Secret #73: The Confidence Paradox with Michael Herold
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Secret #58: Raising a Self-Driven Child with Dr. William Stixrud & Ned Johnson
Secret #70: So Many Paradoxes with Dr. Emma Waddington and Dr. Chris McCurry
Most people believe confidence is something you either have or don’t have. In this episode, confidence coach Michael Herold explains why confidence is actually built by doing hard things while anxiety is present — not after it disappears.
Highlights:
confidence grows through action, not mindset
anxiety signals what matters, not what must be avoided
competence follows confidence, not the other way around
values-based action builds real psychological flexibility
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Intro and guest introduction
02:23 Defining confidence
07:04 Confidence vs anxiety
12:14 Confidence and competence
23:22 Practical exercises for building confidence
26:21 Practicing in slow motion
28:19 The myth of motivation
32:46 Living by your values
42:26 The misconception of mindset
47:35 Final thoughts and closing
More about Michael Herold:
Follow @michael_herold_coach on Instagram
Michael Herold is a confidence coach and social skills trainer. He works with people who have been stuck in their comfort zone and helps them develop their confidence. He uses evidence-based approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and fun exposure exercises, and he probably geeks out about both of them way too much. Since 2016, Michael has led well over 100 confidence-building workshops, helping several thousand people to get more confident in their lives. What started in his living room on a whim turned into a calling that changed many lives, and most of all his own. He has worked with more than 500 clients from all areas of life in group and private coaching, to help with careers, relationships, and making life meaningful and exciting again. Michael is a co-host of the popular Psychologists off the Clock Podcast, one of the leading psychology podcasts in the world. On that podcast, the five co-hosts discuss cutting-edge psychological and behavioral research with leaders in the field. Michael has spoken about finding courage at TEDx, in front of members of parliament, universities, and once in a cinema full of 500 kids high on sugary popcorn. He is also presenting at psychology conferences worldwide on topics like social anxiety, imposter syndrome, values-based living, conversation techniques, and countless more.
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Secret #73: The Confidence Paradox with Michael Herold
[00:00:00]
[00:00:41] Introduction and Guest Introduction
[00:00:41] Chris McCurry: Hello, and welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. I'm Chris McCurry.
[00:00:47] Emma Waddington: And I'm Emma Waddington, and today we have the lovely Michael Herald, who is a confidence coach and social skills trainer based in Vienna, Austria. He's the co-host [00:01:00] of Psychologists Off the Clock podcast, one of our favorite podcasts. And we've had, I think. Everybody, actually, all the co-hosts have been a guests with us.
[00:01:08] Emma Waddington: You were the last one. So this is an absolute delight and he serves as president of the ACT Coaching special interest group with nearly 1000 coaches worldwide. He uses acceptance and commitment therapy. Obviously one of our most our favorite models here on the podcast and has some playful exposure exercises to help people step outside their comfort zones, which yes, sometimes involve howling in shopping malls and asking strangers for high fives.
[00:01:36] Emma Waddington: I'm sure we'll get onto those in our conversation today. Before becoming a coach, he was a character animator at Nickelodeon, working on shows like Penguins of Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda. Michael also lives. Spinal muscular atrophy and his TEDx talk, which is fantastic. I really love death and incredibly moving on achieving things because of his disability, not in spite of.
[00:01:59] Emma Waddington: [00:02:00] It captures his unique perspective on what confidence really means. So welcome to Life's Dirty Little Secrets. Michael. It's lovely
[00:02:07] Emma Waddington: to have you.
[00:02:08] Michael Herold: well, thank you both so much for having me. It feels like I've been collecting dirty little secrets for a long time, so it finally pays
[00:02:15] Michael Herold: off.
[00:02:16] Emma Waddington: too. Wonderful. I look forward to this conversation.
[00:02:20] Defining Confidence
[00:02:23] Emma Waddington: So maybe I thought we could start with because we're gonna be talking about the confidence lie today, I thought we could start talking about what is confidence, you know, how do we define, and maybe that's gonna be half the conversation to be honest, but how would we define confidence?
[00:02:36] Emma Waddington: You know, when people say, I wish I was more confident, what are they really longing for?
[00:02:41] Michael Herold: So the definition of confidence is very varied. The rough theme is that it's a perceived level of competence but that is like very vague. I think also that when you talk about psychological terms and you're using everyday [00:03:00] language, like for example, confidence, right?
[00:03:01] Michael Herold: That's a word that my, neighbor would also use or also know, my neighbor wouldn't know terms like experiential avoidance for example. But when you use terms like that, it's easy to get people confused. So I'm kind of glad that the word confidence is not specifically defined in, in psychology as such.
[00:03:23] Michael Herold: We use self-efficacy, we use self-esteem, and it's like adjacent topics to that. I in my work have learned to define confidence as leaving your comfort zone. You need confidence in order to leave your comfort zone because inside your comfort zone, you don't need any confidence, right? So you need, you have confidence.
[00:03:44] Michael Herold: Confidence is your ability to leave your comfort zone to do something that matters to you despite the difficult stuff that shows up. So you'll see that there's actually a lot of overlap with act. But the way that this works [00:04:00] really nicely is that it encapsulates why, like, there, there's so many reasons why we would have confidence, right?
[00:04:06] Michael Herold: You need confidence. It's a bungee jump, but that is not necessarily something that people will work towards because it's not important to a lot of people. But a lot of people lack the confidence to do the really important stuff in their life. And in that regard confidence is almost like a muscle that you can train.
[00:04:26] Michael Herold: It's your ability to stay outside of your comfort zone for a given amount of time. No one can stay outside of their comfort zone forever. Like it, it's tiring, but like, like a swimmer, you are able to do it for a given time, depending how good your skills are and your training is, and then you get to do the stuff that's actually important.
[00:04:46] Emma Waddington: it's so interesting when you talked about, you know, your neighbor would talk about confidence because it is so true. People talk about confidence is something you have or you don't have. Like it's a thing versus what you're de describing is [00:05:00] actually a behavior.
