How to Build Confidence and 19 Years of Marriage

Standing Stronger Podcast, today we're going to be talking about confidence. And I'm confident you're going to like it. That's right, it keeps getting better. My name's Shannon. And I'm Little Shannon. That's right, the power couple with the same name. Back for another episode. Talking about confidence right now. Yeah. And I'm looking at my wife sitting there confidently annoyed that I say stupid things at the beginning of this podcast. You are correct, I'm on due. She's like, could you leave the stupid part out, please? No, I can't. No, we are just getting our week going. And just a little recap, we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary this week.

That's right, she's been married to me 19 years. How that happens is beyond me. But hey, good job. Yeah. Way to stick to it. Definitely, definitely on the winning side. You know, but when I look back at 19 years, I asked you this week, like, what's your favorite year or like timeframe of marriage? Yeah, well, I have like, I can pick out different timeframes for like different aspects of our life that I can say, well, this was, I love this part because of this and this part because of that. Yeah, no, I mean, there's definitely ups and downs throughout our marriage of highs and lows and, you know, all of the things that have made our marriage so great, I think.

But, you know, I'm really enjoying the part of life we're in right now. You know, we've, not that we're never going to struggle or have obstacles or things like that. That's just a way of life. But I think we've achieved a way of doing it together that is, you know, pretty amazing. Yeah, well, you know, it's always, and this is the good thing about us, and it's definitely true for me, but I love you the most right now. And tomorrow I'm going to love you the most tomorrow. And then the day after that, I'm going to love you the most. It's like our relationship continually grows and continually gets better because, you know, we don't just stop working on it. We keep getting better.

We keep trying to, you know, be the best versions of ourselves for each other and for our children and for our friends and everything else. But it's not like we look at it and say, all right, our relationship is great and just halt. I think maybe that's why you feel like this is the best. Because I agree, it is the best because I love you more now than I've ever loved you. And I think I'll love you even a little bit more tomorrow. And that's something that we've always been really good at. Yeah, our son asked, we met to eat dinner, and he said, what makes, like, 19 years is a long time. Like, what makes it, like, still good?

I'm like, I don't, I mean, I contribute that a lot to you because you keep things very interesting. As I told him, I'm like, do you ever think there's a dull moment with your dad? And he is like, well, I'm just happy that you didn't respond with, like, the sex. And I started laughing because he's, you know, 16 years old. And I'm like, why would that gross you out? And he's like, yeah, definitely not. At that time, you were getting out of your car, and we're watching you, like, hobble because your hips, as you get older, like, your bones and your joints are locking up on you from sitting in the car. And I'm like, but look at him. I mean, with his little hip walk and all.

Like, he's just so handsome. Yeah, it's probably time to give up the sports car and move to, you know, something that's higher up off the ground so I can get in and out of it now that I'm an old man. It's just funny. But, you know, we enjoy each other. We went and played. You know, some people, I just, we're different. I don't need the whole, I looked into doing a whole vacation and all these things. And I get to where, like, I just don't want to spend the money. It's not that I don't want to do things, but once it all adds up, I'm like, what's the point of that? Like, we can create so many memories without being over the top with it. And don't get me wrong.

Like, I want to enjoy and get the most out of everything that we're doing. But, I mean, we did that without spending thousands upon thousands of dollars. Like, we went, we're learning to play golf. Yeah. She's got a good golf swing. Like old people do. But it's something we get to do together. She swings a golf glove like she swings a baseball bat. Much better at baseball than I am golf. Once she figures it out, she'll be great. Yeah, I mean, we're enjoying it. We just went to the driving range and hit some golf balls. And, you know, we like to, I've learned, I like to shoot guns. You like to shoot guns. So it's something that we've done together.

We just find things that keep our interests together. And just being around each other, we enjoy that time. So, you know, I'm thankful for that. And always going out to eat. I enjoy that too. Well, people always, always say, lots of people say this. I shouldn't say people, but there's a lot of people that have said, you spend a lot of time with your wife. I don't know how you do it. I'm super cool. Right. And it's like she said, it's because we truly enjoy our company. Even after, we've been married 19 years, but we've been together 27. Yeah. So that's even crazier. And we still like each other. Well, I think it helps too. And we'll talk about this a little bit later on the podcast.

But the way I grew up, like I grew up as a tomboy. I grew up with all the boys in the neighborhood. If I wanted to play, I had to learn to play with the boys. And so with that, like it's not weird for me to sit down. I actually turn on football more than you do because I just love it so much. You know, I'm just not that, I can be girly girl, but I'm just not like, I don't know. I enjoy all the things of a girl. And I think it helps that it's not always about what I like. Like I enjoy doing the things that you like, probably because of the way I was raised. Right. Yeah. You do cool things. Yeah. Anyways, so let's get into the show. Today we're going to talk about confidence.

