with our intimate information and secrets, right? Or confidential or even confidence artist, a con artist, right? Mm-hmm. We don't call them a thief, even though ultimately what we do they do is they steal something from us.

[00:11:02] Nicole Kalil: We call them a con artist. 'cause what they do first is they establish trust, uhhuh, and then they take, and so. Uh, for me, confidence is all about the trust we have with and for ourselves. And sort of a working definition of that is when you know who you are, you own who you're not, and you choose to embrace all of it.

[00:11:23] Nicole Kalil: We let go of this idea of being all things to all people all the time, and we really center ourselves and ground ourselves in who we are and what we're not and what. It isn't meant for us and what we're not meant for. Right. And we choose to embrace ourselves as we are, which is clearly necessary if we're gonna trust ourselves firmly and boldly.

[00:11:47] Tiffany Sauder: So I, I love this. And also 'cause I, I wanna repeat this. When you know who you are, you also learn who you're not. Is that what you said? Well, and And you own who you're not. Yeah. Own. Who you're not. And you own. I love that. And you own who you're not. I, I love this definition. I think it's so helpful. I also wanna say like, is it possible to go back and say to our, to, to our 25-year-old selves, because so much of this knowingness of your strengths and what gives you energy, and you saying like, even like intuition and creativity, it's like people can say those words to you, but until you experience an intuitive moment in like a strategy session, I don't know.

[00:12:29] Tiffany Sauder: It's like, I don't know. I can't tell you about it. You just have to experience it. How do you have confidence in those discovery years? Mm-hmm. When it is a process of learning, what am I good at and owning what I'm not, it's like this sorting process. Yeah. And like, I don't know, h how or is confidence just earned?

[00:12:50] Tiffany Sauder: How do you think about that or teach that when you work with people in those forming years?

[00:12:54] Nicole Kalil: Yeah, so great question. And I think a handful of things popped up, and I'm gonna think out loud because this is so much still things that I'm working through in my own mind, but the difference between trusting and knowing, knowing is certainty.

[00:13:11] Nicole Kalil: Trusting implies we don't know yet. We believe. We trust, right? And so I think for my younger self, for our younger selves, for anyone younger listening in. It's separating the knowing and the trusting. I think we can at 22 years old, trust what we know so far.

[00:13:30] Tiffany Sauder: Yeah.

[00:13:31] Nicole Kalil: And also trust our ability to finger things out.

[00:13:35] Nicole Kalil: So, you know, oftentimes confidence and competence gets sort of exchanged. You cannot be competent at something without experience, without time. Right? Mm-hmm. But you can be confident. In yourself, day one. Mm-hmm. So I think of having a new job, and a lot of times people talk about having imposter syndrome when they're new at something and it's like, no, you're just new.

[00:14:03] Nicole Kalil: You don't know what you're doing yet. Nobody does. Right. And imposter syndrome is when you doubt yourself, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Right, and when you're new at something, you don't know if you're gonna be good at it yet. There is no evidence yet. That's what competence is. It's an accumulation of it, but you can be confident day one, and what you can be confident in is your ability to figure things out.

[00:14:28] Nicole Kalil: Your ability to know that you'll be okay no matter what. Even if you're not great at this job, even if you do fail it at it, I'm gonna be okay. In the long run. This could be a lesson. This could be a growth opportunity. This could be a one door closes, so another one opens. It could be a redirect, who knows?

[00:14:41] Nicole Kalil: But oftentimes I tell myself, and the moments where fear and doubt creeps in is I trust myself to figure this out. I'll be okay no matter what. And the only thing that's missing for me or this situation right now is the benefit of hindsight. Hindsight, I don't know yet what I don't know, but I get to trust myself going in.

[00:15:03] Tiffany Sauder: I wanna loop back to this word, these words that you said, back to the confidence game. Despite the evidence, how do we almost create like a. List on our phone or something of the moments where we were in the unknown up against crazy odds did crazy thing where we trusted our present mind instead of our prepared mind, which I think can kind of be a crutch of early over performers.

