Character Matters w/ @claudesilver

is we do need to be able to trust ourselves, to take chances, to recognize the gifts we bring into the world, to speak up while remaining grounded enough to be learners, to listen, and to appreciate what other people bring. As Jeremy said, Gary absolutely lives in these spaces, 1000%. And it's something that we really, really push at, Dana, which is humility. Why? Because a lot of people already come in with confidence or false confidence. If we find or feel that out, we want to bring them to a place of status, like of humility, because you can start and grow pretty much anything from humility, which is interesting that the word actually means close to the earth or grounded. Now sometimes we confuse confidence with being the loudest person in the room. And then we think humility makes us smaller. I actually don't think any of those things are true. I think we can be enormously capable without being arrogant. And we can be deeply humbling, deeply humbled without having to question our worth. So I want us to explore what happens when self-belief, aka confidence, meets self-awareness, aka humility, and how we practice both in our lives today. And how we become people who know our strengths while helping others recognize theirs. Because after all, I believe that's what VFRIENDS is all about. And I certainly believe that's what these characters are all about. And I'll just say it again, I think there's something in each and every character which knows and plays to their strengths and helps other characters or characteristics, as we're talking about, come out, which is really, really awesome. So a couple of things I wanted to just chat through in terms of things that might be obvious. Confidence is not having all the answers. When I was younger and I already mentioned I was a late bloomer, I thought everyone that had the answers was confident and I just was a loser. Really confident like they could retain information, confident, they did great on their tests, confident. They got into the schools they wanted, confident, they got the boyfriend or girlfriend, they wanted, right? And I actually almost projected that those people were better than me, really, that those people were better than me. I really had to work through that as in my 20s and 30s for sure. I would say mostly my 20s were spent really just being like, what happened to me? And how can I redo this or how can I, whether or not relearn or learn for the first time, how to actually like myself, I'm not even talking love myself. So any who, personal story, I mean, I've gone along, as you know, and I know you guys do too, confidence isn't certainty and that was a very big kind of unlock for me. Confidence doesn't mean you know everything. But confidence, what I understand it to be is being willing to move forward, even in uncertainty, being willing to take that first step, even if you don't know how deep the water is yet. So one of the things I've learned, one of the many things I've learned working with Gary for these 12 plus years is that here is a leader who is at the top of his game, at the peak and all of that other stuff that we know Gary to embody. He can have enormous conviction, but he is still willing to admit when he's wrong, and also he is willing to change direction. That is one of the things I admire greatly about Gary. Those two things can coexist. He can believe deeply in an idea and also remain open to new information. And I have never in my life worked with a CEO like that, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's very rare I think that you find someone who is so strong in beliefs, in their beliefs, but also as he will say, malleable, able to change, able to see the other side's plural of things. And so when I thought about this, I thought the aha for me is confidence isn't knowing you're going to get it right. It's trusting yourself to figure out what to do when you don't get it right. Love to see some emojis on it, that landed for people. Confidence isn't knowing you're going to get it right, but it's trusting yourself to figure out what to do when you don't. And it's also trusting yourself to take that proactive step forward. Do we got a couple of people, a few people that are like, yeah, I get that, I get that. Yeah. So now let's talk about humility, because this is a, this is a biggie for me. Humility isn't making yourself smaller. Humility isn't becoming a martyr, right? Humility is knowing you have something to contribute, valuable, hopefully, without believing you're the only person in the room that has an idea. And if you think about, you know, being in brainstorms at work, or being in brainstorms in your church projects or or V friends projects, the cool thing is like, yes, I'm going to raise my hand because I have something I want to contribute, but I can guarantee there's five other people in here who have great ideas as well. And so it's like allowing space, allowing breath, allowing other thoughts and ideas to come into the space without feeling like you are the only one that has this idea. Because if that, if that was the case, I mean, I don't know if we would even have electricity, we would probably, Ben Franklin would have been like, I've got an idea for, I mean, Thomas Edison, sorry, had an idea for electricity, and someone else would have been like, yeah, I don't know about electricity, I've got an idea for splashing around, splashing water around everywhere. Okay, well then we wouldn't have electricity. Anyway, the other thing that is something that's very impactful for me and something that resonated for me a lot when I was younger and continues to do so, especially as a leader, especially as someone that prides herself on, I'm doing a lot of sharing, teaching, coaching, you don't have to dim your own light to appreciate someone else's light. You don't have to dim your own light to appreciate someone else's light. And the only thing, the other