All right.
Hello, everybody.
Good morning.
Good afternoon.
Good evening.
Good day to everybody.
So happy that you can join us.
Hi, Victor.
Hi, Duncan.
How are you guys?
So glad you can join.
So today we're talking about how to stop caring so much about what other people think of you.
Because this issue can quietly shape the way you go about your everyday, the way you speak, the way you show up and even the way you see yourself, so your self-image.
And it can make you overthink before you have a conversation or during social interaction.
It can cause you to replay the situation over and over and over again afterwards and ruminate over it, can soften your opinions.
It can cause you to over explain or even act unlike yourself around certain people in certain situations, and the goal today is not to become cold or indifferent.
The goal is to stop outsourcing your self trust.
So we're going to talk about to stop overthinking, over explaining and shrinking yourself in social interaction.
Okay, so a lot of people think that their problem is that they're too sensitive or too emotional or too affected by people, But oftentimes the real issue is that they're just too aware of evaluation, of being watched interpreted, judged or evaluated.
Maybe their evaluation apprehension is high.
So this can make you overthink.
It can make you over-explain something when you could have absolutely explained it in a short, succinct way.
And it can also cause you to act unlike yourself and question have you questioning yourself?
And second guess yourself and wonder why did I say that, when I don't really mean that, or I don't act that way or I don't gesticulate in that manner?
So in this webinar, we're not talking about being, changing yourself to become cold or detached. really we're looking at how can we become less controlled by imagined or perceived judgment so the goal is not to stop caring completely that should never be the goal because we are empathetic empathetic human beings we are social creatures and caring is important really want to make the distinction early because bad advice on this topic usually sounds like just stop caring what people think a that's not really realistic or possible and B is that really the outcome you want to stop caring probably not so it's not desirable and it's not realistic healthy social awareness is all about being human it's part of being human because it helps us connect it helps us cooperate it helps us to function well in our relationships and friendships so the problem is not caring the problem is chronic approval monitoring constantly trying to seek evaluation and validation from external sources and looking for to other people for what we can tell ourselves so the goal is not indifference the goal is self-trust this is what we mean by caring about people without outsourcing your self-worth to their reactions to their perceptions about you or what you do or what you say or how you are and how you live because that's exhausting mentally and it's also just not a fun way to go about life this pattern is really sneaky because it does not always look like obvious insecurity caring too much right sometimes it looks like being very agreeable sometimes it looks like being polished pleasant prepared or even extremely considerate but underneath all of that when you dig below the surface there can be a lot of self-editing right trying not to be too much trying not to be awkward trying not to be judged trying not to make the wrong impression just putting all this unnecessary pressure on yourself which then can in turn make you want to avoid social interaction altogether because you realize that well i'm doing all this self-evaluation a lot of self-editing is it worth it is it worth getting involved in a conversation or having friendships like that is the narrative people tell themselves sometimes and this is not a place that we want to be because we know how important social interaction is we know how important it is to be social creatures to have a healthy social life and so that we can improve our social fluency and strengthen the socially fluent muscles.
Afraid of judgment, you start managing impressions.
What does that mean?
You become overly aware and I repeat, overly aware of how you sound, how you look, whether you're landing well, whether each of your sentences are polished professional, the exact meaning that you intend to transmit in a message whether the other person approves, whether you said too much, whether you said too little.
How was your tone?
How were your gestures?
Did you gesticulate too much?
Did you underanimate your conversation.
That creates a loop.
The self-monitoring can lead to tension.
The tension then turns into some type of unnatural behavior that you say hold up that I.
I didn't really mean that, I didn't mean to say it, I didn't mean to say it that way.
And that unnatural behavior can make you feel imposter syndrome, it could make you feel like a fraud and it could also even make you feel more self-conscious all of the things that we try to avoid when we're looking to be authentic, socially fluent communicators.
So, instead of relating what ends up happening, you start to perform.
You start putting on a show, a performance, and that performance is usually much less magnetic than the presence that you can exude would be.
So this is why we want to rely less on performance and more on increasing our presence, increasing our charisma and, in turn, boosting our confidence.
And that starts with looking at what we're doing here and thinking about the self-editing, the self-evaluation.
So i'm going to give you a framework, because i love me a framework, and i know that you in the community love these two because they're so practical.
