EP 84: Grateful to be Proud
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:
There's so much media that tells us to be grateful, right? Books and social media, be grateful, be grateful. Why? Why should we be grateful? Well, it's really easy to get distracted, to get enamored with other people's stuff with what they claim to be doing, you know, fear of missing out, sure. But even more so than that, we start to really believe that we're losers that we don't have the best of the best and everything, we should have the newest, the latest, the greatest. And so we feel lousy. Instead of going, wow, you know, I have a pretty great phone, I have a pretty great computer, I have a pretty great husband, I'm pretty great, right? We lament on what we don't have. And so this idea of having gratitude kind of brings us back to that, you know, we really do have a lot of stuff.
And we really are very lucky and fortunate. And I think that there's a lot of good in that. I think that there is a lot of grounding and perspective that we gain. I think sometimes people that complain to me and I they don't have or they want and they can't do this often want to kind of like, pull up a move from Cher in Starstruck, if any of you remember that wonderful movie, you know, knock it off. Right? Just slap them upside the head and say, hey, you're so lucky. Look at all the things you have. And for me, you know, I catch myself sometimes doing that, boy, I wish I had nicer car. Boy, I wish I had an answer this. And at the same time, I'm like, wait a minute, you know, I don't need better stuff. I don't need all anything. Really. I'm pretty great. With what I've got. More importantly, you know, there are so many people, of course in the world who have so much less, in fact, have a minute amount, if any of what I have. And I remind myself of that. Sometimes I'll even watch a movie, like Slumdog Millionaire or something like that. Just to remind myself, you know what, so lucky, I won the genetic lottery, I could have ended up in a very different place. But needless to say, gratitude is helpful. I want to talk about something that may feel almost achy, comparatively, but it's very related. And that's pride.
Pride. I grew up being told that rap, being proud being as little haughty, it's a little selfish, that it's not a good thing to be proud that it's a negative thing. That it can intimidate other people that in most cases the pride is undeserved. Boy, what a friggin warped perspective I've had. Really, the pride is negative. Now pride today we say pride, we think maybe of LGBT and I love the fact that they brought the word back. But let's talking about being proud of yourself, no matter who you are. And I really think that we should own the word. I think we should take pride in who we are and what we do. And if there's something that we are not doing or that we are not proud about, it gives us an opportunity for growth per change, to make a confident decision to be different.
So, again, you can apply maybe some of those same rules of gratitude to things like this where you say I'm proud and you fill in the blank. So if you're proud, my kids are happy. I'm proud that they're confident people. I'm proud I have two successful companies. I'm proud that I really make a difference for lots of people. I'm proud that I have a beautiful home. I even built a beautiful pool as some of you know. I'm proud that we put solar on our house to help cut down our electric footprint, our fossil fuel footprint, right? So it can be things physical things it can be people can be accomplishments. I'm proud of the network that I've built, the people that I know, I'm proud that I maintain that network, that I stay in touch with people that I really like. Haha.
So again, I like that phrase I'm proud of because it really makes you think about things that are not only important of value to you, but your accomplishments, the things that you might even put in your competence collection. Again, for those of you who have listened to podcasts, confidence collection, is that beautiful file of things that makes you smile that makes you remember that you're an awesome human. And that you can pull out on your phone or on your computer anytime you need a little confidence boost. So you can have your I'm proud of file is one of those things, why not? You can put in there anything to write in, in the confidence collection. But specifically, I'm proud of things like my friends, I love my friends. I'm proud of being a good friend, I'm proud of being the kind of person that I've become. Dun dun dun. That's the clinch.
So before I go further with that, I want you to think of not only listing the stuff that you have the people in your life, the things that have happened to you, the accomplishments, your degrees, your certificates, your job titles, whatever it might be all of that. Awesome. I'm proud of blank, fill it in as much as you can. And when you get done with all of those things, this last one that I just dumped. I'm proud of the kind of person I am, I want you to fill that in. I want you to fill that in. And I'm going to tell you a beautiful way to do it. I've shared this long ago in another podcast, but it's the most powerful tool we have at the institute. And I say that because so many coaches have not only used it but told me this. And it will really help you get to the heart of the answer. I'm proud of the person I am because. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, we'll be back I'm going to share that great tool, and we're going to give you that answer.
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Alyssa Dver:
All right, so I'm proud of fill in the blank. I'm proud of what? Again, it's easier. I'm not saying it's easy, but it's easier to think about the stuff you have that you've account that you've acquired, the things that you've accomplished, the people that you have accumulated, I'll use that alliteration and at the end of all those things that you can kind of think off the top of your head and of course you can continue to add to that list as things dawn on you. It's a beautiful thing to have handy. I want you to put I'm proud of the person I've become because. And I want you to feel in why and I don't mean like how did it happen but the kind of person you are because I am what I'm a good friend and trusted. I take care of other people needs. I really want to help and for you. People know that I aim for high quality. Always. I'm reliable. People know that if I say something, I stand by my word, and I get things done. And yes, I've worked really hard to not only be confident, but to help so many others be confident. So that's my list. That's some of the things I would put in my answer. Now, I said, I was gonna give you a tool to help you figure those things out, because it's not always intuitive in your own head. You know, those are easy for me to say, because I've been living this for a really long time. So let me tell you about this tool. And it's gonna sound morbid, but it's the opposite. We call it the Youlogy. But we spell it Y O U.L OG Y, why, because it's about you while you're living. And here's the clench. I want you to sit down in some quiet, place comfortably. And take a piece of paper or a computer, or however you prefer to write, and type out what you would like your eulogy to be if you were to die tomorrow. Like I said, it sounds morbid, but it actually stick with me is going to be one of the most life inducing thing you can do.
So you write out what you would like somebody else to say. And it's easier if you think about who would say these things, you know, who was the person you want to be your spokesperson, and not what you think they're going to say. But what would you like them to say. And you don't have to make it long, it can be a couple sentences, but there's no restriction on length. So just type until you feel like it's a solid youlogy, read it to yourself, I apologize, many times people do cry. And you can identify not only the attributes of the kind of person that you want to be known for, but you might find areas that you're not quite there yet. Those are gold, those are the places that you can start to think about how do I do those things better.
So the eulogy allows you to really think about the kind of person you want to be the kind of person who wants to be known for it in the eulogy, my guess is those first parts of I'm proud of the house I have, the friends, I have the car I drive, none of that's going to be in your youlogy. You may be proud about having them. But it's not about the person you are. So the youlogy really gives us the opportunity to think about the kind of person we want to be, and the kind of person that we want to be maybe the future self. But now we have clues on the places that we need to focus on to work on. And that's beautiful, because we are still living, because we have the opportunity to do that work to be that person. Because we're not dead. So it's not morbid. It's just the opposite.
My friends, I would love to hear from you after you do this exercise. You don't have to share it with anyone including me. But I would love to hear how you feel about it after you do it and the change that you can experience as a result of just doing this relatively simple exercise. Thank you so much for listening today. I would love to hear from you like I said, and by all means I'm proud of this podcast, and I'm proud that we get to share this time together.
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.
Master editing done by Ben Weinstein with original music performed and composed by Jeff Mitchell. Real Confidence is a production of American Confidence Institute. All rights reserved.
