What if confidence wasn’t something you had to fake, but something you could feel?

In this episode, I reconnect with the lovely and wise Nina Perez; transformation coach, TEDx speaker, and someone I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for years. We talk about the real roots of confidence, and why the old “fake it till you make it” advice can actually backfire. Nina shares her journey from being a self-described shy girl to stepping into the spotlight, not by pretending to be someone else, but by learning to feel confident from the inside out.

We also explore how small, everyday habits (Nina calls them “micro-habits”) help you show up as your most grounded, magnetic self, whether you are leading a team, speaking to an audience, or just trying to feel good in your own skin. I especially loved her perspective on using body language and storytelling to create genuine connection, and how she helps clients balance both warmth and authority.

This is a conversation full of “aha” moments, some great stories, and practical wisdom for anyone who wants to lead with presence, not performance.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Why confidence is something you practice, not perform
• The real reason “fake it till you make it” doesn’t work, and what to do instead
• What micro-habits can do for your daily energy and presence
• How storytelling builds trust faster than facts ever will
• Why everyone has charisma. It’s just about finding your unique flavor

Connect with Nina

Website: https://thrivetoday.fun/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/connectwithnina/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BailaNinaPerez

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connectwithnina/

In appreciation for being here, I have some gifts for you:

A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile:

An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by checking this presentation page - you won’t regret it. 

AND … Don’t forget to connect with me on LinkedIn and be eligible for my complimentary LinkedIn profile audit – I do one each month for a lucky listener!

Connect with me:

http://JanicePorter.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiceporter/

https://www.facebook.com/janiceporter1

https://www.instagram.com/socjanice/

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What if the secret to leadership, connection

and lasting influence wasn't in your words, but in your

presence? Well, today's guest on relationships rule, Nina Perez

is a transformation coach, a TEDx speaker and best selling

author who teaches high achieving professionals how to

embody confidence, not just perform it. With over 40 years

of dance experience and 25 years of teaching, Nina blends

movement mindset and practical connection skills to help people

show up as their most magnetic selves. And in this episode,

we're going to look at how embodied confidence changes, how

you lead, connect and are remembered in business and in

life. And by the way, welcome Lena, Nina. And I was just

looking at these numbers and like you still are only like a

baby. So I mean 40 years of dance and 25 years of teaching,

so a lot under your belt. And welcome, welcome to the show.

No thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be

here. Yes, I am 45 so I started very young in my dance career,

and I started teaching in my 20s. That's how the numbers add

up quickly

they do, don't they, but you're a gem in

everything that you do, and I'm honored to have you on the show.

It's been a long time since we first met, and you are an

example, actually, for me, of of connection, staying connected. I

mean, we've gone in and out, we've woven in and out of each

other's lives over the years. You know, messaging here and

checking in there, but the most recent one, when you came to me

for some LinkedIn training. We've had a lot of time lately

together, so I love that. And yeah, I

remember when I first met you, and then I do, I

do. I remember, it was at a BNI, and, you know, there's a lot of

people, so you meet like, 3040, people, but you send me a card.

And was very memorable. I remember thinking like, who does

that anymore? Like, that's such a rare thing nowadays. And from

that moment, I knew, like, Okay, you're different. She's special,

and she believes in the kind of values that I do, which is, you

know, going a little bit extra, above and beyond when you're

connecting with someone, getting to know them getting to know

what's important, and then adding that personal touch, like

a card or a voice message or anything, that's just where you

know people care, where you know that they did that extra little

bit of, you know, personal touch always impresses me, and that's

what I teach my clients, right? You want to do with the little

thing. Like, you know how they say the last the last mile is

never crowded or something like that. Oh yeah,

there's no something on the on the last

mile. But before you get into that, thank you. And I didn't

pay Nina to say any of that, so, just so you know that on the

record, that was very kind of you. But yeah, there's no, yeah,

there's, it's not busy on the last mile or something like

that. It's not crowded. Yeah, it's not crowded, yeah. So

speaking of the last extra

the extra mile is never crowded. That's right,

something like that. Okay, so, so that's a good

place to start, because my first question has to do with your

journey and how you have have stated that you're a recovering

shy girl, and now, of course, you're a connection coach, and

that's a pretty powerful jump. So what were the turning points

for you?

