Team welcome to Built Resilient.

My name is Bart Walsh.

I'm an inspirational keynote speaker.

I'm a fitness expert.

And you have stumbled upon a show that is built for you.

We talk about mental health, we talk about physical health, we talk about building resilience.

And all of these things are based upon questions that I get after my keynote speeches and after my workshops.

They're questions that have a lot of potential in helping a lot of people, but are often only asked in the most intimate of circumstances.

So I'm here to level up your entire being by addressing the questions that I know you have.

I'm so excited that you are here, particularly for this episode.

Now, if you want to contribute to the show, ask your own questions.

Send us a comment, send us a recipe.

I don't mind.

Write in helloarthwalsh.com we're going to do a few Q and A question and answer sessions in the future.

I need your help to get those questions in.

So anything about your mental health, your physical health, your emotional health, Right in, baby.

And we'll answer your questions and we'll go through this together.

Now, with all that aside, let's take a deep breath.

Let's talk about rebuilding confidence in yourself and in your body.

Today, we are tackling something that affects every single person, no matter how successful, driven or put together they may seem.

How do we rebuild confidence once we have lost it?

And it might have been a job loss, a redundancy, a breakup, an injury, burnout.

It could be a public failure, or that you've just been feeling flat for far too long.

Then you wake up one day and realize you don't know who you are and you don't know where you are going in life.

So today, just for a few minutes, let's sit in it and let's sit in it together.

Let's make a plan and begin making the next right choice.

Today we're going to talk about how confidence disappears, how the world tricks us into thinking that it's permanent and what we can actually do to rebuild it.

No empty mantras.

No fake it till you make it energy, but real, proven habits that can bring you back to yourself.

Now let's clear something up right away.

Confidence isn't something that you either have or you don't have.

It's not a personality type.

It's not something reserved for CEOs or fitness influencers or people with symmetrical faces with white teeth.

It's not.

Confidence, ladies and gentlemen, is a skill.

Which means, like any skill, it can be practiced.

Lost or rebuilt.

Most people think confidence is about being loud, it's about being extroverted, or always being sure of yourself.

But the truth is real confidence is something much quieter.

Ultimately, confidence is self trust.

It's knowing that you can show up imperfect, unsure, uncertain and vulnerable and still back yourself in.

When we lose confidence, what we're really losing is trust in your ability to handle what life throws at you.

And the good news?

We can rebuild it.

Team.

What I'm trying to say is that confidence is something that you're not born with.

It's the same with resilience.

It's not something that we're born with.

It's something that we need to build, we need to forge it.

And when it comes to confidence and resilience, we need to build it one hardship, one tough situation at a time.

I like to think about it as elite professional athletes.

They are born with the right biology, with the right DNA, with the right biomechanics to be elite at that sport.

But they still need to work their ass off on their skill to fulfill that potential.

And it's the same with fitness.

People who go to the gym either once a week or many, many times a week, they work hard for what they've got, and they do it long enough.

They get to a point where people just assume that their body, their fitness is just given to them.

But that is certainly not the case.

They've done years and years of hard work behind the scenes to fulfill the potential that they're given.

And it's the same with confidence.

We need to build it, we need to work on it.

And in the case of what we're talking about today, we need to rebuild it as well.

Confidence just doesn't vanish.

It gets chipped away.

And sometimes it gets chipped away over time, right before your eyes, and you don't even realize it.

And here are a few of the most common confidence crushes.

The first is failure or rejection, something I know a lot of you know a lot of a lot about.

You give it a go and it didn't work out.

Maybe you launched something, asked for something, auditioned, performed, or maybe even loved, and you got knocked back.

And instead of seeing it as a part of growth, you saw it as proof that you weren't good enough.

And for my fellow empaths out there, I know this struggle all too well.

It is a cornerstone of being an actor, which is what I used to be.

If you're an actor, you'll go to 99 auditions and 95 to 99 of them.

You will get rejected.

And because you're putting your entire being out there, your body, your voice, your creativity, sometimes you take that rejection to heart and you honestly believe it's not because I wasn't right for the role, it's because of the person that I am.

And a lot of actors, myself included, had to learn that that is not reality.

That's a story that we're making up in our mind.

Another reason people might lose confidence is the comparison culture that we are living in.

Social media, office politics, gym mirrors, Comparison is everywhere.

We're constantly seeing curated versions of other people and thinking that we are falling short.

It's like being in a race that you didn't sign up for, but everyone else seems ahead of you.

