Aoifinn Devitt: There’s a popular narrative that women are less confident than men, but is this borne out in the data? Find out from our panel of experts from areas of coaching and executive search why lack of self-confidence can be an issue for far more people than we might think, and how the stories we tell ourselves, visualization, and building a personal board of directors can be keys to confident personal growth. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to this 50 Faces Breakout Rooms podcast. This podcast is a joint initiative between 50 Faces Productions and Girls Are Investors, or GAIN. GAIN is a community of investors with charitable status set up to change the lack of gender diversity in investment management from the ground up. In the UK, women represent just 8% of decision makers in investment management. At entry level, it’s not much better. It’s understood that only 20% of applicants to the industry are women. I work in the investment industry and we frequently come up against the concept that women have a deficit in confidence when compared to men. Recently, I presented to a group of university students who are members of a women in asset management club, and it seemed to me in a somewhat troubling way that the popular narrative that women are less confident than men had become accepted as a truth and had even become internalized by young women at a young age. I set out to gather a group of professionals who have firsthand experience with these kinds of issues in the workplace: 2 executive coaches and 1 executive search expert. We are gathered here today in this breakout room to discuss the issue of confidence more generally, whether there is a deficit, and what we can do about it. I’m delighted to introduce our panel today. Kate Grussing works in executive search at Sapphire Partners. Katherine Hesselin is an executive coach and management consultant. She’s managing partner of Change Associates based in Dublin, and I’ve been lucky enough to have been working with Katherine myself. Brian Hillary was introduced to me by Katherine and is also based in Dublin. He’s a partner and head of coaching at EisnerAmptner, a specialist accountancy firm. Let’s kick off with the fundamental question: what does it mean to be confident? How would you define that, Kate?
A: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. I think it’s such an important topic. The question is a fascinating one. I’d say to be confident means to know that you’re likely to succeed at something. Could be that you’re confident in preparation for a job interview. It could be you’re confident in the context of a promotion. But, you know, there— it also could be you’re maybe making a big public speech or presentation. I think for most people, confidence ebbs and flows. It’s not static.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thanks for that, Kate. Catherine, how about for you? How do you define confidence?
Speaker C: Well, again, thank you for having me on. And like Kate said, it is interesting. It does ebb and flow. I think for everybody, even in the hours of the day, it can ebb and flow. I define it as self-confidence is about how you feel about yourself and then your ability to take action about it. I do think that self-confidence and self-worth are different, but I’m not sure that most people make that themselves. Differentiation Themselves. And I think when you ask them the question, they kind of roll everything into one: self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence. And I don’t really think the definitions matter. If they feel it, it is it, whatever that it might be for them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thanks, Brian. How about you?
Speaker D: Yeah, similarly, I think Catherine mentioned self-worth there as well. I think self-confidence and self-worth are very closely linked. What I think is self-confidence, the way to think about it is it’s trusting maybe believing in our own abilities, our ability to execute a task. So if we have a healthy sense of self-confidence, it might be we’re more willing to take on a new challenge or an opportunity. We mightn’t be afraid to express our opinion or to be wrong, or we might be more inclined to ask others for help when it’s needed. I think self-worth is something that’s a little bit deeper, and I think it’s about how we feel about ourselves and the value we place in ourselves.. And I think if we have a healthy sense of self-worth, we might feel more centered, balanced, safe, and secure. And I think maybe if we have a lower sense of self-worth, it might be manifest as not— we’re we just feel we’re just not good enough for this job or this interview, or maybe we’re not worthy of a relationship. And I think if we have a lower sense of self-worth, it might manifest itself as issues with self-confidence in other parts of our lives.
Aoifinn Devitt: So Brian, just getting back to that point about self-worth, I’m just going to ask you this first. Is it possible then to have a sense of self-worth but not be confident? Or do you think that they always go together?
Speaker D: I think none of us will be confident in everything. We can’t be good at everything. And I think even acknowledging that is a step forward. I think if we have a low sense of self-worth and maybe connected to a low sense of self-esteem, I do think that then that can manifest itself across different parts of our lives, almost to a point where we might withdraw from opportunities, that we can be kind of closed in ourselves.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I’m just going to stay with you and then we’ll go back around the popular narrative that women are less confident than men. Is that something that you’ve seen in your practice? And do you think that it’s justified to to say, say that, that it’s general as a general rule?
Speaker D: So another really interesting question. I think everyone will struggle with issues of self-confidence throughout our lives. So almost everyone anyway. And I think in my own experience, it’s something that I’ve had to work on. And in my experience as a coach, it’s something that I often work on, or it’s an area of focus with both male and female clients. And maybe to get a little bit more of an objective view, I did speak to a number of my colleagues and clients before today. And what came out of those discussions was that it isn’t the case that women are less confident than men.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely fascinating, because right from the beginning here, we’re starting to debunk that popular narrative, which is great. How about you, Catherine? What have you seen in your practice? Does the narrative bear out?
Speaker C: Well, it’s funny. So when you put the question to me, I kind of had to think about it. The metadata doesn’t support the narrative. So what’s out there in terms of Harvard studies, etc., doesn’t support the narrative that there is a difference between gender on confidence. And I have found the same thing like Brian in my practice. Both male and female present with having lack of confidence in certain things. So I haven’t found it to be gender specific. And everybody feels it at certain points in time. I would have felt, had a sense of, oh my God, the confidence level to even come on. Am I the right person to come on this podcast? I think we all feel it at certain points in time.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. That’s certainly what I’m learning on imposter syndrome. It is by no means confined to women and/or confined to status or age throughout an organization. It can happen at any point. Kate, how about from your perspective, and especially as you’re in the executive search arena, So you see perhaps that we have this classic other narrative that is, for example, that women tend to ensure that they are fully qualified for all the points of a job description, whereas a man may be happier with only meeting a few of those criteria. Maybe what are you seeing from your perspective in search?
A: No, well, there is lots of research that shows that men will apply for a role if they have approximately 60% of the qualifications, and women will only apply for a role if they have 100% of the qualifications. There have been many studies looking at that. I do see it in my search work. And when I pick up the phone to a candidate, I’ll typically know something about them. They will have been recommended. I will have looked them up on LinkedIn perhaps. And a man and a woman with identical profiles, the woman is less likely to say, “Oh, absolutely. What took you so long to find me?” She’ll say, “Well, I’m not ready. It may not be the right time.” Whereas her male peer is much more likely. And, you know, won’t— he the male peer is less likely to say, oh, well, I don’t have these two aspects of the candidate description. I think some of that, from my perspective, is healthy in women, where women candidates can perhaps be less arrogant or can be less overconfident. But it can be a double-edged sword in terms of if my female candidates are self-doubting, that can come across in their interviews. So, part of my and my colleagues’ and fellow recruiters’ job is to make sure that our female candidates blow their own trumpet and understand why they are as qualified as their male peers.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s get into a little bit more detail there. So, just say you have this highly qualified woman who you’ve approached, perhaps. You think she’d be excellent for the role, but she’s hesitant and she has self-doubt in certain aspects. How do you encourage her to address that situation?
