How To Overcome Low Self-Confidence

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Today on this podcast episode, I’m sharing a recent conversation I had with a longtime listener of my radio show, and also somebody who attended a seminar I did in 2011, a long time ago. Interesting conversation I had with him and I am kind of giving a gist of the conversation on today’s podcast. So he reached out to me about three weeks ago, telling me about a situation he’s having with his son, who is a teenager. And there are some issues with communication, there are some issues as a family, they are not able to kind of get their message across. And the son is doing good in school. But then overall, the confidence is low. And for the last three, four years, they have been struggling with this about six months ago. They made an attempt to consult with the therapist at school, and then eventually, through the primary care physician, a referral to some other therapists in the insurance network. And somehow, they’re not able to get hold of a good therapist or a therapist, because therapists are not available. And that has kind of lowered the confidence of the entire family. I got on a phone call with him. For about an hour we spoke. And in that one hour, I gave three guidelines.

The first guideline was, how we build confidence, or where does confidence come from. The second one was, things that we do that lower our self confidence. And the third thing was, what do confident people do. And the approach I took on that call was, not only that the kid is suffering. The kid is suffering, because the parents are suffering,. It’s a circular relationship. Parents are struggling. So collectively, as a family, in the social context, together, all of them, their confidence level is low. I also told this individual to listen to today’s podcast, and make sure that he plays this recording to his son.

Compassion.

Let’s get into the three guidelines. See, there are three things. Number one is compassion. Every time you raise your compassion for yourself, you raise your confidence. Every time you raise compassion for people around you, you raise their confidence. Raising compassion involves that you raise your understanding of the problem. So let’s say you feel low, you invest time to understand what’s happening with you. And that is why I have been on this podcast, and also my radio shows talking about self exploration.

Understand.

You raise your confidence by understanding yourself. And as a part of that self exploration process, and there are many ways to self explore yourself. So compassion comes from understanding. Whether you understand yourself, you understand others, in fact, you understand others better if you understand yourself.

Respect.

And then the third part is respect. So you when you combine compassion, understanding and respect, you raise your confidence, you also raise other people’s confidence. So these are the three things I do as a coach and as a therapist is I have compassion. I tried to probe and develop understanding of the people who are trying to reach out to me, and, obviously respect. So with these three things, I instill self confidence in them. You are having issues with your self confidence. So you become compassionate with yourself. You understand yourself and you respect yourself is it’s hard to respect ourselves. You see, it’s hard. So that’s what self confidence is made of. Those are the three things.

Now let’s talk about things that lower self confidence. When you put other people on the pedestal, in a way you are lowering your self confidence. When you put people ahead on the top, you deserve, but you put others on the top, and you kind of paint yourself to the far end of the corner of the room. I did a whole podcast on this long time ago. It’s funny, you know, I do podcast episodes, I come back and redo them in a different way. Okay, so you put people on the top and you put yourself behind, lowers your self confidence. Humility is good but improper humility is bad. It destroys self confidence. Guilt, you carry guilt within you, diminishes your self confidence. You act but you don’t live because of your circumstances because of other people you act. You’re living because somebody else is expecting you to live as per the rules that they have defined. So you don’t feel living, thought this life lowers your self confidence. If you’re constantly finding fault in other people, raising your mindset as using that as a power to raise your mindset, so you’re kind of a cynic. And you’re living in that cynicism, then that lowers your confidence. If you have wrong self talk going, when you’re alone with yourself, you tell things to yourself, that are diminishing your overall existence, in a way. Your mindset, then, that self talk has to go away, diminishes your overall confidence. If you have unrealistic expectations of yourself or others, diminishes your self confidence. There are some external stimulants that you allow to come into your life. Things that you have no control on, but you have allowed them to come into your life diminishes your self confidence. And you are angry and you’ll lead life from an anger frame diminishes your confidence. To these are things that diminish and there are many more things. But these are things that I could kind of think these are things for sure, I discussed on the call.

Confident people believe in their abilities.

Now let’s talk about what do confident people do. The first and the foremost thing is confident people believe in their abilities. You got to start believing in your abilities. Whatever abilities you have, it doesn’t matter. You don’t need to compare this with somebody else and say somebody has better and more than me, in that kind of comparison, that kind of a contrast will destroy you. So you got to believe in what you have.

Confident people solve problems.

And in this context, as a father and a son, as a parent and a child, you got to put that belief in durability. And you do that through proper communication. Confident people solve problems. That is a problem solving mindset they have. And once you have a problem solving mindset, what I’ve seen personally, is people who solve problems or has or haven’t mindset to solve problems or approach to solve problems, they worry less. Because they’re busy solving problems, then comes dealing with fears. You got to face your fears head on and you work towards eliminating those fears.

Confident people also do something else.

