Stop hiding your value—this episode reveals how to shift your mindset and speak with confidence without sounding arrogant.

Welcome to the Stable Parenting Podcast

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.

Today's episode is brought to you, brought to us in part by Cowboy Cuffs. Elevate Your Style, Elevate Your Life, Elevate Each Other.

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Anyway, moving on.

Let’s Talk About Self-Talk

You know, I want to talk today about the, subject for today is the self-talk, okay? Language that we use about ourselves. And I mean specifically the words that we're—what we're saying about ourselves. I mean, what are the words and what do they mean? And really, how much awareness do we have about what's going on?

Conditioned to Stay Small

You know, one thing I've noticed—and that is from a young age—we were taught, we are socially conditioned. There's no doubt about it that, you know, we don't want to shine too bright. Don't stand out too much. We want to make sure that we're fitting in with everybody. Don't toot your own horn. Okay? Stay humble. Don't shine too bright.

You know, like we're conditioned that elevating ourselves, okay, is basically—it’s socially unacceptable. And, you know, so we have this belief or condition—I don't know if we're really aware of it, how aware we are of it. I was not for a while—but we kind of believe that we need to minimize ourselves and everything that we're doing. And that's okay because we want to avoid what people will think if we don't, and we want to minimize rejection and we want to fit in and have belonging and all of that.

The Need for Belonging

So, you know, we are social creatures, and belonging to a group is a fundamental need. So celebrating our wins and being a little too happy might lead to people resenting us. You know?

So in order to avoid being judged or to be excluded, then we downplay our achievements—and really ourselves, you know, everything about us, who we are.

Why We Minimize Ourselves

Research in what they call social comparison theory—it’s just a fancy word—but what it shows is that people often avoid sharing their successes just to maintain peace in the relationship. Okay? Because you're afraid. The research shows that we can be afraid that we'll make other people feel inferior or upset and, you know, harm the relationship.

So this is a real thing if you really think about it. I'm going to talk more about it.

Most of the time we're not even aware of what we're doing. We haven't thought it through, and we don't know the consequences because it seems like sometimes that it might be a good idea unless we really take a close look at it.

So, you know, when we achieve more than the people around us, we sometimes feel this—unconsciously—can feel guilty, particularly if other people are struggling. You know, so that's one thing. And then this guilt leads to, you know, minimizing what we have going on. If we're happy, we don't want to say so. If we're having a good day, if we did something, if we accomplished something, if we're having success. So it's like, as a way to equalize the relationship, we diminish ourselves or we reduce ourselves a little bit. Okay?

Fear of Arrogance and the Result

And so, it's with good intent, right? Because we don't want to go out and—I mean, we're conditioned to think. I'll speak for myself and what I see in my experience—we don't want to go out and say, “Hey, you know what? Let me just tell you world—My name's Shane, and I'm pretty amazing. I've done some pretty amazing—let me tell you some of the things I've accomplished. I've done some stuff, you know, I'm pretty proud of it.”

We have good intent, but the result is not. We're not having a good result, and I don't think we're aware of it. And we're not comfortable in saying that.

And one of the reasons—another reason—is we don't want to come off as arrogant, right? Because we know that people that are constantly trying to direct attention to themselves, right, is coming from a lack of what's inside of them. So we don't want to be that guy or gal. So, you know, we don't say anything, or we make it less and less and less.

Are We Reinforcing the Wrong Mindset?

And so what is the result? Okay. The question—here's a question: Are we reinforcing the ‘don't excel’ mindset by basically rewarding people for downplaying themselves?

Okay, so what I mean is, how much do we praise people and our kids and teach them and everything else that that's the norm, that that's the way that we should be? How much do we say, you know, “Hey, knock that off and you be humble, quit talking about yourself”?

Or, you know, “We need to come off as really down to earth.”

What Does ‘Down to Earth’ Really Mean?

What does that mean anyway? What does that mean? Down to earth.