A: Well, I will typically go through quite forensically the items in the role description and ask her questions against each of them. I will hopefully have her CV or enough background in front of me so that I can try and unpick her answers. Now, you know what? My job as a search consultant is to find great candidates. It’s not to boost her confidence. But I know through my decades of work in this field that I am more likely to have to nudge or prod or encourage female candidates over male candidates. I will typically ask a candidate for, can you give me an example of some time when you have done this? And so, ask for quite practical things. And then a woman is quite likely to say, oh yeah, well, I did do that. Or, oh, I have another example. So, it’s getting them to go back through their CV or their education where you help them find the evidence so that it’s not a matter of their bravura or what they think. It’s let’s look at what have you done that would help you be qualified in this domain.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. I think not only a database of that, but also really focusing on case studies and granular examples, which obviously everybody is always going to be more readily able to identify with an actual case study than a theoretical ability. That’s very interesting. Just going back to the coaching side now, because Kate, obviously you said that your role is not to bolster someone’s confidence. On the coaching side, it may not be your role, but it may be how some clients see your role. Katherine, how does that manifest itself when a client might come to you with a confidence issue? How often do other issues that maybe people seek coaching about come down to confidence?
Speaker C: Before I answer that question, I might just go back to Kate’s point. The data is really clear on, men tend to overbelieve in their competence levels, which has fed out for Kate in her experience in the search world. And women tend to underplay it. And unless you kind of do that granular, go after the granular, give me the data or give me some examples, there’s loads there, but they just don’t put them on the table. To go back then to your question around on the coaching front, how do issues relate to confidence? Oftentimes clients don’t come with the confidence. They don’t come and say, I have a lack of confidence issue. They might come with something else. But quickly, it kind of comes out, well, I want to go for a new role, or I want to try something different, or I want to speak up more. And ultimately, when we kind of— when you peel back the layers from it, they ultimately say, you know what? It is about lack of— I’m not confident enough to speak up or to put myself forward or to go for it. So they don’t often call it out. But then eventually, as we feed things through, it comes out that, yeah, it is about lack of confidence. And then we talk about that and how that manifests itself for them. And there’s physical manifestations of that lack of confidence. You know, they’ll say, I have sweaty palms, my heart is racing. There’s a whole load of manifestations. So we talk about it and we kind of figure out, okay, well, let’s talk about what it is today, what you’d like it to be, etc. And we go from there. And it’s all bespoke. So it’s all related to the— there’s no kind of grand plan. Everybody’s definition of confidence is different. So you go with their definition because the coaching belief that I have is they have all the answers. My job is just to help pull those out of there.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it might be interesting just before moving to Brian about maybe looking at how— because some of the perception is that not everybody suffers from these issues. How many people say who come for coaching do you think have issues about confidence? Maybe not in every domain, but in certain domains. I suppose I’m trying to get at how pervasive is lack of confidence as a problem?
Speaker C: I think nearly every client that I have, male or female, at some point we touch on the topic of lack of confidence. I don’t think I’ve ever had a client where it doesn’t arise.
Aoifinn Devitt: Now, Brian, how about you? I would imagine it’s a similar observation.
Speaker D: Yeah, and actually just I’d echo what Catherine was saying there, that I think it would be an exception where it didn’t relate in some shape or form to self-confidence. And I think coaching is something that is kind of a tool mechanism that can just be a great way to help someone with their self-confidence. And while some people, as Catherine said, some people I work with may explicitly state, I’d like to work on my self-confidence, very often they have a goal or an area of focus that if that’s achieved or worked towards, it actually has a positive impact on their self-confidence. So whether it’s explicit or not, it’s almost always a theme. And I think in terms of how self-confidence or issues with self-confidence can manifest itself. I think sometimes issues around self-confidence stem from deep-seated beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the stories that we tell ourselves on repeat. And if the stories that we’re telling ourselves is that I’m just not good enough, I’m not worthy, I’m winging it, I’m going to be found out, I think those beliefs about ourselves can impact the decisions that we make. So then we don’t go for a job interview or a promotion. We don’t express our view or opinion in a meeting, or maybe we don’t say no enough. So we always say yes, and we work really long hours at the expense of other parts of our lives. And something else I was thinking about, I think sometimes if there’s a recurring theme of self-confidence or issues with self-confidence, is it so sometimes that we can take ourselves out of the race before the starter gun even goes.
Aoifinn Devitt: I know that when we had our talk at the beginning, we’re going to go around and ask about, well, how do we, I suppose, break away from this? What are the kind of action plans that we can put in place to instill confidence? And I think you mentioned the stories we tell ourselves. How much of this is kind of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset problem? That they say, well, I’m just not confident. Or is there, I think, an increased recognition that people can develop confidence and build it, that is not something that’s fixed? About their personality? I’ll maybe start with Brian and we can go around.
Speaker D: Yeah, so I would think it’s not fixed, but it can take time to shift our sense of self-confidence and self-worth. And maybe just on action plans, kind of in my experience, what works well is to have a plan that’s focused and very achievable too. So take for example, if I was working with a client and self-confidence which manifests maybe with a fear of public speaking, we might have 3 steps to it. And the first step might be just understanding and demystifying the underlying fear or anxiety. So what is You it? Know, talking about what is fear, talking about the sympathetic nervous system being activated, adrenaline flowing through our system. Where does it manifest? As Catherine said, is it shallow breathing? Is it racing thoughts, sweaty palms? And then maybe talking about why we experience it. So is it a fear of judgment, a fear of failure, fear of rejection? And I think talking about it in this way helps to in some ways demystify it. And it helps the client to realize that they’re actually okay. And in some ways, it loses its grip. So the first step is just understanding, you know, demystifying the fear, anxiety. The second step would be developing an awareness or helping the client to develop an awareness of how unique and special they are. So their own values, their strengths, their capabilities. And some of the exercises there are around developing and clarifying core values. I think when we know our core values, it helps us to make better decisions in our lives based on what we value most. I would encourage clients to actually write them down and keep them visible. Something else when I’m working with clients, sometimes with their permission, I speak to some of their colleagues. Sometimes I notice some of the feedback is very positive, but a client can be very slow to— they can downplay or minimize that feedback. Again, I encourage them to take bits of that feedback and actually write it down and make it visible. Someone might be a great communicator, a valued colleague, And I think these exercises help the client develop their sense of self-worth. And the third step would be taking specific tangible action to be, say, in this example, to become more comfortable with public speaking. So it’s to pick an event that they’d actually speak at, reframe the event as not a dreaded challenge, but an exciting opportunity. And some of the things we might look at is internal dialogue. So as opposed to saying, this is scary, this could be terrible, this could be a disaster, to reframing that, that this could be exciting, fun, an opportunity to learn and grow. And we try to focus on the process as opposed to the outcome and to enjoy the process as much as possible. So they’re just some of the things we might work on. But I think approaching, say, a public speaking event in this way, the client can approach it with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm as opposed to fear and worry.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. And I love that reframing concept. I’ve heard people should even reframe the sense of butterflies in your stomach or anxiety as not perhaps worry there’s something about a negative outcome, but actually that’s a sign of how important an event is to you, is that that’s how your body is reacting. So it’s a sign that you’re taking it seriously, it’s important, not necessarily something that should lead you down a spiral of lack of confidence and poor performance. Catherine, over to you. And when you speak about maybe action plans, I’d love you to touch on a point you made earlier, which is around the answers being inside yourself, because some people might attribute lack of confidence to others, maybe how they’ve been treated in the past, but maybe even their family background What action plans do you think of and where does the answer lie? Always within or sometimes externally?
