EP 58: Real Confidence- Aging with Confidence

August 06, 2023

The research over and over again at the Institute shows that our confidence peaks when we're 60 years old. We’ve leaned on that statistic for almost a decade now, saying we’re all a (confidence) work in progress until we get to that magic point, that peak of confidence, where we finally don’t care what other people think about us.

I’ve been thinking about this deeply because recently, I’ve been dealing with a lot of things that are making me question, is that really true? But more importantly, why is it true?

Is it because our social circles have narrowed (i.e., fewer people’s opinions to worry about)? Because we have more experience to draw on? Or is it because with each passing year, we get a little clearer on what our priorities are and start living life and expressing ourselves based more on the personal codes we’ve developed than family or social ones?

And can we hasten the process to be confident sooner? More easily? Less scarred?

It turns out that it doesn’t really matter how old you are or how much life experience you accrue.

It’s a matter of HOW you think. Confidence is a result of how conscientious you are of your decisions. That comes with experience but can be accelerated through education and self-awareness.

And a key part of this conscious choice is not just accepting all the advice other people give you – including me – that tell you what you should or could do.

But I do have some things you’ll want to consider based on the research and thousands of people I’ve confidence coached - plus my own (almost) 60-year confidence journey!

Ready to hear real confidence hacks? Listen in.

Episode Transcript

Aging with Confidence

Welcome fellow confidence, crusaders, neuro nerds and success equalizers. This is your podcast, real confidence. I'm your host, Alyssa Dver. And I'll be sharing a bit of basic brain science, some surprising social secrets, and a touch of tough love. Why? Because I believe confidence is everyone's fundamental right and choice. So, let's get to it.

Alyssa Dver:
The research over and over again at the Institute shows us that our confidence peaks when we're 60. So, and we've leaned on that statistic for almost a decade now to say, we're all working progress until we get to that magic point, that peak, where we finally don't care what other people think about us. And it was really thinking about this deeply. Just recently, because I'm dealing with a lot of things that are making me question Is that really true, despite the data, but more importantly, like why? Why do people say that now, my wonderful dog, Georgie is 15 human years old. In other words, he's time seven that in dog years, supposedly, but needless to say, he's, he's old. And he has been rapidly aging in the last 12 months in continents. He sleeps a lot. He's very shaky, and barely walks up and down the stairs, particularly in the mornings, trips a lot. He doesn't like to be touched, he snarls back when you try and reach for him or surprise him. He doesn't want to go for walks. Now all this is sad.

And my heart is heavy, as I'm saying this, but I think all these signs could be applied to people. I remember the last years of my father's life, and I watch even my mother who is extremely limited in her mobility these days. And this was the person who used to run around New York, like it was no big deal. Because, you know, you got to get somewhere. And today, getting her out of her apartment is a big deal. You know, I also, it's not just a physical thing, of course, it's a mental thing. And myself, my sister, all the grownups of that generation, and then all the kids are we make fun of these elders, and their inability to navigate their cell phones and the internet and the semi other I mean, just the other day I was with my mother, because the IRS had kicked back her return her tax return because of an identification thing that they wanted her to do. As I say, thing, boy was it complicated it involves not only uploading a picture from the phone that you're uploading to using, and she couldn't see that she couldn't send me a picture or anything like that. We tried that. But then it did a face scan on that same device. And then we had to pick out particular line items out of her tax return and all those things. I said, you know, there's no way she could have done it on her own. In fact, I was challenged and frustrated as all hell trying to help her and thinking to myself, is that an age thing? Then I'm so frustrated. I'm frustrated that she can't do it. Am I frustrated that the damn IRS expects anybody to do it let alone somebody over 80 you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're stupid by any means. It's just new territory, right? And, of course, it gets harder and harder to adjust to change as we get older. But even my husband is dealing with all kinds of physical challenges right now. It has been very, very stressful and hard on him emotionally.
You know, I look in the mirror somedays and even right now as I'm doing the Zoom meeting, I'm looking at my own reflection guy who is that person? I don't recognize her. Not that she looks old or necessarily tired, but the changes are profound. You know, my body? What the heck? Where did where did that stomach come from? You know, everything's not just sagging, but it's drooping. It's begging for gravity to let it just fall. And, you know, the symptoms that I mentioned with my dog, you know, getting up in the morning and feeling stiff and aches and pains. And you know, it getting old, as they say, as I say, sucks. But we reach our confidence peak at 60. That's what the data said. And so the good news, really, the good news is when you ask people, if they would go back to being a teenager, or even, in many cases, a college student age, or the 20s 30s, or even 40s of their lives, most people would say, No, especially if they had to go back with the same amount of knowledge and experience that they had then, in other words, that they could not apply what they know now to being a 20 year old in a 20 year old body. Most people would say, no, I would not go back. Or I would want to change a bunch of stuff. But again, that is because they're now wiser, smarter, more experienced to have a better perspective. And so, when we ask 60-year-olds, every time we do that study, and we've done it now, four or five times, what is it about being 60 that makes you feel most confident? They clearly consistently say, it's because they don't care what other people think anymore. They let go of that social pressure of the need to belong. They let go of that scrutiny that sense of I've got to be thinner, better, faster, smarter, richer, a better this a better, that achieve more post more frequently. Do things that make other people feel envious and jealous, they no longer feel the need to do that. There is a comfort to who you are and what you are, that you finally get at that age.

