515: How To Build Solid Confidence | Nicole Kalil

In this episode, I’m joined by Nicole Kalil for a powerful and practical conversation about confidence.

Nicole has spent years studying, researching, and teaching confidence, and she breaks it down in such a grounded way. Instead of seeing confidence as something we fake, perform, or get from the outside world, Nicole defines confidence as firm and bold trust in self.

Transcript

Hello, Hello and welcome. I'm happy to have you with me today. I've got a good show for you today. It is all about confidence. But before we dive in. . . I would be so grateful if you would please, Please, Please hit that little subscribe button right below. This helps other people find this show. I am so grateful for you being here with me and I love showing up for you every single week, But let's help the rest of the world learn how to live in their own adult chair. So hit that subscribe button. Thank you. Okay, So let's talk about Nicole Khalil. She has such an interesting story. She is here to speak with us about confidence. So what she talks about, Though, Is very powerful and practical when it comes to confidence. So she learned in her own life, She was looking outside of herself to gain confidence. And what she learned was, It's actually an internal job. You've got to go within to find your true confidence. She breaks down for us what are some real quote-unquote confidence builders. Including taking action, Learning through fear and failure and more. She breaks all of this down for us. So this show is jam packed with ideas for you so you can build your own confidence. It's going to give you a grounded way to build it literally one choice at a time every single day. So here we go with Nicole Khalil. So welcome, Nicole Kalil. It's nice to see you again. I could not be more excited to be here. Thanks, Michelle. Yes. I couldn't be more excited to have you here talking about confidence. My favorite topic. I'm obsessed, Like stalker-like obsession with all things confidence. I've read, Researched, Observed everything I could get my hands on. Let's talk all about it. So I am really curious, How did you, Like, Where did you develop this passion for confidence? I love it. Such an important topic. It totally is. And everybody knows it, Right? They're trying to sell it to us everywhere. We look every product, Everything it claims to make you more confident because they know we all want to feel more confident. The answer to where this obsession came from, I think, Is similar to most of us. Our obsessions often come from our deepest pain. Right. And so there was a period of time in my life where on paper or from the outside looking in, I looked the part of the confident, Independent woman on the rise. Admired my confidence, But on the inside, I could not have possibly been more disconnected from my confidence. I spent all of my energy trying to look confident and very little on how to be or become confident. And when I asked people about confidence, There was always like plethy advice, Right? Be confident, Choose confidence. And I'm like, Okay, But how? Like I need a step-by-step, Walk me through this type thing. And I found that nobody could do that. And even worse, Nobody could define confidence consistently. If you asked 10 people what confidence was, They'd give you 10 different versions of an answer. And so, I just went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what it is, How you build it. And then, You know, When it started working for me, I did what we all do and started sharing it with other people and seeing if it worked there too. Yeah. That's a great, As you just said that, I was like, Wait, How would I define confidence? I'm thinking, Wait, Isn't there just one definition? But I guess a lot of people would say that it's something different. I don't even know how I would break it down. So tell us, How do you define confidence? Well, And, You know, Obviously there's the dictionary definition and a bunch of different versions. I even heard a Mel Robbins talked about her definition of confidence and I'm a big Mel Robbins fan. I don't want to tell her that she's wrong, But my definition is, Is a touch difference or touch different. So what I did is I geeked out and went to the etymology of the word. I actually looked at. What it translated to, What it was originally, What it translated to, How it translates into different languages, And ultimately the word most closely associated with word confidence is the word trust. And the word faith and belief pop up a lot too, But ultimately what we're talking about is an elevated version of trust, Firm and bold trust. So I define confidence in its simplest form as firm and bold trust in self. If you really want to geek out and look at the iterations of the word confidence, You have things like confident or confidant or confidential, Or even con artist as an example. A confidant is somebody we trust to keep our intimate, Secret information. Confidential, Similar. Even a con artist, We don't call them thieves, Even though they ultimately steal from us. We call them con artists because what they do first is establish trust and then take. And so ultimately, Confidence is all about the trust we have with and for ourselves. I love that. You said firm and bold, Trust in self. Yes. Okay, I want to geek out like really just a tiny bit in my world from therapy