 I think as a parent how you talk about yourself in front of your kids is so important because they watch everything. I've never thought oh as a woman I can't because I've always seen women down things and know that they can. So I think especially as a mother it's so important that your daughter see you breaking those glass ceilings seeing you showing up going after your dreams and being confident because they go wow if mommy can do it I can do it too and it's scientifically proven and that's the power of role models right so first thing I would say is make sure that you are living the life that you want because before you are a mother before you are a wife before you are anything you are you you are an individual that has needs that has wants that has desires and you deserve to live those out. Meet Tira Lola Organlisi, a globally recognized and qualified live coach, international speaker, positive psychology specialist, author, podcast host, and founder of Confident and Killenit. Confident and Killenit was founded in 2017 to help girls and women overcome the very issues that she faced. Tira's live events workshops and coaching programs help women worldwide unlock their most confident selves. She launched her podcast in 2020 to amplify her method of empowerment reached in a global audience. It's commonly ranked as Spotify's top 5% most shared podcast in the UK with listeners in over 200 countries. Her resilience is transformative and her mission is unwavering to empower women. Hi everyone my name is Tira Lola Organlisi and I am on the Behind the Dreams podcast. Thank you for coming on my podcast. My pleasure Claude. I'm glad to be here. Now we've been wanting to get you on for a little while now so glad we finally made it work out. Yes, yes, yes, let's do it. The stuff. I have a few more questions for you. Okay. Yeah, so my first one nice and easy. Would you rather live in Nigeria or the UK? Oh no you can't ask me that. Why is that? Because of the sunshine and I feel like there's more opportunity to get help. I feel like when I'm in Nigeria I work really hard but at least there's less life admin whereas when I'm in the UK I'm working really hard and I still have to like do all the cooking and the post office runs and go get the groceries and all of these things and I just feel like at least in Nigeria there's like enjoyment and you still work whereas in the UK it just feels like struggle central sometimes. And you're okay living in Nigeria even though you can't win a football finals. Wow. I should have seen that. Well at least we got to the finals unlike some people. I'm not involved in it. Totally different continent. Okay, next one. When it comes to making big decisions do you prefer to rely on your logic or your intuition? I feel like everyone goes like you know just trust your intuition which is fair enough but I'm very much a break it down logical person like I want to see it add up I'm gonna write it down I'm gonna see here I'm gonna see there and then when the logic is making sense I'll just check that my intuition is aligned with it too but I kind of lead with logic first. So that's an interesting answer because I've always believed that people make decisions based on their logic not their logic their emotion rather and then they tend to then apply logic later to make it seem like it was logical one but you don't feel like you did no I definitely start with like yeah I definitely start with logic and then I go ahead and then my intuition will kind of tell me if it's like is this what you really want to be doing versus just like seeing what my intuition is seeing because I feel like with intuition it can be so like is it like good emotion is it sometimes bad emotion is it intuition there's a lot going on there in terms of emotion so I like to just look at the facts and the logic and then when I have a clearer picture I can listen to what my body is telling me around that plan that I have right yeah okay next question do you prefer given tough love or gentle encouragement oh it depends to who do I prefer tough love or gentle encouragement all right let's start with this okay when you're receiving which is more effective for you I like gentle encouragement I would say and I was I was having this conversation with my partner because I was talking to him about a business idea and he's very like very like logic very like does this make sense yeah and so he was giving me feedback like we were in lion's den or dragon's den and I'm like bro I'm your wife okay like sprinkle a little bit of you know that's a great idea babe even if you don't think it's a great idea yeah and he was like I'm sorry it's a business idea I just look at it for the business and I'm like I get it but I'm still your wife so you know so for me I definitely think gentle encouragement is good but if you see someone making the same mistakes then you do need a bit of tough love I'm not afraid to give the tough love like I will drag you a little bit but it's a gentle drag it's a nice drag it's a drag that wakes you up to really rethink your life especially as a coach I have to do those things I can't just let my client give me excuses all the time I have to come with a little bit of tough love so yeah that's how you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again not really but I would say the only mistake I make over and over again is thinking I can take on more than I can handle I don't know what the delusion is but I just always think I can make it work like I could just always think I can pile up my schedule and nothing bad will happen everything will go according to plan yeah something always kind of like oh I end up missing a meeting or I end up you know being too ill to reach one of my deliverables and so I'm really really trying not to make that mistake but I would say apart from that I I'm pretty good with not making the same mistakes is that potentially linked to a confidence that you believe you can do all of that is a link to the confidence more ambition more like I have so many things I want to do and I have I just have this idea that I can handle it on I guess it is linked with confidence that yeah I can handle it and maybe it might be poor time management a little bit of poor time management because I things take so much longer than they actually do so because I love what I do so much I don't actually realize how much time it takes me to do certain things so I'm just like oh this presentation oh I already know what I'm going to say I can whip it out in 30 