Now, is it exactly on 60? I don't know. I'm not there yet. But certainly, what I know now would have made me a much less aggressive, much less insecure, teen, or 20-year-old, it certainly would have helped me get through those parenting moments, where I questioned if I was pushing my kids hard enough or too hard. It certainly would have helped me maybe calm down a bit in the overzealous career work that I did. In other words, either the craziness of pushing myself hard at nights and weekends, to not only not get ahead or perhaps push myself even further behind others that we're finding to be obnoxious or intimidating. So yeah, it would have been nice, I guess, or would be nice to have a little bit of a time machine where I keep my knowledge and brains and all the things I've learned in the almost 60 years of my life, to go back and not care so much what other people think about and do me and do what I feel is right for me at that time. But that's not real. That's not possible. We try and teach our teenagers; we try and teach our 20-year-olds mind just left teenagehood this weekend. So maybe part of this whole analysis is because of that, but we try and teach them these things. But we all know we don't want to hear it, then we don't want to listen to our elders, because what do they know? They're technologically? Not smart. They don't understand. They're not tuned into the world when you're 20. Everybody else knows nothing.

Right? So perhaps that's part of this problem or part of the challenge. Now, in reality, we do care what other people think even at 60 we do of course we do. But maybe we're not so caught up in the petty competitiveness. The I've gotten more you've got less I'm prettier, less wrinkles, this that me other? Or maybe there's a few other reasons. A few other reasons we feel like it finally we can kind of let go of all those neuroses of all those insecurities. Partly because our priorities change, and do they change because we choose to change them or because they just changed. In other words, maybe it's not so much fun to go to a nightclub anymore because you got to stand up and listen to loud me as it can scream over it and feel lousy the next day, right? Because your body just can't handle it. But at the same time, you're like, you know, stay at home watching a movie with my feet up on the couch, it sounds a lot more fun. A lot more social, of course, but a lot more fun. So, I pry priorities changed, you know, our focus on our family, our commitment to our kids, our dogs, or cats, or whoever it is our spouses. And of course, the friends that we keep close, we want to take the limited amount of time we have time is leftover. And we want to give it to those people that matter to us.

So, our priorities changed. And yeah, in that breath, do I care with people that I don't care as much about, you know, those kinds of peripheral friends or the strangers in the supermarket for that matter who may be judging me because I'm not dressed to the nines. But you know what, it doesn't matter. Because of all my cognitive and physical energy, my financial resources, I have clearly made decisions about how to spend those for in with the people that matter to me. I also have that blood awareness now of things that I really don't like, like going to a nightclub and standing up for four hours, or even a concert for that matter. My husband goes to concerts almost, pretty much every weekend, at least once. Sometimes multiple ones have no qualms standing up, listening to music, three hours dancing, about with other people rubbing against me, that to me is just torture. I don't care how good the music is. So, you know, I'm very clear that that's not what I want to do. And if I'm gonna go to a show, I want to be sitting down and if I can't get on the show is not worth it to me. So, knowing exactly, or at least closely, things that you don't want to do. That comes with age.

Knowing things that you're like, hmm it is not worth it. It's not worth it. It's not worth the effort to do XYZ, whatever it might be. Maybe it is straightening your hair, right? I have very curly coarse hair; it takes forever to straighten. And some days like No, I'm not up for it. Actually, most days, I say it's a very rare occasion. It's a rare occasion I do. But you know, you say yeah, I would look really good. But well, that would be really fun, I think maybe the effort. So, as we're getting to that magic number of 60. I think a lot of those pieces fall in place; a lot of those decision points become a lot clearer because of the experience we have. And I find myself almost entertained by the number of choices that I don't have to make anymore. Whether it is the color eyeliner I choose or the particular restaurants that I want to go to because I know what I like. And I don't feel like I'm missing out necessarily all the time by not being with the rest of the world in some loud, noisy, uncomfortable place. Yeah, so I think that's all part of it. But I guess the question that always stands in these podcasts is if we're not in that confidence space, if we're not feeling our peak confidence, and we're getting pretty close to age 60. Or maybe we want to hack it and get a little closer even sooner in our 40s 50s. What can we do? Well, that my friends, you're going to have to wait till after the ad to hear my take on that. I'll be right back.

