Confidence Is Built in the Reps - S1E4

In this episode of No Random Wins, Nate builds on the previous conversation about imposter syndrome and digs into what actually creates confidence.

Spoiler alert: it is not magic. It is not a motivational quote. It is not waiting until you finally “feel ready.”

Confidence is built in the reps.

Whether it is making the call, having the hard conversation, recording the content, showing up for your health, leading through uncertainty, or keeping the promises you make to yourself, every action creates evidence. That evidence either helps you trust yourself more, or makes it harder to believe your own words.

Nate breaks down the difference between confidence and arrogance, why discomfort is not the same as danger, and how being “under-repped” is very different from being unqualified.

The big takeaway: you do not wait for confidence. You collect evidence.

Do the reps. Stack the proof. Keep showing up.

Because there are No Random Wins.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Welcome back to No Random Wins. Last time we got into imposter syndrome, uh, you know, that feeling that sneaks up on you when you're sitting in a room and you're not sure that that's the room that you're supposed to be in. You could be leading a meeting, building a business, in my case, recording a podcast, making calls, coaching a team, whatever it is, and you've got this whisper in your brain that's like, hey, do we really belong here? And I get it, a lot of people probably deal with that a lot more than we want to admit. Um, it's hard for us as business people to admit sometimes, right? We we want to feel like we're in control. And in some cases, like imposter syndrome is an example, our brain is causing us to feel like we're not in control. And it's not to say that you can't still be successful. A lot of times you are very successful and you kind of still feel like you've got imposter syndrome. Um, you can have a lot of experience in what you're doing and still feel like you have imposter syndrome. So I want to tug on that thread a little bit more this week. So let's talk about it. You have people looking at you for leadership potentially, and you still have this little voice in your head that's like, I don't know, man. This still feels a little bit above my pay grade. Or do they did they look at my resume or did they look at somebody else's resume? Because I don't think that confidence magically shows up one day. I think that it's something that you just have to break through some barriers and realize, hey, you are in the right seat and you are capable and make it happen. So that's what we want to talk about today. I want to talk more about confidence being built in multiple reps. I want to talk about doing things again and again, confidently, successfully, efficiently, effectively. That's what the confidence is built from, is you know, in the reps, is in doing the work. It's not in a perfect plan. It's not in motivational quotes or posters on your wall. It's not in vision boarding. It's not when you feel ready. It's built when you are doing things that are stretching you. It's doing things consistently, repeatedly, again and again, that are proving to you, because you're your own worst critic a lot of times, right? Confidence is built when you do something enough times that you start collecting evidence that you can handle it. And I think that word is important, evidence, because it's proof, it's tangible. Evidence is something that you can touch, right? In theory. It's proof. You can look back and say, hey, I made those calls, I had those conversations, I showed up when I said I was gonna show up. I followed through. And more importantly, I didn't die. That one matters, right? Because a lot of the stuff that we're afraid of doing isn't actually dangerous. It's not like I'm going to die if I record a podcast, right? It's just not comfortable sometimes. So here we are. And that's what the difference is. And I think sometimes we confuse discomfort with danger, or we convince ourselves that any type of discomfort is also a dangerous situation. It makes us nervous. It's a sign that we shouldn't do it. But most of the time, it's not a big red stop sign. It's a tiny little red sign that doesn't even say stop on it at all. That's the first step, is breaking through that. And that first trip is most of the time awkward, right? Anytime you're making a sales call, no matter how many sales calls you've made, if it's a different type of sales call, you do sound a little bit weird. You are a little off your game, you know? In my case, the first time I record content, I might overthink every word. In your case, if you've led team meetings, the first time you've led that meeting, you ever wonder if everybody in that meeting is looking at you like, who's this guy? Who's this girl? You know, wonder if they can see the sweat stains in your shirt. In any business, really, when you're asking for that business, your voice might shake a little. You might have a little bit of awkward pacing or pitch, but it doesn't mean that you're an imposter. It means that you're new at that level. So that's something we talked about in the last episode. It's not that you don't know what you're doing, it's maybe you're put in a position where you're in a new level of what you're doing. And there is a little bit of a growth period, and that's okay. Everybody has that growth period. The big difference is between being fake and being early. A lot of people mistake being early for being unqualified. They step into a bigger audience, bigger role, bigger opportunity, and because it feels uncomfortable, they assume they don't belong there. But what if you do belong there? What if you're just underrept? We've talked about that putting in the reps. That's not the same thing. Because if you're faking it, you have to pretend, right? But if you are under-repped, it just means you have to have more reps, you have to have more practice. And practice is something that we can work with. So you're not an imposter, you are still in spring training, you're not ready for opening day. And so that's where the win starts to become less and less random. Because if confidence comes from evidence, then the question becomes: what evidence are you creating? And are you doing the reps that give the future you something to stand on? Or are you still waiting to feel confident before you start? Something I say a lot is, you know, analysis, paralysis. Are we trying to overanalyze things, what our next step should be, or what our first step should be, or are we just getting down to it? So I think that's where a lot of people get stuck and they say stupid things to themselves. And pardon me for saying that, but I mean they are stupid things that we say to ourselves, like, hey, I'll start posting on social every day when I know what I'm gonna say, or I'll start making these calls to these clients when I feel a little bit more prepared, or I'll actually launch this business or this project or this idea when I feel like I've got it kind of dialed in and it's a little bit more perfected, or I'll step into a leadership role when I feel like I'm a leader. You don't need a leadership title to be