Then confident people also do something else, which is they calculate risk and applied themselves to situations appropriately. Not that they don’t take risks, they do take risks, but they understand risk. And the last thing, confident people love and respect themselves. And because they love and respect themselves. A majority of them end up loving and respecting others.

That’s it. This is the gist of the discussion I had with this gentleman. So if you have a situation right now, and you heard this podcast, we are already in about nine minutes into this. And you’re running through a challenge with your child with your kid or somebody or with your own self. I want you to listen to this. And I also want you to make sure that your child also listens to this. Now if you’re approaching a therapist, let’s say then I want you to look at all the different things that I listed here that lowers somebody’s self confidence and kind of explained to the therapist that yeah, you know, I have anger in me or I have guilt in me. I have negative self talk going on or I have unrealistic expectations of myself and others around me. So you start giving these things to the therapist and let them help you now, so you cut down the time with a therapist, and you guide the therapist to guide you back with their assessment of you. So you kind of helping them to help you. So that’s what I want you to do.

Okay, so I would stop here now, this has gone very deep and very long. If you like today’s podcast episode, then do me a favor, write a review, give us a rating, share it with your friends and family. And come back again tomorrow. And we’re going to take this conversation deep. Thank you.

Start A Lifestyle Business

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Welcome, or welcome back to Success with Srini. I have an interesting question that has come in, that I would like to answer on today’s podcast episode. This is from a listener of this podcast and also a longtime listener of my radio show. Srini, I listen to your radio shows and to your podcast. I had a question about business that I would like to start. And I don’t see you talking about business on your podcast, I’m not sure if you can answer this question on your podcast. And the question is, “I’m considering starting a business? And do you have any advice of somebody who hasn’t yet? Started a business late in career about to retire? And what business do you recommend?” First of all, I think there had been some questions on this podcast specific to business I think I’ve answered. And not that I make that as a main thing, at least not on my radio shows, and here, but occasionally I do talk about business and even Success 2022 that’s coming up later next month, is a significant part of that event also talks about business too. And me as an entrepreneur, and in the game. Yeah, business is always on my mind. Specifically, entrepreneurship is always on my mind.

So which business should you start? Well, I’m always a big time advocate of a lifestyle business. There are many ways to make money. And there are all kinds of products, all kinds of markets, all kinds of stuff. And with a reasonably good approach, you could make money anywhere if money making is the goal. But if freedom, lifestyle, and autonomy are the goals, then you need to consider starting a lifestyle business. When I say a lifestyle business, something which doesn’t interfere with what you have got going, you already have a job, you said you’re about to retire, or towards the end part of your career, or at least this career that you have got going. And you have not done a business before, then I suggest you start with the lifestyle business. And given all the technology we have given the Internet, mobile explosion, I mean, all that is going on within the technology space, it’s easy to start something and do something no matter where you are.

So in a lifestyle business, you have no employees, you have no office, you don’t have any physical products. You don’t have any partners, you necessarily don’t have customers also specifically me I don’t have customers, I have clients, I don’t have customers. There is a subtle difference between those two things, clients and customers. I don’t even have a phone number, honestly. I have a phone number where people call, people text. But then it’s not like anybody’s sitting there answering those those calls. We have an office, we have employees in the office. But it’s not like we are attending to the phone around the clock expecting some clients to call so that we can collect money. It’s not like that.

Back in the day, 10 years ago, I talked about lifestyle business on the radio. At the time, I was a stay at home dad literally. Today I’m a stay at home son, I take care of my father, and thanks to my lifestyle business, I’m able to do that. Now, what does it involve? And what kind of business I’m talking about? Well, if you look at the world, the world has problems, and the world is full of people. Now once you put people anywhere, there are problems. So we are people we have problems all of us have problems. Now the beauty of this world is other than the world has people and those people have problems. The world also has solutions. The gap between people who have problems changing solutions is going down by the day. It condensing technology, thanks to information it’s condensing. But then because it’s condensing people are having trouble. There’s so many solutions. You can take any problem and you can approach any problem with all kinds of solutions question becomes is which one will work for that individual who’s having a problem?

I talked about hypnosis when I came in, because it’s a proven way to make changes in people and I could make those changes and I’m good at it or reasonably good at it, whatever we want to say it and that was my message to the market. But you don’t need to be a solutionist yourself. There are enough number of people who have solutions. So if you magically can take people who have problems and connect them to the solution then, even though you are not creating the solution, still you are adding value. That’s exactly what is going on right now. In this economy. There was a research recently done.

I believe this was in the age group of 18 and 25, or something like that are 15 and 20, something like that. A question to all the young students are about to get into college or graduate from college, they were asked, what is that you want to do? Or between Instagram and all the social media sites and Tik Tok, versus you becoming a CEO of a company. Over 90%, and I don’t know the exact number because I’m just saying this from top of mind. And you got to pardon me if I’m miscoding this, but somewhere 95% or so, people, kids responded, children responded, saying that they prefer a social media presence and becoming a social media influencer than become a CEO of a multinational company, or a public limited company, or a public company. Amazing.