Speaker C: I believe that the answers always lie within you. I mean, obviously how you frame things come from your family of origin, your experiences. All of those things do have an impact on what you think about yourself. But then I would use techniques like Brian talks about, like reframing it. So that’s how it was that time. It doesn’t have to be like that. What possibilities are out there for the next time? And that was, you know, that was the feedback that you got from Boss A. Do you think that the 4 other people in the room had the same feedback to give you, for instance? In terms of plans, action plans, I’m very much again of that belief that you decide, you are the person who calls out, like, do you want to work on confidence? And then if you do, then we kind of talk about it. So I often use metaphors. So I say to somebody, when you’re having a bad confidence moment, what would you call it? And I try and get them to put something on it. And often I’ve got, well, I feel like a mouse, and it could be a cornered mouse. So we talk about, okay, so how does that feel? What are you doing as a cornered mouse? All of those things. And really getting into how they feel. I feel terrified. I feel like I’m looking from A to B. I might be so frozen in the moment I can do nothing. And then I say, well, do you want to stay in that place? Because it is important to validate that is a place that they feel. And most people will say, no, I don’t want to stay there. And I physically get them to move. Right, where do you want to go? Well, I want to go to a place where I’m totally confident. Okay, well, let’s move to that place. And what’s the metaphor you put on it now? And what I’ve often heard is, I feel like a lion, the pride of a lioness. And they put the character on it, I don’t. And then, what does that feel like? Well, I’m very proud. You can see it in their body language, their whole shoulders go back, their voice might go up. What are you doing? How are you feeling? All of those things. And then we talk about, okay, so if you want to move from the mouse to the lion, what are 2 things that you can do between now and the next time you meet to facilitate that movement? So they have— there’s their action plan set, and then we reinforce, like Brian had talked about. We talk about, okay, what did you try? What worked? How did it feel? Will you try— and really kind of emphasize and acknowledge the fact that they’ve done something with us, and that acknowledgement will reinforce, hopefully, them going to do it again. It’s a process. This will take time. I mean, if they suffer from lack of confidence, it didn’t just happen overnight. So it can’t be rectified overnight.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. And I’d say as a client of Catherine’s, she does actually make you move. So you be prepared to start moving around the room. It’s always been very helpful in terms of mindset. And just before I come to Kate in terms of the effect she’s seen of that kind of coaching on some of the clients she works with, let’s get back to Brian to ask you about The point about confidence coming from within or being influenced by external forces and what can we do about that?
Speaker D: I think ultimately it does come from within. And I think that’s where, you know, it comes back to the deep-seated beliefs that we hold about ourselves if we struggle with self-confidence and it’s connected to that sense of self-worth. And I think it’s creating a shift in those kind of deep-seated beliefs. And as Catherine said, I just think that’s something that actually takes time to shift those beliefs. Catherine made an interesting point there. It’s, say, I took, for example, a public speaking event, but it’s only when you do the— you repeat the event that you go again and you build up momentum as well. I think that’s where self-confidence is generated. I think certainly you can find support via a coach or maybe a mentor to help you develop self-confidence and just talking to people about it. But ultimately, I do think it’s probably something that ultimately the shift has to come from within.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. I think the other point, getting back to Katherine’s point about a mouse and how does it make you feel, I think that’s the difference between feeling that the situation doesn’t feel right, perhaps, or an introvert who genuinely doesn’t like perhaps big events that involve a lot of public speaking. I think it’s possible to be very comfortable in your own skin and not like that, but equally, the lack of confidence is a negative effect that we don’t like that situation and want to move. I’m just going to go back to Kate on the executive search front. So you’ve worked with clients, and I certainly— do you see clients who’ve benefited from this kind of coaching? And how do you ensure that women can really have the most, I suppose, productive career trajectory that they deserve?
A: I think it’s really important that women do own their own achievements, and having a coach or a mentor is a fabulous way to have an external perspective because sometimes we can have these little demons or parrots on our shoulder. And we do need an external catalyst reminding us of our strengths or what I like to call our superpowers. And as Brian said earlier, no one’s good at everything. And you certainly, know, not all at the same time. I think women are so talented. There are more fabulous women than ever in the pipeline coming out of universities at all levels of companies. And certainly, as we’re recruiting for roles, we see more women than ever. Who get recommended to us, who we think really merit being on longlists and shortlists. In addition to coaching, I think it’s important that you think about who are advocates you can enlist, who are your champions. It could be a group of girlfriends, it could be former colleagues, it could be a sister or a sister-in-law, but it is important that you have those people in your corner who you can turn to when maybe you’re trying to negotiate a pay rise or thinking about a stretch assignment or considering a change in role and having that group of your own directors. And obviously, it can be men and women. It’s whoever really understands what makes you tick and what you’re good at.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s an interesting point. And also, I think sometimes there may be a bit of a misnomer in the term executive coaching because there’s a sense that it’s only reserved for executives and that if you know, kind I’m, of making my way up the ladder, I don’t I can’t ask for any. I know, Brian, that you’ve worked with people right across their career at every level. It seems to me that coaching is something that should really be available and certainly accessed at almost every stage. Would you say that?