Down to earth, I mean, it can mean a lot of things. One of the things I think people take it to mean is that they don't feel inferior to whoever they're describing as down to earth. And maybe the point is, is if whoever's acting down to earth is trying to lower to meet somebody else's level—which is not having a good result, sometimes unbeknownst to us.

How We Handle Compliments

What about compliments? Okay. I'm still not a hundred percent on this. Let me just tell you right now, but it's something that I work on. I'm a hell of a lot better than I used to be. Because this stuff matters.

But let’s—on compliments, okay. If we give somebody a compliment and they say, “Ah, you know, that was nothing.” You know, they're just—you know, they're, you know.

A lot of times we think it's a good idea to do that so we’ll seem, you know, like more likable and we’ll connect easier. Because you can’t do what you complimented me for, you're not very good at it, and I don't want to make you feel bad. And so I can't even agree with you or say thank you, or you know, that—for what you're complimenting me for.

Why We Struggle to Accept Compliments

So a lot of times, like I said, I used to be not so good at that either. People would give me a compliment and I’m like, oh geez, I don't even know what to do with that. It sounded like I couldn't even accept it, you know, because internally, here's what's going on with me, which is going on with people at their cores—whether you're hyper aware of it or not. Because I wasn't, okay?

But what was happening in retrospect, what I came to know was, is that when somebody would give me a really good compliment, you know, a really sincere—and I could see it and I could say, wow, I kind of maybe did I really do good right there? But I wouldn't accept it because I didn't think I deserved it. Okay. And so I wouldn't accept it. I’d just downplay it and I'd minimize myself and just try to fit in and not be, you know, don't give me any extra attention or anything like that as amazing as it might've been.

The Cost of Self-Silencing

So why does this even matter, right? We're going to talk about that.

Sometimes, like we said, we don't want to make people feel bad even if we're expressing happiness or we're expressing joy, you know? But we can't even let other people know what's going on in our life about what's really worth feeling when good things are happening.

Oh, by the way, do you know how easy it is to commiserate with people with all the bad shit that's happening? No problem, right? Everybody's on board for that. You're not going to be out of the norm. You know, you can fit right in if you're ready to complain and say how terrible everything is, everything worked.

Why is that? Okay, and what does it mean?

If we express joy or we're having too good of a day and somebody else—you know, we might make them feel that, make them feel bad or make them feel less than. So again, that has good intent and it comes from empathy, right? We care about other people. But what it leads to is, you know, like self-silencing. It’s just like, we're not letting our inside out. We're kind of hiding, you know, or diminishing ourselves a little bit.

Understanding Narcissism, Arrogance, and Overconfidence

So, another thing is that we hear—I’m sure you do, but I hear the word narcissism quite a bunch. And so narcissism is a disorder where people have a deep need for admiration and praise, and they have a lack of empathy for others.

So, and what about arrogance? Nobody wants to be arrogant. Okay. So what is arrogance? Arrogance is where I think I'm superior, okay, than—to you. And I really, a lot of times, arrogance can also mean that I have a disdain for other people. “I think I'm better than you,” is what arrogance basically is.

And then what about overconfidence? You know, a lot of times we—I—disagree with the idea of overconfidence in yourself. Okay, or too much self-confidence. I don't think there is so much a thing as overconfidence. I don't think you can like yourself or believe in yourself too much.

I think that overconfidence a lot of times is confused with arrogance. You know, they're like, well, you're too confident, or, you know, express—when people—when you think about overconfidence, I don't think—a lot of times we confuse that with arrogance. People thinking that I'm better than you. And so overconfidence, according to me, is not even a thing, and it doesn't exist.

The Root Cause: Lack of Self-Worth

So what is at the root of these thought patterns and these disorders like narcissism? What's at the root?

I think we know what's at the root. And the root is—there's plenty, there's a lot, a plethora of research that proves what I'm saying—and what is at the root is a lack of worthiness. Okay?

With the narcissism, with arrogance, and with these behaviors, it's expressing a lack of self-esteem—a lack of self-worth and alack of self-esteem—is what is what's at the core of all of it. Okay? Of what I've been describing: arrogance, overconfidence (sometimes called), and narcissism. Okay?

