412: Five keys to unlock your confidence – with Dr. Joan Rosenberg

How product managers can build authentic confidence Today we are talking about how to unleash confidence. As product professionals, we need authentic confidence. Joining us is Dr. Joan Rosenberg, a cutting-edge psychologist known for her work in communication, confidence, resilience, authenticity, and grief. She is frequently sought by media and companies to speak and train on these topics.  She is a clinical professor of psychology at Pepperdine University and author of several books including her most recent book, 90 Seconds to a Life You Love: How to Master Your Difficult Feelings to Cultivate Lasting Confidence, Resilience, and Authenticity. Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers [2:17] How does self-talk impact us? Negative self-talk comes under the category of harsh self-criticism, which is considerably more damaging than people believe. Most people think harsh self-criticism is equivalent to unpleasant feelings, but it’s not. Unpleasant feelings do nothing to sabotage ourselves, but harsh self-criticism is like dropping 10 or 20 stories in an elevator—it takes you down. Harsh self-criticism is a distraction from unpleasant feelings. We don’t control what we feel, but we do have a lot of control over how we think. When somebody gets upset, they quickly shift to harsh self-criticism, ostensibly to take control of the unpleasant feelings they were feeling. Harsh self-criticism is damaging and very severe. I think it promotes depression and plays a big role in people’s becoming suicidal. It’s one of the most damaging things people can do. The recommendation I make is to speak and act in the direction you want your results to be—positive not negative. [6:47] How can we build more authentic confidence? Building confidence for me came out of two important questions: How does somebody develop confidence? And what makes it difficult for people to deal with unpleasant feelings? Confidence is the deep sense that you can handle the emotional outcome of whatever you face or want to pursue. It’s not about positive feelings. It’s our ability to tolerate the challenges we face and the feelings that come with that. My focus is on eight unpleasant feelings: * sadness * shame * helplessness * anger * vulnerability * embarrassment * disappointment * frustration The foundational element to building confidence is to be able to experience and move through unpleasant feelings. The steps to confidence are: * Experience and handle unpleasant feelings * Speak up with ease * Take action * End harsh self-criticism * Absorb compliments [9:52] How do we move through those unpleasant feelings? Most of us come to know what emotions we’re feeling through bodily sensation—tightness, heat, heaviness, etc. People find it so hard to deal with unpleasant feelings because we don’t want to deal with the bodily sensations. We distract ourselves. Instead, you want to ride the bodily sensation “waves.” When a feeling gets triggered, there is a rush of biochemicals into the bloodstream that activate the bodily sensations, and they flush out of the bloodstream in 90 seconds. If you can just breathe into the process as you’re experiencing a feeling, you can stay present in the feeling and link up your feeling with your thinking to help you make decisions and take action or express yourself so you can make use of the feelings. When you stub your toe, you’re in pain for a moment. You take a deep breath and hold on to that toe till the pain subsides. Similarly, when you have a quick emotional reaction, if you take some deep breaths, you stay present in the experience, and it’s always going to subside. [15:46] How do we speak up and express ourselves with ease?