Speaker D: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think just on that, while maybe a company or an organization has a finite amount of resources, one of the things we did in the last number of years was we kind of set up a coaching function within our business. And as part of that, our management team have access to coach, and I head up that service. But what we’ve done over the past kind of 18 months is we do coaching skill sessions for everybody in the firm. So during the pandemic, we actually bring the whole firm together, and people go into breakout rooms, and they take it in turns to be the coach, the coachee, and the observer. And they have 10 minutes each, and then they give feedback to each other, and then they go and they rotate the roles. And we find that that’s really helpful, that it’s a way of kind of embedding a coaching culture, and it kind of has a ripple effect as well. And then just to say, I think people who have the opportunity to be coached, I think the positives of that is when you’re coached yourself, and I’ve been coached, that actually enables me— the people that I’m a better manager because I’m coached, and the people I’d like to think the people that I work with, actually it helps their management skills too. And that way it kind of, it can permeate through the firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting, especially the point about the observer. And I think I’ll bring this point up later, but I think we need a lot more observers in our meetings, especially now when most of them are being held by Zoom. Observers to ensure that people are getting their voice heard and getting a chance to speak when they can.
Speaker D: Sometimes people find it very hard to be the observer, to give the feedback, and that’s something where we encourage— because this is right across our firm, from trainees to partners— it’s encouraging the trainees to give candid feedback too.
Aoifinn Devitt: Catherine, do you see coaching as a career-long I think it’s a career-long pursuit.
Speaker C: And I think it should be provided to everybody all the way through. Brian and myself were talking about this at one point. Even though I work as a coach, I still engage a coach to work with me and have done for a long, long time. I think you always need, as Kate said, you need a lot of people in your corner who will be advocates for you, be that a coach, a mentor, pal, a sister-in-law, but anything that will help you bring out the best in yourself is worth investing in. I often hear women say, but it’s very expensive and the firm won’t pay for it. And my retort is always, well, would you buy a handbag that costs you a lot of money? And the answer is, of course. Well, then it’s worth investing that amount of money in yourself because it’ll last a lot longer than the handbag.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. Well, I’d like to just do a sort of final roundup of maybe— here we are still, unfortunately, at this time, not all together in one room. We’re all doing this. We’ve got very good at Zoom, but we’re all working from home. Still on Zoom. Is there any kind of one thing that we could have our listeners take away that they can work on in the near term to just maybe boost their confidence, even in a certain area or more generally? What would you say would be kind of a tangible takeaway action plan? Maybe I’ll start with you, Brian, since I know you have done a lot of this quite recently in your firm.
Speaker D: So I think everyone’s had a really tough year, and that’s, you know, no matter who we are, what we do, everyone’s had a really tough year at the the pandemic. And I’d say if people could just be— I’d encourage people to just be a little bit kinder to themselves. And that might sound a bit vague. So in terms of how you might do that is encouraging people to just take a little bit of time out of their day to do something that brings them a bit of joy, peace, happiness, and fun, whatever that is. And for me, that might be 10 minutes of meditation first thing in the morning. And that helps me to be more present, a little less reactive. And that can have a ripple effect in the rest of my day. But for others, it could be getting out into nature for a run or a walk or a swim in the sea. It could be meeting a friend for a walk or a coffee. And I think the benefits of that aren’t just that we’re getting exercise. It’s actually more about putting value on ourselves and our well-being. And I think if we do that, that can have a ripple effect, and I think we could feel better about ourselves. So I’d say try to be kind to yourself, and maybe how to do that— carve a little bit of time out of your day to do something that brings you a bit of fun and joy.
Aoifinn Devitt: How about you, Catherine? Is there any one thing that our listeners could take away to boost their confidence or start working on that in their daily lives?
Speaker C: I have a tagline which says, ‘Be kind, be brave, be safe.’ So I don’t give advice as I believe that it’s all within you, but a thought: if you are feeling uncomfortable about saying or doing something, do it or say it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. Kate, any takeaway or piece of advice you’d give our listeners?
A: I love what both Brian and Katherine said. I might add to it in terms of saying, ask yourself at the end of each day, or maybe it’s at the end of each week, what went well? What am I proud of? What did I accomplish? You know, maybe it was something big, maybe it was something small, but I’m also of the camp, I believe a lot in, you hear people talk about gratitude journals. And so thinking about how much we have to be thankful for. Often helps really put things in perspective. Often, at the end of a day or a week, you’ll realize, “Wow, I really tackled that well.” I think that act builds upon itself.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, great. I’m going to add one of my own. While I’m speaking, if any of you has anything else you’d like to contribute to this, I think, very important discussion on confidence, please come in at the end. For me, it’s about listening and visibility. I’ve been doing these podcasts for a year. I’ve really developed a listening muscle, I think, and it’s kind of sad to think I had to wait this long in my career to develop it. But actually, that has been profoundly life-changing for me to be able to now empathize more readily. It is certainly— one identifies with everybody’s insecurities and we see that we’re not alone. Listening is a great skill. Tied to that, the point I made about meetings, having maybe a second— Brian mentioned the notion of an observer. I do think that all chairmen or chairwomen need to have a second chair of a meeting, which is an observer. Is everybody speaking in this meeting? Is everyone being heard? We’ve had the concept of the ancient tribes passing a stick from one to the other so that people speak when they get the stick. There doesn’t seem to be that function on Zoom yet, but I do think that having that and the ability to speak when you’re given the stick and then pass it on, just to ensure that there is that visibility and that we’re all listening to each other, I think that will be very important, I think, in shoring up our own confidence because we will see that we’re really more alike with our peers than we are different. So that’s my contribution as a non-expert to this discussion. Just before we finish up, does anyone have anything that we haven’t said so far on the topic of confidence that they’d like to share?
A: I might just add that I think it’s a good thing to talk about. So if you’re having a day or a week where you’re not feeling particularly confident, don’t hide that. Ask for help. Enlist your supporters. Maybe no one else saw it in you that particular day or week. But as Catherine said early on, everyone feels this at some stage of their career— men, women, junior, senior. And I think you’ll find that people will really want to help you.
Speaker D: I think that’s a great point, Kate, because even in the lead-up to today, I had lots of great conversations over the past 10 days or so with my colleagues, male and female, on the issue of self-confidence. And it was just some really healthy and honest conversations between us as well. So I think opening that dialogue is a big step forward.
Speaker C: I would agree. And I think the best thing you can get out of all this is you can gain from us. Excuse the pun.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a wonderful place on which to end. Yes, we all need to gain. Well, thank you so much to all the panel, to Kate Grissom, for listening, Kathryn Heslin and Brian Hillary. It’s been a real pleasure to discuss this with you today. Clearly, this is a discussion that we need to keep having, but I think we’ve certainly set us off on the right path now. Thank you for sharing your insights with us.
Speaker C: Thanks, Aoifinn.