Owning Our Value Changes the Narrative

So, okay, fine. How are we going to increase ourself-esteem?

We've all seen little cases of this here and there, and we've probably done it a little bit ourselves, where we've been around somebody or we've been the person where we're really trying to draw attention to ourselves because we need that validation. We need your approval.

I don't have it inside here quite enough, so I need you to help prop me up and build me up. And I really have that need. I haven't figured out how to generate it for myself, so I'm relying on you. And then sometimes when I don't get it, I can do negative things in order to try to keep building me up, right?

I can take all the time. I can come off as rude. I can quit caring about you because I care about me so much. That's narcissism when I have no empathy.

Or I can start to think I'm better than you. I can start to condemn you and criticize you and be mean to you and try to be superior and have disdain for other people and think that I'm better than them because that makes me feel better.

And it's just that none of this has a good outcome.

When We Own Our Value, We Inspire Others

So if we can more come—if we can come to more so own our value, here's what happens. Okay. Here's what happens.

We actually inspire other people. We inspire other people, and we kind of start to change the narrative or change the world, right? Because if it's okay for me to have a win, “Hey, let me tell you about my win,”—if that becomes more and more okay, okay?—then it becomes—maybe you can become—start propping yourself up, where I don't need—where it's not gonna hurt your feelings if I had a good day. Okay?

But when we do this—we're afraid of doing this—but a lot of the time, we inspire people that can look at us and say, “Wow, I want to go for what you got going on.” Okay?

One is we inspire other people.

Owning Success Builds Authentic Relationships

The other thing that we do, which is surprising—that’s not working out the way we're trying to have empathy and hold ourselves back—is we, when we can, when we can own our value, okay? When we can talk about the good stuff and have it be okay—one—another consequence or collateral is we actually strengthen our relationships with the people that we're dealing with.

Because why? Because we're actually being authentic. Okay? And that—it takes a little vulnerability to be able to, to be able to share this stuff because it's so out of the norm. It doesn't even seem right. Sometimes it kind of feels different. Doesn’t feel quite right.

Confidence Is a Gift to Our Kids

And then of course, we set the example by modeling confidence.

I think—I don't think anybody really doesn't want to have self-confidence, right? And we can set the example by modeling self-confidence for our kids and for all of their relationships that we're in.

So these are some of the good sides. Okay.

So I begin—I recommend, okay, if you can get on board with this, me with—if you can get on board with me on this, okay? What I recommend is just beginning with the actual word.

Start with the Words You Speak

Okay, because thoughts—that's not for today. Today is what I'm talking about: words. Thoughts—approximately 60,000 of these phrases or sentences—are going through our mind per day. That's a lot.

Let's just today begin with words, okay? The actual words that are coming out of our mouths—that are when we're describing ourselves. Okay?

So I've talked about this, but I'll say it again. The one thing that I highly recommend to increase awareness is to record the positive and negative statements. It doesn't take a lot of time out of your day.

Track Your Self-Talk Daily

Okay, you can actually do it. I have a—just a list in one of my notes in the Notes app on my phone. You can do it on a piece of paper. But what it is, is when you become aware—when you catch yourself—of saying a positive statement about yourself or a negative statement, you make it, you jot it down.

Okay. And then at the end of the day, you look—you spend another one to two minutes max—and you look at it.

And if you have more negative than positive, you add one more to the positive side than the negative so that you always keep it in a positive position. If you already have more positives, you review them, which is good for your brain. Review your positive statements, okay?

And then you just keep track of it. Do that for a couple of weeks. For the long term, I try to do it on an ongoing basis, okay? Because really, a lot of times some of these exercises take up—this is an easy one—a lot of times they take up a bunch of time and they're complicated. This is really simple and it has a huge result. This is a—for time on task—big win here, big value.

Get an Accountability Partner

Second thing is to get an accountability partner, okay, that will hear this for you. Me, my wife and I do this more. If I'll say something and I didn't realize it, she'll catch it. And I appreciate that. And I do the same thing for her.

