Imposter syndrome hits hardest right when you’re trying to reinvent. You’ve been confident in your craft for years, then suddenly you’re starting over, pitching a new path, learning new skills, and your brain decides you’re “not ready.”
In this episode, Todd and Chris break down a practical system for building confidence without waiting for it to magically appear. They unpack why “fake it till you make it” gets misunderstood (and what it should mean), how to turn insecurity into curiosity (the fastest antidote), and why confidence is ultimately not about results, it’s about trusting yourself to figure it out.
You’ll learn:
- Why waiting for confidence keeps you stuck
- How taking action rewires confidence (and reduces anxiety)
- The “beginner mind” approach that makes imposter syndrome shrink
- How to balance inner work (allow & reflect) with bold external action
- A new definition of confidence you can actually use in real life
If doubt is keeping you from sending the DM, making the pitch, launching the thing, or stepping into the room, bookmark this one.
**And if this conversation resonates with you, visit ReInvention.biz to explore our guided workbook and join a community of people just like you – people designing what’s next.
**Subscribe to the ReInvention Podcast to stay plugged into fresh ideas, frameworks, and real-world tools for navigating the future of your work and life.
Episode Transcript
Chris: I’d rather face the theoretical pain of rejection for who I am. Than acceptance for this projection that I actually am not. I’m gonna fake it till I make it, or just keep taking action or I’m gonna wait till I have the confidence to take action.
All right, Todd, what’s on the docket today? My man? What are we talking about?
Todd: Well, Chris, this is one of those topics that most people don’t address when they’re reinventing their careers or their lives. But when we turn towards the, how to have confidence even when I don’t syndrome. And you address it consciously and with the system, it frees you from so much mental consternation and anxiety it’s literally life changing. And as we’re gonna see today, the strategies involved with confidence building are actually quite polar. Either you move forward and take action using the fake it till you make it approach, or you wait until you somehow locate that internal feeling of confidence. Before taking action.
And yes, Chris, today we’re talking about imposter syndrome and how to deal with it. And as you know, I have very specific recommendations and I think you do too for how to address this virtually ubiquitous issue. Look, everyone deals with this and our goal for today is that you are dear listeners, come out of this episode with a clear set of guidelines for what to do and how to act if confidence or lack thereof is one of those things that keeps you up at night. So our mission today is accelerated mental freedom. And remember, our core premise is that your next career can be your best career if you align it with who you want to become and not with who you’ve been in the past. And this is a tricky subject because many in our reinvention community have had supreme confidence in their professional craft.
And now they’re either burned out or being forced to look at other options and lacking confidence is all of a sudden a huge issue that they’ve never dealt with before. Look, man, I see you like a rabid dog chomping at the bit to get in on this one. What say you my man?
Chris: Yeah, I mean, this is a really critical one. It’s really important, and it’s also just from a personal perspective, been something I’ve struggled with, not only in my reinvention. I mean, I’ve struggled with it my whole life and my whole career. I’ve said this to you before, Todd, the worst thing that ever happened to me was that I was a little smart precocious kid who got straight A’xs and everything came really easily to me when I was little.
A lot of people around me acted like, oh, you’re like a genius. This is all gonna work out for you. Thanks everybody. Yeah, I appreciate the support. That’s a good thing. Everybody meant well. But then the first time I ran into adversity or something was difficult. I didn’t know what to do with that.
I didn’t have the resilience to deal with that, and I think it created a situation where I was really anxious and hesitant to go into situations where I didn’t have like 100% complete confidence that I was gonna knock it out of the park. And what is that a recipe for? Well, it’s a recipe for not trying new things. It’s a recipe for squelching your growth, actually. Because the thing we talk about through lots of different lenses on this podcast is if you wanna grow and if you wanna reinvent, you by definition want to grow, you’re gonna have to be bad at stuff. You’re gonna have to start doing something. You’re gonna have to take action in an area that you are not comfortable in, and you’re gonna still have to steel yourself to do it because you can’t get better if you don’t try the thing that you suck at, and that’s critical.
Todd: This notion of not feeling confident, I said the word ubiquitous. We all feel it, everybody. The whole world feels it. So I think that’s very relieving. When you understand that, all right, I’m just trying my best, I’m listening to this podcast on career reinvention.
