0:02 What if I told you that confidence has
0:04 nothing to do with feeling ready and
0:06 everything to do with doing it scared? I
0:08 have built multiple businesses. I've led
0:10 massive teams. I've been on stages
0:12 terrified out of my mind. And somehow
0:14 I'm still standing. So, if you've ever
0:15 wondered how to stay calm in a situation
0:17 or how to stop overthinking or how to
0:20 build real confidence, here's how. I am
0:22 here to tell you how to actually build
0:24 confidence. Most people have it
0:27 backwards. Confidence is the output, not
0:30 the input. A lot of people ask me, Ila,
0:32 how do I build confidence? And I get it
0:33 because it's just like everyone's like,
0:35 "Oh, believe in yourself. You just need
0:36 to believe in yourself." And they think
0:37 that you need to write these
0:39 affirmations on the bathroom mirror
0:41 every morning. And listen, that's what I
0:42 did when I was in my early 20s. I
0:44 literally did this. I had it written on
0:46 my mirror. It was like, I am beautiful.
0:48 I am strong. I am capable. I am
0:50 confident. And guess what? Nothing
0:52 changed. It didn't do anything. Having
0:54 those things written on my mirror didn't
0:56 do jack for how I felt the rest of my
0:58 day. And the reason for that is because
1:01 confidence comes from action. And that's
1:04 why I say so often your mood, follow the
1:06 plan. Because if you keep the promises
1:08 that you make to yourself, especially
1:10 when you don't feel like doing it,
1:12 that's the input that leads to the
1:13 output of confidence. And that's what
1:15 most people miss. They're so busy
1:17 chasing the result. It's like, if you
1:18 think about it, if somebody's like, I
1:20 really just want to be skinny, right?
1:21 And so that all they do is just like
1:23 thinking about being skinny, wishing
1:24 they could be skinny, but you're like,
1:27 just get in the gym. Get in the gym, do
1:29 the workout, eat the food. You can't
1:31 just wish for it. You have to work for
1:32 it. So, I'll give you an example. At the
1:34 age of 21, I moved across the country. I
1:37 had no job. I had no money. And I had no
1:39 clue what the hell I was doing. I
1:41 certainly had no confidence in myself.
1:42 And I wasn't confident in my ability to
1:44 pull it off. And so, what I did is I
1:46 said, "Okay, I'm at least going to put
1:48 together a plan." So, what I did is I
1:50 moved to California. I got an apartment
1:53 and then I looked for every place that I
1:54 could work, which was a gym because I
1:55 have my degree in exercise science
1:57 within walking distance. And I had to do
1:59 walking distance cuz I was like, I can't
2:01 afford to pay for too much gas because I
2:02 don't have money. And so I ended up
2:05 getting a job at 24-hour fitness. And
2:06 when I got the job, what I realized
2:08 within the first two days was that the
2:10 job wasn't about fitness. It wasn't
2:12 about everything I'd learned. It was
2:14 actually about marketing and sales. And
2:15 I was terrified because I was like, I
2:17 have no idea how to do marketing and
2:18 sales. And I felt like this complete
2:20 imposttor syndrome. I just felt like an
2:22 out of my body experience because I was
2:23 like, "How am I supposed to do this?"
2:25 But at the same time, what I'm seeing is
2:27 my bank account every single day. I had
2:29 $5,000 and just down, down, down. My
2:32 rent was 1,400 a month, food, gas,
2:33 everything else, insurance, paying off
2:36 my student loan debt, all those things.
2:37 Every single month, I was like, I've got
2:38 three months. And so I was like, I have
2:40 to learn how to do this. And the thing
2:42 is is that I knew I was like, I don't
2:43 want to be the person who walks out. I
2:45 don't want to be the person who quits
2:46 because I knew that was just going to
2:48 make me feel worse about myself. And so
2:50 I put in the reps. I said, I'm going to
2:51 read five books on sales. I'm going to
2:53 be there at 4:00 a.m. I'm going to leave
2:56 at 9:00 p.m. I'm going to drill. I'm
2:58 going to take every opportunity to meet
2:59 with somebody who's better than me. I'm
3:00 going to take all the opportunity
3:02 possible to learn the skill. I was so
3:05 nervous the first time I went to make my
3:07 first sale that I went into the bathroom
3:08 because I thought I was going to throw
3:11 up. I went into the bathroom. I didn't
3:13 leave. I didn't quit. And what happened
3:15 was that I was absolutely
3:18 terrified for the first 30 days. I
3:20 remember the moment where I made my
3:22 first sale and my manager, my team,
3:24 everybody came, they all crowded around
3:25 me and they were like, "You did it." And
3:28 what was crazy was that none of the
3:30 celebration mattered. It wasn't the fact
3:31 that everyone was congratulating me. It
3:32 wasn't the fact that I made the money.
