#1992 Building Confidence - Harps

bit like his talking voice, not his singing voice. I hope you well. I hope you're enjoying your week. It is Sunday, it's around lunch time here in the thriving metropolis, and I was having a chat with somebody on Friday about their struggle with confidence, or I guess their lack

of confidence. So I thought, well, that's something that's pertinent to all of us at some stage, whether it's in relationships, or whether or not at school, or whether or not it's in work, or whether or not it's in socializing, being out and about trying to interact with others and connect and build rapport and not feel too weird. And not seem too weird, or whether or not it's trying to get a raise or a new job, or whether it's trying to develop a skill or to master something

that might make our life better or more fun. So I thought I would talk about that. I've definitely struggled with people not pick it, but I've struggled with confidence doing certain things throughout my life, and times when I felt overwhelmed and in adequates and not good enough and all of those things that we all feel right. So I'm not a special case. There's no newsflash in any of this. But I'm of the belief that many people don't succeed because two things I talk about one all

the time is what we think of us. So not so much our actual potential or ability or capacity to succeed, or our genetics or resources or time or opportunities or even energy, but rather how we see ourselves. That is, we put limitations on ourselves. We tell ourself stories about us, and those stories are mostly self limiting beliefs based on

often based on nothing, usually out of fear. And the thing that I'm talking about today that also holds us back is just a lack of confidence self belief, a lack of truly believing that we have the capacity to be able to do something amazing and special and to succeed and to optimize whatever it is that we have to work with. So this won't be long. I want to share with you just some fundamentals that have worked

for me. So these are all out of muskon, all out of my little bonce things that have worked for me, the person who isn't naturally gifted and talented. And I don't say that so that someone's going to go, oh, but you are. I truly know that about me. Now that's not to say I have no talent, or I have terrible genetics or I don't have any but it's

not that. It's just to say that, you know, my genetics, my academic ability, my creativity, my intellect, all of the things that are kind of the variables or some of the variables that determine, you know, how well we go at this thing that we call life. There's a lot more things, of course, but I didn't have a running start at it. And not only was I not gifted

in that things came easily. But then once you start to fail, and once you start to get a few labels, and once you have some shitty experiences, and once you feel a little bit of social and emotional and mental pain, then you're like, wow, that's true. I am fucking terrible. Oh look all the Not only do I think that and of experience, but now the feedback is that the data, the evidence is there and it's not really but it

well sometimes it is. But all that means when I'm looking back at the things that I fucked up or didn't do well at or didn't thrive at, it was just because I hadn't got there yet. And obviously there are things that I could never do. I just didn't have the actual ability and potential and genetics like around one hundred meters in ten seconds, become you know, a world famous singer, become you know a lot of things whatever.

But looking back at the things that I thought I couldn't do, most of the things that I thought I couldn't do, I actually could. It just was going to take work and effort and pain and consistency and resilience and courage. And so these are the things I believe that get in the way more than our lack of ability or potential or possibilities So for me, it's always

been developing confidence by doing. By doing, It's been in the doing for me and for most people that I've worked with, it's been when they lack confidence or self belief, and then we get them to do something. We plan something together, we create a plan, we timeline it, we execute it. They get some little results, they get a couple of failures, they get some positive, a little negative, another positive. Over time we build up where we're starting

to get some wins on the board. And in the middle of the peaks and the troughs, the highs and the lows, the failures and the successes, they're becoming a different person. So they are not only they becoming more capable and comfortable in the middle of failure and let down and disappointment and emotional and psychological pain, because they start to realize, well, that's just fucking part of the deal. That's what we deal with. That's what happens when you're

trying to do something. That's what happens when you're closer to the regular end of the scale than the superstar end of the scale. So I want to share with you what is it I think to eight things that have been really important for me. And look, there's no there's no magic in this. But this is broadly true for personal development and self help and human behavior and psychology, is that there's not a lot of magic in it.