Oh my gosh, I have so many stories. And today I was

actually remembering a story because I was preparing for a

post I was going to make around, and you'll see this in the

future, around having lack of confidence when you're already

achieving a lot of great things. So I work with a lot of clients

that are amazing, and they're, they're they're confident in

certain areas, but when it comes to going to the next level, and

you know you're gonna go, instead of speaking to 100

people, now, you want to speak to 1000 people, or you want to

pitch in a different arena, or you want to, you know, grow and

scale your business, or whatever it is the next level, we always

get these ideas in our heads that maybe we're not ready, or

we're not good enough, or imposter syndrome. And I was in

the shower actually remembering a story of my dance days when I

was in Las Vegas for a world salsa championship, and I was

actually watching it. I wasn't performing or competing this

time, and I remember that I was in the crowd in the dance

community there. There was like a dance after the competition,

and the world champion was there, and we locked eyes, and I

smiled, and I walked up to him, and I had courage enough to say,

like, Can I have a dance with you? And he was like, Yes, after

this lady I'm dancing with, I can I can find you right after,

and we'll dance. And I was like, great. And then I went and I hid

in the bleachers. That's exactly what I did. And I watched him

dance with that beautiful woman. And then I saw. Him looking

around, and I knew he was looking for me, and I was kind

of sitting up high. You couldn't really see me unless you looked

up. And he wasn't. And so he looked around, and I saw him go

back and forth, and I froze, and I stayed sitting in the

bleachers watching, knowing that I let that opportunity go by,

knowing that I was like, stuck, because I was thinking, what if

I mess up, you know, he's the world champion. What if, you

know, he doesn't enjoy the dance, and what is he gonna

think of me? And this is when I was already an, you know, a

dancer, you know, I was already like, a big deal in my city, you

know, and so on. And it just made me think about this

morning, about how we sometimes stop ourselves, that voice in

our heads stop us. And for me, it was that shy girl that that

lack of confidence, and let me just share another story,

because within the same year, I actually LA

for a second before you'd share that other

story, I have to just step in, because if he had said yes

immediately, and you danced right then, because he wasn't

committed to the other person. None of

that would have happened. Perhaps, perhaps,

yeah, yeah, it would have no, I think yeah, you're right. I

think I would have danced if he had said yes right there. Yeah,

I would have probably been shaking in my boots. But you

didn't

have time to second doubt yourself, second

guess yourself, right? So, yeah, I think that's a huge piece

there. And you you sabotaged yourself, for sure. So now I

want

to 100% I lost that opportunity because of shyness,

lack of confidence. But I want to share I was in LA, like not

months later, and I went salsa dancing, and this gentleman

asked me to dance. And, you know, everybody seems good in

LA, I have no idea who's who, but at the end of the dance, and

we had an amazing dance, he did things that I was like, thank

God. I can relax and surrender to following and able to do

complicated moves that I've never done before, because he

was a good lead. He was amazing. And at the end he he goes to me,

if you're ever Where are you from? I'm like Vancouver,

because he knew you're not from Vancouver. He goes, if you ever

move to LA, I want you to call me. I want to dance with you.

And he gave me his card, and he was a world champion from the

Vegas competitions that I went. And it's so funny. So I didn't

know who he was, and I danced with him, no problem. And you

know, I think back to where I said, where I hid back with the

other world champion. And it was my head, it was my inner

thoughts that stopped me. The truth was, I was good enough to

dance with all of them, right? I mean, right, I got the proof

when I danced with the other gentleman. But because I didn't

know who he was, I was, you know, no problem and but it's us

who kind of believe our own lies. Yes, oh yeah, for sure,

amazing. I always think about the opportunity that could have.

What could have happened? You know, at the worst, we would

have had a dance, we would have maybe I would have, maybe

screwed up a little bit or not. I would, we would have been

friends. But at the worst, we would have had a great dance and

a great memory. But at the best, it could have been something for

my career. It could have been, who knows what the

right, but it wasn't your time. Then it wasn't

right. Yeah, it was. It was meant to teach you that for the

next time, obviously. I

mean, those are the stories that help me now in my

career, because now I know if I was my confident self talking to

my younger self, I said, go for it, you know, don't worry. Do

it. Do it messy, and go have that memory. Go have that

experience, and all those stories. And I have many that

have taught me how important it is to nurture your confidence,

embody your confidence, build it day to day, so that when the

opportunity comes, you don't let it slip away. You know,

so, how? So, how do we? How do you teach people

to embody their confidence?

Oh, I love this question. So we hear a lot in

the world about self care and you need to nurture and your

self love and confidence in your confidence. And what I feel like

it leads people to do is to try to carve out some time and do

self care. Maybe you want to meditate, maybe you want to

spend some time journaling and so on, and that is very

important. I'm not knocking that. However, I feel like

embodiment is when you take that big practice that maybe you

spend 20 minutes a day, or an hour a day meditating, or

whatever it is that helps you feel full and it helps you feel

confident in yourself. But you need to divide it into micro

habits during the day, where it reminds you about that self care

moment, or it helps you, in a micro way, bring that into your

moment to moment in everyday life, and that's where I find

people don't have enough training or skills, or they're

not finding their lives around it, and so they just do the self

care like in the morning,

but it's segregated. It's off by itself,

okay? And they slip

back into their old ways, or they forget, or like,

by the end of the day, you lose the willpower of the thing you

said. And, yeah. And so so it's not within your life. It's not

peppered into your movements, moment to moment. And so then

people are not embodying the things that they would like to

feel all the time. They're just feeling it at a prescribed time.