You can just have them in your back pocket, you can whip them out whenever you want and you can also tailor them to your situation, your circumstance, outcome that you're seeking to achieve, and so forth.
So i have this very simple framework called the act framework.
Okay, let's go through this one by one.
So i want you to remember act awareness, center translate.
And this is simple enough to use in real life, which really matters, because when rubber meets the road and you're in a conversation, the last thing you want to do is have some sort of really intricate, really complex framework that you forget how to use or you don't know how to implement.
So this is very simple, very powerful.
So let's go through it.
What is awareness?
Awareness means catching the approval spiral.
You notice that you're starting to look for approval from people outside of yourself.
Okay, then you Center.
That means you Center yourself to your own point of view.
Okay, you are aware of what's going on.
You catch yourself and you nip it in the bud and you Center yourself.
What is your point of view?
What is your perspective?
What are you trying to say?
How are you listening?
What are you listening for?
And then translate.
That means expressing yourself in a calm, clean, and self-respecting way.
And I highlight self-respecting, okay?
And this is the shift that you're going to have from approval-seeking to self-trust, because when you have self-trust, not only are you calmer, but you're able to communicate that much better, because you're not coming from a place of fear.
You're not communicating from a place of fear of evaluation and you trust yourself that, even if you do make a mistake or somebody misinterprets what you say, what's the big deal?
What's the big deal?
It's not the end of the world.
Okay, so let's go through these a little bit more deeply.
The first step is noticing when you have left yourself, right?
And so this usually shows up as thoughts like, did that sound stupid?
Do they even like me?
I being weird?
Am i being too much?
Should i explain that more?
Was that too much jargon?
Does it seem like i am trying to impress somebody?
Okay, the key with all of this is that when these thoughts start to take over, you're no longer fully in the conversation.
You are in self-surveillance mode.
You are starting to leave, leave yourself if that makes sense and you're no longer trusting yourself.
Awareness is simply noticing oh, i'm managing perception right now.
Oh, i'm starting to be aware of evaluation.
Oh, i'm starting to feel a little nervous about how this person is going to respond.
Simply that, simply the awareness.
Okay, so now I have a question for you.
As you look at these thoughts that we may or may not have had in the past I know I certainly have, and I'm sure you have too which one tends to grab you the fastest?
What pops out to you as?
Oh, that definitely sounds like something I said, or in fact, I just said this two hours ago, or thought this.
What's your personal spiral thought?
Drop that in the chat.
I'm curious what you, what you have to say on this matter and if you know your, if you know your personal spiral thought, it's almost like a trigger that you can identify before you even get into the spiral situation.
Okay, so we have.
Am I good enough?
Yes, that's such a huge one.
Such a huge one and one that I think many of us can relate to this idea of not being enough.
Whatever enough is if we're comparing ourselves to our colleagues or our bosses or our social surrogates that we might have and follow.
Did I do a professional job?
That's another really good one.
Right like was I professional enough?
Did they like me?
Yeah, absolutely.
These are so great.
These are so great.
And so if you know what you might think, you can preemptively not think that, right?
That's part of the awareness here.
You can preemptively be aware of what you might think.
We have c.
So once you notice the spiral, the next move is to come back to your own stance, your own perspective.
So instead of instead of asking how am i coming across right, you can ask and said what, what do i actually think, what do i actually want to say, not perform.
What matters here, what's really important here?
Do I need approval or do I need alignment?
Is that really what I'm looking for?
Yeah, Victor says, where could this lead?
Right.
Yeah, and then Duncan says, I'm the greatest.
Do not be overconfident, but feel great.
Absolutely.
Like, we can give ourselves a little pep talk.
Of course.
That's a healthy way to kind of think about self-trust, building self-trust, having that inner monologue.
So this is where you recover from internal authority, this is from external validation and this is where you recover your internal authority.
Right, this is how you start building that self-trust, because it reminds you that you're allowed to have a point of view while being perceived and honestly, that is a huge part of confidence huge, okay.
So then we have t and this is where we move into expression.
So what does translate mean?
It means that what you want to say, that you want to say something in a clear, grounded and proportionate way, it's not being aggressive, it's not being apologetic, it's not being overly defensive and it's not collapsed.