This is something we ended with last week and talking about, you know, when you stand in confidence, what that looks like. And we'll even talk about the difference between being confident and being cocky because I think sometimes people misconstrue that as well. And yeah, so let's dive in. So I always, I've said in the past, like I like to know the meaning of things because I'm, I accuse Shannon a lot of times of using words like he makes up, but it's not true. Like he just has a better vocabulary than me. But I also like don't, I need to know what those words mean. I don't just use words.

So for confidence, it is a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities. Yeah. That's what confidence means. To me, confidence is very powerful. I think you can command a room with confidence. And again, like that doesn't come with being cocky. There's a big difference. I've met people that are very cocky and the way they can command, that's almost gaining attention. But where confidence you stand and you don't realize how much power you hold. Would you agree with that? Sure. Yeah. Well, I mean, cocky people, when they walk in, when a confident person walks into the room, he does not need to tell you that he is a confident person. Right.

You know that he is a confident person. When a cocky person walks into the room, they're going to tell you how confident they are. And the cockiness comes from a lack of confidence. Yeah. So it's one of those things where cocky is often misconstrued as confident when in reality, cocky comes from a lack of confidence. Because, for instance, when you walk into a room, Shannon is a very confident person. When she walks into a room next to me, 6'5", 250 pounds, of pretty confident person, and people are going to know that she is a confident, I am not going to overshadow her because of her confidence. And she did not speak a word of what that confidence is.

And I think that's the true definition of confidence in between confidence and cocky, is you don't need to tell people. Right. I think, I'm going to kind of jump down the notes because I also give that definition of cocky, being conceited or arrogant, especially in a bold or impudent way. Is that the word? Yeah, I guess. And, you know, like we're talking about now, is deciphering those two. So like you said, you're going to, when you walk in a room, if you have to tell someone how confident you are, whether you're giving a sales pitch or, you know, just in conversation, I don't, I do know that I'm a very confident person.

And I know that, especially with women, that that looks different for different people. And I I understand why women have a lack of confidence as well. And it's not that there aren't things in my life that I'm not confident about. I definitely struggle with things, you know, in different areas, whether I feel smart enough or, you know, my understanding of a certain situation, or however that looks. I just want to always make sure that I'm set up for success. I'm doing the right things to, not only for myself, but I do that for our daughter. That's very important to me. So I kind of want to talk about where confidence comes from. Hold on one second.

That word that we were trying to figure out, this is how you say it. Impudent. Impudent. It means not showing due respect for another person. Can I turn that up? Impudent. There you go. Now you know. Okay, go ahead. So we'll talk about where confidence comes from. For me, growing up, my mom actually instilled a lot of confidence in me. She helped me to understand if I was going to achieve it, it was up to me. I played sports. I was the only girl. I cheered and I practiced hard on all my skills. I've been successful in my careers because I do it with the best of my ability when I walk in that door. I don't look at it as I'm just there to collect a paycheck. That's a great thing to collect.

But when I'm at work or doing a project, I'm going to do it with my full ability because that's what represents me. If a bad review comes in or a project doesn't look complete and I didn't finish my job to the best of my ability, that's going to be a direct reflection of myself. So I always want to look at what I'm doing and do it to the best of my ability. Like I said, I know that there's things that my mom wasn't confident in. But one thing she was very confident in was telling me that I could do anything. You are just as good as those boys out on the soccer field. If you want to play, you've got to get tough. I used to cry.

I was an emotional kid, so I would tag someone out playing t-ball or get punched in the stomach playing soccer. She'll tell the story every day of my life for the rest of our life. And everybody's heard it. It's just like, oh, I can remember when the kid finally spit in Shannon's face and she turned around and spit back. You have to stand up for yourself. You have to find that within you to be better. So I would definitely say my confidence comes from my mom. So my point to all that is a lot of our confidence can come from our childhood. Yeah, I mean, and well, you know, for me, it's the exact opposite. My childhood was filled with you're stupid, you're not good enough.

And then, you know, I was a victim of sexual assault. So I have had a lack of confidence growing up, and I overcorrected by, guess what, becoming cocky. So I became cocky because I lacked that confidence, and I lacked that confidence because I was in ESC class. So I have dyslexia, and, you know, I've technically been diagnosed with almost every single mental illness that I've ever heard of. So I've been to so many different therapists through my life. I have been diagnosed with every single one, bipolar, you know, depression, anxiety, you know, on the autistic spectrum, everything.