And sometimes the problem is that we spend so long looking for the quick fix, the magic pill, the magic potion, the how do how do I get three years worth of results in three months that we kind of want to side step the work and side step the practical

stuff and side step to doing. But it's in the work and the practical stuff, and it's in the doing we actually become the person that we need to become to be able to execute all the shit that we want to execute to create the outcomes and the successes that we want. So Number one on my list is do the reps. Do the reps. Just fucking roll up your sleeves and start. Of course you'll fail. Of course you'll look silly, feel silly. That's okay. Do the reps. Keep doing the reps, do them as well as you

can do them, as light as you need to. I'm talking about literal reps and metaphoric reps. Of course, do lots of them. You cannot get good at what you won't do. So the starting point for you for many things that you will do will be that you might be a one out of ten, you might be a zero point five out of ten. Well guess what. You can never become a two by avoiding what's required for growth or improvement or development. So cool, start at a one,

Start at one, see what happens. And I've given you all the metaphors before about black belts and white belts, but literally, what I love about that kind of grading system is that it teaches us that we come into that environment, that situation, that skill that we're trying to develop, We come into that, you know, almost like a blank canvas that's got no paint on it yet, and we don't know how to paint. We don't know how to know how to do a kick or a punch or

a renaked choke. We don't. So we get on the mat with our white belt. We get on the mat being a zero point five or a one out of ten, and we immerse ourselves in that place where we're going to do the reps. We're going to just keep showing up and people are going to be better than us. People are going to be better than us. At that skill, at that thing, whether it's singing, whether it's dancing, whether

it's understanding the PhD journey. Like for me, when I started, everyone around me was way more developed, way down the tunnel for the academic journey tunnel then I was. But guess what, Hopefully the only way I could go was up because I was so inadequate. But isn't it great when you are around people that have skills and knowledge and experience and strength and understanding and insight that you don't have, and now you spend time with them. Now

you start to learn the language. Now you start to learn the energy and the culture and the vibe and the process, and you start to develop because you're doing the reps and you're just showing up. So just show up, Just show up. You've all been bored with my rambling about, you know, the six hundred episodes I did on this show, which you know I lost money on. But I thought that, well, I wasn't positive, but I genuinely thought that this show

had potential. I thought that one day we're going to get good sponsors, and not only will it be you know, and exercising creativity and hopefully helping people and growth and all of those things for me and enjoy it has always given me joy, but also it would be something that could be commercially viable. So I did the reps for six hundred shows. I kept showing up, I kept doing my research. I kept learning, I kept unlearning, I

kept paying attention. I kept sucking up, falling down, getting back up, looking at other great podcast as, other great communicators are the great interviewers, and just rocking up and put my face in front of this fucking microphone that's here right now, and eventually, eventually I got okay at it, and eventually I'll leave the judgment up to you, but not bad at it. But I couldn't. I couldn't even get three out of ten at it if I didn't sit down being a one. And that's where I started,

and that's where you start, So do the reps. My next one is kind of similar, and that is put yourself in the game. So get yourself in the space. Like I said with me at UNI, I knew I was going to be out of my depth when I started at fifty six doing a PhD. And literally everyone was probably on average thirty years younger than me. I

knew that energetically, that academically, that linguistically, that practically. I knew that I would be way behind the starting point for even a normal, regular day one PhD candidate, because I was coming from far back. I hadn't studied at university for nearly twenty years, you know, and think about the work that people do and the things that people do over time that came out of them showing up somewhere, putting themselves in the room, getting in the room for

the first time. Now, I don't know how many people I've had say to me, either coming into my gym's when I owned gyms, or just out about talking. I want to be here or i want to get to the gym, but I'm terrified. I'm scared. I'm embarrassed of how I look. I'm embarrassed of what people think about me or say about me. I'm intimidated. I'm this and this and this, and they wheel off ten reasons why they're not going, and I understand all of that, and

they have my sympathy and empathy. And I remember being horribly out of shape and humiliated and embarrassed and hated people looking at me. So I'm speaking experientially and personally, not just theoretically. Do I understand it, but I fucking understand it. But how do you get comfortable in a gym? How do you learn to train effectively? How do you

build confidence in a gym? We can't build confidence in a gym or any environment similar to that, any workout or training environment, if you're never in the fucking environment, if you never go to the gym or the pool or the running track or the CrossFit box or the

class or whatever it is. There needs to be a moment in time, and it could be a job interview and you know you're not going to get the job, and you know that you're terrible at interviews, You know that you lack confidence, you know that you just don't have the experience or the skills, and maybe you're naturally anxious in all of those things. And yes, understand, I understand, tick tick tick, But guess what. You can get good