And so I teach clients how to make that habit of yes, you need

to have a moment where you practice this maybe gratitude

journal, or whatever it is, is going to help you feel confident

and full. But then how do you bring that in the 24 hours,

after, like, throughout, throughout your whole day, in

micro ways, so that it can keep nurturing, keep filling your cup

and you are feeling amazing throughout the day, or even when

you're having a challenge, or even when you're like, feeling

lower or something, and you're like, Okay, this is what I need

to do. I need to do an embodiment practice right now.

It has to take less than a minute and get you into that

reminder of who you really are and your practices.

So that's really big. That's a really big point.

Yeah, that's a really big point. And it made me think of

something, and I don't know if it's connected or not, but it's,

I guess I was in a personal development kind of course,

somewhere downtown one day, many, many, many years ago. And

one of the things that, one of the exercises that we had to do

was not in the day, but go home and do this like and come back

to the next class kind of thing was to go into a department

store or big store and have like, two different shoes on or

something. And like, you know it, because you know you're all

about image and all about looks. And you go outside and you

wearing either a slipper in a boot or whatever. And I did it.

Oh, and, of course, nobody cares. Nobody paid attention.

Nobody even knew, so what, right? But we get so it was, it

was a person. I think it was like a image consulting kind of

thing. I love it, yeah. And so nobody even paid attention. That

was a huge piece for me, you know, to say, you know, I mean,

I'm a detail oriented person, I noticed those things

I would have noticed, but, yeah, but it's not

like majority is noticing. People aren't looking

either. You know, they're in their fault nowadays.

They're just looking at their phones. But this was way back a

long time ago. But anyway, so how did, how would you like give

me an example of someone you're coaching and they're not

confident yet, and you're talking about this, and you're

saying, like, this is the type of micro lesson I want you to go

I want you to practice all this week.

I love it. I love it. I have one client, she was

moving transitions. She was transitioning careers. She

wanted to get out of the industry she was in, and she

wanted to try something completely different. And so we

started working on first getting clear, like, what is that new

career that you want? And at the time, because she didn't know,

she felt really indecisive. And so then that totally affected

her confidence, and in choosing what she wanted, but also in

deciding which, which path to go. And you know, it was, it was

a very tough moment for her. We finally went through creating a

vision, what do you want? What would be the ideal? But then one

of the things that came up during our sessions was that she

really wanted to feel like, I need to find my purpose. She

would say, right? And I gave her this idea that, yes, you can

have a purpose, but then you can live on purpose. You can,

throughout the day, have multiple purposes. You know,

sometimes it might be for you to be a present mother, or it might

be or a grandmother, right? Or it might be that you want to be

really a healthy cook for yourself during the day. And

then, you know, you you go and you're a business person, you're

a speaker, maybe that you want to have amazing presence when

you're speaking, connecting to the audience, whatever it is,

there's more than one purpose. It might be all under

connection, for example, that's my mission. But there's

different parts of the day where I'm following different

purposes, and I like to think of that, that I am living on

purpose. And so I gave her those ideas, and she thought about

them a lot. And so one of the habits, the bigger habits, was

for her to envision what she wanted and to think about all

the areas of her life. So we do that. This is very well known.

You know, in our world of coaching, you need to have a

vision. People carve it out. What I find that is one of the

mistakes people make is that they do that once a year, right?

Or, like, only New Year's resolutions, right? They're not

doing it at best, maybe once a quarter. But nobody looks at

that. You know, after they've done it. It's just what I

noticed, that people don't make, like, a living document anyway.

So we did that, the visioning, and I had her also think about,

how can she live? Like, look at the purpose that she has, the

vision. How can she live it in micro ways during the different

segments of her day? So she's working at her job, then she has

a partner in life, then she has a dog, then she has a community,

family, friendships. And we looked at a micro habit. So for

her, she was like, I want to embody this type of. Energy when

I'm with my partner. And so she wrote it down, and then she was

like, I want to embody this other type of energy when I'm

with my co workers. I want to really be a good listener. Okay,

great with her partner. She wanted to be present. Okay, with

her dog, she wanted to really enjoy her time outdoors and so

on. So the micro habit was for her to remember to do that, to

tune into the different feelings. But she used a

doorway. So anytime she would walk through the doorway of

whatever direction she was going into her house, she would

remember, oh, I want to embody being a present partner. And so

she would walk home, walk into the doorway, through the home,

and she would embody that vision of hers, which was the big

vision, but in a microwave when she would get in the car, that

was another doorway that she would get into and she would get

herself ready for work when she would get out the door to walk

the dog, again, the doorway was the trigger. That's good. It was

so good. You know, she changed completely. We had six months

working together, but it was a whole different person, because

she was enlivened by living on purpose. You know, in her

everyday, moment to moment, and it's so inspiring. You can even

see, like when I have her on Zoom, her first session to her

last session, her skin is even different, like she just looks

like she's glowing because she's so happy living on purpose. And

you know, life is not perfect. Her life. She hadn't figured out

the career yet and all this stuff, but she was living in

this place of feeling empowered and confident. So that's what I

love to do.