and coaching. So when you say that to me, I think to myself, Aren't we all born like that? And then something happens where we disconnect from trusting ourselves. Is that true? Would you say? That is my firm belief. I don't know that we can back that up with science. We can't study infants and how confident they are. Ultimately, I believe that we have and are born with firm and bold trust in self and society, Expectations, The way we're raised, Religion. There are all sorts of contributors, Good, Bad, Or indifferent, That serve to separate us from the trust that we have in ourselves. That disconnection that happens when we're told we should care far more about what other people think than what we do or the shoulds and the supposed tos and the other people's expectations and the people pleasing. I mean, We could go on for days about all the ways that we're being taught to look externally versus connect internally. And all the ways that we practice pleasing other people more than we do practicing trusting ourselves. It makes so much sense to me because what little kid, I mean, You have to learn not to trust yourself. Yeah. What little kid is not born trusting that they don't know any better. So I love, I love what you just said. I've never thought through this. It makes so much sense though. And if you think of the example of little kids, Ask them all the things they want to do and be when they grow up and they'll tell you 1 million different things because they believe they can. Right. There isn't a lot of negative self-talk or, You know, Or things like that. There's such freedom that we observe when we see little kids. Completely not questioning and just trusting who they are and what they want. It's so true. You look at little kids, Like let's say on a playground when they're children, Toddlers, Like three, Four, They just, Most of them just walk up to their kids. No big deal. And we would say if they were adults watching adults walk into a party or a networking event, They're going to walk in. And if they just walk up to people, We would say they're so confident. Right. Yeah. And you look at these little kids that are like, Oh yeah, I'm going to go play with so-and-so they're playing in a group. Let me just run over there and play with them. Like there isn't that barrier. That false self is not built yet that says, You shouldn't do that. You don't know them. They're going to judge you like that's not there yet. Oh my gosh. This is like enlightening already for me. So thank you. This makes so much sense. Okay. And when you define it that way, You have everything to say about it. Whereas I think we're told a lot or the way it's defined a lot is based on looking confident. Look people in the eyes, Shoulders back, Executive presence, Things like that. And I'm not saying that any of those things are bad or that there isn't a place to consider how to look confident, But we're taught far more about what it is to look confident than we ever are how to be and become it. And it's always so external. And this definition is something we have everything to say about it's between us and us. Yes, I love this. So it's an internal versus an external kind of thing. Okay, So Obviously, I'm just thinking of so many people that would say, I want to learn that. I want to become more confident, Right? Who doesn't? I can't think of anyone that wouldn't say that to me, Including myself. So how do we build it if we are not feeling this trust in self, This firm and bold trust in self completely? And it's obviously a range. It's not like you cross a finish line like, OK, I'm done working on this. So how do we build it then? Yeah. So I want to start by saying that 79% of people polled say they feel confident in one aspect of their life, But not in others. So there is a high likelihood that you are experiencing firm and bold trust in self in some aspect of your life. And I do think that we can look at that aspect and learn about some things that we can apply to other areas of our life. So however it is that you built trust in yourself and whatever aspect it is that you have that, Think about what contributed, What mattered, Why do you feel that way in that area? And begin to think about how could that be transferable? I think that's a good starting point. But outside of that, I did identify five confidence builders. These are things that any one of us can practice, Develop, Employ anytime we want that serve to build firm and bold trust in self. So I'll give them to you quickly and we can dive into any of the five that you want to. The first confidence builder is action. We don't think hope or fingers and toes cross our way into confidence. We build trust through action and action towards what matters most. So action builds confidence. One of the surprising ones that I really didn't want to admit for a really long time that actually builds confidence is failure or fear or doubt or making mistakes or all the messy things that we tend to avoid. And the reason being is that it's really easy to trust ourselves when everything is going according to plan. It's really easy to trust yourself when you're winning, But when the shit hits the fan or when things go off the rails or you need to pivot, That's where deep, Lasting, Intimate trust gets built. And it's trust in, I'll figure this out, Or trust in, I'll be okay no matter what, Or trust in, I'll get to the other