Confidence Is Action: Tricia Conyers on Building Real Self-Trust

Confidence is not the same thing as competence, and chasing more credentials will never close the gap on its own. In this episode of Unpack with Ron Harvey, coach and author Tricia Conyers joins Ron for an honest, vulnerable conversation about why so many accomplished, high-performing women still struggle to see themselves as capable as everyone around them already does, and what actually builds the kind of self-trust that lasts.

Based in Trinidad and Tobago, Tricia Conyers is a professional and personal coach who works with women standing at a crossroads between the life they are living now and the brighter, braver, bolder version of themselves they know they are capable of becoming. Her first book, Confidence Is Action, releases in September on Amazon.

In this conversation, Ron and Tricia unpack:

• Why competence is only one ingredient of confidence, and what the missing pieces really are
• The "negative sum game" women play by dismissing their wins and magnifying their mistakes
• A simple daily practice: naming one thing that went well, then why it was about you
• How reflection, scheduled every 90 days like a meeting, compounds into higher performance
• The wedding-party moment that stripped away Tricia's confidence, and the lesson underneath it
• Why self-trust, not outside validation, sits at the very heart of real confidence
• The "waiting to feel ready" trap, and why confidence only arrives after you take action
• How confidence works like a muscle that anyone can build through repetition and reps

Whether you lead a team, are building something of your own, or keep waiting to feel ready before you begin, this episode delivers practical, day-by-day tools to stop waiting and start acting, plus a leadership lens on how to build confidence in the people you manage and help them step into bigger opportunities.

Connect with Tricia Conyers:
 LinkedIn: Tricia Conyers
 Instagram: inspireher (Trinidad and Tobago)
 Website: triciaconyers.com
 Book: Confidence Is Action (Amazon, September)

Connect with Ron
Just Make A Difference: Leading Under Pressure by Ron Harvey

“If you don’t have something to measure your growth, you won’t be self-aware or intentional about your growth.”

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Disclaimer:

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any organization or entity. The information provided in this podcast is intended for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners should consult with their own professional advisors before implementing any suggestions or recommendations made in this podcast. The speakers and guests are not responsible for any actions taken by listeners based on the information presented in this podcast. The podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice or services. The speakers and guests make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information, products, services, or related graphics contained in this podc...

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Tricia

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Unpack Podcast with your host, Leadership Consultant, Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting. Ron believes that leadership is the fundamental driver towards making a difference. So now, to find out more of what it means to unpack leadership, here's your host, Ron Harvey.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Well, good afternoon, everybody. This is Ron Harvey. I'm the Chief Operating Officer, Vice President for Global Course Strategies and Consulting, which is a professional leadership development firm. We spend all of our time, honestly, doing something that sounds simple but very difficult. Is how do you get leaders to work better and take better care of the people that actually are getting the work done in their organizations? And there are 10,000 ways to do that. Um, not here to talk about that today, um, because I have a phenomenal guest. This podcast is all about unpacking something that may seem simple but can be very difficult. And our guests are from around the globe. So I always ask them to introduce themselves. You're going to be excited, especially when she starts talking and she tells you where she's at. Um, we'll probably be a little jealous of of the weather where she's at. Um, but Tricia, uh, welcome to the show. Thank you for saying yes to Unpack with Ron Harvey. Looking forward to it. But go ahead and introduce yourself to our guests, to all of our audience.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Yeah, hi, Ron. Thank you so much for having me here with you today. I appreciate you very much. Uh yeah, it's it's it is warm and sunny where I am. I am standing in beautiful Trinidad and Tobago, well, in the Trinidad half of Trinidad and Tobago, which is where I live and work. And for the moment, it is sunny and warm, but this is our rainy season. So if you start to hear the thunder, it can come out of nowhere. So that is the time of year that we are in here. But it's a pleasure to be with you today. I, the type of work that I would do, I would love to tell you just a little bit about it. So I work predominantly with women. I am a professional and personal coach with women. And I like to say that I work with women who are standing at that point in their life where they can just see a crossroad in front of them. Just in front of them, they can see a version of themselves that is a little more brilliant, a little more brave, a little more bold. And she's standing right there in front of her, and they just don't know how to step into her. They know she's there, they know they can be her, but they're just not exactly sure how to bridge that gap. The gap between the life that they are living now and the life that they know that they are capable of creating. So those are the women that I tend to work with. They come to me, and more often I hear them say two things. They either say, I'm feeling stuck where I am, or they say, I'm ready for more. I'm ready for more. I feel like there's just more that I can do, more than I can offer, more than I can give. And that's the kind of the tension that they feel when they show up here. Those are the women that I work with.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Wow. Love it, love it. So so for all the women, I mean, you are in for a treat for the guys. Don't jump off, don't hang up, stay with us.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Indeed.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Yeah, don't leave us, stay with us. Uh, I'm sure you'll hear some things that because you're leading people that that are women in your organization, that this this would be helpful. So, guys, hang in with us. Uh, there'll be we'll find someone that'll we'll bring on that'll make sure that you know they're focusing on some guys too. So hang in with us and thank you for joining. So, Trisha, I want to I want to dive into it. This is unpacking. We have some really open,