It’s tough for me. I’ve been on this path, you know, and I’m, I’m not feeling a hundred percent certain about my future, it’s why I am seeking out a conversation like this. That’s okay, we start there. You know, we actually just start there. And I also mentioned this notion of fake it till you make it. It’s a really controversial thing. Like some people hate it. In my experience, some people live by it. The way that I hold it is a little bit different in terms of what does fake it till you make it actually mean to me. What it really means is that you’re taking action without being controlled by your emotional state.
Okay? So you’re always taking action even if you don’t feel confident. Even if you don’t feel a hundred percent secure. Now a lot of people will turn that into being disingenuous, inauthentic, even lying or manipulating. That’s not what I’m talking about. Okay. Taking action can be generative. Action can be authentic action, but you may not just have the confidence of what you’re doing.
Look, it’s like anything that you do new when you first start going to the gym. It’s gonna be really painful to lift those weights. It’s gonna be really painful to get on that treadmill or go running it’s not gonna be great. You’re not gonna have confidence. Your body’s not gonna be used to it, but you’re doing it to build a muscle.
In my approach on coaching, Chris, for years has been, it’s taking action that starts to rewire the neural pathways. I don’t really think that sitting around waiting to get confidence and just using meditative practices or coaching techniques to locate the internal feeling of confidence is the sole answer that’s valuable.
Okay. Like for me, it’s a both and. So it is valuable to try to locate and do some internal work, remove blocks, do some healing, that gets these insecurities out of the way. But fake it till you make it is the wrong language. It’s really take action. Even when you don’t feel it, feel the fear and do it anyway.
And this is a staple, Chris, for people that are reinventing their career and reinventing their lives, like we need to be pushing forward and going forward. Like we always say this life’s a blip in the matrix and we’re living in a world that is rapidly changing. There is tons of uncertainty in a variety of ways.
We get it. I get it. You feel it? I feel it. Let’s go. You know, let’s keep going. Let’s take action. Let’s see what wants to become of us. Just doing things okay. Even if it’s not perfect and right, and let’s see where we land.
Chris: Well, and I want to take on the concept of when people think that fake it till you make it is inauthentic. If we talk about coaching for instance, it’s not fraud and you’re faking that you offer a service and you’re tricking people. It’s faking the confidence that you are like able to do this thing at a level a little bit better than you’re able to.
It’s for yourself. It’s internally focused. So it’s like before I feel like I’m ready to take the next step to grow my business, I am pushing myself to grow my business a little bit. It’s not that the business itself is fake or something like that, , I like to say, be it before you see it. You know, maybe that’s my trademark version of it, but I love the analogy you made to working out, right?
Think about it. You’re putting up 135 on the bench press. If you’re gonna get up to 145, at some point you’re gonna have to put another 10 pounds on the bar and you’re gonna have to not be able to put it up. That’s really all this is about is having the confidence to push yourself to a place where really you know that you’re challenging yourself.
You know that you are pushing yourself to grow. Because if you only do the things that you feel 100% certain about having a return of success on, there’s absolutely no growth there. It’s impossible by definition.
Todd: I think the thing where people get off on this one is the projection aspect, right? So we see this a lot on social media that, it’s like, oh, everyone is living this incredible life. You know, like, well look at that guy. Look at that woman. Like, business is great. They’re flying high, they’re on jets.
Like their family is beautiful and everything is great, right? We know that game. Okay. So I’m not talking about fake it till you make it, that I recommend people to just project out into the world, something that is so ideal, like, look, if you wanna do that, that’s fine,
Chris: I think that there are things wrong with that, but you know we won’t get bogged down in that
Todd: Right, look, there can be things wrong with it when it’s also coming from a place of inauthenticity. Like sometimes we see it, we feel it, we’re like, man, that person is really trying very hard to project something. And I know someone feels a little bit off about it. But, that’s one thing. Okay. The greatest way to really start to get confidence, and this is like a little secret, okay. This something that I talk about with all my clients for 20 years is when you’re in a place where you’re feeling lack of confidence, turn that lack of confidence into curiosity.
Become curious, ask questions. Ask questions to people. This is the antidote for this whole thing. Okay? You become a student, you become a learner. You just go out into the world with this more inquisitive attitude, and it’s amazing what happens because all of a sudden this whole idea of like, I have confidence, I don’t have confidence diminishes. And you just see yourself as a human being that is just wanting to understand things. And it actually doesn’t matter what level of master you’re at in any area. Okay. Like the greatest masters are maybe the most curious people.