side of this, Trust in whatever it is that you need to at that point in time. I think those are the moments where deep confidence can be built. When you say that, I think of the first one, It's self-compassion. Everything you just said to me is self-compassion. How do we treat or speak to ourselves when we make the mistake, When we feel like we failed, When we hurt somebody, All of the things? What's the inner dialogue? It sounds like the inner dialogue is really, Really important. Well, You teed me up perfectly, Michelle, Because the third confidence builder is giving grace to yourselves and others. It is exactly as you said, The voice in our set, In our, In our minds, Teaching it to be as kind as we would be to anyone else that we love. Like I try to practice talking to myself the same way I would talk to my daughter or my husband or my best friend or my sister, Because of course I would challenge them. Of course they annoy or frustrate me sometimes. But there is a level in which I communicate to myself that I would never to somebody that I love. And so trying to teach my internal voice to give myself the same level of grace I would to the people I love most. Where do you think that internal voice comes from that beats up on us? Yeah, I mean, I do think we're socialized into that voice, Whether it's, You know, Exes or bullies or even well-intentioned parents or friends. I mean, We get so much external noise. And I think it contributes to the voice in our minds so much so that often the voice might sound like our voice, But I don't think that it is. I think it's an accumulation of things that we've been taught to believe. Or perspectives of experiences that are just running rampant and unchecked in our own minds. I'm going to make up a term here. I'm going to call it adopted thoughts. I love that. Yeah, We're just gonna make that up right now. I you know what, You're giving me a memory of I, My children adopted a thought based on something that I said to them, Which I did not think was a criticism, But it actually was a criticism as I look back, But I didn't mean to, Right? So when they were little. I think they were like in middle school, So probably around 12, And they would smile. You know, That was when they're in that boy phase, You know, They're just in an awkward phase. And I'd say, Come on, I'm taking their pictures, Smile, Give me your best smile. And they said, We are, We are. So then what happened was, As they get like, Within the next couple of years, They would have these weird smiles. And I go, Why are you smiling like that? They're like, Because you told us we didn't smile, Right? We were only trying to smile, Right? I'm like, Oh God, I didn't mean to. So they had to learn how to smile and get in pictures. Because of something that I, So they adopted it by mistake. Again, Didn't mean to, But our kids lean on us. And if we say something as benign as that, Like, Come on, You can do better than that. And they're like, We're trying. All of a sudden we've adopted someone else's belief about who we are. Yeah, I'll give the personal example of an adopted thought in my life that I still constantly have to be mindful of. I'm the daughter of immigrant parents firstborn and excellence and hard work were taught and reinforced over and over and over again. And my adopted thought was perfectionism or bust, Right? Like I need to do it all, Be it all, Have it all, Look good while doing it and somehow make it look effortless or I have failed miserably. And that was my adopted thought. And I know my parents, You know, Loved me, Cared about me. That's not what they wished or hoped for, What? Stemmed out of their hyper-vigilance and focus on achievement and doing well and working hard and all of those things that are good lessons. Right. And your parents, They had good intentions. It wasn't they were trying to be mean. That was just what they probably, You know, It's just. Gets passed down. Oh, This is good stuff. Okay, Cool. So we skipped number two. Yeah. Okay. So, Uh, But wait, I want to finish number one. You said action. Can you give us some examples of what that means? So when you say action, That's one of the steps, The first step to building confidence. Give us some examples of that. Yeah. So I think action for the sake of action isn't what we're talking about here. It's really thinking about what is it that I want most, Where do I want to trust myself and getting into action towards that. And I do think, Especially as women, We often feel like it needs to be. Big in order to count. We need to jump into the deep end of the pool. The research is pretty clear. It's small incremental steps lead to big confidence. Think about whatever it is. Maybe you want to change jobs. Maybe you want to change relationships. Maybe you want to start something new. Whatever it is, Whatever dream that's on your heart that will require you to trust yourself firmly and boldly, Think about all of things. Yeah, You're, My brain's like, Hold on. I have a question. Let me ask you this question. It's so weird to me because I can get on and talk to people on podcasts that I don't know. I have no zero. When I say zero fear, Fear, I'm very confident I can step up on a stage. No, Zero fear. I love being there right now. Something that I want to become confident in would be going to a restaurant alone. I disassociate, I'm so overwhelmed, I cannot do it. So