Fake vs. Real Confidence

Hello everyone. And welcome to gay men going deeper. This is a podcast series by the gay men’s brotherhood, where we talk about personal development, mental health, and sexuality. Your hosts today are the lovely Matt, beautiful Callan and myself, Michael. Okay guys, today we are talking about self confidence and specifically we’re going to shed some light on the difference between fake confidence and real confidence.

So we’re going to look at what it means to be truly self confident, how to tell the difference between real confidence and fake confidence. What are some unique challenges we face as gay men on this topic? And then we’re going to share some tips on how we can develop real confidence. So our goal is that by the end of this episode, you will all be feeling a lot more empowered.

And, and so I’m really looking forward to this chat today, boys, okay. For everyone out there to our audience, we want to hear from you too. So we’ll be continuing this discussion on Thursday, December the 30th, where we host our gay men’s brotherhood zoom hangout. This is where we give you guys a chance to share your own thoughts on this topic that we discuss on the podcast.

And so this month in the gay men’s brotherhood, our topic is empowerment and we’ve got some really fun episodes lined up. This is just the first of three. I cannot wait to get into these with you. So join us on December the 30th to join. All you gotta do is go to the gay men’s brother had Facebook group it’s free and then check out the events tab and make sure you RSVP.

We’ve got two time zones for you. So if you’re not in north America, that’s okay. We’ve got you covered. Okay. Before we jump in, we want to do our traditional review from one of our viewers. So this one comes from YouTube and he left us this comment on our self-acceptance episode. It says, wow, I really love this dialogue.

Self-acceptance is a journey, not a destination. This resonates with so many of us being gay. We face a lot of trash from society, and I still struggle with learning to love and accept myself. I need to choose myself and be authentic and learning the homophobia infused by religion is a lot of work and loving your channel all the way from Southern Africa.

So this comes from FOBA. I hope I’m saying that correctly. I apologize if I’ve not, thank you so much for your acknowledgement. And we also love making these episodes for you. So great reminder, this podcast is supported by listeners and viewers like you. If you enjoy these episodes and want us to keep making more for you, please, please show us some love.

By going to our Patrion page. The link is in the show notes where you can become a patron of the show and get some delicious perks for as little as $2. Okay. Without further ado, let’s jump into today’s topic. So self-confidence, this comes up a lot, as you can probably imagine in the gay men’s brotherhood, Facebook group so much so that we actually made self-confidence one of the pillars of the gay men going deeper membership.

And I know that Matt Callen and I have all three of us dedicated, many hours of our coaching videos to this very topic. And for me, I’ll say this it’s very personal. It’s no coincidence that I help others build their self-confidence because that was my biggest struggle growing up. And it still continues to be a struggle for me. Let’s not lie,

right? So, you know, a little bit of my story is I’ve always felt like an outsider growing up even before the gay thing. So before the gay thing even showed up in my life, I still, I felt like an outsider from the, from as long as I can remember, I was that quiet, shy kid. And I was always,

always more interested in books than sports. I liked being alone more than hanging out with people. You know, I was picked last in gym class, all those things that I’m sure a lot of you can resonate with. And so I, myself never believed that confidence was for me and ever believed myself to be confident because I attributed that with these other kids who were popular athletic and all those things.

What I know now of course is that self-confidence is not at all about being popular or athletic, nor is it about being wealthy or famous or attractive. So begs the question. What does it mean to be truly confident? Okay. So first I want to distinguish, I want to make some distinguished and some distinguishing factors here between self-worth self-esteem and self-confidence I know this is a little technical,

but I really think it’s a service to everyone out there to kind of distinguish what these are and I’ll teach it really quickly in a nutshell, the way I, the way I like to decipher it. Okay. And then we can jump into the self-confidence. So first self-worth self-worth is the fundamental knowing that you are a valuable human being worthy of love and respect your self-worth is non-negotiable.

It just is your worthy period. No argument. Now of course you can feel more or less worthy from time to time. But the fact is your worthiness is always there. You’re worthy, I’m worthy, we’re all worthy and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. It doesn’t change. Now self-esteem is the appraisal of your self-worth. So if we’re the,

this is always an eight, we always, we don’t always feel a hundred percent worthy. Of course. So that is your perception of yourself. So your self esteem is your perception of yourself. It has to do with your thoughts about yourself. And of course our perceptions change and therefore, so to can your self esteem, it can, it can change over time and it,

it does. And then your self-esteem influences how you interact and show up in the world, which brings us to self-confidence. So self-confidence the way I like to define it is your trust in yourself and your ability to deal with challenges and engage successfully in the world. Self-confidence is very, very fluid. It can change moment by moment. It can change. I can be self-confident about one thing and completely not confident about other things.

So it changes a lot. Okay. So to recap, self-worth, doesn’t change it just it’s static. It’s always, it’s always there. Your self-esteem changes based on your perception and your thoughts about yourself and does change over time. And then self confidence is very fluid and varies situation to situation. So then what is true confidence? Okay. The way I define it is it comes from within it’s an inside job.

And that is a nod to a podcast that we did called the inside job. Go listen to that one. When you’re done this one. So confidence is an inside job. It does not come from your job. Title does not come from how many degrees you have. It does not come from how many guys you fucked. It does not come from your waist size.

It is all about trusting yourself and having your own back. No matter what, that’s, what I like to tell myself is I got your back. Michael, that’s something that I say to myself as a, as an, as an affirmation for confidence, I think true self-confidence is empathetic. It’s compassionate. And it’s forgiving, especially, and especially for yourself,

especially for yourself. So it’s about self compassion, forgiving yourself and being empathetic with others. The way I define true confidence is that it’s directly linked to courage and your ability to be vulnerable. I think a truly confident person will, will face emotional pain and they’ll face challenges and they’ll face discomfort. They don’t shy away from it. They know that it’s part of life.

They will face these things head on with a belief that they have, what it takes to, to overcome it. And that’s not arrogance, right? So it’s like, I’m willing to face this discomfort. I’m willing to be in this emotional pain because I know that that I have what it takes to overcome it and I can get support often means asking for help as well.

Okay. That’s what I want to say about it. I’m really curious to hear from you guys. So let’s go over to you callin, what does it Versus there city can be like, Hmm. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but he’s going to ask for me to As like, he’s going to go first. Okay. So to be truly self-confident so there’s a lot to unpack with this.

