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Valerie Morris is an author and an expert on influence, and is the perfect person to talk about this today. In this episode, Valerie and Nate talk about having confidence like a buffalo, how building up your courage leads to confidence, and how to take steps into expanding your influence despite the discomfort.
I’ve definitely learned for myself how important confidence is for influence. And I brought in Valerie Morris. She wrote the book on influence. We’re talking about confidence today. Alright. So, I saw her notes and there was something about a buffalo. So, we’re talking about confidence and how confidence relates to influence. Tell me where we’re going here. -So, I married a really confident guy. And one of the phrases that he taught me anytime I went into a job interview or I went in to meet with a big client or did something really just that was scary was he encouraged me to have the confidence of a buffalo. Having the confidence of the Buffalo means just being rock-solid. Not moving and being kind of a force to be reckoned with. -Have you ever encountered Buffalo? -I have. And you? -In Yellowstone National… -Yeah. Yeah. They’re pretty scary creatures actually. But they’re huge and sometimes they just stand there. And they will block the entire road. There are massive creatures and they really… I think, it just is a fun little saying of, “Alright. I’m going to go into this scary job interview or I’m going to go meet with this client. I’m so scared. But I’m going to be Buffalo.” I mean, has anyone ever told you to be a buffalo? -No. -No. -Well, that’s my encouragement to you today. -So, how do we have the confidence of a buffalo? -Well, you know, it’s interesting. There’s a concept that I learned in another of Renee Brown situation. I’ve referenced her a few times before. But she talks about this concept of couraging. And how you build more courage the more you do courage. So the more you go out and do something, the easier it’s going to be the next time and the next time and the next time. So, I remember the very first time I recorded videos on my webcam to do for YouTube videos or Facebook videos. Any of those kinds of videos when I was creating for my business. It was very, very scary. So, I remember when live video came out and it was even more scary. You know you press that live button and there’s no turning back, right? So, I remember just thinking, “I’m just going to get better at any more confident at doing recorded video where I can delete it if I don’t like it. And then once I’ve done a few of those, then I can work my way up to live video.” Now, some people just jump right in and they do the live thing and that’s great. But a lot of us, we’re a little bit scared about that. And so, just doing a few little steps, it gives you the courage to go do those steps more. And now, I don’t have that like flustered feel every time I hit the live button because I’m more comfortable there. So, that’s one step is just go out and do it. The more you do… -It sounds like you know, we’ve heard the phrase fake it until you make it. -Sure. -And I’ve heard people like talked some for it, some against it. Kind of sounds like a little bit for it in this case. -Yeah. I mean, I don’t think it’s necessarily faking it to go out and do it. -So, you’re not you’re not faking your expertise. -No. And I’m not faking it doing the video. But I am going go and do a few videos and build up my confidence. Because the reality is once you’ve done it once, you can already say you can do it. And that builds just a little bit of confidence in you that you can do it again and again again. So, if you’re scared about something, go do that thing. Go write a book. Once you’ve written a book, then you can say, “I’m an author.” And then you have the ability to go say it to other people. And say it on live TV. And maybe write a few more books. So it’s just this concept of doing that gives you the confidence to go do it even more an integrator level. -That’s awesome. -Yeah. -When we’re having this conversation about confidence related to influence, we’re talking about influencing somebody else or really making a big impact in the world. And to do that, I recognize that we have to put ourselves in out of our comfort zone. -Yes. -There’s a lot of things they have to do that are totally uncomfortable. How do we do that? I mean how do we take that step that’s something so scary. I mean you talked about it. How about just doing it but… -You know, it’s very scary. Especially if you have a message that is very new or it’s controversial or it’s really going to go against the grain of most the people in your community. It’s going to be a scary thing. And I’ll be honest, there’s a couple things that have helped me. One is I start by doing a little bit. And then once I gain confidence with that that I expand my circle and I’ll share it with someone else. So when I first started my business Facebook page and even just my business in general. I would only share my content with a few select people. It was pretty pathetic. Considering that I now tell people, go broadcast it to the world. I was just sharing it with this very safe group of people. And over time, once I got some reinforcement from them, I have expanded that and then I will share with another ring of people. And another ring. And the more I’ve received acceptance of that content or of my expertise the more confident and I felt to go after larger and larger audiences. To the point that sometimes, I look at myself and I say, “Where did you come from? Who are you that you’re you know, writing a book or speaking on stages or you know, building this audience that has the potential to reach people worldwide?” I never had that aspiration as a child. But yet here I am with this message to share with people and I know that I can get it out there. And I think the other thing too is once you realize that you have a message that the world needs to hear. It gives you a lot more courage to go after and really get it out there. So, if you have a message that you feel like the world has to hear and you believe so strongly in it, you need to get over that courage. And I think if you are that passionate about the message, that passion will override your fears every step of the way. Now a final little tip is to have friends that believe in what you’re doing or have friends that are going to help share this message with you And in my book I talk a lot about tribes and having that group of people who are going to support you along the way. And so sometimes you’re going after really hard messages. You’re sharing things with people that are new. It’s a kind of scary topic, it’s a controversial topic. Maybe it’s some sort of earth-shattering new idea. And if you have a few people in your corner that you can turn to when you know that you know you’re getting a lot of criticism or you’re scared to put yourself out there, having those people who have your back is going to be crucial. -That’s awesome. What’s interesting is, is a lot of my clients and a lot of the viewers on our Channel, there are public speakers. And which is such a scary thing and yet they’ve they’ve mastered it or they they take the stage and speak in front of hundreds or thousands of people. But what’s interesting is a lot of them are still really nervous they say, “Yeah, but how do you get over the nerves? I’m just so afraid of being in front of the camera.” So, it’s a real thing. -Mm-hmm. -And something that I just recently learned… I’ll give a shout out to Michelle Villalobos. She taught me this principle of anchor versus a sail. You need both in your life. You know you need anchors because they help you you know be steady and and safe. But a sail is what’s gonna drag you forward. And so what you’re talking about there is like if I’m nervous to be on camera or nervous of putting my message out there in video, the people that I want to share that with first are the sales. The people that are going urge me, because an anchor, you need anchors in your life but not necessarily for when you’re sharing your vision or you’re putting your heart out there in the most vulnerable way. Because they might say, “I don’t know because they want to protect you.” Right? The anchors want to protect you. But the sills are like, “Oh, yeah you got this. You’re doing it.” -Yeah. -So, anyway, I appreciate you sharing that part. -Yeah. -I know myself as I’ve grown in confidence and just gained more credibility and track record, it’s given me a natural boost of influence. I mean people have seen what I’ve been able to do on other channels and so they want to listen to me more which you know gives me more confidence. So it’s kind of a… So, I appreciate you sharing your wisdom here. Everyone, needs to check out this amazing book. Valerie Morris’ We’re All Ears. You find it on Amazon. Let me give a way. I talk a lot about Keyword research and this video we’re talking about influence. But when you do keyword research, you find the questions that people are searching for that you can answer it. So if you click the link below, you’ll find my keyword research guide. And with that, we’ll see you tomorrow.