Everything I've heard, schizophrenic, I mean, all of it, because they didn't know how to diagnose me because, number one, I wasn't honest with what I was going through, and number two is I was going through a lot. But dyslexic, I definitely am. And so what they did, they just stuck me in ESC class, and we were in this ESC class where, you know, all we did was play Oregon Trail all day, and people, you know, treated you like you were less than. And, you know, for me, I had to learn confidence at a later age because it was all taken from me, and I was very confident. I mean, I was a very cocky person.

But that's why I think I can distinguish between the two so easily because, you know, it was something that I had to do and something I had to learn as I grew up. Yeah, and I think that helps us with our own children and understanding, like, the positive and negative influence that you can have. Listen, I'm really guilty of this with our own kids, that when I'm having a bad day, they seem to take the brunt of it. And it's not that I'm upset with them. It's just what comes out of my mouth is anger towards them in a situation because maybe McKenzie's not listening to me or Jordan didn't do something that I asked, and I'm still waiting on something to be done.

But my anger is from something else that had happened, you know, hours before that I'm still holding on to, but I'm just taking it out on them. And you're really good at, you know, understanding the moment and instilling the positive about them and their characteristics to help them gain confidence. And we'll see one day if that works because I know there's some things that, you know, you could talk about, like what you do with our children before they leave the house every morning. And maybe that's something that they listen to or maybe it's something that they don't.

We won't know until later when they're adults and they're like, that was the best part of growing up is knowing that my dad was going to always believe in me before I walked out the door. Yeah, and since Jordan started school every single day, I wanted to give him positive words before he left. So when he would say goodbye to me, I would say, you are smart, you are confident, you are handsome. And the handsome part started when he was, well, actually, I said, you are smart, you're confident, and I added something else in there. I don't remember when he was a kid, but when he went to kindergarten, he has a cockeyed smile because he's missing a muscle in his mouth.

So when he smiles, only one half of his mouth moves. And someone was making fun of him for that, and it really got to him. So every single morning I wanted him to know, not only are you smart, not only are you confident, but you are handsome. And it's something I repeated to him over and over and over again every single day when he left this house. Those are the words I spoke to him, and I continued the tradition with my daughter, and I have a different set of words for her that I give her when she leaves. And that's just because I know the day is going to be hard, and I want them to hear a little bit of positivity from me before they leave.

And then not only that, but also when they get to school, they get the positivity from me, but they also get the positivity from their mom in the form of a prayer. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely important to me is for them to have the confidence of God in them, to know who they're created by and what they're created for. I feel like it's easier to do with Mackenzie still than it is with Jordan, but I still, even if I don't get to pray with him directly, as soon as he steps one foot out of the car, I'm praying about it as he's walking across the street to the high school. If he turns around and gives me a wave or blows me a kiss, it makes me feel like, yes, there's still a connection there.

Because he's 16, and sometimes I doubt that. But I would say, too, a lot of the confidence can be destroyed. That story you're telling about Jordan, it wasn't even a kid in his class when he was in kindergarten. It's within your own family. Another family member, just because they didn't know how to communicate what their question was about his smile, it made him feel insecure. So as much positivity as we've tried to inject into our children, that negativity is very infectious. It will be what they remember. And I do it myself.

There's been things within your own family, things that have been said that where my lack of confidence does come in, could have been because of my teeth or before I was an adult, before I got braces. So hearing different things, or I had glasses when I was younger, wherever it comes from, that... You have glasses right now. I'm just saying... You're literally wearing them on your face. I'm saying when I was younger, glasses was not cool like it is now. Glasses were not stylish. Glasses was you're a dork because you had to wear glasses. Oh, I loved them. Whatever it was. I thought they were smoking hot. But sometimes it's bad enough when you're...

I still look at that picture and I think, hmm. That's hot about glasses. You look good in glasses. Love it. Go ahead, sorry. The world will destroy us. That's the truth. The world will break you down and tell you you're not good enough because that... is the world's way of staying ahead. It shouldn't be within the own walls of your family tearing you down. And if that's the case, I hope what we talk about today helps you understand that what you believe in your own head, like I was saying, my mom instilled in me that if I wanted to achieve something, I had to believe in myself. This is something I'm going through right now in my cheer program. We're hitting competition season.

We're getting ready to take our first mat. And I'm having to instill the belief in themselves because I can't do it for them. I can bet on them every single day of the week, but if they don't believe that they can do it, they won't. That's just the way we operate as humans. Right. I mean, it's nothing. And unfortunately, a lot of people, a lot of people, they get it not only from the world, but they get it at home as well. So it's important that you latch on to the positivity where you can. And we're talking a lot about positivity right now when we're supposed to be talking about confidence, but that positive atmosphere is what helps build your confidence.

