I’ve been thinking a lot about how fear can show up in our lives in sneaky ways—especially when we don’t even realize it. Maybe you’ve noticed it too, that feeling of snapping at someone or getting defensive when it’s not even necessary. What’s wild is that it’s not really about being angry—it’s fear wearing the mask of aggression, and we often don’t see it for what it is until it's already done damage.

I was having a conversation with my friend Trevor Boylston, who’s a coach and leadership expert, and he put it this way: “Fear makes us fight to protect something we feel we’re losing.”

That stuck with me, because SO OFTEN we disguise our fear behind that sense of aggression because it feels like we can control it. But the truth? It’s a complete disconnect from true confidence.

Trevor’s insight on this is spot on—he helps us understand how fear shows up in subtle ways, like defensiveness or shutting people down before they have the chance to finish a thought. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, but it’s also a learned response that we can unlearn. If we’re not consciously aware of how we’re responding, fear takes the wheel, and the confidence we’re striving for gets left behind.

Confidence gives you the space to not react from a place of fear. It’s like this invisible shield that helps you stay calm and centered when others are spiraling-- staying grounded, rather than escalating things, is a much more powerful response.

So, if you’ve ever found yourself reacting out of fear, snapping at someone, or shutting down in a conversation, this episode is for you. It’s not just about controlling your aggression—it’s about understanding what’s underneath it and building the confidence to face it head-on. Settle in, hit play, and let’s unpack this together.

You’ll walk away knowing:

• How fear turns into aggression and why we don’t always see it.
• What makes us go from zero to angry in the blink of an eye.
• Why emotional intelligence is your secret weapon when things get heated.
• What to do when you feel that aggressive energy bubbling up.
• How to handle tough conversations without letting fear take the wheel.

Trevor Boylston is the guy in the cube next to you who brings the ‘everyman’ perspective to working in a corporate environment as a transgender individual. With experience driving LGBTQ+ empowerment at a leading medical device company, and volunteer service with a leading LGBTQ+ community health center, Trevor brings an authentic view of how to foster an inclusive culture within a corporate structure. Learn more about Trevor or hire him to speak at trevorboylston.com.

The last few weeks have brought a lot of loss into my life—family members, extended family, and friends. Some were expected, others were far too sudden and heartbreaking. Through it all, I kept hearing this phrase: live your best life. And I couldn't help but wonder, what does that really mean? What does it look like to truly live our best life, especially when life can be so unpredictable?

When we're young, "living our best life" might look like partying, chasing thrills, and living on the edge. Then, as we hit midlife, maybe it's about career success, raising kids, or building a solid foundation for the future. As we get older, though, living our best life shifts again. We start focusing on health, relationships, and finding more meaningful experiences. It becomes about aligning how we spend our time with what truly matters—our values, our purpose, our joys.

Living our best life isn't just about doing what makes us feel good in the moment; it’s about being intentional with our time, energy, and resources. It's about pruning out the things, habits, and even people that no longer serve us. Maybe those friends who were once fun in our twenties don't fit into our life anymore. Maybe that item in the house we've been holding onto for years isn't really bringing us joy. At some point, we all have to make the decision to stop wasting time or energy on things that aren't meaningful anymore.

This kind of shift requires maturity, confidence, and the courage to prioritize what really matters. And it’s not always easy—sometimes, it means confronting habits or relationships that we’ve clung to for a long time. But I truly believe that living your best life is about activating those dreams and desires that you’ve pushed aside. Maybe it's traveling to Greece or finally writing that book. It's not about making excuses. It’s about making those things a priority and figuring out how to make them happen.

So how do we go about it? I’m glad you asked, but the answers are in the episode. If you’re ready to find out YOUR best life and how to start living into it, listen in.

One day we’re traveling through life in the lane we’ve been in for seemingly ever and the next there’s this whisper—this pull telling you to switch gears.

That’s exactly where this episode’s guest, Shellie Rapson, found herself. Mid-life, she’d built a successful corporate career, was living a comfortable life, but something just wasn’t clicking anymore. She hit a point where she had to ask herself, Do I really want to keep going down this road? Or is it time to do something that actually lights me up?

For Shellie it happened after she pulled her car into her driveway after another day at the office and it was a full-on “a-ha” moment. Suddenly, there was no time to waste. She knew that NOW was the time to chase something that mattered.