[00:05:02] Emma Waddington: If you leave your comfort zone. You could look confident, but actually most people talk about confidence as something they either have or they don't have in quite a binary way.
[00:05:11] Michael Herold: Yeah. I think there, there's a lot of misunderstanding around confidence and I hope we can, about some of the ways that people just misunderstand how it works. I've seen in my workshops that a lot of people look for hacks. They look for this. There, there must be this one little trick. They ask me like, Michael, there must be this one little trick that makes me confident. Like, what is it? I just have to find like that one switch, that one button, and then it's all going to be easy. And that is the big misunderstanding. That confidence is a muscle. It needs to be trained.
[00:05:48] Michael Herold: Confidence is something that is tied to the things that are really important to us. Like you don't need confidence to do something you don't care about. Right. If I, if you told me, [00:06:00] Emma, if you told me, Michael, could you like go to the grocery store and buy a jar of pickles? I don't need confidence to do that because I don't care.
[00:06:09] Michael Herold: Emma, like you can online order them. I don't think, I don't like, I don't care about like, but if you were to ask me, Michael, would you come on our show and talk about this topic that is so important to you? Now that is something that is really connected to something that's important to me, and now I need confidence to actually pull it off. So that's just one. One of the misconceptions on that topic, that the moment you live a life full of meaning and ambition and goals and values, it's going to be a little bit tricky and finding this one button, this one switch, this one. Hack to confidence is not going to get you to where you want to go.
[00:06:50] Chris McCurry: I don't wanna pull this off. In a tire different direction, but, and maybe it noted a different direction, but in the example of going to the distorted by [00:07:00] ajar of pickles, for some people that would be a dreadful thing.
[00:07:04] Confidence vs. Anxiety
[00:07:04] Chris McCurry: And so what is the connection between confidence and anxiety or like thereof
[00:07:10] Michael Herold: so definitely the buying the jar of pickles is my example. Right? I don't care about that.
[00:07:16] Michael Herold: And on the inverse, there might be people that could easily jump on a podcast and talk about things. And the reason they could easily jump on podcasts and talk about those things is either because they've done it a lot of times or they just don't care. Connection between confidence and anxiety. So anxiety is something that. Loosely speaking comes up. It's like a fear about, a worry about the future. It's uncertainty about the future, and it brings up some form of dread in us. And confidence is our ability to deal with that uncertainty, make the right calls, and whether it is necessary worth our energy or [00:08:00] possible to go up against it, and then go ahead and do that. So a lot of clients that I work with will be dealing with social anxiety. They will. The classic client case for me is someone who, doesn't have any friends or doesn't have a lot of friends. And then when they go to networking events or social events, they have this anxiety come up of what if I bore people or what if I don't know anyone there?
[00:08:27] Michael Herold: What if I'm the weird person standing in the corner? That's the uncertainty that comes up for them, and the confidence piece is recognizing that this is going to come up and then face it regardless. Not waiting until. It's my birthday and there are going to be all my friends or my two friends, and it's all going to be easy.
[00:08:48] Michael Herold: But to say like, this is going to be a little bit hard, and I am able to step outside of my comfort zone and start working with that because what happens in those [00:09:00] cases is more or less like classic exposure. People realize, you know what? Like this wasn't bad at all. I had a really good time. Or they realize, you know what? It didn't work out well, but I thought it would be a thousand times worse or they'd realize and that's rarely happens. It's like, okay, I really didn't know what I was doing there. I think I need to like work on my conversation skills or I need to work on other stuff. But usually the realization is, well, this. Stephen King has this metaphor of like, the monster outside of your door is always a lot scarier than the monster you actually see when you open the door. Like it's
[00:09:38] Michael Herold: something in our imagination. It's something huge. And then we open the door and it's still not a cute little puppy, but it's this I don't know like small little critter that's not really as scary as
[00:09:49] Michael Herold: we initially thought it would be. And that realization alone. Is huge. The realization that despite having the anxiety, we can step out there and we [00:10:00] can still face it. It doesn't have to control our lives.
[00:10:04] Chris McCurry: So confidence is a story that we can use to override other stuff that's going on that's getting in our way. So it's a. To psychological flexibility if we were gonna talk in terms of acceptance and commitment therapy.
[00:10:20] Michael Herold: Yeah, exactly. It's a set of skills, confidence, broken down. The way that I train it is a set of skills that allows you to do the tough stuff. Because when you look at, and this is where this is going to be massively recognizable for ACT practitioner practitioners, when you look at what gets in the way between us as we are now and the version of Chris, Emma and Michael that has. Unlimited confidence. If we look at the difference between those two versions of ourselves there, there are going to be three things that stand in the way between Michael now and Michael with unlimited confidence, and that is my thoughts. Get in the [00:11:00] way. Uh, I'm not able to pull that off. I'm a loser.
[00:11:04] Michael Herold: Who do you think you are, Michael? There's, my emotions get in the way, the anxiety, the fear, the worry. And that stops me like a train. A train, right? If you, if your thoughts come up, if your emotions come up, it's so easy to dismiss them as something. X smoke and mirrors. What's that? Right? But really that stuff comes up and it's going to stop you for years and decades. So you have your thought that get in the way, you have your emotions that get in the way, and then you have a lack of skills. So it is legitimate to say, look, I don't know how to hold a really good conversation. I don't know how to ask the right questions. Right? That's not necessarily something that I'm going to let count, because unless we start working on those skills, unless we start going out there and actually talking to people or negotiating better salaries or practicing setting up boundaries, unless we start practicing those skills, we're never [00:12:00] going to get better at them.
[00:12:01] Michael Herold: So we're being left with the good old thoughts, get in the way, and the good old emotions get in the way. And once we learn. To tackle those two suspects, there's a lot of things that suddenly open up.
[00:12:14] Confidence and Competence
[00:12:14] Emma Waddington: it's really often people think of confidence and competence come hand in hand, right? That I'll need that com. To feel confident. And I remembered this study that was done and I was just looking it up quickly. This u gov survey that asked American adults whether they thought they could successfully land a passenger plane in an emergency situation.
