When You Bank True Confidence Anything Is Possible

[Music]

so

when i was choosing the cover design for

my first book

there was really no question the version

with my face big on the cover

was the one that stood out the most plus

it fit so well with my message

and more than anything i wanted to

connect with my readers

but everyone in the traditional

publishing world

told me not to do it they said for this

kind of book the cover should be

all text maybe a small illustration

much like the tim ferriss malcolm

gladwell gary vaynerchuk books it was

associated with

it would be unbelievably

scary to not listen to those experts

and instead listen to myself

trust me especially as a female

entrepreneur

not only was i scared of being

criticized or of people thinking i was

vain

or full of myself but you might be

surprised to hear that

until pretty recently i was also

painfully camera shy

so i almost didn’t do it

but i did and i had the guts to do it

because i spent

years doing something that i call

banking confidence and i want to tell

you

exactly how i do it so that you

can do it too

at first it was accidental stemming from

just

a strong desire to do everything

my way like many of us when i graduated

from college

i wanted to save the world

as long as i could do it my way and

i didn’t see why i couldn’t

i had graduated from a top school with

an economics degree

i founded a non-profit in micro finance

i taught a class on the subject

i even did a fellowship in social

entrepreneurship

i imagined throwing huge fabulous

fundraisers

hobnobbing with the rich and famous

raising massive amounts of money for

enterprising women in developing

countries

and i wanted to be

in charge i wanted autonomy

i wanted freedom and flexibility to be

respected

and well paid

but turns out

shockingly there were no open positions

for a queen bee boss of

everything entry-level

ceo well

if i couldn’t get the perfect job i

wasn’t going to settle

so instead i offered my services to a

non-profit for

free just so i could run the whole

project

exactly the way i wanted while i did

that

i was trying to get my own social

enterprise off the ground

and since doing these things my way

didn’t pay literally

i also hustled nights and weekends as a

bartender to support myself

and make it happen i

didn’t know it at the time but this

was the first time that i took

a leap when you

ignore convention and instead

go towards something you really want

and take a leap with no clear path

to success you start

banking something really game-changing

but i’ll admit between you and me

initially that whole no clear path to

success peace

really got the best of me but by this

point

all my friends had a leg up on me in

their fields either

in their first year of law school or

business school

or they just been banking money and

experience in

whatever career they had chosen and i

felt so behind

this is usually when people start

questioning themselves right

but i was banking something

too i just didn’t know it yet

i was so ready to pounce on my

thing i started scrolling through job

listings on craigslist for ideas and i

came across this cryptic post

i couldn’t tell what the job was but it

hit some key points

be your own boss make your own hours

unlimited earning potential

plus the office was three blocks from my

apartment

no commute i scheduled an interview out

of

pure curiosity the next day i met with

nick

who made a great case for why i would

crush it so what was it

real estate i knew nothing about real

estate

wasn’t that interested in it frankly but

when he explained what the job entailed

i thought

yeah i could see myself getting pretty

good at that

i just loved that i would succeed or

fail based solely on my efforts

so i jumped in with two feet pretty soon

i was showing ten thousand dollar a

month apartments

hustling for sure but also making fat

commissions

now and then until

2008 happened

what i know now is that when you

have banked enough confidence

because you have taken enough leaps

big external threats like

great recessions won’t easily undermine

you

but back then i didn’t have it

yet in fact back then i tried all kinds

of things

i helped open a cafe pizzeria i produced

theater i worked for a small tech

startup i even lived off of selling

art on the street in manhattan for an

entire summer

but meanwhile it seemed like everyone

around me

knew what their mission in life was

except me

i wondered am i just being stubborn

insisting on doing everything my way

and for what i felt like i had

nothing concrete to show for it

but i was wrong

and i want to tell you a story about how

it took a breakdown on a beach

in paradise to make me see what i

really had been banking that whole time

by 2010 i was ready to take this whole

my way thing to the

next level i wondered what’s better than

being a ceo

being a retired ceo i mean don’t we all

just want to live on the beach and

enjoy our lives so when my fiance steve

and i

heard about a farm in the british virgin

islands that would let young scrappy

people like us

work in exchange for food and

rent in paradise it sounded like a great

opportunity to see if

maybe we could bypass this whole system

maybe we could move straight to paradise

enjoy our lives skip the career and not

even need money

we had no idea what to expect

we had only exchanged a couple one-line

emails with the farmer before we went

our instructions when we arrived were to

exit the airport

walk to the end of the road and then ask

someone

on the beach for aragorn

and yes the farmer’s name was actually

aragorn

so that’s what we did sure enough the

first person we found

pointed to this welding art studio hut

down the beach

and there he was and despite the fact

that within

hours of arriving we were covered in

unbearable bites

by these invisible bugs they call flying

teeth

and the fact that we had no electricity

no internet

and we literally had to gather sticks to

build a fire

for every meal we ate it really was

paradise

after just a couple of hours of farm

work each morning the day was

ours to hitchhike around the island and

do whatever we wanted

and despite the flying teeth it was

nearly perfect here i was with

the love of my life zero responsibility

no need for money and all the time in

the world

to just read and think and be

i had everything i wanted

i had everything i thought everyone

wanted

so it was a shock when one day

sitting on one of the many private

beaches

with the crystal clear water and the

sugary white sand

and the perfectly placed palm trees

all around us i started to

sob uncontrollably

i thought i would feel different but i

didn’t

i felt empty

and i know this is a cliche but it was

so poignant

in that moment sitting on the hot sand

it was like i had been in a desert

desperately trying to get to an oasis in

the distance

only to find out when i finally got

there it was

a mirage it didn’t

exist

we all believe we are going to arrive

one day on the mountaintop and then

have everything we want and be

the confident and successful people we

want to be i was sobbing

because i was mourning the loss of that

idea but

when it disappeared it’s like it cleared

the way

to see what i really had been doing

that whole time i

had been taking leap after leap into

unknown territory and with each

experience

banking more confidence in myself

that i could take on

anything everything

it was so obvious how come i hadn’t seen

it before

i’m here arguing that the more

confidence you

bank the more opportunities you open up

for yourself in the future

and you do this by taking leaps

even when the outcome is scary

or unknown or when there’s

no clear path to success

while other people were banking money

i was banking confidence

the kind of true confidence you cannot

use

the fake it till you make it strategy to

get

and now i can go after

what i want in life with my foot

all the way on the gas because

i have a little secret when you make it

true for yourself that anything you try

will bank more confidence

you cannot make a wrong move

and my business is really a

manifestation of this

as a branding studio in brooklyn we

named our company something that would

make

anyone uncomfortable worst of all

design i charge

audacious prices and i make my clients

pay

in full up front i’m

okay saying a lot of things a lot of

people don’t like

and i push people to do a lot of things

that make them

very uncomfortable and people always ask

me

where do you get the confidence to say

that

to charge that to do

that this

this is how i get it it’s not because

i’m some

business genius and it’s certainly not

because i was born with it

i have experienced that taking

leaps is the only way to

bank true confidence

when i had to make the decision to face

my fear

and put my face on my book cover

i was ready i had been

training for that moment and

if you google me now you’ll laugh

because my face is everywhere

and by the way i care so much less

about the judgment now

i want you to imagine what you could do

in your life if you took the leaps

you don’t take because you’re scared

things won’t work out the way you want

them to

and instead took them because taking

leaps banks confidence no matter

what happens i

dare you to try and no matter what

you will have done something so

valuable for yourself

you will have freed up unlimited

possibilities in your life

and i don’t know exactly what you will

discover

in your revelation in paradise moments

but i promise it’ll be something amazing

something only you will discover if you

take a leap thank you