I mean, Einstein has some great quotes around this, right? So when we’re in a situation where we’re reinventing and we feel like we’re at the beginning sometimes it’s fake until you make it feels like, oh well we need to project, you know, to be able to kind of establish like this new identity that we’re working towards.
What I’m saying is, yes, that is an approach that has some validity, but also turn it into like, well, I’m just kind of like a newbie here. You know, I’m just gonna ask a lot of questions, and that’s where you’re gonna find your juice. This is where you’re gonna find your solace this is where you’re gonna find acceleration towards success is when you become a beginner again, in your own mind, and you start asking a lot of questions in a lot of ways. Technically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, like you really start asking questions and you see yourself that way. This diminishes pretty much all of that.
Chris: Yeah. And releasing the ego in a way that allows you to be that beginner and ask those questions. To me, that creates so much confidence and it also embodies confidence in yourself. It’s a little bit counterintuitive maybe in a way, but I create a lot of confidence in myself when I let go of this idea that I’m supposed to know everything I can’t ask a question. I was just on a call with a guy who’s got a great social media game and I was like, Hey man, you got a great social media game. I’d love to hear about that. Like how did you start doing that? Like, how do you do all this stuff? Whatever. I got all this learning from him in this conversation and I’ll now apply it on my level.
But that’s the fake it till you make it. Thing that we get hung up on. I was not fronting in any way. I was just like, all right, I don’t know what I’m doing here. Like, let’s go. And then there’s no anxiety or no nerves around that at all. So this confidence thing is really tied up in our ego and not wanting to be embarrassed or exposed, or whatever it is, right? This goes to a theme we talk about all the time, Todd. No one is judging you. No one cares as much as you care about it. It’s like develop the internal belief in yourself and your value as a human really in a way that underlies the confidence. It’s okay that you’re bad at the thing you wanna do right now. No one’s judging you for that. Embrace that, and now you’re not out over your skis trying to pretend you’re something you’re not. And all that lack of confidence really gets deflated.
Todd: Yeah, I agree. And you talk about going over your skis, ’cause I know you’re going skiing tomorrow, so that’s probably not in your mind. Yeah. Good for you, man.
Chris: Oh, and by the way, I’m gonna ski greens Todd, I’m gonna ski greens I’m not gonna be over my skis. I’m gonna be beginner’s mind.
Todd: No, but I, I love what you said, and you know, you do this very naturally, like just going into business with you. You’re very open in the areas that you don’t really know. You’re in credibly open to what you don’t know and where you’re uncomfortable.
Chris: You say I that naturally. And that’s really funny Todd, that’s only because we’ve gotten to know each other at this phase in my life. That is not the way I naturally was up until just a few years ago. Right. I had to learn how to be a beginner. My assumption going into everything was that I should know how to do this on some sort of higher level or whatever it is. And so then I would do things and you know, the first time you whatever, pick up a golf club, most people shank the ball, right? You’re not gonna hit like a beautiful drive the first time you do that. So then I would immediately code something like that as oh, I suck at this thing. Which is true in the beginning, but like also that is what everyone is at everything in the beginning. And so it started to create like systemic lack of confidence for me where I’d be like, oh, I’m so bad at all these things. Yeah, I’m a beginner who’s unpracticed in all these things. So I had to learn, and I think people who are listening, I think this will help some people. I had to learn how to get comfortable and confident enough in myself on a core level, to when I meet someone like you who I wanna partner with and work with, rather than thinking I have to impress this guy with how good I am at stuff. I was like, oh, if I don’t know something, I am just open to say, oh, I don’t know what that is.
Like, I don’t really know how that works. You’ll either accept that I don’t know those things and will help me learn and we’ll work together or you’ll do them and I won’t, or whatever it is, or you won’t. And at the beginning I didn’t care ’cause it’s like this is gonna work, because this guy’s gonna wanna work with the me who actually exists, not some false projection that I’m trying to sell.
Todd: Yeah. I mean what you’re modeling is like how to have a really good, healthy, authentic relationship really with anybody.