3:34 It was the fact of how I felt about
3:37 myself. It was like this vision that I
3:39 had of my future self just got pulled
3:41 into reality. And every belief I had
3:43 about myself was broken. Right? Then I
3:45 didn't believe that I could make money.
3:47 I wasn't confident in my ability to sell
3:50 or to market until the sale happened.
3:52 And all of a sudden, it was like more of
3:54 what's possible came to mind for me.
3:56 Like I started to think about other
3:57 things I could do. I started thinking
3:58 about other skills I could acquire. I
3:59 started to think about other things
4:02 beyond the box that I had built of the
4:05 vision of myself. That's absurd to think
4:08 that if I was just reading affirmations
4:10 in the mirror that I suddenly would have
4:12 been good at sales. Like, I put in the
4:14 reps to get good at sales. And here's
4:16 the thing, success does not
4:17 discriminate. Confidence does not
4:19 discriminate. It doesn't care where
4:21 you've come from. It doesn't care about
4:22 your background. It doesn't care about
4:25 your experience. All it cares about is
4:26 the fact that you put in the work to get
4:28 it. So, if you see people, right, you
4:29 see people when you're younger and
4:31 you're like, "How is that person so
4:32 confident, right? like given all their
4:34 circumstances, maybe what they look
4:35 like, maybe their job, their career,
4:37 they've done work that you haven't done.
4:39 And that's the thing, you have to work
4:40 for it. You have to put it into
4:41 existence and you have to make it
4:43 happen. Here's the thing. Your brain
4:46 gathers evidence, and evidence is what
4:48 builds the identity and confidence over
4:50 time. So, someone says to me, Ila, you
4:52 know, I want to go and speak at this
4:53 event, but I just I'm not confident to
4:54 speak at that event. I said, it would be
4:56 absurd to think that you would be
4:57 confident when you've never
4:59 spoken on stage before. Of course,
5:01 that's not going to happen. Our brains
5:03 like to predict what's likely to happen.
5:06 If you've never done something before,
5:07 your brain says, "I don't know what
5:09 could happen, so I'm going to make you
5:11 scared. And if you're scared, you're
5:12 going to avoid it." Which means that you
5:14 won't die. Right? Because our brains are
5:17 wired for survival, not success. And so,
5:19 it is crazy to think that you would
5:20 actually have confidence when you
5:21 haven't done the thing yet. You will
5:23 become confident once you've done the
5:25 thing because your brain does it. It
5:26 sees you didn't die and it says, "It's
5:27 okay. You can do it again." Now, here's
5:29 the thing. I wasn't like forever
5:31 confident now because just like a muscle
5:34 that you work out gets weak if you don't
5:35 put it under pressure, so does
5:37 confidence. Confidence is like a muscle.
5:39 So if you don't work out that muscle,
5:40 it's just going to get weaker and weaker
5:43 over time. So if you want to build
5:45 unshakable confidence, then you need a
5:47 habit that tracks the truth, not your
5:49 mood. Now, what do I mean by that? When
5:51 I was 100 lb overweight and I wanted to
5:53 lose that 100 lb, I said, you know what?
5:55 I'm just going to freaking start doing
5:57 what fit people do. I'm going to eat the
5:58 way they do. I'm going to work out the
6:00 way they do. I'm going to try and even
6:02 dress the way they do. And I'm gonna
6:03 hope and pray it actually works, right?