I’m sorry. I’m just going to get comfortable across the legs, right? Oh boy. Self-confidence so I’ve I worked with this a lot just because I struggled with self confidence, God, my whole life, because if I wasn’t being the ginger kid than I was being the overweight ginger gay kid, like it was just always everything packed on top of itself.

So I didn’t start off being confident. And my family also didn’t set me up for that competency there. I had two older siblings who constantly ragged on me and just man, like beat me down. Not like not physically. Sometimes I did have an older brother, but like mentally and emotionally, like it was just always like, I was just always like the piece of crap,

younger sibling. And it was really hard to get my head out of that because I, like, I was overweight. I was ginger. I did have all of these things kind of like working against me. You could say so that didn’t start off life in a good direction. And those thoughts continued through a lot of my, you know, youth.

And then as I matured into, you know, teen and adulthood, and I really had to do the work myself to undo a lot of that and it it’s taken and it still takes so much time, but it’s taken years and years and years for me to get to this place where I do have that innate confidence inside of myself and people nowadays will say like,

wow, you’re intimidating the confident. And I don’t know how to take that because I guess it’s just like, I’m so grounded in my confidence now. But that came from years of doing the work and laying the foundations. And for me, self-confidence, isn’t just one thing I’ve been working with a client and this was their number one thing that they want to work with because they were moving into a different,

different job sector. They were taking on more responsibilities, doing all these things. And they didn’t think of themselves as a self-confidence person. And so a lot of the work they’re like, oh, I want to do this and this and this. And like, I want to be this person who’s effortless and walks into the room and is just confident and can speak their mind and you know,

how do I do that? And it’s like, okay, well, it’s not just going to be one thing that I tell you and you can go off and be confident. It’s not just, you know, fake it till you make it. It’s so many layers of different things and it’s never the thing that you think is going to be. And so for me,

a lot of it comes from, you know, what are your core values? What are your core beliefs? What are your, you know, that like, you know, what are the things that you judge about yourself? What are all these internal dialogues that are going on? And a lot of the work has to be done over there first to figure those things out before you can get to that place where that confidence is.

Because the only reason I can have that confidence when I walk into a room full of strangers and I still get shy, like I’m still at heart, I’m still shy person just because I like to be quiet. And I like to observe when I go to a party, I’m not going to be the life of the party. I take my time to warm up.

And then once I decide that it’s safe and I feel comfortable, then I can be like, you know, a little bit more confident and out there, but like it takes time to build all that kind of stuff up. So by doing all of that work, it built me up to have this self-confidence. And for me, that self-confidence came from habit building and continuously growing the things that I wanted to grow.

And it came from hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of repetition building towards the things that I wanted to do. And I think of it as, you know, any person doing any job out there the first day they do that job. They are not perfect. There’s so many things that they don’t know. And so many things that could go wrong or that do go wrong.

But if you get somebody who’s just starting that job versus somebody who’s been there for 10 years, of course, that person who’s been there for 10 years is going to have confidence because they’ve been doing it. They know it like the back of their hand, that took thousands of hours to build towards. So when I really focus on, you know, being truly self-confident,

it’s not just something that you just have, or you don’t, it’s something that for me is a practice and whatever I do, it’s a practice even doing this, the podcast, like, because the more we do it, the more confident we get with it. And even still, like, we talk about how it makes us nervous and all these other things,

and we’ve been doing it for over a year. Now. It’s something that just takes time. Maybe in five years, it’ll be like, oh yeah, no problem, easy peasy. But like that took time and repetition. And it took feeling uncomfortable and getting into those like Akia zones and not feeling like you feel like your belong or faking it a little bit.

That’s what it is when everybody starts something new, you faking it a little bit because you’re like, I don’t really know what I’m doing, but you’ll learn. You’ll grow. So self-confidence for me is just the inner knowingness that you’re allowed to fuck up, but you’ll get there eventually. And that where you are now is okay, because you’ll continue to grow to that place of self-confidence.

So it’s just having that kind of in you to be like, I’m not the coolest person in the room. I’m not the best one here. I’m not the everything, but I am me and I’ve done the work to figure that out. And that’s what really matters. And I think for me, that’s where the true self-confidence come from, comes from is getting to know yourself on such an intimate level that like,

you know, all the things and that you keep discovering new things about yourself. And then that reflects that words. So, yeah, that’s my long-winded. What does a does self-confidence truly mean to me? What about you, Matt? Well, first off, just want to say that the thing that stood out for me in, in your field with habits,

because I really think that self-confidence is, is a collection of habits. And I think the, the primary habit when we’re, when we’re self-confident would probably be self-compassion right. We’re in a habit of self-compassion because it’s like, if we’re constantly drawing on our shortcomings and, and being mean to ourselves and being hard on ourselves, then it’s going to be almost impossible to develop self-confidence.

So I do think that there’s this element of being gentle, being gentle with ourselves and allowing ourselves to be giving ourselves space to be all that we are. You know what I mean? Like I think we, we all have strengths. We all have shortcomings. And I think a self-confident person is going to not all other strengths to throw them into ego and grandiosity and a self-confident person is also not going to let their shortcomings throw them into a shame spiral.

So I think there’s this like equanimity of like dancing between these two worlds of allowing yourself to be all that you are. And I think, you know, for me being a perfectionist and I still have these flavors, they still keep coming up. It’s like, holy crap. Like when is this finally going to purge? You know what I mean? But again,

that’s part of my, my, my, my thing is it’s like, I’m not giving myself compassion. So I’m like, I’m waiting for this, this perfectionism to leave. I’m judging myself for being this way. And for being too hard on myself. And I think perfectionism really is really tied into this for me because my perfectionism was very much misguided by my ego.

Right? My authentic self didn’t feel confident. So I had to overcompensate with ego and I had to become more egoic in order to, to make myself feel confident so I could do the things I needed to do. And now I’m kind of dancing between these two worlds of like really letting my ego become more flexible and not be so attached to my ego identity and becoming over into my,

my authentic self. And it’s, it’s really, I’m probably the most confident right now than I’ve ever been in my whole life because I’m allowing myself to embody my shadow and I’m allowing myself to embody my light. Right. Which would be these two elements of who I am. And I think for so long, I used perfectionism to keep my shadow in the closet.