Nobody wants to go to a job, nobody wants to do any work. Everybody wants to become influencers. And I saw this trend 15, 16 years ago, not that I encashed on that trend. But I saw this trend, I was very vocal about it across all in all my seminars across all my radio shows. And I’m telling you the same thing. Now, I just did a quick search today, the creator economy, each $20 billion today, as of today. But in 2022, the creative economy, that means people who create content, people who videos, you know, blogs, all that content, podcast, as I’m doing it right now, this economy is going to become $104 billion economy. But much engagement is going on that much work is going on. There is an investment of over $800 million from corporate, like investments that are happening right now from investors into the space. These, you can say angel investor, you can call them institutional investors. But whatever that is that sum is about is more than 800 million into this space. It’s crazy what’s happening in this space.

So I think I answered your question. Maybe not, you tell me. But go start something that has the elements of flexibility, freedom, and lifestyle. Gives you the autonomy that you want to have. You are soul, and soul in it like your soul, your heart, your soul, your mind, and you in it. And you are not answerable to anyone, you create whatever you want to create with your ideas. Now, you want to be the solutionist, go become one. If you know solutions, then go give them to people, you know, people, by default, everybody has a problem going. That’s given, you don’t need to look for people who have problems. Just little bit of search on Facebook on Google will tell you and give you an idea or YouTube give you will give you an idea of where, what kind of problems people are having. People are having problems with their money. People are having problems with their health. People are having problems with the relationships, three categories done dusted. That’s it. So go give them some solutions. And this is where a lot of models come in, sometimes coaching, consulting, affiliate marketing, a lot of models come in dressing in the specific area. But then that’s how you should start thinking and moreover, entrepreneurship is a good thing. It’s amazing thing.

I believe everybody is an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, I talk to people, they tell me working as an engineer and a software engineer, there’s that they give me all kinds of stuff. But I know they’re hustling. They’re the time that juggling their job, they juggling the house. So the elements of a hustle is already there. They’re not relaxing, nobody’s relaxing. Everybody is in the flow. Everybody’s working towards the outcome. At least in Silicon Valley. But I see. So you’re in the valley. I know you. So why don’t you and when I say know you, I mean, this individual who asked this question. Why not put that hustle in the right direction and make things happen? I hope I answered your question now. So appreciate this. This is wonderful.
I want to come back and do more podcast episodes. specifically focusing on things you could do a little bit more granular on kind of businesses that you could start if you want to start but you know the business. I mean, I coach, I train. I mentor, and I’m in this creative side of the economy myself. I think I feel of course, I don’t have a YouTube presence and Instagram presence and all those things but never felt a need for it. I should go back and do those which I’m planning to do this year anyway, but you get the idea.

Okay, that’s all don’t want to drag this out. Wherever you are, be safe. And I’ll be back here again tomorrow, and we will continue the podcast. Thank you all. Bye now.

Lessons From Running This Podcast

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Welcome back to Success with Srini. Today is February 6 2022. Happy Sunday morning to you. Now I’m recording this podcast two days early. And because I won’t be around on Sunday to record so I’m recording this little earlier. Now, because I’m recording this earlier, I have no idea what to say. Because most of my podcast episodes are all contextual things that are happening on that day or a few hours before that day or the day before. I collect all those ideas and put them on the podcast. But because I’m recording this two days early, I don’t know what I have to say on this podcast episode. I don’t think I have much to share.

And today’s podcast episode is not about a success strategy, an idea, a thought, or a story. But to this podcast is about a retrospective. Retrospective is something that you do after you engage in an activity for a long amount of time. You collect all the data, and you start analyzing the data, to make some observations to see things that you can improve things that you can get rid off things that mistakes you made along the way, all of that stuff. So the retrospective we did internally, my business, is this podcast. This podcast restarted on January 3rd 2022. I say restarted because I have done this podcast multiple times over the years. I started in 2016, I did a few episodes, I stopped then 2017, a few episodes, I stopped 2018. Same story. In 2021. I started the podcast, saying that I’m going to do this on a daily basis. I did this for about a month and a half. So started in January. And we went till about February 21 of 2021. And I stopped.