6:05 Because I'm sick of being fat. But the
6:07 most important thing I started doing is
6:10 I started tracking every single day what
6:12 I ate when I worked out. It's not that
6:15 within the day I lost 50 lbs between
6:17 Monday and Tuesday, right? But I did
6:19 notice that even if I felt like I
6:21 overeat or even if I felt like I was
6:23 slacking or even if I felt like my
6:24 workout wasn't perfect because I was on
6:27 a trip, I still consistently tracked and
6:29 I still saw progress over time. Now
6:31 maybe it wasn't between Monday and
6:32 Tuesday, but I could see it between
6:34 Monday and Monday or Monday and two
6:35 Mondays from now. And so I saw that the
6:38 line wasn't like this, the line was like
6:41 this. And over time I did make a lot of
6:43 progress. And that's when I realized
6:45 confidence comes from data, not
6:48 dopamine. And over time, what happens is
6:49 that evidence that you're feeding your
6:52 brain helps override the emotional
6:53 narratives that you tell yourself. Your
6:55 brain will follow the evidence. And so
6:57 tracking things and tracking our
6:59 progress. The reason why it keeps people
7:01 on track is because your brain looks at
7:03 it and it objectively says, "Oh, wow.
7:05 This is evidence. This is data. This is
7:07 important. And I'm going to believe it."
7:09 Before that, all that's happening is
7:10 that you feel like even when you're
7:12 making progress. Have you ever felt that
7:13 way before? Have you ever felt like
7:14 you're making progress, but you still
7:16 feel like good about yourself? Lots of
7:17 people actually feel that way. And the
7:19 reason why they feel like is because
7:20 they don't track their progress because
7:22 progress doesn't go like this. So, you
7:24 remember the days that you feel low, but
7:25 you don't remember the days that you
7:26 feel high. But if you look at the
7:29 progress and you track, you see all the
7:30 days that were high and then you're
7:31 like, "Oh, you know what? I actually had
7:33 five good days this week and really two
7:35 bad ones." But it's just that our brains
7:37 love to take the negative and make it
7:39 bigger than it is. And so we have to
7:41 fight that natural tendency by tracking
7:43 our wins. Now, here's the thing. If
7:45 you're struggling to stay consistent and
7:47 you're like, I am tracking things, but I
7:49 still don't feel confident and I don't
7:51 feel like I'm making progress, then my
7:53 guess is this. You're trying to go too
7:55 big. You're taking too big of a leap.
7:57 The fastest way to build confidence is
7:59 to start with something small, so small
8:01 that you can't lose. Okay? Great example
8:04 of this is I had a friend who every
8:06 single time he started with a new client
8:07 and this is a client who's trying to
8:09 lose weight. He did not get them to try
8:11 and eat less the first week. He didn't
8:13 get them to try and go to the gym the
8:14 first week. He didn't even have them
8:16 measure themselves the first week. The
8:18 first seven days of his program, he just
8:19 asked them to make their bed and take a
8:21 picture. Isn't that crazy? Now, why is
8:23 that? Because he wanted to make it
8:25 something so easy and so small that he
8:27 knew that by the end of 7 days, they
8:28 would feel good about the fact that they
8:30 had made their bed every day. And so
8:32 what that did is it created the
8:33 confidence in that person so that they
8:35 felt like they could take the next step.
8:37 And people think, "Oh, it's so small.
8:38 I'm not going to feel the reward of it."
8:40 That's not the case. That's not how it
8:42 works. You will feel good no matter how
8:43 small the progress was as long as you
8:45 get the reward. For example, every
8:48 quarter, every 3 months in my business,
8:49 I decide what are my goals for that
8:51 quarter, right? And it's like, okay, I
8:53 have these three or four big goals that
8:54 I have for the quarter that I'm going to
8:56 tackle. But it's not that I just look at
8:57 it and say, did I hit it? Yes or no. I
8:59 take each goal and I break it down as
9:01 small as possible. And then every single
9:04 day I go in and I'm like, what have I
9:05 accomplished on the way to my goal? If I
9:07 have 20 steps in each of the goals I
9:09 have, I get to go in and I get to hit
9:11 check, check, check. And it's funny
9:13 because if I look at these goals, it
9:16 feels very overwhelming until I realize
9:18 that almost every day I'm checking off
9:21 at least one piece of one goal. And that
9:23 has helped me so much in realizing that
9:25 if I were to try and tackle all four of
9:27 those goals in one week, I'm going to
9:28 stumble. I'm probably going to fail,
9:29 right? And then I'm going to be really
9:30 upset at myself. I'm going to feel bad.