you would think, Wait, What? I can stand in front of hundreds of people and speak on the stage, Not knowing a soul, But you ask me to walk into a cafe all by myself, Get lunch and sit down. I am anxious. So this was, So when I lived in Nashville, Something that I said to myself was, I'm asking you, This is an action step. So what I said was, Okay, Once a week, I'm going to go have lunch at that cafe down the street. When I'm at work, I've got that hour. I'm going to go get my lunch, Sit down, Eat, Take some deep breaths and just eat and be like, And put your feet on the ground and ground. So Would that be an action step? I just want to keep going with that. I want to be able to go to the movies alone. I don't even know what the fear is, But it like makes me sometimes even disassociate, But at the very least get anxious. Yeah. So 1000%, That's a great example. And I want to play with it a little bit too. I'm also, By the way, An extreme introvert, So I can relate completely like going out and meeting people is challenging. Going out and doing things by myself is challenging. Staying home and reading a good book. I can do that all day long, Right? Yes, I get it. So, So a few thoughts and Michelle, I'm curious your reaction to this. If you have zero fear in doing something, My guess is it doesn't require a lot of confidence from you to do it. Because you're not facing fear like I don't it doesn't require a lot of courage Let me say it that way you have firm and bold trust in self because you've done it a bazillion times You know that you show up to a podcast recording, You know You can stand in front of an audience and do a deliver a great talk speaking keynote or speech. Yeah. So it doesn't really require a ton of courage, But you have confidence in it. You have firm and bold trust that it'll work out well. I think what we're talking about here might be a combination of confidence and courage. And, And so like going and eating by yourself, I would imagine while they are overlapping confidence and courage, Aren't the same one builds the other and back and forth, But I don't I don't know if they're the same. So I wonder if it's confidence or if it's courage that you want to lean into. But regardless of what, Well, Let me just pause. Any thoughts or reactions there? No, Those are two great, It's a great point because to be, Where I want to go with being able to go to a restaurant by myself is I want to be able to travel internationally alone. And that scares the crap out of me. So is that a confidence thing or a courage thing? Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know. When you asked me that question, I'm like, Gosh, That's a great question. I don't know. It's hard to have firm and bold trust in something you've never done before. Right? And so I think through action, You can build confidence because you can build evidence that you can. And it's going to require courage for you to do that. I would submit that there might be an element of confidence of like, Hey, I'm going to be okay. Like if I go and eat lunch by myself or if I go travel internationally, Nationally by myself, I'm going to be nervous. I might not do all the things I want to do, But I'm going to be okay. I think there's an element of confidence there. But You gave an action step. There's a bazillion action steps in there. You could start by eating lunch by yourself at home, If that feels like an action step. You could start by doing a one-nighter away. You could start by sitting at a bar and eating or having a drink by yourself. Whatever it is, There's so many things. But the most important thing, Michelle, Is that we know what matters most. You want to be able to travel internationally alone and feel good about it. It and enjoy it and have a great experience. So there are a bazillion action steps between where you are now and getting there. And I think Whatever it is that you employ, It's that courage, Confidence, Courage, Confidence, Courage, Confidence that gets built over and over and over again. Through action that allows you to create the opportunity of whatever it is that you want most. So if somebody's listening to this and they want to build confidence, Would you suggest that they think about something that they really want to do, But they're just not doing? Like what would be their assignment? Let's give them an assignment. Yeah. Yeah. I think we all have something we know we want to do. We say, If we had more time or if I had X, Y, And Z, Or if I felt ready, Then I would do this. Whatever that is. That could be your initial assignment. And then again, Think about all the things that you could do that get you one step closer. How do you climb Mount Everest? One foot in front of the other, One step at a time. That's the way we do just about anything. And so whatever it is might feel like your own personal Everest. It might feel big and insurmountable and scary, But one foot in front of the other. And I just go back to don't tell yourself the story that it needs to be big in order to count. It can be the simplest thing. I think of a woman who really wanted to go on a health journey and prioritize taking care of her body. That was a big thing that required courage and confidence for her. And she was like, The starting point was I just want to drink more water. She's like, But that's so stupid. And I'm like, No, It's not stupid. It's the only thing