minutes and then it ends up taking two hours because I'm thinking of this and I'm going through this and I'm like oh I really want to make sure this point lands and so I think I just need to be more honest with myself about how long things actually take rather than just thinking oh I can smash this out of the park yeah last icebreaker for you okay what is the best advice you've ever been given oh I feel like I should know this what's the best advice I've ever been given I mean oh yes I do know the best advice I've ever been given so I met this lady at a conference and we became friends and we just kept in touch so she's a couple of years older than me she's been running her business for a while and I remember she lives in San Francisco so she was visiting in London and we went for coffee and I was talking to her this was December of 2019 I was about to thinking of you know quits my full-time job and run confident and killing me a full time so I was speaking to her about it and how nervous I was and she said don't underestimate what you're going to unlock when you take that leap of faith to bet on yourself because at the time I didn't have any clients lined up I didn't have a business plan I didn't have income coming in recurrently from this side hustle so on paper it did not make sense to quit my job and be a full-time entrepreneur but she said that when you take that leap of faith to bet on yourself that's when the doors start flooding up and that's when the opportunities start coming in because and I really agree because the universe also knows how much you can handle God also knows how much you can handle so if you don't let go of something you don't create more room for the greatness to start to come in so I had to leave that job to create the brain space and to unlock the creativity that would allow my business to succeed so yeah once she told me that I was like right let's do it let's bet on ourselves because I'm about to unlock something but you don't know what you're going to unlock until you actually do it yeah so that's interesting and I say that because that's now almost the opposite advice that I get people and I know this is one of the things that you do is that you do help encourage people to get their side hustle to a point where they can leave their job and I'm similar but I tend to tell people to stay in their job as long as possible until the side hustle is working right even beyond it's working too yeah I mean I think I think it just depends I've spoken to a lot of different people about this and some people I left with only three months worth of savings and so I gave myself the deadline to say okay after three months I've got to turn this into a sustainable business right so that was my pressure some people will rather wait till they have you know a comfortable amount and then they'll do it or some people might just be happy working the two at the same time for me how I knew it was time to leave my full-time job was because I started to get anxiety when I would go into the office and I never get anxiety and so something in me my intuition my higher self was telling me right your time is up here your time is up here and so I didn't really have the desire to look for another job because I just wanted to give comfort and I'm killing it everything that I had and so with some people depending on what your side hustle is you know you can make the two work but I feel like for me having such a front-facing career I just had to give it my all and it made sense because 2020 was the year everyone needed a life coach everyone was having some sort of crisis with the pandemic what's my next move what's gonna happen and if I was working a full-time job and doing what I was doing there's no way I would have been able to handle it yeah I would have been so burnt out so I think you have to decide what's the nature of your side hustle is it really demanding in terms of your you showing up you know for me I have to show up to speak I have to show up for coaching if it's a product-based business and you know it just runs behind the scenes then I would say yeah you know definitely you can keep your full-time job but I think yeah it just depends on the nature of the business okay so we've spoken a little bit about what it is that you do confident killing it yeah um that's for clarity what is confident killing it and the second question to that is what actually is a confidence coach okay good question so confident and killing it is a purpose-driven organization that aims to help give people the practical skills and tools they need to overcome fear unlock their most confident self and live out their biggest dreams so we're all about building a community of women and creating positive and practical tools that people can use to master their mind believe in themselves and show up in the world and so there's a book there's a podcast there's a community and then I also go into organizations to do talent development and trainings and do keynotes for companies so that's kind of an overview of what the business is now what a confidence coach is is essentially I'm a trained life coach so coaching is all about understanding where are you now and where do you want to go so whereas therapy kind of looks at who are you before to understand how you are now coaching is very much about where are you now where do you want to go and how are you going to get there and it's my job as your coach to ask you questions to help you change your perspective because oftentimes people are stuck in life where this is their challenge and they're looking at their challenge head on my job as a coach is to grow you by waking you up to certain things about yourself to opening you up to new perspective to teaching you skills about how to deal with negative thoughts so that you can overcome the challenges that come your way so I trained as a life coach and I specialized in positive psychology and I decided to call myself a confidence coach in particular because that's where my story comes from I was insecure when I was younger I learned that confidence can be practiced it's not something you're just born with some confidence is something you can learn you can teach yourself the same way you teach yourself how to drive or how to swim you can teach confidence and when I taught myself how to be confident and I noticed how much love and happiness and joy I was getting I was like everyone deserves to have this and so that's when I decided okay I'm going to be a confidence coach to help women understand