Oh yeah, that's beautiful. I love that. So we

have to talk though about how dance comes into this, because

that's been your life for many, many years, 40 years you said of

dance. And so how does movement, like dance, help unlock that

confidence and presence when you're in a professional career,

let's say in a professional space. I mean, I know, for me, I

love dancing, and I I haven't been able to dance for a long

time because my knees are bad. I'm getting old, but it breaks

my heart. So now I just love watching Dancing. But, yeah,

but, but I for many years, dancing was big for me, not

professional dancing, just casual, you know, for personal

fun dancing. But for you, it's been a lot, a big part of your

life and your career. So how do you work that in? Or do you with

your, oh,

100% Well, communication, as we know, is 7%

verbal and 93% nonverbal. So we're talking, there's a lot of

body language here. And when I used to teach dance, I used to

say, if you can walk, you can dance. But really, when we're

teaching out of dance, I say, like walking is like dancing.

It's a movement through the world. And so how you move

through the world matters, and people will make conclusions

about you. They will think things about you and even add

things that you may have nothing to do with you because of how

you walk and how you how you express, how you're using your

body language. And so not I don't teach people how to dance

all the time, but a lot of my practices are about getting into

your body and actually understanding your body, where,

how are you currently moving? What are you doing right now

that may be sending signals that are repelling people or

attracting people. So kind of getting to know your body,

getting into the body. And also, the thing that I use my dance

background, and helping people is understanding that you cannot

force the body so far out of the comfort zone and that and that

will not benefit you. What's going to happen is people will

come back. They'll slingshot back. And so let's say you push

yourself to go out and network every day for a month, or every

you know you do. You push yourself out of your comfort

zone so much, your body actually is getting a little bit

traumatized every time, because you may not want to do that, and

so you're forcing yourself. And so you're telling your brain, I

don't like this, but I'm doing this, and your brain is

recording this resistance, and then next time it's increasing

it, and next time is increasing it. So I help people get their

bodies feeling safe, feeling and working with their bodies as

they're going out to connect with the world, like you need to

go and connect, but you don't want to do it in a way that it's

so uncomfortable, so far out of your comfort zone, that your

body's like, let's record this one as a negative experience,

you know. And so how do you use that to your advantage? How to

help your brain and your body work with you. And so my dance

background has taught me a lot of getting into the body, how to

calm when you're nervous, right? How to calm your nervous system

down, but also, like how to tap into the energies that you do

want to exude when I was in dance, I could be sometimes very

playful, or I could be passionate, or I could be

demure, or I could be melancholic. When I would dance

tango like I could tune into different energies, different

identities, different ideas and well, did you think

that of did you think of that as acting, or is

it different? Does it.

Oh, I actually thought of that as feeling

different parts of myself, okay, you know? Because actually, if

you look at good acting, you don't think they're acting, you

know that, right? You know, tapping into some deep sorrow,

that's true, and using it, or else it would look fake, right?

And so I always say, Don't fake it till you make it. You want to

feel it till you become it. So that's where my dance background

helps me so much. I teach people how to feel these things really

naturally in your body, and then use that to move through your

world in this different feeling. Okay, people notice,

well, of course they do. Of course they do. I'm

thinking about like a new partnership, dance partnership,

business partnership, doesn't really matter, except that I

know you notice it very overtly when it's I'm thinking of

Dancing with the Stars right now. So when they first start

their their connection with each other, they have to learn to get

that chemistry. And some of them have it, and some of them don't

with their partner, right? And and so that's why I say

sometimes, like the the actors or the professional people who

are used to being in public, whether they're dancers or

something else, but they're used to dealing with the public, they

seem to have that such much more at ease than those who don't.

And yet, if you were like to get that chemistry, it's not acting

right. It's like you said, it's more it has to come from within.

But is it, I don't know, like, I'm like, oh, you know, is this

real? You know?

