Creating art is a vulnerable practice that exposes artists to judgment on a regular basis, and it can be incredibly difficult to maintain healthy self-esteem. In this episode of Morning Walk with The Artist's Forge, you'll hear how a group of artists and business people manage their own confidence and how they build their self-worth through habits, thought patterns, and mindful practice.

Hi, this is Matt Stagliano and thanks for being

part of the artists Forge. We're a community of creatives who

help each other think like an artist. By discussing creativity

as a process instead of a skill or a talent. We believe everyone

has what it takes to create something amazing. We just need

some encouragement and inspiration along the way. What

you're about to hear is a live recording of one of our daily

discussions on the clubhouse app. If you like what you hear,

I encourage you to join our private Facebook group, or visit

us on the web at the artist forged calm. Now on to the show.

And I'm super glad to have you back with us. This

brighten early Monday morning for morning walk, and photo talk

with the artist Forge. As you can see, we have our lovely

moderators with us this morning, the amazing and ultra talented

beside Matt Becca, and the lovely cat. And now you know

you're here with us. And I'm really glad you are because

today we're gonna be talking about building self confidence.

And I know that this is one of those conversations, I

personally need to have multiple times in my life, maybe every

couple months is good, just to remind me of the things that I

can do. Kick me in the butt a little bit. And also take away

any guilt or shame that I might feel

as a result of not always being where I wish I was, and how that

can have a damper on my self confidence. So that's the

conversation today you're building self confidence as an

artist, as a creator, as a business person as a you. So

wherever you identify with needing this conversation most,

or with being the most competent. That's where I'd love

to hear from you. Because I have lots of thoughts on this issue.

But first, I want to know, when it comes to self confidence,

what do you all think is the most important thing? And how do

you manage your own self confidence

so it's interesting self confidence, for

me was actually something I learned to feign pretty well, as

a kid.

I was bullied a lot for a really long time until probably like my

sophomore year in high school. And like a lot by the same group

of people and like over and over again, love a lot. And as I

might my physically grew, I realized that I was taller and

larger than most of the people my age. And if I pretended to be

strong and relatively like unapproachable, it gave me a

little more distance between the bullying and my physical person.

And that, you know, definitely grew into your intimidating,

like, I'm not intimidating, I'm just quiet and tall. But it as

an adult, like that carried through into things and I had to

sort of relearn how to be approachable and outwardly kind

and that kind of thing. But actual self confidence where I

was able to sort of step into actually feeling strong and

confident for lack of a better term. It was in accomplishment

and connection. And from a business standpoint, you know,

like I went to school for sound engineering, I didn't go to

school for photography. And in that like starting to work on

accreditation and allowing myself opportunity to, to grow

in my craft beyond the sales dollar, but actually start to

master my tools and my process and my systems has allowed me to

sort of gain some recognition there. And in that recognition

feel accomplished, whether it's through awards or hitting sales

goals or you know, insert thing here allowed me to grow my

actual confidence versus my faint confidence as a as a

shield.

because often when we have this conversation around

self confidence, there's there can be a lot of talk around And

just, you know, saying things to yourself, right like I am this

and I am this. And that's fantastic. I totally think that

one of the big things we have to do is change our internal

narratives. And we'll talk about that later. But the thing that

you said about becoming competent, right, and having

these accomplishments just increases your credibility with

yourself. And that's something we don't always talk about a

lot. But it's really important, because confidence means belief

in the ability to do what you say. And that's what credit is,

right? Like when you when you start to build your competence,

and you start to do things that prove your confidence back to

yourself, then you're building credibility, then you know, that

you can do the things that you say you're going to do. And it's

not just a kind of nebulous feeling of like, I'm, I know

that I can do the thing, which is important to have. But it's

the proof, you have the proof there that says, hey, you can do

the thing. And that's a really, really important thing to have.

And it's not. It's not always easy to build, because you have

to do the entire process of gaining the skill and repeating

the skill. And using that in practical ways, and then being

able to see the returns come back to you. And so that whole

thing is a journey. And people oftentimes will get disheartened

on that path. And so they end up in this place of being the

person who says, I wish I could, uh, you're so talented, I could

never be that way, etc, etc, when really all that happened is

they never stayed on the path long enough to build the skill,

that credibility then returned to them in the form of

accomplishment. And man, oftentimes, all it takes is just

staying on the path long enough to start to see those returns.

So what kept you going before you started to have some of

those accomplishments that were like proof of concept?

My inability to give attention to anything else.

Um, I mean, that's only half joking. I've, I think I've

talked about in this room a few times, you know, when I, I

started my photo business the same time I started another

business that's like a brewery. And I was working like 90 to 100

hours a week, between the two and not executing either. Well,

the socket was great, we received a lot of accolades, but

we were severely underfunded. And there was just some there,

there were many factors. But when we close the brewery, it

was a matter of okay, now you don't have any more excuses.

Now, you can only focus on one thing. So you can go get a job

job. Which I did, I think I had four or you can go get another

job job and just stay there. And I didn't want to do that. I

didn't want to work for somebody else building somebody else's

second home and building somebody else's dreams and

building up somebody else's tuition for their their kids.