at interviews. You can get good at interviews. You can apply for the job, you can get your bum on the seat, you can sit in front of the people that are going to chat with you. You can even go in saying look, this is probably not going to happen, but I'm here to have an experience, and every time

you have an experience, you learn something. Every time you have an experience, there's an opportunity for you to grow and gain insight, to become better at that thing that you're not currently good at, for you to be able to go in the room and instead instead of having minus three out of ten confidence you walk in the room, you've got two or three now, and then you've got four, and then you've got five, and then over time you

build confidence. You understand yourself in that environment more, you understand the process, you understand what the people are looking for and who they're looking for, and you can build that kind of resilience. You can build that kind of knowledge and understanding and skill because you're putting yourself in the room. You're getting in the room in front of people, and we go into that knowing or at least accepting the possibility. This might take me fifty attempts, this might

take me less, it might take me more. I'm not going to count it off like that, but it might take a while, and that's okay. My next confidence builder is also not mind blowing, also not revolutionary, but it is set ridiculously achievable micro goals like set little goals that are pushing you, moving you building confidence for the biggest stuff. Set something that you know you can reasonably do. So that might be whatever in today's meeting, I'm going

to ask a question. I'm not going to ask ten questions. I'm not going to pull the microphone out of anybody's hand. Each time we do that, we get a little hit of dopamine that reinforces self belief. Every time we do something that we haven't done and we don't capitulate and people don't laugh at us, and we didn't fuck anything up.

Maybe we didn't create any revolutionary kind of transformation within the company, but you know, we asked something, or we said something, or we gave a little bit of feedback, or it might be you know, you're petrified of talking. Is stranger? It's cool. Just smile at someone today, say a lo to someone today, have a good morning, have a good night, thank you for holding the door for me, or let me get the door for you, or whatever.

It is just doing something that is un you. You want to build confidence around others, doesn't mean you want to be a public speaker, does mean you need to hog the limelight doesn't mean you need to be an extrovert.

But when we set little achievable goals. You know, the person who wants to run a marathon and they're in no kind of shape to run a kilometer, let alone a marathon, it would be very understandable for them to go, well, look at me, as if I could run a marathon and I get it right now, zero chance right now. But let's not worry about running a marathon right now. Let's worry about getting a kilometer of movement in today.

Could you walk a kilometer today? You know, in that body that ain't built for running yet, could you walk? Could you reduce your calories by thirty percent? Could you change the kind of energy equation in and out? Could you change that a little bit? Do you think over a month that you could go from walking a kilometer a day to maybe three and maybe in that month you might lose some kill, which is going to help

you move even better. Do you think that maybe over I don't know, three months, you might start to do some jogging, and over time you might do more jogging and less walking, and then eventually you might do a five k job. Because also in that timeframe, you've lost ten or fifteen or twenty k's. And so this is the beauty of setting small goals or micro goals that we can achieve. We're not being unrealistic, we're not beating ourselves up, we're not trying to be the alpha in

the group where we're not. We're trying to build competence and confidence and skill in this example, and fitness that can help us do a task down the track that right now we couldn't even dream of doing. But if we don't start on the micro goals, the small goals, we don't start on the walking, we don't start on the improving the movement, we don't start on that, then we never get to do the marathon or the metaphoric marathon, whatever that represents to you. So just start with something

and every day, my advice is there. Every day tick something off and as much as you can make it progressive over time. Today I walked two thousand steps in my phone. Your phone has a tracker, of course, and tomorrow I'm going to do twenty two hundred steps, and the end of the month, I'm going to be doing three thousand steps or whatever it is. But that ability to be able to go Okay, this is going to be solid for me, but not impossible. So I'm going

to do that. So micro goals. My next one is be courageous enough enough to fail, and we don't want to fail. The failure is part of life, depending on how you frame it, and we can reframe failure into oh, it's a lesson, it's an experience, it's a moment in time. We can do all that. I get all of that, but the bottom line is we're going to fuck up. That's the bottom line. The bottom line is you and

I will fail at things. That's the bottom line. Doesn't matter what kind of ribbon you want to put on it, but you and I know what's going on. I tried to think I failed. Cool. It is also, or it can be also a lesson. It can be a competence and a confidence builder. Funnily enough, it can help us build resilience and understanding and even momentum because we're doing it.

