EP 102: Real Confidence- Being a Sucker Sucks Your Confidence

March 30, 2025

There’s an awful feeling we all know—being taken advantage of.

You know the one. It hits when you realize you’ve been pushed into a decision, and you’re left questioning, Was I just tricked into doing something I didn’t want to do?

It’s the regret that follows, and it makes you question: Am I a sucker?

I’ve felt it, especially when dealing with high-pressure situations, like buying a car. The dealership pushes you to make a decision on the spot, and though I’ve done my research, I still wonder if I was manipulated into a choice I wasn’t fully confident in. It’s a feeling I try to avoid, yet we all experience it in different ways.

This feeling doesn’t always come from those obvious, high-stakes situations either. It can happen in quieter moments, too—when friends, family, or even institutions we trust subtly push us into decisions. Maybe it’s a charity asking for more than you’re comfortable with, or an event that makes you feel obligated to give more of your time than you want to.

Even the smartest, most confident people can fall into these traps. I’ve watched as others get scammed through phishing schemes, tricked into believing they were doing the right thing, only to lose money or worse. It happens when we’re vulnerable, when our brains are not fully online and the fear is driving us into decisions we wouldn’t normally make.

So what can we do? We already feel like a sucker and now we feel even more vulnerable.

The key to reclaiming our confidence here is simple.

Listen in for my take on how we take our power back, find clarity and build the confidence to trust ourselves so the choices we make feel right, not pressured.

Episode Transcript

EP 102
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:
I don't think anybody wants to be considered a sucker. In fact, some of us, that's the prevalent driving force to a lot of our decision making is we don't want to be taken advantage of we don't want to make a bad decision because somebody else convinced us to do something that sounded good or was manipulating, and we later find out we regret that decision. And for those of you who follow the Confidence Institute work, you know, regret along with the fear of failure and the fear of rejection being all related, of course, is really the fear that challenges our confidence.

So we go to buy something, for example. And the obvious example in this discussion is buying a car, leasing or buying or whatever you're doing, firsthand or secondhand, doesn't matter, and you go to the dealership. Now, of course, this is very much US centric. I haven't bought a car elsewhere yet in my life, so I can't say that this is the same in other countries, but in the US, it's the most disgusting process for the most part. Sure, there's new vendors out there, but the traditional way, that's still the prevalent way, is that people go to a dealer and they look at the car, they test drive the car, and they get all kinds of pressure to buy the car, all kinds of manipulation tactics, you know, the price is going to change. We don't have stock. That car is not going to be on the lot, if you wait, all kinds of crap like that. And then when you get down to the negotiation on the price, and people in my family always take me to go because I'm ruthless. Ruthless, because I can't stand this process. It's so baloney to me that somebody could walk into the dealership buy the same car and get a completely different deal.

In fact, my recent car purchase, I was smart enough to really narrow it down to what car I want and the very specific features that I wanted. And I went to three different dealers, and I say, I went to one dealer, tester of the car and everything, and I called these other dealers who I knew had that exact car on their lot, and I said, here's what I want to do. I want to buy that car. I want to buy it within the next 24 hours, and I need your best deal. And the guy that swore to me that he was taking a loss on the car in the dealership that I went and test drove was $200 per month more than the quotes I was getting. And when I went back and I said, dude, you know what? Like, you gotta come close to that to even have a conversation, he's like, it's not possible. Now, truthfully, at the end of it, I felt pretty good, but I also wonder maybe there was more margin in there than I was aware of. And you know, part of this whole car buying scenario is the fact that you have to be willing to walk away maybe do a little extra work to get those bidding wars going. But it's just so horrible because you leave and you always wonder, did I get the best deal? Did I do my best negotiation? You know, did somebody else come in after me and get a better deal? Probably, but at the same time, you know, is that car or whatever you're buying worth what you're paying for and you feel good about how much you settled on is really the the ultimate goal.
You know, it could be anything I wanted to mattress store with my husband not too long ago, looking at mattresses. And it was the same kind of manipulative. What if we do this, and if we give you that, and this deal is good for this much time, and you start to get nervous, right? You start to almost like shake a little bit. Oh, my god, I gotta make a decision. And you know, I'm smart enough and old enough to kind of know this game, and so I don't always fall for it. And I say always, sometimes I do. Sometimes I do. And you know, I've also been through lots of sales training myself. So I know that these reps are trained to create what they call pain. Pain, and in some cases, latent pain, as they call it, that is this pain that you don't even know you had, like you know, do you sleep with your on your back and wake up with a dry mouth, like all these things that you didn't even know you had a problem? And subsequently, if you don't buy that minute, you're still going to have that problem forever.