how to reprogram their mind for success so they have a mind that loves them and believes in them a mind that you know encourages them to take action and not a mind that sabotages them okay why any women um great question so in the beginning it wasn't just for women um it was kind of for everyone but what I noticed was when I would go into universities for example because that's where my speaking kind of started I would go into universities and I would give a talk and then I would say does anyone have any questions and it was always the guys that put their hand up first and asked the questions and then the whole conversation was just the guys and me having having going back and forth with the q&a and never the women and I began to realize that as soon as there were men in the room there was a shift in the dynamic the women always kept quiet and the men always did the talking and if you ever go for an event you will often see that the first person to ask a question at an event is a man and it usually takes about two to three men before a woman stands up to ask a question and usually she doesn't even stand she sits to ask the question and so I intentionally wanted to create a safe space where women can practice being confident in this safe space before going out into the real world so yeah I mean guys listen to the podcast too so even my book there are men who listen to my book I got a message from a man in India that my book helped him with mental health and depression so the work I do the skills the tools are applicable to everyone but I do have a special place for women because I know we experience more challenges in this area why so do you think that women have more of their challenges in that area yeah so many reasons so there's actually been data done on the confidence gap between men and women and a lot of it comes from society and how we raise girls versus how we raise boys so boys are allowed to play and be messy and you know be naughty but girls are taught to like always be tidy and make sure their hair's done and you know their uniforms always clean and and they have to be the good girls and then they get a star and things like that so girls are socialized to be good to be well behaved to not take risks to not speak up too much whereas boys are encouraged to go out and be playful and you know take risks and try new things and be adventurous whereas girls are taught to play safe and so that psychology as you grow up you get to a place where women tend to internalize things and to shrink back whereas men tend to go forward and try new things and be adventurous and one of the biggest things they noticed was that when things go wrong men will say oh that exam was hard or that situation was hard but women will go oh I'm not smart enough that's why I failed that exam and so we internalize it as it being a worth issue it being an intelligent intelligence issue but men is more just about oh I didn't try hard enough or like you know they never doubt their capabilities whereas women tend to do and also in marketing that we receive women are constantly fed images of how they need xyz to feel worthy to feel good enough if they don't have this cream or makeup or you know this bag or that outfit they are not worthy enough so women are constantly fed this messaging that worth is external and worth has to do with external things and external validation and so a lot of people don't realize that their worth is intrinsic and one of the things I love to say to people is you matter simply because you exist it is a universal truth for every single person you don't matter because of how much money you have or the color of your skin or where you live or the university you went to or the grades that you got you know the fact that you're alive and you're breathing means that you matter so you're starting places that you are worthy you are good enough and you're on a journey to you know evolving and growing and things like that yeah there's a there's a lot of what you say that I do completely recognize and I think the stats and the reality shows it yeah but there's only one area that I want to push back on this a little bit you said that women are only received messages in terms not only but receive a lot of messages showing them that they're not good enough do you not think that's also true for men um I don't see that as much just personally in the media that I consume in magazines you know a lot of the weight loss stuff is is projected at women if you look at women's magazines ideal standards of beauty for example usually pushed at women anti-aging stuff usually pushed at women so it's like um even even this idea of like a dad bod is cool and sexy when a man is in his like older age and he's not as you know fit as he should be looking but you never hear of a mom bod and you know if anything it's like you're meant to be this image your whole life and that's why so many women um feel challenges when they have babies because they're like oh I need to snap back and things like that and we're the ones who've had the babies meanwhile men are just allowed to exist their whole life without you know and and any kind of look that they want can be made cool whereas women are are always kind of meant to follow these like strict fashion regimes or like this strict like ideas of what a good body is and it's so important that we have to break free from that and I'm I'm seeing a movement I'm seeing a change you know there's the body positivity movement body neutrality so I'm seeing the changes in that and I also want to say that you know confidence isn't just a woman's issue so don't get me wrong men do experience imposter syndrome men do experience confidence issues some some men experience self sabotage is not just a woman's issue so that's that's for sure I want to I want to point out but I guess what I do see is that what what I was saying before that women will internalize things so if you look at what confidence is confidence is an in-depth belief in yourself and your ability that you can take action on your dreams and your goals okay so even if you don't know all the answers you still believe you are capable of taking action on your dreams on your goals so men will tend to feel the fear but do it anyways they know that they have self-doubt in this area but they're still gonna take action whereas with women if we don't tick all the boxes we're not gonna move forward and you know there's been studies to show that when it comes to applying for a job you know women will wait