[00:15:29] Tiffany Sauder: If I'm talking like, you know, it's like I was prepared. I had the agenda, I had the thing, I memorized it. I knew my intro, I had my slides, and it's like when you're operating from a prepared brain, you lose. The ability to have context for what's actually happening in the present, and a confident person going back to trust.

[00:15:48] Tiffany Sauder: Trust themselves, to navigate the present, the experience, my recall, my brain, all of those things are gonna come to bear. So I don't know if you have tips about how do you collect the evidence Yeah. For yourself so that when you're going into these moments. You. I loved your little tr pep talk of like, I'm gonna trust myself to figure this out.

[00:16:09] Tiffany Sauder: It's nothing's fatal. Failure's not gonna kill me. I always say like, it's not gonna eat me. You know? Right at the end, the story. But how do you collect the evidence or kind of think, yeah. So.

[00:16:20] Nicole Kalil: A a few different thoughts. First, I identified five, what I call confidence derailers. These are the things that do damage, chip away at and destroy our confidence.

[00:16:29] Nicole Kalil: And overthinking is one of the five confidence derailers. So as you said, and I couldn't agree more overthinking. Over preparing, over planning. These things chip away at our confidence because they have us in inaction. And inaction is what leads to our biggest regrets. Doing nothing does not build confidence.

[00:16:50] Nicole Kalil: Action builds confidence. So overthinking over. Preparing over planning. These are confidence derailers now. Thinking isn't a problem. Preparing isn't a problem. Planning isn't a problem. It's the over part. It's when we are stuck in inaction where it becomes really problematic. The second thing is I have an exercise that I do at least once a year.

[00:17:15] Nicole Kalil: On my birthday often during times of transition, I have a podcast episode and a a, a sheet about it. But basically the exercises, the things I know to be, the things I know to be true about me at this point in my life. And it's just that exactly what you said, this collection of things that I know about myself, and I could do this as a 16-year-old or as a 60-year-old.

[00:17:38] Nicole Kalil: We all learn and know things about ourselves through the. Collection of our experiences. One of the things I know to be true about me at this point in my life is I have recovered from a hundred percent of my mistakes, failures, fears, and doubts. I'm still here, and so that's pretty good odds. And so when I'm in a moments of failure or have made a huge mistake or have a lot of fear, I remind myself I'm missing hindsight.

[00:18:08] Nicole Kalil: But I do have this historical. Predictive idea that I'm gonna recover from this one somehow, some way sometime. But having that thing that you know to be true about yourself at this point in your life gives you things to fall back on. So one of the things I know to be true about me is I'm a pretty good decision maker.

[00:18:28] Nicole Kalil: I clearly can't talk today, but I am a pretty good decision maker. That doesn't mean I get every decision, right? That doesn't mean that. I make only always the best decisions, but generally speaking, I have a pretty good track record of making decisions. And so, you know, when I'm in a tough situation or I don't know whether to go left or right, this is something I know to be true about me that helps connect me back to that trust I have with and for myself.

[00:18:57] Tiffany Sauder: Um, what are the other four Derailers? Yeah, so perfectionism, okay.

[00:19:01] Nicole Kalil: This idea that we're supposed to do it all, be it all, have it all and look good while doing it, it's an impossible standard that we can't help but fall short, and yet we tend to hold ourselves to that standard. So perfectionism, head trash is another one.

[00:19:17] Nicole Kalil: I call it head trash 'cause I want it to sound as dirty and disgusting as it actually is. You may have heard it called negative thoughts, or your inner critic, or I don't care what you call it, but it's the voice we have in our. Own minds that says things to us about us that are never kind and very rarely based in fact.

[00:19:35] Nicole Kalil: Right? So we, um, say things to ourselves that we would never say out loud to somebody else that we love, which is problematic 'cause we should be first and foremost someone we love. Mm-hmm. Third, confidence derailer is comparison. Yeah, that's a big one. It's always been a big one, but with social media, I think it's a much easier trap to fall into.

[00:19:56] Nicole Kalil: And. I, I, I think the distinction I often make is confidence isn't comparing yourself to somebody else and coming out ahead or feeling better. Confidence is not needing to compare yourself to anyone at all.