And that just wreaked so much havoc in my life because my shadow needed a voice. It’s this part of me, this fearsome feisty part of me that needed to come out. And it’s actually from this shadow self that I was able to initiate things like boundaries and confidence and these things believe it or not, they came from kind of that more like tiger in me.

So I, I do think, you know, within, within my confident nature now I’m still, I’m still moving between the two. I still have. I still get some of my confidence from ego, but it’s becoming more few tile. It doesn’t hold as much value. And I think the area where I’m getting more confidence is by being authentic and having reflection of like,

I love you in your authenticity, like my own reflection of myself, but also people reflecting back to me how I make them feel by being my most authentic self. And I think there’s, there’s something that has shifted for me in this. And it would be, there’s an absence of self judgment. Now I used to judge myself a lot for everything that I did.

Nothing ever felt like enough. I never felt like enough. And I think as soon as I stopped judging myself and I started really drawing on the things that make me, me, my strengths, the things that I’m doing well, and those started to kind of lead when I thought about myself, those are the things that are now leading, whereas before the things that I didn’t like about myself were the things that I would lead with.

So I’m giving space for both of them to be there, but I’m, I’m usually now drawing my attention toward the things that make me wonderful. And, and that’s allowing me to really step into more confidence. So, But I mean, we’ve, we’ve all talked a little bit about that compassionate piece, the empathy empathetic side, you know, I agree self-awareness is the foundation.

Like you, you need to know who you are and then all of who you are. And I was just thinking, as you guys were both talking, like thinking back to the episodes we’ve done this, this entire podcast is about self-confidence. If you think about it, because every episode has some kind of nod to, to, to it. And I think regular listeners and viewers of this will probably just as a byproduct to start to feel more empowered to simply by listening to,

to this. And especially if they’re in the group as well. Okay. So we’ve talked a lot about the real or true self competence. Now let’s take a look a little bit about how to distinguish between real confidence and fake confidence. And there’s so many ways we can slice and dice this. So what I want to do first though, is, is just note that it’s not,

you know, we’re, we’re looking at it through a very black and white binary blends right now, but the reality is, of course it’s a spectrum. No one is in the real category and someone else’s in the fake, like we all myself included go back and forth day by day, moment by moment. Sometimes I’m in complete fake confidence. Sometimes I’m more closer to real,

but the reason why I want to kind of do it this way is simply just to explain and to present it in a way to illustrate the difference. So whatever you do do not use this segment to beat yourself up. As Matt was saying, it’s just simply for self-awareness too. Okay. So, you know, there’s a lot of ways that I wanted to do this,

but I thought of four ways in particular that I think are most common, I would say for a lot of the people that I’ve, that I’ve dealt with and worked with. So the first one is the way you look at failure. So when you’re in fake confidence, you see failure as something that decreases or diminishes your self-worth and therefore it must be avoided at all costs.

And I’m saying this because I’m that guy. So this is speaks to that perfectionism aspect, right? So we do not want to fail because we think that’s going to, it means something about us versus real self-confidence. This is what I work towards is looking at failure as an opportunity to learn and evolve failure on its own has absolutely no impact on your self worth.

Because if you remember, your self-worth is intact, that can’t be changed. So failure is just a result of an action, that’s it? And you can learn from it and grow from it, and it has no impact on your self esteem or self worth. So that’s number one. The second thing that I like to look at is your view of others and specifically others’ success.

So when you’re in a place of fake confidence, you’ll know because you will see others success that you won’t like. It it’ll mean something. Again, it’ll mean something lacking in you. It’s a bit of a scarcity mindset. So someone else is succeeding. Therefore it takes away from my ability or my potential, you know, and you’ll notice cause you don’t,

you don’t, you kind of feel, you don’t want to see other people succeed. You don’t want to help them. And in fact, sometimes you might even sabotage them or try to take the spotlight away from them as a means to try to get that back. Versus when you’re closer to real confidence, you can be inspired by the success of others.

You know, that their success has absolutely no impact whatsoever on your potential, on your ability, on your talent and your skills, nothing at all. And so when you’re looking at it from that perspective, you’re more likely to be able to help them. You’re more likely to want to help them if you can, of course, with proper boundaries. And then of course you can share the spotlight very easily and you can give credit where credit is due.

You know, coming from a corporate background, this was definitely not the case. In my particular job, it was a very much striving and, and trying to take the spotlight from others. And I did this look what I did like showing off our accomplishments in projects. And it was not a culture where we could show the spotlight. So that one brings very true for me.

The third one is, I don’t know how to say this, but how you, how you treat your relationship with, with knowledge. So think of it as like having no at all vibes. So when you think your way is the only way you’re likely in the realm of fake confidence, you know, that means you’re not open at all to, to listening to other opinions or ideas.

And when it comes to criticism and feedback, you take that as a very personal attack. It really hits hard. Versus when you’re closer to the real confidence, you were adopted, beginner’s mind mentality where you kind of treat everything like you’re open and willing to learn. It’s a bit more of a softer vibe. It’s a bit more humble. Like, you know that you don’t know,

like I know I don’t know this, but I’m willing to learn. That is true confidence. And you’re open to receiving feedback. You know, you’re open to learning. Sure people are going to criticize you, but you can take that feedback and take that criticism without it making it mean anything about you. So I want to be very careful here. This does not mean you roll over it and take whatever gets thrown at you.

That’s not what I’m saying, but you can look at it and say, okay, that, that is their lane. That’s their opinion. There might be some truth to it. Let me look at it. Let me observe that. Maybe there’s some truth. I’ll take it. I’ll take what resonates, leave the rest kind of thing. So I’m not saying be a rollover,

okay. Or an saying roll over it. And then finally your relationship to vulnerability when you’re in fake confidence, vulnerability seems like a weakness. And so you’re not willing to go there. And in fact, actually all these things that I just listened to kind of go under this umbrella of vulnerability. Yeah. I think what I’m in a place of, of,

of fake confidence. I’m not going to, no, I’m just going to avoid this more ability. I’m going to layer it with some masks of all the things we talk about. Perfectionism people pleasing, all that versus in the space of real confidence. I think that you can embrace vulnerability because you know that it’s, it is a strength. It is not a weakness.

It is a strength. So that relationship, that shift. And again, I want to reiterate we’re all on a spectrum. You know, I’m not sitting here saying that I’m preaching the real confidence all the time because God knows I’m not. Okay. So those are some ways that I like to distinguish it. Let’s hear from Matt this time. Yeah.