[00:12:37] Emma Waddington: Did you, have you read about this?
[00:12:41] Michael Herold: What is going on with that? I actually had.
[00:12:43] Chris McCurry: I didn't see this. Was this distressingly high percentage thought they could.
[00:12:47] Emma Waddington: Yeah. Of
[00:12:48] Michael Herold: media. Yeah, man I
[00:12:50] Michael Herold: had media outlets reach out to me to comment on that. I was like, what are you guys talking about? Why does everyone want to land a plane?
[00:12:59] Michael Herold: What [00:13:00] the,
[00:13:00] Emma Waddington: Yes. One in over, one in three 35% of men believe that they could land it. Versus 17% of women. And it
[00:13:09] Chris McCurry: Surprised to sap.
[00:13:10] Emma Waddington: yeah, I thought it was lower. Actually, this women, I'm surprised that many women, obviously they were told that they'd get some guidance. And I did ask my husband when I saw this, and then he said, yeah, of course I'd land the plane.
[00:13:22] Emma Waddington: I mean, I'd rather it be me than anybody else in the passengers. I'm like, oh, wow. So in that case, I wouldn't say confidence is related to competence. As in, there's no skill there, but
[00:13:34] Chris McCurry: here's my Mark Twain quote of the date. He said, it's not what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure. That just ain't so.
[00:13:45] Michael Herold: Mm. Good old Mark Twain. Yeah,
[00:13:50] Chris McCurry: Yeah, it's what you don't. It's not what you don't know. That gets you in trouble.
[00:13:54] Michael Herold: but. your point on confidence and competence is so so this is one of the other [00:14:00] misunderstandings about confidence and the things that gets a lot of people not into trouble, but needlessly delayed on, on training that because they think that they start with competence. The idea is so to stay with my. Networking with my Social Event example, people will say, well, I'm not gonna go to a party because I don't know how to hold a conversation. I'm instead going to stay at home and I'm going to read every single book on conversation. I'm going to build up my competence through the roof, and then I'll go out there and I'll talk to people. And that was would be like me saying, Emma, Chris, guess what? I just bought a guitar. I'm going to leave it in the corner until I watched every YouTube video on
[00:14:44] Michael Herold: playing
[00:14:44] Michael Herold: the guitar, and then I'm gonna
[00:14:46] Michael Herold: take it to the park. Right? And that is
[00:14:48] Michael Herold: the idea, like if you want to build up competence. Most of the time, you start by stepping outside of your comfort zone and
[00:14:57] Michael Herold: you're not sure what you are doing and you're messing things [00:15:00] up and you say stupid things in that conversation.
[00:15:03] Michael Herold: And the first time you're trying to set a boundary, you muck it up. I had I had just on the weekend I had a workshop where one of the ladies their assignment was to give compliments to strangers. And she apparently, like, I don't wanna say like she, she made a little like fall pa that was so, so hilarious and so cute.
[00:15:22] Michael Herold: But that is exactly what happens, like the first time you do certain things. But what
[00:15:26] Michael Herold: happens, like, do this 5, 10, 15 times. Now you're building up competence. Now you know
[00:15:32] Michael Herold: how to react to certain situations, and then you step further. And, you know, again, you're outside of your comfort zone. So it's always like confidence is always leading ahead of competence unless you are a surgeon
[00:15:49] Michael Herold: or
[00:15:51] Michael Herold: a tax accountant, right?
[00:15:52] Michael Herold: Then if you ever do a surgery on me, like read all the books, like to do that, right? But if you are at a networking event or [00:16:00] if you're just practicing social skills specifically. Practice makes mastery, and without being willing to step outside of your comfort zone and do the first things without really knowing what you're doing, you're not going to get to the skills like no way.
[00:16:18] Emma Waddington: When I used to work with a model called behavioral activation with depression. You know, the model is a lot about, you know, you activate before you motivate. That was the big phrase. So it feels like confidence is a bit like that.
[00:16:31] Emma Waddington: You know, it doesn't come before the action. It actually comes after you get more confident the more you do something. And there's a sense of mastery that comes along with that. Partly because you have more experience and you can see, like you said, through exposure, what things go wrong. But also you find out that it's not as bad as perhaps you expected, like the monster outside the room.
[00:16:53] Emma Waddington: Isn't that scary? And that helps you to maybe feel less [00:17:00] anxious, but not always. As we know, we don't always feel less anxious. In fact, I don't think there's a relationship between confidence and less anxiety. If confidence is defined as doing things that matter,
[00:17:13] Chris McCurry: And this is where, you know, classic cognitive behavioral therapy kind of doesn't work very well. my wife and I are heading to Singapore next week. And I don't know how many times I've flown on an airplane. But this time I'm gonna die. You know, I just I just
[00:17:30] Emma Waddington: No, I don't mean to laugh, but yes, I know.
[00:17:32] Chris McCurry: But, you know, but the cognitive behavioral therapist, you know, in the old days might say, well, how many times have you died in a plane crash?
[00:17:39] Chris McCurry: So what is the likelihood that you'll die in this one, Chris? You know, and it's like, I don't care. gonna
[00:17:44] Chris McCurry: die. So I think a lot of what we're talking about is, again, kind of going back to the idea of overriding, we're setting aside. The stuff that's gonna show up no matter how many times you do it. I mean, apparently Eric Clapham used to throw up out of, you know, [00:18:00] anxiety every time he got on stage. You know, how many thousands of times had he done that? So I think this stuff is just so pernicious that, you know, we have to be able to go, okay, yeah, fine, I get it. And get on the damn plane.
[00:18:15] Michael Herold: Yeah, it's
[00:18:17] Michael Herold: that. It's that deal that people try, it's like a Faustian deal almost, where people will say like, okay, I'm doing the scary thing, but I'm gonna do it once and then all the difficult emotions are going to be away. Okay. Just if I just do it once and that's not how it works. Like
[00:18:32] Michael Herold: I've been working as a confidence coach for like 10 years and I've been like talking about this stuff.
