Hello happiness seekers. Welcome to the Happiness Challenge podcast. I'm Claudia Mitura and I'm on a mission to explore the best happiness hacks that science has on offer. Like so many others, the pandemic cut me off from my family and work. So I decided to use my training as a psychologist to discover what science can tell us about the art of happiness. What I found set me on the path to joy. And now I'm ready to share my journey with you. Each month I'm publishing three linked episodes where I'm speaking to a leading expert, putting their tips to the test and sharing my findings and feelings. From mindfulness to exercise and random acts of kindness, I'll be sharing a light on the simple happiness habits that can bring more joy to our lives. What's very exciting, you can Also now find 26 science backed principles on how to create more happiness at work in relationships and in your own skin in my new book, the Alphabet of Happiness. So join me as I embark on my challenge and together we can become more successful, resilient and happy. Hello happiness seekers. Welcome to this month's Happiness Challenge where I'll be delving into the fascinating intersection of neuroscience and self belief. I think in a society where self doubt can creep in from every direction, understanding the science behind confidence can transform how we feel in our own skin. Helping me to unravel this exciting topic is Caroline Bruen, a brilliant author and the mind behind the new book Confident. And together we'll be exploring what it really means to be wired for confidence. How our brains shape our self belief and the small science backed steps that we can all take to nurture genuine confidence in everyday life. So let's dive in and discover how confidence can become a habit. One that transform not only our daily happiness, but also our entire outlook. Welcome Caroline.

Thank you so much. Wow, what an introduction. Actually, absolute pleasure to be here.

And first of all, massive congratulations on writing a book. I know how much work it is to actually put something together, get it out there in the world. So first of all, massive congrats.

Yeah. One author to another, which sounds a bit strange but yeah, I think it's very different when you are really passionate about it. And for me lots of people ask, did you find it difficult? And for me the answer was no because I just, I love this subject and I just think it's so important.

Amazing to hear. So you just need the passion to help you with the grid of writing the book. So in your book Confident, you explore science behind the topic of self belief and confidence. Can you share with us how neuroscience plays a role and building and sustaining our confidence? Yeah.

So this is the thing. I think traditionally people tend to think about confidence in a way, if you think a little bit like an iceberg. So we tend to think about confidence around people's skills and capabilities and also their attributes as well. So you know what they look like, physical and mental attributes. And those things are really important in terms of confidence. Absolutely. That is, it's part of who we are. And if you think about confidence as a loop, there's a confidence competence loop, it's called. And there is a level of the more competent we get, the more confident we get. I don't know whether you've ever started in a brand new role, and at the beginning you're thinking, I don't have a clue what I'm doing, I've made the wrong decision, everyone knows everything, and I've just completely made the wrong choice in terms of what I'm doing. And then over time, as you get better and better, you get the skills and you get the knowledge, your confidence level tends to rise. So that's the kind of traditional piece. The thing is, if you look underneath the water, this is where I believe there's so much of the neuroscience comes in. Underneath the water is your level of awareness. So how aware are you of your values, of your critic, those, some people call them ants, your automatic negative thoughts, and those, the kind of messages that you're giving yourself all the time. You're not good enough, you should be better, you should be this. You've all the judgment that we tend to have, which is a very natural response. If the radio that we're playing all the time is very negative, then the way our brain works is that it believes it's true. And so there's the level of awareness we have around ourselves, around the messages we're giving ourselves, and then there's a level of acceptance of ourselves as well. I really believe that confidence is. And true, authentic confidence is about genuinely believing and accepting yourself as you are. And yeah, that can be quite vulnerable and quite scary for people. No one can do you better than you. And yet we spend all this time pretending we're something that we're not. And the problem is with that, from a neuroscience point of view, what your brain understands, there's an incongruence between who it is inside and who it is externally. And if there's an incongruence, it says, maybe I'm not good enough. And so your confidence level goes down and then the final piece of that puzzle of the I call it the 5Amodel that's in that, in that iceberg at the bottom is action. You need to take action if you're going to be confident.

