If you want to walk into any room and command respect without [music] second-guessing yourself, you have to stop trying to be confident and do this instead. I lead a team of over 250 people and speak on stages in front of thousands. But my confidence didn't come from motivation or positive thinking.
It came from discipline. So these are the six ways that discipline builds unshakable confidence that you can have too. Principle number one, confidence is earned, [music] not felt.
I remember very early on in my career, I used to be invited to these dinners with clients who were building businesses and our team, which I was so impressed by. I was 20 years old and I didn't know how to contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. [music] So, I would make up things to talk about that would actually be a distraction to the business.
So, we're [music] at a nice restaurant sitting at a table and I'm talking about my hobby of water skiing or what their kids do for sports [music] instead of actually moving the needle on the business objectives of that dinner. And honestly, I felt bad about it. And so, what [music] I learned to do instead ahead of these dinners is I would prep to understand what the client did, what work we were doing with the client, and understand more about where their business was located so I could understand any regional challenges.
And then I was able to fully show up to that dinner and feel confident, [music] not just sit there and look like I knew what I was doing when I internally knew that I didn't. That followth [music] through, that preparation, and doing this over and over and over again, that's what built my confidence, not waiting to feel ready. Research from Stanford University and the University of Chicago [music] shows that confidence is built through doing, not thinking.
Your brain doesn't believe [music] what you tell yourself in the mirror. It watches everything that you do. Every time your actions match [music] your intentions, your brain logs it as proof that you are reliable.
You can count on yourself. This is why affirmations without the action just don't work. You can't talk yourself [music] into being confident.
You have to prove it to yourself through repeated follow-through. So, let's [music] get tactical. What you need to do is create the list of things that you would need to do in order for you to know that you had [music] the skills and experience of what your goals are.
So, let's say you want abs. What would you have to do today without negotiation in order for you to get abs? Well, it's probably not eating processed sugar.
It's probably going to the gym. It's probably getting your steps in. You have to do those three things, not just meditate and imagine having abs.
[music] You take the idea of the goal of who you want to become and you make very specific [music] things that you do today and tomorrow and the next day and every day thereafter to build in yourself proof that you are who you say you want to be. That brings us to principle number two. And this one completely changed how I see confidence.
Build self-rust. And so [music] that for me really started with going to Pilates, bar classes, and making a commitment that I'm going to show up. I'm gonna show up at a 7 am workout.
And then I became more hardcore and I showed up at 6 am workouts. But I knew that I was going to show up because I did show up. And for me, working out led to business success [music] because I imagined back in 2018, 2019, going in front of an audience and feeling uncomfortable in my body, not [music] having a dress fit the way that I wanted it to, having the light show something that I just didn't like about my body because I wasn't taking care of myself.
And so working out was directly connected to my ability to show up and speak and present confidently. And so those little moments of confidence created selfrust for me and other areas that catapulted my business, my professional life, honestly everything. When I kept that promise to myself, I stopped [music] questioning whether or not I could keep promises to other people.
And Harvard research shows that when you do what you say you'll do, your brain feels stable and anxiety drops. But when your actions don't match your words, your brain experiences internal conflict. That conflict is what destroys selfrust, [music] even when no one sees it.
That's why you cannot outthink broken selfrust. You [music] can read every self-help book, every podcast, hire every freaking coach, but if you're [music] constantly breaking promises to yourself, your confidence will stay fragile. The 1% protects selfrust like it is their most valuable asset because [music] it is.
So identify one promise you keep breaking to yourself and redesign it so it becomes keepable. Give it a clear trigger and fixed [music] timeline. Reorganize your day so that you ensure that it is the first thing that you get done because selfrust only grows when you keep the promises that you make to yourself.
Principle three is [music] about removing what kills confidence the fastest. Stop emotional decision-making. This was the worst emotional decision that I have ever made [music] in business.
We have had a process in our business since the day that we started it about how we [music] interview people. And we always interview them based off of our core values. This one time, we were so desperate to find a team member to help with our events that I didn't fully catch how she changed our process.