till they take a hundred percent of the requirements before they apply whereas men will be fine ticking 60 and figure it out as they go along right so so it's like yeah they still have that insecurity like hey I might not get this job but let's see and they go for it whereas a woman will go oh I don't need all the requirements I might not get this job let me not even bother applying yeah that's the key area I want to get women to start taking action even when you don't feel fully ready even when you don't have all the answers even when you don't take all the boxes just take a chance just take action because that's where you begin to build your confidence I agree as I often find myself telling people you do miss a hundred percent of the shots that you don't take and I can say that I see men take a lot more shots that's the reality yeah exactly so a lot of what you're talking about seems like it stemmed from people's childhoods the way that they were raised the way things that they were taught things that nature a lot of our audience now they're having daughters they're having sons but particularly for those of daughters are there any particular things that they can and should be thinking about or doing to help change and break this pattern so by the time that they're our age these are not the same battles that they're facing absolutely I parent how you talk about yourself in front of your kids is so important because they watch everything like I remember when I was younger you know my mom would look in the mirror and squeeze her thighs and then as I was growing up when I saw my thighs looked like my mom's thighs I was like oh there must be something wrong with my thighs because if mommy doesn't like her thighs then and my thighs look like mommy thighs then my thighs might be bad you know so it's so important that your kids also see you being kind to yourself and compassionate to yourself and in the same way you know I saw my mom going to work after school I would go to her office and see her my mom is a businesswoman in Nigeria she produces garments and children's clothing and she started selling pajamas from the boots of her car and now she's built a huge organization in Nigeria with over 20 stores across the country you know so in those early days I would go and see her at work and she would try some of the designs on me and I saw as her business went from you know one small basement into a two story into a five story and so just seeing that journey of her following her dreams made me believe that anything is possible so I've never thought oh as a woman I can't because I've always seen women down things and know that they can so I think especially as a mother it's so important that your daughter see you breaking those glass ceilings seeing you showing up going after your dreams and being confident because they go wow if mommy can do it I can do it too and it's scientifically proven and that's the power of role models right so first thing I would say is make sure that you are living the life that you want because before you are a mother before you are a wife before you are anything you are you you are an individual that has needs that has wants that has desires and you deserve to live those out so make sure that you are living the life that you want and then secondly make sure that you're kind to yourself the way you speak to yourself the way you treat yourself the way you show up it in your family using those words is very important so one of the things that I've noticed quite often is when you're perceived as being confident or when you actually are confident a lot of people tend to forget the fact that you can also struggle with yourself I would consider myself a pretty confident person but I still had my moments of doubt have you experienced anything like that yes like every single time like which one where should I go yeah like I said confidence is not the absence of fear and insecurity or self-doubt confidence is feeling those things and doing it anyway so I have my fair share of self-doubt and insecurities you know I took some time off work last year loads of stuff was happening in my personal life and you know trying to come back into it and you know my negative thoughts were telling me like you know all you're kind of irrelevant now there's so many other people now making videos on confidence you know like what's the point in even trying I got multiple rejections last year got so nominated for so many different awards didn't get any of them so yeah you still life still hits you it's not about will you get hit or not it's about when you do get hit how do you bounce back so yeah being a confident person doesn't make you immune to things happening or self-doubt or insecurities like I still have my fair share of insecurities and self-doubt but what I've learned how to do is question them is get curious about them when I think oh I'm not relevant anymore I ask myself it's like is that hundred percent true or are you making an assumption right now and when I ask myself that I'm like I have no evidence that shows me I'm no longer relevant so why would I believe that voice in my head that is telling me I'm not relevant you know and then I ask myself okay does this thought sabotage you or does it empower you telling myself I'm no longer relevant doesn't encourage me to keep going it makes me want to give up so it's sabotaging so why would I listen to a voice that is taking me away from my dream so I'm like okay what do you want to what do you want to hear instead what do you want to believe instead because you literally become what you believe and then I'm like okay what would you say to a friend that is going through something similar and I would I would never say to someone oh you took time off work so now you're irrelevant like I would never say that you know I would say you know you know life happens in seasons no one else is your competition it's you and your life so take the time you need and then come back and the people who care about what you have to say will still be there and if some people have moved on they've moved on and that's life you know so yeah I definitely faced my fair share of insecurities but I always kind of I acknowledge it I take it in that I'm feeling insecure in this area and then I do something about it I never just let myself wallow or sit in insecurity you know so it all starts with that acknowledgement and then yeah I mean it's challenging your own thoughts like you say like is this thought correct and if it if