[00:20:09] Tiffany Sauder: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:09] Nicole Kalil: Right. If confidence is firm and bold, trust and self, then what does anyone else have to do with any of that?

[00:20:15] Nicole Kalil: Mm-hmm. And then overthinking we talked about. And then the fifth one is seeking confidence. Externally, it's this thing we often do where we outsource our confidence to someone or something outside of ourselves. So I call it the false equation of confidence. And it looks like if X happens, then I'll feel more confident.

[00:20:37] Nicole Kalil: And you could put anything into X. It could be, if I get the promotion, if I make a certain level of income, if I get a certain amount of followers on social media, if I fit into a certain size, if my children are perfectly behaved, if I find the perfect partner, if you know the list goes on and on and on and on, if X happens, then I'll feel confident doesn't work.

[00:20:56] Nicole Kalil: Because ultimately what happens is we become addicted to X. Mm-hmm. So I use the example of validation. Validation feels good. I'm not saying it shouldn't I, I like when somebody comes along and tells me that my work matters or that it made a difference to them. Validation is nice, but if I need it to feel confident, then I've outsourced my confidence to somebody else.

[00:21:21] Nicole Kalil: And then when somebody does validate my work, it'll feel good, but then that feeling's gonna wear off. It's temporary. Yeah. And then what do I need to feel confident again? I need somebody to come along and validate me. Well, objectively outside looking in that you can see how that's not confidence, right?

[00:21:35] Nicole Kalil: If I need somebody to validate me in order to feel confident, then I am not confident. And so that fifth confidence derailer are all the ways that we're outsourcing people pleasing. As an example, you know, if X happens, then I'll feel confident. Tying confidence to our looks is another big one.

[00:21:58] Tiffany Sauder: I wanna take a quick moment to thank my partners at Share Your Genius. For the past four years, they have been an incredible part of my journey behind the microphone. Share Your Genius is a content and podcast production agency that helps leaders and brands bring their message to life. So whether you're trying to find your voice, develop a content strategy, or get your leader behind a microphone, they're gonna help you make it simple, strategic, and impactful.

[00:22:22] Tiffany Sauder: I kind of wanna double click into that a little bit. The looks one, I had this on my list because maybe I'll have you put your coaching hat on this for me. I don't, I don't know. Yeah, because I have always cared about how I looked.

[00:22:34] Nicole Kalil: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:35] Tiffany Sauder: And in my head, there are healthy versions of that and unhealthy versions of that.

[00:22:39] Tiffany Sauder: I could be wrong. I'm open to that being challenged, but if you asked me to go have a meeting at 10 o'clock today with wet hair and. Jeans from five years ago and a white t-shirt and Birkenstocks. If you ask that version of Tiffany, had she had the same breakfast, the same amount of sleep, the same workout, or not to go have a meeting, or you dress me up into like what I have on right now, I would feel very different in my confidence to walk into that meeting.

[00:23:10] Tiffany Sauder: So I have to admit the way I look is tied to my readiness, my confidence, my ability to be present for the other person and not focused on myself like. I would do it on a dare 'cause it would be funny, but I would hate it if it was a, a requirement. So help me, help us either see what's a healthy, because I would love to be like, oh my word, I just don't care.

[00:23:38] Tiffany Sauder: It's no big deal. But that would be lying,

[00:23:40] Nicole Kalil: right? Oh, yes. And lying isn't gonna help either because you, you can't trust yourself if you're lying,

[00:23:47] Tiffany Sauder: right? Yeah. So I'm being honest at least, but I'm like, what? What? Help me sort through that or other women who it's like, it is part of the way I present myself and my best friend and I were talking about how as you age, I'm 45, the way I look has been a puzzle piece in the way that I have navigated planet earth.

[00:24:06] Tiffany Sauder: Yes. That's changing some and and I am not necessarily even saying that like I'm mourning it or sad or mad. But I, it is present enough that I acknowledged it. Does that make sense? Well, no. Does it does? Yeah. Is that so weird and shallow and crazy and

[00:24:26] Nicole Kalil: ridiculous? I love everything about this, and I am so appreciative of your willingness and openness and vulnerability.