Now, I can give you multiple reasons why I stopped, I started, I restarted, all that. But I don’t think that’s important. Because excuses are excuses no matter which way you say them. I don’t want to take an excuse on this podcast either. But it’s not about restarting or starting. But this is more about what happened in the last three days. So in the month of January, we almost came close to 1,000 downloads of this podcast. So in other words, it has started, so there is momentum in this podcast now 1,000 downloads already happening. Now I do not know these downloads are people searching for the podcast and getting them or this is Apple iTunes pushing the podcast every time it’s published. So it’s all kinds of metrics around it. But 1,000 downloads so far, near about 980 or 970 downloads in the month of January. It’s all good. The best podcast episode was the one where I was on the bed as a result of COVID. And I still record it. That’s the best episode everybody told me, everybody messaged me. There were some questions coming in from the listeners, which was great. I met a few people in some social setting last month, who told me that they’re listening to the podcast, which is also great.

Now, there is one big fear I have. And this has happened to me on radio. And this is something that I’m starting to feel as I’m doing this podcast, which is every podcaster anywhere you go anywhere you look into podcasts, one thing they talk about is subscriber count. And there are many marketing programs that sell you on how to get subscribers. I never tried to get subscribers to this podcast. My challenge is with the existing listeners, if I don’t maintain the depth in the content, the quality in the content, and I don’t keep them engaged. I don’t share old things or new things but in an increasingly fresh manner. If I don’t do that, then people will drop out the subscribe but they don’t listen. So if you’re a subscriber and you don’t listen, that means I’m not attaining the depth. It’s not the number of subscribers. It’s just the subscriber who listens who can use some ideas crossed my mind and a two ways to fix this issue.

The first is that, I keep on accumulating more than I’m sharing, which is hard, by the way. I cannot read one book a day, or I cannot watch one movie a day or whatever, whatever way I accumulate information. I can’t keep up with the production. It’s hard. It’s difficult when you have other things going on. And the second way to do that is kind of take yourself out out of this responsibility, which is getting other people to come in as guests. Because they will provide some great content, and I can kind of pull myself out. Turns out that’s also not that easy, because who will share good content? Who all can you find in their timelines, their availability, scheduling all this hard? It’s hard. It’s difficult. But these are the two observations. And that way we can infuse some newness into the podcast. I’m not saying that there is nothing new. But all I’m worried about is what if I lose subscribers depth. And this is a concern that I have, because I know how this works. Many podcasters don’t understand this. But I know this because I’ve been on the radio.

My biggest worry is not only I want the new subscribers, listeners to listen to my radio show. But then I also want my existing listeners to come back and listen, and listen for a long amount of time. Even with a new listener listening to my radio show for the very first time, I want them to stay longer on the radio show and listen to me. That’s how I build the depth. Some personal observations I made as a part of this podcast after restarting in January, I have to become good at storytelling. I have some skills, but I need to develop them. I need to get control on timelines. Sometimes you take one thing, you drag it out. And as I listen to my podcast, I can see I’m dragging things out. No need to track people get it people are smart listeners. I need to be very precise in what I’m saying. Some repeat words as I speak. Some phrases that I say unwanted. Not necessary. But they’re catchphrases, because I lose my thought that drop in my thought process. I need to come back into what I’m saying.

So I use these words to come back. Not good. I also say, you know, you know, you know, multiple times. I say Right, right, right in every sentence. And, and, and multiple times. I say, uh, um, all that stuff. And I know that because I listen to my podcasts, and you are good when you subscribe to your own stuff. Most people don’t listen to the recordings. I know. Because I have several of my friends on radio, they don’t listen to the recordings, I insist upon them, listen to your recordings, because the recording is going to modify you. Expand you grow you if you take some lessons. These are some observations. I thought of not telling a lot today on the podcast by looks like holy, I’m eight minutes into this. So that’s all I had. I want to make the podcast more real from this point on I have gone back and I’ve listened to the couple of episodes I did during the time when I was on the bed with COVID. And I want to go back and get the same tonality, same inflections that the way I had when I was sick. So I’m going to go back to that, but appreciate you listening to this. You mean a lot me personally, I don’t know if I met you or haven’t met you. But it means a lot to me personally. It feels as if I’m speaking to you. Every day, every day, I wake up in the morning, the first responsibility I have is to record this podcast. And it’s a huge responsibility. But I love this responsibility. As much as I love taking care of my father. And by the way, he just turned 88. It’s a responsibility, but it’s life. It’s wonderful when you do that. So I’ve also started to love the podcasting. And it’s flowing now after one month it’s flowing it just as if you know as part of me now if I don’t do this, then I feel empty, some hollowness is always inside the heart. Like yeah, you didn’t record a podcast today. What did you do with your life? So thank you for being a listener. Thank you for being a subscriber and this is me. This is real me. Sometimes I’m animated here, but I will try not to be animated. I’ll try to be real.

That’s it. That’s all there is to this today. So enjoy whatever of the remainder of Sunday you have. Tomorrow I’m answering a question that has come in from a listener and I thought of doing that today but then I thought I should only talk about me myself okay. So tomorrow I’m going to talk about an incredible question you love it you love it okay so that’s all for now be safe wherever you are and tune in tomorrow. Bye now.