every nutrition person agrees on. Like I talk about all the health and wellness people. The only thing that they all seem to agree on is that water is good for you and maybe Bleak. And other than that, You get a variety of dirt. So start there. That is a beautiful, Wonderful place to start. And when you drink more water each day or commit to and follow through, You begin to build trust and self. I said I would. I did. Great. Then what is the next thing that you can continue to build that trust? Keeping your commitments is a great way to build internal trust. And we tend to keep the commitments we make to other people at a much higher level than the ones we keep make to ourselves and when you think about your confidence the commitments you make with yourself need to be prioritized because that's how you build firm and bold trust in self. I like that example of climbing Mount Everest. Like, I think it would seem that so many of us just being human, We have a tendency to kick out our ideas. Like, No, That's too much. That's too big. I'll never like for me, Traveling internationally or climbing Mount Everest, You just don't wake up tomorrow morning and go climb Mount Everest. There are steps. So it would seem like if you break it way down, And first you go buy your new hiking boots, And then you buy the clothes that you need, And you're gonna hike forever, Then you buy the backpack. You start conditioning for it and you work up to that goal. But along the way, All those little incremental steps are building up the confidence to get you to do that thing that you ultimately want to do. So thank you. Makes so much sense. Perfect. Yeah. My pleasure. I mean, I like it. I'm never going to climb Everest or any mountain to be fair, But there are so many steps before you even step foot in the country where Everest is, Like you do so many things. And it's a series of small incremental steps that lead to big confidence. Love that. Okay, Cool. Thank you. Great example. All right. What's number two? Okay, So action was number one. Failure, Fear, Mistakes, That's number two. So overcoming those things that we're taught to avoid where deep, Lasting, Intimate trust gets developed because you can't find a really confident person who hasn't failed or hasn't done it often, Or even a really successful person. Or even if you think about asking people at the late stages of their life about their biggest regrets, They never talk to you about their failures or their mistakes, They tell you about the things they didn't do. We regret most the actions we don't take, Not the ones we do, No matter the outcome. So failure is the second confidence builder if you allow it, If you choose trust in those moments, Even if the trust is as simple as, I'm going to get to the other side of this somehow, Someway. Mm. I love that. And you got it. You really need to have number three, Which you said was grace to go with number two, Because when we fail, I guess that now it's like a it's like it catches you when you're about to abandon your goal, Whatever that might be. You then move right into grace, Which is number three. This is hold on. Where's that self-compassion? Where the where's your what I call your inner cheer, Your inner cheerleader. You've got to be willing to say, OK, I made a mistake and I'm going to keep going anyway. It's okay. I failed and, You know, Love it. Yeah. And I'm glad that you said that, Michelle, Because I do want to be clear. We're not talking about toxic positivity here. It's not everything's great all the time, Right? It's as you said, Yeah, I made a mistake, Man. I screwed that one up royally. And what did I learn? How will I be better from this? Don't give up. Whatever the message you would say to somebody you love in that same situation, I think, Again, Practicing communicating in our own minds in that way is one of the biggest gifts we can give to ourselves and to that firm and bold trust we're trying to create. Love it, Love it, Love it. What's the next one? Okay, So the fourth confidence builder is going to sound a little plithy, So bear with me for a second here, But it's choosing confidence. And what I wanted to do was distinguish confidence from a feeling. I think most of us think of confidence as a feeling we either have or we don't. Like either I felt confident before we hit record or I didn't. And if I didn't, Then, Oh my God, I can't do it. I'm not, You know, Whatever. It choosing confidence is the opportunity. It's a choice we make and can make anytime we want because it's a skill we can develop. It's not a feeling. A lot of times people talk about faking it till you make it and I sort of, It sounds like semantics, But I reframed it as choose it until you become it. Choose confidence moment by moment until the feeling catches up. And it will eventually, But the choice comes first. That's powerful. Yeah, Because I know you talk about you can't fake it till you make it. It's bad advice, You said. Yeah. I don't love it. As women, I think we've been being told a fake far too many things for far too long. But I mean, You can't fake it because it's, It's just a mental game and it's not, I want to go back to where we started. It's like, It's this internal versus external. When I think of external, I think of even the thoughts we have out here. So we want to bring it in the body. Okay. And choosing it is like, Nope, I'm going to choose it