And so I said, Okay, if you're going to do it, then you have to

go all in. And it was in betting on myself and my ability to go

all in you know, even if I wasn't very good, because I

wasn't. But I figured out how to build the business somewhat

sustainably from a price point standpoint. And I just went

after it. And about three years later, my work got kind of

decent, and but I was still making money through the whole

thing. And it was my ability to do ask for that sale and be

compensated for my half great work at you know, a standard

that was probably out of reach for the quality I was producing,

but at the same time it allowed me to, to practice and do the

thing over and over and over again. To get better

i i just had a lot of feelings there. When you're

talking about basically the fact that you really didn't give

yourself another choice, did you? I mean, I know that there

was the potential of, you know, going and getting a real, quote

unquote, like job job, right, where you're working for

somebody else and having that steady income. But you didn't. I

mean, I know from talking to you that that was, in a way, kind of

not an option, you did not want to be that person, right. And so

in a real way, you you kind of jumped without a safety net,

didn't you? Always do? Yes. And I think that says so much.

Number one, when you take that leap, you're counting on your

wings to show up on the way down, and there is almost

nothing that will build your confidence in your ability to do

hard things, more than doing something hard without a

fallback plan, because you either succeed, or you're going

to learn a lot through pain. And both of those things are going

to give you self confidence. And that credence in a way that you

can't get through anything else. If you walk out onto a ropes

course. And you are tied up, and you've got all of these, you

know, ropes on you, you can still go through the course it's

still scary as hell, and you're still going to earn credibility

with yourself from being able to step out and do that thing. But

stepping out without any safety net without a rope tied to you,

teaches you things about yourself that you're never going

to learn any other way. And it's not always the best first step

for everybody. Like you said, like, up until that point, you

had tried and failed at some things, you would had other

jobs, you'd run other businesses, you knew kind of

what it was like to step out. And so taking this leap kind of

seems like it became a natural extension of the leaps that you

had taken before.

There's a saying in the fitness community,

primary primarily in CrossFit, that but did you die? Right. You

know, like, it didn't tell me did it hurt? Yeah, shit and hurt

a lot. But I held on to that thing, right? That when I was in

college in 1997, and in a dark room for hours at a time,

thinking, Man, this would be cool to do. This would be really

cool to do for a living. I just don't know how to do it. So I'm

just gonna go about my life, right, and I got a job at Pizza

Hut and, you know, life went on. But now I'd found a way to do it

as a business and for a living. So I just had to learn to do the

thing. And, you know, here we are.

Yeah, it's funny to take, you know, such an amazing

life and condense it all of a sudden, and go and now, you

know, here we are, like, we live our own lives, it's so easy to

look back and say, you know, okay, well, here's the logic of

A to B to C to D, and how I got there. But when you get to hear

it from the outside perspective, you get to, you know, partake in

that story and be like, You are one bad bitch.

I'm something else we'll call it that.

Yes, I love that. Okay, so what, for me what I

really take away, and I'm so glad that you got to tell your

story, because it touches on a lot of the things that I really

wanted to make sure that we covered. And two of those really

big things being the fact that self confidence without

credibility is a mirage, right? It is something we can say and

repeat to ourselves many times, and it often may give us the

courage to step out into the thing. So I think it's still

can't be overstated how important it is that we control

our internal narrative. But at some point, we need to see

returns from those actions in order for the credibility to

actually mean something you can believe it, because that's kind

of you know, the heart of the term. And confidence comes from

the fact that you know, you can trust yourself to do the thing,

and to get the results that you need. And so as much as as much

as controlling that narrative is important. And that's definitely

something that we're gonna get deep into, because it's kind of

the seed, right? Like it's the beginning. And it really doesn't

matter so much. If the initial stages are not necessarily true,

right? Like you said, you had to kind of fake your way into a

semblance of confidence at first. And so many of us do so

many times, we just have to talk ourselves into saying the thing

to ourselves for a little bit. And soon, some of the actions

and some of the feelings that are related to what we say to

ourselves start to show up. But eventually, if we don't have the

proof in the pudding to back up those thoughts that we have, we

can't maintain telling ourselves that we can't maintain lying

ourselves, or lying to ourselves is what it feels like right over

and over again, if something doesn't show up to tell us hey,

it's true. Look, look, look at the proof. So thank you so much

for sharing that I think it's such an important thing for us

to know, as artists that we need to be paying attention to when

we start getting those returns, and they don't have to be big at

first. It can be our first small client in our first crappy

painting or photo, who loves it, and oh, my God, we aren't the

only ones. And that little tiny bit of proof can sustain us

through the next hard part where we struggled to earn the rest of

those skills or, you know, to make that next sale or whatever

it is. So it is a big deal, folks. Matt, Bassam, Bekka any

thoughts on how we build our self confidence? What do you

think is important about this process? Or what do you do that

is successful for you? Well,

I can it's up to you. Anyways. Yeah, myself. I

mean, I'm I'm consider myself quite self confident. And most

of the things I do and I think it comes back from what you

said, it's the the continual continuous auto feedback of

accomplishments, many accomplishments, and it started

way back. I think it comes back to my academics. Where as a

young as a young kid, I It's not that I excelled in school, I

wasn't like a, you know, straight A student 9598,

average, things like that. But I always did well, and I did well

without working very hard. Right. And that means I didn't

study a lot. And as I and I would do well, and I figured out

that what what I did well is have the curiosity to understand

the subject, I listened, I absorbed I processed

information. And I understood this subject. And a lot of

people do that. But a lot of people can't do that a lot of

people would memorize things, especially when it comes to

things like mathematics and sciences, they'd memorize

formulas and and you can't, you can't win at maths by just

memorizing things, eventually, you're going to get caught. So I

would take the extra step to try to understand and I was the type

of guy that would study at night, people would be up till

three or four in the morning studying for an exam, I would

stop at 11 and say, That's it, I'll figure it out on the test

during the test. And I think it comes down to just having that

curiosity and that analytical mind to understand things

fundamentally, which put me in a position that I can stand on my

feet, I can figure things out on the spot. And I know I will

succeed. I think that's the accumulation of, of auto

feedback that I got. And I also come to think of it had have had

and probably still have a need to fit in, not to stand out.

