Ep. 51 : Confidence Across Domains: From Fear to Frameworks
You're wildly confident in one area of your life and completely falling apart in another. I'm calling that out, and I have a five-step framework to fix it.
I open with a story that perfectly sets the tone: I once briefed a colonel and a room full of subject matter experts at an Air Force Base while dressed as Darth Vader, no problem. But opening Hinge for the first time in seven years? Suddenly I needed a committee. That contrast is the whole episode. We tend to treat confidence like it belongs to specific areas of our lives, career, gym, dating, business, rather than recognizing it as something that lives in us and can move freely between domains.
The real turning point comes at the gym. I notice that the fear I'm carrying about building my Founder's Framework, a system I'm creating for entrepreneurs that centers how you work best rather than prescribing a one-size-fits-all approach, has leaked into my lifting session. I catch myself reaching for a 10-pound plate when my notes from the week before clearly said to start at 45. That moment of recognition becomes the whole lesson: if fear can cross over, so can confidence.
From there, I walk through five concrete steps to cross-pollinate confidence across areas of your life. Name the compartmentalized belief. Get curious about whether it is actually true. Define what confidence looks like in the area where you already have it. Notice what the absence of confidence looks like in both areas. Then decide to bring the same confident behaviors and mindset from one area into the other. It is practical, honest, and grounded in real examples from my own life.
What You'll Hear
✔️I briefed a colonel dressed as Darth Vader without flinching, then needed a committee to write one Hinge message.
✔️The fear I was feeling about my Founder's Framework literally changed what weight I almost loaded at the gym.
✔️If a single spilled coffee can ruin your entire day, the opposite is also true, and I show you exactly how to use that.
✔️A five-step framework for cross-pollinating confidence so the version of you that shows up at the gym or in the boardroom can show up everywhere else too.
"If my fear can permeate this area of my life, then that means my confidence in the gym should also be able to permeate other areas of my life." — Laura Dionisio
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You made the move, or maybe you're about to, or maybe you're still in it, showing up, performing, delivering, while something quiet in the background keeps saying, "This is not it." Either way, something has shifted, and you can't unknow it. Here's what nobody tells you. The landing strip is a little rocky once you come down from the high of accomplishment.
There are moments of real excitement, real clarity, like, "Yes, this is exactly where I'm supposed to be." And then night comes, and the anxiety rolls in, the what-ifs, the what am I actually doing? Not because you made the wrong choice, by the way, but because you're standing in the space between who you were and who you're becoming.
Done pretending this is enough, done pushing through, done ignoring the thing that keeps pulling at you. That's exactly where this podcast lives. I'm Laura [00:01:00] Dionisio, founder of Lead Intact, and I've been exactly where you are. The corporate success that stopped feeling like success, the leap that was equal parts terrifying and necessary, the messy, non-linear process of building something that actually fits, and learning to trust yourself through all of it.
This is the pivot point. Real conversations about what's actually happening beneath the surface and what it takes to build a life that feels as good as it looks. Not just the wins, the attempts, too. Because I'm not here to romanticize the journey. I'm here to show you what it's really like. Let's get into it.
I once briefed a colonel and a room full of 20 plus other people at the Air Force Base, and I'm talking about subject matter experts, team leads, my boss's [00:02:00] boss, dressed as Darth Vader, and it was nothing
But then once I opened Hinge to attempt dating for the first time in, like, seven years, suddenly I needed a whole committee to help me write the, quote-unquote, "perfect message."
Have you ever experienced that, where you feel so confident in one area in your life but feel completely incompetent in another? Samesies. And here's the thing.
Why is this important? Because I realize, both in how I spoke to myself and also in conversations with friends, that we often tend to compartmentalize confidence as if confidence doesn't belong within us inherently, or maybe not inherently, but, like, as part of your root system.
And what ends up happening is if you have a belief in your mind that, "Of course I'm confident in this area and not in the other," it's gonna keep you stuck, and it's gonna make the process so much harder for whatever it is [00:03:00] that you're looking to do. So I'll give an example.
I am currently working on something that I believe is a game changer for entrepreneurs, especially those who are looking to scale.
Because what I've learned is when I study other existing systems out there for entrepreneurs, other frameworks, architecture, that kind of thing, I realize that there was something missing, and that is there's always a prescription of this is the best way to do things. This is the best way to set up your team, your meetings, uh, your communication cadence, that kind of thing.
But there isn't really a discussion on, okay, but how do you best work? What's a cadence that works best for you? What are your business goals? What are your life goals? And so when I lean into this, I'm super excited. I'm like, "Yes, this is gonna be amazing. It is, like, the culmination of all of my skills together, the engineering part, the Agile Scrum Master part, the life coach, leadership, career coach Laura."
And then when I get in my head about it, [00:04:00] I'm like, "But who am I? I've never done it specifically like this before, created a framework on my own. Who am I?" And my confidence goes down.
And I was thinking about this the other day as I was at the gym, thinking about, "Okay, I feel wildly unconfident when it comes to creating this founder's framework, which I know is gonna service so many founders out there, especially women.