You know, my sister and I went to Sedona not too long ago. Sedona, Arizona, we had a great time, and we paid an enormous amount of money to get a facial, but it was a spa that was really highly rated, and we were going to spend most of the day there at the pool. So the price was kind of like, okay, it's covering everything, right? Well, we get into the room with this lovely woman who's going to do our facials. And we had the same woman just at different times, and she did the same thing to both of us, which was, try to upsell us on a fancier facial, as if, you know, 250 bucks for facial wasn't insulting enough, you know. And my sister was like, how could they do that? And I was like, well, because people, one on one, like that, when they're in the mood, or they're feeling like pressure, or they're feeling like they are too cheap or too stupid or too whatever, will cave into that and then subsequently do it, and may or may not feel regret afterwards. It's all too unfortunate, you know.

And I'm picking on like, products and services. But you know what? We're suckers in lots of ways too. Like, how many times have you been suckered into doing something because a friend was like, well, it's the right thing to do, or because it's a family member, and you're like, well, it's family. I should do that thing I really don't want to do. Maybe you're in a project team, and because everybody else is doing something, you feel obligated to do something too or you have a particular title, job title, you're like, because I am this, I should be doing that. I don't know, I don't know about that. You know, you're starting to smell and hear, I think, a little bit of this peer pressure in there, little bit of guilt, shame.

What about religion? Let's talk about the ultimate shame, right? Is when that ask for revenue, whether you're in a temple, and you know, the somebody on the Bema, the President says, you know, you need to join as a member or contribute in some way, or that they're in church and the cups are passed and, you know, there's always this, I should be doing more. I should put as much as the guy next to me. Or is there a way that I can fake it so I look like I'm giving as much as I should, but lot of shame, a lot of lot of peer pressure, a lot of thought that you are not doing enough, not doing what everybody else is doing, and subsequently, again, you get kind of suckered into doing something that you don't really want to do.

You know, even the smartest people myself I'd like to include in that statement, but some, some smartest people I know, and I'm related to it, fell for fishing schemes. You know, the the old drive to an ATM to deposit money so that it's protected. And next thing you know, you're out money because you were in the panic state and your brain was offline. So yeah, when you're in that fear moment, your amygdala is not only screaming, but you're ignoring her or him, and subsequently, the brain stem is taken over and just reacting, instead of that beautiful prefrontal saying, Wait, time out. This doesn't smell right? This is a stinky fish, right? Or, you know what? I don't need that mattress that badly. So we're all subject to feeling a lot like suckers. I mean, there is this fear, I think, that we're not going to be cool, we're not going to fit in. We're not going to be considered okay, whatever okay means smart, rich if we don't do something, and subsequently we get suckered into doing it.

And again, there's a lot of people out there, sales people in particular, that are trained to put us in that spot so that we do react and buy do something that we really don't want to do against our own values. Now, one could argue that there's lots of reasons why our decision making is compromised. It could be that we're very tired. Certainly it could be that COVID, long, short, medium COVID, did a number on us. There's there could be a lot of reasons that you know, we'll never really know, quite honestly, but in reality, has it gotten worse over time? And I don't know. I think there's more people trying to manipulate us. I mean, certainly social media, social media feeding on our fears, right? I mean, I know myself when I go on vacation, sometimes I flip on a TV, which is kind of a luxury for me, and I'll be watching like QVC or home shopping, and I want to buy everything, you know, I am dial away from cleaning out my bank account, because I have to have whatever they're selling, right?

So those have been around a long time, you know, but more and more we have situations people, and the more the economic situation is dire for people. Of course, they feel maybe less inclined or less guilty that they're doing it to other people. How about all those people on the other side of the phishing scams? Right? You watch some of the documentaries made about these people in the call centers in various countries that are just taking advantage of people, young people, old people, people in the middle, right? It's just disgusting, but they don't seem to mind. It doesn't seem to bother them. But I think part of it is that they kind of know it's their own sense of survival on the line.

So are they suckers? Oh yeah. Are we being suckered by them? Way too much, way too much. And I know how horrible it feels. We all do when you've been suckered. It's one thing if you're the only one who knows, you feel terrible, but it's really horrible when other people know, right? You paid that for that, right? Or you were phished. Are you kidding me? You're smarter than that. So not only do we feel lousy about not having the wherewithal to be non suckers, but then we get the life sucked out of us by people around us thinking that they wouldn't fall for the same thing. And the truth is they do all the time. We just don't always know about it. So what I'd like to do, as always, is give you a little breather of my voice. Well I lie, because a lot of the ads are my voice, but needless to say, little bit of music before my voice, and we're going to give a sponsor break. And then when we come back, I want to talk about some ways that maybe we can reduce our suckerism, if not eliminate it, all right, we'll be right back.