Confidence Vs Competence Explained

SPEAKER_02 3:20

honest conversations and dialogue. Um, so thank you for the work that you're doing. You know, a part of as I as our team looked at your profile and understood what you do, um, and and we do that with every every guest that comes on and supports the podcast. You talk a lot about you know confidence um in in the work that you do and helping women get to that place that that are doing well. But when you think of confidence and competence, why is it why the question I have for you is how so many people that's made it to the pivotal point of their career that's professional, that's doing really, really well. They're very accomplished, but they still get into this place, they struggle seeing themselves as capable as other people see them.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Such a great question. Thank you, Ron. One of the things about confidence that I have learned as I have done this work is that it is one of those things that we can see it and recognize it in others, but it's really hard for us to define, really hard for us to crystallize. It's so it's multidimensional, it is intricate, it's multifaceted, it's made up of all sorts of things. And it definitely has its links to competence, but that's not all. I think there's a lot more that's inside of confidence than just competence. And one of the challenges that I have seen with women is this association with confidence and competence. And so what happens is we invest so heavily in the comp in the competence, more skills, doing more courses, getting getting more credentials, feeling like we have to have that stack list of competence, all of those degrees and associations and letters after our names and experiences and all of these things, and in hoping that that will give us the feeling of confidence. But competence is just one part of it, and that's why we find ourselves in these situations where we're continually seeking and going after this range of new skill sets and experiences and all of these things that we put in the bucket of competence, but yet we still don't feel the confidence because there's definitely something else in there. So competence is just one of the pieces that are inside of confidence, and there are so many more elements to it. I like to say that inside of confidence, finding your most authentic form of confidence comes from nurturing your brilliant self, your brave self, and your bold self. So when you think about competence, that's inside of your brave self and your bold self, the knowing what you do and being able to do that. But there are other elements to it as well.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Wow. Yeah, thank you for sharing. I mean, unpacking because you you're right. I mean, we'll stack the list and continue to get the next skill, the next degree, the next trade. I mean, it's just constantly you're chasing after this thing. And when is it when is uh enough enough? Or when do you you're good enough? So you spend a lot of time with women, and and I've noticed oftentimes women are very self-critical more than men are about what they bring to the table. What do you share with women that are listening that that are at a pivotal point? They're doing really, really well. Everybody sees them as as a go-to person, but they have this feeling of imposture syndrome, or they're still not enough. What do you say to people

The Negative Sum Self Critic

SPEAKER_02 6:55

that's at that place?

