- I've been a therapist for many, many years,
and I noticed very early on in my therapy
that every client that came in for whatever issue
behind the issue is the issue of confidence.
I work with many children who come in who are bullied
and several who are bullies,
and behind that was the same issue of,
'I need people to like me.'
And we're never taught in school that the word esteem
actually means how much I like myself.
So when I'm talking to you about confidence and self-esteem,
when we say, "I hold that person in the highest esteem,"
we mean, 'I like him, I value him.'
And we buy all these books and products on self-esteem
without even understanding what self-esteem means.
Self-esteem means how much you like yourself,
how much you value yourself.
And you know what?
Until you really like yourself, nothing else matters.
So if you are lacking confidence in any area of your life
that may be in your career,
that you can't sell, or you can't pitch, or you can't speak,
or you're not very good at going for an interview.
It may be that you can't go for promotion or in your job.
You're not able to speak up and share your ideas.
It may be, in your professional life,
that you're not attracting the kind of person
you ought to share your life with
because you don't feel good enough.
I have some patients who are very confident at work
but terrible in relationships,
because they can put on an act to work,
but they don't feel lovable.
I have other people who have a nice relationship
but a terrible career because they can't get promoted.
I have other clients who seem to be quite arrogant
but they're really convincing everyone else
that they're worth it
because they don't actually believe it.
So the most important thing to do
is to work on your confidence,
and the way you build your confidence is by liking yourself.
So I want you to imagine right now,
if you really, really liked yourself,
how different would your life be?
Just close your eyes and imagine if you liked you,
how different would your life be?
And when I had a young child, was a parent of a young child,
I would encourage my child every day to go,
"I like myself. I like myself."
I'd focus on things she was good at.
I never told her she was good at everything
but I wanted her to feel that she liked herself.
When she came in with a summer dress
and a pair of winter boots and said "What do I look like?"
I'd go, "What do you think you look like?"
Because even at an early age,
I was trying to teach her that what you think about you
matters more than what other people think about you.
And here's what we often do.
We try so hard to make people like us.
We have something on our head that goes "Please like me,"
and that behavior doesn't make people like you.
It makes them take you for granted.
It makes them bully you.
And we often send children out into the world
trying so hard to make people like them
because they believe, 'If everyone else likes me, I'm okay.'
I see that with young women and young men
just new to the dating scene,
trying so hard to please the person they're dating.
And actually, it doesn't work.
What works is going through life
with a something in your head that says, "I really like me.
"And if you like me too, that's great.
"But if you don't, I can live with that too,
"because I like me."
So the thing you need to have phenomenal confidence,
really are two things:
Stop judging yourself and be nice to yourself.
You see the only person in the world
who is judging you is you.
No one else is going, "Oh, look at you,
"and look at what you're doing and that's wrong."
And if there is anyone in your life doing that,
if anyone in your life is judging you, they aren't happy.
Because critical people
have the most criticism reserve for themselves.
They express outwards their own dissatisfaction.
Happy people go, "I love seeing someone fat
"at the swimming pool having a great time.
"I love the fact that they're so happy and uninhibited."
Happy people go, "I love hearing children
"dancing and laughing and making a noise,"
because they're happy.
So critical people
have the most criticism reserved for themselves.
They express outward their own dissatisfaction.
Unhappy people criticize. Happy people praise.
So here's some things
I want you to start doing today right now
that will build your self-esteem super fast.
The number one thing is to praise yourself.
There is nothing, nothing, nothing
that will build your self-esteem like praise.
But your praise, you see
if you have a shop assistant who says,
"Oh, you look really great in the outfit.
"Yeah, it suits you. You must buy it,"
they have an agenda.
If your boss says, "You're amazing at your job,
"but I need to give you work to do over the weekend,"
they have an agenda.
Someone dating you might have an agenda
and your mind knows it.
When you say, "I'm great at my job. I'm smart.
"I'm kind. I'm nice. People like me,"
there is no agenda.
Unfortunately, when you go,
"I'm rubbish at my job. I'm boring.
"I always mess up and have no friends,"
your mind lets that into you,
because your mind doesn't really care
if what you say is right or wrong, good or bad,
healthy or unhealthy.
When you say, "Oh, I can talk to anyone.
"I'm an interesting person. I'm warm and friendly.
"People like me and I can make eye contact.
"I'm good at my job. I can ask someone out on a date.
"I can tell the person I'm involved with what I need,"
your mind accepts that too.
So I want you to start to praise yourself.
I want you to wake up in the morning,
the first thing you go is, "I like myself."
You know, if I go through the day
in the life of many of my patients,
they get out of bed and go, "I look terrible.
"Oh, this doesn't suit me. I've gained weight.
"I should have had my haircut.
"Should have got this outfit pressed."
And they come downstairs
and go, "Oh, I forgot to get milk. I'm an idiot."
"I forgot to charge my phone. I'm a loser."
They drive to work or commute saying,
"I forgot to prepare for that meeting because I'm stupid."