There's structure to it and it's clear and it's self-respecting, right.
So the collapse?
Meaning you're shrinking, you're making yourself less than ironically while asking if you're enough, which is super ironic right, you're not abandoning your, your point under pressure.
So it's clear and it's self-respecting.
You know it's funny because a lot of people think confidence means being louder and bolder and more dynamic and more.
Quote unquote, charismatic.
But often confidence can sound a lot like I have an idea.
Here's my thinking.
That doesn't work for me.
I prefer this instead.
Right?
It's simple.
It's calm.
It's clean.
It's not overly complicated.
It's not filled with explanations or jargon or technical language if it's not appropriate.
And it's something that everybody can do.
So let's make this practical.
Approval seeking often sounds like.
Sorry, this might be dumb, but maybe we could blah blah blah blah blah, blah.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm wrong, but blah, blah, blah.
You hear the hesitancy in the voice.
The tone of voice is not clear.
It's not sharp.
It's not.
It doesn't carry gravitas right.
But what is self-trusting?
Sounds like, sound like i have an idea i'd like to suggest.
Here's my thinking, happy to hear yours.
That's my perspective.
I'm open to feedback.
Or you just put the statement out there and let that stand on its own.
Approval seeking often sounds like a long, nervous defense with way too many details, with over explaining, Overly detailing whatever you're trying to say and your tone of voice.
You're hedging, you're uncomfortable.
You're maybe adding some fillers.
But self-trusting is thanks for asking, here's my thinking.
Kind of like, if you recall from our vocal archetypes a little bit like the disruptor, the pattern disruptor and also the sovereign, but there's also a little bit of the sage in there.
So it's a nice mix and again, you're going to choose your vocal archetype based on the situation that it calls for and the people that you're interacting and what the communication outcome is, what you hope to get out of it.
So the point here is that the difference is not intelligence, it's the way you posture and set up the kind of thing that you want to say right, one version is really trying to pre-manage the judgment, even before it happens, or even if it does happen, doesn't happen, and the other is simply participating in this self-respect that we're hoping to get the self-trust, the self-respect.
So there's a difference there and i want you to start leaning towards the self-trusting versus the approval seeking, because the approval seeking is a never-ending game and it's only going to hurt you.
Okay, this is a huge one.
Stop auditioning in conversations.
When people want to be liked, and we're human, we do want to be liked.
And I don't care if somebody says, no, I don't care about being liked.
I don't believe you because we're human when we feel the need and we say i really want this person to like me, i really want this job, i really want to make a good impression, i really want the hiring manager to like me.
If you just moved to a new place and you started making friends, you really want them to like you, you really want to have these great friends.
Okay, the problem with that is that you start to audition.
What does that look like?
You start to over laugh.
You start to over disclose.
You start to overcompensate.
Or maybe you try too hard for the conversation to go well.
And that's desperation.
And people can smell desperation.
Not physically, metaphorically, to clarify.
But the thing is, connection usually grows faster when you stop trying to force it.
So if you stop trying to force the interaction from going well or from trying to desperately be liked by the person that you're trying to be liked by, professionally or personally, you will have a much better chance at having a stronger connection with the people that you want to have connections with, right.
And why does this happen?
Because it happens when you listen.
It happens when you respond naturally, when you actually state your thoughts and your ideas.
It happens when you stay steady and you don't verge from your perspective, even if people don't like what they're hearing, provided that you say it respectfully, of course.
Happens when you let the pauses happen, when you let the silence happen and when you stop trying to be ideal or perfect, whatever.
That is because this is when people can actually feel you, they can actually understand who you are, they actually get an idea of okay, this is this, is this person.
They believe this, this and this.
I'm intrigued, i'm interested right, and that's almost always more compelling than trying to be impressive.
Don't try to be a carbon copy of somebody else.
And what you think of impressive to you might not be impressive to the other person.
So don't try to be impressive.
Be your compelling self.
And I will tell you this.
There's a very deep emotional truth underneath this whole webinar today.
And that is lot of people care too much what others think because they have unconsciously linked approval with disapproval, with danger.
Right, disapproval and danger are unconsciously being linked here.
If someone doesn't like them, they don't feel safe.
If someone misunderstands them, they feel like they did something wrong.
If someone seems unimpressed, they shrink.