Alright, I was I was born in Lebanon, and I came to my family

came to Canada, I was 14 years old. So that was like 45 years

ago. And, and I needed to fit in, I did not want to be the guy

that stands out that looks different. That sounds different

that so so by by just having that need to fit in, and that

was just an example of how I want to fit, I want to fit in

professionally, I want to fit in with my job I want to fit in as

a photographer. It again, it drove me to dig for those

nuances. I always talk about being able to understand the

30,000 foot level, but know exactly when to go deep down and

figure out the details that make a difference. And I think

practicing that and living that and doing that throughout my

career. And whether it's in business or photography is what

gives me the confidence that you know what, I'll figure it out.

It'll happen. It'll be more than good enough. And I'm fine with

that.

You know, but some what you were just talking about

there, really touched on the fact that where we placed the

heart of our confidence is really important, right? So you

weren't confident in the fact that you were the smartest kid

in the room. You weren't confident in the fact that you

could never fail or anything else you were confident in the

fact that you were curious enough to learn something

deeply. And it's really amazing when we think about how, where

we decide to place our confidence and I say decide

Because as we get older, we need to recognize that who we build

for ourselves, a person we build as ourselves is something we can

control. When we're younger, we don't have a whole lot of, we

don't have a whole lot of practical knowledge about how we

are becoming the person we're becoming, we're mostly just in

the experience. But as we get a little bit older, we're able to

recognize the fact that where we choose to put our confidence is

going to determine how successful that competence

actually becomes for us whether it actually leads to results.

And if you place your confidence in the fact that you are the

smartest person in the room, eventually somebody is going to

show up in your life, who's going to shatter your confidence

and yourself. If you put your confidence in the fact that you

are the best photographer in the business, eventually, you're

going to come across a photographer who shatters that

vision you have of yourself in your head, and all of a sudden,

your confidence is going to take a hit that it might not be able

to recover from and having confidence in the fact that

you're curious enough to learn something deeply. That is an

almost unshakable center, right? Like, nobody can come at you for

that. If you are curious, that's something you can maintain

during your entire life in almost any circumstance. And

saying, I'm willing to learn this thing deeply. I'm curious

enough, that I can do the deep dive into these things, that is

a center of confidence that really can't be shaken. So it's

pretty amazing that you were able to recognize that about

yourself. Because like you said, you know, you've been able to

maintain that confidence in yourself for for pretty much

your entire career. So that's a really kind of amazing testament

to the fact that placing our confidence in a thing that is

not easily broken, is a pretty big deal.

You know, it's absolutely amazing what you just

said, because I never thought of it that way. But that that is a

brilliant way of looking of looking at and trying to see

where people are coming from is where do they place their

confidence on I am going to remember that and use it and

many, many things I do especially coaching. But but the

thing that the other thing about that when you put your

confidence in something that's internal to you that you own,

and nobody else does, and nobody else can impact. It's a

transferable skill. Right? It really is, it's yours, you can

take it anywhere you want, you can take it into into you know,

basket weaving, and you can take it into photography, you can

take it into becoming a CEO of a company is the same. Same same

skill set, I guess, or same way of being. So yeah, it's

transferable, and that's why it's it, it lives, right. It's

not temporary, it can't be shattered by somebody unless you

do it yourself, unless you shatter it yourself.

Oh, so true. And of course, we talked a little bit

about sometimes when we have self destructive habits, we can

do that to ourselves. So we do need to be aware of that, which

is why that internal monologue is important. So, and we'll get

to that later as well. But Matt, you were also gonna share self

confidence. How do you get it? How do you keep it? What do you

think is important about that process,

I'm still trying to figure all that out. Because

from a self confidence standpoint, I've always had

extraordinarily little, but listening to the song, and I'm

so glad that he was able to speak first because he said so

many of the things that I hadn't really formulated in my head,

but I absolutely agree with, I think for me, my confidence is I

have difficulty with confidence in the work that I produce. But

I have unwavering confidence in myself to produce quality work

over a period of time, I not one of these people that will be oh,

this first go is going to be perfect. And everyone's going to

love what I do. It takes me a while to produce work or start

something new or whatnot. Once I see that I'm capable of doing

it, then I have the utmost confidence that I'm going to get

infinitely better at that thing. And there's no one that can stop

me from getting there. But me. And I think when we start to put

our own power in to what other people think about what our work

is it takes erodes our confidence away from us

producing that thing. So if I'm building a table, or I'm

painting a painting, or I'm crocheting a blanket, if I'm

worried about what people think at the end of that thing, then

I'm already defeating myself and wondering, Am I going to be good

enough with this for me, I put all of that aside And I say, am

I can I push myself? Am I capable enough of doing this

thing. So when it comes to you photography for me, for example,

it the more I stay off social media, the more I stay away from

the comparison game and stop looking at other people's work,

the more confident I feel in my own stuff. Now, when I put

myself in a position where it's being viewed by others, whether

that's online or in a competition, or just casual

viewing by friends, I'm much more confident in it because I

haven't been doing any comparison, I've just had faith

in myself. So how I got there was very similar to Cat story, I

was bullied a lot as a kid, and just had to build up the

confidence in myself that I could do anything that I didn't

necessarily need anybody to tell me that I was good. I just

needed to prove it to myself. So over time, for me, it's a matter

of get ridding, getting rid of those external affirmations as a

need for justification of what I'm doing, as long as I have

faith that I'm capable of this thing, that I can do anything,

I'm not necessarily going to be a professional basketball

player, because of you know, genetics. However, I would put

myself up against anybody playing basketball, because I

love doing it enough confidence that I can do it, do you not? I

mean, it's it's it. That's where it all comes from for me.