We're doing it. We're okay to be embarrassed, to look silly, to experience some social and emotional discomfort, and to learn from our fuck ups and to learn from our negative outcomes and go great. I tried this. It didn't work, but I did it. But I didn't get the time I want or exactly the outcome I want. But I went through the process. How can I change my process? How could I manipulate the variables to do better? What do I need to do more of and less of?

What are the key takeaways from this experience? What is what is the experience? And what are my outcomes telling me? And also, you might have you might have an external person. You might have a coach, you might have a mentor, you might have what I call an unreasonable friend. You know, someone who tells you what you need to hear, not what makes you comfortable. You might have one of those

motherfucker's floating around and they'll give you some feedback. And it's your job and my job to be big enough and brave enough as long as the feedback is feedback, not criticism, not hate, but actual feedback from someone who knows you and loves you, and someone who can give you some measured analysis that could be valuable if you

do something with it. So be courageous enough to fail to fall down, to look silly, to go through some social and emotional discomfort, to disappoint yourself or even others. This is also, you know, part of life. And when we are so fucking determined to stay comfortable, to stay safe, to stay in the middle of all things familiar and predictable, we're just building for ourselves at jail, an emotional and psychological and developmental jail that keeps us trapped. I would

rather fail ten times than do nothing. I truly would, because I know good things are going to come out of those ten efforts that I made. My next one is practice prep, preparation, and be patient. Practice prep and be patient. Some things just take a long time to take a while. I wanted to work in radio. I

did a few radio interviews when I was younger. I enjoyed at commercial radio, got on a few times, got told that I might do all right on radio, and I needed to somehow build some skills and confidence and competence and basically get some time on the mic. It's not like you can just walk into Triple M or Fox FM or NOVERA or whoever and go, hey, I think I'll be good at radio. I know, and guess what I'm available. How lucky are you? No? That doesn't work,

of course, that doesn't work. So what I did was I went and spent about six to seven years on two different community radio stations, and I did a weekly gig. So what's that fifty weeks of the year give will take, let's say seven, that's three hundred and fifty years. At three hundred and fifty times I worked in radio. Where I was I was also producing, which means I was at times anyway, I was actually most of the time

I was pushing the buttons. I was taking us out of a talk set into music or ads or whatever it was. I was coming back. I was doing time checks where the checks station id all of that welcome back, it's blah blah blah. You know. I was doing all of that, and I developed all of this understanding and knowledge and skills. And so when I finally got a job on what is Whilst going to say what was then it still is sen which is Melbourne's home of sport, and all of these things Australia is now, I think

they're all around Australia. But I already had a lot of time talking to people, doing interviews, pushing the buttons, understanding how it works, timing, situational awareness, and I wasn't brilliant at all. But when I started on community radio, I was a one. And by the time I by the time I got onto commercial radio, I'd already had a lot relative but quite a lot of experience, and I would say it was probably a five or six

or for my capacity, my ability. I was maybe a five, six or seven before I did my first commercial gig, before I got paid, before I was working in commercial radio.

But that wouldn't have happened. That would never had happened had I not done you know, it didn't need to be six years or seven years, I guess, but had I not done at least a significant amount of practice and preparation and been patient in the middle of that, we you know, sometimes we want to get somewhere that's going to take probably for the typical per average person,

you know, three or four years. And that's not being negative or that's not belittling anyone, but probably the average time between where you are now in that position that you want to be in, or the skill set you want to have, or that brand that you want to build, it might take three or four years. That might take five years, right, But if you're a person who goes yeah, I want to be there, but I want to be there in three months without trying to rain on your parade.

Do everything that you can to get there in three months. And if you get there in three months, you're much better than me and well done. But also let's be realistic and practical and say this could take a while. So when I finally get the opportunity or get in that position, i've created that thing. Or what are the skills and qualities and attributes that I need to have so I can just press the trigger? What do I need to learn now? What do I need to understand now?

