Confidence is often perceived as an elusive trait—something that either comes naturally or doesn't. But the reality is that confidence is like a muscle; it requires consistent work, attention, and, most importantly, the willingness to embrace discomfort. This perspective is crucial for anyone, whether you're in a career transition, a leadership role, or navigating personal growth.
One of the most common misconceptions about confidence is that it’s something people either have or don't. In truth, confidence is built over time, through experiences that often involve significant discomfort. For example, when starting a new role or taking on a challenging project, it’s normal to feel a lack of confidence. But this discomfort is not a sign of inadequacy—it's a sign of growth. Embracing this discomfort is the first step toward building true, lasting confidence.
Another essential aspect of building confidence is recognizing and celebrating your progress. We often downplay our achievements, attributing success to luck or external factors rather than our abilities. This mindset can be damaging, as it prevents us from fully appreciating how far we’ve come. Taking time to reflect on past challenges and acknowledging the progress made is crucial. Celebrate the small wins, and you’ll find that confidence grows alongside your recognition of these achievements.
Imposter syndrome manifests as a persistent fear of being exposed as a fraud, regardless of how much success you’ve achieved. It’s the voice that says, “You were just lucky,” or “Anyone could have done this.” But here’s the truth: not everyone could have done it. Your unique combination of skills, experiences, and insights brought you to this point. Recognizing and embracing this fact is the first step toward overcoming imposter syndrome.
To move beyond imposter syndrome, we must first acknowledge it. It’s not about silencing the inner critic completely, but rather learning to live with it and not letting it control your actions. This involves a deep understanding that self-confidence is built on two pillars: the ability to acknowledge your insecurities and the belief in your capacity to overcome challenges.
Self-confidence, like physical fitness, requires consistent effort. It’s built on two main components: managing insecurities and developing self-efficacy. Insecurities are like the core muscles in your body—they provide stability. To strengthen them, you must first become aware of the negative self-talk that fuels your insecurities. Instead of suppressing these thoughts, bring them to light, understand their roots, and gradually reframe them.
Self-efficacy, on the other hand, is the belief in your ability to achieve your goals. It’s like the strong arms or legs that propel you forward in life. This belief isn’t innate; it’s cultivated through experience and practice. As you face and overcome challenges, your self-efficacy grows, reducing the power of your insecurities.
A crucial part of this journey is replacing fear with curiosity. When you find yourself doubting your abilities or fearing failure, shift your perspective to one of curiosity. Ask yourself, “What can I learn from this experience? How can I grow from this challenge?” This mindset shift transforms obstacles into opportunities for growth and learning, rather than threats to your self-worth.
Moreover, understanding that everyone around you is also figuring things out can be incredibly liberating. No one has it all together, and that’s okay. By embracing this, you allow yourself the grace to be imperfect and the freedom to explore and grow.
One often overlooked aspect of building self-confidence is the importance of celebrating your successes, no matter how small. Achieving a goal shouldn’t be just another item to check off your list; it’s a milestone that deserves recognition. Celebration reinforces your accomplishments in your mind, serving as a reminder that you are capable and worthy.
Create a list of ways to celebrate your wins—whether it’s taking a day off, treating yourself to something special, or simply reflecting on your progress. This practice not only boosts your confidence but also keeps you motivated for future challenges.
Confidence isn’t a destination; it’s an ongoing journey. Just as you wouldn’t expect to maintain physical strength without regular exercise, you can’t expect self-confidence to thrive without continuous nurturing. Embrace the fact that challenges and setbacks are a natural part of this process—they are opportunities for growth, not evidence of inadequacy.
As you continue on your journey, remember that self-confidence is built one step at a time. By acknowledging your achievements, reframing your challenges, and celebrating your progress, you’ll find that confidence becomes a natural and integral part of your life. And most importantly, trust that your unique journey, with all its twists and turns, is exactly where you’re meant to be.
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Kelly Berry (00:00) Hi friends, welcome to or welcome back to Life Intended. I'm your host, Kelly Berry. Life Intended is a podcast that explores what it means to be true to yourself and live an authentic and purposeful life. Each episode explores my guests' version of personal growth, self -discovery, and the pursuit of becoming the best version of themselves, as well as how to find the joy in the journey. I cannot wait for my conversation today with my guest, Orianne Gambino. Orianne is passionate about the topics of mindset, self -confidence, and growth. And she works with high performers in the development of their leadership skills and mindset. Most of her coaching clients work in corporate or they run their own businesses. And they often reach out in a period of transition at a time where they need to improve their mindset and boost their self -confidence to trust their intuition. Or at a time where they need to a sparring partner and a confidence boost to pursue their next big ambitious goal. She is the writer of the newsletter, The Simple Mind, and that's how I found her, where she shares weekly mindset tools to simplify the way over thinkers think and increase their self -confidence. Welcome to the podcast. I'm so happy to have
Orianne Gambino (01:16) Thank you, I'm excited to be here.
Kelly Berry (01:19) before we get started, I would like for you, you've got a pretty accomplished background that is not really mentioned in your bios. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you've done and how you've arrived at the work that you're doing now?