Shellie’s career-change story is all about what can happen when we answer the call of a gut feeling even when it seems crazy. She turned her back on her safe, corporate career and dove headfirst into global health where the work is literally life and death.

Can we talk about how scary that must’ve been? But she went for it, and I’m here for it.

What’s wild is that she almost felt guilty at first. Can you imagine walking away from a career where you're the breadwinner, the one everyone relies on? Shellie had this whole "Am I being selfish?" thing going on. But here’s the thing—her passion for global health, for projects like bringing ambulances to rural Uganda, was so much bigger than that guilt.

What I love most about her journey is how it’s a reminder that confidence doesn’t mean knowing exactly what’s next. It’s about believing enough in yourself to make that leap—even when you don’t have it all figured out yet. Shellie didn’t know what the future held when she made this change, but she knew it was her change to make.

And that kind of confidence? That’s what we need more of.

Key takeaways from our conversation:

• Confidence isn’t about knowing everything; it’s about trusting yourself enough to jump, even when the path isn’t clear.
• You don’t have to wait for the perfect time to make a change - and there really isn’t one.
• You can let go of the comfort zone without losing stability.

At the end of the day, it’s not about stuff or status. It’s about living a life that feels authentic and meaningful.

After nearly three decades in corporate communications, Shellie followed her heart in 2024 to pursue a long-held dream in global health. The loss of a loved one became her catalyst for change, showing her that some dreams can't wait. Today, Shellie is completing her global health certification with fieldwork in Uganda, connecting rural villages with vital transportation to health centers. She now serves as a communications strategist with Pipeline Worldwide, a nonprofit dedicated to delivering sustainable health solutions to communities living in extreme poverty in northern Uganda. For more information about Shellie’s work visit www.pipelineworldwide.org.

There are the folks who are deep—the ones who focus on one thing and completely immerse themselves in it. They’re experts, the ones who can go on and on about their craft, their passion, their field of knowledge.

Then there are the wide ones—the people who are a little bit of everything. They know a little about a lot, and they’re adaptable. They might not master a single thing, but they’re curious, they’re versatile, and they always seem to have the right answer, or at least a solution to get things moving.

It’s fascinating, really, because both types of people are confident in their own way. The deep folks have this steady, unshakeable confidence that comes from years of dedication and learning. You can tell when someone is deep—they walk into a room and immediately command respect because they own their space and their expertise. It’s not cocky. It’s a quiet, powerful confidence that comes from knowing exactly what they bring to the table.

But then there’s the wide people, and I love them too and not just because I’m one of them! Wide people have this ease in their confidence because they aren’t afraid to try new things, to jump into unknown territories. They have this natural ability to connect with different kinds of people and situations. They aren’t intimidated by things they don’t know—they just roll with it, which I think takes a different kind of confidence, the kind that’s born from possibility, not perfection.

Which one are you? Does it matter when it comes to confidence? Listen in as I break down who’s deep, who’s wide, and how each approach shapes how we feel about ourselves and our own confidence, no matter how we show up in the world.

This episode of Real Confidence is a wild one. I’m talking to Sean Harvey, founder of Warrior Compassion Institute and author of Warrior Compassion, and we get into the real, messy, and honestly kind of scary work of sitting down with people most of us would run from. Think white nationalists, men feeling lost in a changing world, people whose views might make your skin crawl. But Sean doesn’t argue or shut them down—he meets them with love, curiosity, and a whole lot of patience or in other words, confidence.

And somehow, it works.

Sean and I talk about why polarization is making everything worse, how dehumanization goes both ways, and why Sean believes his work is the missing step before DEI efforts can actually stick. He’s all about helping people get emotionally and psychologically ready for those hard, awkward, necessary conversations—the kind that don’t just change minds but actually open hearts.

I don’t want to give too much away, but the highlights of conversation that stick with me—and will stick with you too, include:

• Why Sean meditates with extremists instead of debating them
• How curiosity and compassion can keep even the toughest conversations going
• Why polarization dehumanizes everyone—including us
• The "bridging mindset" and how it leads to real change; and
• A terrifying moment that proved to Sean he was exactly where he needed to be

Sean’s approach to dealing with hateful people confidently and compassionately is fascinating, and if you want to go deeper into his work, visit check out WarriorCompassion.com where you can also sign up for his mailing list and get copy of his book.

