Transcription
Most people never build real confidence because they think that it's something you're born with. But it's not. It is a skill. And once you know how to build it, you can walk into any room, any deal, and be a dangerously confident individual.
So, if you've ever wondered how to stop overthinking, stop pretending, and build real confidence, then give me the next few minutes, and I'll show you how to build unshakable confidence in business and in life. It's the exact process that I went through from being dead broke, working in a call center, nervous to pick up the phone and ask people for money to generating over $7.8 billion in sales and becoming a shark on Shark Tank.
Listen, you're not shy. You're not an introvert. You're just untrained. Because confidence is a skill and not a personality trait. Confidence is built. It's not born. And the fact that you don't have it yet is 100% on you. and I'll show you how I built mine from absolute nothing. And this brings us to step number one.
When I first started King Kong, I didn't walk into meetings feeling super confident because I told myself that I was good. I first solved a problem for my own business. Then I got my first client and I got them insane results. And then I got another because confidence comes from actions. It doesn't come from words. You have to first go out there and prove to yourself that you have the ability to solve these problems to actually give you that confidence in the first place. It's not from screaming mantras in the mirror and just trying to convince yourself that you have some level of confidence. It's about showing up and actually doing the work and then having the receipts to prove it to yourself that you are the type of person that actually takes the actions. And the only way that you get that is by putting in an unreasonable amount of volume to prove to yourself that you actually have the ability and you have this skill, which is step number one. Confidence without data equals delusion. But here's the thing. Even with data, you still have to get off your ass and do the next step or nothing changes.
Which brings us to step number two. While confidence is a skill that you can learn, there is no shortcut. You need to work on your craft and train enough to feel prepared. And then what you need to do is you need to keep a log of all of your past wins. Whether it's revenue targets or certain number of deals that you've closed or any other target or milestone that it is that you've hit. Whether you're in fitness, it could be your transformation in your fitness journey. It's basically about collecting the receipts to prove to yourself that you are actually capable of doing it.
Before I ever stepped onto Shark Tank, I had done thousands of high-stake sales calls. I had built hundreds of funnels and launched campaign after campaign. By the time I was in front of those cameras, I didn't need to talk myself into believing that I belonged there. I had put in enough reps to know that I did. I had spent years and decades in the trenches getting my teeth kicked in and really refining my craft. So, I knew when those businesses came out that it's not only a check that I would be able to write them. I had the skills. I had so much domain expertise that I knew that I could step into those businesses and help them completely blow up their sales.
But everyone has to start somewhere. In the early days of business, there were of course moments that I felt like an impostor where you haven't got all the track records, right? But I tracked everything. the revenue, the ad spend for my clients, the amount of ROI that I had generated them. And then when those doubts came up, I would simply look at all of the hard data and I would shut that voice up in my head instantly because I had all of the proof. I had the receipts in front of me that I was who I said I was, which is step number two. Track your achievements to reinforce your self-worth.
And once you start tracking those wins, there is a powerful mental trick that will lock in that confidence forever. Which brings us to step number three. Everything starts in the mind. If you don't have a clear picture of where it is that you're trying to go, then you're never going to be able to get there. And the reality of it is wherever it is that you're starting right now and you're needing the confidence, it's because you don't have the receipts and you haven't proved to yourself yet that you can get to where it is that you want to go.
When I was cold calling 150 businesses every single day from my bedroom, there was a huge gap in between where I was and where it is that I wanted to go. But I would literally visualize what that dream destination looked like. I would visualize my office, what it would look like, how many people would be on my team, what I would be doing every day, what my commute to that office would look like. I had visualized every single minute detail to make that actually feel real. And when you do that, you trick your mind into believing that reality. But if I wasn't able to see it in my mind, then I would never hold it in my hand.
I remember when I was first starting King Kong and I went out and I had a coffee with another business friend of mine and he was like, "Man, are you sure you want to do this? Like, this market is so competitive. You're late to the party. I know X, Y, and Z companies that are way bigger than you. Their teams are enormous. They're much wellunded, right?" If I would have believed that, then I never would be sitting here right now because I would have let them brainwash me into believing their reality that they've got with their mind. So instead, I had to do the opposite. And a great hack for gaming this is to create physical vision boards of that dream destination. The house or the car or the office or the body or whatever that end goal looks like for you, right? You need to visually print all of those things out and laminate them. And you need to put them wherever you're going to see them every single day. For me, I laminate them and I put them in the shower in my bathroom. So, it's like the first thing when I wake up in the morning and I go into the bathroom to brush my teeth, it's just staring at me right in my face because at every single moment I'm met with all of the average mediocre things that are around me in my everyday life. And unless you have a very clear vision of the future, then you're just going to buy into all the stuff that's within your current environment and you're never going to get to where it is that you want to go, which is step number three. Visualization and self-belief is everything.