[00:18:37] Michael Herold: And then once a day where I'm doing something important, the exact same like monster shows up in front of my door, so to speak. It is just, it's a beautiful thing. It's I thought, I mean, it's weird to say that like something that provokes anxiety is a beautiful thing. And I don't mean to say that anxiety is something that is like awesome and deserves a medal. But for me personally, [00:19:00] like anxiety very often reminds me of the things that I really care about. Like the fact that the 15 minutes before our interview here, like confidence coach Michael got really unconfident and there was a lot of like, oh, what if I screw this up? What if Chris yells at me?
[00:19:16] Michael Herold: What if? And then I, this is beautiful. Like this is not, this is because it is, it's coming in at a healthy level, right? I wasn't like curling up under the kitchen table, but it's coming at me at a healthy dose. And that is beautiful because it's that reminder. It's a little little creature that sits on my shoulder, this anxiety creature, and it reminds me that I really care. And no matter
[00:19:38] Michael Herold: how many hundreds of workshops I've done. First time I open up Zoom the first time I come into the room. My heart is going like 120 beats a minute. And it's beautiful because it shows me that I haven't become complacent about it.
[00:19:53] Chris McCurry: You want me to yell at you just to get it out of the way?
[00:19:56] Michael Herold: Yeah. I thought we do a bonus episode on that like
[00:19:58] Michael Herold: 45 minutes. Of [00:20:00] course. Mic
[00:20:00] Michael Herold: yelling at
[00:20:01] Chris McCurry: exposure therapy here.
[00:20:02] Chris McCurry: No. Yeah, I mean we're anxious because we care. We're anxious because it's tied to our values.
[00:20:09] Michael Herold: Yeah, and you know, the difference between. Being desperate between pure desperation and anxiety is that spark of hope that's carried there. Right. I didn't show up to this interview in desperation. I showed up with anxiety because there was this tiny little glimmer of hope that Chris would not yell at me and we would have a great conversation.
[00:20:30] Michael Herold: Right? And I think that's important to, important to recognize that. Like I, it, it would be amazing if. The world didn't have anxiety. I don't know how the world would look like, it would be amazing, but we're kind of stuck with it. And so it's good to be able to use that stuff as those reminders that we care and. I had so Ty little anecdote. I had my grandma call me just an hour or two before our our session. I was just, was making lunch [00:21:00] and I, I told her I'm grandma. I'm really sorry. I'm gonna call you back in the evening. I'm quite busy now. And then. Which she understands. Like we are, we have the steel, my granny and I, we have the steel, like we call each other and you know, she shuts me down and I shut her down if it doesn't work. But I have this like tiny little anxiety things like, what if she hates me now? Like, what if that was rude? What if she like rumbles, right? And now of course I could I could like carry that as a burden, but I carry it as a. Almost like a badge of pride that I am a little bit anxious about. Maybe I've pissed off my grandma and that's good because I should care about things like that, right?
[00:21:35] Michael Herold: I shouldn't easily hang up the phone on my grandma. I shouldn't easily do that. And then just pretend like nothing ever happened and it's good that it's things a little bit, and in an hour I'm gonna call her back and we catch up and I'm sure she totally understands. And again. This is a beautiful anxiety in a way.
[00:21:55] Chris McCurry: So she's not gonna yell at you.
[00:21:57] Michael Herold: Well, if she does, I'll just give her email [00:22:00] address and then you guys can like
[00:22:01] Chris McCurry: They yell
[00:22:02] Michael Herold: simultaneously I'll add my call.
[00:22:06] Emma Waddington: I love that you thought Chris would yell at you. Is there something about Chris that makes you think he's a yeller?
[00:22:11] Michael Herold: Uh, Wonder
[00:22:13] Michael Herold: No. No, I was, maybe that was just wishful thinking, Emma. So you used to have to pay people to yell at me, but I thought maybe I can
[00:22:19] Michael Herold: get a free session out of Chris.
[00:22:22] Emma Waddington: Yeah. He's
[00:22:23] Chris McCurry: I, I'm, I'm, I'm not much of a yeller,
[00:22:26] Chris McCurry: so,
[00:22:27] Emma Waddington: This is what our anxiety can show up with. I mean, it can be some things that are so. To somebody else can seem so bizarre and unusual, and yet to us it can be deeply concerning. Like, you know, the idea of Chris yelling to me, it wouldn't cross my mind, but to you that could be quite scary.
[00:22:46] Emma Waddington: Or the thought of it could be quite scary. Or for you, Chris, you know, the thought of getting on a plane and having that idea that the plane might crash, may stop. I hope that's not triggering you. I was thinking [00:23:00] inside of me, am I gonna trigger Chris? But yeah, that's exactly what happens. We have these thoughts, they're pretty scary, and then we just don't wanna have them.
[00:23:07] Emma Waddington: So we don't do the things where those thoughts can show up, which could be you coming on this podcast, you know, Christmas out on coming to Singapore, you know, so many examples because
[00:23:17] Michael Herold: Yeah.
[00:23:17] Emma Waddington: you know these thoughts can be scary and they can sound crazy to somebody else.
[00:23:22] Practical Exercises for Building Confidence
[00:23:22] Michael Herold: And there is, there's another big, problem, like developing that confidence around those fields of anxiety. because when you are. Going to tackle something that makes you anxious but is important to you, and you are like, okay, now I'm going to actually, I'm actually going to confront that, right? I'm actually going to like go in that situation, I'm going to confront that anxiety. You have another component in there and that skills. So revert back to my cliche example of the social event, right? The moment that person who says, you know what I'm always sitting at home because I'm anxious to go to parties. I will [00:24:00] go to that party and I will talk to people. That person now has two things to wrestle with. One is that confidence piece.