And shoot, we were just talking about it today, and it's something that I still struggle with, and I'm a very confident person. I want my voice to be heard when it comes to my expertise in terms of what I do. I am very, very good at what I do. And there's times where I will just say, you know what, whatever, it's not worth the headache. I'm not going to argue with it about it. I'll just do it your way, even though it's wrong. And I know my way is better, and it's not my way. I just know the right way because I have so much experience in the fields that I operate in that there's times where I just take the easy road instead of the confident road.

And I was just telling her, you know, I have to stop doing that because, you know, the knowledge that I have is valuable. The knowledge that I have helps people. And more importantly, the knowledge that I have has helped a lot of people make a lot of money. And if your goal is making more money, then you need to listen to me in some aspects. Yeah, again, I think that confidence comes when we're going to talk about this in a few minutes, but by being successful, by achieving. Once you start achieving, then you realize, okay, I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm talking about. I have results and facts to show you of why this works. So you gain confidence in what you're saying.

But so we're going to talk about a couple of things I found in an article on Bustle. Things psychologists. Bustle.com? Mm-hmm. Okay. Things psychologists wish you knew can gradually destroy your self-esteem. So what can destroy confidence? Things psychologists wish you knew can gradually destroy self-confidence or self-esteem. Bustle article. Yeah. What can destroy confidence, question mark? A couple of those examples. There was quite a few. I pulled out 10 of them. Oh, look at that. Even the first one. I haven't even looked at these yet. The first one that I said, surrounding yourself with negative. Yes, 100% surrounding yourself with negative is going to affect your self-esteem.

Well, and you've heard the phrase, like, misery loves company. There are people that I can't be around those people. I physically cannot do it. It is a turnoff to me. If you want to just sit around and complain about your life and how bad it is or situations are, and you're not taking action to make things better, I can't be around it. I will remove myself completely. And I don't have a hard time doing it. And just zip and remove it. I want to be helpful to people. I want to be that friend or whoever it is. I want to listen to you. I'm definitely the person, too, that wants to give you some help.

I might not know all the answers, but I want to be able to give some advice on maybe how I would handle it or what I've already been through that helped. And I know everybody's situation is different, but if all you do is complain and you don't do anything to help yourself, I cannot be a part of that world. I've said it before. Like, you can have a pity party. I can throw some of the best. However, don't send me an RSVP to it because I'm not coming. Right. You know? Yeah. And I've told people that. Like, you have to make the choice to remove that from your path. And sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's the people you love the most. We've gone through that even as individuals with you and I.

And we've had to be very honest with each other. Like, you got to stop. Like, you got to stop and change your path because all you're doing right now is being negative. Right. And we can't do that. That's true. Negativity is like a virus. It just spreads and spreads and spreads and misery loves company just like it says. Well, and what was the statistic? I don't know if this is still the same, but like how many positives does it take to overcome the negative? I don't remember the exact number, but this was another Zig Ziglar thing. It was like it takes 100 positives to overcome one negative. So in terms of your self-talk, one negative thought, it takes 100 positive thoughts.

And these aren't exact numbers. I forget there was a study that someone did. But it's excessive. So one positive thought, it takes so many more. I mean, one negative thought, it takes so many more positive thoughts to actually overcome that negative self-doubt that you have. And people don't realize how, and actually it's on here, how powerful your self-talk is to you and what it can do. But we'll talk about that when we get that. Number two, and this is actually, I wish I would have talked about this to you because I've been thinking about this in the past actually month or so, is excessive apologizing and making it your fault. I struggle with this so bad. And I know I struggle with this.

And it's one thing that I try to get my son not to do because he does it as well. And that's apologize. He'll be mid-sentence and start saying, I'm sorry. And he's apologizing just for his opinion or just for his point of view. And I tell him every single time, do not do it. And one of the things that I've done throughout my adult life is I have made myself the villain. And I did that in an attempt to cope with some of the mistakes that I made in my past. For instance, if you talk to or you listen to these podcasts, I make myself sound very bad. And I do it as a coping mechanism to try to, I don't know, cover up or not cover up, but make the things I did better.

And especially when it came to what I did to Shannon in terms of cheating and the way I treated her when we were younger. When I talk to people about that and what I've done my whole life, if people, when you ask people about me and they've heard it from me, they will tell you that I was a horrible person when I was younger. And the fact of the matter is not I was a horrible person. I made a couple really bad mistakes. And I took that and I owned it so much that I let it become my identity. And that's wrong. Right. And that goes into the next point of like letting the negative self-talk control your brain because you start telling yourself that you're a horrible person.