But here's what no one tells you. Confidence in one area doesn't automatically mean confidence everywhere. Which brings us to step number four. You can be world class in one area and a beginner in another. And confidence doesn't automatically transfer. It's built up by showing up and doing the work repeatedly in each specific field. But one thing that you can do is that you can transfer that belief into any domain. Because once you get some kind of expertise in one area of your life and you go through that whole process of becoming a beginner and then working your way up into an expert, that gives yourself the confidence that you have the ability to first start as a beginner, find the problems and get enough volume in that you can actually become an expert. And it's that process that you can transfer to any other area of your life. But just because you're an expert in one field, it doesn't mean that you're going to step into this new field and be confident from day one. Because when you feel prepared, confidence happens naturally. And the only way to feel prepared is to simply do the work.
After being in sales for a couple of years, I felt confident as hell because I had already done literally thousands of phone calls. But then when I started out in marketing, I was a complete beginner. And the only way that I was able to build the confidence also in this domain is the same way that I also did in sales by repetition and reviewing, refining, and showing up enough times that you eventually own that space and you've done enough work and you've gone through all of the problems that come up. That's the thing that actually builds the confidence. It doesn't matter how long that I had been doing sales, how many sales calls that I had done. When I moved into a new domain, it was unknown territory and I had to prove to myself over and over again that I could become an expert in this field, which is step number four. Confidence is domainspecific and it is built on repetition.
But the truth is that none of this works without building this next foundational habit, which brings us to step number five. Look, motivation comes and goes, but discipline is what keeps you moving forward when motivation isn't there. And that's the thing that bridges the gap between intention and action. Because there are mornings where I wake up at 4:00 a.m. and the last thing that I want to do is hit the gym. But I do it anyway because that discipline, it bleeds into everything else. If I wake up and I can't keep that basic promise to myself, then I'm going to look for little excuses within my day to get out of other things that I need to do. If I can control myself at 4:00 a.m. when no one's watching, I know that I can control myself when the pressure is on. And another way that I like to think about this is if someone watched you for a week, would they believe that you're serious about hitting your goals? Just think about that for a moment, right? It's a powerful frame. If they were going to watch you, no one was around. There was like a camera crew following you around and they looked at all of the activities that you were doing. They were looking at where you waste time. Would they look at that without knowing you at all and make the judgment that you were incredibly serious about hitting your goals? And if not, then you know that something needs to change, which is step number five. Discipline is the foundation of confidence.
But look, discipline is forged in the fire. And that fire is what we're about to step into in step number six. You don't become capable and dangerously confident by avoiding hardship. It's the moments that you think will break you, they're the ones that build you. Because the places that you know the least, they make you grow the most.
When I was 18, I moved to London with absolutely nothing. I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor and working whatever jobs that I could to survive. I wasn't confident then. I second-guessed myself and often felt out of my debt. But every single rent that I paid or every week that I got through, every problem that I solved only stacked a little bit more belief in myself. And I built that confidence by surviving the things that I didn't think that I could handle. You're not going to be solving crazy big complex problems from day one. It's the small little wins that you're going to get. It's like getting the gym workout in. And it's those little small things, they compound and they get bigger and bigger over time. So you're like, "Okay, cool. Now I know that I have the ability to do it." And you always have to boil it down. It's fundamentally just keeping your word to yourself, which is step number six. Embrace the struggle and adversity.
And if you can do that, the next step is about controlling the only thing that can still sabotage you. Which brings us to step number seven. Readiness is an illusion. It's action that creates readiness. Wherever you are, if you're watching this video, I'm going to take it. It's because you don't have an dangerous levels of confidence. And when you're in this place, it's kind of like the chicken or the egg. It's like, how do I act confident is I don't have that confidence already in me. I don't feel ready to take on that task. And the reality of it is you have to jump and then figure it all out. Because once you've jumped off, you have no other option but to figure it out. And you will figure it out. And it will be one step at a time. But if you're just going to second guess anything, then you're never going to take the actions required to actually build that kernel of confidence to begin with.
