Transcripts
1. 1 Introduction: Hello, My name is Simon. As land, I am a motivational speaker since 2000 and 11. I was in my second year of university back then. It's a long story. Most of my audience are young people, especially university students, and from the years I've been a motivational speaker, I have identified a few key problems that many young people are facing today, and one of them is this lack off self confidence. So as a response to that problem, I have created this beginner's level class called the Confidence Playbook 1.0, in which I share with you three essential tips on how you can build up your own self confidence little by little. In this class, we will focus on two essential themes one self awareness and to self control. These two themes are very important in creating that self confidence that you want that unshakeable self confidence since I will be touching upon a topic that deals a lot with the mind so you can imagine that things can be very abstract. However, there are ways that you could make the abstract concrete, and the way that I will do in this class is first I will explain the abstract concept. And then on the second half I will give you exercise that you can use using only a pen and paper so that we could turn the abstract thoughts and ideas into something concrete on a piece of paper. Speaking off pen and paper Before we begin, please write down one thing that you really, really want to do. But you don't do it because you don't feel confident enough. It could be anything. Make it personal because the more personal it is, the more meaningful it becomes In this class. I will be using the example off public speaking as I am explaining things to you because evidently many people have confidence issues with public speaking. But you don't have to use public speaking as your example. You can use your own and make it more meaningful to you. That is all for now. Thank you for watching this introduction, and I will see you in class
2. 2 Confidence is a Skill: I believe that confidence is essentially a skill. It is something that you can learn. It is something that can be taught. But many people have this I would say a dilemma within themselves between the fixed mindset and the growth mindset inside of us. The fixed mindset side of us says things like This is who I am. I am not the confident type. It is something that you are born with. It maybe genetics. It's something that you can't change. The growth mindset side of us says things like, I can learn, I can improve. I can be the confidence self that I want to be. These two sides within us are constantly battling each other and the one who wins is essentially the one who will control our thoughts in our behavior. And this is start something that we cannot control. We can choose which side wins. It's like that, saying there are two wolves inside of us and they are attacking each other constantly. The one who wins is the one that we feed. Essentially, What that means is that if you ruminate and you constantly feed into the thought that you are fixed, you can't change. This is who you are. You have to accept it. Then you are feeding the fixed mindset walk. But if you are feeding the other side, this wolf, you're saying to yourself, I can change. I can improve. This is something I can learn that you are feeding the growth mindset wolf, and that will take control. What I basically want to get across is this idea. That confidence can be learned. It's not something that is fixed. You can change, You can improve. You can better yourself. In my effort to prove that point, I created this confidence playbook. The work playbook comes from American football. The idea is that a playbook contains a set off place, and a play is essentially a plan of action or strategies that you can use to reach your goal in American football. You want to reach to the other side and score a touchdown. In this class, you went to school your confidence. You want to score the unshakable confidence that you really, really want and just like American football. In reaching that goal, you will face many, many, many obstacles and one off the biggest, if not the biggest obstacle you will face is yourself your own self doubts, your own insecurities, and that is the first thing that we need to tackle and we will tackle in this class. In the next videos, you will learn three basic place that you can use to tackle that insecurities and that self doubts you have inside off your mind.