I think, I think we always feel a certain vibe, even

if we can't name it and so. So part of my work, a lot of

people, you know, they confuse this whole idea of fake it till

you make it and so on. I don't agree with that. I feel it till

you become it. But part of my work, I noticed with my clients,

that when they learn how to feel safe and relax, they bring out

who they naturally are. And so you are charismatic at home with

your friends or, like with your with the people that you feel

comfortable with. And so my job is to help you do that with

strangers, too, when you're networking or when you're out,

and really be able to learn how to share yourself so that others

can feel your heart and and connect with you in that way

when, you feel somebody's hard, somebody's, you know, values,

you you can't help but connect if you, if you share those

values,

right? I love that. I love those values. You

can't Yes, yeah, and I think that. So what you're doing

really is, is very rewarding when it

works, yeah, yeah, totally. It doesn't work. It's

data, it's data. And you need a tool, you need to learn a skill,

you need to figure it out. And it's all very figure outable, as

says, yeah, totally figure it out. And because we are very

humans, are we're all pretty much the same. A lot of time is

blocks around limiting beliefs or not knowing how to practice

in a way that makes you feel comfortable. I find that a lot

is that a lot of people understand that they need to go

and ask somebody a better question or start a

conversation, but they're not there yet it's too out of their

comfort zone to do that. And so how do you practice from not

being able to to being able to you have to break it down into

more baby steps. Sometimes I say to my clients, don't talk to the

people that you're you want to talk to, but you can't just go

and smile, or just go for a walk and make eye contact, and you

bring it down a bit, in a way that you're telling your body,

it's all good. I was able to do this little extra thing, and it

went well, and now your body is like, Okay, I'm getting

comfortable with this. Let's do the next one, right? But if

you're, like, pushing yourself so far out, then your body's

like, I don't ever want to do that again.

That's really, yeah, that's really good,

because it makes me think that for so many people, a lot of it

stems from their childhood. I mean, a lot of it stems back to

their childhood, whether it was really religious, and they

weren't allowed to do certain things, and now they're, you

know, becoming themselves and not and fighting. You know what?

They didn't wait. They've chosen to believe in or whatever. But

it may also be not necessarily religious, just a strict

upbringing, or a not so strict upbringing, or whatever it was

that it all comes out when, when they're in situations that could

be uncomfortable and are uncomfortable, yeah, because

they never experienced them. So, so what would you say the

biggest conception people have is the biggest conception

misconception people have about about charisma, or about just

showing up?

Well, I love this question. The biggest

misconception is that some people have it and some people

die, right? Oh, you're charismatic. I'm not

charismatic. And I believe that's a lie. I believe

everybody is charismatic. There's just different flavors

of charisma. And you just what, what is charisma? Charisma is

others perceiving you as highly warm and highly competent. So if

others see you that way, you will be labeled as charismatic.

Now there are so many different flavors. You know, Oprah is

highly charismatic. She's highly warm and competent. But also I

look at like somebody who's more shy, like Margaret Thatcher or

like Simon Sinek, right? He's a thoughtful leader, but he's not

going to be like making jokes like Trevor Noah, who's also

charismatic. All these people are charismatic, in addition

their own way. They do have you feel their warmth. You know that

they care about you and they also you feel their competence.

You know they're capable. You know that you can trust and rely

on what they're saying. They have authority credibility. But

it's not always the social butterfly. So sometimes people

equate charisma with social butterfly, and it doesn't have

to be that way. You just need to bring out your flavor of warmth

and your flavor of competence, what you know how to do it like

what you're capable of, your abilities and so on. And so if

you know how to do that, while you are having conversations and

sharing how you care, and then what you know, then people will

perceive you as that, and everybody wants to hang out with

people who are charismatic because you like them and you

trust them and so on. So that's the biggest myth. I don't have

it. It's not me or or the other thing, well, when once people

believe that they are somewhat charismatic, the second

misconception, or the second thing I run into is I can only

do it for some time, so it's like, I turn it on, I turn it

off, I have to be on and have to and then I have to go off. So

they toggle between

being because it's exhausting. Is

this exhausting? Yes, and that's because they do

not have rituals of radiance, I call them. They don't have a way

to nurture their confidence daily, like I said earlier, yes,

yes, dedicated time, but your micro moments and so of course,

you're going to drain your energy if you do not have a way

to sustain it throughout your 24 hours.

That's a very good point I hadn't thought of

because it's true. People say then, oh, well, I'm an introvert

or I'm an extrovert, and that's where they and that isn't

necessarily the same thing at all.

Well, I'm an introvert, and I have to say, a

lot of people in the limelight are introverts. I know how to

bring out what's important, right? They know how to share

themselves.

Yeah, it's just that. But a lot of a lot of in

performers, particularly actors, they're more shy than, not

necessarily, introverts, because introverts don't get their

energy from a lot of an audience or a big lot of people, whereas

extroverts do. So I think there's again, it's just

terminology and so forth as well. Okay, so you've answered

some of my questions already, but let's talk about leadership.