Orianne Gambino (01:35) Absolutely. So I started my career in South Africa, in Cape Town, and at the time I worked for Airbnb. And I worked on the launch of a new Airbnb product that were Airbnb experiences. They still exist on the platform and it's activities you can book on the platform. And so the concept of experiences was to passionate individuals create activities and in the end a business with what they love by offering tours and activities. And so a lot of my job at the beginning was to find those amazing people and help them get on the platform. And then as we grow the it was also to help them grow their business on Airbnb. And a lot of what they did at the I mean, obviously there was like market growth and all that started work. But there was also a lot of work with hosts that were hosting experiences. And I've realized that they've had like thousands or hundreds of five -star reviews and they still didn't trust themselves. And so part of my job I loved the most, which wasn't really part of the job was working with them and helping them. kind of built the confidence to grow their business and potentially hire or potentially create new experiences. And after that, I moved within Airbnb into a new role, which was more of a program management ops role. And I really enjoyed it, but also really missed that contact with hosts. And so I left Airbnb, I took like almost a full year off to kind of think through what I wanted to do next. And that happened in the middle of COVID. And so in that time, I spent a lot of time thinking about myself. What did I want to do? I had some big personal change that happened just before COVID, which also created some reflection around like, what do want to do with my life? Isn't there a bit more to just working? Which like when you're working a scale up, a lot of what you do is around just that job, right? It's just around the identity. you have around this job specifically. And so was kind of like thinking through what I wanted to do next. And I just kept running into entrepreneurs who needed help in the time of COVID to rethink their business. And so I started consulting with them. And then I realized a lot of people actually know what they should do. They just need the confidence to do it. And so I realized as a consultant, I was just mirroring back what they wanted to put in place. And that's how I switched to And today I'll for coaching. to business owners and leaders I think what they have in common is they're really good at what they do, but for some reason they don't trust themselves. They kind of feel like they got lucky every time. And so what we do together is I help them get to their next step without thinking that they need luck or without feeling that kind of like strong energy of fear, but instead doing this excitement.
Kelly Berry (04:35) Yeah, I love that. think you're right that a lot of people, especially people who are very accomplished, attribute a lot of their successes to luck, that they were in the right place at the right time, or the only way that they could have gotten where they are is with luck. You know, they almost are in denial. I actually have a good friend like this who just feels like really she must have just been the only person at the right place at the right time because there was no other way that she could have become what she is now on her own accord. So I definitely think that that's something that a lot of people struggle with, especially I think it's interesting how you were talking about the people with, you know, they have hundreds and thousands of five star reviews and they still have a hard time believing that they have something good.
Orianne Gambino (05:31) Yeah, and I think you know why they think that? It's because it's easy to them. So they don't understand how people can feel like it's amazing because to them it's something that they do like they have fun with it and it's something good and so they don't understand why it's so special because for them it's something kind of like basic to do even though they're making it like amazing right? But I think very often it's you had this career progression or your business grew. And obviously like there was hardship. There's always hardship. But very often it felt fun and it felt enjoyable and it felt like there was ease into it. And I think it comes back to school, but we feel like if it wasn't hard, we don't deserve it. Or it was just luck. That's how we rationalize
Kelly Berry (06:20) Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you you've got a few areas of expertise that I think my audience is going to be particularly interested in. Confidence is definitely one of them. So I want to talk about that. I think that goes hand in hand with imposter syndrome. And I know that you talk about that as well. So talk about like what that is. What are the causes and symptoms and then talk about like some ways that people can develop more self -confidence or feel more like they have earned what they
Orianne Gambino (07:00) So I think imposter syndrome is exactly what you said about your friend, right? It's this feeling that whatever we've accomplished has been just luck. And it's thinking that it's just dumb luck, which Naval Havikant talks about the different kinds of luck we have. And like the number one is dumb luck. It's just like I was here at the right time, at the right place. But then there's luck you work for. Obviously, there's always an element of random in everything that we do, but there is luck that we kind of like provoke and we make things happen. And so imposter syndrome is this voice in our head that tells us we were just lucky and that luck is going to stop, or we were just at the right place, but we're not the right person. And so everybody is going to find out. So imposter syndrome is kind of like your inner critic. It's this like negative things you say to yourself and sometimes you don't even want to admit that you say to yourself because they're just so strong and so brutal. But with a focus on confidence on what you've achieved and where you are. And so imposter syndrome is really depending on your relationship to yourself and how aware you are. It's just like constant chatter. happening in the background, right? You're in the meeting, you say something and then suddenly it's this voice being like, everybody looked at you, maybe you said something stupid or well, they're gonna find out you're not qualified enough for this role, et cetera. And imposter syndrome can happen. Like we talk a lot about imposter syndrome at work, but it can also happen in parenthood. It can happen in friendship. can happen in love relationships too, where we feel like, well, where's this person with me? What do they think I have? Like, why do they see me so special? Because we can't see it ourselves. And so syndrome really is, I like to call it like a persona, it's like this little monster or like a tiny version of you or like a child version of you that talks to you about your biggest insecurities. And so, and it's the consequence of self -confidence. I like to explain that self -confidence is composed of two things and it works like a set of muscles. So the idea with self -confidence is like muscle is that actually you need to work for it. It's not something that you just have. It's something that you need to work for. And it's something that needs constant nurturing and that needs to be adapted depending on the different areas where you want to build your self -confidence. So just like muscles, right? Sometimes you need strong arms, sometimes you need strong legs. And self -confidence is the same. And there's two aspects of self -confidence. One of them is insecurities. And so insecurities are imposter syndrome. They are those thoughts that we tell ourselves when we don't feel confident. And insecurities is basically like your core, like your abs. You need strong core if you want to do anything. If you want to overcome challenges, if you want to go for the things you want, you need to be able to deal with these insecurities without going down the rabbit hole. And I'll give you a personal example of right now we're talking and I could have my imposter syndrome telling me, well, like, are you really legitimate to talk about this? Like whatever my inner dialogue looks like. And I can go down that rabbit hole and then get kind of like shaken and not be able to follow through with my thoughts. or I can acknowledge what's happening and move on so that I can keep pushing during the interview. And this happens, I give this very silly one -off example, but this happens in everything that we do. so dealing with those insecurities and being able to hear them and let them go is what we would call a strong core. And that's one aspect of self -confidence. The second aspect is called self -efficacy. And self -efficacy is your knowledge in your ability to overcome challenges. And this is where a lot of professionals kind of like get stuck. They don't feel confident about their ability to overcome challenges. They place their confidence into their skills. And so a very, very classic scenario that I see is someone who was a great individual contributor, get a promotion, and they felt fairly confident in their role because they had great results. And they had, we could say like they have a very strong arm, right? They had a good muscle in their arm. They were really good in operations. And then they moved to a management role and management requires a complete different set of skills. They need their legs, but not all their confidence was placed in the fact that they had big arms, but they've got a red. So. then they start panicking and they don't feel confident. And if they don't have strong core, then their insecurities pop in. I'm not meant to be a manager. I was lucky to be good where I was before. Now I was too, like I asked for too much and now I'm in this place and I don't know how to do it, et cetera, et cetera. And the level of panic and negative self -talk really depends from one individual to the other, from one situation to the other.
