Nicole Kalil

I was trying so hard to be like everyone else around me.

And I completely lost any confidence I might have had anywhere along the way.

And so I think as is true for so many of us, the pain and the discomfort

led me to what has become a passion a mission a purpose the lack of confidence is what had me focus on it and then being surrounded by people telling us to be confident but very rarely telling us how you actually become confident like I'm like a how-to girl give me the step-by-step tell me what to do and I'll do it so I really wanted to dig into the more tactical side of confidence.

First, I would say observation.

I started paying attention to the people around me and who was confident and what were they doing and why were they doing it?

And then beginning to recognize that sometimes people who appeared confident were not and recognizing that there's still some insecurities at play with people who are achieving at the highest levels or have success or the highest income.

And so it just was a...

paying attention to things that were going on around me and starting to define what is the confidence that I want?

What is it the life that I want?

And a parsing of that.

And then of course, like anybody would, I started reading anything I could get my hands on as it related to confidence.

And then digging from there, listening to podcasts, listening to TED Talks, anything that was confident adjacent, I was all over.

Then, which is kind of a funny way to do it.

I started teaching it as a woman in a male dominated field.

I was often being asked to do women's events or, and I had avoided those like the plague.

I didn't want to be a great woman leader.

I wanted to be a great leader.

But the universe has a way of, or God has a way of driving you in a certain direction.

And so I found myself working with a lot of women, coaching a lot of women, mentoring a lot of women, and I was passing down what I was learning.