You got to that point. I’m really curious how you crossed that bridge. I only know you now of building this business together and doing this podcast where I really see you as someone that’s always open and vulnerable and transparent, what it does for me on the other side, so you could understand, if you’re sitting here listening to this thinking, well, how am I gonna start doing that? You know, how am I gonna start getting more authentic and vulnerable with people? And that’s risky because there’s a chance that they’re gonna say no or they won’t like it. Right, and then it won’t be the right fit in some way.
And this goes for romantic relationships, right? This goes for business partnerships, collaborations. When you’re not yourself and you’re trying to fit yourself in a box to appease and get approval from someone else, you know, there’s that inauthentic part, but you’re trying something, you’re trying an approach.
But when you let that go and you’re like, look, I’m just gonna go ahead and be myself, and either it’s gonna work or it isn’t. You know? You said the words, I didn’t care. You said that just now. And that’s really powerful. This is what people have to understand for people that are reinventing their careers, you have to get to that place where it doesn’t matter.
You have to be yourself and you have to be authentic, and not everyone is gonna be the right fit for you. You’re gonna kiss a lot of frogs along the way, right? You’re like my fifth business partner in trying to build what my vision is in my life. You know that, right? You’re gonna have to go through a process it is iterative when you’re reinventing, but when you’re authentic, which you know, I really try to be myself and what you’re modeling, you’re gonna go through that.
But then what happens in this situation where we have this podcast and we love doing it and we love working together so far. You’ve created a lot of trust. Okay. Like I trust you because you are always sharing your authentic in the moment challenges and good stuff as well. It’s not all challenges, but like things that you don’t understand or you’re uncertain about, so I trust that. I’m like, oh, we have a very solid foundation as friends and as business partners, ’cause I kind of know where this guy’s at. That to me is more valuable than somebody that is trying to feign some identity to fit in with what their perception of me is.
Chris: Their projection of what they think you might want and they’re trying to people please their way in
Todd: You know, that’s the funny thing, the strategy is faulty. ‘Cause you don’t really know the other person. What always wins is being yourself and if it doesn’t work out, and I’ve told you it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. You both move on in some way and you both learn a lesson and then you move on. So, I don’t even know we’re gonna get there on this today, but like this is really what, this is it creates confidence it also gives me the ability, Chris, to share my own stuff back.
Chris: Yeah. It creates a feedback. It creates a safer space and connection and stronger relationship. I mean, you were saying people approach these things sometimes of like, well, what if I get rejected if I let them see that I’m not good enough in this way? What if I get rejected? You want to. You wanna get rejected. For me. I’d rather face the theoretical pain of rejection for who I am. Than acceptance for this projection that I actually am not. And I said theoretical there because it doesn’t hurt. And I know that for people who are not maybe in that head space yet, that’s hard to contemplate. So you’re gonna have to take that on faith and you’re gonna get there. Again, if early on in the process I had in being open and vulnerable and talking to you about the things I can and can’t do and this and that whatever, and you had said, Hey, well, we’re not gonna move forward. From my perspective, I’m like, all right, how many other billions of people are there in the world to partner with or to work with, or whatever. So it was like, I wanted to work with you, but it was a loose attachment. Like we talk about.
Now we’ve created collective confidence through our actions. And this is what you were saying before you set it up really nicely in this conversation. There’s sort of the people who are like, I’m gonna fake it till I make it, or just keep taking action or I’m gonna wait till I have the confidence to take action. Well, I’ve got an opinion on that, Todd, but I’d love to hear what you think about those.
Todd: Yeah. I love that you just made that shift in it, right? Because on the other side, there is also value in doing some of this inner work that is necessary for us to allow and reflect one of our favorite terms, you know, that we’ll talk about right now a little bit. In terms of, well, why am I not feeling confident?
The fake it till you make it, the reason why a lot of people have a problem with it is that you’re stamping over something that’s deeper inside your psyche. Okay? And, and yes, you are in a sense, like you’re trying to override the program. You’re literally trying to create new neural pathways that can deaden the old ones.
This is what neuroplasticity is, okay? It’s the idea that our brains can change and our behaviors and our actions are very powerful that form grooves in our mind. And at the same time, we also look to the internal mechanism and we try to upgrade ourselves from the inside out.