Kelly Berry (12:12) Okay.
Orianne Gambino (12:20)But self -efficacy really is knowing that, you know what, I've built a strong arm, I can do the same with legs. The pain's gonna be different. It's gonna feel different in my body. I don't know what to expect, but actually I know that if I go to the gym, eat my proteins, drink water, I'll be able to do it. And so self -efficacy and insecurities, work hand in hand, one way or the other. If you're very weak in insecurities, it's gonna be really hard to...overcome the challenge because your insecurities are going to be in the way and the more you're going to overcome challenges the less you're going to have insecurities because you're going to have regular proof of overcoming challenges and this is why celebration is so important and we don't think about celebrating things we do because they kind of like fall into normal right something scary and then we get so used to doing it that it becomes normal but we can't go back to when was the change. I do these self -confidence workshops and very often I ask people to think about something that used to scare them when they were a junior, that they didn't feel confident doing as a junior. And if you take a moment to think about it.
Kelly Berry (13:18) Mm -hmm
Orianne Gambino (13:42)There's always something, right? Maybe it was writing emails, maybe it was talking in meetings. And then I'll ask them, like, when did it stop being scary? And usually you can't tell. You can't tell a time where you were like, email is easy, right? It was the repetitions that helped. And the more you did it, the more you felt self -efficacy, the less insecurities you had.
Kelly Berry (13:58) Mm -hmm. Yeah, yeah. I love a lot of things that you said there and I can relate. Right now, what this looks like for me is, you know, when I'm reading somebody else's newsletter or I'm listening to somebody else's podcast or I'm reaching out to a guest, you know, I'm thinking, wow, this person seems so accomplished. This person has done all of these things. Listen to them on this podcast. and how they're able to interact with their guests. And so I just go down these things. But then I think, I don't know, and maybe you can help shed some light on this. Now, instead of letting that prevent me from moving forward, or in the past, would just, you know, my self -talk would be really loud. Now I'm more like, how are they doing that? What could I do now to be able to interview like they can or how can I be more prepared coming into a podcast so that I'm able to interact with my guests better? So I think, what I'm saying is I've had all of what you just described in my career for sure. Everything from, you know, getting the email that I didn't know how to respond to would just cause me to go into a tailspin to now I'm able to kind of look at these things where I do have doubts about my credibility but I'm able to approach them in a little bit more like practical and I'll even say like, not positive, but I'm progressive. Like I'm able to think about like, okay, if I'm not where I wanna be, how do I then go and get more of these skills so that I can show up the way that I want
Orianne Gambino (15:47)t hink that's the best way to define growth mindset. No? I think that's just what you described, right? You had that shift. Well, congratulations. Now you have to celebrate. But I think it's it's exactly that. If I had to define growth mindset, I would have said exactly what you just explained and what you had experienced.
Kelly Berry (15:52) Yeah, yeah, which I've worked on a lot.
Orianne Gambino (16:15) It's such a subtle shift in how you think, but it makes huge changes in how you live. Right? It's just, you just change the way you approach something, right? It's looking at someone who's doing something similar and thinking, going from, my God, I'm not there and I'll never get there to, okay, how are they doing it? It's, you just change a sentence and it changes how everything feels.
Kelly Berry (16:23)Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (16:43)And I think it's replacing fear with curiosity. In one scenario, you're afraid you'll never get there and you don't trust yourself. And in the second one, you don't even, well, I think you trust yourself more, but that's more in the background, but actually you replace it with curiosity. And very often what we're afraid of is on the other side of just being curious about what's behind it one element of And I think also behind that there's the discovery of actually everyone is figuring it out. I think that was my biggest learning as an adult and I came late to the party. It happened like when I was 25 or something. But it's like really realizing like everyone is figuring it out and everyone is like trying to make things work in the best way they can for themselves.