3. 3 The Spy: Theo first play in the confidence playbook is called the Spy, and you will be spying on your own mind, because in your own mind there's this voice that's constantly whispering, sometimes yelling at you and making you feel insecure and having doubts about yourself. The first thing that you have to do is you have to listen to the voice. Listen toe. What is the voice saying? And when does the voice usually says that thing? The thing about this voice is that whether you notice it or not, it will still affect your behavior. And sometimes you will see people who does a certain thing. And then when you ask them why they did it, they simply say, I don't know. It's not that they don't have any reason for why they did it. It's just that they are oblivious to the voice inside of their head, which has the answer. Why why did you do it? And we cannot be oblivious to it anymore because it is constantly affecting our behavior. So now it is time for us to actually spy on them and listen to what they're saying. Let's take public. Speaking as an example when I first started public speaking. I was terrified. I was so nervous and the voices in my head went crazy. They're saying things like, You're going to fail. Your friends are going to laugh. Your teachers are going to laugh. You're gonna be the worst kid in school. And you this is going to be the worst day of your life, etcetera, etcetera, and those messages that goes on in my head, even even if I don't realize that they're there, they will still affect my behavior. I shiver on stage. I stumbled on my words. I feel nervous and those feelings and behaviors they all come from these messages inside off my mind. The logic here is that before you dive in and tackle the voice, you have to first know what the voice is saying. And that is essentially what the spy is all about. To make it more clear, let's go to the exercise. The first play is called the Spy and to perform the spy. The first thing you need to do is remember the last moments where you feel very uncomfortable. For example, public speaking, the second thing you need to do is write down the thoughts that you were thinking about before you do the thing, let's apply this to public speaking. Let's say before I'm going on stage, I'm thinking to myself, I am going to fail. Or maybe I'm thinking my friends are laughing at me. Or perhaps I'm thinking to myself, they're all staring at me and I feel very, very afraid. Just write down all the thoughts that are running through your mind at the time on a piece of paper so that it becomes conscious thing. It's no longer in your unconscious mind, and that is the spy. Now we move on to our second play in the next video.
4. 4 The Swoop: number two in the confidence playbook is called This Swoop. Now that we know we have gathered all the information that we need from the spider with it earlier, we know what the voices saying. We know the messages that goes on in our head. Now it's time to swoop in and take over and create your own narrative, your own voice. Previously, we were on autopilot. We basically let the voice in our minds control our behavior and make us feel bad about ourselves. But now we switch off the autopilot and we take control off our voice. We create our own message is the kind of messages that will give us encouragements and not the kind of messages that bring us down. One way that I have found to be very useful in creating your own messages is to pause your conclusion. I don't think that the negative thought in your head is the conclusion. For example, let's say I'm doing public speaking, and before I went on stage, I thought to myself, I am going to mess up. Don't think that is the conclusion. Instead, think of it as a possibility, and when you think of as possibility. That means there are other possibilities that could happen. And to illustrate this point, let's do the exercise. The second play is called The Scoop and to perform the soup. The first thing you need to do is do not make any conclusion is that I think of it as a possibility, and the next thing you need to do is think off other possibilities that could happen. And the last one is. Pick one off this possibility and just go with it. Now let's try to apply this to public speaking again. And for this one, I'm just going to take one off the thoughts that goes on in my head. And that is my friends are laughing at me. Usually we see this as a bad thing, and we make a conclusion that it is a bad thing. But it's just one possibility. Out of many possibilities. It could be a good thing. Like, for example, you could view your friends laughing as a testament that you are funny. Or maybe you could just see them as having a good time, and you are very entertaining to them, and you can continue list down other possibilities that you can think off and just pick one . Like, for example, I'm going to take that. I am a funny guy. That's why my friends are laughing. So there you go. That is the soup. Now we go to our third play in the next video.
5. 5 The Slack: play number three in the confidence playbook is called this lack. Now that we have spied on our mind, listen to the voice and we have take over the voice and make our own messages. It's time for us to tackle one of the biggest voice in our mind and that is our expectations. Our expectations will lead to stress and stress is not inherently a bad thing. We need stress. Stress can be very motivating. However, there are times when our expectations can be quite unrealistic, that it leads to unnecessary stress and this is the kind off situations where we feel very , very helpless and we feel very discouraged and we feel very, very bad about ourselves. It's not motivating, it's demotivated in this class. I would like for us to tackle to specific expectations that many off us half, whether we realize it or not. Expectation number one, we expect to be perfect and expectation number two, we expect to be like everybody else. We know that we are not perfect and we know that we can't be perfect. However, we still expect perfection off ourselves. Before I move forward. Let me be clear about something perfection as a goal is different from perfection as a motivation. If perfection is a motivation, that's fine. It pushes you forward. It keeps you always looking for what's next, and it keeps you unsatisfied with yourself. The motivation kind