SPEAKER_00 6:57

Yeah, it's one of the things that I have seen in my work with women. So, based on what I know today in my work with women, I a hundred percent agree with you. We are so self-critical. And I like to say that we play this negative sum game all the time. So experiences happen at work. Let's say something goes really well at work. We give ourselves a big fat zero amount of points for that, right? But something, something goes wrong at work, it doesn't go well, it doesn't go as the way that you wanted. You fumbled in that presentation, you know, you had a difficult conversation that didn't go well, and you give yourself negative a thousand points. So you're always losing. You can never even get to zero. You know, we're playing this negative sum game. And this is the thing: women do this with themselves all the time. They don't give themselves the credit of the things that go well. I like to say we don't capture the evidence of the things that we have done that goes well. So, and even when we do recognize that something goes well, one of the things I've noticed as women is we tend to shrink that down. We tend to almost dismiss it. We'll say, Well, I got lucky. Or it was a, you know, it was it was the whole team that pulled together. You know, I didn't play much of a big role. It really was everyone else, for example. So we tend to dismiss it. So in our minds, we're telling ourselves the role that I played wasn't worth anything. So we're building our own mindset and we're training our mind to be women tend to have this uh love-hate relationship between humility and confidence. That they feel like for me to be seen as humble and to be able to for people to like me by showing up as humble and engaging with them, that means that I can't be I can't be confident. That humility is the opposite of confidence. I hear that a lot of times in my work with women. And one of the things that they just don't do is they don't capture their wins. And when they don't capture their wins, they don't capture the things that go well. And even if they do, they never extrapolate from the win. What was it about them that made that thing go really well? So really making the connection between themselves and the external event, so connecting their qualities and their characteristics and their strengths and their values to the external thing. They never make that connection. So they always remove it from themselves. So they they remove it from themselves. So that's what I've noticed.

SPEAKER_02 9:42

Yes. I'm gonna actually lean in a little bit with you and unpack for a second. I mean, I love what you're sharing. If you've gone through that yourself, what did you actually do to begin to change that mindset and that behavior about yourself? What would you share with the women that are listening? Say, I hear you, it sounds great, you know, great academic studies, um, great case studies, but what did you actually do?

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah,

A Daily Practice For Self Trust

SPEAKER_00 10:06

so the really practical exercise that I like to encourage my clients to do is so simple. At the end of every day, it's to say one thing that went well, but don't stop there. Say, what was it about me that made that thing go well? What was it about me? And that's just training your mind to recognize that I have the qualities and the characteristics and the strengths that add value and do great things. And so rewarding yourself and recognizing just completing the sentence. So often, you know, we'll talk about recognize our wins, you know, at the end of the day, say three wins, such a great practice from the gap in the gain by Dan Sullivan, uh, Dan Sullivan, uh, such a great practice, but we don't finish the sentence. This went well because I am, because I am. Can you can you make the bridge between the external event and you to make the connection between the two? So that's the practice that I like to encourage my clients to do. It's how I start every coaching session with my clients. Tell me about what's been going well. Now tell me, what was it about you that has made those things go well? Well, men need to see that connection. Perhaps men do too. I don't work with men, so I don't know if it's as powerful for men, but I do know that as women, as I work with women and they do this, their version, their perspective of themselves starts to shift.

SPEAKER_02 11:31

Yes, yes. Men do it too. So, guys, yeah, we we know we do it. Um, you know, so it's great that you're sharing. So, what you're thinking about, you talk a lot about the power of reflection, which is what you're discussing

Reflection As A Leadership Tool

SPEAKER_02 11:42

right now. Um, because we'll normally we'll do something and we're on to the next thing before we sit down and reflect. Well, we're in a society that does reward execution results. Why do you believe reflection might be the best thing in your tool bag as a leader for you to build up the ability to keep showing up consistently?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, amazing. I first of all, I do strongly believe in reflection, not only for you personally, but as a leader, you should be doing it with your team. Because otherwise, you're missing the you're missing the the trick between all the heavy execution that's happened. The reflection is where we extract all the things that are gonna help us be better in the future. They're where we find those nuggets that are gonna increase performance, high performance. It's where we make connections. It's where we see the impact of the actions that we took and the results that happened. If we skip the process of reflection, we're only ever in the doing mood, the execution mood. And we're not building off of all the evidence that we're stacking and creating through the things that we're doing. This is the importance, I believe, in reflection. So it's at a personal level and with a team and in your one-to-ones with your with your direct reports. I think reflection is such an incredible part of that. It's not just the what's next and what we have to do. And do you feel that you have the skill set and are you motivated and testing, you know, the situational leadership of the task, but it's also reflecting and helping them to connect. And this is such an important part of building confidence as well. And as leaders, our role is also that it's to build the confidence of our team members, right? To help them see their potential and to help them feel that they can step into the things that are in front of them, opportunities that are coming, take on bigger projects, go for promotions, take on bigger roles. That is our role as leaders, is to build the capacity of all the people that are on our team. So helping them to see and connect with their confidence is such an important, important part of our role as leaders.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