whether or not it is correct what am I going to do about it exactly so that's chapter two of my book I call it get sassy with the mean girl in your mind because so many women come to me and they tell me oh yeah you know I want to speak up more in meetings but I just think what if I say something stupid and I'm like okay when you think you might say something stupid and it comes up in your head what do you do she just goes oh I just keep quiet and I'm like how do you know that how do you know you're going to say something stupid we often go into our future and we think of the worst possible outcome but the worst possible outcome isn't the only possibility available to you and so I just tend to think what other possibilities are there and also learning that my mind is a battlefield that really helped me because as a teenager I just thought oh my mind is my mind there's nothing I can do about it but actually your positive and negative thoughts are always fighting against each other so you have to decide whether you want to win the battle or not and I like to win so once I knew that I could win the battle in my mind I was like right let's go what do I need I'm ready and so is that is exactly what it is your mind is a battle your positive and negative thoughts are fighting for your attention not every thought that comes into your mind is true and it becomes a belief when you think about it often and you begin to act on it so yes I got a thought oh I'm no longer relevant if I act on it if I continue to think about it then it becomes a belief of of mine but if I'm like hang on a second that's BS that's sabotage I'm gonna write this down rip it up and throw it in the bin where it belongs then I can move on with my life okay thank you one thing that I've known and experienced myself and I'm sure you do as well is that when your job or your business is about pulling into other people and supporting them with their goals and their growth and their development we can often find that we empty ourselves out and then if from that point it becomes harder to almost take our lives and our own thinking um to the next level yeah when you well have you experienced that firstly and if you have what what's your journey with that how do you me forward oh yes I have 100% experience that and that happened to me last no 2022 when I wrote my book so before I wrote my book I had been doing Confident and Killing it for about five years so I had all this wisdom all these tips all these gems inside of me and for some reason when I wrote my book it was like I poured my life and my soul into that book and that is why it is so life changing anyone who reads my book is like I feel like you're talking directly to me it has this healing energy and it's because I literally gave it every single thing inside of me and then after I did it was like oh now I'm empty because it was like I I felt like I literally gave everything and then I was like oh what else what else do I have to say what else can I think like everything is in the book like I have nothing more to give I have nothing more to contribute because everything I've been working on for the past five years is now in this book and it's out there in the world and it's like okay so like what do I do with myself you know and um yeah so I went through this journey of just like am I still as smart and even sometimes when I read my book I'm like who the hell wrote this you know I'm just like I wrote this I came up with this how did I do it and um I think it's two things I think as somebody who believes in faith I definitely think you know you get that like holy spirit kind of activating in you to like bring out some of this wisdom but then it's also what we call being in a state of flow and that's genius mode when you're in a state of flow you are a hundred percent aligned with what you are doing and the reason why the book is so great because I was in a state of flow I could write five thousand words in a day literally and I would lose track of time and that's when you're in genius mode you've lost track of time and you're pouring and it's all coming out but then you have to fill yourself back up and I didn't do that after I wrote my book then the next step was like publish you got to publish you got to market it and I thought I would have help with that but I didn't and so there I am kind of pushing pushing pushing to get the book out and then I burnt out because I gave it my all and then I have to find more energy to stop pushing and promoting and pushing and promoting and then getting speaker events to come and speak about the book and stuff like that so there was never a point where I was like okay let's go back to reading some interesting things that you used to read or you know watching videos on youtube or listening to podcasts it was just always like oh you need to show up here you need to say this you need to do that you need to promote the book you need to talk about this and it got me to a place where I felt really empty empty in my heart empty in my mind and I just didn't want to create I just didn't want to show up and then I entered the dark hole of scrolling and consuming and just taking in everything that people were doing on the internet and not doing anything that was actually feeding my mind yeah I just got into this system of where I was just numbing numbing numbing numbing numbing numbing and then and this happened for like a whole year and then at the end of 2023 I listened to a podcast on The Secrets I'm sure you know the book The Secret Yes and it was talking about manifestation and how you attract these things has to do with your vibration and I realized that I've been living on a low vibration I wasn't living in joy and happiness and love and enlightenment I was just existing I was in survival mode and so of course I wasn't manifesting anything of course I wasn't attracting abundance into my life and so last year I made the decision to reclaim my power and get back to who I know I am and pouring back into myself so that's kind of like the journey I'm now going in in terms of like reclaiming my joy and doing something every day that makes me happy that makes me feel good because that is what I deserve you know so yeah okay switching gears just a little bit now you've spoken a lot about how confidence self-perception they all factor into building building up who you are as a person but what I would love to know a little bit more around is how does your self-perception or the confidence that you have impacts the relationships