Kelly Berry (17:20)Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (17:34) And so that invites a bit more curiosity, I think, because then you realize, okay, they're trying something. Let me see what they're trying. Let me see what I could take from that. But yeah, Comparison is an interesting game because it actually gets you to your next step, but it can also get you stuck if you get lost in it. And so the question is, how do you find that balance? Right? So how did you?
Kelly Berry (17:43)Mm -hmm. Yeah. So how do you find it? Because I think, you know, I think that is on people's minds all the time. And I've talked about it in a couple of episodes, but, know, we live in a time right now where comparison is everywhere and it's, it can be the, the thief of joy for a lot of people. You know, I've, I've read a lot about and been listening to some, some podcasts and some books.
Orianne Gambino (18:04) Yeah.
Kelly Berry (18:31) just about where we are as a society and how we're not running our own races anymore. We're running the race of somebody else or trying to keep up. And truly, that's what one of the reasons I try to, or one of the reasons that I decided to start the podcast is how do we get people to understand what they want? How do we get people to realize this is who I am and this is I want and this is how I want to live my life with intention according, you in alignment with who I am instead of, you know, looking around and thinking I need to be doing what everybody around me is
Orianne Gambino (19:13) And you know, that's why I really liked when you reached out, that's what I really liked about your podcast is you're focused on authenticity because I think that's a discourse, like a message that's not really passed on enough today. It's getting there, but most of what we hear is about being in one camp or another camp, right? It's like you're right or wrong. politics aside, right, for everything, you should be pro something or against something. And there's very little space for nuance. Because of many reasons, right, the format we consume is very short. So that doesn't leave room for nuances. We want to belong, we want to be part of a group, but we also want to exist individually. And so how do we and we struggle to that gap, right? Because if I want to be if I want to do my own thing, and I'm on my own. And so that creates a lot of inner friction because we try to identify within, I think, specific boxes. Does that make sense? So it's like, I'm Oriane and I have to be defined as the coach or I have to be defined as a writer. And on top of that comes marketing and storytelling. A lot of people today master storytelling and with marketing also, you have to be very clear with your message. You can't be a writer and a coach and I don't know, someone who loves snakes. I don't love snakes, that's the first thing that came to my mind, right? It's like people can't make sense of that. You have to have one super clear message and a story that comes with that. And so that gives us a kind of sensation that we should only exist within this one phase. That's a marketing. And on top of that, we compare ourselves to other people's storytelling And I like I talk about, have a workbook on self -confidence and I talk about, about it in it. And I encourage people to use chat GPT to take something very small that they did, like sending an email and ask chat GPT to create a LinkedIn post. Where's a strong storytelling and a strong message around just writing that email. And then you realize that you can spin anything into a challenge you overcame. And that gives a bit of perspective, right? And okay, like they've done this, but actually that's what they're pushing out there, but we don't know what's in the behind. And I think that helps a lot. Give perspective of like, okay, let me, when I read this story about this person, like, let me look at the structure of it. Very often people use a hero journey. was in my comfort zone. I got out of my comfort zone. There were some challenges and it was hard and I was in pain. And then I came with a better knowledge, which is true. We all go through those challenges and you can look at all your challenges this way. But the way you talk about them is completely different. And I think it's about mastering your own storytelling for yourself, but also learning to dissect and kind of create distance and then being super curious. What have they done? How are they talking about it? And that helps take distance.
Kelly Berry (22:30) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (22:36) But I think it's also very normal. That's one thing I really want to say because I haven't said it yet. And usually I start with this when I talk about self -confidence. It is absolutely normal to have insecurities. It is absolutely normal to not feel confident when you're faced with something new. And we all go through that. Really, the difference between people is how much you get into your insecurities and how much you communicate about But we all have insecurities. We all have doubts and they're perfectly normal. They're perfectly healthy. And that's how you get to the next step. That's how you get into something exciting. If you want to do anything that's going to excite you, you have to go through these phases. They don't have to be as painful, but they'll happen anyway, right? But you don't have to make them as like deep and intense. But if you normalize it already and you don't resist it, it's already much easier. It's like,
Kelly Berry (23:25) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (23:31) I feel insecure about this. It's okay. I'll get experience and then...
Kelly Berry (23:35) Yeah. Yeah. I was actually just listening to a podcast yesterday and are you familiar with Arthur Brooks? He's an author. He talks about happiness and really just like how to determine how to reach your potential. And he's got a few different, I would say, areas of expertise, but in this podcast, he was talking about, you know, we're not out here trying live a 100 % happy life and happiness is not a destination, it is a direction. That's exactly what he said and I was like, you know, that's a great way to describe it. But I think the way that this connects to what you were just talking about is what he went on to say is that you're not just trying to find the things that make, well, I guess what he actually said was, You have to have these challenges and adversities in your life to be able to grow and to be able to move on to the next step and to be in this direction of happiness. So if you get stuck in this mindset of, if this is really hard, it's not meant for me, or this is really hard and other people don't have these hard things going on in their lives, you know, it's those stories that you tell yourself that aren't actually true. know, everybody has hard things. Everybody is, you know, a lot of people are working really hard at the things that they are making look really easy. And it can, to your point about like putting that prompt into chat GPT, you know, there's a lot out there that you can look at and read and be like, wow, those, you know, I can't believe they went through that and came out on the other side. But when you peel all the layers back, it's it's something as simple as you've done or, you know, like it isn't this grand thing that they put out there. So I think it's complex, you know, and I think that you just have to have a certain level of awareness and a certain level of skepticism and then be able to work on the things that you're working on at the same time that you're like taking all of these other things in.