You start believing yourself that you're a horrible person. So the things that you're telling yourself, those are the things your brain is going to start believing. So one of the things that you taught me a long time ago was like words of affirmation. You know, looking at yourself in the mirror, and I'm sure you guys have, we're not, listen, we're not making this stuff up to be like geniuses. This is stuff that's been around forever. But if you don't do it already or you don't know what affirmations are, look it up. Like start figuring out what it is. If you got to put sticky notes inside your car to tell you what is good about yourself so that you can be confident in your day.

You know, writing on your bathroom mirror or even instilling that into someone else. You know, those are things that you have to start, you know, looking at and not given to fears. That's another one. Right. Well, what Napoleon Hill said is whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. And it starts with that personal talk. You have to believe it in your mind. You have to be able to conceive it in your mind before it ever is going to become a reality. So anything you want to do has to become truth in your mind before it can ever become truth in your reality because if you don't believe it, you can't. Henry Ford, another great one.

If you think you can, if you think you can't, you can't. If you think you can, you can. Something like that. If you think you can. Whether you think you can or you can't, you are right. Yes, whether you think you can or you can't, you are right. That's Henry Ford. And then I believe 99% of all personal development comes from the Bible. And on this point, in the Bible, it says whatever the man believes in his heart, so is he. Everything that they're saying that destroys our confidence because we've been through it. Believing you know what other people are thinking, creating scenarios. This is something that you've... Oh my gosh, I am nuts.

Every single one of these, I'm like, yep, that's the truth. But that's things that you've overcome because my point in that is you don't do that nearly as much. I can't say it's been eliminated because I think it's still something that you have to conquer, but you used to always create scenarios. But the way that you've overcome that is talking about this. I come to Shannon and I will say we have to talk about it because this is the story that I have made up in my head. Right, and those scenarios in every situation, I would say, again, these are just numbers that we're throwing out there from different things we've read, but 99% of those scenarios that you create do not come to light.

It's just fear. It's just, oh, this could happen or this could happen. One of my favorite things to say is like, oh, what if this happens or what if that happens? What if this happens? Yeah, but what if? Turn the what if into what if. Turn it to the positive of, yeah, all those bad things can happen. Like right now, I'm going, what if we go out on Saturday for our first competition and we look insanely crazy? But what if we go out and hit that routine with full confidence? What if? What if can be turned around from a negative to a positive in every thought that you do? And that's a conscious effort you have to start learning to do.

And it goes, again, like I said, I think most of personal development goes back to the Bible. I forget the verse number, but it says something to the effect of do not worry about tomorrow because today has enough worries of itself. It's in Matthew 6, 33. Oh, yeah, get it, girl. So is that what it says? Yeah. Yeah. So tomorrow has enough trouble of its own. Like we're not supposed – I saw a quote yesterday. I wish I would have wrote it down because it's like the only thing worrying about tomorrow does is ruin your today. I don't remember who said that, but to me that's powerful. And when I read that, I read that off of a past cheerleader's Instagram.

It wasn't related to anything that was in my program or anything else, but to see her Instagram and it said that. Like she's obviously going through something herself, and those are things that she's learning to apply. So yeah, I can worry about tomorrow. I have no idea if any of that's even going to come to light, but all that's doing is ruining my today. Today is what I have. I might not wake up tomorrow, but it's ruining my today. We have to make that conscious effort. No doubt. And saying yes to everyone and everything, letting others control your day, I do not struggle with this. We've talked about that. I'm sure we'll do a podcast on it. And here's a good book. I have not read it.

However, I've taken away a lot of tidbits from it simply because my wife talks about it, but it's The Best Yes. Who wrote it? Lisa Tuckerhurst. Tuckerhurst. Go check her out. The Best Yes. It was great for us even though I didn't read it. The lessons that my wife learned, I've adopted as well. And you just have to let your yes be yes and your no be no. Right. And you have to be okay, and that again comes with confidence and knowing. I don't want you to create that me environment, but there's a lot of times where me has to come first. And we can be people pleasers and we can want to do everything, but I will look at a schedule and say, it is just not feasible. It cannot happen.

And unfortunately, whether I want to be a part of it or not, I have to say no. And I say that to people. I appreciate your invite. I would love to be a part of it. However, it does not work for me. Or learning that I don't have to say anything else. All I have to do is say yes or no. I don't have to give an explanation for why my yes is yes or my no is no. And that was very powerful. And it's something that I struggled with because I guess I am a bit of a people pleaser. And I feel bad when I limit myself from people. And I was thinking about this actually on the way to Jordan's soccer game.

And when you become successful, you reach a point in your life and in your work career where some things, it's not that they're not worth doing. They're just not the best use of your time. And there's like, for instance, we had a client that wanted to talk to me on the phone in an instant. I'm sorry, but you can't. And that's not because I don't want to talk to you. It's not because I don't want to give you the best service that I possibly can. But you just can't talk to me whenever you want. You can talk to someone in our company. You can go through the proper channels. However, the best use of my time isn't just responding to people who are calling and sending emails in the instant.