Yes, yes. So, Tricia, when you're working with people, um, what do you tell women that show up? I mean, because you know, your mom, you're in business, or you're in corporate America, you got to deal with the family. They're just I don't have the time to reflect. I just can't see where I'm gonna fit in this this thing that you're talking about reflection. What do you how do you help people deal with when that question shows up in their life?

SPEAKER_00 14:20

Yeah. Personally, I schedule reflection. So it is in my calendar as a thing that I do. I do every 90 days. I use a certain number of questions, certain list of questions that I use to reflect, and I do it every 90 days, and it's in my calendar as I would attend the meeting. So I schedule it, I make the time for it, and I schedule it. That is on the rhythm of 90-day reflection and looking back at the growth, personal growth and the business growth and where is everything tracking. Reflection can be as simple as at the end of the day as well, just writing down a few things from the day that you want to remember and the connections that you see, the impact that that's having. It can be as simple as that. It can be the quiet moment in the car, in the commute home, you know, without filling that with more execution, like listening to podcasts or, you know, whatever it is that you might be trying to finish in a task or send more emails. It can be a few moments to reflect in that commute, in those transition times in our days, when we're transitioning from work back into home life or you know, in those spaces of our days. So it can be in those spaces as well. As a leader, I think it's something really important that we schedule with our teams so that we do make time to reflect. How are we doing? And I know very often leaders will do this, whether it's in the under the banner of an after-action review or something like that. You know, that is that is also a reflection activity, but making sure that we do schedule that to see not just on projects, but also just on a general cycle of how are we performing and how are we working together as a team.

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yes, yes. I love

Leaving Corporate And Facing Doubt

SPEAKER_02 16:15

it. So so you're thinking about it, and I want to pivot a little bit for you. I want to think about your growth and what do you share with people. I mean, you're you're you're out doing your thing now, you've been in corporate America, you've you've been in facilitating the leadership development. And kudos, you're out you know in your own organization and figuring it out. When you think about the level of confidence that it takes to live out what's really for you, regardless of because there are people that's always gonna say, Are you sure you want to do that? How did you navigate stepping out on your own? And what did you have to overcome?