again. You can't do that unless you're really embodied. So that's amazing. Okay, Cool. Yeah. And the fake it till you make it is basically telling us to be inauthentic and it's hard to trust yourself when you're being inauthentic. So it really doesn't, It doesn't work. And it is, A choice that creates a feeling and there is a total body experience when you do it. I love it. Okay, What's the next one? The fifth one are just a series of building internal trust. It's just that reminder that this is an internal thing first and foremost. And so I identify five confidence derailers and one of the confidence derailers is seeking confidence externally. It's this thing that we do where we think someone or something out there is going to come along and give us, Bring us, Gift us, Whatever version of it we think confidence. And it doesn't work that way. If it did, At best, It's temporary until the feeling wears off and then you're addicted to that thing because you want it to give you more confidence. And so rather than seeking it externally, I want you to focus on building it internally. And there are a bazillion ways that you can do this, But I would invite you to think about how you build trust with the people in your life and how they build trust with you, Because it will give you insight into what matters most to you. For me, One of the things that really matters in my relationships and the people I build trust with is I trust people who keep their commitments. I tend to not trust people who are super flaky and don't keep their word. Knowing that was super important then I turned it internally and I recognized that I was not keeping a lot of the commitments I was making to myself. They would go by the wayside in favor of the commitments I made to other people. And so I had to get real with myself and stop buying my own crap and start getting real about the commitments I made with and for myself. Boundaries is another great example. We tend to trust people who commit to communicate, Stick to boundaries. So, You know, That would be important. People who stand up for themselves, Speak their truth. I think another big thing is being mindful of who you surround yourself with. I don't believe that anybody gives you confidence and I don't believe that anybody takes it away, But I do think that there are encouragers and detractors and you want to be very mindful of who you surround yourself with. If you're around detractors all the time, It's going to be really hard to hold on to your own confidence. But I love, I love that. You can't, I love that other people can't take it from you because I can hear some people just in having clients over the years that would say, Well, They stole my confidence. And tell us a little bit more about the derailers. What would that look like in our lives? Give us an example of that. So the five confidence derailers are perfectionism, Head trash, Comparison, Overthinking, And seeking it externally. So I say it quick like that because every one of us knows every one of those and we're like, Yep, We know what that experience is like. So perfectionism detracts from our confidence because We're literally creating a wall between ourselves and ourselves and ourselves and everyone else. It's all about how it looks and how other people perceive. It's all about doing everything right all the time, Be it all, Have it all, Do it all. And it is chipping away and doing horrible damage to our confidence. It doesn't even allow for trust to come in because everything is so rigid. That's really good. You talked about taking out the trash. What did you learn about confidence from taking out the trash? Yeah. So I call the voice in our head that says things to us that are never kind and very rarely true. I call it head trash because I want it to sound as dirty and disgusting as it actually is. I like that. Okay. And I learned a lot about my head trash, Our head trash from having to deal with my actual trash. So gosh, Almost 10 years ago, We moved from California to Massachusetts and it was a very quick move. My husband got a job opportunity out here. I can do my work from anywhere. And so in a matter of less than two months, We sold a house in California, Bought a house in Massachusetts, Moved across the country. And as you might imagine, We didn't have a lot of time to research where we were moving to. And one of the things I didn't know until we got to Massachusetts is the town we moved to doesn't provide trash service. Nobody comes around and picks up your trash each week. I know it's weird. It's a nice town, But what you do is you bring your trash to something they call the transfer station, Which is a nice way of saying the dump. And so. Having to deal with our trash on a regular basis because this was my chore and before anybody feels really bad for me, My husband does 100% of the grocery shopping and the cooking in our household. So dealing with the trash is my deal and it's no big deal. But a few things that I've learned. First, We are not the only contributors to our trash, Meaning I'm not the only one throwing things in our trash. My husband throws things away, My daughter when we have when we have dinners, Other people, When we have friends or family or holidays, Other people are contributing to my actual trash. Same is true for your head trash. Other people are absolutely contributing to it, As we talked about earlier, Whether