That was a really, really juicy one. I liked the last one. Vulnerability is huge. I think the relationship with vulnerability is going to really indicate whether you’re in fake confidence or authentic confidence. I think that’s a big one. So I like that. I too want to just preface that, you know, this isn’t about shame. This is about the journey of development.

This is personal development, right? We all do this. We all have fake confidence. We all have authentic confidence. And there is absolutely no way not to be as human beings because we fake it till we make it. We’re creatures of mimicry. So we, we develop efficacy in ourselves based off of watching other people do things. And I think that’s really important to note.

I think confidence is it’s very dynamic. It’s not static in nature. So it’s constantly ebbing and flowing. And I think people who are, who tend to fall on the spectrum of being more confident, they allow that ebb and flow to take place without judging themselves. And I think people who are more in this in authentic confidence, they’re putting a lot of pressure on themselves.

And it’s from that place of pressure that they’re comparing themselves to others. They’re not willing to be vulnerable. They, they tend to have more of like what would be like a fixed mindset, right? Which is I can’t make mistakes. If I make a mistake, I’m a failure. I’m not, you know, I failed, right. I’m a failure here.

That’s the difference. Grow with mindset. On the other hand is, is allowing room for mistakes. Having inflowing there’s a really wonderful book by Carol Dweck called mindset, Just writing notes as to what I was going to talk about. That’s exactly what I’m putting down. I love that That book mixed with gifted imperfection were, was the initial opening and expansion to me letting go or healing through my perfectionism.

So highly recommend that book by Carol Dweck. Yeah. And there there’s this. I, you know, I just, I think of this, you know, authentic confidence is somebody who just gives themselves a lot of space, energetic space. There’s also this dance between like humility and dignity when you’re authentically confident because you know that your confidence, if you enter a different arena,

your confidence could go from a hundred to zero, right. Or maybe I wouldn’t say zero. If you’re, if you’re naturally a confident person, let’s say it goes down to a 70%. Cause you’re trying a new task. You’re, you’re, you’re practicing beginner’s mind and you’re giving yourself space to be that. And I think people who are, who are authentic,

they, they tend to be able to dance really well between humility, which is being student and dignity, which is being the teacher. And I just love these two concepts of implying a lot with them in the last few years. And specifically, since getting involved with you guys and being a co-creator, I’ve had the dance between these two worlds, right?

Like when am I going to put the hat on of the student and let you guys lead? And when am I going to really step up and be a leader? And I think, I think that’s, that’s probably the biggest learning for me. As far as my own journey towards self confidence is just giving myself space, you know, to be insecure.

I think part of being confident is giving yourself space to be insecure because there’s a lot of things in my life that if I enter the arena, I’m, I’m insecure. And I’m like, oh, you know, even before I do these, like I get anxious. Like what if I say something and it sounds stupid or whatever, you know, that that stuff is still alive.

But my last point is, is this whole notion between ego and authenticity. And these are the two, the two mechanisms we have inside of us. And that’ll never change. We just learned to draw our attention and become more flexible in certain areas of these domains. And I think the ego, my ego is an actor, right? He acts confident,

he plays roles. He narrates in my mind. And my authentic confidence is when I, when I pull my attention away from that and draw my attention towards my body, my heart, right? How does my energy want to express itself in this moment? And that’s where I’m learning true. Self-confidence is the embodiment of confidence, which is getting out of the stories,

getting out of the narrator in my mind, which is the ego and giving myself more space to be flexible in my definition of what it means to be self-confident again, there’s no shaming of either, or it’s about giving yourself permission to be both because that’s the human experience, right? The human experiences, we get to be the human and we get to be the spirit as well.

So my spirit embodies itself. Whereas my human self comes to my mind and my ego. And that’s still a really beautiful way to interact with the world. It’s just not one that I want to be my predominant experience because I find it that’s one where self-confidence is very fragile for me. And I like more, I like the sticktuitiveness of my confidence when I’m embodied in it.

Yeah. What about you callin? I know you got somebody. Can you guys, so like literally when Michael is talking, I was like taking notes and like being like, oh yeah, this and then that book Carol Dwight came to mind. I was like, yes. Mindset by Carol Dweck. So though, and you said it, I was like,

of course, cause we’re constantly on the same vibes. Great book. Great, great, great book. If you’ve not read it, you can go. There’s this great app called Libby, which is free through libraries. I don’t know. I’m, I’m pretty sure it might be in the states, but it’s definitely in Canada. You can get your library card,

you can sign up, you can get download free eBooks and free audio books. So that’s actually where I borrowed it and I listened to the audio version because I like to listen to those things on my walks, but like that book huge impact on my life as well, because I definitely did have a very fixed mindset in regards to how I did things.

And failure to me was like something I did, like I was wrong. I, I did something bad. And that book opened my mind to the idea of like a fixed mindset or growth mindset. And having that growth mindset is, and my new mantra was I’m learning, I’m growing. And I had like, I’ve implemented that for the past two years since I’ve listened to that audio book of like I’m learning and I’m growing.

And the amount that I’ve learned in grown in this past two years has been insane simply because I’ve been telling myself I’m learning, I’m growing. And when I faced something that could be perceived as a failure, that’s when I take a step back and I go, okay, if I’m going to perceive this as a failure, I also have to be willing to look at where I can grow from it and why it happened.

And if I can do that, then it’s not truly a failure. It’s learning and growth moment where I can push myself to go further outside of my boundaries. So yes, absolutely love that book. So glad you brought that up. And I think of this as like, there’s this quote, I CA I have no idea who said it, but the mind is like a parachute.

It only works when it’s fully open. And so that’s how I think of these things that it’s just like, if your mind is not fully open to those possibilities, it’s your, parachute’s not really working properly. You go and crash and burn real bad. And so, gosh, I took so many notes. Okay. So vulnerability Mike, because you guys just have so much good stuff.

So Michael, I loved the way that you broke it down. They were so clear and concise. And I think that the listeners got a lot from that because I got a lot from that because I was like, damn, this is good shit. And I love the part where you were talking about vulnerability because being willing to be open and to look at those things.