And what that means when you’re lacking confidence, a really valuable practice that all Reinventors need to integrate and this is why what we’re doing is different than simply helping people pivot their careers. We are not career pivots, we are career reinventors, which is different because allow and reflect and giving yourself the time to turn inward is a big part about what we all need to be doing right now. Okay. We all need to be integrating self-reflective practices where we spend some time on at least a weekly basis of not daily, you know, 10, 15 minutes to allow ourselves to feel the lack of confidence, to allow ourselves to feel the insecurity, to allow ourselves the ability to feel our fear or our sadness or our depression about the state of the world.
Let it be okay. All right. I’m not saying, and we’ve done episodes on this, that we stay in that state forever. No, we wanna move the needle. We wanna be proactive, we wanna be optimistic, we wanna take this life on. That’s very much what we’re about. But without allowing yourself some time and space to just be with the negativity, to just be with that fear. Just be with whatever it is you know, and allow it to be and be curious about it and develop those practices, these mindful practices, right? These buzzwords that have really gotten popular over the last 20 years, but really allowing that to be, is the fuel, Chris, right? So when you start to build this system of, all right, I’m gonna allow and reflect and I’m gonna override, you know, and fake it till I make it, I’m gonna start doing both of these things as strategies.
That’s where I’ve seen people really transform their lives and get results really, really fast when they’re doing both.
Chris: Yeah. Well, I think it’s really important when you talk about allow and reflect, for me there’s an element of, when I’m anxious about something or nervous about something, ’cause I’m not feeling confident about it, there is a meta level of that where it’s like some of the anxiety is around not taking it on, it’s around resisting it, like, I don’t wanna do this thing. Like I’m nervous about this thing and I don’t wanna do this thing, but I’m gonna pretend that that’s not happening. I think there is a balance of allowing yourself to feel that and for me, self-talk is helpful here to say, oh, I’m feeling nervous about this thing. Like you know, I did a little presentation a couple of days ago. Oh, I’m feeling a little nervous about this little presentation. That’s okay. You should be nervous about a presentation ’cause you care about it and you wanna get it right and you want it to land well in the room and that’s okay. And like that takes the piss out of it a little bit in terms of the anxiety and the nerves that you’re feeling. In that moment.
But I think the flip side is, like you said, don’t stew in it and don’t be stuck in it. And keep in mind always that it is a feedback loop. Action and confidence. Build confidence to take the action that’s maybe a bit challenging. Build confidence by having taken the action and reminded yourself and built the neural pathway that tells you I’m the type of person that takes that action. And one of my favorite phrases I say on this podcast all the time is when you take this scary action, ’cause it’s not gonna be base jumping, it’s gonna be presenting your new business at a forum. You’re not gonna die. You’re not gonna die. Your nervous system is so hyped up around these things because it’s so worried about rejection from the group and just all of these things, you’re not gonna die.
So, create this , strength in yourself to say, I’m gonna push myself past the limit a little bit, where I’m not super confident it’s gonna land well and it might actually go really well. My presentation went really well the other day, but even if it doesn’t, you’re gonna feel better because you’re gonna prove to yourself, oh yeah, next time I feel that anxiety. I’ve proven to myself that it is not existential. I’ve proven to myself that I’m not gonna die from it, and you just have to build that up over time.
These are really deep things, right. I know we’re talking to career reinventors here, and so from a tactical perspective, it’s really important to get this confidence to move these certain conversations and your growth forward. But these are really just deep human issues that we are all facing in every walk of life. So many people can take away from this just an examination of really how much of the life they want they’re holding themselves back from out of this projected fear of the downside that doesn’t really exist for the most part.
Todd: I mean, look, this is deep stuff. At the end of the day, I know. Are talking about, people come to us and they’re wanting to make really smart decisions about their career and they’re wanting to align their interests and their lifestyle with their money making. And they come to us burned out or uncertain about the future with fear and yeah, like we get that this is what we’re doing and we have a very clear focus to help people make really smart decisions about their future, which is why on this podcast, you know, we are also bringing in experts in business and technology and even some visionaries, you know, that we’re interviewing to talk about things like the future of work. ’cause we wanna start skating to where the puck is going.
I love that phrase, you know, when we make decisions about our future, like what industries you know are actually gonna be alive with AI changing everything. Like, let’s be smart and tactical, right? I think this is a really worthy part about what we do, but when we talk about this conversation today and confidence, lack of confidence, and getting into some of the deeper interpersonal stuff, this is really where the rubber meets the road. Because these things are very much connected. and when you’re talking about nervous system regulation, this is a huge part of it because especially for a lot of people that are coming out of corporate or careers where they had some success and there’s a lot of energy, there’s a lot of head energy that is running.