[00:24:36] Nicole Kalil: Even bring it up because. I, it has been a journey and a challenge for me that I am still on. I wanna be very clear that I do not have the answer and I do not have this figured out. What I can share is what I've come to for myself and what I'm sort of working on. So first and foremost, no matter how much trust we have with and for ourselves, we all still live in the real world where perceptions matter.

[00:25:08] Nicole Kalil: So I can trust myself all day long, but if I'm going into a work meeting or I'm standing on a stage, or I am giving an opportunity, it is unintelligent of me to not think about the people involved, the expectations, the. Not formalities, but like the, like the norms. Like the norms, the norms and the codes and the, like.

[00:25:33] Nicole Kalil: If I show up to a business event in pajamas, that is not appropriate, that is not a sign of me respecting the environment that I'm in. So the, the thing that I always think about is I'm in the real world and I'm aware of what expectations are, what norms are, and whatever I draw the line at doing, anything that feels wildly inauthentic.

[00:25:57] Nicole Kalil: So me getting dressed up, you getting dressed up, what you're wearing, whatever. As long as it's not wildly inauthentic, then. Uh, then we're just participating in the world that we live in and trying to get the opportunities that we desire and, and all of that. I also think caring about how you're dressed or how you look, there are lots of healthy ways to do that.

[00:26:19] Nicole Kalil: Like some people are, do it from a very creative space. Some people do it from an expression is like, this is an expression of who I am and what I believe and what I stand for. It can be a great way to show. Respect. It can be. I mean, there's so many things that go into this. I think where we go into the unhealthy side is if we think how we look is a requirement in order for us to be worthy, to be valued, to be loved.

[00:26:53] Nicole Kalil: If there's any sort of outsourcing going on, like I'm outsourcing, feeling good to somebody else, or I care so much about the way that I look. I'll give you the example in my twenties where it was really unhealthy. It was all about the male gaze. This had nothing to do with honoring my body or taking care of it, or being healthy or longevity or strength or any of those things.

[00:27:17] Nicole Kalil: I did everything I did to try to attract the male gaze and there was almost a weird competitive, like I needed to look better than everybody else. In order to get what I wanted, in order for somebody to choose me and to love me and for me to be happy, mm-hmm. That is wildly unhealthy and can't be aligned with confidence, but for me to say.

[00:27:42] Nicole Kalil: I'm really excited about this opportunity and I wanna put my best foot forward and I'm gonna dress in something that has me feel prepared. Mm-hmm. That has me pull my shoulders back and walk into the room or feeling like I own it. That has me not distracted. Like I, I've said this, when people off ask me about speaking or whatever, I'm like, where's something you feel good in?

[00:28:04] Nicole Kalil: And like, walk around in it. Sit in it, but eliminate distractions if you're pulling it. Bra strap or you're constantly playing with your hair, then you know, you, you may look good, but you're not doing what I think you're trying to do. So I think navigating through though, what is my intention? My daughter is 12 years old.

[00:28:25] Nicole Kalil: She asked me the other day, some of her friends are starting to wear makeup, whether or not she could, and I said, I'm not saying no. I wanna understand why you want to, let's talk about it. There are lots of reasons you could wanna wear makeup. And I didn't say this, but in my mind I'm like, it's her body.

[00:28:40] Nicole Kalil: Ultimately, I wanna teach her that she's the decider, but I want her to think through the why. What's the intention? What am I trying to accomplish here? Because I don't want her, if I could wave a magic wand and not have her feel about her body and about her looks the way I felt for multiple decades, I would gladly do that in a heartbeat.

[00:29:03] Nicole Kalil: And I think many of us would.

[00:29:05] Tiffany Sauder: So what are the things that you're doing to parent confidence? I have four girls, so you know, I'd love to hear Yeah. What you're testing and thinking, and this is a we, you know. Yeah. We're all sort of practicing parents.

[00:29:18] Nicole Kalil: 1000%. I'm so glad that you said that because I also always acknowledge I'm not parenting expert and I don't know if what we're doing is working yet.