Orianne Gambino (25:47) Yes, I love that around like working on while you're working, when you're working on the challenge, there's also in parallel a lot of personal work that happens at the same time. And that's, it's the duality of it, right? have to, you're overcoming the challenge and at the same time you're overcoming your lack of self -confidence in a specific area or your overthinking or your perfectionism, like whatever it is that you're dealing with. It kind of pops in in this challenge for you to address it because it's in the way. Right. That's the one thing that's in the way. And so you need to address it. But then it requires work. But it's just like working out. It's like if you want to be toned, you need to work out. You need you need to be in pain from time to time. And it's finding this balance between hurting yourself when it's like too painful and there's really something wrong. and just that like muscle pain because you're working out. It's the same with your mind. That's why I think there's a lot of talk about mental fitness. And I think it's like a very accurate way to talk about it because it's just that it's finding this nuance and we're just not used to nuance. It's like, well, if it's meant for me, it should be easy. Yes, but there's going to be a bit of friction at some point.
Kelly Berry (27:05)Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (27:13) And it's okay. And then you choose if you want to address it or if it's too much, which is also okay, right? This time of your life where, I don't know, you start, challenge yourself with something and then all of sudden it's just too much. It's okay to back down and be like, you know what, let me regroup for a moment and then I'll do it again when I feel ready. And I think we just don't hear this kind of things enough. that may be the French in me against a very, U .S. dominated speech, right? But very often it's like, you've got to push through, you've got to push through. It's like, yeah, you have to push through, but you also have to know when you need a bit of rest to be able to through again. It's like a giant video game, right? You don't want to go and burn out.
Kelly Berry (27:58) Yeah. Yeah. So what are some, if somebody wants to start working on their mental fitness or doing some exercises to help, I guess, build their confidence muscles, resilience muscles, what do you suggest?
Orianne Gambino (28:17)so a couple of things was insecurities. It's the number one thing is starting to be comfortable with your uncomfortable thoughts. So very often we suppress negative self -talk and we suppress those like nasty things we say to ourselves, but they still run in the background. So exercises like taking a moment to look at yourself in the mirror, look at yourself in the mirror at the gym or look at yourself and see what kind of thoughts pop in and just observing the negative ones. The things that you can tell yourself. For some people it's your failure, or that you're not good enough, you're not doing enough. Whatever comes up, just letting it, I like to say pop, it's like bubbles in a bottle of swatting water. They need to get out. so that you can just become aware of how often you say these things to yourself. What's kind of a bit brutal with awareness, and I'm sure you went through that journey, is that when you let it come out, then it just keeps popping. And you're like, wait, am I having more and more negative self -talk? But the reality is you're actually just hearing it more. You're just paying attention to it. It was always in the background, like, You know, when you're cooking, the thing you do to get the air, like the bad smell go away. I don't know how you call it. Like if the vent exactly, it's like if you have the vent going on, at some point you don't hear it anymore. And then once you start paying attention to it, that's all you can hear. So that's what happens with negative self -talk until you can validate. The number one step is to kind of like accept those thoughts.
Kelly Berry (29:46)The vent, like, would just turn on like an air room.
Orianne Gambino (30:05) And just accept that like in the case of self -confidence, this is your imposter syndrome, or this is like a side of you that needs love and reinsurance and security, but just kind of like accepting those thoughts. And then the second step, which is like a bit weird and out there when I say it, but it actually really worked is to dissociate from them. And a great way to dissociate from them is to create a, like a persona. and give it like you were doing marketing, like give it a very specific characteristic. And so for me, my imposter syndrome as myself when I was five years old and I was afraid there was someone under the bed. and every time I hear myself say things relating to my imposter syndrome, so maybe I'm not good enough. Maybe I don't have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. like that kind of thoughts. I just imagine like not myself saying but my five -year -old self saying it. And all of sudden it's much less dramatic, it's much less important, it's just irrational thoughts coming in. And I really invite you to think about your imposter syndrome and like those insecurities that pop in as something that your five -year -old self is saying. Because when a five -year -old is afraid, they're really afraid, like they're feeling the pain, right? They're like really feeling it. And at the same time, it can be really irrational. can be like they've seen a shadow and they think there's something under the bed and they're really afraid of it. And so your insecurities are the same, right? They're like, no, but we're really going to look like idiots if we say that, or we're really going to fail if we do this and everybody's going to know. And so it's kind of being like, okay, like, I hear you. Let's look under the bed. Make sure there's no, like no monster. But you know what? Even if there's a monster, I'll be
Kelly Berry (31:41) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (31:55) And it's kind of like soothing yourself like this. Because very often when, like I remember the first time I posted my article, I was panicking and my imposter syndrome was telling me like, everybody's gonna read it and everybody's gonna like know what you think and they're gonna think you're lame. I'm like, I won't go into details, but like it was pretty harsh because it was my first time. And then nobody read it at like two views. Then my imposter syndrome went on with something else, right? Like, see, you're not good enough. Like people like haven't read. And the reason why I'm saying this out loud is to really normalize these thoughts because we all have them, or at least every people I talk to have them. So it's already enough people for me to realize like it's normal, but I think really everyone have them. But so that's the number one thing, right? Becoming aware of your thoughts and then kind of like separating from them and giving them. the face, the name, and it comes from a part of you, but it comes from distance that you can realize how irrational they are, but still process the emotion. Because that's the thing, like there's an emotion behind it that needs processing. If you ignore it, it's going to come back knocking. Just like a kid, you ignore that, keep saying mom, mom, mom, then eventually they're going to Your impulsive syndrome is the same. So that's one aspect of it and that's how you work kind of like on your core. The other thing you can do is to list every challenge you overcame with a kind of like storytelling spin or at least you're using like four steps of hero journey, right? I went out of my comfort zone, there was a challenge, I overcame it and basically I didn't die. And kind of like repeating this all the times you did in your life is great because first we forget the things that used to be scary. We forget the challenges that we went through. Like maybe for you launching your podcast was a huge thing that five years ago you didn't even think you were capable. Right. And now you're doing it and it's kind of like taking the time to acknowledge like, well, I went a very long way to do it so that what feels right now like it's impossible. Like your mind has a framework, right? You look at it, not from this happened and then I overcame it, but more from a systematic perspective of I wanted something. It was outside of my comfort zone. I challenged myself. I got curious. I learned like whatever step you took. And actually I have a podcast and I'm so happy about it. And like that systemic learning and doing it for at least five or six challenges you overcame.