And I truly love the fact that you looking beyond those very easily spotted characteristic of confidence. So we spoke about the physical, how people showing up which of course as you said is important but we're much more about that deeper work about my values, how much do I accept myself? What is my self talk. And I think this is something often unspoken to because again when I think confident I have that external image in mind. So this is really interesting how you challenging us to think about confidence more holistically. So my question on that is what has inspired you to write Confident and how understanding of those additional components actually shaped your personal journey when it comes to self belief.

I think being a conference coach now I hope that I have a relatively good level of confidence. Doesn't mean that some days I don't. But it's been a long journey and the reason I wrote the book was because I have read all of the books which are out there on whether it's confidence or self belief and all of these wonderful books, really strong messages. But what I found was they lacked substance and there were lots of positive messages. But I was always asking but why, why do we do this? Why does our brain work like this? And so for me that was the gap that neuroscience felt. And so the book I interview 13 different amazing people. Like there's a woman who was the first woman on the board of Marks and Spencers, incredible lady. Kim Windsor, obe a guy who's the top gun essentially fighter pilot for the, for the UK military, someone who was a sports captain, the first black woman on the PGA Tour. All of these people have had a journey through confidence. And what we discuss is what does real authentic confidence mean? And exactly to your point, this holistic view and what comes through time and time again is it's about failure, it's about vulnerability, it's about authenticity. And so for me what I wanted to do in the book was give people a blueprint that they could use and all these different messages and experiences from different people alongside you know, research which is done in a really digestible way, like quite a fun way. It's all in color so the book has lots of images and cartoons and it's really easy to absorb but there's a level of depth around. Okay, this is the scenario that you may well go through and this is why this is how Your brain works and this is that these are the tools and exercises you can do to change it. So it's very, very practical. And that was my point. I wish I'd had something like that as I was going through my career.

And how much easier it would be in life if we could be like Todd this at early stages of our life or at least early stages of our career. I think that would be absolutely a game changer. And I love the fact you mentioning that for people who we see out there who are really successful, they still went through that journey. So it's not something that suddenly we wake up with. We need to put some work to be able to get to that comfortable level. And I like the phrase being comfortable in my own skin. This is who I am, this is how I show up. And that gives me the confidence of what I'm trying to achieve. So I love the fact you're talking about the practical aspects that there is a work that has to be done and in your framework you mention action. Okay, so let's think more practically now. What would be some practical science back techniques from your book that you would suggest recommend listeners to, to try out?

Okay, so I'll give you, I'll give you three. So the first thing is what's really helpful is having something which when you're going into a high stress situation or something which you might normally be nervous about. From our research, for example, speaking to senior leaders is something that comes up a lot with people. There's something called the physiological sigh, which is two breaths in through your nose and then a long exhale. So it looks like this and I've exaggerated that. So double breath in, long breath out. And what that does is you have lots of bags in your lungs which are like little balloons. The double breath. If you think like when you blow up a balloon, you sometimes have to blow it twice for it to pop open. What the double breath does is pop open the balloons in your lungs and it means you get oxygen into your system faster and therefore it calms you down very quickly. So it communicates, okay, I'm actually in a calm state. Because if you think if you're stressed, your breathing is very different. Interestingly, kids do this naturally. If you see when kids get really upset and they start going and they'll actually, that is, it's a natural bodily response that we use to calm ourselves down. So that can be something that you're going when you're going into a stressful situation, you can use it just beforehand and do a few of those, and even mid conversation, someone asks you a tough question. I love the quote, let your breath be the first word just. And how much more considered you'll come across as. So that's the first one. The second one is very simple. It's a cognitive behavioral therapy technique. And when we have those ants, those negative thoughts that are coming up for us, what we can do is picture just a big stop sign and you could say stop, you know, out loud, depending whether that's an appropriate environmental thing for you, whether or not. Maybe not in the middle of a meeting, but just picture a big stop sign. And what it does, it's like a circuit breaker in your brain to stop that. Because what we tend to do is think about something and then we ruminate and then we catastrophize and so our brain starts going down this spiral. So the stop sign is a really clever way of just going stop. And then you shift and you change direction. The final one, which I'll share, which is something that we miss and we wonder why we lack confidence, is we never congratulate ourselves. So look at the wonderful journey that you've had. How much do you say, you know what? I'm so proud of myself. Look at where I've come from. How often do we stop and recognise that? Or is it that we spend our time thinking about the negative things that have happened? If I got off this podcast and thought, oh, I could have said this, I could have said that, or I could focus on the things that I had done well. And this is what is the concept of negativity bias? We have a natural negativity bias because it keeps us safe. So our brain is wired to notice the negative more than the positive. So a really simple way that we can do this. Every Monday morning I do my celebrations and so I write down what I'm proud of from the week before. And what's so interesting is when I start that process, I think I can't think about anything. And then I'm like, oh, no. Oh, hang on, I had that meeting and this and that went well. And. And so. So what you're doing over time, if you can focus on that and keep that as part of your practice, whether it's daily or weekly or whatever that frequency is, it can be a really simple way to start shifting how your brain sees the world and how it sees you showing up.