Oh, man, oh, man, there's so much good stuff

there. Okay, Matt, you said something that I think is so

critical, and almost never gets any airtime is that there's a

difference between having confidence in our ability to get

people to like what we do, and confidence in our ability to do

the thing, right. And one of those is something that's within

our control. If people remember, for y'all that were here, you

might remember what I was talking about last week about

throwing a baseball, you have, once the baseball leaves your

fingertips, you have no control about where that ball goes.

Because there's things outside of your control, that are going

to affect how it flies from wind, to a dog running in

between you in the ball, etc, etc, right? There are just too

many things to account for. So thinking that you have control

over the eventual outcome of the throw is foolish. But knowing

that you have control over how you stand, how you hold the

ball, how you breathe, how you release all of those things, you

can have confidence in those things. Because those are things

that you actually do. Once the ball leaves your hand. It's up

to God in the universe, right. And the same thing is true about

what you said, Matt, if we put our confidence in the ability to

make things that people love, and then our confidence is built

on the approbation we get because of what we make. We are

definitely setting ourselves up for a failure because at some

point, we're going to make something that people don't

like, at some point, it's not going to be that good. And all

of a sudden, that source of confidence, that approbation

that we get is going to dry up. But if we're careful to place

our confidence, and our just our ability to do the job, like I

mentioned, Peggy Serota, last week, she is a photographer, a

commercial portrait photographer, you've seen her

work all all over the place magazine covers all over the

place, she photographed some of the most famous people in the

world, she is not a confident photographer in terms of

technique, she will share the fact and has shared the fact

that when it comes to things like you know, deciding on which

settings and putting her license certain places, she really

doesn't do those things that's up to her assistance, what she

is confident in his her ability to connect with people. And then

the outcome, the strike, the perfectly thrown ball flows from

the fact that she knows where her power lies, and that's in

the ability to connect. So I think, I think Man, your example

is just so powerful, because it reminds us that the ultimate

outcome is subjected to powers that are beyond our control.

Sorry for the car guys. But our ability to do the thing to make

the decisions to decide how to stand and how to connect, etc,

etc. That's all on us, right?

Yes, absolutely. Sorry. Is a rhetorical question

at the end No, I think you're I think you're absolutely right.

So for me that's that's really how it all boils down. It's

looking at like you said, what you can control and what you

cannot I know that I can control my actions. I know that I can

control my output, I can control very little outside of that. So

once I can prove to myself that a thing can be done, then

there's no stopping me. However, there is also that little voice

inside like, Oh, am I capable of this? But what I do to combat

that is say, Well, I've done all these other things that I never

thought I could do. What would make me believe that this story

that's going on in my head is any different? Why would I

believe that I'm incapable of doing this? You know, so I think

as long as you can look at it, and reframe it and make sure

that you're not telling yourself a story or a narrative, that

just isn't true, because it has no basis. In fact, nothing's

ever been proven that you can't do it. So go ahead and try it,

you never know. And that's where for me, my confidence has always

come from expanding my skill set, whether it's language, or

you know, blue collar skills, or white collar skills, or tech

skills, whatever it is, all of those things, teach me that I

can pretty much do anything. So long as I believe that

narrative, the second that I start telling myself, well, you

can't do this thing, then, you know, then it's all over, then

it's more of a battle with myself than anything else. So

yeah, it's just having that belief, proving yourself wrong,

that No, actually I can do this. That's where it comes from. For

me, that's how confidence stems in in me.

Heck, yeah, muscles. And yeah, there

definitely seems to be a tension between being careful not to put

all of our eggs in the basket of approbation and feedback, but

also needing that proof as a return on investment. And being

careful to see those things as proof of concept, and not the

seat of confidence. So there's certainly some subtle tension, I

think, that goes into that, and relies on us to be able to weigh

those things. Recognizing the difference between, I can

control my output, I can't control whether people like it

to I can judge the fact that this output is good, meaning the

process is good, as opposed to I must rely solely on the feedback

of others, in order to feel good about what I've done. So there's

definitely, definitely even a whole conversation in that in

and of itself. So. It is your turn. Oh, how do you get it? How

do you keep it? All the things?

I do I do all the things I'm well, I'm interesting

to think about because I, I definitely am very self

confident and a lot of ways. And then of course, there's places

where I absolutely freeze up and terror and I'm not confident in

myself at all. But just kind of thinking about what what could

sustain that. So like we were talking about goals last week,

and I, I mentioned, you know, being really rooted in the small

goals, in being in love with your journey, right, like

focusing less on the large eventual goals and being really

rooted in the here and now. And that definitely ties in a lot to

confidence for me. And I don't really have like, huge,

ambitious, really long term goals because life is so

nebulous, you know, you never know what is going to happen.