Speaker D: Thanks, Aoifinn. Thanks, Kathryn.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn and David. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces breakout room made in collaboration with Girls Are Investors. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: There’s a popular narrative that women are less confident than men, but is this borne out in the data? Find out from our panel of experts from areas of coaching and executive search why lack of self-confidence can be an issue for far more people than we might think, and how the stories we tell ourselves, visualization, and building a personal board of directors can be keys to confident personal growth. I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to this 50 Faces Breakout Rooms podcast. This podcast is a joint initiative between 50 Faces Productions and Girls Are Investors, or GAIN. GAIN is a community of investors with charitable status set up to change the lack of gender diversity in investment management from the ground up. In the UK, women represent just 8% of decision makers in investment management. At entry level, it’s not much better. It’s understood that only 20% of applicants to the industry are women. I work in the investment industry and we frequently come up against the concept that women have a deficit in confidence when compared to men. Recently, I presented to a group of university students who are members of a women in asset management club, and it seemed to me in a somewhat troubling way that the popular narrative that women are less confident than men had become accepted as a truth and had even become internalized by young women at a young age. I set out to gather a group of professionals who have firsthand experience with these kinds of issues in the workplace: 2 executive coaches and 1 executive search expert. We are gathered here today in this breakout room to discuss the issue of confidence more generally, whether there is a deficit, and what we can do about it. I’m delighted to introduce our panel today. Kate Grussing works in executive search at Sapphire Partners. Katherine Hesselin is an executive coach and management consultant. She’s managing partner of Change Associates based in Dublin, and I’ve been lucky enough to have been working with Katherine myself. Brian Hillary was introduced to me by Katherine and is also based in Dublin. He’s a partner and head of coaching at EisnerAmptner, a specialist accountancy firm. Let’s kick off with the fundamental question: what does it mean to be confident? How would you define that, Kate?
A: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. I think it’s such an important topic. The question is a fascinating one. I’d say to be confident means to know that you’re likely to succeed at something. Could be that you’re confident in preparation for a job interview. It could be you’re confident in the context of a promotion. But, you know, there— it also could be you’re maybe making a big public speech or presentation. I think for most people, confidence ebbs and flows. It’s not static.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thanks for that, Kate. Catherine, how about for you? How do you define confidence?
Speaker C: Well, again, thank you for having me on. And like Kate said, it is interesting. It does ebb and flow. I think for everybody, even in the hours of the day, it can ebb and flow. I define it as self-confidence is about how you feel about yourself and then your ability to take action about it. I do think that self-confidence and self-worth are different, but I’m not sure that most people make that themselves. Differentiation Themselves. And I think when you ask them the question, they kind of roll everything into one: self-worth, self-esteem, self-confidence. And I don’t really think the definitions matter. If they feel it, it is it, whatever that it might be for them.
Aoifinn Devitt: Thanks, Brian. How about you?
Speaker D: Yeah, similarly, I think Catherine mentioned self-worth there as well. I think self-confidence and self-worth are very closely linked. What I think is self-confidence, the way to think about it is it’s trusting maybe believing in our own abilities, our ability to execute a task. So if we have a healthy sense of self-confidence, it might be we’re more willing to take on a new challenge or an opportunity. We mightn’t be afraid to express our opinion or to be wrong, or we might be more inclined to ask others for help when it’s needed. I think self-worth is something that’s a little bit deeper, and I think it’s about how we feel about ourselves and the value we place in ourselves.. And I think if we have a healthy sense of self-worth, we might feel more centered, balanced, safe, and secure. And I think maybe if we have a lower sense of self-worth, it might be manifest as not— we’re we just feel we’re just not good enough for this job or this interview, or maybe we’re not worthy of a relationship. And I think if we have a lower sense of self-worth, it might manifest itself as issues with self-confidence in other parts of our lives.
Aoifinn Devitt: So Brian, just getting back to that point about self-worth, I’m just going to ask you this first. Is it possible then to have a sense of self-worth but not be confident? Or do you think that they always go together?
Speaker D: I think none of us will be confident in everything. We can’t be good at everything. And I think even acknowledging that is a step forward. I think if we have a low sense of self-worth and maybe connected to a low sense of self-esteem, I do think that then that can manifest itself across different parts of our lives, almost to a point where we might withdraw from opportunities, that we can be kind of closed in ourselves.
Aoifinn Devitt: And I’m just going to stay with you and then we’ll go back around the popular narrative that women are less confident than men. Is that something that you’ve seen in your practice? And do you think that it’s justified to to say, say that, that it’s general as a general rule?
Speaker D: So another really interesting question. I think everyone will struggle with issues of self-confidence throughout our lives. So almost everyone anyway. And I think in my own experience, it’s something that I’ve had to work on. And in my experience as a coach, it’s something that I often work on, or it’s an area of focus with both male and female clients. And maybe to get a little bit more of an objective view, I did speak to a number of my colleagues and clients before today. And what came out of those discussions was that it isn’t the case that women are less confident than men.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely fascinating, because right from the beginning here, we’re starting to debunk that popular narrative, which is great. How about you, Catherine? What have you seen in your practice? Does the narrative bear out?
Speaker C: Well, it’s funny. So when you put the question to me, I kind of had to think about it. The metadata doesn’t support the narrative. So what’s out there in terms of Harvard studies, etc., doesn’t support the narrative that there is a difference between gender on confidence. And I have found the same thing like Brian in my practice. Both male and female present with having lack of confidence in certain things. So I haven’t found it to be gender specific. And everybody feels it at certain points in time. I would have felt, had a sense of, oh my God, the confidence level to even come on. Am I the right person to come on this podcast? I think we all feel it at certain points in time.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. That’s certainly what I’m learning on imposter syndrome. It is by no means confined to women and/or confined to status or age throughout an organization. It can happen at any point. Kate, how about from your perspective, and especially as you’re in the executive search arena, So you see perhaps that we have this classic other narrative that is, for example, that women tend to ensure that they are fully qualified for all the points of a job description, whereas a man may be happier with only meeting a few of those criteria. Maybe what are you seeing from your perspective in search?
A: No, well, there is lots of research that shows that men will apply for a role if they have approximately 60% of the qualifications, and women will only apply for a role if they have 100% of the qualifications. There have been many studies looking at that. I do see it in my search work. And when I pick up the phone to a candidate, I’ll typically know something about them. They will have been recommended. I will have looked them up on LinkedIn perhaps. And a man and a woman with identical profiles, the woman is less likely to say, “Oh, absolutely. What took you so long to find me?” She’ll say, “Well, I’m not ready. It may not be the right time.” Whereas her male peer is much more likely. And, you know, won’t— he the male peer is less likely to say, oh, well, I don’t have these two aspects of the candidate description. I think some of that, from my perspective, is healthy in women, where women candidates can perhaps be less arrogant or can be less overconfident. But it can be a double-edged sword in terms of if my female candidates are self-doubting, that can come across in their interviews. So, part of my and my colleagues’ and fellow recruiters’ job is to make sure that our female candidates blow their own trumpet and understand why they are as qualified as their male peers.
Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s get into a little bit more detail there. So, just say you have this highly qualified woman who you’ve approached, perhaps. You think she’d be excellent for the role, but she’s hesitant and she has self-doubt in certain aspects. How do you encourage her to address that situation?
A: Well, I will typically go through quite forensically the items in the role description and ask her questions against each of them. I will hopefully have her CV or enough background in front of me so that I can try and unpick her answers. Now, you know what? My job as a search consultant is to find great candidates. It’s not to boost her confidence. But I know through my decades of work in this field that I am more likely to have to nudge or prod or encourage female candidates over male candidates. I will typically ask a candidate for, can you give me an example of some time when you have done this? And so, ask for quite practical things. And then a woman is quite likely to say, oh yeah, well, I did do that. Or, oh, I have another example. So, it’s getting them to go back through their CV or their education where you help them find the evidence so that it’s not a matter of their bravura or what they think. It’s let’s look at what have you done that would help you be qualified in this domain.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. I think not only a database of that, but also really focusing on case studies and granular examples, which obviously everybody is always going to be more readily able to identify with an actual case study than a theoretical ability. That’s very interesting. Just going back to the coaching side now, because Kate, obviously you said that your role is not to bolster someone’s confidence. On the coaching side, it may not be your role, but it may be how some clients see your role. Katherine, how does that manifest itself when a client might come to you with a confidence issue? How often do other issues that maybe people seek coaching about come down to confidence?
Speaker C: Before I answer that question, I might just go back to Kate’s point. The data is really clear on, men tend to overbelieve in their competence levels, which has fed out for Kate in her experience in the search world. And women tend to underplay it. And unless you kind of do that granular, go after the granular, give me the data or give me some examples, there’s loads there, but they just don’t put them on the table. To go back then to your question around on the coaching front, how do issues relate to confidence? Oftentimes clients don’t come with the confidence. They don’t come and say, I have a lack of confidence issue. They might come with something else. But quickly, it kind of comes out, well, I want to go for a new role, or I want to try something different, or I want to speak up more. And ultimately, when we kind of— when you peel back the layers from it, they ultimately say, you know what? It is about lack of— I’m not confident enough to speak up or to put myself forward or to go for it. So they don’t often call it out. But then eventually, as we feed things through, it comes out that, yeah, it is about lack of confidence. And then we talk about that and how that manifests itself for them. And there’s physical manifestations of that lack of confidence. You know, they’ll say, I have sweaty palms, my heart is racing. There’s a whole load of manifestations. So we talk about it and we kind of figure out, okay, well, let’s talk about what it is today, what you’d like it to be, etc. And we go from there. And it’s all bespoke. So it’s all related to the— there’s no kind of grand plan. Everybody’s definition of confidence is different. So you go with their definition because the coaching belief that I have is they have all the answers. My job is just to help pull those out of there.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it might be interesting just before moving to Brian about maybe looking at how— because some of the perception is that not everybody suffers from these issues. How many people say who come for coaching do you think have issues about confidence? Maybe not in every domain, but in certain domains. I suppose I’m trying to get at how pervasive is lack of confidence as a problem?
Speaker C: I think nearly every client that I have, male or female, at some point we touch on the topic of lack of confidence. I don’t think I’ve ever had a client where it doesn’t arise.
Aoifinn Devitt: Now, Brian, how about you? I would imagine it’s a similar observation.
Speaker D: Yeah, and actually just I’d echo what Catherine was saying there, that I think it would be an exception where it didn’t relate in some shape or form to self-confidence. And I think coaching is something that is kind of a tool mechanism that can just be a great way to help someone with their self-confidence. And while some people, as Catherine said, some people I work with may explicitly state, I’d like to work on my self-confidence, very often they have a goal or an area of focus that if that’s achieved or worked towards, it actually has a positive impact on their self-confidence. So whether it’s explicit or not, it’s almost always a theme. And I think in terms of how self-confidence or issues with self-confidence can manifest itself. I think sometimes issues around self-confidence stem from deep-seated beliefs that we hold about ourselves and the stories that we tell ourselves on repeat. And if the stories that we’re telling ourselves is that I’m just not good enough, I’m not worthy, I’m winging it, I’m going to be found out, I think those beliefs about ourselves can impact the decisions that we make. So then we don’t go for a job interview or a promotion. We don’t express our view or opinion in a meeting, or maybe we don’t say no enough. So we always say yes, and we work really long hours at the expense of other parts of our lives. And something else I was thinking about, I think sometimes if there’s a recurring theme of self-confidence or issues with self-confidence, is it so sometimes that we can take ourselves out of the race before the starter gun even goes.
Aoifinn Devitt: I know that when we had our talk at the beginning, we’re going to go around and ask about, well, how do we, I suppose, break away from this? What are the kind of action plans that we can put in place to instill confidence? And I think you mentioned the stories we tell ourselves. How much of this is kind of a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset problem? That they say, well, I’m just not confident. Or is there, I think, an increased recognition that people can develop confidence and build it, that is not something that’s fixed? About their personality? I’ll maybe start with Brian and we can go around.
Speaker D: Yeah, so I would think it’s not fixed, but it can take time to shift our sense of self-confidence and self-worth. And maybe just on action plans, kind of in my experience, what works well is to have a plan that’s focused and very achievable too. So take for example, if I was working with a client and self-confidence which manifests maybe with a fear of public speaking, we might have 3 steps to it. And the first step might be just understanding and demystifying the underlying fear or anxiety. So what is You it? Know, talking about what is fear, talking about the sympathetic nervous system being activated, adrenaline flowing through our system. Where does it manifest? As Catherine said, is it shallow breathing? Is it racing thoughts, sweaty palms? And then maybe talking about why we experience it. So is it a fear of judgment, a fear of failure, fear of rejection? And I think talking about it in this way helps to in some ways demystify it. And it helps the client to realize that they’re actually okay. And in some ways, it loses its grip. So the first step is just understanding, you know, demystifying the fear, anxiety. The second step would be developing an awareness or helping the client to develop an awareness of how unique and special they are. So their own values, their strengths, their capabilities. And some of the exercises there are around developing and clarifying core values. I think when we know our core values, it helps us to make better decisions in our lives based on what we value most. I would encourage clients to actually write them down and keep them visible. Something else when I’m working with clients, sometimes with their permission, I speak to some of their colleagues. Sometimes I notice some of the feedback is very positive, but a client can be very slow to— they can downplay or minimize that feedback. Again, I encourage them to take bits of that feedback and actually write it down and make it visible. Someone might be a great communicator, a valued colleague, And I think these exercises help the client develop their sense of self-worth. And the third step would be taking specific tangible action to be, say, in this example, to become more comfortable with public speaking. So it’s to pick an event that they’d actually speak at, reframe the event as not a dreaded challenge, but an exciting opportunity. And some of the things we might look at is internal dialogue. So as opposed to saying, this is scary, this could be terrible, this could be a disaster, to reframing that, that this could be exciting, fun, an opportunity to learn and grow. And we try to focus on the process as opposed to the outcome and to enjoy the process as much as possible. So they’re just some of the things we might work on. But I think approaching, say, a public speaking event in this way, the client can approach it with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm as opposed to fear and worry.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting. And I love that reframing concept. I’ve heard people should even reframe the sense of butterflies in your stomach or anxiety as not perhaps worry there’s something about a negative outcome, but actually that’s a sign of how important an event is to you, is that that’s how your body is reacting. So it’s a sign that you’re taking it seriously, it’s important, not necessarily something that should lead you down a spiral of lack of confidence and poor performance. Catherine, over to you. And when you speak about maybe action plans, I’d love you to touch on a point you made earlier, which is around the answers being inside yourself, because some people might attribute lack of confidence to others, maybe how they’ve been treated in the past, but maybe even their family background What action plans do you think of and where does the answer lie? Always within or sometimes externally?