[00:24:07] Michael Herold: The fact that they are really anxious in that situation. Their heart rate, their hands are sweating. Their body reacts to that stressful situation. Their thoughts hit them like a meteor shower. Their emotions want to hold them in the corner. And on top of all of that, they're now supposed to hold a good conversation with 10 people. And that is a
[00:24:27] Michael Herold: lot to tackle, And that is why I love bringing those silly exposure exercises into the early stages of training because I only let people work with their difficult thoughts and their difficult emotions, and we're leaving skills completely out of the picture. Like when I have my workshop for, they get the homework assignment and their homework assignment is to stand somewhere in a public place where their hands up in the air for 30 seconds. They don't need any skills for that. Right. That is super, super easy. [00:25:00] You can pull that off you. But your thoughts and your emotions are going to hold you back so badly, and they're going to give you every single excuse that's out there in the world not to do that, whether it's legitimate or not. And it's really beautiful. I had clients that emailed me and they said, Michael, I've been walking around the city center for three hours. My feet hurt. I'm giving up because it is that it has such a stopping power. So to have a. A very blueprint kind of exercise that people will then go through to specifically trigger that inner voice, that inner critic, tho all those emotions so that you can look at it actually in slow motion. Because you know, for example, you might say, okay, during my lunch break, I'm going to go to the food court. I'm going to stand in the corner and I'm going to bring my hands up. Probably at nine in the morning on that day, your brain is going bananas because it is making up [00:26:00] excuses. It is making up stories, it is bringing up all of those emotions, and that is a beautiful opportunity to have three hours to look at how this entire thing unfolds. That usually happens within like a second. You know, someone yells at us and we react. No time to like slow this down. And so you practice this in slow motion, like you, like a kid would, tying their shoes.
[00:26:21] Practicing in Slow Motion
[00:26:21] Michael Herold: You practice in slow motion. Like what thoughts show up? What emotions show up? How do I make room for them?
[00:26:26] Michael Herold: How do I diffuse from them? And then. Sooner or later in your real life, you get into a situation that is instantly pushing you outside of your comfort zone. And you realize that was just like last week when Michael gave me the silly homework assignment of giving high fives to strangers. It feels exactly the same. So how about I use the same skills and I practice then and I use them now, and suddenly you have people that for the first time in their lives are able to recognize. Helpful from a helpful thoughts and make [00:27:00] room for emotions and then step into that situation and show up as the person that they want to be.
[00:27:06] Leaps of Faith: Big and Small
[00:27:06] Chris McCurry: I remember early on in my training working with Steve Hayes at Reno. He used to talk about leaps of faith,
[00:27:14] Michael Herold: Right.
[00:27:15] Chris McCurry: and he said, it doesn't matter whether your leap is. You know, this high, you know, and I would demonstrate this in my office I'd leap off a book. From the book onto the floor. And then I'd leap off this low table that I had and and I'd say, okay, now I'm gonna go jump off the building watch while I go by the window.
[00:27:36] Chris McCurry: And the kids would be going, my God. But I'd say whether you're leaping off a book or you're leaping off a table, or you're leaping off the building, it's the same. Ah, and then it's just a matter of how soon you, you land. So. I don't care what if you take a huge leap or a li tiny little leap this coming week, I need you to take a leap. And [00:28:00] so, you know, raising your arms for 30 seconds, you know,
[00:28:03] Chris McCurry: that's, for
[00:28:04] Chris McCurry: some people that's a big leap. But,
[00:28:05] Chris McCurry: For a lot of people, you know, it'd be like, okay, I can do that and if I can do that, then maybe I can do the next sleep.
[00:28:11] Michael Herold: Yeah.
[00:28:12] Chris McCurry: But that's, that is always gonna be there.
[00:28:15] Michael Herold: Yeah.
[00:28:15] Michael Herold: And I want that to be there.
[00:28:18] The Myth of Motivation
[00:28:19] Michael Herold: Like I've had people that figured this out during workshops and they figured this out, and they said to me, Michael I found the secret. Like if I am motivated to do something, it's easy, but if I'm not motivated, it's hard. So Michael, how do I get motivated? And I'm like, no, I don't want you to be motivated because if you're motivated, it's easy. I want you to be totally unmotivated because that's going to be you. When you write an
[00:28:41] Michael Herold: email, it's going to be you when you have to do a presentation. So I want you to be unmotivated. So then you practice that stuff.
[00:28:50] Chris McCurry: Well, I mean, motivation is a construct. I mean, you know,
[00:28:53] Michael Herold: Oh
[00:28:54] Michael Herold: yeah.
[00:28:54] Chris McCurry: yeah, teenagers say it, I don't do my homework because I have no motivation. And it's like, you know, [00:29:00] the motivation fairy isn't gonna come in the middle of an and go. Now you have motivation. Now you can do your homework. They will probably take after it with the flies water because they don't want the motivation.
[00:29:09] Chris McCurry: It's their excuse for not doing their homework as opposed to, I hate this, and here I go, you know, I'm doing my homework.
[00:29:18] Michael Herold: Yeah, motivation is. Well, if it's there, it's good, right? If it's there, go use it. But you can't rely on that thing because it is such a fickle friend. And then you get into this like motivational porn kind of thing where you need to find like a great quote. And once you have this quote, then you can like finally work for half an hour, and then that escalates and suddenly you need like 20 minutes. TEDx talks before you can do the work. And then it's like you're like this like substance abuse kind of person who needs this motivational dose to get stuff done. And it's like, it's, this stuff is all good. Go watch that stuff. Go get the calendars, go get all of that stuff, but don't rely on it to do the hard work. Rely on
[00:29:58] Michael Herold: your inherent [00:30:00] skills of just doing the uncomfortable stuff, whether you're motivated or not.
[00:30:05] Chris McCurry: right, exactly.
[00:30:06] Embracing All Emotions
[00:30:06] Emma Waddington: And it does come back to this piece around, you know, it being like a muscle. I mean, as humans we really struggle to sit with discomfort and like you said, we want the hacks or the inspirational quotes or, you know, listening to, so how somebody else did it because. Those feelings that can come up when we're doing the hard stuff can be incredibly uncomfortable.
