 Money follows confidence. If you notice who makes the most money, they're also usually the most confident people. Now you might say, well, once you make money, you become confident. Well, actually, there is a relationship there. The more money you make, the more confidence you tend to have. But it is, if we say, in this case, it tends to be the confidence that comes before the initial money comes in. And as you grow the confidence, you grow the money. So my question to you is, are you confident about the things you offer? Because if you were genuinely confident that the thing you offer is of tremendous benefit to the person you're talking to, they tend to buy it. And if you're not genuinely confident, if you're faking it in some way, you probably will give away some signals that subconsciously people will pick up on and they won't buy what you're selling. So how do we develop authentic confidence? Because the thing is, if you study marketing, which I hope you do, if you wanna get good at business, you gotta study marketing, you're gonna learn a lot of strategies to develop fake confidence. Really, I would say much of marketing and branding is about developing fake confidence. Isn't that right? It's like, look more polished than you actually are. Look bigger, make your company look bigger than you actually are. Use a professional copywriter so that you sound really smart and you sound really put together. Have an amazing looking designed webpage and website and all your branding stuff so that you look really, really put together. And I mean, yes, it works. Of course it works, that's why people do it. If you look polished, you'll make some people buy from you because they'll be like, oh, I have confidence in that person because they have a really great looking website or they have the really well-written website or really well-written newsletters or whatever it is that maybe someone else wrote, copyright or wrote or whatever. And people will buy it, some people will buy it. So yes, fake confidence can get you some money which then can eventually generate some authentic confidence. But it's just not the way that, but the problem is that a lot of fake confidence also doesn't generate money. So, and by the end of the day, whether you generate money using, whether fake confidence generates money for you or not, you're going to feel like a fraud. You're going to feel like an imposter. This is why there is an imposter syndrome. Why is the imposter syndrome so prevalent in entrepreneurship? Because people learn from marketers who make them fake it till they make it. That's the prevalent marketing strategy is to fake it till you make it. And that's why there's so much imposter syndrome and feeling like a fraud because you're hyping yourself up to sell, to get clients when you know that that's not really your genuine presence. So what I really am trying to get you all to do is to develop authentic confidence and to have your normal everyday presence be the same presence you are online. And I think that's what I've developed over the past five years. In the beginning when I first started my business 10 years ago, I did do the whole fake it till you make it, make a great looking website with great copywriting and try to sell people, use hype, use promises, use overkill on the guarantees to remove all the risk. All the stuff that we learned to like persuade people and persuasion is also fake confidence or learning persuasion tactics. If persuasion comes naturally, authentically, it's probably because you're really confident about whatever you're selling. And so you're naturally persuasive. But just like in this video, I hope I'm naturally persuasive because I believe what I'm saying. If I didn't believe what I was saying and if I think that if I said this thing that it'll make you buy, it'll make you believe, then the confidence has to be manufactured. This is why this is, so I almost purposely go on the other side of looking bad, okay? Looking like a dump. This is not a professional sweatshirt. I got this from Goodwill, okay? But I wear this all the time because it's really comfortable. But it's second, it's hand me down. I don't know, it was a $10 or whatever it was. But I wear this all the time, it doesn't look, I mean, I look in the mirror and it doesn't look very good to be honest with you. But I purposely do this because I am trying to, I guess I'm overcompensating by trying to, but this looks kind of nice. My wife just bought this plant, so that looks kind of nice. I think this painting looks kind of cute, but this is kind of a joke, you know? Anyway, so my background is kind of a joke sometimes. It's not professional. It looks kind of playful and nice, but I just, I'm on this mission to develop authentic confidence and to help you do the same because authentic confidence is sustainable. It's healthier. It's healthier on your psyche, on your emotions, on your body. It's much more even, keeled and calm and you sell things more successfully just by whispering, instead of by persuading and shouting and trying to interrupt people visually and all those marketing tactics that, anyway. So how do we develop authentic