And really like holding on Super tightly and like tying my

identity to any long term eventual future goal. I feel

like it's setting myself up for failure. Because what if

something happens that doesn't allow me to reach that goal,

that doesn't mean I'm failing, and my you know, life is a utter

mess, and I need to give up, it just means I need to change and

I need to develop. And so being really rooted in who I am at any

given moment, I think is so important because you've I guess

in the words of the great literary master Dr. Seuss,

there's no one alive who is youer than you, and you can't

right now be the you that you want to be in five years or be

the you you want to be even one year. You are who you are right

now today. And you can only do the very best that you could do

today. You can't do any better. And so just being very cognizant

of what you are capable of, and then you know, leaning into that

development of competence and focusing on continuing to learn

from where you are right now. I just think is so absolutely

important.

Applause Applause I mean, I agree 100% And that

you're what you're doing for yourself. of creating a short

term feedback loop, right, which is, as many of you know, I'm

going to be participating in NaNoWriMo this month, which is a

National Novel Writing Month. And the goal is that by the end

of the month, you will have written 50,000 words of a novel,

whether that finishes the novel or gets that three quarters of

the way there or whatever isn't necessarily important, but the

goal is 50,000 words. And if you start from the beginning, and

you're thinking to yourself 50,000 words, oh, my God, that's

a lot of words. How am I going to do that? How can I fit that

in? Man, it just seems like this big, overpowering impossible

thing to get your hands on. But if I asked myself, can I write

1600 words today? Well, yeah, I mean, I can do that. So if I can

do that today, and then by this evening, I'm sitting down, and I

have 1600 words on my page. Well, man, I mean, I've just

proved I can do it, what makes tomorrow any different. And then

if I do that, if I do that every day, by the end of the month,

50,000 has happened. I haven't taken any kind of extraordinary

steps, I've done the small thing that I can do today, and proved

to myself that I can show up over and over again, all of a

sudden, I have credibility with myself, I can believe in my

ability to show up and just write 1600 words, the outcome is

50,000, at the end of the month, is 100,000 at the end of two

months. So all of a sudden, those goals that seem so big,

those things are right within reach, if we can believe in

ourselves to do the small stuff today. So that's a pretty big

one. Becca?

Yeah. And I mean, it's, I think it's okay to to

realize, like you're not going to reach every goal you have,

and that is totally okay. It's totally okay, no one does. Like,

I don't think that there's a single person who hits every

single goal. And that's another thing for me is like looking at,

you know, people I admire, you know, people whose careers I

would maybe you know, like to emulate in some way, or people's

success, every single one of those people has been new at

something, and has had to go through struggle to get to where

they are, and recognizing that not everything has to be perfect

that you are going through this own journey. And that's going to

include failure and success. And, you know, again, you are

doing the best that you possibly can do for yourself and looking

specifically at imaginary you in the future or even at like other

people, and trying to emulate their success exactly is not

going to work because that's just not how life works. So

everyone's gone through the process, everyone's gone through

some journey and some hardship. And so whatever you're going

through right now, that is part of that, and it's totally okay.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Especially because those, you're

always in the process of becoming. And if you didn't

reach the goal, you still showed up for yourself. And that leaves

a mark on you, you know, like that leaves a mark on who you

are. Which means the next time it's time to show up, you are

facilitating becoming the kind of person who shows up, maybe

you didn't reach the 1600. But you still showed up for

yourself. And that that is a step in the direction of

becoming the kind of person who, right like, when you ask

yourself, am I the kind of person who, or tell yourself, I

am the kind of person who, like, maybe I can't say for sure that

I'll reach 1600 words a day, but I sure as hell I'm going to show

up for myself and give it a go. And if I didn't make it, it's

not the end of the world. I know that I can show up for myself

again tomorrow. That's an internal thing that's not

necessarily based on the outcome.

I think it's also important to note too, that

when you're existing through, I don't know your business, right?

If you don't have goals set for yourself, you could very easily

just go through and rinse, repeat cookie cut the whole nine

yards. But when you set goals for yourself that maybe are

outside of your comfort zone, like 1600 words a day or, you

know, reaching new sales targets or you know, insert thing here.

You're more likely to even if you fail at the goal itself, you

will get closer to that goal than you would without having it

in the first place. Like when you get something you will get

closer to that thing than you would when you were not striving

and you were just existing and in motion.

Yeah, absolutely. So much of what we've talked

about today relies on some level of tension right on on setting

goals, but not being crushed when we don't achieve them on

building that competence and our skill set, but recognizing we

can't always control the outcome. I mean, there's this

tension that runs through all of this conversation. And just like

anything, I mean, we have to recognize the shades of gray and

the areas where we have to step lightly, and ultimately

becoming, in a way, unbreakable. And I don't mean that in the

fact that we will never feel bad or that we will never, you know,

have a hard time. Never question ourselves or any of that stuff.

But what I mean is that, it never stops you from picking up

all the pieces, and chugging on with them again, and having

confidence, one of the things that I really want to teach my

boys, and that we try to focus on is giving them opportunities

to see that they can do hard things. And sometimes that means

going out and doing, you know, multi day hike in camp and you

got to live on what you brought with you. And sometimes that's

maybe we're out climbing, and they're doing a route that's

really hard, and just encouraging them to finish, even

though they're scared because they need to see that they can

overcome those hard things. And of course, they recognize that

they've got safety gear on and please don't think that I'm out

there putting my children in danger. But just giving them the

ability to prove to themselves, to build that credibility that

when something is hard, they're capable of pushing through, even

if it only means getting up another foot, or making one more

handhold, or whatever it is, to go that little step beyond where

you thought you could. So you can prove to yourself the next

time it comes along. You can. It's such a big thing, something

that I think our systems are built to overlook. We want

people to go just about as far as they're comfortable with and

that's all. But in your life, you need to know that you're

capable of pushing past those comfort zones. So I want to make

sure that we have time to hear from our friends in the audience

today. Joshua has got his hand up, I did not make my my mods

mods. I'm doing that right now. Sorry for the delay, guys. I was

already walking fast this morning. And I overlooked my

responsibilities. Joshua, I'm I see that your hand is up for

some reason. It's not showing up down there at the bottom though.