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Yeah. I once had somebody ask me the question since you've started building this business, is there ever a day where you just felt like you wanted to give up? And I'm like, Yes, every Wednesday. You know, right? Every Wednesday. There's nothing like trying to build something on your own that will raise up every self-doubt, every fear that you have ever had in terms of putting yourself out there, being visible, doing uncomfortable things. You know, that is that is the the spirit of the entrepreneurial journey for sure. Uh so absolutely, I feel it. And the work that I do with confidence, one of the things to me that is very important about this work is taking something that is very conceptual for us, the concept of confidence. It's a very conceptual thing. Like we started off, I said, you know, we can often see it and recognize it in people, but it's hard to crystallize exactly what it is. So it's this big concept that's out there. You know, I get it, I can see it, and I can recognize it in others, but what does it actually mean? How do I actually do it? How do I actually build it? And again, this is where we started off. One of the ways that we think about doing that is well, I'll get more competence, right? I'll get more skill set, I'll get, and that will give me confidence. But it's so much more than that. And so the work that I have done is translate this concept into something very practical. What are the practical things that you can do on a day-to-day basis that nurture your confidence? Because confidence ebbs and flows in a day, you know, here I am in my own entrepreneurial journey. I can have moments where I'm feeling great and super confident that I'm going to be successful doing this. And two hours later, I'm feeling like I could chuck it all in, like this is going nowhere, right? So it ebbs and it flows. So, what do you come back to in those moments? What are the practices that you come back to that help you to just reconnect with your own confidence? Confidence is not just in the big splashy things that we see on the outside, the the performative side of confidence, the presentations, the accolades, the achievements, all of those things. It's not just that. It's also what you do in those really quiet moments of nurturing yourself when you feel the fear, when you feel self-doubt. And so knowing what your the practical actions are that work for you is incredibly important to keep showing up, to keep moving through fear. So that is the work that I have done, is to translate this concept, this big nebulous, airy, fairy thing that we just can't quite put our fingers into into something that's practical and something that I can specifically do day by day, action by action, those little micro actions that, with the consistency of doing them, culminate and compound into showing up with confidence.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Wow, wow. I love it. I love it. Can you think of a moment when when everything or everybody around you was telling you that it wasn't gonna work and you still wanted it to work? I was how did you how did you combat that mentally? Because you know, everybody like, oh, you're losing your mind. What are you thinking about? Like, are you serious? Like, this is the dumbest idea ever. How do you combat that? And and how do you still stay focused and go after, even though you know it's gonna be tough? And it is, it's hard, but it's possible. How do you combat that for women that are listening that are right there and their friends and their closest people are like uh they're more nervous about it than the person that actually got to go through it? How do you help them get through that?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I can think of a moment I've told this story a few times because it was such a pivotal moment for me, but it is a moment exactly where you're talking about where I was fully in question of what I was doing. And I'll just set the scene for you here, Ron. I had just left my corporate career where I had been for 20 years of my life with one particular organization. I had built my way through the ranks, I sat as part of the leadership team, I helped to grow this company. I was instrumental in, you know, developing our culture and building skill set within the business. I had a reputable title, I had a great salary, I had a great reputation, and then I had walked away from it. I had reached a point where I decided I love this and I love these people, and I'm also ready to do something else. But I didn't quite know what ready for something else was. I knew that there was, I felt that tension about wanting more, wanting to do something different, but I didn't exactly know what it was. So I was living in this liminal space that first year when I left, this liminal space of not knowing exactly where I was going to end up, not knowing exactly what I was even trying to build. But I had made, I had taken the leap. And I remember a particular day standing in a wedding with some friends in a small circle with a couple of people I knew well and a couple of people that were just acquaintances. And here we are, all just casually chatting about our lives and our career. We went to university and the things that we did. And I remember a woman, she turned to me in the circle and she said, So tell me, you know, where did you go to university and what have you been doing? I said, Oh, you know, this is where I went to university. I studied this, and this was my career, et cetera, et cetera. And she said, And what do you do now? And in that moment, I don't remember what I said, but I know that I didn't say anything that was particularly memorable for the rest of the group because I didn't really know what it was I was doing. I was still figuring it out. So I don't remember what I said, but I remember what she said. And she said this wow, what a waste of a career and an education. And in that moment, it felt like the whole room just opened up and swallowed me up. I felt stripped away of everything I had ever built and created. In that one moment, she had wiped clean my whole past and made me feel like I had absolutely nothing to offer. But the thing that I always like to say about that story is that that stayed with me for days and days afterwards, weeks even. And I remember I took it to different coaching sessions that I had. As a coach, I had a number of coaches, and I took it to different coaching sessions, and I kept unpacking it, Ron, because I just had to dig into it. This was bothering me so much. And what I came to realize about that moment is it's not about what she said. It's about what I didn't see. In the moment when she said that I didn't stand up for myself. I didn't stand up for the fact that I was on a journey that was requiring me to be brave, requiring me to navigate uncertainty, and that I knew I was going to land up somewhere. I just didn't know exactly where it was today. And to navigate that takes a lot of courage and resilience. And that everything that I had built in my career has led me to this point today. Whatever the words were, but I didn't stand up for myself in that moment. And that's the thing that bothered me the most because I handed over my confidence to her, looking for validation, looking for the, oh wow, what an amazing career, what an amazing, and the validation that we look for that gives us external confidence. But the truth is that confidence on paper is not confidence in the soul. And you have to find, you have to be able to stand up for yourself. Self-trust is at the heart of confidence and being able to nurture that so that you know who you are and showing up for that. So that's what I've learned from that experience. It had nothing to do with what she said and all about where I was at that moment in time.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Wow. I told you, just hang on. There's gonna be something for everybody because we never know. And thank you for sharing that story because it's it's the part that we want to unpack that people don't hear, they don't read in books, they don't see that moment. There are a lot of people you're listening to this podcast right now, that has been exactly where Trisha has shared. And probably there right now. Yeah, and and how do you, it's not what they say to you, it's what you don't say and what you don't do in those moments. And no matter how good you are, how many degrees, or what university, or what your title, she's had it all, and she still was stuck, had been a leader in the organization on the executive team, and lost her opportunity to stand up and speak up for herself with all the talent and the skills. When you find yourself there, how do you recover? So, what did you do to recover?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Yeah, I unpacked it with my coaches. I really got into