Kelly Berry (34:37) Mm -hmm
Orianne Gambino (34:44) That really helps you kind of like register and then in the future you do it as wins come. Every time someone, like a master is super happy when my clients say to me, I had a win and I treated myself and I did this to celebrate. And when they say it on my own, it's like, okay, we can grow apart, you're good, you're all set. But I think it's very important to take that time to like, okay, you know what? This is my, I don't know, 100 episodes, let me actually celebrate it and celebrate how far I came. It's not vanity, it's not self -indulgence, it's just like that was hard and I did it and let me just register in my brain and tell my brain again, challenge, like went out of comfort zone and came back stronger and like just registering that and I'm repeating it, it's like already registering for you guys but like it really helps building self -confidence in the future.
Kelly Berry (35:17) Yeah, there are several things that I want to just add to that. And one, think that what you're talking about in like writing down and acknowledging challenges, I think is so important. for you may have more insight to shed on this, but you know, like we just tend to discredit things that we have done and give more credit to others for things that they have done. So it gives us very like skewed perspective. It's I haven't accomplished anything. I haven't overcome anything. I haven't really, yeah, just haven't really, compared to other people, I've not done much. So I think it's important to stop and go through that exercise and make yourself acknowledge, what are these things that I have done? What did that look like? Where was I before I did that? And where am I now that I've gone through that? I think that's super important.
Orianne Gambino (36:35) Yeah.
Kelly Berry (36:37) And then something else that I've written a couple of newsletters about and is something that I think is so important is to celebrate. So when you set goals, instead of just attaining that goal and moving on, that you do something to stop and celebrate. So my kind of thing that I like to tell people to do is create a small list of ways that you're going to celebrate.
Orianne Gambino (37:03) Hmm.
Kelly Berry (37:03) things that you accomplish so that when you do, you can figure something out pretty easily. So they can be like really simple, know, take an afternoon off, you know, go out to lunch at your favorite place. They don't have to be big, huge celebrations, but it's important to think about, okay, in comparison to this list of goals that I have for the quarter, what is this list of ways that I'm gonna celebrate them when I achieve them? Because I think not only as it pertains to how you can stay committed to a goal. But if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur or a leader, I think it's your responsibility to teach people around you how to do that as well. Because that can really just be, bad culture to create is one where, you know, you never stop to soon.
Kelly Berry (37:54) relish in how far you've come that it's just, okay, we've gotten to this milestone. So eyes up, let's look to the next one. Yeah. So I think that both of those things that you talked about, I'm 100 % on board with how important those are.
Orianne Gambino (38:00) And I love doing the list like you said, I never thought about it. But having a list of ways you can celebrate also makes it easier and takes out the discomfort when it's actually funny, my partner just hit a milestone and I was like, okay, we actually need to celebrate. Like we haven't celebrated yet, let's celebrate. And I think because he was uncomfortable celebrating it, likely because he feels like it's not enough already he didn't know what to do and he kind of like put it on the side and I think having that list of ways we can celebrate already prepared kind of helps be like okay we'll pick this one and then move on from like the awkwardness of celebrating ourselves which should be normal but doesn't feel normal so I really like that it's a very good tips
Kelly Berry (38:36) Mm -hmm Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there are a couple of things to that, but one is like setting good goals in the first place. You can talk about like the smarter goal, smart goal framework or whatever, but having a specific endpoint to what you're working on. So it's not ambiguous. It's not like I want
Orianne Gambino (39:03) Yeah.
Kelly Berry (39:16) I want to get more listeners on my podcast. Well, then I can always say, well, I haven't reached it yet because more is some ambiguous number. But if I'm like, I want to get this many specific number of downloads by the end of July, then it's pretty clear whether I've hit that or not. And then it's pretty clear is a time to celebrate that or not. And so I think, you know, good goal setting is also a component of that so that you
Orianne Gambino (39:23) Yeah.
Kelly Berry (39:42) You can't make it so that it's subjective in the moment because the way that we are, we're always going to be like, it's not enough yet. So we're just going to keep going. It's just got to be pretty objective and it's important to celebrate.