that you have with other people hmm I mean I would say in a really positive way um so another thing people think is that confidence is often arrogance but it's not uh confidence is using your skills and your talents to lift other people up when you're arrogant you want to come up at the top and you want to push other people down that's what arrogant people do they want to feel big and make other people feel small when you're a confident person you know there's enough room for everyone to thrive there's enough space for you to be good for you to be good for someone else to be good for me to be good and so as a confident person I want nothing more than to see people win I want to see my friends winning I want to see the average woman winning which is why I do what I do the most heartbreaking thing I can ever see is knowing that there's a woman with a dream or somebody not even just women anyone who has a dream in their heart who has something that they can bring to the world but they're not doing it because of fear whether it's fear of judgment or fear of failure what other people might think nothing breaks my heart more so I would say I have quite a positive relationship with people because as soon as I see you I want to make you feel good about yourself I want you to know that you are unstoppable that you have potential that I want to be your cheerleader you know and people often tell me they hear my voice in their head like in those moments when they want to back down they're just like what would Tiwa say and they hear my voice and then they get going and that's exactly what I want and I remember at the end of one of my events someone said Tiwa you're a boss but you made me feel like I'm one too and for me that's just the most beautiful thing anyone can say to me the fact that when you see me you're not just thinking oh she's so great and I'm not when you see me you go wow she's so great and I can do it too I can tap into that energy and so for me being a confident person we lift other people up we open the doors we create opportunity to collab and to bring people together we don't make other people feel small we don't just want to be the loudest person in the room and then no one else gets to say in anything confidence isn't about being the loudest person in the room it's about being secure in yourself and when you want to speak up you can speak up and say something you know you don't shrink back but confidence is not tiring over everyone or you know making everyone feel more like less insignificant if your light is bright give that light to somebody else let's all shine our light together you know so I think you just said there sounds it's exactly like you're describing being a good leader yeah so my question would then be can you be a good leader and not be confident is that possible no definitely not because how are people going to trust you confidence comes from trust trust in yourself and for other people's ability to trust that you can do what you say you are going to do if you look at all our leaders in the world not all of them are competent right but they come with this error and this vibe of confidence and people trust them and it comes down to how you speak if you speak with conviction people are going to believe what you say I can say the biggest I mean maybe not the biggest lie in the world but I can say something that is so unfactorial but I can say it with confidence and with conviction and somebody will be like you know maybe maybe I trust her maybe I trust what she's saying and it could be totally wrong you know but if you if you are saying something and you're just kind of like yeah I think it might be this or maybe that I'm not really sure but yeah let's let's just try and see no one's going to believe that right so I think with leadership you have to be confident you have to believe in what you're saying because that conviction is magnetic that's what's going to attract people to you like people always say to me like oh I've heard this stuff before but the way you say it it just sounds different and it's because I break it down I make it easy I make it accessible and you can tell when you hear me speak that I believe in every single thing that I'm saying that I believe in this mission that I want it so badly for another person to wake up and have the mind of freedom and love and confidence I want that for you and because of the way I communicate that's how people are drawn and attracted to it so as a leader yes visual communication is so important vocal communication and then verbal communication what you actually say those are the three v's of communication I would say are very important especially when it comes to being a leader and somebody who wants to be influential in their field so we've spoken about confidence we've spoken about leadership and we've spoken a little bit around the relationship with people in general but in a romantic sense can you have a healthy relationship if you are not confident yourself absolutely not it is you're just asking for self sabotage all the way and I'll say this because when you are not confident you project a lot of your insecurities onto other people yeah and in a relationship when you project your insecurities onto somebody else it is going to cause a lot of tension and then also you internalize every small thing as something being wrong with you yeah so let's say you know your partner says something and you're not confident you're automatically going to start going down a rabbit hole of or maybe they don't really like me or maybe they are cheating on me or you know maybe they don't really want to be here I'm just a tick box for them da da da and it will begin to affect your relationship with your partner and another big thing because I've been in I was in a relationship with my husband for 12 years before we got married and communication is the number one reason we were able to stay in a relationship for that long because we can have difficult conversations with each other when something comes up and I'm feeling a type of way instead of just holding it in my head and coming up with all different scenarios I just say to him head on like this is what I'm feeling from this situation this is the vibe that I'm getting let's talk about it and when you are a confident person you are assertive you're not passive people who aren't confident end up being passive they just say yes to everyone and everything they don't want to ruffle any feathers and so they end up being with a partner that