confidence? Let's spend a few minutes talking about this. I have a whole blog post on this that I just wrote up so you might want to read that, but a couple of pointers. One is to ease up on the self-blame. Gosh, you know, I work with so many clients who are so good-hearted and good-hearted people, I mean, all my clients are good-hearted people and I find that good-hearted people and spiritual people tend to blame themselves more than anybody else. I heard this line from Tosha Silver the other day. She says, she got this from somebody else. She says, you know, the most, I think she got this from Pema Children who says the most, spiritual people tend to be the most self-blaming or some phrase like that. And I think it's true, you know, it's like we blame ourselves when we make a mistake. Oh, I should have known better. Look at all the things I should have gotten done by now or should have learned by now. I should know better by now, now that I'm X years old or now that I've been working on this X number of years. Who gives a fuck? You know, sorry to cuss, but it's, that's one way to ease up on the self-blame. It's just to, which is why there's so many, you know, these popular books now is like, you know, they use the word fuck in the book, right? It's like, you know, don't give a fuck or whatever those books are. Have you seen those books? It's becoming popular in the personal development space. You go to Amazon and it's a personal environment. It's who gives a fuck or don't give a fuck about this or about that. And I think that's one way there, you know, easing up on the self-blame. But let me give you a different way. Well, so first of all, easing up on the self-blame, let me just stay with this for a moment. You probably learned self-blame because of your upbringing. You had harsh parents. Maybe you had a harsh, either you had harsh parents or you had a harsh teacher or you had a harsh religion or you had a harsh religious book. Whatever you're learning, you're a harsh pastor. You had a harsh teacher. You had a harsh mentor, harsh coach, harsh parents. And so you kind of ingrain this self-blame. And it's, you no longer need to do it. I mean, in the early years, we probably needed a harsh structure because we needed to get our act together in the early years to learn to be disciplined and structured. But as we get older, hopefully we mature and turn that harshness into a calmer kind of discipline, a more nurturing and a more, and by the way, I'm not saying that harsh parents aren't nurturing. Some people like Captain, you're probably watching this right now. I believe you're probably a nurturing but structured parent. And so you're not, hopefully your kids don't grow up with major self-blame issues, like most kids with harsh parents do. So maturity is about reparenting yourself. You've got to learn to reparent yourself so that you're not blaming yourself anymore, but that you're a nurturing, you're strict, but you're nurturing, you punish yourself. But you say, so when I make a mistake, for example, which I do all the time, I mean, in this very video, there are tons of mistakes already, as you could probably tell in all my videos, there's lots of mistakes, right? Verbal like, oh, I, you know, that was a mistake right there, right? Oh, you know, but, or going in one direction and, oh, wait, let me stay with this for a moment. You know, all those are mistakes, right? Those are tiny mistakes, but I make big mistakes a lot too. And when I make a mistake that's worth noting, that's if I sense any kind of self-blame coming on, right? I go, huh, what can I learn from this? And maybe you can take this attitude with you. That's interesting. What can I learn from this mistake? Okay, so notice self-blame, okay? And realize that it's outdated and it's not needed. And you could set that aside and go, self-blame, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna rebel, okay? So if you are a self-blamer, you're probably also a rebel. You, there's some, I think all of us have, have that kind of rebellious tendency within us. And I've learned to use rebellion towards positivity instead of using rebellion for negativity. I don't rebel against my calendar, okay? I rebel against the rebellion against my calendar. I rebel against the rebellion of the positive things and I rebel against the negative feelings too. So if I see self-blame coming on, I rebel against that and go, I'm not gonna fuck you self-blame. You know, I'm not gonna, you know, I either ignore it or I usually nowadays I just ignore it. I've learned to be more calm about it instead of using anger. But anger is useful in the early stages. You rebel against the self-blame, you go, screw you. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna look at you self-blame. I'm not gonna allow you, okay? And instead I'm going to, I'm gonna purposely in a rebellious kind of playful way go, hmm, what can I learn from this? What's one thing I can learn from this, okay? And then after I reflect on what I can learn from this, I might take some notes. Then I basically, I move on. I move on and I know that I have the rest of my life to practice and learn lessons. So essentially I have a practice mindset, a practicing mindset, okay? I rebel against self-blame or these days I calmly ignore it. I ask what I can learn and I know I can just keep practicing for the rest of my life. And when I make marketing mistakes, so this is the thing, the mistakes that you guys are most afraid to make. Oh my God, I'm so scared to put stuff out there because I might get criticized or I might get, you know, punt, you know. When I make marketing mistakes, which I make all the time, none of my website sucks, right? My website right now looks sucky, but it's looked sucky for three years. I just, I've been, it's been a three, four year mistake and it keeps going in it. I'm still have six figure business. So, you know, yes, I probably could make more money. I make enough money, you know, I make enough money for my wife to buy plants like this, you know, on a whim or whatever. So, you know, I kind of revel in mistakes. And I'm like, oh, that's a mis, I have a bad website, you know, I still have a bad, you know, georgecow.com. It looks like, what the hell is this? You know, it's like, this is a marketing guy. It's a joke of a website. So, I know I have a joke of a website, but it still makes me over $100,000 a year. And I, you know, and it's okay because I have the rest of my life to make my website better over time. Actually, I'm about to make a whole new website and it's gonna be very minimalistic because I'm kind of championing minimalism and marketing and like instead of paying designers gobs amount of money to make things look polished and amazing. So, just be really simple and let the message and let one's own presence, even wear and goodwill sweatshirt, when people over with authentic confidence. You know, that's kind of my, that's kind of my stand for the world. It's like, we don't have to be polished. We can look like crap. Even, I should say, even if we look like crap, we can still make over $100,000 a year being authentically confident because, and let me, let me keep going here. So, when I make marketing mistakes, just like my website has been a four year marketing mistake, I basically say, this is how I cope with marketing mistakes which are scary for most of you. I cope with marketing mistakes by saying this. For first impression, even the second or third impression is not that important to me. What I care about is the fifth or 10th or 20th impression. So, I don't care if someone first comes to my website or looks at me with my goodwill sweatshirt and say, I can't trust that guy. He's too unpolished. He's too, you know, whatever, right? He's too, he's too not put together, okay? I don't care if you think that. If it's his first impression, you'll have bad thoughts of me, okay? That's fine. I don't mind you having bad thoughts of me, okay? But you're gonna keep hearing about me. Why? Because some people will judge me and go away, you know, say I'm not gonna look at George Cowell because it doesn't have a great looking website. Doesn't look good on video, doesn't, you know, doesn't edit his videos or whatever it is. They'll go away. But then some people who match my energy signature really, really well will keep staying. They'll stay even though I don't like his website, but something else about him I like about something, there's something else here I'm gonna keep going. So I'm gonna overlook how bad the website looks. I'm gonna overlook how bad he looks on screen and I'm gonna keep going and I'm gonna keep watching. I'm gonna keep listening. I'm gonna keep reading. And then as they keep, as you keep reading, I win you over, you know, with my presence, with my authentic message, my authentic confidence. And then you go tell other people about me, including the person who had said, no, I looked at his website already. Oh, I looked at his videos. He didn't look very good. I don't think I could trust his marketing guy. How can my marketing look as bad as, I don't want my marketing look as bad as his, right? How I'm not gonna learn from this guy who I'm gonna learn from someone who looks way more polished, but you're gonna keep telling this person, no, no, no, have another look, have a fifth look, have a sixth look. You're gonna keep people telling people, not literally you, but people like you who keep watching will tell people about me. So that person who for the first left is gonna hear about me from like five or 10 different people. And finally, they're gonna like, okay, fine, I'll take another look. I'll take the fifth look, the sixth look. And by the time they look again and again and again, they will finally overlook how bad I look, right? How bad things look. And they'll go, you know what? No, I see the core of his message now and I really like it. And I'm gonna, so people will practice overlooking my non-polishness and to look at my genuine message and kind of go from there. So I've learned that, that's true. We really is true. Over years now, I've learned this very important lesson of not caring about the first impression or the second or the third or the fifth and caring more about the word of mouth, caring more about and the word of mouth comes from true fans, right? So