Orianne Gambino (39:45) Yeah. And yeah, and it's a good spin on it. It's like, you're not setting good goals just for the sake of it. You're setting good goals so that you have a clear moment to celebrate and stuff and like move on to the next one. And yeah, a clear goal setting is also a big part of self -confidence because blurry goals, well, it creates blurry confidence, I guess. It just makes you feel like, yeah, but whatever, because we didn't even remember what their goal was. So having them written and having them clear.
Kelly Berry (40:23) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (40:26) And a great way to get better at setting goals is to do post -mortem. So they have to be realistic, they have to be numbered. like it's clear, also taking the time to look at if something didn't work out or if you don't feel confident or successful about something, of taking a moment to look at the learnings in the same way that you celebrate if you actually manage to get there. How do you learn from it? Because it's also a great way to kind of close the loop. Even if, I don't know, you have a project with your business and you decide to stop like mid project for some reason, then taking a moment to do a postpartum and look at, okay, what went well, what didn't go well, why did we stop it? It's a way also for your mind to register that, you know what, even if we don't get to the goal, we don't die, which is like kind of like how the mind works. It's like, but something bad's gonna happen. Like nothing But also we learn from it and we're going to use it in the future. And then if it was a goal setting, that was actually the problem. Then for the next time you get better at setting goals. I do this with my clients. We do weekly check -ins over email where they need to set goals for themselves just weekly on what they're going to do, like three priorities. And usually the first two to three weeks, the priority is they don't get them done just because of goal setting.
Kelly Berry (41:37) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (41:53) because they set goals that are too ambitious and so they set themselves up for failure because they're trying to do too much in a week. And so kind of like getting in the habit of setting goals and tracking and looking back is a great way to get better at setting goals and building self -confidence. So win -win.
Kelly Berry (42:12) Yeah. Yeah. I love that blurry goals creates blurry confidence. think that's, yeah, that's a really good way to say that. Yeah. Well, we're approaching time. There's a lot of other things that I think you talk about really well that we haven't even touched on, but tell us a little bit more about like who. is a good candidate for you to work with and what does working with you look like and what kind of resources do you have for people that are interested?
Orianne Gambino (42:47) So when it comes to coaching, I work mainly with people who are at a time of change. like time of change is a bit vague, I know, but it's basically they are at a time where they feel like they want to do something, they want to get to the next step. There's something and they know it's mindset that's getting in the way. or people who like they founded their company and they got into new roles and they just feel like they need this extra support because they're just second guessing themselves too much and they feel like they need like they're either on the verge of burnout and they feel like there's too many thoughts happening and they don't know how to deal with it and so they just need space I think it's like they need space to be able to process their own thoughts
Kelly Berry (43:34) Mm -hmm.
Orianne Gambino (43:40) and they need a spying partner and someone to kind of guide them through how to improve their mindsets. I don't know if that's because it's not like a clear definition, but I think it's more around what people feel when they reach out to me. And then the coaching, the way I do coaching is usually bi -weekly or once a month, depending on the profiles and the need. And we do those weekly check -ins over email to kind of keep the link, but also create this accountability and grow self -confidence as we go into the program, which is three months to six months, again, depending on the case. And yeah, and then some of the tools I've talked about, some of the exercises I give, it really depends from one session to the other. I have most of the tools I share are also either in the newsletter or in the on self -confidence that's on my website. Yeah.
Kelly Berry (44:39) Okay. I have that in. It's a great, it's a great tool for sure. Yeah.
Orianne Gambino (44:45) I had a lot of fun building it. was a fun one.
Kelly Berry (44:48) Yeah, yeah, I like it. There's a number of exercises that I'm going to take and do from there. But I think, you you and I were talking prior to recording and you mentioned awareness a lot in this podcast. But, you know, my goal really is just to help people become more aware of the way that they're thinking, how they're talking to themselves and what that is preventing them from doing whether it's preventing them from accessing their authenticity or whether it's preventing them from just making progress or thinking that they're capable or worthy of that progress. And I think that the ways that you've talked about a lot of how that pertains to confidence and how that you can move through those situations access more confidence and build more confidence, think is just, those are really powerful, I'll say like not first steps, but like initial and ongoing steps because those are things, you you never get to a, just like you never attain happiness, like you never attain confidence. You know, it's always something that you have to work on because hopefully you're always growing and changing and taking on new things and you don't just get to arrive at the destination of being confident.
Orianne Gambino (46:14) Yeah, for sure. It's like you need to nurture it. need to... like authenticity, I think, works in the same way. Like you don't get to a point where you're 100 % authentic. You keep showing up authentically and as authentically as you can. Because also like what's authentic for you changes as you grow and where your confidence needs to go also changes. So I think really like anything mindset needs kind of constant work, but it's a good work. It's like grilling work. I feel like the term work can be a bit negative. It's like, it's just maintenance, I think. There's a stage where all you need is maintenance.
Kelly Berry (46:54) Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I like the way that you described authenticity there too, because you're absolutely right. As you have new experiences or new relationships, who you are changes. And so to be aware enough to know, you need to continually take an audit or check in with yourself to make sure, are these things that I'm doing the things that I still want to be doing and know that it's okay if they're not? you know, you can make a change. It's, and you probably should, you
Orianne Gambino (47:28) you need confidence to do it. That's why you need to work everything.
Kelly Berry (47:31) Yes. Do you think this is kind of, I won't say unrelated, but it's just a different take on it. Like how do you think age factors into confidence?