Confidence Arrives After Action

SPEAKER_00 25:46

what were my assumptions, what was I believing about myself, and was that even true in that moment? I needed to see, I needed to find the real true belief that was underneath that. I needed to see that for myself. I also needed to talk about it with people that I, you know, trust and who are close to me. So not just coaches, but I needed to get other perspectives about what she had said, not so much what she had said, but why I was feeling the way that I was feeling. I needed to get other perspectives about that. I needed to come back to my own, what I call my own brag list, my own win list of these are the things that I have done and this is what they say about me. This is who I am. This person knows nothing about me. They were standing in a circle with me, that they had met me for all of 15 minutes. Why would I hand over my confidence to them? Why would I give them that control of myself? So I needed to come back to the things that I knew about myself, my own strengths. And I honestly, I needed to trust in my journey. I needed to reconnect with the vision that I was building. I didn't know it wasn't perfectly clear. My goals were what I like to call fuzzy goals at that time. I knew that they were out there and I kind of had an eye there, but they weren't crystal clear at that point in time. They weren't a nice crystal ball. They were a fuzzy ball. There was lots of snow in the snow globe. But I needed to come back to that and remind myself that why was I doing this? What was it that I wanted to create in this world, even though I didn't know exactly how I was doing it yet? But what was it that I wanted to do? So I needed to reconnect with those things. So that's how I came back to center. You know, I was like, you know, being very off balance in that moment, but that's how I came back to center by remembering my wins, where I had done things, by getting different perspectives, by digging into my thoughts and my beliefs with my coaches and remembering my vision. Those were some of the things that I did at that point in time.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

I love it. I love it. Um, as we look at time, I want to I want to ask the questions and give you the space to really respond to it. When you think about the journey you've taken, where you are, the question is what do you tell people, women, that are waiting for it to be all just right before they ever start?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah. Oh, I hear this one a lot. You know, I'm waiting to feel ready. Confidence is a feeling. I'm waiting to feel ready. And we are so creative about the ways that we wait, right? Because we wait by doing more, going off to the next certification, getting another degree. That's a way of waiting. I was like, I just need this one more degree before I do this thing or apply for that role. We wait by over planning, we wait in so many creative ways, not just by saying tomorrow. We we we dress up the waiting of something else, whether that be planning or or studying and credentialing and all of those things. We dress up waiting in all these different ways. Confidence is funny. It's like a bus with an odd timing system. You know, imagine yourself standing at a bus stop and there's that clock, and it's like that's your bus, and the clock is counting down. You know, that there's a clock there with a time on it, and you expect it to be counting down like my bus is coming. But every time you look up and you look at the timer, you're but it's getting further and further away. You know, that it's counting in the wrong direction, and timing is moving in the wrong direction. The funny thing about it is if you just decide to leave that bus stop, you say, like, you know what, I'm not waiting any longer. It's just taking too long, and I'm just gonna start walking in the direction of where I want to go. Once you do that, the bus pulls up alongside you, like it was there all along. Yes, that's confidence. Confidence comes after you take action, not before. It comes after you take the action. So you've got to take the action. So the waiting, the waiting is the complete opposite of confidence ever arriving. You will wait forever because it will not arrive until you start taking action. Even if that is imperfect, messy, clumsy action that is a bit embarrassing, it's all a bit cringe, you know, whatever that might be, it's still action. And you learn from that action. You learn how to do it better, you learn what you liked, you learn what you didn't like, you learn what worked, what didn't work, you learn that you survived, you learn that you can do hard things, you learn that you can trust yourself, that you say you're gonna do something and that you can trust yourself. And in all of those learnings, you're more likely to do it again and to do it again. And repetition builds confidence. Repetition is building evidence of you doing it over and over again, of growing and learning and doing it a bit better. And so the confidence is growing with you. So you've got to take action. I did a post on Instagram recently where I was like, scroll down, scroll all the way down to the bottom of my profile and look at the first reels that I put out there. See how terrible they are, see how bad the lighting is, see how terrible my speech is, see how cringe I look, see how badly edited my videos are. Have a look. And I tell this story, I could have deleted them all, but I didn't. I've left them in there because they're all proof. They're proof of growth, they're proof of trying, they're proof of putting myself out there, they're proof of facing the fear of being visible, proof of facing the fear of being judged in those moments. And they're still there, they're evidence, it's real evidence. And I don't want to delete them. I want you to go down and have a look at them because that's how you grow. You just have to take the imperfect, messy, cringe action and keep going anyway. That's when the confidence comes.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Yeah, it never looks good the first time.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