Do you? Do you come across some some of your clients are trying

to level up you'd mentioned earlier? Yes, and how? Like,

what do you see as one of the biggest things that you have to

work with them on? Is it because you mentioned about speaking to

bigger crowds? But it's not just that for leadership is in many

different things. So what comes to mind for you

well, so I'll answer this in two ways. Two things

come to mind. First of this, this, when we're talking about

leadership and sharing yourself to the world, is that their

opinions matter, that they're relevant, that they have enough

to share. You know, a lot of people are worried of of stating

their stories or sharing or even sharing stories, like, I don't

want to monopolize the conversation, or I don't want to

be and, you know, and usually you won't, if you have that

thought, you will ask questions too. But you do want to share a

little bit more detail about you than just, you know, facts,

right? You want to share stories then, and also, you want to

share your opinions. So that's one part that I'm noticing with

all the people that I work with, and wherever they are I work

with solo printers and entrepreneurs and CEOs, it

doesn't matter they're it's still going to be different

arenas, but it's still the same, the same issue of like, not

being sure if what they have to say is important, relevant

enough. You know, the second part is doing that on social

media. So now, when you have the audience that you don't see,

right, the non audience, right? It's there, but you don't

actually, you can interact. You cannot see the reactions of

people. You don't know how it's landing. What are they thinking

saying? On the other side of that green.or the red dot, then

there's a different level of anxiety, and also because it's

going to stay forever, right? Like it's going to be out there,

it's on video, or it's going to be loaded, or whatever. So it's

another level, where I find people are hiding, or they're

just worried, or they just cannot get the courage to put

themselves out there again. And I battle with this all the time

too. So. It's as you're leveling up, there is going to be an edge

that you're going to come up against, and you need to really

lean into your confidence who you are, your past, harvest your

past, and also know that you are going to help someone. Your

story will be somebody else's. You know, Survival Manual is

what Brene Brown says. So share your story.

Well, okay, so the first example that you gave,

which now I've just forgotten about more in person and about,

oh, about telling stories versus not telling stories, I think I,

for example, well, I'm thinking about, you know, stories sell,

facts tell, or something like that. That's how it goes, right?

Facts tell, stories sell. And so it's important to learn how to

tell a story so that it, it does so many things. It if you're

telling a story like for me, when I talk, somebody said this

to me once on a podcast, when you talk about your

granddaughter, you light up like you would not believe. And it's

true, right? So when I tell a story about my granddaughter,

I'm I'm really authentically me, because I just love her so much,

and I love everything about being a grandma, I'm going to

start crying. But that being said, if I'm nervous or if I

don't think it's appropriate, I might just, you know, rattle on

facts, right? And that's not going to be as effective in a

conversation, right? Mind you, I tend to deflect as well, and I

will ask questions and get the other person talking. And I find

that to be very helpful for me when I'm, you know, trying to

get to know people or, you know, whatever, but, um, but yet, if

I'm doing a presentation, that's the hardest thing for me to do,

is to tell stories. And I remember someone saying to me,

pick someone in the first row and just speak to them. Yeah,

right. So it's little things like that, but, but it just made

me think of those, those things I wanted to share. And then the

second part of what you were talking about, about social

media, I think there's like, Well, I I, at first I thought

there was, like a dividing line between generations, that it was

easier for the younger generations to talk about

themselves and the older generations. But then I see

someone like the this, the golden Bachelorette, who's put

her whole life out there and is now making money from it, apart

from her being on The Bachelorette So, and she's, you

know, almost 70, if she's not 70, but, yeah, it's just

interesting. It's what is your comfort zone on things like

that. So I guess, like you said, Baby steps, baby steps, baby

steps. Yeah, so with my clients, I'll say, you know,

somebody asks you what you're interested or what's your

passion project, and you're, you know, or what's, what's your

hobbies? And you're like, I like to do yoga three times a week.

Great. That's a little story. Yeah, that's a little fact. It's

a fact, right? But if you share more like, I like to do, I like

to do yoga three times a week because I find that it enliven

my energy, or because I love the music that they use, and it just

makes me think about peace all the time, and whatever it is,

you just add because, and you just add one more layer, okay,

little story, yeah, that's the baby step. You know, eventually

you'll be able to tell stories that grip somebody's heart and

makes them be like, what? What's the next thing? Right? Yeah,

yeah. In the beginning, you just start with a little one more

layer, okay? And then sometimes you may, share like a moment in

time in the past, and then you describe it a little bit like,

who was there? Was it in the kitchen? What were you talking

about? Like, what happened in the I just wrote a chapter for a

book called pain to power, and I describe a moment where I

slammed the door in the car, and I felt that slamming the door

was like some hypnotist waking me up, you know? And I remember

that moment. It changed my life, that moment, but it was the slam

of the door, and I described that in the chapter. And so you

get better at having others see you in the moment, slamming the

car door. Now that's a better story, right? They can put

themselves, and as you share your story, they're gonna relate

to parts of what you say, and they're gonna think, Am I like

that? Or, you know, and that's when you start connecting at a

deeper level, right? As if you can find common ground, like,

Oh, I've thought about that too, or I have a moment like that

too. Or what you said, I know what that feels like. Now you're

creating that chemistry you were talking about earlier, because

we're connecting heart to heart, energy to energy, common ground

to common ground, right,

right, right, that's beautiful. I was just

thinking, and this isn't on my question list, but I know you

have a son, right? Or two, you have one son.