Instead of her giving a normal presentation, she submitted a video with her core values. Instead of her looking at me face to face in a room, she sent a video. And six months later, we found out that she had stolen over $10,000 from our company.
She took a trip to Hawaii with her family, put it on a company credit card, and then said to us that it wasn't her, even though the card was swiped physically in Hawaii. And I honestly could have avoided the whole thing if I would have just insisted that we followed our own process. But I didn't because I needed somebody.
I was emotional. And I learned [music] that the things that you put in place, if people can't follow them, there's a reason why. and them not following them is actually reason [music] enough to move on.
High emotion always equals low intelligence. If your decisions change with your emotions, your goals will never feel secure. So define decision rules for when you're tired, you're stressed, you're hungry, or you're making a big decision.
Decide in advance [music] how you will act so that emotion is never making the call. Since then, I've never violated that rule, and we have hired hundreds and hundreds of phenomenal team members to expand [music] our business. And part of that is because I no longer compromise.
Now, this interview process has been a gamecher for us and countless businesses that I've worked with. So, [music] if you're interested in getting our interview process inside your business, find me on Instagram @ Natalie Dawson, and DM me interview, and I will get it over to you ASAP. So, just remember that high emotion always equals low intelligence.
[music] If your decisions change with your emotions, your goals will never feel secure. Now, we're on to number four, and this is where discipline becomes permanent. You see, your behavior creates your identity.
You see, I didn't wake [music] up one day feeling disciplined. Discipline showed up because I made a change. During co, I made five daily [music] commitments.
Quarantine had just settled in and I realized that I didn't have any excuses any longer. I didn't have the excuse of travel for why I couldn't work out or sleep right or eat right or train, do all of [music] these things that I knew were important. my excuse for not doing them entirely went away.
So, I made five commitments to myself that I would do every single day without fail until we [music] got out of quarantine. And those five things included going to bed every single night by 9:30, waking up every single morning before the sun rose, working out every single day, doing [music] sales training every single day, and sticking to a clean diet. You see, I used the chaos of COVID [music] as an opportunity to forge a new identity.
I didn't rely on motivation. I was totally unmotivated. It sucked.
and I had to create a system that removed the negotiations that I was having with myself. I remember nine months after kicking [music] this off, we had gotten out of quarantine and were actually taking a vacation to the Bahamas. I was terrified of going on this vacation and coming back [music] and my discipline just being entirely gone.
But I realized after having a great time on my vacation, maybe staying up a little bit later than I was used to, waking up a little later than I was used to, not fully following my great diet, [music] that I'm still the same person that I was 5 days before. and I bounced right back into the previous habits [music] as soon as I got home. The reason for that is I couldn't go back.
Those new habits were who I was [music] and the level of responsibility that I had because I had increased my discipline wouldn't just allow me to go backwards. [music] I wasn't the same person any longer. And research from NYU and the University of Michigan shows that identity comes from what you repeatedly do, not what you say about yourself.
[music] Your brain builds your identity by watching your patterns. What you do consistently becomes who you believe you are. This is the be do have framework I talk about all [music] the time.
You have to become the person first through your actions. Most people try to change their identity with language instead of structure. They say I'm a [music] disciplined person or I'm confident without changing any of their behaviors.
Your brain doesn't believe you. Your brain believes what it sees you do repeatedly. And so if your behavior and your identity don't actually match, [music] confidence of course feels fake.
So pick one identity you want to embody and ask what behavior would make this identity obvious. If you want to be disciplined, [music] what does a disciplined person do every single day without negotiation? Then systematize that behavior so it happens automatically.
[music] Identity follows action, not the other way around. Next is principle number five. Create internal [music] stability.
What used to mentally exhaust me that no longer does is public speaking. I used to think that just because [music] I was speaking for three or four hours that I would need to conserve all of my energy. I wouldn't be able to make certain decisions after the fact.
