Learning Lots about Confidence - Podcast with Amy Poehler

 On Confidence

- Learning Lots with Brie Larson and Jessie Ennis

Amy Poehler:

• Remember it's about habit, not character. Gives you space to try again, make a different choice, have a different outcome. Unlearning is the word. If you treat it like habit and not character, then you don't also get to beat yourself up when you didn't hit a bullseye. If you have a moment when you didn't advocate for yourself or sold yourself short, so what? You didn't spend the whole day saying, I'm such a piece of shit. It's a habit. Practice it. I did it again! Huh. Oh well. Try it again.
• What serves you?
• We can always call cut, take a break, do a second take. It's not all or nothing. 
• Be as gentle with yourself as you are to other people.
• The most talented people are the easiest to work with because they're not coming from a fear-based place.
• Don't cry, sexy.
• "I really like failing and succeeding with people. Look what we created or destroyed together."
• It always come back to, I just didn't commit - to the person, to the project...
• Improving and just dying on stage... If you are dying and someone stays with you, you love them forever. We're in this together. If they leave you, desert you, you'll never forget it. The way they act when the ship goes down tells you everything about them.
• You can tell people how they should see you. Whether or not you feel it is its own journey. Watch the words you say about yourself, and then the ones in your head. People are waiting for you to tell them who you are. So just tell them you're good at it. 
• This happens to us women all the time - we're asked a question that's a little too personal - I ask, "What made you ask that?" It buys you a little time and makes them think about why they are wanting to spend that precious time with you asking that.
• A little managing your adrenaline, a little manifestation, a little I deserve to be here, which is always half the battle in all things.
• You can shine your brightest around real people, they bask in the glow of it, they don't ask you to turn it down. Real friends do that. They don't think your fireworks are too close. They love it and watch them and support you.

Brie Larson:

• "It lifts everyone up, it's infectious. If you are embodied in yourself, that type of leadership actually just makes everyone else feel it."
• Confidence is infectious. When you are living with joy, with freedom to know what your yeses and your no's are, that's that pure confidence that's not oppressive at all. It only brings about more. It might be that someone watches you at work, or watches you on tv and says, oh wow, that's how that works. I want to be more like that. Or there might be that there's a direct work environment, that by you being calm, steady, and in yourself, it leaves the room for someone else to be in the I don't know space or I do know space. After talking to Amy, an expert in confidence, I can see that there isn't an upside to dimming my light. 

Jessie Ennis:

• You use laughter as a form of support. You're so funny that you make everyone else feel like they want to find what's funny about this, too.
• I watched you in interviews reject questions that didn't serve you. When did you learn to set those boundaries?
• Amy said, we can't dim our lights for anyone . If your brightness is blinding to someone else, you shouldn't be dimming the light to make them more comfortable, you just need to shine the light on them bright enough so they feel the confidence, too.
• I value her voice, the way she uses her voice, the way she directs her talent.

Kids corner:

• Calvin, age 4 - confidence means brave. You need to be superhero. They have special powers. I have all of their super powers. 
• Story, age 11 - If you're yourself, you're saying all the right things. 
• Oona, age 4 3/4 - Confidence means you're really brave about something. [My stuffed animal] makes me calm and comfortable. [What about using a big grown up knife?] Only if my hand was on mommy or daddy's hand, if mommy or daddy was confident about me doing it. - I feel confident with their help. Super Oona comes out when someone needs help. Super Oona and Oona have the same scaredness and not scaredness. [What would you say when someone's not feeling confident?] Just be kind and loving and they'll want to play with you.