September 16, 2026 – Five-Tool Team Dr. Ricardo Valerdi and Confidence Builder Dr. Cindra Kamphoff

00:01 INTRO 1: In the AM, radio network, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, while we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion, Jim Beach.

00:27 JIM BEACH: Hello, everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. Got a great show for you today. First up, we have Ricardo Valerdi. He has just written a new book called Five-Tool Team on Decision Making, giving you the right tools to make great decisions. We have a wonderful conversation. And we also talk about smart risk. You know, one of the thesis points of the show is that we hate risk. And so we want to do everything we can to reduce it. And Ricardo has a great ideas on smart risk. You know, sometimes we have to take some risk.

01:07 JIM BEACH: And Ricardo will help hopefully teach us to do that or intelligently. After that, we have Dr. Cindra Kamphoff. She is an expert on confidence and oh, this is so exciting. You know the word that I’m most excited about all you longtime listeners know that my favorite word of all time is neuroplasticity. And out of nowhere. Dr. Kamphoff throws out a neuroplasticity. The idea that we can make our brains better, that no matter where we are now, that we can change our brain and make ourselves smarter, it’s not a fake idea, it’s true. And so I’m excited to introduce you to Cindra and to talk about confidence.

01:47 JIM BEACH: I’ve had a lot of trouble in my life with confidence as an introvert. And so it’s got some great information. I bet you’ll learn from it too. We’ll be back in just a second. I’m confident you will be with us.

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02:41 JIM BEACH: We are back and again, thank you so much for being with us. Very excited to introduce my next guest. We’ve already had fun laughing at each other. Please welcome Dr. Ricardo Valerdi to the show. He is the head of the Systems in Industrial Engineering at University of Arizona. He has got an amazing academic career and all sorts of cool accolades. He’s also worked with SpaceX, the U.S. Army, major league baseball, NCAA. As a matter of fact, listen to this. This is the coolest thing ever. He is for the University of Arizona, the liaison between the university and the big 12 and the NCAA.

03:19 JIM BEACH: So when they’re about to get fined for cheating somehow or sports betting or something. He’s the one that has to deal with the problem. So that’s not fun. He is, what else? The author of a forthcoming new book that I’m excited to talk about. It’s called Five Tool Team. Bring out the best in people to make better decisions. Sir, welcome to the show. Ricardo, how you doing?

03:50 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: I’m doing great, James. Thanks for having me.

03:53 JIM BEACH: Jim, please, Jim.

03:54 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Even better.

03:55 JIM BEACH: Yes, yes, of course, sir. So that sports gig sounds like the coolest thing ever. I mean, I’m at a party. That’s what I want to talk about. No?

04:04 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yes. Well, absolutely. I mean, we we went to the final 4 last year in March Madness. Uh, that was a ton of fun. Our football team made a bowl game. Our women’s triathlon team, won a national championship. I mean, things are good in Tucson.

04:20 JIM BEACH: So when you get an invite to the final 4 or something, are you the one that gets the 12,000 tickets that has to decide who gets which tickets and stuff like that? Is that your job?

04:31 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: I wish, man. I only got 2 tickets and I had to pay for them.

04:36 JIM BEACH: Yeah, yeah. Well, the athletic director. The athletic director has all the connects. So you gotta get in with her. So what’s the difference between your job and the athletic director? It sounds like the athletic director works inside and you work outside the university?

04:53 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, so the athletic director, like in any uh, division one, 2 or 3 program is basically the CEO of the athletics department. And they report to the university president. Uh, my role is, I’m still a faculty member, uh, in the university, but I have that additional responsibility of, of doing all the academic certification and compliance oversight, of the student athletes, like you said, if there’s sports gambling going on or academic integrity that we need to address.

05:19 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Those are the, the not so fun parts of the job, but the fun part of the job is helping student athletes be successful in in both in business and academically and in their sport.

05:32 JIM BEACH: What about the, worry about the smaller schools who tried to play along and because you have a climbing facility, they need a five-story climbing facility. And now we have a lot of colleges and universities that are in true financial trouble because they outbuilt themselves. You’re an industrial engineer and head of a system. You can make sure or understand that’s not going to make sense for a long, long time. We’re going to have a big problem.

06:01 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, and this is a unique, uh, characteristic of U.S. Universities, right? You don’t see this anywhere else in the world, and there’s so much passion that alumni and fans have for their sports team, especially in the college town like Tucson, but, you know, you could live in Tuscaloosa, or Ann Arbor, and see the same fire, uh, and same support, and, and the, the, the issue really is there’s so much money involved now, uh, with everything from bowl games to, um, paying athletes, uh, through revenue share and name, image, and likeness. And that really like throws things off kilter.

06:34 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Uh, and so it’s more of a business than it is, uh, the student athlete, pure experience that, you know, maybe places like the Ivy League might still have.