ease up on the self-blame. It really is gonna be okay if you do the following, okay? And how do I ease up on my self-blame as I do my energy reboot, which I've taught you before. And if you don't know, Google energy reboot, George Cow and you'll learn this method. This is how I ease up on my self-blame. I do that my energy reboot every day to remember, right? To remember that ultimately we're all gonna be taken care of. You are going to be taken care of materially, spiritually in every way. You cannot screw that up. You will not die until your mission is complete unless you kill yourself, please don't kill yourself, right? You will not die. You will be taken care of until your mission is complete on this earth unless you take yourself out of the game. And if you take yourself out of the game, you'll reincarnate and you'll have to do this again anyway. So you play the game or you have to come back and play the game. So yeah, you'll be taken care of no matter what until your mission is complete. So don't worry, right? So like, I think I can generate authentic confidence because I have a deep trust in life, in God, in the universe. I call it God, but you can call it the universe or call it higher power, higher call it source, whatever the interim is these days, but I call it God. So yeah, that's how I ease up on my self-blame. And then further on, I mean, this is going on a bit long so I'm gonna complete this video now. I generate authentic confidence, yes, with my energy reboot, with easing of our self-blame but also with practice. I practiced the things that build a business. And then as I practice the things that build a business, content, right? Distributing content and offers on a frequent basis, on a regular consistent basis, I make offers. Some of the offers don't work. Some of the offers work really, really well, okay? But they all even out into a very good business. As I practice content regularly, as I practice offers regularly, okay? I become better at it. I become better through practice, not caring about the first or second or third impression. I don't care about mistakes. I care about the practice itself. I wanna do the practice. Knowing that the practice includes lots and lots of mistakes doesn't matter to me. In knowing that the practice includes lots and lots of not looking polished, that's okay to me, okay? So I practice and therefore I get skilled at it. And then I notice what I do that's making an impact on people and that generates confidence for me. That brings back, like when I get comments that say this is a making a difference for me, that adds to my confidence points. That adds to my authentic confidence. So I hope that makes sense. And I hope this is helpful. And I love for you to comment below. Helps add to my authentic confidence when you comment below because I know I'm making a difference. And while I'm waiting for you to comment below, I'm just wanna look at the comments from the live people on Facebook. I'm making this on Facebook here, Facebook Live. And I am seeing the comments from Mary and Vivian and Heather and Captain. Thank you so much for your comments. Heather says, what is professional, rated? Yeah, you know, yeah, you're right. Professional people usually think is what? Suit, I need to be a suit and tie button down, you know, hair slick back or whatever and in a nice looking office environment. But I think more and more, I think you're right, more and more professional is being redefined through social media and through influencers who are showing up like me. There's some social media influencers showing up looking like me, right? I mean, Mark Zuckerberg, right? Shows up in this kind of shirt, right? Like darker usually, but he usually shows up in kind of a t-shirt and he's one of the most richest people in the world. So it's kind of like, actually a lot of rich people in San Francisco, I would, where I live, you can't tell they're billionaires or millionaires. They look like homeless people like me, right? They're just walking around. They're like supremely confident because they're multi-multi-millionaires. You know, they don't have to impress. It's not like they don't have to impress anyone anymore. They started out not having to impress anyone and then they built up a, you know, billion-dollar business. So anyway, Vivian, thank you so much for your comments as well. It opens up another perspective for another perception. So thank you. Be yourself, right? It's okay to be yourself. It's okay to make quote-unquote mistakes because they're just learning experiences and they might not even be mistakes. They might just be who you are that is beautiful to somebody else. So all that matters to me is practice knowing that everything is gonna be taken care of. I don't have a trust fund. I have to make all the money to live. So I'm not talking about that. Some people watching this might have a trust fund and you're very lucky to have one, but most of us don't. And, but you will be taken care of by God, by the universe, by source. So I hope this is helpful. And until the next video, I wish you continual practice so that you can develop authentic confidence. Take care.