Yeah. Oh, I love all of this. I love all of these very practical aspects because as you said, they very much based on science of happiness, but they also very Practical. So yes, this idea of being confident in the moment, our breath, I love actually also using sound breaks. So again, couple of minutes of a nice sound break helps me to keep my nervous system much more calm. And then in terms of, as you said, the idea of celebrations, I agree. I think we always on what is next to do rather than what have been achieved and actually what went wrong and why potentially I am not good enough or this is not good enough. So I think we really need to put all this specific effort to rewire our brain to think differently. And you clearly suggesting that and giving us really practical tools to do that. I think often when we really consider confidence, imposter syndrome. So I think many of us will be like, oh great, I can be doing this, but I have this imposter syndrome sitting on my shoulder yapping about all those things that are maybe not great or correct or just doesn't make me feel right. Do you have any specific tips, any advice for people who may specifically struggle with imposter syndrome?

So the first thing to say is that we've done research of over 17,000 people and what we found for both men and women, 53% of them said that they experienced imposter syndrome syndrome. So what that means is that when you walk into a room, you could well be in a sitting in a meeting. Half of the people there could be experiencing imposter syndrome. So you are not alone. And Einstein was someone who said he experienced imposter syndrome. He said, if I can remember it, the exaggerated esteem in which my life work is held makes me feel very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler. And that's Einstein. First of all, you're in good company. Second of all, a really important part about imposter syndrome, it's context dependent. So it shows that you are pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone. And what it also shows is there's a gap between what you believe you can achieve and where someone else has said, no, you know what, I want you to come and be in my meeting. I want you to come and take on this role. And so that gap in itself is an indicator. Hang on a minute, what is it that I need to work on? What kind of what, how is this showing up for me and how can I start to address that? So celebrate it. Because you know what it shows that you're actually really pushing yourself. What you can do is look at facts. So the thing is about imposter syndrome, it's very judgmental. If you hear you Know that there's a lot of shoulds in it. I don't belong here. It's an identity level issue. But if you look at the facts, you know, the fact is, the whole point of imposter syndrome is that you have the skills, but you don't believe that you should be there. And so look at the facts. You have the skills. You've done it before. And one of the definitions of confidence is belief in my ability to figure things out. You may not know. Great. Okay. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. But there's nothing more annoying than someone coming into a new team or whatever that is and thinking they know what they're doing. Like, oh, no, here we go. It's actually going with that mindset of the learner.

Great.

I'm going to learn more. And I will lean into the experience and the skills that I'm bringing to this and maybe my skills just asking the right questions, you know, whatever that looks like. You have been invited around that table. Own it. Show up and bring the wonderful gifts that you've been invited to share.

So important. And sometimes, as you said, we need to really have the mindset of a novice. And that's scary. Especially I think, the more experience we get in our career that unfortunately, we think I should have all the answers. And when we don't have answers, we have this impulsive imposter syndrome and a panic of, I should know this, but actually, no, I shouldn't. I'm growing, I'm learning. And that's absolutely okay. Thank you so much, Caroline. I have learned so much. And thank you for being so practical. Can you tell me where listeners can find you, where they can order your book?

Yeah. So I'm on all the socials at Brain Powered coaching and on LinkedIn at Caroline Bruin, and the book you can order on Amazon or any of the big bookstores or through your local bookstore as well.

Brilliant. Thank you so much again and let's stay all confident. Thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Thanks, Claudia. Take care.