thing I'm going to say about humility and again, going deep is, I actually did think humility was about being a martyr when I was younger. I didn't feel like I had a lot to offer in the confidence game. And so I figured, well, if I don't have any feelings or any needs, then maybe I can be accepted, maybe I can feel like I'm a part of the family, maybe I can feel like, you know, I'm good enough to join this group, I don't know, you know, I'm not feeling the blank, this is definitely in my teenage hood. And so I chose, I chose literally to almost pretend that I didn't really have much feeling about anything, that everything was okay, and I could kind of be like a dormat, not really feel a whole lot. Well, you can only imagine what that does when you swallow all of those feelings when they come up at some point, don't they? Thank God. So a couple other things I'm gonna chat about, and then I'm so excited to hear what everyone has to say in terms of, you know, you don't have to dim your own light to appreciate someone else's. And, you know, the idea of martyrdom and the idea of a shadow of humility and the shadow of confidence, which we know is arrogance and really thinking you are the only one, the only one, the only one, the only one. So I put up a couple parables today on X-Paces, about, you know, confident Cobra and humble hedgehog walk into a bar, and then I did another one. They were on a road trip, and I really could, I was like, oh, yeah, I could see those guys on a road trip. And I was thinking about, you know, what would the character, well, what would the character of the Cobra say? And the Cobra's like, I got the idea. I got this all sorted, I'm good, we're good, we're good. I know exactly where we're going. And the hedgehog's like, okay, I get that you know where we're going, but like, have you stopped like, put it in a GPS or look at a map? No, I'm good, I'm good. I've been here a thousand times. Hedgehog's like, totally cool, I got that. And I think it'd be good if we just like, put it into a GPS system. And the marriage of both of those things is really what we're talking about. Someone that is like, I'm good, I really think I know where we're going and I'm willing to put it into, I'm willing to see another side, I'm willing to listen to you. So anyway, personal story going back to just my role as a chief heart officer at VaynerX, I spend an enormous time listening to people and learning what they're experiencing and really holding space in making room for whatever is they're going to share, right? They could share a myriad of things. I'm 99% of the time short, it's not gonna be about me. They just need someone to listen and hear them and recognize. And there are other times that I am listening to people and I can see that they're waiting for me to make a decision or to help them decide on the next course, right? Share my perspective or say the thing that really needs to be saying, it needs to be said. And I used to kind of wait to hear if there was an invitation, hey, Claude, what do you think? Or I'd love to hear your advice. And then I realized there's a lot of people that aren't gonna ask me, they're literally not gonna say, what do you think? And so oftentimes I'll say, I've got an idea, you mind if I share. And that is my way of being empathetic. I've got an idea, you mind if I share, right? Without being a doormat, without being passive, right? And being confident, this is the thing I try to really, really share with our leaders in the workplace. Being confident doesn't mean you stop listening. In my book, in Gary's book, being confident, as I've already said, means you feel like you've got a good idea of the direction, but boy, oh boy, wouldn't it be fascinating to hear other perspectives? And so we here today are gonna talk about the courage to have both. Both of these traits require enormous emotional bravery. It takes courage to raise your hand, especially if you're unsure, you're an introvert, you're shy, you're new to the game, you're your first time in this call, and also takes great courage to say, I'm proud of myself. That for me is one that came much later in life. I'm proud of myself. And I'm proud of myself, for sure. And when I wrote that book and it finally went out, I was like, Claude, you know what, I'm proud of you. You did something that was terrifically tremendously hard. No one really knows how hard it was. It was hard for you and you did it, and you like it, and it's out there. I'm proud. And it was pretty cool to say that. So that's the other thing I wanna say. Now, when we bring all of these things together, bring it all home, bring these two characteristics to life, what I really would love for people to also take away from humble hedgehog and confident cobra, is you don't need to choose between either. You do not need to choose. I'm putting on my confident boots today. I wanna put on my humility cape today. You can wear both of those together. You don't have to choose between believing in yourself and also believing that you can learn from another person. You can celebrate your accomplishments. Be they huge, be they small, it doesn't matter. They mean something to you and genuinely be excited for what someone else has accomplished. And the way I say that oftentimes in the workplace and I'll say here, it's the same thing. When you win, I win. And when I win, you win because we're a family, because we're a community, because we work together, because we play together. And put it out there, I guess like in soccer, or I don't know enough of the positions in football, but I know they're wide receivers, right? And so what happens if the quarterback throws it to the other wide receiver, not you, and they catch it and they go for the touchdown, are you gonna be upset? No, you're gonna be stoked. They got a touchdown, that means you got a touchdown. Anyway, it's a pretty cool way to move through life. So that's what I will say at this moment.