9:32 I'm going to beat myself up. I'm going
9:33 have less energy to attack the next
9:35 thing. But if I break it down into small
9:38 steps and I just focus on, can I just
9:40 accomplish one step a day? Then I
9:42 realize like I feel a sense of momentum
9:44 and I feel good about myself. I feel
9:46 like, wow, I'm making progress. I'm the
9:47 kind of person who keeps their word. I'm
9:48 the kind of person who achieves their
9:50 goals. Versus the other narrative, which
9:51 is you try to take on something too big
9:52 and then you're like, I'm the kind of
9:53 person who doesn't achieve their goals.
9:55 I don't feel good about myself. And then
9:56 you spend all this time beating yourself
9:57 up because you set a goal that was too
9:59 big is unrealistic. The frame I use is
10:02 tiny tweaks. What is one tiny tweak I
10:03 can make today? And then what's one tiny
10:05 tweak I can make tomorrow? And so on and
10:07 so forth. And so like for example, when
10:09 I'm trying to lose 5 lbs, I'll be like,
10:11 "Oh gosh, you know what? I had too many
10:13 bites of that ice cream tonight. What am
10:14 I going to do tomorrow?" I'm actually
10:15 not even going to say that tomorrow I'm
10:17 going to have zero dessert. I'm going to
10:18 say tomorrow I'm going to have a Ghirad
10:20 deli chocolate. Just one. Another
10:21 example, I have a lot of people that
10:22 join my team and they're really scared
10:24 of public speaking and they want to be a
10:26 leader in the company. And so they're
10:28 like, "Oh my gosh, I don't even
10:29 understand. You told me that we have
10:31 this full team meetup next year. How am
10:33 I going to get on stage and speak to the
10:35 team? I can't even barely do anything."
10:37 And I'm like, "Listen, baby steps, tiny
10:38 tweaks. Here's what we're going to do.
10:40 On the huddle on Monday, I want you to
10:43 just run this portion. It's 60 seconds.
10:45 Then on this meeting on Tuesday, I just
10:46 want you to give a shout out to one
10:48 person. And then on the next week, I
10:50 want you to own this portion. It's 120
10:51 seconds. And then I want you to also
10:53 give two shout outs to this person. And
10:55 I've used that methodology over time
10:57 where I take people from first they
10:58 couldn't even speak on a meeting. To
10:59 then they're running a piece of the
11:01 meeting to then they're running half of
11:02 the meeting to then they're running the
11:03 whole meeting to then they say, "Wow, if
11:04 you can run a meeting, you can do a
11:06 presentation to the team. Then they're
11:07 doing a presentation to their team. And
11:08 then all of a sudden, if you can do a
11:09 presentation to your team, you can do a
11:11 presentation to the whole team. And
11:12 they're doing a presentation to the
11:13 whole team. and eventually they're
11:14 speaking at our annual event. And I've
11:15 used this time and time again to take
11:17 people who were terrified of public
11:19 speaking and turn them into people who
11:21 are rock stars on stage. But it starts
11:23 with something as simple as I don't say,
11:24 "Let's go get you on stage." I say,
11:26 "Let's have you speak for 60 seconds on
11:28 a meeting on a Zoom call." But that
11:30 confidence that they build in doing
11:31 that, that's what gets them eventually
11:34 to the stage. So you now know confidence
11:36 is an output, not an input. You need to
11:39 track your wins to even create that
11:41 output. And you need to break those
11:43 tasks down into tiny tiny tweaks to get
11:44 there. But I know what you're thinking,
11:47 which is what if I'm too scared to even
11:49 start the baby steps? What you need to
11:51 understand is that emotion follows
11:53 motion, not the other way around. Here's
11:56 what I've learned. Choosing to tolerate
11:58 fear and discomfort rather than trying
12:00 to eliminate it is how I've been able to
12:02 transform everything that I have done,
12:03 everything I've been terrified from,
12:05 from content creation to public speaking
12:06 to running a giant company to buying
12:08 multiple buildings to doing everything.