So I'm going to grab it anyways. But if if you're in the audience

today, and you have a thought about confidence, what it means

how we build it, how we can sustain it, or if you feel that

there's areas you are really comfortable with sharing about

your confidence in those areas and how you got there. We'd love

to hear from you this morning. So please feel free to raise

your hand, we will bring you up. And you can share. Joshua, good

morning. What are your thoughts on confidence this morning.

Good morning, I jumped a little bit late. But I really

liked what Becca was saying when it came to goal setting. But I

would argue that there are some people that do hit their goals

that they set, they hit all of them. But that's even more

dangerous than coming up short. And that's because they're

setting goals that are so easily attainable, they literally just

wake up and the goal is met. And that creates a false sense of

confidence in your ability to do something because you've

literally done nothing to stretch yourself, you've done

nothing to grow. All you did was meet a goal that ultimately met

nothing. And that's something that I learned when I used to

have a software company that started with a buddy of mine.

And we were going out trying to sell it. And you know, initially

we were just needed, we needed to get some schools in the

system to be beta testers, we needed some customers and to be

beta testers. And I'd go to all these meetings and I leave every

meeting with with everyone saying yes to everything I was

asking for. And eventually, you know, we were opening up and we

were selling and every meeting where I was leaving, I was

getting a sale. Everybody was saying yes. And eventually I was

like, you know, I'm meeting all of my goals, like I'm making all

these sales. But I quickly came to realization. If everyone is

saying yes, all the time, then I'm not stretching myself. I'm

not getting enough. I'm not selling enough. I'm not asking

big enough. And so by me getting yes all the time and building my

confidence. I was actually hurting us because I wasn't

actually getting to where we needed to be. I was just so

happy to be able to get that Yes. Which was my baseline goal,

rather than ultimately you're stepping back and looking at

what we need to do to grow and what was a legitimate goal. What

was a stretch goal? What would require some work and some

effort and what would ultimately what would I fail at trying to

do, but I'd be able to ultimately achieve?

That's a great point. Thank you for calling On

that I know I can be a little hyperbolic sometimes. But yeah,

that's an excellent point.

Yeah, I'm so glad that you brought that up,

Joshua, because I think I think you're absolutely right. And

maybe the initial stages of our confidence often begin with

those things like those, those first sales in his first

successes. But I mean, you're absolutely right that, at some

point, we have to question whether or not we should stay in

that place in that comfort zone. Because if our goal, our goal is

to reach the heights, we're never going to get there by

being comfortable, that absolutely requires the danger

of failure. And it's, I think, so important for us to

recognize, I've mentioned before, I know we've talked

about this, the fact that the word failure is kind of a bad

word in this room, but not because of the meaning of the

word itself. But because of what we attach to it. This idea that

failure means the end, right. And really, it's just a really,

I've heard somebody say this before, it's an information rich

data stream, it basically is a way for us to learn a whole lot,

that we can then turn around and be like, Alright, cool, I failed

on my way to something. And that means that I already made it as

far as where that thing stopped. That's the springboard now that

place that it ended, that's the springboard to the next place,

and I have all the information I need to get me through there. So

we have to be really careful that when we're looking at

these, this, this information that we get back this kind of

feedback loop that we have action reaction by the

environment, and then us decoding what that reaction

means and putting those next steps into place, we do have to

be careful that when what we get back is not what we want, we

don't look at that as the end, which means didn't go where I

wanted to, which means I'm a failure, which means I'm never

going to be good at this, which means I should just give up

right? We have to be careful that that thought process does

not extend from something that makes a lot of sense. I didn't

push for stretch goals. The company did not get to the

stretch goal. Therefore I'm a failure. That is not a plus b

equals c. Right? You're jumping over information there.

Yeah, well, also in the startup world, there's this

belief that money fixes everything. And what ends up

happening a lot of times is young companies end up raising

money really early, before they stretch themselves before they

figure things out. And what they end up doing it they get money.

And and money is, you know, a catalyst, right? It's what you

burn it so you grow fast. And the problem is, if you don't

make those those errors in the beginning, if you don't learn

from those in the beginning, before you before you hit that

callus point at that point of like significant growth, then

you pour the money on it, which is pouring fuel on the fire, but

your fire is burning down your building rather than lighting a

rocket. And that's just as dangerous.

That was the knowledge bomb there. Yes. So

much. You're absolutely right. Not only is it a catalyst, and

it can become a bandaid, right. And so you've got that bandaid

on and the wound is festering underneath and you don't even

know it. So, man, that's such a good, a good point. And

something that's really important for us to keep in

mind. As we as we do try to stretch ourselves and making

sure, as we've mentioned before, that we are using the right

metrics to measure things. And that comes back to confidence as

well, if that metric that we're using is something that can be

taken or broken, then obviously at some point it will be. And so

we have to understand that and keep that in mind. Linus, I saw

that your hand was up it was trying to grab you. I'm not sure

if it's working for some reason, the hands up has not been

showing for me as notifications on the bottom. So I might need

to update my my club has but I see you've been able to join us.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on confidence.