I have a son that I that I birthed, and then I have

known his daughter, right? Okay? His daughter, all right. So I

wanted to, how long have you been, seven years

with your partner, okay, yeah, so, but with your son, I wanted

to, I wanted to say, have you seen or when he was younger,

when he was the only child? Now he's got an older sibling,

right? Yeah, they're the same age. Actually, they're, Oh,

that's right, that's right. They are. So do you see any, any, any

areas where you have had, you've taught him those things along

the way? I'm trying to say

no, because kids, they don't listen to you, but

they watch you, you know, and they, it's like, they observe

and they, they're like little sponges. So I Okay, so I have a

beautiful story. It was five in the morning, and Gavin, I'm up

early every morning, and I hear him, like, rustling around. I'm

like, what's going on? And he's making this card, and it's the

last day of elementary school, and he's like, you know,

ruffling through his thick crafts in his bedroom and making

a card for a friend. And he was so like, I, I really want to

make sure they know what, how I care about them, and I want to

continue the friendship, even though we're going to different

schools and so on. And so he thought it was important enough

to wake up like hours before he normally wakes up to make this

card for his friend and to give it on the last day of school.

That is from him observing that I always say, like you need to

you want to make cards like he sees me writing letters and

cards to people and sending things and and, but I always say

to him, it's so important to tell people what you what you

love about them, what you admire about them, and so on. And so I

was so proud, you know, I felt so wonderful just to to observe

him, that it was important to him to wake up early. And you

know how kids are with sleep? Yes, they don't want to wake up,

right? And they don't want to go to sleep, they want to stay up

late, and so on. But he he woke up and made it a priority for

him to do this before breakfast and and it was beautiful. And he

read me the note. And I was like, I was like, so touched. It

was a beautiful letter to his friend to keep the friendship

going. And, yeah, of course, you know, I made a post about that

because I was so like, oh yeah, about how when you care people,

you know, you do things, you do the extra thing. So are you

showing people that you care? You know, when you're even

building new relationships, are you asking questions? Are you

finding out? Are you showing up for your new friends, to their

master classes, to the thing? Are you doing the things that

are gonna help that relationship grow.

It's funny. I have a cute little story about

Amara, my granddaughter. They live in an apartment complex.

It's fairly big one, and it's new, and there's lots of people

around, and there's dogs allowed. And my my other

daughter, not the mother of Amara, but my other daughter has

a dog, and they actually live together, all of them, and Amara

and I were going down the elevator one day, and this guy

came in the elevator with his one of his two dogs, and she

looked, and she's six, and she looked at the guy, and she said,

Hi, how's and she patted The dog, and the dog's name was

Carol, which is quite funny in itself. And she said, and I

forget the other dog's name, but she asked this guy. She said,

hi. She said, How's Joan, you know, the other dog, whatever

the dog's name was, how's Joan doing? Like she wasn't afraid to

ask. She knew this dog more than she knew the person. She was

very it was so cute. But you know, we we have this thing

about, you know, don't talk to strangers. And yet, there's

something, you know, it shuts kids down too much. Sometimes we

have to know and be but we have to understand the difference

too, and that's sometimes difficult when you're six, yeah,

but

adults carry that like now you're 3040, and you

still have that in the back of your mind. Don't talk to

strangers running the fact that you're like, not being friendly

in the world.

Yeah, exactly. It's crazy, right? All right.

Last question about your work, because I can see in just the

conversation we've had, people will see or will listen. Will

hear our listeners will actually hear the passion that you have

for your work. I can I know it because it comes through so

clearly. So what would you say to someone who thinks that

they're just not that confident, that you know knowing that this

can be learned?

Yeah, so you, all of us, started with not being

confident. And even if you have achievements, you still may have

an area where you're like, I know I'm hiding. I know I'm not

going to go for it. I know I'm like, waiting for something to

happen. We all have that in every moment. And the thing is,

it is something that you can nurture. It is something that

can grow just like a flower. Right? We know it takes time, we

know it takes some daily practice, but it can be really

fun, like, I give my clients home fun. I don't call it

homework. I'm like, home fun that you're gonna do, and it's

little experiments, and there's no, like, right or wrong way.