And yet why am I filled with fear?" And as I was having these thoughts I realized that I was about to load a weight specifically on the leg press machine.
Now, just to give context, okay? Just to give context on numbers, I'm not trying to say this is a good number, a bad number, I'm strong or weak, whatever. For that particular machine, which I believe the base is 50 pounds, I normally warm up, and I'm talking about start with 45-pound plate each. But I noticed that my initial thought was like, "Should I do 35?
No, I should do 25. You know what? Let me do 10." [00:05:00] I noticed that my fear from my business permeated the sanctity that was my gym time. And here's the thing. I have been an avid gym-goer for 16 years now, okay? Started with CrossFit, then did CrossFit and Olympic weightlifting, then now Olympic weightlifting, and, um, I didn't like that.
I'm very serious when it comes to my gains, okay? And so when I noticed that my fear was preventing me from making gains, I was just like, I am not letting fear permeate my gym time.
And as I was getting rid of the 10-pound plate in my hand and going for the 45, I realized, wait a minute, "If my fear can permeate this area of my life, then that means my confidence in the gym should also be able to permeate other areas of my life." And so [00:06:00] that's what I did. Literally, I just told myself, "All right, I'm gonna act confidently in the gym the way I know how to." Which is basically, 'cause what I had realized what I was doing is kind of like taking my time, starting at a much lower weight, et cetera. So I just approached my gym time the way I normally did, and guess what? At a conversation later that day where I was talking about Founder's Framework, the framework that I'm creating, it was the first time I didn't have any fear talking about it.
So imagine that.
So today we're gonna talk about it. I'm going to go through five steps in how to cross-pollinate your confidence in different areas of your life.
Step number one, name the belief or frustration.
So in the example that I just gave, it's something along the lines of I'm so confident in the gym lifting heavy-ass weights. I'm not confident when it comes to doing something new in my business. Another one You may have heard or experienced yourself is, why am I so confident in my career but not when it comes to dating?[00:07:00]
I'm telling you what, literally that was me a few years ago. And here's the thing, I could be given a project at work with minimal background information. Actually, this happened to me when I was given an assignment across the country, and it was stated as like, "Okay, we need you there yesterday. You need to report every day."
And then when I would ask for clarification like, "What are the decisions I get to make? What is my exact role here? Who are the people that I need to talk to to make sure that I can r- run more efficiently?" That kind of thing. I was given nothing. Was I nervous? But it didn't stop me from getting the job done.
And yet when it came to dating, I was like, "I don't know. What is this? I've been gone for a long time. Maybe dating has changed," et cetera. Mind you, when I got sent that assignment across the country, I had never had an assignment like that before. But again, that's because I had the belief of I'm confident in career, not in dating.
Have you said that? [00:08:00] Another belief or frustration you may have, and by belief I mean compartmentalized confidence, right? Where you're confident in one area, not the other. I can speak up for my team, but I have a hard time advocating for myself when it comes to asking for a raise. That was me.
Or I have no problem leading a project with minimal training, but I am scared of starting my own business even though I have an idea that just makes my heart sing So just name it. You don't have to do anything in this step. Just be honest. What is the thing that you're saying?
Okay?
And then step two, get curious about what is actually true. Is it a universal truth that every single person is confident in their career but not their love life? No. I know some people who are great in their love life, like they have a stable, loving relationship, exactly what they want, and they're a train wreck when it comes to their career. So therefore, that's not a universal [00:09:00] truth
So once you get curious and realize this isn't a universal truth, the next question is, what would it look like if you were confident in both areas? Not every area, just the two you're comparing right now
Because I know what it looks like when I'm confident at the gym.
It means I take the time to warm up, and I don't scroll on my phone or whatever. And by the way, that was kind of the behavior that I was noticing in myself at the gym when I noticed that the fear had permeated my gym, is that not only was I afraid to start at a weight that my notes from the week before, by the way, clearly said, "Start at this weight on this machine," I would find myself procrastinating going to the gym.
I would find myself taking more rest than needed, right? So that's not what me confident in the gym look like. Confident in the gym look like I was clear, my goal is to start here, and I am really connected to my body and I'm like, "Okay, if it doesn't feel right, [00:10:00] then I adjust," but I don't preemptively adjust because of fear, right?
So step three, explore what confidence means for you. So I just mentioned the actions that I take, right? When I'm confident in the gym, it looks like I start with a goal, I adjust as needed, I don't procrastinate.
And ask yourself how does it feel? For me, when I'm being confident in the gym, it feels normal at this point. Ask yourself, what does normal feel like, right? 'Cause it's easy to say stuff like that. Okay, normal feels like I don't have, like, an elevated heart rate. I don't have thoughts of, like, "Oh my God, can I really do this?