And just a reminder out there for people who are still stuck in this comparison world.

Social media is not real.

Social media is a construct.

It's completely fabricated.

It's not a real reflection on life.

If you watch NBA all the time and NBA is your life, you're going to assume that 7 foot tall plus people are everywhere.

But in reality, they are very, very, very, very rare.

So just like social media, understand that your perception is your reality.

If we perceive social media for what it really is, a construct, a fabrication, it makes the real world all that more real and all that more realistic.

The third is neglect.

Confidence dies in silence.

If you stop showing up for yourself, physically, emotionally, socially, you will start to to shrink.

You don't just lose that spark, you forget that you've ever had it.

And this means showing up for yourself.

It means showing up to team meetings.

It means being present at your kids sports games and not on your phone.

It means showing up to the gym not for aesthetic reasons, but for mental and emotional reasons.

How you do anything is how you do anything.

To a point.

How, how do you expect to feel respected if you don't respect yourself first?

When it comes to true self confidence, there's a high level of self accountability and self respect.

And in fact, suffice to say, a lot of people who deem themselves unconfident just don't like the person that they are.

Which sounds really harsh, but it's true.

And so for a lot of us, the way to rebuild that confidence is to learn or earn that trust back with ourselves and, and get us to love ourselves again.

And the fourth reason confidence might be leaving your body is chronic stress or burnout.

Now let's not forget the physiological side.

Stress erodes your decision making, your motivation, your sleep and your self image.

And when your nervous system is fired.

When it's stressed, even small tasks can feel overwhelming.

You start telling yourself, I can't handle this anymore.

I can't handle anything anymore.

It's the integration of the body and mind.

Stress affects both of these, and it's hard to feel confident in yourself when you are stressed out of your little brain.

Enough of the doom and gloom.

Let's flip this script.

You're here.

You may or may not have resonated with the reasons why confidence leaves.

But let's clean the slate and start taking action to a better you right now.

Here's how we get your confidence back.

And these are not hacks.

They're not hype.

They are habits.

And over time, they will work.

The first is to stack your wins and stack them high.

Confidence doesn't come from success.

Don't be confused.

It comes from evidence, repeated proof that you can keep promises to yourself.

So give yourself wins and give yourself wins daily.

Make your bed.

Finish your workout.

Send the email that you've been avoiding.

Say no when you normally say yes.

Every small win is a vote for your identity as someone who shows up.

And that vote, my friends, that stacks up.

And with enough votes, you can start believing again.

Team, this is not a marathon, it is a sprint.

We won't turn your life around mentally in one day.

So start small and prioritise the consistency.

Number two is to practice self exposure.

Don't avoid.

Most people wait to feel confident before doing anything, like going to the gym.

I've heard this story before.

I don't want to train with a personal trainer.

I'm not fit enough.

That is a completely backwards conversation.

You don't act because you're confident.

You become confident because you act.

Let me say that again.

You don't act because you're confident.

You don't hire a personal trainer because you're fit.

You become confident because you act.

You become fit because you've connected with that personal trainer.

Confidence is built through what psychologists call exposure.

You may have heard of exposure therapy.

It means putting yourself in the arena even when you're scared.

Especially when you're scared.

And hey, I don't want you to throw yourself into the Roman Coliseum and fight lions.

I want you to start small.

Speak up in a meeting, give your ideas, give your opinion.

Ask that question to your partner that's been circling around your head for maybe even years.

When you record that video and post it, I want you to start that YouTube channel.

Put yourself out there.

I want you to go to the gym.

Even if you feel out of Place.

Every time you lean into discomfort, your nervous system adapts.

Your nervous system adapts through exposure.

And then your brain learns, I didn't die in this situation.

It then gets stronger.

You get stronger.

That's how we build confidence.

Number three is to reframe your inner dialogue.

This is a big one.

You will never outperform the story that you're telling yourself.

So if your self talk sounds like, I always screw this up, I'm not built for this.

I'm not good enough.

I'll never get my confidence back.

I'll never get my mojo back, then guess what, baby?

The story you are telling yourself becomes your reality.

So here is the fix.

When the negative voice shows up and we know what that negative voice sounds like, do not silence it.

I want you to reframe it.

This is hard, but I'm still learning.

I felt low before and now I'm coming back stronger.

I don't have to feel confident to take action.

I just have to start one foot in front of the other.

Talk to yourself like you would your best mate going through a rough patch.

And then to take this a step further, ask yourself this question.