[00:30:28] Emma Waddington: And somewhere along the road we learned that we shouldn't be having hard feelings, like they're dangerous, and therefore we should wait to feel confident or wait to feel motivated so that we don't have the hard feelings and we can just do the hard stuff,
[00:30:43] Michael Herold: Yeah.
[00:30:44] Emma Waddington: us trapped.
[00:30:45] Michael Herold: Yeah. this thought that there are like good feelings and there are bad feelings and we must only have the good ones. Oh, that is, so I was recently, what, I was a little bit sick last week and I stayed in bed and I watched inside out this spectacular [00:31:00] picture movie and you know, there's like five emotions and one of them. Joy is the one that's air quotes good, and four others are air quotes, bad emotions, and people watch this and then they come home and they have one out of five emotions. And if it's not the good one, something is wrong with them. It's like, that's not how it works. Right? They, there's a, there's this wider range of emotions that are out there and all of them have their place.
[00:31:29] Michael Herold: The problem is if they lost. Too long. If they come on too strong, that's when you know we need the appropriate skills to come in. But there's nothing wrong with, you know, being sad, being a little bit angry, a little bit fearful. There's probably really good reasons for that stuff. The problem is, does that emotion drive the car or is that emotion on the passenger seat giving you a little bit of guidance on how to drive the car?
[00:31:56] Chris McCurry: Nice metaphor. Yeah. We just did a [00:32:00] podcast on guilt and shame and how those can be our guides
[00:32:06] Chris McCurry: And sadness does have some value in that Inside Out movie. she does bring some things into
[00:32:12] Chris McCurry: focus in terms of value. So I wouldn't say that they're only Joy is good. But you know, the the whole idea of motivation and confidence and all these things, again they seem to be ways of talking about just behavior.
[00:32:28] Chris McCurry: what are people doing or not doing, you know, and then we have a story to tell ourselves about why we're not doing it. You know, I lack motivation. I lack confidence. I'm doing it because I'm motivated, because I have confidence.
[00:32:39] Chris McCurry: But getting to that, doing it,
[00:32:42] Chris McCurry: peace is the trick.
[00:32:44] Michael Herold: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:32:46] Living by Your Values
[00:32:47] Michael Herold: I mean, ultimately what confidence is in my book at least said when your behavior is run by what's important to you and not by what you're currently thinking or what you're currently feeling. And
[00:32:59] Michael Herold: [00:33:00] what might make a joke and be like, that's such a German thing to say, Michael. But it's also, yeah, if. If we're doing things because they are you have the, you have this coin, and on one side of the coin are your goals and your values. And on the other side of the coin are your thoughts and your emotions. Like which side of the coin is running the show. And yeah, ideally you are, I mean, this is the other thing, right?
[00:33:25] Michael Herold: Just knowing what your actually value, what your goals actually are,
[00:33:29] Michael Herold: that is another. Three podcast episodes we could talk about
[00:33:33] Michael Herold: because where do those goals come from? Where do those ambitions come from? Do they come from my heart or do they come from Instagram and my neighbor and what my family is telling me to do?
[00:33:44] Michael Herold: Right? Where is the stuff coming from? And at the same time, like having some clarity on your goals and values is already. A game changer, especially values, I find most people know what goals are and they make their goals and [00:34:00] their milestones, and, but when you introduce the concept of values in the accents, the act
[00:34:05] Michael Herold: approach to values based living that is a game changer for a lot of people that have never thought about the concept of using values throughout their day instead of thriving towards. Goals only. So values is The hidden champion.
[00:34:22] Chris McCurry: Well, how do
[00:34:23] Chris McCurry: you work with
[00:34:24] Emma Waddington: yes, I was exactly gonna ask the same question. What, we don't have three podcasts, but what are your
[00:34:30] Emma Waddington: sort of top
[00:34:30] Michael Herold: That was, so that was my attempt to get re-invited for a second episode and, okay. So
[00:34:35] Michael Herold: anyway, let me.
[00:34:36] Chris McCurry: We will. We can certainly do that as well.
[00:34:38] Michael Herold: So let me see if I have my my see on my phone. I have my values on my phone.
[00:34:43] Chris McCurry: Oh, nice.
[00:34:44] Michael Herold: Because of my values are hope, intentionality, integrity, laughter, self-care and responsibility. And the reason I have them on the lock screen of my phone is when I. Do avoidance, which I often do with the help of my phone. There's a [00:35:00] value that resect Michael, is this really, like, is this really in line with your values that you check like Facebook for the umpteen time this hour? so
[00:35:07] Applying Values in Daily Life
[00:35:09] Michael Herold: take my value with let's let's take let's take integrity for example. So for me it is incredibly important to do things with. In integrity, like I'd rather admit to I'd rather screw up and admit to it than have no one like, know about it. So the way that I teach the use of values is like, like a spice rack that you have in your kitchen, right? You have, let's say you have 5, 6, 7 of your, like go-to spices in your kitchen and it's like salt, pepper, cinnamon. Is there more? I think that's it actually. But you have, so you have a couple of spices and then you're cooking a meal. Right.
[00:35:47] Chris McCurry: I won't say anything about German cooking, but yeah, that's prob, that's probably it. Throw in some mustard.
[00:35:53] Michael Herold: mustard, that was the fourth one. Right now we have them all. So now depending on what you're cooking. [00:36:00] Like you're, you are eating the meatloaf, you are eating the potato salad the whatever. That's what you're eating. But in order to make it taste better, you are adding certain spices and you're not adding and cinnamon to. Roast beef because that might not work. But you're adding like some values here and, sorry, some spices here. I just ruined my metaphor by mixing this up. But, so you're using certain spices for certain foods and it just gets better and that's how I describe using values as well. When I write emails, I hate writing emails. I hate, I apologize to anyone who knows me and who has been waiting for email replies from me because writing emails is so, ah, this is my pure avoidance mode for me. But then I allow myself to write emails with my value of laughter in it. And that makes writing the email easier, not because I go all standup comedian.