It's not one size fits all. You know, some some of my tools, I

call them self connection tools. You might not love one or the

other, but you want to try them and see how it feels if it if

your nervous system is like, I loved that great. You know, if

your nervous system is like, that was really hard. Like, one

of the things I sometimes ask clients to do is just really

simply, you know, look in the mirror and tell themselves

something great about themselves. A lot of my clients

cannot do that, let alone if I say, say I love you to yourself

in the mirror, that that is very hard to do, and so we tone it

back to, well, look in the mirror and tell the mirror, tell

yourself what you did today. I went to the doctor, and I went

to the groceries and and just start and that, that is the baby

step needed to start becoming like, able to relate to yourself

in a different way while you're looking at yourself in the

mirror. So everybody starts somewhere, and it can definitely

be learned, and it's a skill, and you just have to do some

home fun around it. Okay, go from A to B, and most again,

most of the time the the change is much more rapid than we we

think. You know, I just did a three day live workshop, and

after the three days, a lot of people are like, I can see how,

if I did this every day, I can see how it can be possible that

my energy will stay up, that I can have, you know, I'm capable

and resourceful. I can do all these things. You know, when you

can see the path, it's much easier for you to go,

and it's also lovely that you have someone in

your corner. Oh, yeah, yeah, right. So I see that that would

be really helpful as well

community, because I also have communities that you

can be a part of, so you don't only learn from me, but you can

also see what the other clients are doing. I love group

programs, because that's it. You know, even in corporations, we

have a board of directors. It's not just a low

speed off each other, right? Yeah, for sure.

Okay, well, I wasn't going to ask this so, but I am going to,

because I think it's important piece that I asked some of my

guests. I don't I haven't been asking it lately, but I think

this is a perfect time to ask it. And this is my curiosity

question, okay, okay, because I think that that we both know the

power of curiosity, and it's my favorite word. And I want to

know from you two things. One, do you think that it's innate or

learned? And secondly, what are you most curious about these

days?

What great questions I think. I think we start off as

innate like babies are curious. They want to eat everything,

they want to touch everything. They want to explore everything.

I think over time, we lose that curiosity, and we need to

relearn it. And so I do so much work on teaching people how to

look at people in a curious way, like how to look at the world in

a curious way. Go for a walk and find 10 things that you're like.

This is amazing. This is beautiful. This is awe

inspiring. So that's nurturing your curiosity, that's

developing that skill of curiosity. So as a baby, we have

it some way. As we're growing up, we kind of lose the

innateness of it, and then we have to relearn it. And what I'm

curious about, I'm curious about so many things. I mean, I'm

reading four books at the same time. I

was just gonna ask you what you're fit what

you're reading.

So I can tell you I'm curious right now about

listening. You know the opposite of what we're

doing? Do you know? Do you know what the

anagram of listen is? No, I don't silent. Ah, isn't that

interesting? That is, that is so cool. I know. How can you listen

if you're too busy talking

exactly, so that's one of the books I'm reading.

Okay, listening the Forgotten skill.

Oh, I have that book. It's been around for a

while, right? A long time. Yeah, that's where I got it from, I'm

sure, from that book, because I used to teach listening as part

of one of the courses soft skills I used to teach. And

that's, I'm sure it's in my library over here. Anyway,

amazing. Okay, yeah,

so I'm really curious about what would be the

possibility if I keep improving my listening skills, what is

gonna come out of that? Like and, you know, in the world, we

hear a lot, people want to be seen, heard and loved and so on.

And I feel like, you know, we're not in there's not enough

attention on listening, really, from the heart. Mm, hmm, so

that's what I'm curious. I mean, I'm curious about a lot of

things.

No, I was just thinking I was trying to just

take that in, because I think the more we listen carefully and

and fully, the more curious. Curious we become, the more we

can build rapport with people. I think it goes around and around,

but you have to be curious enough to do it in the first

place. And you know, like, I do it with LinkedIn training, I'm

like, Look at this person's profile and see what in there.

Do you see that you're curious about. Is there anything there

that you're curious about? And it could be the the one little

word that they have in their specialty section that says two

words that says, you know, like dance junkie, or something like

that, you know, something that would connect that person with

you and so on. So yeah, I think it's just the start of

everything for me is curiosity. So thank you for sharing with

that, and this has been amazing. Yeah, I loved it. What a great

conversation. Oh, thank you. So for my listeners, I think you

would agree that confidence isn't just a skill. It's

something you carry, you communicate and you embody and

as Nina has shared today, when you stop trying to prove

yourself and start showing up fully, everything changes your

leadership, your conversations, your relationships, whether

you're building a business or leading a team, the way you feel

in your body shapes the way others experience you. So the

next time you walk into a room, ask yourself, not what should I

say, but how do I want to be remembered? And thanks for

joining us today on relationships rule and remember

to stay connected and be remembered. Thank you.

Nina, oh my gosh. Thank you so much. Janice, you.