[00:29:26] Nicole Kalil: Right. Like something I would love to just share. Yeah. Yeah. So a few things. First, I fundamentally believe we all learn best via experience and observation. Somebody can tell me something till they're blue in the face, but I learn best by my own experience or by closely observing something, and I just am applying that principle to my daughter.

[00:29:48] Nicole Kalil: And so I, I really believe, and I often share with people that the very best thing that I think that I can do to help raise a confident child. Is to demonstrate confidence as often as I possibly can. And what's really important there is confidence firm and bold trust in self, not perfection, not I have it figured all out.

[00:30:09] Nicole Kalil: I not, I have all the answers, not I know what I'm doing. I often tell her. Even in parenting, it's my first time doing this. I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. Let's talk about it. Right? Like, or, hey, I was thinking about it and I think I made a mistake here. So demonstrating confidence I think is priority number one for me.

[00:30:29] Nicole Kalil: Priority number two is really emphasizing the actions, the effort, the things that are within her control, over the outcomes, the scores, you know. So we focus a lot on the effort that she puts in. We focus a lot on the choices that she can make. And then the third thing is, I know this sounds crazy. I'm very proud of my child most of the time, but we ask her more often than we tell her.

[00:31:04] Nicole Kalil: So how did that make you feel? Do you feel proud of yourself? Did that bring you joy? But I'm trying to teach her to self identify. Does she feel proud of herself? Because I know regardless of the outcome, if I go into something with confidence, I feel proud of myself. When I handle a situation well, I feel proud of myself.

[00:31:27] Nicole Kalil: When I don't, I don't, and I have to go repair. Until I feel proud of myself and I really want her to want to feel that more often than not. And I don't know if she'll know what that feeling is unless she can identify it versus meeting me to tell her. And yes, I'm her parent, and yes, that might be my job, but I don't even want her to outsource her confidence to me.

[00:31:54] Nicole Kalil: I don't want her to need validation from me. So we'll see. But those are a few things that I think I can say that I'm consciously doing now. I think a lot of that sounds good. I will tell you, you know, one of the biggest mistakes I make as a parent is I am so short on patients. I am long on love, but I am short on patience.

[00:32:15] Nicole Kalil: So I get really snippy and I'm a bit of a tell monster. I, it's like more efficient to tell people what to do than it is to. Ask and whatever. And so I have to constantly be on the lookout for those things, and it is very often that I have to go back and be like, sorry, I, I know I did it again.

[00:32:34] Tiffany Sauder: Great. I loved all of that.

[00:32:37] Tiffany Sauder: I think the one that I feel particularly convicted about is. Is letting them source their own feedback from life. Meaning I'll say like, honey, I'm so proud of you, honey, you look beautiful, honey, great job being responsible. Instead of saying like, how did that make you feel? Because if they can source all of that internally, they're not waiting for the outside world when I'm not there anymore to like be a conveyor belt of feedback, which is what we accidentally train as we're.

[00:33:07] Tiffany Sauder: Trying to lovingly shepherd them through this childhood thing. Yeah. I come big girls all the time. You practice what you are becoming every single day. And so we are helping them practice becoming reliant on an external stimulus to create this moment of applause or whatever. Yeah.

[00:33:28] Nicole Kalil: And it is really. Hard because we are in inundated with feedback, especially nowadays.

[00:33:34] Nicole Kalil: I mean, that's also a good example is like when she comes down and she's dressed up or whatever. Oh, how did that, how does that outfit make you feel? Yeah. Or if she's gonna try some version of makeup. Once she, I'm gonna like, how do you feel? I wanna try to make the connection with her, but. I will say, you know, I think you look beautiful too.

[00:33:57] Nicole Kalil: Or, I love that, that dress, if she says something, I'll say, and I love that this, that dress does this or whatever, or, you know, like I, I am not giving her any feedback. Yeah. I'm just trying to help her prioritize her own I can.

[00:34:11] Tiffany Sauder: Yeah. I love that. Okay. I have one last, so you wrote a book called Validation Is For Parking.