What do I need to get better at? Now? What do I need to explore? Now? What doors do I try and open? Now? How can I get myself in my example, on air any air fucking four people listening, don't care. I just want to be doing a version of radio so that I can go and do proper radio inverted commas down the track. Three to go. My third last one is talk to people who are succeeding

in the space that you want to succeed. So talking to people, talk to people who are already good at what you want to be good at, and be polite and be humble and be grateful and be gracious. Not everybody wants to help you, of course, I dare say a lot of people, especially if they're already successful, you know, might not be bursting out of their skin to donate their time and knowledge and energy to you. I understand that.

But even if you can grab five minutes of someone's time who's doing what you want to do at a high level, or even if you want to pay for

a coaching session, if that's possible with that person. Sometimes I think sometimes finding the right person to talk to for one hour, it can be life changing, or it can be direction changing, it can be cognitively empowering, where all of a sudden you realize, well, maybe I'm not as far away as I thought, or maybe I inherently knew three or four of those things, or I had no fucking idea. But he or she has just turned

on a light for me. So I'm always when I have the opportunity to talk to somebody who is successful in any field, and even people who are still on the journey, of course, But for me, when I find somebody who's doing something amazing, like when I spoke to Mark Randolph, who created Netflix. I couldn't believe I'm talking to the guy who created Netflix. I couldn't believe that I've got an hour with the guy who created this phenomenon that's all over the world. And I treasured that.

I've listened to that three or four times since. I treasured that time being able to not only was he a good guy, and not only was he a good storyteller, and I love the way he thought. But for me, on a selfish hands in the air, fully admitted, on a selfish level, oh my god, I could never get to talk to that dude, Just Craig harp of the bloke that lives in Melbourne. He's not getting to talk

to the guy who built created Netflix. He's not getting to talk to a billionaire about how he does shit and how he works and how he thinks and how he learns and how he've for me amazing. So find your own Mark Randolph, for Marianne Randolph, for whoever it is, and see if you can spend some time with them, or even if it is listening to as you're doing

right now. And I'm not talking about mine necessarily, but you know, there are some brilliant podcasts and educators and human development specialists and self help and all that kind of human behavior stuff. And there's a lot of shit. There's a huge amount of shit. But if you can filter through the shit and you can find some of the good people, they can become a mentor to you. They can become a mentor that you never meet. But the beauty of it is you're still listening to the

person share the wisdom. And what I love about you know this medium is that there is no hurry there. You know, most people do podcasts are not getting paid. I've never paid one guest. They don't get paid. They just are happy to be on. Or maybe they want to promote a book, or maybe they want to I don't know, maybe there's a slight agenda, but I can

good on them. Good on them. But anyway, plug into somebody who might be able to help you, who might open the door to give you some insight and understanding and awareness and maybe even a little bit of confidence that you might not have had unless you intersected with them. To go, second last one? How many are there? Let me see three six England, three six eight eight. Take a long time, haven't I? Second last one? So number seven is choose the narrow path. What does that mean?

I've kind of covered a bit, but it basically means do what most won't like If you want to achieve what most people won't, and I don't mean for the sake of being weird, but if you want to become highly successful in any endeavor or guess what, that makes you exceptional. Because most people are not highly successful. That doesn't mean they're bad people. That doesn't mean they've got a bad life. That doesn't mean they can't be joyful or they're not joyful or happy or fulfilled. It doesn't

mean that at all. But if we're talking about optimizing your talent and skills to be able to create something, if we're talking about building confidence so that you can grow and learn and evolve and do bigger and better stuff, and you are willing to do what most people won't, which is just to outlast and out work and to embrace the mayhem and the chaos, to ditch the instant gratification, quick fixed mindset, and to climb, to actually climb the

fucking mountain. Most people won't do that stuff. Most people won't. People like to talk about it, but the truth is that you know a lot of people go to workshops or read books or even listen to shows like this, and I hesitate always to say this because I don't want anyone to feel like I'm judging or criticizing them. But just as the guy who's up the front, the guy who is talking to the group, the guy who

gets feedback, the guy who the amount of people. In fact, one special lady that has just been through the hardest time. Her name is Katrina Umback, and I met her a couple of weeks. I've met her on and off, but just you know, moments in time, but I've never really

spoken to her at length. But recently I did an event which I've spoken about a few times, and she was there and talk about you know, talk about outlasting, talk about surviving, talking about finding a way, talk about fucking resilience and strength and courage alike, you know, And she when she introduced me on the day that I did this talk shit all of these beautiful things which were kind of embarrassing, but truthfully, I think undeserved on