either just walks all over them or doesn't set boundaries with them and so they end up in this cycle of unfulfillment because they don't speak up for their needs they put their happiness in the hands of somebody else and they don't yeah they don't they don't communicate properly you know so to make a healthy relationship work you have to show up as your true authentic self yes that was the last thing I was going to say you have to know who you are know what you like know who you want to be in the world and be able to live that out and find a partner that is happy to be in alignment with that I remember when I first started making videos somebody actually messaged my partner was like oh how do you feel if like Tiwa becomes more famous than you what I know I honestly could you imagine that and he was just like okay like you're so weird for them but again that's why you have to also be with someone who wants to see your light shine you know my husband shows up to all my events he's there he's rooting me on he shares all my videos he's not thinking oh wow she's getting famous and I'm so he's doing his own thing just because it's not in the limelight doesn't mean he isn't his own person you know he has his goals he has his ambitions he's working on that and so I think in a relationship both of you need to be comfortable in yourself so that when you see your partner shining you don't get jealous of that you don't start to feel insecure that oh they're going ahead and you're getting left behind so confidence is key in terms of being able to support each other authentically it's key in terms of communicating with each other properly you know and yeah not projecting insecurities onto the other person that that can cause a lot of trouble in the relationship that was good that was good so yeah no I everything he just said I agree for me it definitely struck a few no's because of some past experiences that I've had as well but I guess what is really on my mind right now is that there's confidence which will allow you to deal with those things but then there's also what I've seen a lot is fake confidence where you're almost putting on the energy that you're a confident person and that you can handle the difficulties and the challenges that come from a relationship to help you grow and because you're trying to project this image to probably first yourself and then to the world and to your partner it means that you never are really able to take accountability for what it takes to do the real work but you know what we're safe this we'll come we'll come we'll come back to this I think I think we'll yeah I think that's a future episode right there yeah yeah all right so for the last part of the podcast I have a few dilemmas that I want to read out to you that we've had something over from the audience okay so first dilemma is when receiving feedback even if it's constructive I take it personally and I feel a blow to my confidence how can I learn to accept feedback positively and use it as a tool for growth yeah great question and that goes back to what I was saying about internalizing it you know when you receive feedback if you take it personally that's actually a fixed mindset not a growth mindset so people with fixed mindset take feedback as a personal attack and and you know it's natural to do that because you have to intentionally learn how not to internalize that positive criticism as something being wrong with you so one of the first things I'll say is who you are and what you do or what is said about you are not the same thing okay for starters you are somebody with worth your worth is intrinsic no one can take that away from you so let's say you had a 10 pound note okay and let's say there was a little rip on the 10 pound note does that 10 pound note does it make it any less worthy that it now has a rip in it no if you still take it to the bank they will accept your money as a 10 pound note and so the same way your worth is intrinsic no one can take that away from you so when you receive some criticism it doesn't take away your worth it is simply about your perspective right if you see it as okay this is a chance for me to grow and improve then it's exciting if someone gives you if someone gives me feedback on my speaking you know then I'll be like okay I want to try that next time because that's going to make me a better speaker right but if I start to think oh they've given me this feedback because I'm terrible at my job and you know I'm going to get fired soon or it means I'm not really good enough what then happens you're going down a negative spiral of self sabotage so it goes back to what I was saying sabotaging versus empowering thoughts everything in life comes down to perspective that is what I'm learning so much as I get older the meaning you put behind something will influence whether you are positive and move your life forward or negative and sabotage yourself so instead of getting feedback as something is wrong with me ask yourself what can I learn from this what is this here to teach me and then you know set goals to actively improve on those areas but again who you are what happens to you what is said about you are not the same thing you are always somebody with worth and see that positive criticism as a way to get better it's exciting it's a new challenge what if this is a challenge that is here to grow you and not break you it's all down to your perspective see I really agree with you on that but I think it's easier to apply that mindset to yourself when we're talking about being better at you at work or being better at business or being a better public speaker but what if your actions that you're getting feedback on is because you've been deeply hurt in somebody and it couldn't really make you begin to think am I actually a good person does anything change in that situation if your actions hurt someone it's what you're doing you're actively and consistently still hurting people around you it's I know that I know the I know what you said is still true yeah but it's a lot harder to take that advice and actually internalize it yes so um that's where ego comes in so I was um not to bring this back to relationships but I think that's kind of where we're going with this is when I was arguing with my partner when I said something that upsets him for example and he got upset I was trying to justify why I was a good person and I didn't intentionally try to upset him instead of acknowledging that he was upset and doing what I needed to do to comfort