EP 100: Real Confidence- 100 Episodes: The Milestones that Matter

March 02, 2025

Friends, we made it—100 episodes of Real Confidence! And because I believe in practicing what I preach, I’m doing something different. No guest. No script. Just me, pulling back the curtain on what real confidence looks like when you hit the big milestones because I’m hitting one myself.

I’m turning 60 in two weeks (!) – the age research shows that we human beings reach peak confidence!

Six decades of life, 100 episodes of this podcast, hundreds of confidence coaches certified and countless moments that have shaped what confidence means to me right now.

And guess what? It’s not what I thought it would mean AT ALL.

You already know from listening to me that confidence isn’t a destination. It’s not something we “arrive” at just because you’ve done the reps or racked up the awards.

Confidence shifts. It deepens. And sometimes it throws you a curveball just when you think you’ve got it figured out.

So, what actually matters when you hit the big milestones? What do you keep? What do you leave behind? And how do you push forward when the doubts creep in—because, yes, they still do.

This episode isn’t about looking back. It’s about what’s next—for you, for me, and for the confidence we build every single day. Let’s get into it together, including the biggest lessons - from my powerhouse guests to moments that nearly made me quit.

But before we get into that, thank you for being with me 100 episodes in and 60 years now in the making of who I am and practicing what I preach.

We got this.

Episode Transcript

EP 100

Alyssa Dver
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:
Dude, I'm always looking for our reasons to celebrate something like, what the heck? I don't care what holiday it is, what kind of milestone it is. I love to celebrate whatever, and then with anyone at any time. Especially now, right? I don't care what side of the political aisle you're on. World is a little bit stressful right now and again. It doesn't matter what politics you follow. It doesn't really matter what country you're in. There's just so much, how shall we say, stress in everyone's world, because between what's going on politically, got the wars. There's just a lot. I don't have to go through the litany, you know what it is, and we're all kind of walking around a little bit numb. You know, everyone I talk to is, is, how are you? Is that question nobody really knows how to answer right now.

So looking for something to celebrate. What the heck? I got two big things here. One is, this is our 100th episode. Holy crap, 100th episode! Now we do two per month, which means that we've been doing this for a couple years. And it also means that we've been doing a lot longer than most people, because the average pod doesn't live past a few episodes. Now, in truth, I've been doing podcasting for 20 plus years. In fact, when I started in video casting my basement, my husband was the camera man I was, just recently had given birth to Zach, who's now 25 and we were doing a show called Mom Matters, and I say show, then we took it onto cable, and the local cable channel was carrying it. So it was, I don't know if you call it video cast, but it was certainly on the internet. And done several podcast, true and audio kind of based podcast, for a long time. So when my American Confidence Team, the ACI team, came to me and said, you know, like, let's do another podcast series, I was like, No, thank you. Been there, done that, not interested. And I think I must have said it two or three times, but by the third time they brought it up as something that really would be great. I was like, alright, we'll give it a try, and here we are, 100 episodes later. Holy cow.

So, you know, I have to say, in thinking about this episode, I was like, you know, why do we do it? Why? Why do we continue to do it years later, 100 episodes later? Is it because it's fun? I don't know, yes and no. I mean, it's enjoyable, but it's work, of course, and we have to find the guests, we have to or the topic, depending on what kind of pot I'm doing, we have to certainly do the editing and all that stuff. But we've got it down to a really pretty straightforward process. So that's not so bad, but it is definitely cathartic. I find it a very great vehicle for kind of thinking through things and maybe even letting some stuff out. And I love it when people come back and tell me how much they enjoyed the podcast and something that really helped them. That just makes me so happy.

I really love the guests we've had, and we get to interview we I I'm so lucky. I get to interview these amazing humans that just come into my orbit. And sure enough, it's very clear to me that not only do I think they're cool, but when we get them on the podcast and we get feedback on how cool they are like, yeah, they really are cool. And, you know, 100 it's kind of hard to go and pick out ones that really were cooler. So these are not cooler. These are just ones that I thought were particularly unique and interesting. And, you know, Episode 88 we had Bourbon Reed Nelson from the UK on, very cool. He's the founder of you and yours boudoir and body confidence photography. We talked about how he gets people in a space that's so confident, that they actually take off their clothes. And I been to London, and I wanted to see Mervin, and we didn't get a chance last time, but next time, and I just told him, I don't think I could go. Go that far, but one never knows, right? Needless to say, it was great interview, and what a special person, really, really interesting.