I think that that to me shows a lot of true confidence of a person like when I’m out and I’m meeting people, it’s the people who are willing to be quiet and to listen and to absorb and to be vulnerable than that speaks true confidence to me. And those are the people you enjoy having conversation with. And, and the people who are kind of like faking it till they make it.

Like there, there is that play that we all go in between. Like we’re human beings, it’s an interaction. It’s, it’s just how life goes. But the more you can sit in that kind of, I like to say the quiet confidence of like, you don’t need to be the loudest. You don’t need to prove everyone that, you know,

the most that you’re the smartest. That, to me, isn’t a true, confident that to me is you’re grasping for approval of others through this. And then that’s going to feed that confidence. And that’s a very ego based thing. I very much like to see that, and that can be there. Cause like, you know, you speak your truth,

but it needs to be in that space where it can also be open and vulnerable where you’re also taking the time to sit back and to listen and to absorb. And I call it being willing to come to the table. You’re willing to come to the table and sit with anybody and to have a conversation, to have them speak their truth and to listen and to absorb it and then be able to discern what belongs to you and what doesn’t or what fits and what doesn’t.

And it doesn’t mean you need to push them away or ignore or shut it down. It’s just cool. This isn’t for me, I’m going to put it over there. But at least I understand now. And I think a lot of confidence comes from true understanding, which I said this before. It doesn’t mean you agree. Understanding is learning to understand,

to figure out why somebody might be a certain way, but it doesn’t mean that you take that on board. And it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or whatever. It’s just listening is understanding. It’s not an agreement situation, but all of that comes with being vulnerable, being open to that space. A lot of this, I also think of in terms of Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this really great book called big magic.

And it’s kind of about the artistics, the artist’s journey and how, when she wrote eat, pray, love, that’s kind of the biggest, the be all end, all like that was such a huge book that she’s like, well, how the fuck do I, you know, how do I keep going? Like what, what do you do after that?

That’s like a life it’s like a, Lifebook like you, you’re never going to do another eat, pray, love. And so like, how do I do it? And so she talked about this concept of the genius and how it’s only in recent human history that we put the genius inside of ourselves. Whereas the genius really used to be something that was outside of themselves.

And that, you know, I think it was the old ancient Greek days where somebody had a genius, they worked with a genius. And so when she was writing E a big magic, it was kind of like, okay, I’m going to show up. I will physically show up. I have my book ready to write. I’m going to write,

I’m doing my job now. Genius. I’m making an agreement with you to show up and do your part of the job. Because I believe that, you know, we are the universe and ourselves, and all we are is the tap. And that the universe is the water that pours through us. All we need to do is turn the tap on.

And so when you can have that thought process as well, that helps you tie in the ideas of learning and growing, because that can help you be in a more vulnerable space where you put this stuff outside of yourself and your failures are no longer belonging to you. You aren’t owning them and like wearing them like a badge of honor, you’re going, okay.

This is an experience I had that was outside of myself. I am not the failure. I experienced some sort of a failure, which is two very different thought processes. And it goes along the ways of fixed versus growth. When you experienced the failure, you then have the space to learn and to grow from it because it’s outside of yourself. You’re not taking it on personally because I find when people aren’t in that open space,

they’re not in that growth space. They’re not willing to kind of come to the table. They live a lot in the fear and anger, because it’s almost like it’s almost like they’re afraid people are going to find them out when they, that fake confidence where it’s just like, they’re trying so hard because they’re so scared that somebody’s going to figure it out.

Somebody who’s going to go gotcha. Like it’s a game figured you out. And that’s that kind of energy of like fear and anger that comes out when people are faced with these genuinely authentic people. And then the people who aren’t, it’s almost like that weird interaction comes up. And I’ve seen this before where people get really like strange around me sometimes. Cause they’re like,

you’re too confident. And then they try and own up to it. And then they start getting like bitchy and like catty about it. And I’m like, like his, you know, like little dog, big dog syndrome, or it’s like the big dogs that like what’s going on. And like the little dogs just like barking their head off to prove that they’re a big dog.

It’s like, okay, I get it. You’re a big dog. Like, it doesn’t matter. We’re all jobs. Like nobody needs to bark the loudest. I don’t even know what I was talking about it now. But, but yeah, when, when I see that kind of like fakeness coming through, if that fear and the anger to me,

that just goes, okay, well maybe this person’s just a little too afraid to open themselves up to be vulnerable, to explore those other spaces that I just spoke about. Because if they did, they wouldn’t maybe have this need to act out of anger or fear or to show off or postulate, they would sit more in that quiet confidence or they’d be more willing to sit and learn and kind of have those experiences.

So I don’t know if this all ties together cause I went on many different tangents on this adventure. Cause I was very excited, but hopefully it all made sense. Yeah. I think it totally ties together. Absolutely. Like w you know, for the listeners out there, I think what I’m hoping they’re getting from this, and I’m hoping you’re getting from this listener is that shit self-confidence is real easy or simple.

I should say. Not easy, simple. Cause it has nothing to do with what at least I thought I’d have to do with like, you know, it’s about being you, not about trying to be trying to be confident is not confident. Right? It’s about being more of you and less of whatever you think that might look like. Right. And I think that’s what we’re getting at.

So yeah, Carolyn, absolutely. I think it perfectly makes sense. And so something that you guys said, actually I wrote it down, but I can’t read my own writing. So I think it’s easy to, I think it’s easy to look at other people and attribute confidence to them, looking at their results, looking at how they present. And this is something that I’m very guilty of.

Like, oh, look at, so-and-so look how confident they are. Look at, look at the results they’re having on their life. Look at this. They must be so confident versus knowing that confidence is not about the results, right? Not about the external stuff. Like we’ve like we’ve talked about, it’s about a feeling that you can create for yourself,

a feeling of, you know, giving yourself grace, allowing yourself to flow between, you know, the insecurity and the confidence, like all this good stuff. So it’s actually easier than, than maybe we think it is. Or at least that’s something that I’ve noticed is I used to, like I said, at the beginning, confidence was just like,

oh, that’s for them. That’s for the athletic popular people. That’s not me. And I’ve, I’ve learned is it’s, it’s actually quite different. Okay. Let’s talk about, let’s talk about why it’s it’s harder or why it’s challenging for gay men specifically to really practice this concept of real self-confidence. So, you know, I’ll say that, I think in general,

a lot of us, even though we’re out proud, happy gaze, I think we, a lot of us still do struggle to accept ourselves. And I’m not talking about accepting our sexuality. I’m talking about accepting our full selves, like upset, excepting ourselves fully, including the sexuality piece. You know, we’re, we’re born, we’re born and all already automatically anyone who identifies as queer is,

is othered, right? We’re not part of the norm. So right away, we have that to work against us. And then depending on whatever cultural religious family dynamics you’re born into, then you have that going against you as well. So for myself, you know, Italian, traditional, Catholic, all, all the things that being a man and you know,

a gay person in that culture. And so I’ll speak for myself here. And I think a lot of people would resonate with this as I think I internalized a lot of that and I made it mean that I was, you know, not good and, and all the shame that comes with that. Again, I didn’t know. It was shame at the time.