And if you had a friend sharing your life with you
and you spoke to them like that when you woke up
and went through the day going,
"You've ruined that. You haven't got enough time for that.
"You haven't got time to get there. You've blown that,"
they would leave your life very quickly.
Just praise yourself.
You know, we all want to hear the same things.
I can tell you what they are right now.
No one wants to hear "I'm an amazing dentist,"
"I'm the best CEO in the world."
They want to hear, "I'm a good person. People like me.
"I'm smart. I'm kind.
"I'm interesting. I'm intelligent.
"I'm funny. I've got a good personality. I matter."
Here's something very useful to say:
"I have phenomenal coping skills.
"I cope with stuff. I've got great coping skills."
You see, we all have a brilliant brain.
You have a brilliant brain.
When you have a brilliant brain, you have one choice:
rationalize why you feel so bad or talk yourself out of it.
So the first thing to remember
is nothing will boost your-esteem like praise.
Second thing to remember
is the way you feel about anything
is down to just two things:
the pictures you make in your head
and the words you say to yourself.
And the pictures you use and the words you use
form your reality.
And when you change your pictures and you change your words,
you change your reality,
because your brain is always looking for how you feel
because of the pictures you use and the words you use.
If your words are "I'm terrified of speaking in public,"
"It's a nightmare going for an interview."
"I'm having a heart attack."
"Just thinking about asking my boss for a raise."
"I'm freaking out about asking that nice person
"if they want to come on a date with me,"
you are responding to those words,
"terrified", "heart attack", "nightmare", "freaking out."
But when you change the words to,
"I can speak in public.
"I'm going to practice and I get better and better.
"I make eye contact. I'm really good."
You see the words you use change the pictures.
People will go, "I'm not visual. I can't visualize it."
You know that doesn't matter.
The words are more important than the pictures
because words make pictures.
You see when you use very intense words,
"This is a nightmare," "This client is killing me,"
"I'm dying under the pressure here,"
you get a very intense reaction.
And when you use different words,
you have a different reaction.
And if you look at really confident people,
they're not so different from you and I.
They do a few things differently.
Number one is they like themselves.
You can criticize them but they won't let it in.
They go, "Well, you can have an opinion that I'm boring
"or not interesting,
"but I don't have to let that in because I don't believe you."
The second thing is they dialogue with themselves
in a really good way.
They're very good at letting in praise
and they praise themselves.
They're very good at not letting in criticism
and they don't criticize themselves.
If I say, "You're a confident person. I love that speech,"
you go, "Thank you so much. I loved giving it."
If I said that to an unconfident person,
They'd go, "Oh, it was terrible.
"Did you notice that I stuttered on that word?
"And actually, I forgot the best bit."
If you really want to grow in confidence,
when someone gives you a compliment,
say thank you, but then add into it,
"Yeah, I loved writing that, but I love my job.
"I love selling."
"Yeah, I particularly like these shoes.
"They're my favorite."
So when you get praise, don't reject it.
That's like giving someone a gift back.
Accept it and add to it and praise yourself every day.
Just keep saying those things.
"I matter. I'm a good person. I'm smart.
"People like me because I'm warm and friendly and interesting,
"because I like them back."
Let praise in.
Dialogue with yourself in a very particular way.
So talk to yourself differently.
Let in praise. Praise yourself and like yourself.
That's all you need to do
to massively grow in confidence and self-esteem.
Change your words. Change your language.
change your pictures.
Let in praise and every day praise yourself,
and add into that, "I really like myself."
When you like yourself,
you're not pushed into doing the things you don't want to do
to go along with the crowd,
because you're able to go, "No, I don't drink,"
or "I'm not drinking tonight
"because I've got this situation at work
"where I need to be wide awake."
People can't manipulate you
or do things that don't appeal to you
because you have the confidence
to go, "That's not working for me."
And you even argue better with confidence.
So you can say, "I know you want to do that,
"but it doesn't feel comfortable to me.
"That's not what I want to do," in a very nice way.
When you have confidence,
you argue in a completely different way.
You don't have to be bossy or loud.
You just say, "That doesn't feel right for me.
"I'm going to pass."
I promise you. These things will change your life.
You were born loaded with confidence.
All I'm doing is reactivating,
re-manifesting, and regenerating
that phenomenal confidence that you were born with,
and it's your birthright.
Get it back. Use it every day.
It makes your life so much better.
I should know, I had no confidence.
I had very low self-esteem.
I was completely self-conscious and shy.
I felt massively inadequate.
And even in my early 20s, I was still self-conscious.
I had low self-esteem. I had really low confidence.
I couldn't even make eye contact when I talked to people.
In fact, I couldn't really talk to people.
And now I talk to people all over the world.
I address crowds of two and a half thousand people and more,
and actually I have loads of confidence
and I have really high self-esteem.
I'm the same person, I just learned to believe in myself
because when you believe in yourself, other people do.
When you don't, other people don't.
So wherever you are now, I promise you I've been there.
So come on board, change your life.
Thank you for listening.