Early on, there were plenty of times that I let my emotions dictate my decisions. And every single time that I did, it cost me. And I had to learn to act based on what was required, not how I felt in the moment. And the bigger that my company gets and the more people that rely on me, the stronger that this muscle needs to get because that feeling of not wanting to do things, that never goes away, right? Inherently, humans aren't going to want to do hard things. So if you're constantly at the mercy of surrendering to your emotions, then you're never going to build that confidence and make the moves that's required. And it's about doing those small things that really build that forward momentum. And once you can see the progress, then you get the confidence and it just flywheels. I had to learn to act based on what was required and not how I felt in the moment. And it was that shift in mindset that was a complete gamecher in my confidence, which is step number seven. Control your mind and do not be ruled by your emotions.
And once you master that, you'll finally stop making the single most destructive mistake to your confidence. Because this next step is what I see destroys more people's confidence than anything else. Which brings us to step number eight. Confidence collapses when you measure your journey against somebody else's. In the beginning, I wasted so much energy feeling behind because I measured myself against all the other people that I was looking at in business. I would be reading biographies and looking at podcasts or YouTube videos and inherently you're going to be comparing yourself to all these other people and you look at okay they got bigger businesses than me their teams are bigger like they've got fully set up offices but the turning point for me was when I realized that everybody starts as a beginner and all of these people that I was looking up to they too were once where I was right everyone starts off as a beginner and I stopped comparing myself to my year 1 to someone's year 10. Because what's even more serving is is you look at those idols that you've got and go watch podcasts of them or find their biographies and read about them and seeing where they started and then where they are now. That is the humbling experience because you only look at them when they're at the summit, right? when they're at the top of the mountain and they've got all these accolades, but you don't look at all of the pain, all of the hardship, all of the losses, everything that they needed to go to in order to get there. And understand that your journey is going to be so much more epic and your story is going to be so much more epic because you are starting at zero. And that's where everyone begins because at the end of the day, losers focus on winners and winners focus on winning, which is step number eight. Don't compare your year 1 to someone else's year 10.
And when you do that, there is still one final mental shift that will make you dangerously confident, which is step number nine. No one is going to come along and put the jersey on your back. They're not going to tell you, "Hey, you're the [ __ ] man." You have to decide for yourself and then you have to project that into the world. No one came to me when I was cold calling people from my bedroom. And I had $50 in my bank account and said, "Subrey, you're the [ __ ] man. You are going to build one of the fastest growing companies in the country." I had to decide that myself before I was even ready. And then it was that belief that dictated how I showed up on calls, how I walked into rooms, and how I pitched myself. I had the belief in myself from all of these tiny wins, just winning the day, winning the morning, doing what I said I would do. And I had to make the decision early on that all of these other people, they were not special, right? And that I was special. And I knew what I had within me. And I made the conscious effort to just tell myself like, look, you are the [ __ ] man. You are going to be one of the best marketers in the world. Because no one was going to come and do that for me. And no one's going to come and do that for you. It's something that needs to start within yourself and then you project it out into the world, which is step number nine. If you don't think you're the [ __ ] man, no one else will.
And the last step is one that turns all of this from theory into actual reality, which is step number 10. You don't finish building confidence. You keep the flywheel spinning by feeding it with action. And the worst thing that you can do is to simply just watch this video and to feel inspired and then do absolutely nothing about it. So instead, what I want you to do is think, what is the smallest, most uncomfortable thing that you could do in the next 24 hours that would prove to yourself that you're moving forward. It does not matter how small it is. I want you to write a full list of what are those little small things that aren't going to feel comfortable. It might be somebody that you need to call. It might be a lead that you need to follow up on that's already said no to you. But it's all about doing something that is extremely uncomfortable. That is a small win. It's the tiny little increments that we build that is going to be the flywheel that is going to build those dangerous levels of confidence. But I can tell you that the juice is definitely worth the squeeze because once you become dangerously confident, it feels like doors just open up for you and things start to work within your favor. But it's doing this hard work in private that you get rewarded for in public. And your team members, your kids, your family, and even your society around you, they will thank you for this because we've all been around somebody that is dangerously confident. And we have felt firsthand what that feels like to be around that person. And they are typically like a beacon of light and positivity. And it's somebody that proves to ourself that we simply need to decide that we are that person. And we can also have that same effect on everyone else in our lives. Which is step number 10. Light the fuse.
If you like this video, then you will love this one where I share the fastest and most likely way to become a millionaire. Like, subscribe, and I'll see you in the next.