But the thing is part of becoming confident is increasing your ability to survive imperfect reception, because that is a part of our reality.
Not everyone is going to get you, not everyone will prefer you, not everyone will approve of you, and we have to be okay with that reality and it does.
It also does not mean that you automatically need to correct yourself, change yourself, improve yourself and all of that.
When we start to internalize that, that is freedom, that is the ultimate freedom.
You can survive being unliked.
You can survive being misread.
You can survive being misinterpreted.
You can survive it.
So I want to leave you with this, something practical and hopefully memorable, three practices.
Okay.
So the first thing is I want you to pause before over explaining.
This is really important, so notice.
When you're trying to add an extra word just because you're afraid of being judged or evaluated or misinterpreted, then i want you to let the silence exist.
That's a very important part of social interaction.
You don't have to fill every bit of air time just because you are worried about feeling awkward or strange.
And then the third thing, I want you to replace the question, do they like me?
Am I good enough?
With, do I like how I'm showing up?
Do I like how I'm showing up?
Okay.
This question is going to bring you back to self-respect, then the final takeaway is this the goal is not to stop caring what people think it's undesirable and frankly, unrealistic and unachievable.
The goal is to care without abandoning yourself.
That is true freedom, that is true confidence.
Not about perfect approval.
It's not about perfect reception because again, this does not exist and you're not going to be liked by everybody.
You're not going to be perfectly received by everybody.
That is a reality and that is okay, and i really want you to just self-trust while being seen.
Imagine you still cared because you're human, but you trusted yourself just 20 more.
What would change at work?
What would change socially?
What would change in your relationships?
I want you to sit with that and if you're in the community, you can comment on the post under this and share that with us.
What if you just trusted yourself 20 more?
If this resonated with you?
I want you to remember this.
You don't need to become somebody who never, ever cares what people think.
I want you to think about instead becoming somebody who can care without abandoning yourself, because this really is true confidence.
And like I said, true freedom.
So hopefully you can take these into the rest of your day.
You can think about how you might go about your next social interaction with through the lens of not not caring but not abandoning yourself.
So, caring but not fully abandoning yourself, and remembering that you don't need to be perfect.
That doesn't exist.
We're really looking instead to achieve the best we can achieve.
Okay, so i have a worksheet that i really want you to complete.
It would be really great because this is a self-trust worksheet, so it goes through.
You have an audit here and then you say okay, where does this show up the most?
What are the situations where I care too much?
What do I tend to do in those moments?
So this is a communication log that's going to help you become more and more aware and help you build that self-trust.
And then the act reset here what does the approval spiral sound like in my head?
You've shared some great ones in the chat today.
Thank you to my wonderful participants.
What helps?
Bring me back to my own point of point of view, center myself, and then what would a calm, self-respecting response sound like instead?
So this causes you to really sit with yourself.
And then I have a seven-day self-trust action plan.
I really would.
I encourage you to fill this out and answer this question like what did i learn about my communication patterns from this exercise?
What does care without abandoning myself mean for me now, now that i know this, this is a great thing to complete and then we can share our findings, both in the community and when you come onto the live call with me, because it's going to be so.
There's going to be so much there for you to unpack, for us to unpack, and great self-awareness as well.
So, thank you so much for joining.
Um, i love that.
I love that this resonated.
There's some really great points in here.
Yes, trusting yourself a hundred percent, being empathetic, absolutely not having issues with what other people think.
It's true, it's true.
If it's possible absolutely, and it is possible, as we know.
Um, trusting your feelings yeah, very good, very good.
So, complete the worksheet and then we will.
Would like for you to share that in the community and that way we can, you know, develop it more and build on that as well.
All right, my friends, thank you so much for joining.
I see people typing still.
So Yes experience,
Yes, absolutely.
Experience does help.
And that's why it's really great to keep a communication log like this.
I always mention that because that way you can look back.
You can look back and analyze your patterns.
You can think about where certain behaviors come up, where certain feelings of judgment or evaluation come through.
And that way we can recalibrate our communication accordingly.
Okay.
Thank you for joining.
I see people typing so I'm not able to close the screen yet.
All right.
All right, my friends.
Yes.
Trial and error.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for participating.
Thank you so much.
And I'll see you in the live AMA and also in the community.