I just can't do it. It's not the best use of my time. I can't go through my emails and schedule everything. It's just not the best use of my time. The things that are delegated away from me aren't delegated away from me because I think I'm better than doing those things. It's simply because of the skill sets that I've developed over the years. My time is more valuable doing other things. I agree with that. And I feel like, where I've said this to you before, you are a people. You're more of a people pleaser than I am. And so if somebody calls last minute and they need something done right now, I will evaluate in that moment if that is something we can do or not do.

And I am not going to stop what I'm doing to join the crazy world because of their lack of planning. Shannon says this all the time. We are not joining their crazy. And I know last minute things happen and things, and you just want somebody to help you in a moment. And I get it. I've been there too. But I would much rather, like if I reach out to you to help me, you tell me no than me know that I've destroyed something that you've already got planned or made you late for or made you join my craziness because of something that I created. And that's not fair to other people. Believing that failure is the worst thing ever. That's very true. Yeah. Being afraid to fail. Right.

Well, I firmly believe that failure is the best way to success. And actually one of the quotes I live by, it says, I am not judged by the time. I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed. And the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep trying. And that quote, I believe the guy's name is like Brian Thompson or something like that. However, I heard it from a guy named Jimmy Meyer, who is a Prime Erica. You know, he's one of the top guys in Prime Erica. That's who I learned it from. And it's something I've lived by since the time I was 20.

And to the point where I'm like, okay, sometimes, you know, don't just jump off the bridge to fail. You need to put a little bit of more time, a little bit more time into this planning. But failure is never a failure if you take the lesson and learn from it and move forward from it. Yeah. You fail when you stop trying. Exactly right. People are like, I can't believe you succeeded. I can't believe you have this successful business. Dude, I'm old as crap. We're not that old. I was broke as a joke for a long time, but I refuse to give up. When everyone made fun of me, when everyone talked about how stupid I was for, you know, following this crazy dream, I just refused to stop.

Anyway, that's a different podcast. Well, that goes right into assuming that no one likes you. You know, those are things that we create in our own heads. There's a lot of times where you could think like, oh, they don't like me. And then later on, find out like, oh, they actually had no problem with me. It was something that I didn't like about myself. Or not accepting compliments. I've learned this is big. Let's go back to assuming no one likes you. I want to make one point on that. Okay. No one cares about you. No one cares. I mean, yes, there are people that care about you. There are people that love you. But you do not consume people's lives the way you think that you do.

And you need to understand that. Because we'll make one little mistake and you think this person is thinking about you all day. About how you messed up and the things that you did. It could be true with your wife or something like that. However, most people that we interact with, they care about themselves way more than they care about you. Does that make sense? I think I'm following you. You're saying like in a scenario, something goes wrong or you think something goes wrong. You think that other person is just sitting there playing that back in their head, blaming you and hating you, where they've gone on about their day and you're the one sitting and sulking in the moment.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to say. Good job. Not accepting compliments is a big thing for us as women. Our lack of confidence. When somebody gives us a compliment to not believe what they're saying, that's huge. And girl came over to me. I had bought this sweater like a year ago and never wore it because I just felt like I didn't have something that matched it correctly. And then she came over and she's like, I just wanted to come over and tell you that I love your sweater. And instead of telling her what I didn't like about the sweater or everything else, I just thanked her for her compliment. And then later I realized that was good on me because I received the compliment.

She made it a point to come and tell me. I didn't need to fill her with the negativity of what I felt about my sweater. Or if someone comes and says, hey Shannon, you've done an amazing job. All you have to reply is thank you. Not the story of how hard everything was or this. All you have to do is say, thank you very much. I appreciate you taking the time to tell me that. Because compliments, the reason someone's telling you, that builds your confidence and you should receive that. Yeah. There was a time that I struggled with compliments and that's something we had to learn. I don't know.

Maybe that's a study we did, but I do whenever, and I talked to Jordan about this, if someone's trying to give you a gift, take the gift. If someone's trying to give you the gift of a compliment, take the compliment. Because even if you don't believe it and you don't think what they're saying is true about you, you taking away their gift of that compliment makes them feel bad. So let them give it to you anyway. Well, and I think that's the first step in gaining confidence is taking the compliment. Because that, to me, I want to wear that sweater again. Because someone told me I look nice in it. You look nice, you look hot.

Something as little as that, like you're saying, that's a gift they're giving you. Don't deny it. Take it. There's nothing wrong with taking that compliment. And the last thing that I took from that article was comparing your life to someone else's. You know, we can look at other people's lives and be like, oh, they're so put together. Especially social media. All of y'all want to be like us. Yeah, right. Comparing your life to someone else's, especially if you don't know the whole story. You know, we can, I hear this a lot in just, you know, past cheerleaders that have come through our program and just talking to an alumni's mom the other night.