No, exactly. It never looks good the first time. It's uncomfortable because we've never done it, right? It's awkward because I've never tried this before. And how many times have you succeeded at things you've never tried before? So many. If you look back in your life, so many. You learn to ride a bike, you learn to drive a car, all of those things you had never done before, right? You just you had to put yourself in the space, you had to learn, you had to try, you had to make some mistakes, you had to recover from them. And you were able to do that. And now you're a confident driver, now you're a confident speaker, now you're a confident whatever it might be, fill in the blank for you. But there was a time when that thing was new and awkward and messy.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

And oh, yes, but there's a time when when you're like, get on a podcast, like, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna let people listen to me talk. I don't know what I'm talking about, and now you come on, but you build muscles. Yes, yes, I love it. Yeah, so that's what I say.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Confidence is a muscle. Confidence is a muscle, it's not it's not a it's not an inequality, it's not in your DNA. Yes, there's some science that says there are aspects of our DNA that influence it, but there is more research that says that confidence is a skill, confidence is a muscle that can be built.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yes, yes, absolutely. So a closing question.

Adversity And Finding Allies

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Um, what's the toughest thing you had to navigate through? In my professional career, my personal career, I don't I'll open it up to whatever you feel comfortable with. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

One of the things, I'm sure there they have been many in my life, but one of the things that I can think of is as a young teenager, yes, here in Trinidad, our high schools were girl schools or boys' schools.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

And that's just how they were organized. And when I got to the point of wanting to do A-level subjects before, kind of just before going off to university, those last two years, subjects, the subjects I wanted to do weren't taught in the girls' school. So I had to go to a boy school to do it. So I was one of five girls that spent two years in a school with 1,100 boys.

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

At a very awkward time in my life as a teenager, right? And they're at awkward times in their life as well. The boys are from ages sort of 11 to 18 or so in the school. That was that was definitely something that was difficult for me. A difficult space to navigate. And there were many times where I wanted to quit and give up. I'm like, this isn't for me. This is this is really hard. This is truly awkward. It's hard enough sort of being here studying these subjects, but I am so intimidated by this environment as well. Not for any other reason, but it was probably in my own mindset, but I was very intimidated by this space. And there were many times, like I said, where I wanted to give up. But I knew that giving up meant doing subjects I really didn't like. So I just kept sticking it out. And of course, you know, that was the beginning of steps in my life that led to many different things, to, you know, where I ended up going to university, you know, and many, many different opportunities that came out of the that experience in my life. And so one of the things that those really hard moments that we look back and at challenges, there are moments where we're standing on the edge of growth in our life. There are moments where we're standing on the edge of opportunity, though we can't see it at that time. And nothing is wasted. Absolutely nothing is wasted in our life. No moment is wasted, no experience that we've had, no position that we've been in, no, you know, role that we have been in, no, nothing is wasted. They are all helping us to grow into where we're meant to be. And I look back on it from that perspective now, because without that, those two years of my life, there are many things that happened afterwards that would not have happened as a result.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