it be bullies or bad bosses or exes or even well-intentioned family and friends. So many people are contributing to our head trash or these adopted thoughts. But regardless of who contributes, Will only ever always be our responsibility to discard it. Mm-hmm, So I never invited family or friends back over and said do you want to help me take the trash to the transfer station because you contributed to it so like You know like it doesn't work that way. It was still my job Just like it will always only ever be your job to deal with your head trash Nobody's gonna come back and deal with it with you or for you The second thing I learned is that not all trash is created equal. Some trash can be recycled. It can be brought back for another use or purpose. Some trash can be composted. It can be used to grow something. Other trash is certainly trash and it's meant to be discarded and never to be seen or thought of again. And so I, In dealing with my trash, Had to take different trash to different places. We had the recycling conveyor belt, The trash one, The composting. Sort and choose what was gonna go where. The same is true for your head trash. You get to decide, Can something be recycled and brought back for another use? Can something be used for compost for your growth and development? And what is trash? Like what needs to be discarded and never thought of again? So I'll give you the examples in my life. I have been told often from a young age that I'm loud and opinionated. I decided to recycle that and use it for another purpose, And I did what every good, Loud, And opinionated person does, And I launched a podcast. Right? So I recycled that for something positive in my life. I've been given the feedback in my work that I can be unapproachable. I'm very head down, Focused, Get things done, Tactical. And so that is something I used for compost. I use it for my growth and development and because I wanted to be more approachable. I wanted to be somebody that people felt comfortable coming to, And so I used that for my growth and development. And then I had an ex-boyfriend who told me once that I would never find somebody who would love me or want to marry me if I didn't tone down my ambition. I think we all know what that was, Right? It was trash and so was he. So I threw that away, Never to be seen or thought of again, Because it's not worth the time and energy rolling around in my brain. And then the third and final thing that I learned about our head trash from my actual trash is that it gets disgusting when it's hot out. Meaning when it is New England summers and it's humid and like our trash needs to be dealt with on a more regular and consistent basis. I need to go two or three times a week, Not just once a week or once every two weeks, Like I can do in the winter. If I don't, We're talking like maggots. I mean, It's disgusting. And the same is true with our head trash. It gets gross when it's hot out. And by that, I mean, When you're under stress, Overwhelmed, Anxious, Feeling pressure, It gets really gross in there, Like mind And so it's our responsibility to deal with it with more consistency and more focus than when everything's going according to plan and when, You know, Things are fine. Our head trash works a lot like our regular trash in that. We're not the only contributors. It's still our responsibility to deal with it. Not all trash is created equal. You get to decide what you want to do with it. And ultimately, It gets gross when it's hot out. So you've got to pay attention to it the most in those circumstances when you're feeling stressed or under pressure. Yeah, It's again, It's it's to tapping back into that internal self. And not looking out there for someone to fix it for us. It's like, Hold on, I'm having the bad thoughts. I'm having thoughts that are trashy. I've got to take them out. It's my job. Love it. This was so good, Nicole. Is there anything else you feel like you want to share? Did I miss anything? Any good questions for you? No, You asked great questions. I do often talk about like on the, So confidence is ultimately firm and bold trust in self. And sometimes people are like, Okay, But what does that look like? What does that feel like? And the way I measure it or, Or talk about it in my day to day life is confidence is Knowing who you are first and foremost, Owning who you're not. And embracing all of it. So it's the day-to-day active decision-making of knowing who you are intimately, Deeply, You know, Like real awareness of what matters most to you. What are your unique gifts and abilities? What can you count on about yourself? So really knowing yourself and then the owning who you're not is just this loving reminder that we are not meant to be all things to all people, Everyone or everything is meant for us and that is as it should be. And so really checking in with yourself is, You know, Is this meant for me? Am I meant for it? And this active choosing of embracing all of ourselves because the act of doing that is what creates firm and bold trust. Mmm, That's really good. I love it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. Thank you, Nicole. Thank you so much for being with us today. And really, I want to say thank you for the beautiful work around confidence that you're putting out into the world. It's really, Really needed. Thank you. I appreciate it. It is absolutely my pleasure.