Speaker C: I believe that the answers always lie within you. I mean, obviously how you frame things come from your family of origin, your experiences. All of those things do have an impact on what you think about yourself. But then I would use techniques like Brian talks about, like reframing it. So that’s how it was that time. It doesn’t have to be like that. What possibilities are out there for the next time? And that was, you know, that was the feedback that you got from Boss A. Do you think that the 4 other people in the room had the same feedback to give you, for instance? In terms of plans, action plans, I’m very much again of that belief that you decide, you are the person who calls out, like, do you want to work on confidence? And then if you do, then we kind of talk about it. So I often use metaphors. So I say to somebody, when you’re having a bad confidence moment, what would you call it? And I try and get them to put something on it. And often I’ve got, well, I feel like a mouse, and it could be a cornered mouse. So we talk about, okay, so how does that feel? What are you doing as a cornered mouse? All of those things. And really getting into how they feel. I feel terrified. I feel like I’m looking from A to B. I might be so frozen in the moment I can do nothing. And then I say, well, do you want to stay in that place? Because it is important to validate that is a place that they feel. And most people will say, no, I don’t want to stay there. And I physically get them to move. Right, where do you want to go? Well, I want to go to a place where I’m totally confident. Okay, well, let’s move to that place. And what’s the metaphor you put on it now? And what I’ve often heard is, I feel like a lion, the pride of a lioness. And they put the character on it, I don’t. And then, what does that feel like? Well, I’m very proud. You can see it in their body language, their whole shoulders go back, their voice might go up. What are you doing? How are you feeling? All of those things. And then we talk about, okay, so if you want to move from the mouse to the lion, what are 2 things that you can do between now and the next time you meet to facilitate that movement? So they have— there’s their action plan set, and then we reinforce, like Brian had talked about. We talk about, okay, what did you try? What worked? How did it feel? Will you try— and really kind of emphasize and acknowledge the fact that they’ve done something with us, and that acknowledgement will reinforce, hopefully, them going to do it again. It’s a process. This will take time. I mean, if they suffer from lack of confidence, it didn’t just happen overnight. So it can’t be rectified overnight.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. And I’d say as a client of Catherine’s, she does actually make you move. So you be prepared to start moving around the room. It’s always been very helpful in terms of mindset. And just before I come to Kate in terms of the effect she’s seen of that kind of coaching on some of the clients she works with, let’s get back to Brian to ask you about The point about confidence coming from within or being influenced by external forces and what can we do about that?
Speaker D: I think ultimately it does come from within. And I think that’s where, you know, it comes back to the deep-seated beliefs that we hold about ourselves if we struggle with self-confidence and it’s connected to that sense of self-worth. And I think it’s creating a shift in those kind of deep-seated beliefs. And as Catherine said, I just think that’s something that actually takes time to shift those beliefs. Catherine made an interesting point there. It’s, say, I took, for example, a public speaking event, but it’s only when you do the— you repeat the event that you go again and you build up momentum as well. I think that’s where self-confidence is generated. I think certainly you can find support via a coach or maybe a mentor to help you develop self-confidence and just talking to people about it. But ultimately, I do think it’s probably something that ultimately the shift has to come from within.
Aoifinn Devitt: Very interesting. I think the other point, getting back to Katherine’s point about a mouse and how does it make you feel, I think that’s the difference between feeling that the situation doesn’t feel right, perhaps, or an introvert who genuinely doesn’t like perhaps big events that involve a lot of public speaking. I think it’s possible to be very comfortable in your own skin and not like that, but equally, the lack of confidence is a negative effect that we don’t like that situation and want to move. I’m just going to go back to Kate on the executive search front. So you’ve worked with clients, and I certainly— do you see clients who’ve benefited from this kind of coaching? And how do you ensure that women can really have the most, I suppose, productive career trajectory that they deserve?
A: I think it’s really important that women do own their own achievements, and having a coach or a mentor is a fabulous way to have an external perspective because sometimes we can have these little demons or parrots on our shoulder. And we do need an external catalyst reminding us of our strengths or what I like to call our superpowers. And as Brian said earlier, no one’s good at everything. And you certainly, know, not all at the same time. I think women are so talented. There are more fabulous women than ever in the pipeline coming out of universities at all levels of companies. And certainly, as we’re recruiting for roles, we see more women than ever. Who get recommended to us, who we think really merit being on longlists and shortlists. In addition to coaching, I think it’s important that you think about who are advocates you can enlist, who are your champions. It could be a group of girlfriends, it could be former colleagues, it could be a sister or a sister-in-law, but it is important that you have those people in your corner who you can turn to when maybe you’re trying to negotiate a pay rise or thinking about a stretch assignment or considering a change in role and having that group of your own directors. And obviously, it can be men and women. It’s whoever really understands what makes you tick and what you’re good at.
Aoifinn Devitt: It’s an interesting point. And also, I think sometimes there may be a bit of a misnomer in the term executive coaching because there’s a sense that it’s only reserved for executives and that if you know, kind I’m, of making my way up the ladder, I don’t I can’t ask for any. I know, Brian, that you’ve worked with people right across their career at every level. It seems to me that coaching is something that should really be available and certainly accessed at almost every stage. Would you say that?