Hi, Nicole. It's a morning walk in photos. All

right. So as an artist room, I assume that we are talking in

the context of a photograph a little bit or just as a person.

Yeah, what we really believe that the people

that we are also determined how well we do as photographers, so

wherever you feel the most comfortable talking about this,

whether that's business or personal or work itself. Would

love to hear it.

I would just like to make sure that I'm in context,

you know how some people would just invade rooms and talk out

Yes. That and yes, I was listening to you

and I was listening to you and then what USA What do

you just in short, basically, if you we should not let our

failures basically deter We should let you know, our

feelings is not the end of this. I have something to add to that

actually, I think that sometimes our feelings become our

greatness. Because there is the thing about photography is that,

you know, like, when you are learning, it is actually a

process of comparing a process of basically, you take your

pictures, and then you compare it to the works of other

photographers, especially when you're new, right? You You are

always searching for what would sell? And what would define you,

and how can you get better. So when when you go into this

process of comparing to others, you tend to have this, you

sometimes put yourself into a box whereby, you know, you're

always judging yourself, like, you know, like, sometimes you

may have taken a really nice picture, that you have a nice

picture in the sense that you have infused all the meaning

that, you know, you've thought about the picture, you've got

exposure, right? You you maybe got the right setting, or the

right talent or whatsoever, and you're really proud of the

picture. And in today's world, all it takes sometimes it's a

Google search. And then you find a picture that has, you know,

similar themes, and it's better than you and then sometimes you

will go like, Oh shit, you know, then suddenly, that picture that

you take, that was just a moment ago, so great to you. It doesn't

become that good, after all. So just to give you a bit of my

history, I'm actually a DOP, Director photography. I started

in 35 mm film. And now I work li I work mainly in digital, but I

still load my Hasselblad with film. And I still love to take

film, even though even though it's harder process in the sense

that I need to how you say, think the light meter reading

figure it out, before I press the tick button. I actually

really like the imperfection of film. I really like the grain

sometimes I even expose wrongly because sometimes you know, the

bad exposure and the slight grain. It harkens back to when

the time before I became a photographer, the time when I

was a small boy. And the time when my non father fotografo

would try to take picture of me on film. And he may have hit

that exposure wrong. So the picture comes out a little bit

grainy, a little bit imperfect. And that has a very sentimental

kind of feeling for me. So the thing is that what the point I'm

trying to make is why why do we let perfection defines us, you

know, when there is so much heart and just doing what you

do. And sometimes when you are just aiming for perfection. And

you know, when you just keep on looking and letting society be

the judge of what is right. You no longer do what you inherently

want to do and what you internally set out to do. So I

was very, very lucky because in my career, where everybody is

always trying to chase you know, what is the Chinese glossiest

picture. When I was actually serving my internship when I was

actually serving, you know, like, making my steps up. I met

with director in Malaysia, and she became my mentor. And she

was one of the more renowned director in my country and from

Malaysia. And the way that she does thing is now actually

emulated by a lot of people in the world. And the way that she

does things is that she wants to do it humbly. And she wants to

basically make pictures that are not perfect. But pictures that

resemble the, the society that she sees in, in the everyday,

you know, Watson all and for that she was very much loved.

And the work shines. And today I find myself often asking my

client, you know, what do you want to say? What do you want to

say in the picture? And that's it really need to be glossy?

Does everything in front of your eye look glossy? Or do you see

the imperfection and maybe we should just infuse a little bit.

So I hope that I've contributed to this room. And if you do like

my share, I would appreciate it. I have a small YouTube. It's on

my it's on my profile greatly to stories I would appreciate if

you just come by. He doesn't you don't have to subscribe if you

don't like it. Thank you very much. Thank you very much,

Nicole.

Thank you for joining us today Linus and yeah,

folks, go go ahead and check his YouTube out. I think you you

bring up some really important and valid points. And there's

certainly a question of whether or not we should be chasing

perfection. You know, I've argued before that I don't think

perfection is a real thing. I think it is an illusion. That is

100%, you know, based off of the idea that it's possible to

actually be without error or failure, which I don't believe

is true. But I really love that you bring up the fact that there

is real beauty in those imperfections, and the fact that

oftentimes, more than our successes, our identity comes

from our failures, which is why it's something that we should

not be afraid of. Because the times that we do succeed in the

future, are ultimately based on what failures we had, what we

learned from those things, and how overcoming, defined us how

it helps to define who we are, and how that person shows up in

life. And I think that's one of the reasons that we're careful

in here about using the word failure. Because oftentimes,

when people have different definitions, you kind of smuggle

your own definition into the thing, based on your experience

in your life. That's the way communication works. But it's so

important to keep in mind that we look at failure as, as a

society, often, particularly Western society is, is such a

negative thing. And really, it can become an absolute thing of

beauty because of what it brings about in our life. And I've seen

this happen. So many times, I felt it myself, gone through the

struggle of recognizing that I've built my identity, and

based my self confidence in a place that was breakable. And

had to watch myself and, and have the fight of becoming that

new person as a result of those breaks. And all of a sudden,

because I know what that looks like and what that feels like,

I'm able to see and find the beauty in it. So as we come to

the end, or as we are at the end of our hour. Today, I want to

just recap a little bit of what we talked about over the course

of our hour this morning. And understanding first, that when

we look at something like self confidence, as an artist as a

person, the first thing that we need to understand is that the

seat of our confidence is either something that is breakable, or

it's something that is flexible. And if you choose to allow

yourself to become confident in outcomes, rather than confident

in an ability or a proclivity for something, there really is

the chance that those things are going to fall apart. Because we

cannot control the end game, we can only control how we play.