[music] I wouldn't even talk to people so that I could save my voice. I really put this box around the work that I did. I will never forget before my first big public speech that was only an hour.
I refused to talk to the girl who was doing my makeup because I didn't want my voice to [music] be raspy. And then I realized at my first event where I had to present for 8 [music] hours in one day and then another 8 hours the following day that it just shattered all of my broken beliefs on needing to conserve my energy. [music] I can work and exhaust myself from very early in the morning to very late at night and be completely fine the next day and do it all over again.
And once I broke that belief for myself, it really wasn't unlocked for my productivity because I knew that I had so much more capacity than I even realized I did. Once I [music] expanded my non-negotiables around energy management, everything settled. I wasn't constantly deciding what I was or wasn't capable of.
That [music] predictability in myself created such confidence instead of pressure because most people operate under these false limits that they've never actually tested. You think you need to conserve your energy, so you hold back. You think [music] that you can only handle so much, so you don't actually push further.
But those aren't real limits. their beliefs that you've created based on fear or maybe a one-time experience, not evidence that you've proved over and over and over again. Internal stability does not come from protecting yourself from exhaustion.
It comes from proving to yourself that you have way more capacity than you think you do. And once [music] you actually know what you're capable of, oh my gosh, confidence becomes unshakable because it's backed by proof, not you hoping. So, identify one belief you have about your limits [music] that you've never actually tested.
Maybe yours is I can't work past 6 p. m. or I need a full day to recover after a big presentation or I can only handle one major project at a time and then do more.
You will likely discover just like I did that your capacity [music] is 10 times greater than what you thought it was. Lastly, principle number six, discipline compounds [music] your confidence. Do you know what stayed consistent for me through boring seasons, stressful seasons, and unglamorous stretches?
Every single night before I leave the office or before I go to bed, I [music] am certain of what my game plan is for the next day. One of my most successful habits that has stayed consistent for me for years is before I leave the office, if it's not done, then it's at least [music] before I go to bed, I do a full review of the next day. I do not wake up in the morning and wonder what I'm going to do that day.
my day from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to bed is [music] fully planned out. And this is important because it helps me see, am I doing what is going to get me closer to where I want to go. And if I am not doing anything in the next day that's going to get me closer to where I want to go, I'm cancing the meeting.
I'm moving the call. I'm pushing [music] off whatever needs to be pushed off so that I can ensure that the next use of my 24 hours that I have on this planet is actually going towards something that matters. Going towards initiatives and things that I know are going to ultimately get me to where I'm trying to go.
And you know that you're prioritizing the right things correctly [music] when what you're doing is actually improving and you're making progress and you're getting closer because you can measure it. I work with thousands of business owners and one thing that is so shocking to me is how they run their day. Every day is fire after fire from somebody, a patient, a client, a team member who needs their attention and time.
And because they've built that mechanism into their day, they don't make time for the most important part of their business, which is likely marketing and promotion or [music] expanding to another region, to another product line. None of their time is spent on any growth. and then they wonder why they're [music] not growing.
This is why knowing what you're doing the next day and having a plan is vital to your long-term success. Long-term studies from University College London and Oxford show that when you're consistent over time, your brain actually rewires itself. Confidence stops being something that you hope for and becomes who you are.
It's [music] not a trait level. It's not mood dependent. It's because your behavior has proven that you're reliable.
Most people chase confidence through achievement instead of consistency. They think the next promotion, the next milestone, the next win will finally make them feel confident. But achievement is actually [music] episodic.
Self-rust is what compounds. The elite don't need the external validation because they've built [music] internal proof for years. So stop optimizing for intensity and start optimizing for longevity.
Build systems that you can maintain even on bad days. [music] That's when confidence grows because consistency survives boredom, stress, and setbacks. I can guarantee that's how you [music] know when you're actually disciplined.
Not when it's easy, but actually when it's hard, and you still show up. If you apply these six principles, you will build the kind of confidence that doesn't depend [music] on outcomes, validation, or how you feel that day. And that's how you become unshakable.