Speaker D: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think just on that, while maybe a company or an organization has a finite amount of resources, one of the things we did in the last number of years was we kind of set up a coaching function within our business. And as part of that, our management team have access to coach, and I head up that service. But what we’ve done over the past kind of 18 months is we do coaching skill sessions for everybody in the firm. So during the pandemic, we actually bring the whole firm together, and people go into breakout rooms, and they take it in turns to be the coach, the coachee, and the observer. And they have 10 minutes each, and then they give feedback to each other, and then they go and they rotate the roles. And we find that that’s really helpful, that it’s a way of kind of embedding a coaching culture, and it kind of has a ripple effect as well. And then just to say, I think people who have the opportunity to be coached, I think the positives of that is when you’re coached yourself, and I’ve been coached, that actually enables me— the people that I’m a better manager because I’m coached, and the people I’d like to think the people that I work with, actually it helps their management skills too. And that way it kind of, it can permeate through the firm.
Aoifinn Devitt: Really interesting, especially the point about the observer. And I think I’ll bring this point up later, but I think we need a lot more observers in our meetings, especially now when most of them are being held by Zoom. Observers to ensure that people are getting their voice heard and getting a chance to speak when they can.
Speaker D: Sometimes people find it very hard to be the observer, to give the feedback, and that’s something where we encourage— because this is right across our firm, from trainees to partners— it’s encouraging the trainees to give candid feedback too.
Aoifinn Devitt: Catherine, do you see coaching as a career-long I think it’s a career-long pursuit.
Speaker C: And I think it should be provided to everybody all the way through. Brian and myself were talking about this at one point. Even though I work as a coach, I still engage a coach to work with me and have done for a long, long time. I think you always need, as Kate said, you need a lot of people in your corner who will be advocates for you, be that a coach, a mentor, pal, a sister-in-law, but anything that will help you bring out the best in yourself is worth investing in. I often hear women say, but it’s very expensive and the firm won’t pay for it. And my retort is always, well, would you buy a handbag that costs you a lot of money? And the answer is, of course. Well, then it’s worth investing that amount of money in yourself because it’ll last a lot longer than the handbag.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. Well, I’d like to just do a sort of final roundup of maybe— here we are still, unfortunately, at this time, not all together in one room. We’re all doing this. We’ve got very good at Zoom, but we’re all working from home. Still on Zoom. Is there any kind of one thing that we could have our listeners take away that they can work on in the near term to just maybe boost their confidence, even in a certain area or more generally? What would you say would be kind of a tangible takeaway action plan? Maybe I’ll start with you, Brian, since I know you have done a lot of this quite recently in your firm.
Speaker D: So I think everyone’s had a really tough year, and that’s, you know, no matter who we are, what we do, everyone’s had a really tough year at the the pandemic. And I’d say if people could just be— I’d encourage people to just be a little bit kinder to themselves. And that might sound a bit vague. So in terms of how you might do that is encouraging people to just take a little bit of time out of their day to do something that brings them a bit of joy, peace, happiness, and fun, whatever that is. And for me, that might be 10 minutes of meditation first thing in the morning. And that helps me to be more present, a little less reactive. And that can have a ripple effect in the rest of my day. But for others, it could be getting out into nature for a run or a walk or a swim in the sea. It could be meeting a friend for a walk or a coffee. And I think the benefits of that aren’t just that we’re getting exercise. It’s actually more about putting value on ourselves and our well-being. And I think if we do that, that can have a ripple effect, and I think we could feel better about ourselves. So I’d say try to be kind to yourself, and maybe how to do that— carve a little bit of time out of your day to do something that brings you a bit of fun and joy.
Aoifinn Devitt: How about you, Catherine? Is there any one thing that our listeners could take away to boost their confidence or start working on that in their daily lives?
Speaker C: I have a tagline which says, ‘Be kind, be brave, be safe.’ So I don’t give advice as I believe that it’s all within you, but a thought: if you are feeling uncomfortable about saying or doing something, do it or say it.
Aoifinn Devitt: Absolutely. Kate, any takeaway or piece of advice you’d give our listeners?
A: I love what both Brian and Katherine said. I might add to it in terms of saying, ask yourself at the end of each day, or maybe it’s at the end of each week, what went well? What am I proud of? What did I accomplish? You know, maybe it was something big, maybe it was something small, but I’m also of the camp, I believe a lot in, you hear people talk about gratitude journals. And so thinking about how much we have to be thankful for. Often helps really put things in perspective. Often, at the end of a day or a week, you’ll realize, “Wow, I really tackled that well.” I think that act builds upon itself.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, great. I’m going to add one of my own. While I’m speaking, if any of you has anything else you’d like to contribute to this, I think, very important discussion on confidence, please come in at the end. For me, it’s about listening and visibility. I’ve been doing these podcasts for a year. I’ve really developed a listening muscle, I think, and it’s kind of sad to think I had to wait this long in my career to develop it. But actually, that has been profoundly life-changing for me to be able to now empathize more readily. It is certainly— one identifies with everybody’s insecurities and we see that we’re not alone. Listening is a great skill. Tied to that, the point I made about meetings, having maybe a second— Brian mentioned the notion of an observer. I do think that all chairmen or chairwomen need to have a second chair of a meeting, which is an observer. Is everybody speaking in this meeting? Is everyone being heard? We’ve had the concept of the ancient tribes passing a stick from one to the other so that people speak when they get the stick. There doesn’t seem to be that function on Zoom yet, but I do think that having that and the ability to speak when you’re given the stick and then pass it on, just to ensure that there is that visibility and that we’re all listening to each other, I think that will be very important, I think, in shoring up our own confidence because we will see that we’re really more alike with our peers than we are different. So that’s my contribution as a non-expert to this discussion. Just before we finish up, does anyone have anything that we haven’t said so far on the topic of confidence that they’d like to share?
A: I might just add that I think it’s a good thing to talk about. So if you’re having a day or a week where you’re not feeling particularly confident, don’t hide that. Ask for help. Enlist your supporters. Maybe no one else saw it in you that particular day or week. But as Catherine said early on, everyone feels this at some stage of their career— men, women, junior, senior. And I think you’ll find that people will really want to help you.
Speaker D: I think that’s a great point, Kate, because even in the lead-up to today, I had lots of great conversations over the past 10 days or so with my colleagues, male and female, on the issue of self-confidence. And it was just some really healthy and honest conversations between us as well. So I think opening that dialogue is a big step forward.
Speaker C: I would agree. And I think the best thing you can get out of all this is you can gain from us. Excuse the pun.
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, that’s a wonderful place on which to end. Yes, we all need to gain. Well, thank you so much to all the panel, to Kate Grissom, for listening, Kathryn Heslin and Brian Hillary. It’s been a real pleasure to discuss this with you today. Clearly, this is a discussion that we need to keep having, but I think we’ve certainly set us off on the right path now. Thank you for sharing your insights with us.
Speaker C: Thanks, Aoifinn.
Speaker D: Thanks, Aoifinn. Thanks, Kathryn.
Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn and David. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces breakout room made in collaboration with Girls Are Investors. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors on their personal journeys, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice, and all views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations and affiliations of the host or any guest.