I just knew that something was wrong with me. And so it takes a lot of, I think, I think one of the challenges of square people is it takes a lot of effort to have to work that through your process. Like you have to unpack all that and it’s, it’s not, it’s not fun. It’s not easy. And a lot of the times it happens whether you want to or not.

So yeah, we’re having to tasks where we’re, we’re tasked with having to unpack all this conditioning and we have to rewire our minds, our beliefs about what it means to be, you know, worthy of love, respect all the things. And then the other piece I think is uniquely challenging for gay men is, is our social norms around masculinity, not conducive to developing real self-confidence.

If you think about all the words we’ve talked about here, vulnerability, empathy, kindness, all these things, you know, it’s not what typical masculine culture looks like. In fact, toxic masculinity is exact this exact issue. So I think the odds are a little bit against us as gay men. There’s a lot of emphasis on, you know, cockiness,

bravado, you know, showing that showing off a little bit, you know, a big emphasis on physical strength, not a big emphasis on emotional strength and confidence is about emotional strengths, right? That ability to embrace the discomfort, the ability to let yourself fail all of the things that we’re talking about here. Be authentic, even when it’s hard. So,

you know, that I think have been the two greatest challenges for me personally, as a, as a gay man. But I will say this as well, just to leave it on a, on a happier note. I wouldn’t have it any other way now looking at it now with retrospect, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think that has been my curriculum to get me to where I am now and,

and beyond. And I think, you know, that the next year is sweeter having gone through the person’s journey of deep insecurity, a severe lack of self-confidence to the point where now I help other people on that same journey. I think it’s a beautiful thing. So yeah, I wouldn’t have it any other way. What about you guys? What do you think?

What is a unique challenge that we face as gay men say from Callan? Okay. I agree with all of that. You just said Michael, cause that was definitely a lot of my journey too. It’s like I was a feminine, I was this, I was overweight. Like I already had so many of the things working against me that I was just like,

okay, great. Like, and then I’m K on top of all of that, you know, like it’s just like all of the things and you’re gay. So I didn’t meet all those requirements. And I find I’ve noticed in the community, there’s a lot of, sometimes people can get stuck in the, oh, well I’m already not perfect. Well then fuck you.

I’m going to continue and be like the most non-perfect and they go so hard in the other direction of like, I don’t need your acceptance. I don’t need to be a part of like your crowd as like a defense mechanism. And it definitely has its space, but I’ve also, I’ve been that person. So I can also see the other side of it.

Like, I didn’t let people in, I didn’t let community happen. I didn’t let myself belong because I was so far in the fuck you field that it was just like, I don’t need anybody. I don’t want to do anything with anybody else. I’m a lone Wolf. And I had to kind of like, knock that shit off if I really wanted to go further with my life.

And if I really wanted to develop relationship and all the things that I complain that I didn’t have like relationship community, all this energy, it was because of me. It was because I was blocking all of that. And I still have like, I’m still working through that energy. So I’m still navigating that. Like, I’m still learning how to let people in.

And it’s very new and very scary, but having built genuine relationships with people and being able to have those micro moments with people, those little tears of like, okay, this is a safe space. I had this interaction and it was a positive interaction. Cool. I’m going to look for more of those to build this. It definitely helps with all that challenges.

Gosh, challenges in respect to building real confidence as gay men is so many, because like you said, the world shits on us, the moment we come out of the womb and hit the moment you figure out you’re gay. The world’s like, oh, a boom. Like it just drops all this shit on you. And then you’re, you’re like scared crapless out of your mind.

Cause you’re like, I don’t know how my family’s going to react. I don’t know how my friends are going to react. I don’t know how my life like everybody in my life is my life completely gonna change. And like, I’m going to get kicked out or is my life completely gonna change? And everything’s going to be great. Is my life not going to change at all?

Like there’s so many unknowns in that, that, that in itself just builds this barriers, wards, that genuine confidence that I don’t think the heteronormative world experiences in the same way or to that degree, because they don’t have that extra step in their life that they’re going to have to figure out or to like work through. Whereas we’re like, okay, well I guess we got this other extra thing over here.

And there’s just such a history of being shat on that. By default, you grew up already knowing that and still in the world, in so much of the world today, like it’s still illegal to be gay it’s you can still be killed. And a lot of countries, like, it’s not like this, energy’s not here anymore. So that builds a lot of like,

just like already just builds in so much crap on us to be confident that it’s like, you really need to have the opportunities to be able to do the work. And that’s a privilege. And I recognize that because a lot of people don’t have the resources in order to do the work in order to start opening up these things. Because, you know,

if you weren’t born into a space where you were safe and comfortable and held and like had that opportunity to learn who you were, it, you know, it was another hindrance, which is why I’m glad we do have the free Facebook group that guys can go in there and they can start kind of chipping away little by little at this stuff. Because like,

this is a whole is a whole huge thing we could jump into here. But like that just allows like a little taste test platter of like, okay, here’s where you can begin to start building up that confidence. Cause if you come from a middle of nowhere, quiet little town, you might not have that space in order to do that. So the free Facebook groups allows you to build that.

I don’t even know where I’m going with this anymore. My mind is like all over the place today. I’m like, I have like all these things and I’m like, how do I bring this net back together? Basically. Yeah. Growing up, growing up gay, it’s it’s a rough, it can be a rough deal. Especially if you grow up,

not in a Western country, not in like a privileged household or privileged space, like all these things pack on top. There’s, there’s so many ways that gay men like fight those, like find those walls and those barriers, my brain turned to mush. So I’m going to pass off from that. It’s Monday. I feel those vibes. Okay. What do I want to work?