And now what we’re saying is, and again, this is what makes reinvention a little bit different is, let’s bring it down. Okay, let’s bring this down a little bit. Let’s start to integrate some of these practices of allow and reflect. Let’s start to feel the fear and do it anyway. Let’s start to learn how to take action.
It’s why we built six tenets of reinvention, right? I’m not gonna go through them again right now, but getting clarity and building the life vision, right? Having a game plan. Having a community, this is why we have a community of Reinventors that come to at least two calls a week with us, and connect with each other because we need support.
These are all tools that bring down the nerves and the anxiety and like grounds you into the reality that you are living in this planet for a short time and you have an opportunity to make really smart decisions right now about your future. And there is a process for how to do that well. Okay? And the process is not just, well, I need to do some personal work and I need to kind of heal myself. The process is both. It’s a both and. Okay. And that’s why I love this conversation more than anything, by the way, for our listeners, every time Chris and I finish an episode, we both say after, oh my God, I just reminded myself of so many things that I need to be doing.
Like part of what we’re doing is modeling being out there and open with these human processes because we are benefiting personally by doing this. This helps us become better people and become better men and fathers and husbands, and also business owners, right? So that’s what we’re talking about here. It’s a very human thing to reinvent yourself and to build the next career, and I think that’s where the real seeds of success happen, Chris. We want people to be fully on fire about their future, and not fearful and like, oh, I guess I’ll do that because X, Y, Z, no, let’s, build that emotional energy and passion towards our future.
Chris: You said something so important, right? We’re saying skate where the puck is going. There’s so much change in the future of work. I mean, in the present of work, but in the near future of work with AI and the way industries are changing. We can make educated guesses and we can try to be smart about where we’re targeting, but the truth is we don’t know.
And the pace of change is just exponential. So three years from now is gonna feel as different as 20 years ago felt is sort of the way we’re progressing as a society. And so I’m gonna say that what we’re talking about right now, building your confidence and building your ability to try new things, even when you’re not ready, is a skill.
It is a very important skill. If you are looking at LinkedIn right now, my favorite, trying to find your next job. That job might not exist in a year, but if you are building your confidence and you’re getting comfortable trying new things and putting yourself into new situations and being able to expand who you connect with without knowing that you’re gonna get a guaranteed return or a result from it. That’s the skillset that you’re gonna need in this ever evolving and changing ecosystem of the future of work. It’s just gonna get faster and faster. So you know, we’re not saying this just from the perspective of we’d like you to be able to have this confidence to actualize your life. We’re also saying it from the perspective of, it is a necessity in the world that we are already living in, and it’s only getting faster and faster. This is an absolutely necessary tool in your kit.
Todd: I could not have said that better, brother. You know, these six tenets, that’s what I’m going back to right now. Like getting clarity, building a life vision, getting a game plan, taking action, getting accountability partners, getting a community, building new skills and understanding what new skills you need to build.
And you know, within that one, tenet is this idea, how to deal with imposter syndrome and how to move forward with that reality that a lot of us have it, is a skill. It’s a skill, and that’s the purpose of this conversation. And so the things that we’ve covered, the approaches that we’ve covered are pretty clear actually is the term fake it till you make it. It’s really more take action, even if you’re not feeling confident, like always be moving and take action. Really this is the key, this is the key thing to be doing right now. To remain open-minded and to be taking action is very, very important.
Secondly, okay, equally important is in that action that you’re taking, and this is a skill to build, is turn it into, not only projection of some level of confidence about who I am or what I’ve done, turn it into curiosity. This is a skill. Become a beginner mind. Be a learner, okay? This changes your whole way that you’ll flow through the day and like the whole imposter syndrome goes away when you just sort of like, all right, look, I’m out there like, I’m a newbie. I’m out there. I’m gonna go out there. I’m gonna send this DM on LinkedIn.
I’m gonna reach out to this person. You know, I’ve never done that before. I’ve never reached out to that kind of person. You know, I’m gonna start doing some marketing. I’m gonna join a community. I’m gonna, get a coach. I’m going to do all these things that Reinventors are doing, I’m gonna put out a shingle and build a website.