Episode 77 I had Rebecca Yang. She is based in the US. She's somebody I met in an MIT event. And boy, I was blown away by her experience. She was a diplomat. She had worked in Afghanistan and subsequently in Turkey, and dealt with political coups and other things as part of our embassy efforts, and then came back and organized a group to really take on some real political strife and just, you know, incredible human again, that had some stories, but more importantly, showed what kind of confidence she needed to really do the things she did. And then at the end of the interview, was a real zinger about something that threw her confidence off. So I'm not going to spoil it here you gotta go listen to episode 77.

Episode 35 was a friend of mine that I got to meet as a result of the pod chaos. Now, Aiden Miller, she's up in Canada, and she was just really cool, because we got to think talk about what a toxic boss is and how to deal with one. And of course, that's a topic that everybody tune into. So again, check that one out as well. That one goes back to 35 but any and all of those episodes that I mentioned or I didn't mention, I have to say there was something in those that really kind of gave me a sense that we're all in the same boat together, right? That we all have confidence challenges. We have confidence ups, we have downs, ebbs and flows, and at the same time, we really can learn from each other in particular, how to be more confident that we can overcome hardship. And there were many, many guests that I had on that overcame absolute, unbelievable hardships. And you know, maybe you could say they had bad hands. They were given bad hands, cards of hands, of cards or whatever. But you know, for whatever reason they they had to deal with things that were just so unfair, so unreal, and yet come out the other side with not only a motivation to do better, to make the world better, but to make themselves better, but a positivity that I just can't even fathom in some days, that like, you know, you go through such hardship and you have the opportunity to come out very angry, very frustrated, and yet these folks come out just the opposite. So hats off to every guest I've ever had. I have some amazing ones coming on soon.

Can't wait for you to hear some of those stories and people and things that were we recorded, that were soon to record. And yes, I am absolutely celebrating the fact that we've had this beautiful journey so far and so much more that we will have together in this 100th episode.

But there's something else I want to celebrate, and I hope you will celebrate this with me, because in two weeks from this day that I'm recording, actually, it's a little bit more than two weeks now, but by the time this airs, it'll be about two weeks I turn 60 so and I think about that, I'm like, what that happened? Because I think in our all our heads, we live in us a younger space. We live, you know, in a place where we think of ourselves as a younger person. And I'm like 60, that is so bloody old, like 50 was old, but 60 is, like, you know, old. But I do know that it's also the time that we have researched, time and time again, that confidence peaks. So I may be a little bit lucky that I got to study and learn about confidence a lot earlier, but there's some things that I think I only really put together recently that I'm excited about to really kind of live by as I reach this big milestone of 60.

So I'm going to share these things with you that aren't necessarily things I wish I knew before, because I don't think I would have really appreciated them then, honestly, but things that I know now that hopefully will help you to start targeting your own. Rain in this direction. So the first one on my list, here we go, is most people don't notice most things, and what I mean by that is they're probably not going to notice your shoes or that you have a hair out of place, or that you said something accidentally, and in some cases, sure they're going to notice but most of the time, they don't. So we spend an awful lot of time, especially women. I'll just throw that gender assumption in, so forgive me, but I we spend a lot of time worrying about how we look, what we say, what we do, what we don't do, and in most cases, people don't even notice. So that was first thing is maybe not be so, of course, wrapped up with what they think, but also recognize that they're probably not thinking.

My second AHA is that it is impossible to be completely self aware without imposing your own bias. So whether you think about yourself and or not for that matter, but if you are like, I'm a very generous person, or I'm a very XYZ person, whatever, fill in the blanks, it's really hard to see yourself without bias, and most of the time, we will underrate ourselves. You know, I'm not that good at or I'm really not that talented. I'm really not something. We underrate ourselves more often than we overrate ourselves, right? oh, I'm so good at what this now, again, we could throw some genders identities in that, not gender identities, but gender assumptions in that, you know, do women do one or other? Men do one or other? It doesn't matter, because, truthfully, it's just because we're not really able to see ourselves transparently, authentically in how we show up. So do assessments help? Sometimes, does asking other people to help? Sometimes does really sitting down and thinking through about how you acted or didn't, what you did or didn't do in a certain situation? Yeah, of course, all of that helps. But I guess the message here is that even if we are, quote, self aware, give yourself a little leeway, that maybe you underestimating yourself, or, in that case, maybe even overrating yourself, but that self awareness itself is maybe a little overrated. Do you? Do you? And don't worry so much about all the self awareness stuff that you hear everywhere.

Alright. Number three, are you ready? This one may blow your brains, so just buckle up for this one. But it is proven in the neuroscience world that we actually create our own memories and truths in our brain. So two of us, you and I, could be in the same place at the same time and experience the same thing, watch a show or whatever it might be, and then a day a week a month a year later, remember it very differently, and it's because our brains have created different memories for us based on what happened before based on what happened after, based on all kinds of data that goes in, based on maybe some traumas and things that we've decided to not open or compartmentalize those things so they stay in the background and subsequently Create a different version of the truth between us. So what does that mean? It means that arguing with somebody that that's not like how it happened, or when they accuse you of not remembering something accurately, is just kind of realizing that maybe you both don't have the accurate memory, and you've created your own versions of the truth, right? I don't know if that can avoid a whole bunch of arguments and fights, but I sure hope so, because there is a possibility that you're both quote right, because you're both wrong.