And she was like, you know, it's so hard because she looks at you and Shannon and is just like, look, they made it from high school all the way through. And, you know, they've been married 19 years and together for 27. And do those things happen? Absolutely. But she has no idea of the journey and the road that we're on. And I don't regret any of it. This is a good quote for her. Do not compare your beginning to someone else's end. Right. Or middle. We've struggled a lot in our relationship, in marriage, in our own selves. You know, we come out stronger every time. And I've always contributed to that to a good foundation of where we're at. But you can't compare your life to someone else's.

It's just different. So with all of those negatives, and I'm sure you could relate to even five of the 10. I know I can, and you definitely can. Shoot, this is like, this is why a psychologist diagnosed me with everything. I'm like, yep, that sounds just about right. Yep, I can relate to that. You know, but then I look at, I even look at the article, like where it came from. Now we're going to Forbes. Now, when I think of Forbes, I think of like, top, like top businesses are ranked in Forbes. Yeah, like our photography's in Forbes. Right, like when I think of Forbes, I think of success. So it's only great that they give you 10 ways to build confidence. And we'll go through this as well.

And the 10 ways to build confidence to overcome all those things that we just talked about is number one, get things done. Yeah, we were just talking about this yesterday. I said, man, I feel confident. I'm, well, that's funny. I did say that. I'm feeling very confident this week. Like, I feel like I'm, you know, getting things done and, you know, doing amazing things. And that goes into number two. Right, monitor your progress. And why'd you say that? You felt like I was feeling so confident.

Because you found a platform to organize your day, organize your projects, organize your what's next on my to-do to where, like we talked about last week, for me, it is writing it down on a list and crossing it off. It's the same concept. You're just on an electronic form. But it's making you feel that you are getting things done because you're going down the project list that you've created, that no one else is in charge of but you. Right. You know. Number three, they have do the right thing. What's the right thing? Yeah, it's what you do when no one looking, that no one's looking that truly defines your character.

So doing the right thing is always important, even when no one else is looking at you. Yeah, and I think that's the first step in gaining confidence is taking the compliment because that, to me, I want to wear that sweater again because someone told me I look nice in it. You look nice, you look hot. You know, something as little as that, like you're saying, that's a gift they're giving you. Don't deny it, take it. There's nothing wrong with taking that compliment. And the last thing that I took from that article was comparing your life to someone else's. You know, we can look at other people's lives and be like, oh, they're so put together, especially social media.

All of y'all want to be like us. Yeah, right. Comparing your life to someone else's, especially if you don't know the whole story. You know, we can, I hear this a lot in just, you know, past cheerleaders that have come through our program and just talking to an alumni's mom the other night. And she's like, you know, it's so hard because she looks at you and Shannon and is just like, look, they made it from high school all the way through and, you know, they've been married 19 years and together for 27 and do those things happen? Absolutely. But she has no idea of the journey and the road that we're on. And I don't regret any of it. This is a good quote for her.

Do not compare your beginning to someone else's end. Right. I mean, we've struggled a lot in our relationship, in marriage, in our own selves. You know, we come out stronger every time and I've always contributed that to a good foundation of where we're at. But you can't compare your life to someone else's. It's just different. So with all of those negatives, and I'm sure you could relate to even five of the 10. I know I can, and you definitely can. Shoot, this is like, this is why a psychologist diagnosed me with everything. I'm like, yep, that sounds just about right. Yep, I can relate to that. You know, but then I look at, I even look at the article, like where it came from.

Now we're going to Forbes. Now, when I think of Forbes, I think of like top, like top businesses are ranked in Forbes. Yeah, like our photography's in Forbes. Right, like when I think of Forbes, I think of success. So it's only great that they give you 10 ways to build confidence. And we'll go through this as well. And the 10 ways to build confidence to overcome all those things that we just talked about is number one, get things done. Yeah, we were just talking about this yesterday. I said, man, I feel confident. I'm, well, that's funny. I did say that. I'm feeling very confident this week. Like, I feel like I'm, you know, getting things done and, you know, doing amazing things.

And that goes into number two. Right, monitor your progress. And why'd you say that you felt like I was feeling so confident? Because you found a platform to organize your day, organize your projects, organize your what's next on my to-do to where, like we talked about last week, for me, it is writing it down on a list and crossing it off. It's the same concept. You're just on an electronic form. But it's making you feel that you are getting things done because you're going down the project list that you've created, that no one else is in charge of but you. Right. You know, number three, they have do the right thing. What's the right thing?