You know, if we say, “I, man, I this or that,” right? “I can't believe I did that,” or “I'm such a this,” or “I'm such a that,” or “I'm a—I can't remember—blah, blah, blah.” You know, whatever it is that the statements that we're making about ourselves, at least if you have an accountability partner that’s on your same team, they can at least bring it to your attention. And then you can say, “Hmm, did I like that or not? Do I want to keep that or not?”

I want to become aware that I am repeatedly making these statements. It's very eye-opening to have this awareness—to have an accountability partner. Big deal. Really super helpful.

Positive Input Is Not Optional

Here's the thing. If you find out—a lot of times, most of the time you will—that you're making some more negative statements over time than you want to be, that's good. You can change those and replace them. But that's not enough.

I really recommend that, in addition to that, you make a plan—a proactive plan—to increase, to input positive thought. And not just thought, but words, like we're talking about today.

Okay, set a proactive—start a proactive plan for positive self-talk. Okay? Just like—part of it's in the list—because I say those out loud and I look at them. I do affirmations in the morning—another quick, not a lot—but I'm talking about going throughout the day. You can slowly make a shift in the way that you're thinking, which equals the words that are coming out.

But if you just become aware of the words and change the words, okay? So I'm going to talk a little bit more about this positive plan for self-talk.

Redefining Humility

I want to redefine humility, and I think you do too, okay? Because true humility—okay—it's not about minimizing. It's like, I'm so lowly. I have no value. You're way better.

I'm going to yield and I'm going to just like bring myself down, not talk about—I'm unimportant. Okay? A lot of times we have that definition or something to that effect about humility. Humility is not about minimizing ourselves. It is about being honest with our strengths and our weaknesses. It's being open is what itis. It's having the strength to be open and say, “Hey, here I am and this is me, and I'm okay with it. And I have some weaknesses, and I mean—and I have some strengths.”

That's being humility. Humility is being open. It's being teachable. It is not being weak, and it is not being unimportant. It is not being less than at all, okay? It's not—it’s not a—you know, we don't want to exaggerate or—for—that's what—humility is a strength.

And that—I think I'll just leave it at that. I'm getting my thoughts a little jumbled. But humility—I want to redefine humility to say that what humility is—well of course it's the opposite of arrogance. Okay? It's saying that I don't think that I'm better than you. Okay?

But at the same time, I'm not saying that I'm less than you either. That's a big point. Okay?

Because a lot of times we think that it means we need to diminish ourselves. It does not mean that.

It means that we need to be open and teachable and realize that we're imperfect—but what we do is imperfect—because our value as a human being is perfect. It's a hundred percent. Okay? All the time.

Gratefully Accept What You’ve Earned

So how are you going to go about that?

That sounds real hunky-dory, but how are you going to go about that, Shane?

Well, one of the things that you can do is just begin just by acknowledging your accomplishments, you know, with some gratitude. You know, instead of like deflecting them. You know, for example, when somebody gives you a compliment, respond with, “Thank you, man. Hey, thank you. I worked hard for that. I appreciate you saying so.” Take it. Take what you have won.

I got that Count of Monte Cristo—that Jacopo, he's talking to the Count, he's like, “Take what you have won. Take the woman…” Anyway, if you're familiar with The Count of Monte Cristo, great movie.

Take what you have won. Accept that compliment. Let it in. Feel it. Let it permeate you. You know, if it was sincere, then let it. Don't just deflect—minimize it. If I accept this, what's that gonna mean if you accept it? That you're going to hurt somebody's feelings? I mean, really take a look at—maybe—why do you really want to deflect it? I mean, do you want to think about why?

Do you like your reasons why you're saying, “It was nothing, don't worry about it, I don't want to talk about it,” “Aw, you know, it wasn't nothing”? Do you really like that idea? I don't know. Think it over.

Redefining Bragging vs. Sharing

What about—here's another thing that I want—I want to redefine bragging. Now, bragging can mean that you're overdoing it, right? So there's a—but there’s a line between sharing and bragging. It is often what your intent is.