But what if I injure myself? But, like, last week, you know, like, I ate more and I had more sleep. The only thoughts I have is, "Okay, cool. How are my legs feeling? Do I need to stretch a little bit? Do I..." You know, I'm very much present moment
So now step four, notice what the absence of confidence looks like. You can ask the same type of question. So I mentioned when it came to the gym, I [00:11:00] notice that the absence of confidence felt like me procrastinating, it felt like me questioning my notes from the week before. It felt like me adjusting the goal, not because it felt bad in terms of physically I could tell that something was off, but because mentally I wasn't sure I could do it.
And then when it came to my business, I started noticing a similarity. I would make a decision, reach out to this person and tell them about Founder's Framework, right? That's the initial goal. And then the next day I found myself questioning it, not because of something I've done.
So it's not because I reached out to the person and was unable to get into contact with them, or I reached out to the person two times and they mentioned they're not interested. No. I decided not to reach out to the person because the fear got in my head, and I was just like, "Oh, maybe it's not good enough, my Founder's Framework.
Maybe I need to do more research. This is like Wednesday at 5:00 PM, I shouldn't send an email now." So in [00:12:00] terms of what it looks like, it looked like procrastination, it looked like thoughts in my head, it looked like setting a goal and then questioning it, which is strangely enough, the same thing that was happening at the gym.
So why is that important?
That's important because step five then is to decide what does confident in that area look like? What could it look like? So I mentioned with the gym example, it felt normal, which basically neutral, right? Like, I was breathing well. I would set a goal and then try the goal, and I would adjust accordingly.
Again, this is like confidence in the gym. I wouldn't have what if scenarios before actually trying. I would just try first. So taking what I know confidence looks like at the gym and applying it to what could it look like in business, it's actually the same thing.
It's- I would set a goal and just go for it, and then adjust from there. I wouldn't adjust my [00:13:00] goal without first trying it. I wouldn't procrastinate. Confidence looks like making a decision and then acting immediately. It looks like making adjustments as needed as a result of me taking action on it, not as a result of any fear-related thoughts.
Confidence in business looks like not making room for questioning myself and just going for it.
And I also just want to remind you, if you're still kind of like, "I don't see how my confidence in one area in my life can go to another."
Like the example that I gave, and maybe you don't relate to that. Can you think of a time where you were having a, a bad day? What started the bad day? It was probably one single bad moment, right? Maybe in the morning you were making your coffee, and when you went to pour it, you spilled all over your hand and the countertop.
And you're like, "Oh, shit. Ah, it burns. Now I gotta change my clothes." And it could have [00:14:00] stopped just at that moment, but you already had it in your head "Oh, this is, I don't know, an omen that it's a bad day." You probably are not consciously thinking that. And then what happens? You change your clothes, and then you trip on something and you tear it, and then you have to fix it.
Or you manage to make another pot of coffee. You put it in your to-go coffee mug. You're driving in your car, and then as you take a sip, it spills over your clothes again. And you're like, "Ah, this fucking day." You know? And then you get to work, and you notice that in your inbox, your boss is like, "You need to see me as soon as you come in the office."
And you're just like, "Oh, this day sucks." What happened there? What happened was that that one moment when you spilled your coffee set the tone. Or to put it bluntly, 'cause that's what I'm here for, you allowed it to set the tone. What if, instead, you woke up, you do, like, your morning meditation as usual, and you spill the coffee.
And rather than let it set the tone, you're like, "You know what? I felt [00:15:00] at peace after the meditation. Let me just let that permeate the rest of my day." Like, I'm telling you, if it's possible that you could just have a shit day from morning to end, and that's because you started off with a shit moment or what you interpreted as a shit moment, that means the opposite could be true, too.
You know? Like- You can pick a moment, like a feeling, and decide that that's gonna permeate in other areas of your life throughout your day.
But anyway, I hope this, this has been helpful. I just want you to know that this is also a practice. There are still areas in my life where I don't feel all that confident, and that's okay.
The point is to just pick one area that will serve you the most right now in feeling confident, and go from there. And if you enjoy this episode, I would love if you could subscribe, if you haven't already. Leave a review, and please [00:16:00] share this with your friends. Because I truly believe these types of habits, these practices, are essential.
Not just if you are looking to have a successful career or a successful business or whatnot, but so you can have a successful life, where life itself feels good. And just like the theme of this episode, because in this simple daily practice of noticing, it feels good. It can permeate all the other areas of your life.
Thank you so much for being here. And with that, I will catch you in the next episode. Bye for now.
If this episode hit something in you, good. That's not an accident. The discomfort you're feeling isn't a sign that something's wrong with you. It's a sign that you're done. Done living in the eh, done waiting for it to magically feel better, done being really good at a life that doesn't actually fit you anymore.
And if good [00:17:00] enough stopped being good enough a long time ago, that's exactly who I work with. I'm Laura Dionisio. I'm a coach for high achievers who are done pretending that checking the boxes is enough, and are ready to do something about it. If that's you, let's talk. Book a free clarity call at leadintact.com/booking.
We'll figure out together what's actually going on and what your next aligned step looks like. And if you're not quite there yet, that's okay too. Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it. You probably already know exactly who that is. And with that, I'll see you next time