Uh, four, number four. We have a finite amount of energy, time and resources, money, connections, whatever it is in terms of resources, we have a finite amount. There's not an unlimited amount. Unfortunately, we can't recycle our own energy. We can't really reuse our time, right? So how we allocate it that's so important, right? Like how we make decisions and how we're going to spend our time, our energy, our resources, and if we don't use a little bit of those things to decide how we're going to plan for our day or week ahead, we can waste a lot of it, right? If we don't manage our calendars, we don't take control of those calendars. For example, yeah, you know, email or social media or phone calls or texts or whatever it is, all of a sudden our day is eaten, and we're like, we're so busy and we were so we didn't get anything done. So not saying you have to get stuff done all day, but if you're saying to yourself today, I am going to do X, Y and Z, which includes sitting on the couch and reading a book for an hour, or spending an hour with my child and really going through their homework, or sitting down and reading a story.

If we don't proactively do those things, we've spent that energy, time and resource, I did a podcast way back when on opportunity costs, and that's what this is. And I think, you know, obviously, the older you get, you start hearing that clock ticking, right? Oh, I only got so much, so many hours left in my life. But reality is, this is everybody's got 24 by seven, right? 24 hours, seven days a week. And if we really want to live according to our values, needs and wants. We have to make sure that we not only identify what they are, but plan to really live to them with the activities that we have in our day to day.

Now I have one more one more biggie, but I'm going to hold it, I'm going to let our sponsor give a little love here, and I'll come back and I'm going to tell you about the big one that I'm kind of like AHA on my big birthday. All right, here we go.

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Alyssa Dver:
Alright, we're back, and I was going through some of these, like aha moments that I've recently gone like, okay, I get it. I can appreciate this, and I can start to live better accordingly. And this one is kind of like, uh, kicks every conventional thing in the ass. Because, you know, people walk around now like, I can't control the politics. I can only control so much. I can only control what I can control. You know, all these versions of that phrase that basically lets them off the hook and says, you know, I can't control everything. Well, you can't control everything. It's true, you can't control everything, but you can control a lot, and oftentimes we don't even try. And what I mean by that is, I gave the example before, you can control your calendar, and most people don't. They just stuff their calendar with stuff, and they're like, okay, I'm busy and it's good. Busy must be good. Well, no, if you control your calendar and you put things on it that you really want to do, that you value doing, that's much more control. If you say to yourself, you know what, three nights a week, I'm going to block off my calendar, and I'm going to make sure I sit and read, or I go and do the gym or whatever it is that's important to you, that's taking control, right? So we can control those things for the most part. Can't control if there's an emergency. Can't control necessarily, if your job makes, you know, makes it really hard for you to block out time depends on what you do for a living, of course.

But the one thing that we often don't try to control is our thoughts. And everything that I've taught through these 100 episodes has been about taking control of your brain and telling you a brain, you know what? I love you, brain. You're awesome. You do the most phenomenal, absolutely unbelievable. We're still trying to figure out how you do it. All kinds of things. Make my heart be you give me breath. You help me understand what love is. Allow me to feel loved. You allow me to think and be brilliant, all these things that you do brain. Thank you, but I'm the boss, and I get to decide not only if I'm going to choose to be confident, but I get to decide if I want to be this kind of person or not, if I want to behave in this certain way or not, if I want to believe in certain things or not. I have that agency. I have that control, but most people don't even try.

So instead of saying there's so much in the world I can't control, think about it this way, there's a lot of things in the world you can't control, but you can control you. And so on my 60th birthday, if I have one wish, if I get to blow out the candles on a beautiful cake, I hope, maybe my sister will make my favorite hint hint that one wish is that we all take responsibility for ourselves and worry about us, because if we worry about us and less about other people and what they think of us, if we worry less about what they're doing for themselves, if we worry about our brains and what we're thinking, I do believe that the world is going to be better, would be better. I do believe we would have a whole lot more confidence in the world that we would have less war, less hunger, less famine, less everything. So my friends, thank you for being with me 100 episodes later, 60 years now in the making of who I am and what I preach. I'd love to hear from you feedback on this or any of the podcasts, and please celebrate in your own way, for whatever reason you can find, and if you need one, you can celebrate my 100th episode and my 60th birthday. Thanks for listening.

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 100: Real Confidence- 100 Episodes: The Milestones that Matter

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