my part. And I feel like that the one that was deserving of the praise and the accolades were her. And I'm going to get her on the show one day soon. But you know, she reached out to me I think was in twenty seventeen, and just sent me on Messenger as somebody that I didn't know. Hey, Harps,

you know, my name's Katrina. I'm coming to one of your It was a weekend, and she took a photo of the receipt that her husband had got, that had received for buying a weekend away, so forty eight hours with me and one hundred and thirty other humans down on the Mornington Peninsula. And I think the message said from her husband something like there's not many husbands that would buy their wives a week away with a weekend away with another bloke, or something like something amusing like that.

And she sent me that and I thought it was funny, and I replied. And then I don't know exactly long after how long after, But it wasn't that long that her husband sadly died of a heart attack. He was young, she was young, both in their thirties and obviously devastating. And I didn't know. I didn't know all of this. Maybe I maybe I knew a little bit, but I

didn't know. I absolutely didn't know the story and then a couple of weeks ago, Katrina was at this event, and you know, she got up and spoke, and then I came to fully or more understand her journey, and she was up there thanking me for how amazing my you know whatever, my books, my podcast, my words were for her through that time. And the overwhelming emotion, if it's an emotion in me, was embarrassment and almost shame because I just feel like I totally didn't deserve what

she was saying. But I appreciated it and I accepted it and it was lovely. But here's my point. I've been in front of really big audiences, thousands and thousands of people, and really small audiences. And I think the weekend, like I said that Katrina and I a bunch of others had together, there was like one hundred and thirty people forty eight hours. But she was the one. She was the one who just went away and did all the work. There may have been others. I shouldn't say

the one. But what is interesting is some people go, you know, Craig changed my life, and I go, this is not being me being humble. I absolutely didn't change your life. Because that afternoon or that day or that keynote or that book or whatever it is. A lot of other people have heard or read the same words a lot, and almost all of them did not do what you have done. So this one hundred percent you. And what I love about her is she chose the

narrow path. She did the brave thing. She did the thing that must have been in the middle of the worst pain imaginable. I don't even think about it, but in the middle of the worst pain imaginable. She had two little kids and she just had to find a way. She just had to find a way to step up

and provide and keep going. And and she, you know, she told me she would photocopy all the stuff or a lot of stuff that I wrote, or write things out of my book and then put them up on the wall and put them everywhere and share it with people and read it every day and say it every day and look at it and all of this stuff. And I'm like, yeah, but other people weren't doing that.

You were doing that. And so when I see people like Katrina and also my mate John that you've heard too much about, when I see people like them who do amazing things under the toughest of circumstances. I just realized how much capacity we humans have when we have to do something, and this isn't ever present. Reality is that so often we want to change something. We want to learn, grow, evolve, get better, produce better outcomes, win,

succeed whatever that looks like for us. We want that, but also the path to that is hard as fuck, and so we go. I'll start Monday, not now. Now is not a good time, which brings me to my next point, next final point. It stopped delaying, avoiding, waiting, procrastinating, and rationalizing. It is so easy to find another reason for another day, and another month and then another year where it's not a good time for me. It doesn't you know. I've got this one. I've got that on

my back's a little bit sore. I've got all of these Da da da da da. And then he was fifty and then she was fifty five. Right, this shit is inconvenient. How do we build confidence? We start in the middle of not being ready. I don't mean doing anything illogical or dangerous, but how many people really go all right, today's the day. I'm ready. I'm brand new, they're ready. They make a decision, and then they never give up, well, very few. But when we go look

right now, it's inconvenient and that's okay. Right now, me doing this thing is going to be uncomfortable and a bit uncertain, and that's okay. Right now. This is going to take a fair bit of time and energy and focus, and that's okay because it's worth it. Like you do not want to wake up in five years unless your life is already brilliant, and if it is, you shouldn't be listening to me. But you don't want to wake up in five years. And ago, all those things I

wanted to do, I didn't do them. All those conversations I had, I didn't take action. Those light bulbs amounted to nothing. And you don't need to. You don't need to. You just need to be brave. You just need to be brave. You just need to take a step and courage it's optional. Courage is you saying, I don't want to do this thing, but I know I need to do this thing, So I'm doing this thing. See you next time.