[00:34:17] Tiffany Sauder: Yeah. And it really is about this confidence coming from a place of that's internal instead of relying on external stimulus in the external world. So you told me you wrote that book three years ago. My question to you is what would you add or edit if you were writing the book today? What have you learned in the last three years?

[00:34:38] Tiffany Sauder: I, I've learned, you know, you like write these books and it's like kind of a dot, dot dot. But it is a period, kind of a publishing moment. It totally is. Yeah. So what would you add or adjust as you've kind of lived

[00:34:50] Nicole Kalil: with that content over the last three years? Such a good question and there are a lot of little things, but the biggest thing is I would have a section, I don't know if what full chapter, but a section on people pleasing.

[00:35:03] Nicole Kalil: I missed that. Altogether. And I think that that is a really big way, especially we as women though, I don't think it's completely gendered concept, but especially we as women outsource our confidence as we are so hyperfocused. We are so constantly reading the room, you know, this people pleasing, putting the needs and wants of other people ahead of our own I think is, is a really damaging.

[00:35:33] Nicole Kalil: Thing. But Tiffany, let me also add, I, I would do so many things differently with the book that have nothing to do with the actual book that somebody would read. It was the promotion of the book that I would do completely different. That was, other than the low point I told you about earlier, back in my corporate world life, and that was my second lowest time professionally was it coincided with the release of my book.

[00:36:02] Nicole Kalil: I just got so hyper-focused. I treated it like a short term result thing versus a long-term impact thing. I did 52 podcast recordings in three months. From a promotion standpoint, I did, you know, a couple bookstore. Book signings. Spent $90,000 in six months on social media promotion. I mean, I put everything into this and it was all about getting Amazon bestseller, which we got great.

[00:36:37] Nicole Kalil: But by the time this four month period was over, I didn't wanna talk about my book. I didn't wanna look at it. I didn't wanna think about it. I almost had like a. Uh, like, put that away. And I, my team and I canceled everything on my calendar that I possibly could, which was 90% for three months. And then I spent another six months sort of gradually getting back in, burnt the F out.

[00:37:08] Nicole Kalil: Like I've, I had NI, it was ash after that. Wow. And it was very much. I don't know if I say this in the book, but it's just something that I've realized in hindsight is we can know everything conceptually, or we can know what we know conceptually, but when things get hot, right, when you're under pressure, when you're stressed, when you know it's so.

[00:37:34] Nicole Kalil: Crazy how quickly we default to old patterns, old behaviors, and in my case, old confidence derailers. So I defaulted to perfectionist overthinking. Mm-hmm. So quickly it would make your head spin. And what is ironic is I'm out there talking about a book Yeah. About confidence and how these are derailers and I'm like.

[00:37:55] Nicole Kalil: A, a poster child for perfectionist to overthinking. Yeah, exactly. So, you

[00:38:00] Tiffany Sauder: know, it's, there's a bit of a scarcity abundant mindset in that too, where I can, my achiever self can start to see every opportunity as a very finite thing. Mm-hmm. Only it will only be available to me right now. If I don't seize today, it, I'll never see this opportunity again.

[00:38:18] Tiffany Sauder: I can't be, and I've started. Telling myself that will be there later if you need it. Yeah. That may or may not be true, but when I take away that. This like urgent scarce thing. I can go back to my values based decision making, which actually you're very good at. I've experienced you being very good at that.

[00:38:38] Tiffany Sauder: Instead of my ego-based decision making, which has a scarce mindset, I'm trying to beat everybody. I wanna be the very best, I wanna be the fastest, the prettiest, the blah, blah, blah.

[00:38:47] Nicole Kalil: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:47] Tiffany Sauder: And that is like the grossest version of me. I don't like being her.

[00:38:51] Nicole Kalil: Well, and that's exactly you are, you were dead on.

[00:38:55] Nicole Kalil: It was scarcity. It was short-term thinking. I forgot that books live forever, right? I don't know what I was thinking about this and it was very much from a scarcity, like have to check the boxes and I lost myself in it. My husband, Jay was telling me, I mean just like a week ago. I don't remember the book or the author, but there was somebody whose book sold 10,000 copies in one week because a professional football player was reading the book on the sidelines of a game.