I want to start. Cause I’m the same as you I’ve got like a zillion things. Well, I’m going to start by just saying that the one word that really embodies everything and that’s shame. Okay. Like shame, nothing will erode self-confidence self-worth and self-esteem quicker than shame. Okay. It just sends the message to, to ourselves that something is wrong.

That we’re not good enough. We’re defective and we’re broken. And that is for a lot of us. That’s our first experience of, of, of our authentic self. We, we get shamed in our authenticity. So we learned very, very quickly to wear the masks, to wear the facades, to be performative in our, in our personality, to seek external validation,

to do all of these things, right. And these things, they just strip us of our confidence quicker than anything, right? Nothing will tear, tear your S your, your authentic confidence down quicker than perfectionism or people pleasing. Right? Those two things are rooted so deeply in shame that they just perpetuate it. Right. So I just think that as gay men,

we have this that’s, that’s our first experience, right? So there’s, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done around healing shame, right? And this is why we have the course in the membership, healing, your shame. It’s a six week course that we take people through. That’s a guided to help them understand their shames. So they can start looking for how shame is showing up in their life,

in their lives. And then start to work with shame, because we don’t just work with the umbrella of shame. You got to work with all the little shame wounds you’ve got to work with the way that that shame is expressing itself, your own belief systems around yourself and your value. So it’s a, it’s a journey, right? And I, I love how Michael,

you said that, like, you wouldn’t change this for the world because, and I wouldn’t either, like I’ve been through some dark, dark shit because of my shame, like, you know, drug addiction, all sorts of things. And it’s given me so much character and so much depth. And I would not be sitting here today. Speaking about these things,

if I didn’t have the darkness and the suffering, because they’ve given me basically everything, I owe every part of who I am today and how I’m showing up in my life because of my suffering and the shame that I was able to work through. And I should say still working through it in certain areas of my life, because I think this is it’s deep shit.

It’s very deep shit. And you know, for, for many of us Seamus I’ll speak from my experience of shame and some of the research I’ve done, but I’m going to just speak from my own experience, shame. It, it it’s, it happens as an experience. And then we put it on in layers, right. And where shame lives is,

it lives in the body. Right. And if we are not embodied, we can’t heal shame. Right. We can’t heal shame through thinking positive thoughts. We, it just it’s impossible. Right? It’s part of it. It’s part of it. I would say more than mind is part of developing self-confidence and the body is where we tune back into the worthiness.

That’s required for us to develop confidence. So for me, my, I started to heal shame when I started the journey of embodiment and connecting to my body. And I I’m, I’m a huge believer that the patriarchal system has done so much damage to us as human beings, but more specifically to gay men. That’s what we’re speaking about right now, because there’s this whole notion around performative and hyper-masculinity that we feel like we have to be this.

We have to be masculine. And you know, you look at what’s, what’s the most valued in the gay community is the guy that’s the most masculine, the most ripped, the one who embodies the Adonis look, and that’s taken us further and further away from healing, right? Because the masculine energy, and now I’m speaking about energy, not as much about gender,

the masculine energy is very much about ego. It’s about mind, right? And the feminine energy, the yin energy is more about healing. That’s where, that’s where we heal. So if we have, if we don’t have an integrated feminine, it’s going to be impossible for us to embody. And if we can’t embody, we can’t heal shame. Right.

So I truly, I mean that, like I say that with so much conviction, because this has been the journey of my, my path, but also so many people that I’ve worked with when they’ve learned to soften, and they’ve learned to get into this more embodied energy. That’s when the shame is connected to grieved than healed. Right. But if we’re just cycling on the hamster wheel of the mind,

we can’t get to that place so that’s why a lot of the teachings that I do and you guys as well, we talk a lot about embodiment. We talk a lot about present moment, you know, getting into these zones because that’s where a lot of this healing will take place. So if you are a gay man and you’re struggling with healing, shame,

start connecting to your body, right. Start listening to your body, listen to your intuition, slow down, do less, right. Be more, do less, be more like that’s really the mantra of shame healing. And because I think a lot of us are really trying to work our way out of our shame, but you don’t work your way out of shame,

not just the work notion of healing, shame, perpetuates the shame that’s perfectionism, right? What’s when we slow down, we stop and we zone into our body. That’s when we realize, oh shit, I don’t need to change anything about me. I don’t need to fix anything about me. I’m not broken. I just needed to slow down enough to get into my heart center,

to get into my body where all the juicy worthiness is just sitting in, waiting for you to return back home to. Right. And I’m so passionate about this stuff, because I know what can take place when people start to sit with themselves and they start to do this work. Yeah. So if you wanna, if you wanna become authentically confident, then heal,

shame, heal, shame. Really? That’s that’s, that’s the meat and potatoes of this work in my opinion, Which is the name of our course. Right. You know, your shame. I want to add one quick thing into there because I love everything you just said, Matt, because that’s something I had to learn. I was very, I,

and I am very methodical and like mental, but I’ve now connected that part of me. And so I know when I need to heal something, I just, I get the sensation that it just need to cry. And I don’t need to know why I don’t need to logically understand it. I just need to let my body feel it and go through it.

And sometimes that’s all you need to do is just like crawl into bed. You know, if you don’t like crying around people, make sure nobody’s in the house or whatever, and just let yourself go, let it rip and just let it come out and just let it be. Don’t analyze it. Don’t go like don’t over like do it just like be there and cry and let that happen and let that just be what it needs to be.

And that right there process is so much stuff that you don’t even need to know about. Then that’s just part of getting into the body. So I just wanted to throw that out there cause I was like, yeah, Yeah. A hundred percent honor, honor yourself to feel how you feel. Right. Make yourself where you are. That’s that’s a huge part.

And yeah, I think, you know, talking about that, we’ll, we’ll definitely put the link to the course in the show notes for anyone. Who’s just wondering, what are these guys talking about, about healing, your shame. We made an amazing course, so we’ll put it in the show notes. Okay. Finally guys, we have to wrap up fairly quickly.