Also understanding that when we talk about self confidence, what

we're really talking about is our credibility with ourself,

can I believe myself, when I say I'm going to do this thing? If I

can, that's where the confidence comes from. And oftentimes that

requires building a skill set, going through the difficulty and

then having some kind of proof on the other side, that will

represent what we've done, it becomes a feedback loop. And in

order to do any of this stuff, the first thing we have to do is

be paying attention to who we believe ourselves to be and what

we say about ourselves to ourselves. So I mentioned

earlier, I was going to touch on this, as Kat was talking about,

you know, her experience as a younger person being bullied and

then how she kind of faked her way into that initial appearance

of confidence that began to grow over time. And

everything starts in our head. Everything starts with what we

say to ourselves and about ourselves. Because what you

believe to be true will be true for you and that it will affect

how you behave. And the results that you get back. And if I tell

myself, I'm no good at this. I'm never going to be able to do it.

I'll never sell this much. I'll never take this shot. I'll never

work with this person. I'll never see myself in this life

that I would have dreamed about for myself. If I tell myself

those things. Often enough, my behavior will reflect those

things and the outcome will reflect the behavior So we have

to watch the stories that we tell ourselves. I know that

anybody who's been here with us for any amount of time will

recognize this as the main through line for me, because it

is the most important thing we can do. The stories that we tell

ourselves, are the key to everything we do and believe

about who we are. If you tell yourself that the good results

are chance, and fate, that's what you're going to believe you

will behave like you have no control over the outcome. If you

tell yourself that the results are based on, not my ability to

control fate, but my ability to work hard, then working hard

becomes the pathway. So the things that we tell ourselves

ultimately become reality for us. And if you probably just

heard my watch telling me that I did a good job walking this

morning. Yeah. So if we want to look at self confidence as

something we can build and achieve for ourselves, whether

that is in who we are in the work that we produce in our

ability to make an income from the work that we produce all of

these different areas. Everything begins with what we

tell ourselves with our internal narrative with that monologue,

the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are. And

then that extends out into where that confidence is placed, are

we placing it in our ability to get results? are we placing it

on our ability to do a thing, if I place myself confidence in my

ability to work hard to be curious, and to have to know

that my motivation will always be centered and love,

recognizing that to do a thing for somebody else means I

believe that I'm doing something that is serving their best

interest. That's not something that will be easily taken from

me by circumstance, almost no matter where I'm at, that is

something I will be able to fall back in and have confidence in.

Because it cannot be broken by somebody reacting to me badly

not liking my work, not buying the photograph, none of those

things can affect me understanding that my motivation

comes out of a place of love. So the stories we tell ourselves,

knowing where that self confidence is at recognizing

that we as people are malleable, and if we have narratives and

behaviors that don't serve us, those things can be changed. You

don't have to be the person that you are today, tomorrow, if you

don't want to be. But like Becca said, those things are small

goals, we're always taking small steps towards something, we get

to choose what that thing is. And

giving ourselves those little wins every single day that

reinforce our confidence that reinforce our abilities to do

the things that we say we want to do. And then doing hard

things and recognizing that failure will sometimes be a

result. And that is not the end, it is part of the journey. And

it becomes beautiful that way. Kat mentioned some of the

difficulties that she had when beginning her career, and that

she basically was taking, she was taking cell phone mortality,

she was taking a leap into the void, she was jumping to her

death and counting on wings to grow on the way down. And there

is a kind of internal strength that happens when you take those

risks. When you push yourself so far outside of your comfort

zone, the only choice you have is to succeed. There's a

strength in that. And failure is inevitable, when you jump often

enough, but remember that that failure becomes a springboard to

the next thing. So today was a really amazing conversation, so

much great insight and feedback into human nature and into the

way we think and two different things that we can do if we are

sitting in a place where we don't have a whole lot of

confidence in ourselves, and that encouragement to go out to

do hard things, to build credibility with ourselves to

recognize that if we just start by showing up for ourselves,

that is the first step. And also recognizing that the power and

the belief should come from us being able to do the thing and

not control the outcome. I can control how I stand. I can

control how I hold the baseball, I can control how I release the

baseball and how I breathe. I can't control whether or not the

baseball hits the glove. That part of it isn't up to me. So

focus on the things that we can control. Recognize that there is

no such thing ultimately as a wrong outcome if we can learn

from it and integrate it. And also like Becca said, where

you're at today is okay, where you're at today is beautiful and

good. But it doesn't also have to be where you're going to be

tomorrow, you get to make that decision for yourself. So I'm so

glad you were here with us today. Thank you to everybody

who came up and shared your experiences, your your insights,

it's so, so powerful. And I really hope that you will join

us again tomorrow morning, bright and early at 7am.

Mountain Standard Time. That's 6am for the west coast in the

US. 9am for the East Coast, usually, late afternoon for our

friends overseas. Come hang out with us. We're always in here

looking at how we can be the bridge between technique and

art. And go make something amazing. We'll see you bright

and early tomorrow morning. Have a fantastic day, everybody.

Thanks again for listening to this live clubhouse

discussion moderated by all of us at the artist Forge. We hope

you found the information useful and then it helps you gain a

little bit of insight as to how you work on your craft. For more

episodes, please join us each weekday on clubhouse or visit

the artists forge.com and go make something incredible