This podcast was sponsored by the American Confidence Institute. ACI uses basic brain science to teach you not what, what how to think but more confidence. ACI is endorsed by top universities and business experts. And it is accredited by the Society for Human Resource Management, and the International Coaching Federation. Learn more about ACI as uniquely empowering keynotes, workshops, online training, and coaching certification at www. AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com.

So, a magic question. And I probably don't have magic answers, but the magic question is how do we get to be our confident best at any age? How do we get there faster, more confidently? Whether we are about to get to that data point of 60 or sooner? I think the answers are pretty pervasive. It doesn't really matter how old you are, it's a matter of the way you think, and how you think what you think those are different, right? How you think is making conscious decisions, being very mindful of your choices. And not necessarily taking all the advice from people, me included, to say, this is what you should do. Because what you should do may not be what works for me. And vice versa. I also know that what you think is contextual. So, in one circumstance, it may work, reach, you know, you're going to give a presentation, or ask for a raise, and it may work, great to take a breath, count to five, your mantra, whatever your technique is, even use a confidence collection that I have talked about many times on this podcast. But there's days, you may wake up from bad as I did the last few and go. Things just don't feel right. What am I going to do to retract things, generally my life, so that I really do feel confidently optimal?

Well, I'm not going to say that these are the answers, but they certainly can help. And the top of my list is gonna sound a little bit morbid, and I apologize, but I think it's really important, I have this very profound appreciation for staying alive for beating not so much the odds of dying early, but how many people that you know, and I'm sure we all do, that didn't make it that aren't in at our age today, for whatever reason. And the truth of the matter is, is that life is hard. Life is unpredictable. And yes, you know, kind of live only once you only live once kind of thing YOLO. But reality is you're living right now. And I think there's something to be celebrating about that. You're probably breathing, your art speedy. And you probably have a lot of things around you, including people who love you. And it doesn't take an army, you don't have to have, you know, an entourage. And when we're in our 20s we think everybody loves us because they're in our wedding party. While the reality is by the time you get to age 60, there's probably two or three really good friends you have, we know that statistically. So, if you have two or three people in your life, that you could pick up the phone and say, hey, I just needed to talk to somebody, or hey, I just want to let you know, I love you. That's awesome. And celebrate that, too. I think that, you know, wherever we are in our journeys, wherever we are, technically, on our understanding of our phones and our devices, or wherever we are financially or wherever we are in our careers. It's easy to see the people above us, it's really easy to see the people who seemingly have more. And of course, I always question, “Is it a facade? Is it just for a show? Do they have more money, for example, but less love in their life? Quite possibly and it doesn't matter. It's just easier to look up. for some bizarre reason. We're always like, I'm not good enough. Because look at those people who have more or better than I do.

But we don't usually look down, right? And down, or even to the side. People who are in our lives that have real complicated relationships with their families, with their friends with their kids, people who, on the surface, you know, probably look pretty much together but because you know them a little bit better than the average human out there. You know that they really struggle maybe with depression, or anxiety, or their weight or their whatever, fill in the blank. So, not to say that you should celebrate their deficiencies, but maybe recognize that not only are they human, so are you and as humans, it takes us on average 60 years to realize that, that we're human, that we do the same things that everybody else does that we get up in the morning. We go to the bathroom, and we brush our teeth, and we Get dressed one pant leg at a time. And yet, for 60 years, we think that somebody's got a better recipe for that. Yeah, there are people that seemingly want you to believe that. But at the end of the day, we all have the aches and pains; gravity gets the best of us. And at the same time, the reward for that is finally feeling that you are who you're supposed to be, that the world wants you to be this way. And hopefully you do too.

Before we totally wrap up, I want to let you know that full transcripts and show notes for this and other real confidence episodes can be found on www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com/podcast. I also want to remind you once again that the best way to get confidence is to give it to others. And you can do it just by liking and sharing this episode on your preferred podcast and social media channels. You can even give me some confidence by noting topics you'd like me to consider for the future. So, for now, this is Alyssa Dver. Thank you for helping to bring more confidence to the world.

EP 58: Real Confidence- Aging with Confidence

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