So why don’t we just quickly give some habits for developing greater real? Self-confidence not why don’t you go first? Okay. So my I’m the same as Callum. The last two years has been huge for me. Like I’ve had more growth in the last two years than I have had in all my other previous years combined. And the only difference is that I,

it started engaging in community, right. I allowed myself to develop humility and dignity because I was working with other people. So I just really truly think that’s for me. I was able to do a lot of deep inner healing and I was able to become more confident because I started to work with people. And you know, for me, one of the areas where I feel confident is in leadership,

I love leading people. And I think for me, that is if you can find a, an area in your life that you’re really great at, and you have strength in this area, find ways to lead other people. And it might not be like in some sort of structured community. It might just be, you know, grab a couple of people together and go for a hike.

If you’re a really good hiker and, you know, just start to find ways that you can become a mentor to other people and be of service to other people. Because I think that’s one of the greatest ways to develop. Self-confidence one thing that came through was the, this the Mo the mantra practice makes progress because that’s very growth mindset, fixed mindset is practice makes perfect.

And I think we know when we get into this growth mindset area, it’s, it’s when things start to, there’s more space, we’re not Hawking in, on ourselves constantly. And then the last thing is heal, shame. Like I said, and one of the areas that has helped, one of the things that’s helped me tremendously is psilocybin and doing ceremony.

And I can lead myself through ceremony, but you know, if you’ve never done anything like that, find somebody that can lead you through ceremony because I’ve had men like four or five massive purging where my body is just, I can feel my body releasing shame. And then once you have more space inside you, because you’re not inundated with shame, guess what guess what starts to shine through,

right? Your radiance, your brilliance, your worthiness, all those things start to come through. So finding ways to heal shame. And for me, that’s been a, a really effective strategy. Nice. I love that. I’m going to say for myself, mantras and mirror work. So the, the language and the, and how I talk to myself in my mind that catching that,

noticing that, and being like, man, man, man, man, that failure mentality of like, oh, I fucked up. Or I did this and switching it with like, no I’m learning, I’m growing. That’s probably my biggest mantra over the past two years, as I’m learning, I’m growing. And it really allows myself. It gives me permission to fuck up,

to fuck up, to get it wrong, to not be perfect. And that takes so much pressure off of me. And when I show up and I’m like, Hey, yeah, like let’s, you know, we need to switch this or do this. Like, that’s the growth because that’s all life really is. And then the mirror work has been something I’ve been doing for years and years and years,

and years and years since I started the spiritual journey, like that way back in like what, 2006, seven, and like mirror work was huge. And like maybe writing your mantra on your mirror. And so that you’re seeing it in every morning or every night, or when you go into the bathroom and little things, like looking at yourself in the mirror and taking time to really look at yourself and to look into your eyes.

So many people can’t do that. So many people get so uncomfortable or weird or scared, and it feels very icky and wrong for them to just look at themselves in the eyes and say, I love you. You’re amazing. You’re perfect. And it’s going to feel, it’s going to feel like that. If it’s, if you’re saying it because it’s fake,

because if you don’t feel like that, if you don’t feel like those are the things that you’re embodying, yeah. It’s going to feel fake, but that’s why you need to do it because this is part of that mixture of like faking it until you’re making it because the more you do it, the more you repeat it, the more you build a habit about it,

the more it’s going to get into your brain. And the more it’s going to become your default setting, you need to reprogram that computer up there to, to have that routine fault settings. So mirror work and mantras my, my two things. Yeah, those are, those are, we have so many like, okay, I love both of those.

And I would say if I had anything to add, I mean, really it’s just, you know, like we talked about paying more attention to far, far, far less attention on what’s going on on the outside and trying to control those circumstances. And far, far more attention on what’s going on, on the inside, including what Matt was talking about,

about embodiment, right. It’s very important for, it’s not just the thoughts, but it’s, it’s all of it. And you know, where you actually have power for talking about empowerment is not out there. We have no power out there as much as we think we could do. We don’t all the power comes from our, our, our, ourselves,

our mind, what choices we make, the choices we take in the world, our actions, our habits, all that good stuff. So focus more on that feels empowering because we actually have control there. And for me, when I’ve done that, it, it creates a much more calm, I guess, what I would define confidence as for me,

how it feels in your, in my body is calm, nourishing, and just feels like there’s a, I can always tap into it. Like there’s a never-ending supply, which is, that is, that is the beauty of, of actually doing the inside work. And one more thing I would add, I guess, that I’ve learned most recently as a,

as an entrepreneur is taking action. Don’t, you know, just jump, don’t be afraid to fail or sorry. Be afraid to fail, fail, and then get up and do it again and then get up and do it again and then get up and do it again. Cause practicing that discomfort is, is like we talk about so much is building that muscle.

It’s that, that tear after tear that builds the muscle of confidence. And then you realize, yeah, Hey, I could do this. I can do hard things. I could fail. No problem. Yeah. I can do uncomfortable things. I got this, I got my own back. Right. Going back to my mantra, I got my back.

I can figure this out and approves that it’s 100% manageable. So those are, I guess the two that, that I would add. And I guess one more just to reiterate is it’s a sense of community. You know, I think all three of us have that lone Wolf within us. And I think it’s a part of all three of our journeys.

And I mean, I know that a lot of people can relate to that. It’s, it’s, it’s easy to want to go at it alone for a lot of reasons. Go watch that episode too, but it’s a lot more fun and it actually is easier to, to go out with people that you trust. And I know that takes time, but that’s why we’re here.

So, you know, if you’re not in the game as brotherhood community, go check that out. And if you actually want some supports and direct support on with the people who are on the path, then check out the game and going deeper membership. That’ll be my final plug. Okay. Guys, any last words before we do wrap up? No.

Okay, cool. Viewer or listener. Thank you for tuning in. We talked about a lot of stuff today, so please check out the show notes. There is also where you will be able to become a patron of the show for again, as little as $2, join us in the Facebook group. We’ve got over 4,000 guys as of I think today or over that by far.

Yeah. On December the 30th. Again, we will be hosting the zoom hangout. So join us there. We’ll be continuing this discussion and we’ve got two more really fun podcasts that we’ll be talking about on that zoom hangout. If you’re listening to us on the podcast, please give us a review. We’ll be reading them. Don’t forget to give us a nice five-star review for that.

And also subscribe to us on YouTube. If you haven’t already, we have hit a thousand. Thank you everyone. Thank you to all our subscribers who helped us get there. We’re super happy and yeah. Please leave us a review there as well. Say hi, we respond to all the comments. Okay. And finally, thank you again to the lovely Matt and Callen for sharing your wonderful wisdom on this topic.

Okay guys. See you next time. Bye-bye.