[00:36:57] Michael Herold: I, I don't do that. But I allow myself [00:37:00] to. Bring some things in that are really important to me, and I just might sign the email with like an eighties cartoon reference, like Cowabunga or Turtle Power, and then people write me back. It's like, Michael, what's turtle power to them is something. And or I might be doing some like these values, especially when we're doing things that are difficult. Adding just a tiny little bit off. One or two of those values makes it so much more meaningful and so much easier. And the beautiful thing is we're not adding anything. We're not taking anything away. Like you can live yet. You can live today just like you lived yesterday, but to everything that you're doing, you are adding a little bit of your values and it's going to make your day a lot more meaningful. Did I explain that
[00:37:47] Chris McCurry: Oh,
[00:37:47] Michael Herold: does that doesn't make sense.
[00:37:48] Chris McCurry: God, you are a wizard with metaphors.
[00:37:51] Emma Waddington: Yeah, I love it. I think it would be helpful to talk through an example using the values, [00:38:00] the way that you've mentioned it the sort of spicing it.
[00:38:02] Emma Waddington: How would
[00:38:03] Emma Waddington: you
[00:38:03] Emma Waddington: use it with reference to confidence? So. If you are not feeling confident about going somewhere. I know we've been referencing confidence mostly around social situations, but I think, confidence can be, about going, you know, on,
[00:38:17] Michael Herold: So, yeah,
[00:38:18] Michael Herold: In regards to confidence. so one more piece about values. The beautiful thing about values is that like I said, most people know what goals are, and goals are outcome dependent.
[00:38:29] Michael Herold: And they often rely on other people, like my attempt to marry a multimillionaire actress. Is not only dependent on my own, but like other people have a say in that as well, right? So whatever high ambitions I have of getting on the cover of Time Magazine or other stuff, like other people make decisions about that.
[00:38:52] Michael Herold: I don't get to say I don't have all of the say in it, but I do with values. So values allow us to completely show up [00:39:00] as ourselves. It's who we want to be. And then it's almost irrelevant whether it works out or not because for example, like for this podcast here, right? My attempt is to like educate people and everyone learns and everyone now has the tools and everyone is amazed. But that is not up to me. I can give my best, but that outcome is not up to me. But I can show up to this interview here with you folks, and I can bring in hope.
[00:39:35] Michael Herold: How does that, how does hope look? How does it look like for Michael to bring in
[00:39:39] Michael Herold: hope into interview? Right? And that to me means, Hey, let's be a little bit more ambitious.
[00:39:44] Michael Herold: Let's not hold back. Maybe I start a sentence with a big promise and I don't even know if I can finish the sentence. But hope means, yeah. Let's start big. Let's go there and see how it goes. There's also integrity that comes in here, so if you ask me a question. That I can't answer.
[00:39:59] Michael Herold: [00:40:00] I'm not going to bullshit. I'm going to be like, Hey, actually this is not my area of expertise. Like I, I can give you my personal opinion. See, that is the value of integrity coming in. I brought in the value of laughter. I think I don't need to explain that further. So now f at the end of this interview people write to you and to me, and they say, this was the most horrible interview you've ever done, Michael call, like, like an un unlike an unsubscribe. I can say like, look, I showed up as the person that I wanted to be, right? This is
[00:40:32] Michael Herold: me. I would much rather
[00:40:34] Michael Herold: show up fully as the person that I am and be. Disliked. In fact, I think that if you show up fully as the person that you are and you're not being disliked by some people, you're probably not doing it right. That is a powerful thing because I know that I'm doing something that no one can take away from me. And that is the power of values. Another example my cardio training. I hated cardio training folks. I hated [00:41:00] cardio training. And then I brought my values in, and now I am using self-care.
[00:41:05] Michael Herold: What does that mean? That means I get to watch my favorite Netflix show. Only when I'm doing cardio training, and ideally, there's also going to be some laughter involved in it. Right? So now Mike, you're still doing the same 30, 40 minutes of cardio training in the morning. But instead of being agony it's not like, it's not like all fairytales, rainbows, but it's better.
[00:41:27] Michael Herold: Like it's more meaningful and and that is just how whenever my phone comes out, right? And I see those values, I can ask myself, okay, given what I'm
[00:41:37] Michael Herold: doing Right.
[00:41:38] Michael Herold: here in this moment, what's one value? What are two values that would fit? Because not all values fit everywhere, right? Like, I wouldn't, you wouldn't see me use my love, my value of laughter at a funeral. But like one or two values usually fit for any situation. And then how is this situation slightly different when I bring this [00:42:00] value in and voila, you've just added a tiny little bit of a mustard to the pot roast.
[00:42:08] Chris McCurry: In the interest of time, final
[00:42:10] Chris McCurry: thoughts? Oh, excuse
[00:42:12] Chris McCurry: me. Final thoughts.
[00:42:14] Michael Herold: Stop yelling at me, Chris. No, it's good. I have something to discuss with my therapist now. So, so final thoughts mindset.
[00:42:22] The Misconception of Mindset
[00:42:26] Michael Herold: So, so one, one other big misconception that I see people have around confluence. It's something we've covered a little bit, but I think it's important enough to bring that out is the idea of mindset.
[00:42:34] Michael Herold: Like, just like motivation, people look for the right mindset and then they go out and they do things right. If I get into the mindset that I want to be. Taking care of my health. If I get into the mindset of I finally want to make more friends, if I get into the mindset of, then it will be easy. That is something that I see specifically in, in Western cultures, specifically in Northern America. Like, just let me find the mindset. [00:43:00] Then everything will be easy. And it's so tempting because working on your mindset, you can do that with a couch and a bucket of ice cream and a bunch of books. You never need to leave your house and you still think you are doing the work, right? It's the idea of I just need to do all of the easy work to get the mindset flipped and then all of the difficult work will be. Super easy, and that's just not how it works. Like mindset comes second. You just go out there, you do your behavior usually like the things that will stop you say you have this ambition, this one behavior that you now want to do more. Say it's randomly talking to people on the street as you go through your day, right?