Would you speak to other people the way that you speak to yourself in your head?

For a lot of us out there, the answer is no.

So to change this, try talking to yourself in third person.

Distance yourself from those thoughts.

This action is a powerful one and one that I have, unbeknownst to me, been doing for a very long time.

I call myself Walsh.

It's my surname.

So whenever I'm in a tough workout or a tough situation, it'll always be, come on, Walsh, you got this.

Two more reps, Walsh.

Come on.

Hey, back on your feet, Walsh.

Let's get into the next set.

And me simply doing that changes the language and the behavior I think about when I'm referring to myself.

You do this over time and all of a sudden your self talk will flip from negative to encouragement to positive.

And number four, a very important one as well.

And one that will not surprise you coming from me.

I want you to move your body.

Physical movement is one of the fastest ways to rebuild your confidence.

Full stop and end of story.

I've seen this time and time and time again in the gym.

Why does it do that?

It gets you out of your head and into your body, into reality.

Then all of a sudden, those thoughts that were circling show themselves for what they really are.

They're untrue.

You distance yourself from the thoughts that are ruminating in your head.

Movement also regulates your nervous system.

Remember, the nerves in your body are connected to your brain, they're connected to your thoughts, they're connected to your self worth, your self confidence.

It's an intricate integrated system.

And movement is also a daily opportunity to witness your own power.

You are more capable than you will ever believe.

And doing things you never thought you could do in the gym is a hack to understand the true power that is at your fingertips.

If we get stronger beyond our own belief, you're proving just how powerful you really are through action.

And this is why I love strength training.

Because when someone comes to the gym and they see a hundred kilo barbell on the floor, they will tell themselves there is no way in the world that I will ever lift that.

And then three months time of consistent good programming, they lift that bar off the floor.

That is confidence in action, physiologically and mentally.

But the thing is, you don't need to lift 200 kilos off the floor.

You don't need to run an ultramarathon.

You just need to prove to yourself regularly that you can move through resistance.

Because every time you lift something heavy, go for a walk, or even stretch your limits, you are becoming someone stronger inside and out.

And finally, I'll add in number five.

I want you to audit your inputs.

Confidence doesn't grow in toxic soil.

Nothing grows in toxic soil.

So I want you to look at your environment.

Who are you spending your time with?

Do they serve you?

What are you watching or scrolling or listening to?

Does that serve you?

Are you surrounding yourself with people who inspire growth?

Or are they keeping you small?

Remember that your thoughts and what you expose yourself to will shape you.

So if you want to turn into another episode of the Office, one you've seen 15 times before, one that's always on repeat, one that never changes, then hey, let's escape again into that another episode of the Office instead of being in the real world.

Confidence, ladies and gentlemen, is contagious.

But so is self doubt.

So I want you to choose your inputs like you're serving yourself.

I want you to make sure you're choosing to hang around people that serve you and help build you up.

I want you to make sure you're exposing yourself to content that doesn't just make you compare yourself to others, but teaches you something.

And all of these choices, all of these inputs are within your power.

Now I want you to avoid the temptation of looking for a pill or a piece of advice that will shift your entire being, that will wake you up from your unconfident slumber.

But take it from a guy that's been looking for that silver bullet his entire life.

You will not find it.

It does not exist.

You don't need that big breakthrough moment.

You need a pattern.

Confidence isn't built in a single leap.

It's built in the thousands quiet repetitions of showing up when you don't feel like it.

I'll say it again.

Confidence is self trust.

So if you want to rebuild it, ask yourself, what promise can I make to myself today and keep?

What fear can I face, even if it's a tiny one?

And what identity do I want to become by making one decision at a time?

Because confidence isn't who you used to be.

It's who you are now becoming.

And ladies and gentlemen, that journey starts now.

Timo, thank you for tuning in today.

I am fired up after that script.

I'm ready to make some changes myself, I can tell you that.

Thank you for listening.

It means the world to me that you're invested in this content and invested in bettering yourself.

So much.

So thank you.

Thank you for making it this far in the episode.

If you want to contribute, you got any comments about your own confidence or you want to contribute to an episode in the future, you want to ask a question, write in@hello bartwolfs.com and if you want to do me a big, big favor, help boost us up the algorithm.

Hit the five star rating review on iTunes, on Spotify, on Kitcast, if you're there too.

Every little input from you helps us in our hefty mission to make this world a better place.

So until next time, team, stack up those wins, build that confidence and choose resilience.

Bye.