him I was trying to prove a point that I didn't say anything wrong whereas he was already upset you know and so it's ego because your ego you want to try and prove to yourself that you're not a bad person that you didn't mean to upset them you know and they're taking it wrong but that's not helpful in the situation if you do something that upsets someone and they give you feedback your first step is to acknowledge that you have hurt them even if that was not your intention you have to acknowledge that you hurt that person it's not about it's not always about the intention sometimes it's about the impact of your words and your actions so I stopped I had to stop being like oh no but like it was just a joke come on like and actually be like oh wow that hurt you I'm so sorry I did not mean to do that and I completely understand how it could have come across to you so if you're if somebody has given you feedback a friendship a partner that you've upset them don't rush to justify why you didn't mean to upset them because that's not helpful for them actually what you need to do is acknowledge their pain acknowledge their hurt reflect on your own actions and see how you can do that differently but it's a tough realization to come to yeah that you've hurt someone without intentionally trying to hurt them yeah yeah without a doubt okay one last dilemma and then I'm gonna end on my question ask everybody okay I'll give you a time to think about that too which actually you know what I went so final dilemma I often find it difficult to voice my opinions in group settings fair in judgment or conflict how do I build confidence and expression my ideas without second guessing myself hmm how do you build confidence to express your ideas without second guessing yourself I think again you know there's no such thing as like a stupid answer or a stupid question and things like that and it goes back to the three points I mentioned when a negative thought comes into your head so let's say you want to speak up in a group setting and your mind goes oh what if you say something stupid you have two choices to shut up because you might say something stupid and you don't want to embarrass yourself or you can ask hmm am I a hundred percent going to say something stupid no you don't know until you actually say it is this sabotaging me from actually speaking up yes it's making me go into my shell so I don't want to do that would I ever say to a friend oh in group settings you shouldn't speak up and you should be quiet because you you might say something that people are going to laugh at you for a judge you know I would never say that to a friend what would I say to a friend in that instance to just speak my truth and say what I have to say if people like it great if they don't we move on to the next thing and so those three questions is it hundred percent facts is it an assumption is it sabotaging or empowering and what would I say to a friend in that situation if you can quickly ask yourself those three things and that's what I call in my book the negative thought detector it's like a three step process you can quickly scan in your mind to decide is this a thought I want to listen to or is this a thought I want to reject and go ahead and do something else so once you do that you'll begin to feel more confident that you know you can go ahead and do it and at the end of the day you don't exist to be liked by everyone like that's not why you're here you don't exist to please everyone there will be people who like what you have to say and there will be people who don't and that's life I mean if Beyonce can have haters who are we mere mortals right to to to think everyone's gonna like everything that we do so be ready for people to not accept what you have to say and to not like what you have to say and that's okay but you're not here to please them you exist to speak your truth and the more times every time you want to speak up and you quiet in your voice and you shut yourself up you are sending a message to your subconscious that your voice doesn't matter yeah and that is going to affect all the different areas of your life in your relationships at work with other people with choices that you make your independence so it is so important that you practice advocating for yourself and being confident yeah it's powerful it's really powerful thank you so final question yes who should we have on the podcast oh next at any point he would you invite for us to have in the future oh oh Fisayo Longue founder and director at Kai Collective I think she has such a beautiful story she has been at this fashion business grinding for years and she finally got her breakthrough moment and she's really the kind of person that tries to live on her own terms she took like six months off from her business because she experienced burnout and not a lot of entrepreneurs will take that risk to be able to do that and to own it she's built such an amazing community usually every time I do something I'm wearing Kai Collective because the clothes that she makes just makes me feel good and confident and unstoppable so I think yeah she's got a great story and she has really built such a beautiful community and brand and I think loads of entrepreneurs could learn the power of community when it comes to building a successful business so yeah definitely get her on no no I'll definitely you know I've always heard that so yeah and I've seen what she's been doing for years and she's been killing it so yeah so on that note I'm gonna say thank you so much for taking the time to run the podcast today honestly the words that you shared I know it's gonna definitely impact somebody amazing work with your book we're setting up this business for you all the things that you've passed for you to get to this point let's keep it up and don't want to say I just want to keep on seeing you shine thank you thank you so much and also congrats to you too like I know I've said this to you before but I feel like I want to stay on the podcast like you know coming to your events back in like 2018 maybe 2017 just seeing you being a young person like filling out rooms talking about being a dreamer going after your goals I was like wow this is incredible if he can do it I can do it too so you are a big inspiration to me when I was doing my own confident and killing it events because I saw that I'm a young person I can make it work if Claude can do it I can do it too so thank you for everything that you do as well that's my pleasure you're welcome