[00:43:43] Michael Herold: That is the new behavior that you want to use. You'll realize that. Every time you see someone that you want to approach and start a conversation with, your thoughts pop up, your emotions pop up and they they stop you like a rhinoceros who just had a bad dream. [00:44:00] And the mindset idea is first I need to get rid of the thoughts and I need to get rid of the emotions, and then I can talk to all of the people. And the reality is. You just start talking to people. You just start talking and you're probably ruin it a little bit and you have a funny story to tell because you were a total like mumbling person that didn't make any sense. And you have something to laugh at and you notice that. When you decide that even though you have those thoughts right now, even though you have those emotions right now, you're still going to talk to that person. The thoughts and the emotions don't go away. They don't go away. They get out, they get stronger. If you think, okay, I don't know what to say and I'm super nervous, the moment you open your mouth, you'll know even less what to say and you'll be even more nervous, and that is just how it works. At the beginning, and people wait for this magical moment where they
[00:44:56] Michael Herold: decide they wanna talk to someone, and for some reason their thoughts and [00:45:00] their emotions, they're just going to go away and it's all going to be easy. And then 10 years later, they're still waiting for this magical moment to happen and it doesn't come around because that's not how it works. Like it, it starts by having those thoughts and having those emotions and taking them with you on the passenger seat and be like, let me show you how this is done. Then you talk to a lot of people and make a fool out of yourself and hopefully you'll celebrate the foolishness of it all because how better to make someone stay than to give them a funny story to tell their coworkers when they arrive in the office. I.
[00:45:37] Emma Waddington: It's lovely. Yes. I was just remembering a quote by John Lennon. It says, life happens when you're busy making other plans.
[00:45:46] Emma Waddington: This idea that you know, life is happening and if you're sitting there thinking about what you wanna do, it's still happening and you know, make it something that matters.
[00:45:59] Emma Waddington: Don't wait. [00:46:00] So many people do, you know, are in this waiting pen, waiting to feel better, to have the right mindset, to feel more confident, to feel less anxious and then it starts to get more and more painful.
[00:46:11] Michael Herold: Yeah, now I do. So I do wanna make the disclaimer and say that I, so I work with people that have like low levels of anxiety, of social anxiety. Like I, I do recognize that anxiety is also something that can take an intensity that is really a struggle for people, and it necessitates professional help.
[00:46:30] Michael Herold: So anyone listening who's like, yeah, what are they talking about? Like, my anxiety is much stronger than that. I totally get it right. This is one of the things where we unfortunately use the same word for two different things. There's a difference between the person who sits at home on their couch week after week because they're too scared to go to a party, and the person who's legitimately terrified of their own emotions and what that anxiety brings about.
[00:46:57] Michael Herold: So I think it's important to not [00:47:00] belittle the heart hitting versions of anxiety. And also that when it comes to the lower dose anxiety that's the right word for it there's a lot that, a lot of value in that as well and a lot of beauty in the anxiety.
[00:47:16] Chris McCurry: Well, and other emotions too, like depression can be involved in the story around why I don't.
[00:47:24] Chris McCurry: Go somewhere or get off the couch. So, yeah, it's, we have to be mindful of all these ways that our thoughts and feelings can impede us if we let them.
[00:47:35] Conclusion and Final Thoughts
[00:47:35] Chris McCurry: So
[00:47:36] Chris McCurry: thank you Michael. This has been a real pleasure and a privilege and we will. I'll be back to talk more about values 'cause love your
[00:47:46] Chris McCurry: metaphors.
[00:47:47] Michael Herold: well, well, I'm glad you said that you had my other colleagues from the psychologist of the Clock podcast, so I feel like this like very special Pokemon at the end of the game where you're gonna catch them all.
[00:47:58] Chris McCurry: Saving. Saving [00:48:00] the
[00:48:00] Chris McCurry: best for last. Well.
[00:48:01] Emma Waddington: That's right. And how about you also tell listeners about, you know, where they can find more information about you and this fantastic book that you're writing. And I know that you're also offering coaching. Can you sort of tell listeners where they can find out more?
[00:48:16] Michael Herold: Oh yeah, totally. So, you can find my website on Harold. Coach, that's Harold, M-H-E-R-O-L-D coach. And I do one-on-one coaching. I am also currently writing on a book that is basically a written form of all the stuff that I've learned in the last 10 years, talking about like confidence building values, conversation skills, and so on. . That is still work in progress and I do have, so I do actually have an offer for anyone who's interested in that because I love books where you actually have stories in the book from like real people, not just Michael giving exercises and talking about research. Actual people [00:49:00] talking about their own experience. So anyone out there who feels like they would like to work with me and also are okay with me using their bits and pieces of their story in my book anonymously we can put a link in the show notes. Where they can find like the form or they can get in touch with me regarding that.
[00:49:19] Michael Herold: Maybe that works for someone. I've realized that it works beautifully for me because I get to work with people, I get to hear their stories, and other people get to benefit from that as well. And lastly, I'm putting together a video course that is hopefully going to come out March or April, depending on my own levels of procrastination in that regard.
[00:49:43] Michael Herold: So difficult, it's so hard to do. So people can look out for that as well. It's going to be on my website when it's done.
[00:49:50] Chris McCurry: Okay, well send us the the link to contact you around stories for the book, and we'll put that in the show notes as well as your your,
[00:49:59] Chris McCurry: website.[00:50:00]
[00:50:00] Michael Herold: Beautiful. Beautiful. You too, Chris. Emma, it's been a
[00:50:03] Michael Herold: real pleasure. So Thank you so
[00:50:05] Michael Herold: much for having me.
[00:50:06] Chris McCurry: bet.
[00:50:07] Emma Waddington: So much, so fun. Thank you.