Want to level up your confidence, your career, maybe even your coaching. Well, then head over to AmericanCnfidenceInstitute.com, E-classes are there, as well as our coaching certification program. And you don't need any coaching experience to do it. However, if you are an experienced coach, you can get ICF and SHRM continuing credit. It's fast and easy. If you work in an organization, consider bringing in a kick ass Keynote or uniquely engaging workshop. We also have team learning programs, and they all apply to both your personal and professional life, which makes them really special. They're great for ERGs, the leaders, the member programming, or really any type of professional learning and development in your organization. So give us a holler at www.AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com.

Alyssa Dver:
Okay, so how are we going to not be a sucker? How are we how are we going to avoid being taken advantage of, particularly by people who've been well trained to do it right? And you know, there's some obvious answers, and then there's some not so obvious answers. And I think one of the obvious answers is to cut ourselves a little slack, because it happens to everybody, if it's gonna happen to you, if it hasn't already, and in some way, shape or form, this is just, unfortunately, the society we live in. But hopefully it doesn't happen a lot, but if it happens once or twice, you know you're human too. Sorry for giving you that news. But can we learn from those mistakes? Of course, we can. Of course we can. Can we look at those and say, Boy, that was just dumb. I'm not going to do that again. And it could have been a lot worse, and I'm glad it wasn't worse, and I'm going to prevent it from happening. And that was an expensive lesson, but it could have been a lot more expensive. Sure, we can do that. But I think more importantly than saying that, is figuring out how we're going to avoid it, like, what is it that we're going to look for? What is it that we are going to put some prevention in? So for example, maybe when somebody asks you to transfer money, you call the bank first, or you call your spouse or partner or friend or somebody that you say, this doesn't smell right. What do you think? And get a second opinion right? That's a really important thing to do, because that other person's not under duress. And so hopefully their prefrontal is working, and they can say to you, Alyssa, that just doesn't sound right. So learning how to do that, finding that moment where you say, okay, when this happens, I'm going to do X.

So you have, like, a plan, like an emergency plan, just like you would have a plan to get out of your house if it was burning, you need an emergency house. Emergency house. You need an emergency plan when your sucker spidey sense is burning, right? Not always easy to do. You don't always know what's happening. But if you're going to buy something particularly a large, costly thing, like a mattress, a car, a house, something that could be stressful in and of itself, because you're spending a lot of money, but stressful because the people that are in those businesses tend to be very manipulative. So I can't promise you that I'll be with you every time, but maybe there's somebody in your world that can go with you that, again, doesn't have that vested interest, and can be the voice of reason. That can be the person that says, hey, slow down. Don't do that. Or let's, let's do the math on that. Or, wait a minute, car person that doesn't seem like a an honest statement, right? You can kind of call out the situation. So bring a buddy, bring a buddy. Bring a non emotional, non invested buddy, and their only investment is really keeping you safe and protected and guilt free, so that you don't walk away going, boy, that was dumb.

Now research can be your best friend, and with something like that too, right? Go in knowledgeable. Know what something costs, know what you're willing to pay for something, know what the market, the competitive opportunities are, know that you can go in with an upper hand. When somebody says, you know, you're not going to find this deal elsewhere. And you say, yeah, actually, I did so research going, you know, again, with a big purchase in particular, going into that situation with a lot more knowledge. Now here's the real big to do, in terms of avoiding bonehead decisions, which is, just take some time to think so, separate yourself from that particular situation. You know it's going to be stressful. You know you're in the heat of the moment and being able to say, I'm going to take some time overnight to think about this. I mean, I think most of us do this. If you get a job offer or something else and you're like, let me think overnight. That's a way of saying, I really need some time to get my prefrontal back online. Not always possible, right? I mean, job offer probably, but like, if you're in a hot housing market and you're making a decision whether to buy a house, you may not have that time. So again, you need that research. You need to go in fully prepared. But if you can afford, so to speak, to take some time do it, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, if they put pressure on you that this deal is only good for so many hours, or you have to make a decision because somebody else is going to get it. Practice the law of, if it's meant to be, it will be, and I need more time to think about it, because if I don't, it will be potentially disastrous for me. All right, so not only giving yourself permission, but insisting that you give yourself the time to settle down the amygdala and really think, Alright, my friends, I know we're just kind of scratching the surface on this, but being a sucker sucks. It just sucks. And if there's any way we can avoid doing a deal, take buying something, taking, you know, going out of our way for somebody, and then letter regretting it. Boy, I'm all in so I'd love to hear your suggestions. As always, please hit me up online, and I hope, I hope, next time you go to buy a car or mattress or something, a little bird in your head says, Remember Alyssa said, take some time think. Don't rush into things. Alright, have a good day. Be good and always bring confidence to the world.

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 102: Real Confidence- Being a Sucker Sucks Your Confidence

Join Our Free Trial