Orianne Gambino (47:46) It's funny you asked me this because I was thinking about it today. I feel like there's period of times, and I guess when you're younger, where it's not that you're more confident, it's I think you don't realize what you're getting yourself into and so you go there confidently because you don't really question it. Does that make sense? Okay. And I think it's very much like in your 20s, like when I look back at myself or even my friends in our 20s, like we would do things even professionally that today I would not do even though I have more experience. Because to me there was less consequences or I didn't think about it. And I think as you grow older, is a... I feel like it goes like this. It's a V, right? When you're young, it's fine. And then when you grow a bit older, all of a sudden you realize that, I don't know, bad things happen. Sometimes you fail and things get bit scary. And if you have a bad sequence of bad luck and failure and things that don't work. then your confidence kind of like goes down and then you need to rebuild it. And I do think it's good because you rebuilt it not from a place of not knowing, but from a place of knowing the risk, but doing it anyway, which is what real confidence is. But like for me, that's how it feels. feels like there's initially it's good and then there's like a going down and then coming back up is a bit hard, but once you do, you're fine.
Kelly Berry (49:00) Thank you. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Orianne Gambino (49:23) And maybe it happens like several times in your life. What do you think? I'm curious.
Kelly Berry (49:28) And I think that's a great way to describe it because, I think when you are young, maybe, you know, it's, you almost have this like false sense of I can do anything or I don't need, you know, it's almost like, you know, I have a toddler right now and it's like, I can do it myself. We're in that stage of life, you know, but that carries on through like your teen years and even into college, I think. where your exposure level increases. And then you're just exposed to more, you see more, the world becomes bigger in a lot of ways. And that's when I think you start to see that you don't know everything and you're not invincible. And there isn't anybody to catch you when you fall, you're on your own. And that is very much my experience in life, you know, it was like probably even more like a mountain. It just kept going up, up, up. And then, but when it went down, it went really far down and I'm like, I'm still climbing out, but I've done a lot of work to get to where, you know, hopefully I'll be fine again.
Orianne Gambino (50:40) Yeah, it will. Very soon. But yeah, I think it's exactly what you said. When you're young, you don't know that you don't know. You're super certain of everything. And yeah, the biggest shock is all of a sudden you realize, well, I have no idea what I'm doing or like I have not that much knowledge about this. And so it feels dizzying. And so it's learning to find comfort in that, like on those moving pieces.
Kelly Berry (50:42) Yeah. Yeah. It's like circling back to what you said at the very beginning, you know, like you had this realization that nobody knows what they're doing. Everybody's just trying to figure it out. And I think, you know, it took me a long time to go through that journey to get back there. But, you know, now that's really obvious to me. Nobody has any idea what they're doing. you know, not only that, there's everything moves so quickly that everything's just changing so fast.
Orianne Gambino (51:20) Yeah.
Kelly Berry (51:40) you know, if you just change your mindset to like, I'm not trying to figure it all out. I'm just trying to continue to work to figure things out. That can just help your perspective a little bit.
Orianne Gambino (51:54) Yeah, and think that's, and I mean, it's just a completely different topic, but it relates to destination mindset. When you're younger also, you feel like there's a destination where you're going to arrive. And so you have this energy of like, all right, let me get to the destination. And when you have this realization, like, I don't know everything. And like life can get a bit more complicated and things move. You're like, wait, there's no destination. What do I do now? And that shifts is exactly that, it's you figure out, okay, like, so what do I do with the journey now? But you have to change direction completely.
Kelly Berry (52:26) Yeah, yep. Yeah, that's another really good observation. Yeah, and you hear that, I guess that saying all the time, like life's not a destination, it's a journey, but it's not always that easy to understand until you're in
Orianne Gambino (52:46) Yeah, there's knowing it and then there's feeling it. Then it's completely different.
Kelly Berry (52:50) Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, if you can take a couple minutes and just let us know how what's the best way for people to connect with you. I think you've got, you know, you've ventured your newsletter and resources. How can they learn more about you and follow
Orianne Gambino (53:10) Absolutely. So on my website, gambino .me, you can find everything. So there's information about my coaching, the corporate coaching offer, the newsletter link, and then the link to the workbook too. So everything is on there. So you can just look at it. And then I share also content on LinkedIn and on Medium and on the newsletter. So that's kind of where I share observations and different things. Medium is more mindset. LinkedIn obviously more professionals. And then the newsletter is really weekly mindset tips to reduce overthinking and grow self -confidence. If I have to say it in one sentence. But so yeah, on the website, everything is up there.
Kelly Berry (53:52) Yeah, great. I've been getting your newsletter for a couple of months now and you actually wrote one maybe like six weeks ago on intentionality. It so good. I shared your article with my newsletter list too.
Orianne Gambino (54:08) Thank you. I'm glad it resonated.
Kelly Berry (54:10) Yeah, you're welcome. It was great and very aligned with the podcast. So I'm glad it worked out to have you on. I think this has been great. I know it's going to be really valuable for a lot of people. So thank you so much for your time. It's great to have
Orianne Gambino (54:25) Thank you for having me.
Kelly Berry (54:27) Yeah, thank you and we will talk to you later.
Kelly Berry is a strategic business leader and business coach. She is known for her operational excellence and her ability to drive growth and results across multiple industries.
She is also hosting her own podcast, Life Intended.