So if your goal is to connect and to inspire other people, and not to minimize yourself but to connect with other people, saying what you got going on—there's nothing wrong with that, okay? Celebrating your wins.

If, on the other hand, your intent—think about your reasons again—if your intent is that, “Hey, everybody, take a look at me. Can't you see what I'm doing over here? I need you to help build me up over here because I got a lack,” too much of that can be a negative thing and turn people off.

Because you can build yourself up, and then you become less relying on other people and more empowered yourself—and that's what you want to be. And how you do it is you begin by this positive self-talk.

When I Believed I Didn’t Deserve a Good Life

I know. I used to have way more than I used to—negative self-talk—and believed I didn't deserve to have a good life and all kinds of stuff. And let me tell you something—it didn't work out.

Not only did it not work out for me, it didn't work out for the people around me—everyone around me. So, you know, sharing your achievements isn't bragging.

When I say I want to redefine bragging, I want you to really understand what bragging is and to know that it's not just sharing your wins. Okay? That's not bragging.

Make Celebrating Your Wins Normal

Share your wins. You know, if you're going to only talk about everything that's good about you and that's the total totality of your conversation, you might be bragging. Okay?

But if it's occasional, if that's not the totality of your conversation, and your intent is not just, “Hey, look at me,”—if your intent is a, “Hey, look at me, I did good and I love you too”—what it's gonna do is, when you can more fully accept yourself, you're gonna more fully be able to appreciate and celebrate other people's wins and give them love.

That's what it comes down to. So if you can shift your mindset—replace the thoughts like, “Well, I don't wanna sound full of myself,”—you know, what if instead of that, what if you thought, “Hey, my win or my success is going to encourage somebody else.” What if you thought that about it?

Be the Family That Celebrates Confidence

Okay. So I want to normalize celebrating ourselves. I want to make it normal that we can celebrate our wins more—just normal. Okay?

Connect with people who break the norm. We need to have people around us who accept this idea—not people that are driving us down, okay? That want us to, you know, diminish ourselves to equal—to be lesser than, okay?

I say go for it, man. Be the different family. Be the weird family. Be the ones that's not afraid to say that they like themselves, that they do good things, that they've made wins and they're proud of it and it's okay. And they've made a lot of money and they accomplished this and that and they got good grades.

Okay, good, great. Let's all get behind it instead of not, okay? Instead of like being turned off as soon as somebody just says that they had it. Share some joy or a win with us.

The Power of Saying “I Like Myself”

Okay. Some of us can't even say the words. Okay. I used to not be able to say these words—three words. I couldn't get the words out. You know what they are?

“I like myself.”

Okay. I had a hard time with that for a few years. What about the other L word? Love.

“Hey Shane, love you man.” You know, I used to not even be able to get those words—what do they sound like? Say it. Go ahead. Say that last one.

Say, “I love me. Love you, man. Love you, Shane.”

What does that feel like? Try it. I mean, what if it really felt good and positive and normal and it didn't feel uncomfortable. It just felt like, “Hey, I'm reaffirming myself again for this moment.”

What's wrong with that? That too weird?

I mean, you're a hundred percent invaluable soul. I think we ought to acknowledge it. And the more that we can become accustomed to and accept that fully internally, what's going to happen is—the more that we can contribute to the people that we love and to the world.

Let People Think You're Weird

So I say, be the uncommon family. Be the uncommon person. Let people think you're weird—and so be it if that's what they think.

I challenge you to go for it.

Let Your Light Shine – A Powerful Quote

Okay, here's a quote. You might've heard it. I love it. And it has a lot of meaning to me and I think it will to you if you haven't heard it. And this is by—who is it? Who? Maryam Wilson, I think.

So here it is:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You're a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We're all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Final Thoughts

That's a lot. And to me, that is a beautiful quote. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you enjoyed your time here with me today. And I appreciate you taking it and committing this time.

If you want to—if you want to work on having a more exceptional family life, or if you're in crisis in your family life, you can always schedule a consultation call with me at stablelivingcoaching.com.

Thank you again for being with me.

Remember, you cannot fail if you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.

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