12:10 I was no less scared than you, than you
12:12 watching this video. I just decided that
12:14 I was willing to be scared. I decided
12:16 that I was willing to be uncomfortable.
12:18 Here's the thing. Fear is a mile wide
12:21 and an inch deep. Fear means your brain
12:23 is working properly. It's not wrong that
12:25 you feel scared. The thing that's
12:27 stopping you is the fact that you feel
12:29 like there's you must get rid of the
12:31 fear in order to do the thing. But
12:32 that's not how your brain has been set
12:33 up. I'm sorry to tell you. Your brain is
12:36 wired for survival, not success. it will
12:38 continue to feel scared until you do the
12:40 thing. The fear will be the strongest
12:42 before you have the breakthrough. And
12:43 then what I tell people is this and what
12:45 I've learned is that once you feel it,
12:47 right, you step into the situation
12:48 you're scared of, you step on stage,
12:50 you're behind a camera, you sign the
12:52 document, you can't control the fear.
12:54 And so whether you want the fear to go
12:57 away or not, it will. I promise you,
12:58 because that's how we are
13:00 physiologically wired. So the moment you
13:01 step on stage, here's what's going to
13:02 happen. Say you're terrified of public
13:04 speaking. You're going to step on that
13:05 stage. This happens to me every time.
13:08 Mouth dry, palms are sweaty, knees weak,
13:09 whatever it might be, right? I step on
13:11 stage, that's how I feel. Then within 15
13:13 seconds, my heart rate starts to go from
13:15 like 190 to like 150. And then within a
13:17 minute, I start to feel like I've spit
13:18 in my mouth again. And then within 2
13:20 minutes, I don't feel any of it. It's
13:21 not because I try to get rid of the
13:22 fear. It's because I didn't run away
13:24 from the situation and I didn't try to
13:26 get rid of the fear. And so what I
13:28 learned in doing all these things is
13:31 that my emotions follow my emotion. That
13:32 is how you behave your way into
13:34 confidence. And you build up so much
13:37 evidence that it would be unreasonable
13:39 not to be confident. So here's how I
13:40 want this to feel for you. I want you to
13:42 visualize what's the thing that you're
13:44 so scared of that you wish you had
13:46 confidence in order to confront it. And
13:47 now I want you to picture it like this.
13:49 This is how you actually confront fear.
13:50 You say, "Okay, here's this thing that
13:52 I'm really terrified of, right? Maybe
13:53 it's a conversation I'm gonna have with
13:55 my spouse. Maybe it's I'm going to tell
13:57 my parents I'm not going to college.
13:59 Maybe it's I'm going to fire somebody in
14:01 my company." Whatever it is, instead of
14:04 trying to meditate or trying to affirm
14:06 or trying to manifest the fear away, you
14:08 are instead going to say, you know what,
14:09 I'm going to take the fear. I'm going to
14:11 put it all in my purse and I'm going to
14:12 take it with me to wherever I go and
14:14 whatever I do. So, I'm not going to try
14:15 and get rid of it. In fact, I'm going to
14:17 try and take it with me because I'm
14:19 still going to go do the thing. I'm
14:20 going to have the fear with me. It's
14:21 just like my little friend in my purse.
14:23 I know it's there. I feel it. It's like
14:25 in my stomach. It's like in my body. I
14:27 don't like it necessarily, but I'm going
14:28 to take it with me and I'm going to do
14:30 the thing anyways. And that is how I
14:31 approach everything in life. I'm not
14:33 confident because I don't have fear. I'm
14:35 confident because I do things despite
14:36 the fear. Here's the thing. Building
14:38 confidence is the first step to getting
14:40 anything you want in life and learning
14:42 the formula for how to build confidence
14:43 that you just learned this video. But
14:44 maybe now you want to take that and you
14:46 want to apply that to some other
14:47 specific areas of your life. And if
14:48 that's the case, if you want to learn
14:50 how to lead yourself better, if you want
14:52 how to learn how to lead people better,
14:53 you can go ahead and you can watch this
14:55 video on the five skills that you need