of weight perfection as a goal is different because you expect to reach it when in fact you can't reach perfection. It is something that we all can't achieve. We can always improve, but we can't be perfect. And when perfection becomes a goal, it's no longer motivating is de motivating. It makes us feel bad about ourselves. So instead of making perfection your goal, why not make progress? You're go meaning as long as you are moving forward towards the direction that you want to go, you're good. So by removing this idea that I have to be perfect and inserting a new idea that I have to show progress, it brings more control into our life because we can always control progress. We can always choose whether to improve, to stay the same or to be worse. Having said that, there is something else about progress that I have to mention, and this thing can also introduce unnecessary stress into your life, and this is where the second expectation comes in. We expect to be like other people, meaning we expect to progress like other people. Similarly, with perfection, comparison can be a motivating thing, but only if you do it right. But often times we don't do it. The right way is that we compare in such a way that we feel bad about ourselves. We don't feel motivated. We feel de motivated and partly because we see progress as something that we have to match with other people, meaning I have to progress the same way that they're doing it, and I have to progress in the same speed that they're doing it. Let's take public speaking as an example. If I am a beginner public speaker and I am looking up to somebody else who is a pro, and I'm comparing myself to him, he's way, way in front of me and he is accelerating in his progress. Well, I am just starting my progress. If I see that I have to be like him right now, accelerating in my progress and become as good as him now that will totally destroy my motivation and I feel really bad about myself and I have introduced this kind of unnecessary stress, this load on my shoulder and I can't move forward because of it. Not only that, when we compare ourselves to somebody else in that manner, we forget to take to account all other variables like our family background, educational background, all social economic background, our environment, our culture. All those things affect the way we progress and at which speed we are progressing. So we will compare. It's not a fair comparison for us. So instead of comparing yourself to somebody else in that way, why don't we compare ourselves now with ourselves from the past? This is a more fair comparison because you and your own self from the past you're both are sharing the same variables. You have the same family background. You have the same educational background and all those things. So when you compare yourself to yourself in the past, you are making a more fair comparison. And if you see progress, you now and you from before then that is a success worthy off celebration. That is essentially the idea behind this leg because sometimes be too tense with ourselves . So we have to cut ourselves some slack and just our expectations are that the expectation, Help us move forward and not bring us further down. Having explain all of that, let us go to our next exercise. To make this point more clear, The third play is called the Slack. In order to perform the slack, the first thing you need to do is to focus on progress and forget perfection. The next thing you need to do is to focus on yourself and don't compare yourself to other people. Just focus on progressing against your past self. The 13 you need to do is to plan the next smallest steps that you can take. Make it small, make it easy so that it's more likely that you will do it. Let's try to apply this to public speaking again. Instead of seeing public speaking as this one gigantic thing that I have to do, which makes me less able to do it. I break it down into small, small, small steps and as you can see from top to bottom, I am making progress. It doesn't have to be a huge progress. I don't focus on perfection. I focus on progress and completing each small step one by one by one. And with that, we have covered all three plays in the playbook. In the next video, I will summarize everything and give you your assignment.
6. 6 Assignment: way have covered three basic place from the playbook the spy, the scoop and the slack. And if you notice all these three place are surrounding two basic themes. Self awareness and self control. Having awareness off the voice inside your head and taking control off the voice can help you set a more realistic expectation off yourself and that I will give you more confidence , more hope and more encouragement to move forward and become a better person. Now let's move on to your assignment. If you remember from our introduction video, I ask you to write down one thing that you really, really want to do. But you don't do it because you don't feel confident enough. If you remember, take out the piece paper again and put it in front of you right now. Notice that I used the phrase Don't do it instead of the phrase can't do it. And there's a difference being the word Don't and the word can't There were Cat simply means that I literally don't have the ability to do something. For example, if I say I can't speak in front of people, it literally means I have a problem with my vocal courts. I can't speak. The word don't is different because it is a choice that you make not to do something. So when I say I don't talk in front of other people, it's a choice that I make. What I'm trying to say is that confidence is essentially a choice. It's not that you can't do it is just that you don't do it. You make a choice not to do it. Moving forward with the assignment. I ask you to make a choice where they do it or don't do it. And it's a choice that you can make. You can use the three place that we have discussed in this class to help you make that choice. And in the process of making that choice, I want you to remember that you will face many, many, many obstacles, and the biggest one that you will face is yourself. And I hope and I pray you'll be able to tackle that obstacle and reach the end zone and score the ultimate touchdown, the unshakable confidence that you seek. Thank you for taking this class until next time. Bye bye
Aiman Azlan, Youth Mentor