a leader. The title doesn't make you a leader, leading makes you a leader. So if you are given an opportunity to lead prior to having the title, it means somebody else sees you as a leader. Think about that. That's the problem. We don't think our way into confidence. You act your way into it. And you don't become confident by standing on the sidelines and analyzing everyone else who's playing the game. You get confident by getting in the game. You have to get a little bit of dirt on your uniform, you have to maybe get a little bit of a tear in your jersey, you know, miss a few shots, strike out a few times, miss that goal. Completely airball. You have to do that sometimes. That's how you realize that you can keep going by learning how not to do something. And I'm not talking about completely throwing caution on the wind and being reckless. I'm I'm not saying wing everything and call it confidence because that's not confidence. That's chaos. I'm talking about intentional reps. I'm talking about consistent reps, reps with self-awareness, reps where you actually pay attention, take notes, improve. Because there's a difference between experience and growth. Some people have 10 years of experience, other people have one year of experience that they've repeated 10 times. So, what's the difference there? 10 years of experience is growth every year. One year of experience 10 times is no growth. They've just repeated the same thing again and again 10 times. That's not how that works. There's a big difference there. Confidence doesn't come from just doing something over and over if you're not getting better at it. Confidence comes from doing the work, paying attention, making those micro adjustments, tweaking your pitch, your approach, and then proving to yourself that you're capable of becoming more. So that's the part that some people skip over making changes and looking at things from a business perspective and analyzing it. They just want to feel without putting in the reps. And that doesn't work that way. I get it. Doing the reps is not glamorous. It's kind of boring, it's not fun, but it's important for growth. It's important for what we have to do. It takes confidence in doing the things that you know you need to do and the discipline to actually do it. And nobody gives you a standing ovation because you did this uh boring thing that you said you were gonna do. But that's where the confidence is being built in the routines, the repetitions, the again and again. If you are somebody that works out as an example, a good friend of mine posted this morning about uh his gym routine. It's it's similar to that. You have to go to the gym multiple times consistently and work on certain muscle groups or do cardio or whatever you're going to do to start to see the result. It's no different in business, it's no different in what we do for work every day. Think of the calls that you're making as the practice field before you get called up to the majors. So that's where you become dangerous in a good way because you're putting in the reps and you're taking notes and you're you're reviewing the game film, and you're not faking. You don't need to worry about that because you're confident in what you were doing. So that's confidence. It's not arrogance. There's a difference. Arrogance is like, I have nothing left to learn. I've I've arrived. Confidence is like I can continue to learn, but I'm also pretty good at what I'm doing, or I've confident in what I'm doing, and I've proven myself. Arrogance is like you have to be the best of the best and the smartest person in the room. And there's nobody better than you. But confidence is somebody that you can trust, somebody that you know is gonna be a valuable resource to you when you need help. And that's what you need to do is become confident. Arrogance is a performance. That's that like fake thing that we talked about. Confidence is somebody that's prepared, not faking, knows what to do. And that's a big part of what causes people to feel like they have imposter syndrome. If you consistently tell yourself that you're gonna do something and then you don't do it, eventually your brain starts to treat your own promises a lot like promises that other people have made to you that they haven't held up their end of the bargain. For the company I work for, one of our tag lines is promises kept. And that's because the things that we say that we're going to do, we do. When you start to break promises with yourself, you start to lose faith in yourself. But when you start keeping promises, even if they're small promises, like I'm going to make these 10 calls today, then you start believing in yourself again and you start becoming the kind of person that does what they say they're going to do. And that's not random. That's that's where wins are being built, one rep at a time. So maybe the question for this week is not how do I become more confident? Maybe the question that you should ask yourself is why am I avoiding these reps? Or specifically, what rep am I avoiding? And then that's where you start working. Are you avoiding sales calls? Are you avoiding posting on social? Are you avoiding working out? Are you avoiding conversations? Is it decisions that need to be made that you're avoiding because you're uncomfortable in making the positions because you don't feel confident in making the decisions? Where are you avoiding? And what rep are you avoiding? Because when it comes down to it, the rep that you keep avoiding is probably the one with the most growth potential attached to it. So that doesn't mean that you have to go fix your whole life in one week. Please don't do that. Um, you don't need to have a full personality renovation in a week. But pick a rep, pick one, whatever it is. Make a call. Let's let's start with that one. Make those calls or that call. Let's break it down to just one call. You don't have to do 10 calls, make the one call. And then after you make that one, make one more. If it's recording a video, shoot that one video. And then once you've made that one video, shoot one more. Whatever it is, follow up. Start doing what you said you were gonna do, and then finish what you said you were gonna do. Because things don't have to be perfect. Readiness is overrated. And I and I don't think that I'm being clear when I say that. Preparation matters. I'm not saying that you should wing it. Skill matters, wisdom matters, but you don't have to be perfectly skilled or the wisest person to get started. You just have to do some preparation and get to it. It's in the reps, and the reps are where the lessons live. Step out and get those reps under your bellow. And don't be afraid. And as a matter of fact, invite that fear into the room. Have it sit across from you and get it done. Because fear doesn't get to run this meeting, you do. Fear doesn't get to make these phone calls, you do. So invite fear. Let fear hear what you have to say. And then fear goes away quietly. I've been there before. That is where we are gonna wrap it this week. We don't have random wins. We have wins after doing things consistently, again and again, and getting to work. Thanks for listening. Go get your reps in, and we'll catch you on the next one.