There’s an awful feeling we all know—being taken advantage of.

You know the one. It hits when you realize you’ve been pushed into a decision, and you’re left questioning, Was I just tricked into doing something I didn’t want to do?

It’s the regret that follows, and it makes you question: Am I a sucker?

I’ve felt it, especially when dealing with high-pressure situations, like buying a car. The dealership pushes you to make a decision on the spot, and though I’ve done my research, I still wonder if I was manipulated into a choice I wasn’t fully confident in. It’s a feeling I try to avoid, yet we all experience it in different ways.

This feeling doesn’t always come from those obvious, high-stakes situations either. It can happen in quieter moments, too—when friends, family, or even institutions we trust subtly push us into decisions. Maybe it’s a charity asking for more than you’re comfortable with, or an event that makes you feel obligated to give more of your time than you want to.

Even the smartest, most confident people can fall into these traps. I’ve watched as others get scammed through phishing schemes, tricked into believing they were doing the right thing, only to lose money or worse. It happens when we’re vulnerable, when our brains are not fully online and the fear is driving us into decisions we wouldn’t normally make.

So what can we do? We already feel like a sucker and now we feel even more vulnerable.

The key to reclaiming our confidence here is simple.

Listen in for my take on how we take our power back, find clarity and build the confidence to trust ourselves so the choices we make feel right, not pressured.

As someone who's witnessed neurological challenges and success through my own son's journey, the story I’m sharing in this episode of Real Confidence resonated extremely deeply.

During her senior year as a competitive swimmer at Bryant University, Nicole Salzano experienced a life-altering health event after swimming the 500 freestyle in the Northeast Conference Championship: a massive stroke that doctors believed would permanently disable her. They told her parents she would never walk, talk, or use her right arm again.

Nicole had lost her future opportunities as a competitive swimmer and many other graduation goals, but her response to this was anything but defeated. Her athletic background as a swim team captain became her greatest asset. With incredible determination, she embarked on an intensive recovery journey.

Her recovery wasn't quick or easy. It took three and a half years of rigorous therapy - speech, occupational, physical - with countless repetitive exercises. She experienced burnout, pushed through, and ultimately returned to her passion by becoming a swim coach, teaching children the sport she loves.

What struck me most was Nicole's strength of spirit. She transformed a potentially devastating medical event into a powerful narrative of hope and possibility. Her approach wasn't just about physical recovery, but about redefining her own potential and leaning into her real and unshakable confidence.

Highlights from our conversation include:

• The reminder that personal identity isn't defined by medical limitations, but by our individual wills and perspectives
• How confidence emerges not from avoiding obstacles, but from how we choose to respond to them
• Why our personal support teams can be as transformative during recovery as our medical teams
• The role the magic combination of persistent, focused effort and neuroplasticity plays in healing

Nicole tracks her recovery journey on Instagram. You can find and follow her @nicole.salzano.

Friends, we made it—100 episodes of Real Confidence! And because I believe in practicing what I preach, I’m doing something different. No guest. No script. Just me, pulling back the curtain on what real confidence looks like when you hit the big milestones because I’m hitting one myself.

I’m turning 60 in two weeks (!) – the age research shows that we human beings reach peak confidence!

Six decades of life, 100 episodes of this podcast, hundreds of confidence coaches certified and countless moments that have shaped what confidence means to me right now.

And guess what? It’s not what I thought it would mean AT ALL.

You already know from listening to me that confidence isn’t a destination. It’s not something we “arrive” at just because you’ve done the reps or racked up the awards.

Confidence shifts. It deepens. And sometimes it throws you a curveball just when you think you’ve got it figured out.

So, what actually matters when you hit the big milestones? What do you keep? What do you leave behind? And how do you push forward when the doubts creep in—because, yes, they still do.

This episode isn’t about looking back. It’s about what’s next—for you, for me, and for the confidence we build every single day. Let’s get into it together, including the biggest lessons - from my powerhouse guests to moments that nearly made me quit.

But before we get into that, thank you for being with me 100 episodes in and 60 years now in the making of who I am and practicing what I preach.

We got this.