I’m gonna start speaking, I’m gonna write my children’s book. All these things that we’re seeing from our community, you go ahead and you do this with this element of curiosity. And you find others that have done it or are doing it, and you ask them questions and you become, that type of person that you can be at your best is very charismatic. It’s like very magnetic when you become that person that’s asking questions people, they love it. Because you’re giving them the opportunity to talk about their favorite topic themselves. You always say that on this podcast, like, your favorite topic is yourself.
That’s very wise. People’s favorite topic is themselves. So when you’re asking questions, it’s like, oh my God, this person cares about me. This person’s really interested in me. Let me give you my goods, let me share everything. And then they love you. And then guess what? At some point along the way, if you need some help, boom, they’re there to help you.
And then the third piece of this is, We need to look internal as well. Okay? Like we need to have some level of personal practice, some commitment to what we call allow and reflect. Allow yourself to be human. Meditate, do mindfulness, go in nature, do self-talk. All the things that we talk about on this podcast, like this is the perfect system for a successful reinvention. You’re being human, you’re allowing yourself to feel it and move forward internally, you’re taking action and you’re being curious.
Like to me, that is a recipe for getting to the other side of whatever you’re in right now really fast. You gotta live it, you gotta do it. Like this isn’t just, oh, come here and listen to Todd and Chris two cool guys and whatever. No, like do these things make a commitment right now to like start, allow and reflect to start being curious.
Integrate stuff in your journal, in your practices. This isn’t just pie in the sky stuff. This is gonna help you. That’s why we’re doing this podcast.
Chris: So I want to take a moment to maybe define confidence, just as a takeaway for people before they walk out of this, after listening to this episode. Because I think I had it defined the wrong way for much of my life, where it was like, how am I gonna perform at this task or this activity? Am I going to be good at it? Do I believe I’ll be good or bad at it? It is on a much deeper level than that. This is what we’re talking about. It’s not even really connected to the results of the events in that activity or anything like that. It’s like, you know, do I go 10 for 10 or do I strike out 10 times?
It doesn’t matter. It’s on a deeper, values level, the way you feel about yourself. I am the type of person who’s gonna figure it out. I rely on myself, I believe in myself, and I’m gonna figure it out. And that’s what enables you to walk into these situations. One, as a beginner, open, vulnerable, with no ego. Challenging yourself to try new things that you’ve never done before. Knowing that you’ll probably not do them well in the beginning because confidence is not like, how many of these did I get right? It’s deeper than that. It’s just belief in yourself that you will figure it out. And the beauty is for a lot of people who are reinventing, you’ve been figuring it out all along. How many things have been thrown at you in your career that you had before, that you were an expert in some areas, but every damn day they threw something new at you and you figured it out. So find that belief. Even if you’re doing it in a new space or a totally new career, or hanging a totally new shingle. That person who can figure it out is still here, and you’re only gonna be stronger for all the experience that you have and for the new experiences that you’re taking on.
Todd: I love that, man, this is such a great reminder for everybody that you’ve already, experienced and lived this life that we’re talking about, you know? And now you’re just applying it to something new, like a new area, a new future, right? You already know how to do this. You know? That’s, the reminder.
I love the definition of confidence is that I can figure this out. And I love the, I can figure this out because it connotes, I don’t know exactly how you know. I don’t know exactly when, you know, but I can do it. And I know it’s gonna be a journey. I know it’s gonna be ups and the downs, and I know that I can get the support that I need and I know that I can connect with these six tenets that we talk about, and there’s people out there like us and communities that can help me and I can do this, I can figure it out and I’ll know when to make the right decision. So that’s a really beautiful way to end this episode, man, with a very clear definition of it.
As always like so good. Just jamming on this topic with you, like so much fun. I feel like we could go on forever on it, which is why we’re gonna keep going on the podcast ’cause we have a lot to talk about. And if you’re listening, follow us along, make sure that you get involved. If you’re curious about our work, come over to our website at reinvention.biz. You know, you can download our workbook, this is an amazing tool that you can use to start getting really tactical about your future. Join our community if you want. Right. You know, I mean, this is always there for you. It’s an amazing group of people.
And Chris, just grateful to be here with you, man. And I can’t wait for the next one.
Chris: Great conversation, Todd, and I really hope people will take this one to heart because it’s lifechanging.
Todd: Absolutely. Thanks guys.