I I love it. I love it. So can you unpack a little bit more? I love that story. I mean, it's phenomenal because you know, it's this it's authentic, it's real, it's what you've gone through. How do you how do you learn to embrace adversity? Because you were facing adversity, five women, all men, courses, and in the stories you tell. How do you learn to embrace adversity? Because I love that you said every moment is going to make sense at some point. It just not makes sense at that at that moment.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah. Navigating the days meant building allies. You know, there were a few friends, a few friends there who really made those days easier to navigate. So having allies, and I actually say that's a part of confidence, knowing who your network is, knowing the people who you can trust so you can show up, that they are there for you. So having allies was a big part of that. Again, coming back to why was I there? Why was I there? I really wanted to do these subjects. I loved them and I really wanted to study that. They weren't just kind of nice to have, or you know, that someone said, Oh, you really should study that, you're good at it. I actually really wanted to do it. I didn't want to do the other option. So coming back to why it was important to me to be able to do that, you know. Uh, and so finding the small ways to navigate, to navigate that definitely in that at that time in my life, it required finding the right allies, finding the the right network of people who would support me, and remembering why I wanted to be there.

unknown 37:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

On strengths, that's something that I came back to that helped me to navigate that time.

SPEAKER_02 37:42

Yes, yes. Love it, love it.

Where To Connect And Final Takeaway

SPEAKER_02 37:44

You've been a phenomenal guest. Um, thank you for being on the show with us. Um, I always want to make sure people know how to reach out to you, make contact with you. You know, what's the most effective way for people to reach out to you to know just because they want to use your services or they want to bring you on a podcast or they just want to connect with you? What's the best way?

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah, so there are a couple of ways to get in touch with me. You can find me on LinkedIn, Trisha Conyas, my full name, and you can find me on LinkedIn and you can message me there. You can also find my website, which is www.trishaconyas.com. And then you can find me on Instagram. I share a lot on Instagram in terms of the different topics that I talk about. My Instagram profile is inspireher.t, as in Trinidad and Tobago. So inspireher.t. So those are the best ways to find me on LinkedIn, Trisha Conyas website, which is TrishaConyas.com, or on LinkedIn, which is inspireher.t.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you haven't said that you want to close us out with?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Just the one thing that I would like people to take away that confidence doesn't come first. Action comes first. And that is at the heart of the book that I've that I've written, Ron, that is coming out in September. The name of the book is Confidence is Action. And I want people to remember that it's the action. Action is what generates, it's the engine of confidence, it's the skill and the muscle that we're building. So have a look. Check out the book. It's going to be on Amazon in September, Confidence is Action by Trisha Conyers. And yeah, it's everything that we've talked about today and more.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

I love it. Thank you. And she has the book coming out, so follow September Amazon. Um, confidence is action. Um, please, uh, up for all of our listeners, support each other in the business arena. Um, thank you so much, Trisha. And for everyone else that's with us, thank you all so much for staying with us, for being a part of the podcast, um, and for inviting guests. Continue to come back. Um, if you know someone that will be a great guest for our audience, that's okay with not getting questions in advance, uh, tell them to reach out to our team. We'll be happy to schedule it with them. Um, but we love having guests that are going to be transparent, gonna be exciting, gonna be vulnerable, and gonna be fun um and add value to the audience. Um, so thank you so much for being with us today. Trisha has been great. And to the rest of you, until next time, uh, I'm signing off with Trisha with Unpack with Ron Harvey. Y'all have a great day, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

Well, we hope you enjoy this edition of Unpack Podcast with leadership consultant Ron Harvey. Remember to join us every Monday as Ron Unpacks Sound Advice, providing real answers for real leadership challenges. Until next time, remember to add value and make a difference where you are or the people you serve. Because people always matter.