[00:39:29] Nicole Kalil: Maybe the Super Bowl. Maybe you know about this. I don't, I'm not a big sports person, but any who, the guy wrote the book 16 years ago. You're like, see, yeah. Yeah. So I just had that moment of like. I wonder if you would've said that to me during that time, if I even could have heard it. But that's exactly what I needed to hear at that time.

[00:39:50] Nicole Kalil: I just, I lost it all.

[00:39:53] Tiffany Sauder: Lost

[00:39:53] Nicole Kalil: myself

[00:39:53] Tiffany Sauder: in it. Well, I think there's such a, a beautiful thing about you actually living this definition of firm and bold trust in self when you're able to so transparently say like, I also can lose it and get it back. Yes, exactly. There's like this. Beautiful meta moment in that of like this, confidence is not a permanent state.

[00:40:16] Tiffany Sauder: It takes work to stay there and understanding the toolbox to be able to own it and claim it. And there's this freedom that comes and vulnerably understanding the cycle that sometimes our natural tendencies take us through. And your achiever perfectionist self also serves you well in some ways. Like of course when, when she's.

[00:40:35] Tiffany Sauder: In the right size in your life and in your brain. So yeah. I'm so glad

[00:40:40] Nicole Kalil: that you said that. 'cause I, I often say that too, is like, listen, we're not idiots. These things work for us to a certain extent. That's why we keep defaulting to them. That's why we leverage and over rotate. One thing I often say to myself too is, but what got me here won't get me there.

[00:40:56] Nicole Kalil: And so that's my way of like, okay, great. And. It may not serve that purpose anymore, or it, you know, maybe it's a lesser version of that, that can still help me. But yeah, we're all figuring it out as we go. Right. Totally.

[00:41:13] Tiffany Sauder: Okay. Nicole, this has been amazing. If people wanna go listen to your show, where can they find it?

[00:41:19] Nicole Kalil: Yeah, so it's, This Is Woman’s Work. It's available wherever you listen to podcasts. And yes, about 88% of our listeners identify as women, but I love anyone who listens to the show and a lot of our topics are gender neutral, though it is designed with the. Working woman in what? Working woman in mind.

[00:41:39] Tiffany Sauder: Nicole does the most beautiful monologues before her episode, so go listen to one at least, then go binge, but like the most beautiful monologues.

[00:41:49] Tiffany Sauder: So go listen to that. And then you also have a resource about confidence building. Can you share that with my audience as well? This is a journey they're on. 'cause yeah, we all, yeah.

[00:41:58] Nicole Kalil: So you can find it on my website, nicolekalil.com. I'll also give you the link, Tiffany, if you wanna drop it in show notes.

[00:42:04] Nicole Kalil: But I have a 40 plus page confidence building workbook that goes through each of the five derailers that we mentioned and also the five confidence builders. They're antidotes that we didn't really talk too much about. We mentioned action, but, and gives you resources, activities, exercises, quotes. I mean, really all the things that I could think of and that have worked for me on my confidence building journey.

[00:42:30] Nicole Kalil: So it's a 40 plus page workbook available for free to your listeners, and hopefully it, it's a great resource and an ongoing resource that you know, takes you through your days and your life.

[00:42:42] Tiffany Sauder: Well, I will link everything in show notes. Nicole, thank you for just so graciously, I dunno, transparently, vulnerably connecting and I just really appreciate it.

[00:42:50] Tiffany Sauder: Love the work you're doing and I'm super supportive of your project. So thanks for joining. Thank you.

[00:42:54] Nicole Kalil: And right back at you. Thank you for doing this and having such amazing conversations. Awesome. Thanks Nicole.

[00:43:01] Tiffany Sauder: Thanks for listening to the Life of And. this is your weekly reminder to keep making bold choices, saying clear yeses and holding space for what matters most.

[00:43:09] Tiffany Sauder: As always, if you like this episode, I'd love for you to drop a review and share it with your friend. It's the fastest way that we can grow the show. Thanks for joining us. I'll see you next time.