Yeah, it's what you do when no one looking, that no one's looking that truly defines your character. So doing the right thing is always important, even when no one else is looking at you. Yeah, and we talked about this last week too. And I'm good at doing the right thing, so that's why I'm so confident. Is exercise. Exercise can be one of those, it is such a mindset because when you're doing it, like we talked about this last week too, when you're doing it, you can be fighting yourself over and over and over again in your head. But once you're done, no one finishes and goes, man, that was a waste. I wish I wouldn't have done that. Yeah, I don't know of anybody that's done that.

Not one person stops and goes, that sucked, I wish I wouldn't have done that. I could have done so much more with my 45 minutes, whatever it is. But that exercise is very important. You get done exercising, you're like, yeah, business situations and I will not ever allow someone in a higher position, what they think in their mind is a higher position, to make me feel less of who I am. I've stood with doctors in the same room, I've stood with billionaires in the same room, and I don't look at them any different because I don't want them to look at me any different. They are still a human being. I know you've heard the saying where we all put on our pants the same way, one leg at a time.

We are all the same. You might have more education in your field, but you are not going to overshadow me with your power and dominance. I just don't allow for it. And if that is who I'm surrounded with in that room, I remove myself from that room. I don't want to do business with someone that thinks I'm less than them. I do business with people that treats me as an equal because I'm really good at what I do and you're really good at what you do. So I think standing up for yourself is definitely needed. I've been in a room where I'm the only woman and there's nothing but men in a room and I don't back down to just cower and say, my voice shouldn't be heard.

My voice will be heard louder than anybody else in that room and they will sit back and listen to me because I have the confidence in what I am bringing to the table. That's right. Well, this is the voice you need to hear right now. We need to go because we got eight minutes. Eight minutes. Count down. All right. The follow through. Your words can't just be words. You have to have action to follow through. So good point there. Well, listen, this is very important and I have a lot of sports metaphors for this one. Listen, you can have a great setup to your shot. You're coming. Let's take a free throw. You get the mental game down. You have the same routine. You sit in your shot.

You get good depth into your movement. You come up. You go to shoot the ball and then you short arm it and you don't follow all the way through. Everything was perfect until that last little bit. That last little bit. The last follow through you didn't do. You pulled your arm back. As soon as you shot, you yanked that arm back. Guess what? Bangs off the top of the rim or the front of the rim because you short armed it. You didn't follow through. Golf. You have a perfect backswing. Your hips come back just exactly the way it's supposed to go. You come down on a plane that's perfect. Your hips follow through. Your hands close.

You hit the ball and then you just stop and don't follow all the way through. You could have had a perfect shot that was going to crush it 300 yards but it goes 120 because you didn't follow all the way through. That's my goal, 120. I'm about 70 right now. It's one of those things. It can be perfect all the way leading up to the very end. If you don't follow through, there it goes. Then you've got to think long term. This is a catch moment as well because I'm big on you've got to live in the moment. You've got to live in the moment because like we already discussed, we don't know what tomorrow brings.

This was hard for me as far as learning how to dream and things like that but learning that you still got to plan. What's a long term? What does that look like for you? There's still things on here that we're always working on. There's things that creep in at different times because one thing that we do know and we've said before is when you start achieving and you start doing good, the devil will find a way to bring you back because when you're on misery and you are hating life and you are blaming God for all the things that are wrong in your life, he's got you right where he wants you.

When you start doing the good and the positive and finding ways to be the better in the world, he's going to rein you back in. How does he do that? With your mind. Brings you back to tell you everything that you lack, of why you're not good enough or why these people don't like you. For us, it's big on you can't go do that. Who are you? I have to stand firm and say who I am. These are things that we apply in our life and not that we've overcome every single obstacle but it is a constant everyday thing that we have to apply. It's not ever going to be 100% guaranteed. You're going to be 100% confident in every decision, everything that you do across the board.

No matter what it is, you're going to lack confidence somewhere but find it. Don't just give in to it. You got it. Hey listen, if you want more, go to standingstronger.com. That's standingstronger.com. Make sure you subscribe, follow, like, whatever it is on your podcasting platform of choice. Do that and leave us a rating and a review, an honest rating and review because it helps us get found in the search engines, all that good stuff. If you're in a networking group or you know someone that could benefit from listening to the podcast, send them our way. Reciprocity is a great thing. They'll be like, great job sending me that podcast. You're awesome, dude.

We'll help them and you'll get all the credit. Just remember, when you don't believe in yourself, we believe in you. You can do it. No doubt. Thanks. Have a fantastic day. As always, hopefully we'll see you on the beaches of the world. That's right. Because everything's going your way And you want to make it last forever We'll keep it together Because it keeps getting better