06:44 JIM BEACH: My ex-step-uncle owns the parking lot at Sanford Stadium at UGA, the University of Georgia in Athens. And he owns, not the parking lot. I’m sorry, he owns the ATM inside the parking lot. And, uh, on, I think, 10 days a year or something like that, he says he makes $200,000 a year. From that one week.

07:19 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Wow. Wow, I’m in the wrong business, Jim. I got to I got to rethink my decisions here.

07:25 JIM BEACH: It’s just another example of the money in sports, you know, he also owns bars in Athens. And they make their money, just like, you know, a lot of stores do 90% of their revenue in December. He does 95% of his revenue in 10 weekends.

07:42 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: That’s right And that just shows you how much money there is in college athletics. It goes well beyond all professional sports. There was probably more college sports fans and there are pro sports fans out there.

07:55 JIM BEACH: Yeah. And I was able to look up your salary. Good job, $9,000,000 a year. I’m impressed, my friend, state law openness type stuff. So I remember when I was at UGA. I’m not when I was at G, where the hell was I? Georgia State, GSU. My students pulled up my salary and had it on the screen as I walked in one day on the overhead projector. I was making $40,000 a year, but you, doctor, 9 million. I am impressed.

08:24 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: I think you’re off by a few zeros, brother, but I do get I do get free tickets to the basketball game, maybe.

08:34 JIM BEACH: All right, let’s get serious. Quit getting me off topic. The Five-Tool Team, it’s got a really cool cover, it’s got athletes on the front doing things amongst the red letters of the title. What’s the thesis? The goal. What are you hoping for with this?

08:53 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: What I’m hoping to do with this book is to identify the 5 most important characteristics of good decision makers. And I borrowed the idea from baseball, actually. So in baseball, you have the 5 tool player, and that’s what every scout uses to evaluate a position player. So they they have a little scorecard that shows their ability to hit for average, hit for power, run, throw, and field.

09:16 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: And, and I took that idea, and I asked myself, well, are there a similar number of characteristics for good decision makers, and I landed on 5, and just to give you a preview, they are to focus, look, analyze, scrutinize, and humanize.

09:31 JIM BEACH: Thank you for the pause for us note takers. All right. So, good decision makers, start off with a focus. Does that mean, I’m in the next 12 minutes. I’m in decision making mode and that’s all I’m going to think about for the next 12 minutes or focus on the time, the goal. What?

10:00 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: It’s to focus on asking the right questions. And there’s a variety of things that are important. Like, who is the actual decision maker? When does the decision need to be made by? Uh, who will this decision impact downstream? Those are just 3 of many, many questions that I think are crucial to answer before you even proceed? So a good decision maker asks these questions? And then they really know what they’re in for.

10:28 JIM BEACH: Okay. And that can be, including the decision maker and what’s your budget and all of that stuff.

10:33 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: That’s right. How much money do we have to allocate to this decision? Who’s going to judge the quality of this decision? Uh, think of it as a checklist of things that the more of these that you can mark off, the more prepared you are to move ahead.

10:52 JIM BEACH: And is it rude to ask what the budget is for an event, a process, a purchase order, whatever. So many people who, for example, want to be speakers, are so afraid to find out what the budget is, and there’ll be people I have got friends who have engagements and don’t know what they’re going to get paid for that engagement. It includes flying to a city that they’re, you know, far away and they don’t know when they’re going to get paid or anything. And, uh, Ricardo, I think that, I think the biggest thing I ever learned is that should be your 1st question. What do you think?

11:37 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, I completely agree with you, Jim, because if you don’t know what you’re in for, then you’re taking all of the risk. And making good decisions is about taking smart risks. It’s not about avoiding them, but it’s about taking some measured risks, and that is definitely one that you can mitigate is asking the question of, um, what are your expectations here in terms of compensation because I need to know how much energy to put into this project.

12:08 JIM BEACH: All right, I love it. I love it. And smart risks. I love this word, uh, as well, these 2 words, I am a big proponent in the thesis sort of of this radio show, Ricardo, is that Risk is great for bungee jumpers, but entrepreneurs do everything they can to reduce into mitigate risk. And a serial entrepreneur is the one who figures out to start a business for $5,000 and to test it, and then to scale only if he figures out or if she figures out the model, and we don’t really take risks as successful entrepreneurs. Thoughts please, sir.

12:50 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, I think entrepreneurs, though, are risk takers to an extent, some of them may be more risk seeking, and maybe others are more risk averse, but you are risking, you are putting something up, uh, to potentially lose, which is your time and your money. So I think entrepreneurs differ in the way that they maybe quantify the risk and maybe how much risk they’re willing to expose themselves to. But you can do it in an intelligent way. And I think part of that is asking the right questions at the right time.

13:23 JIM BEACH: Well, you just tell you the rest of the story. So the Athens ATM owner started with $5,000. He rented an abandoned barbershop with a linoleum floor. Had the exposed steel rafters and painted cinder block walls. He spent $4,000 upgrading the bathroom to get it to pass and bought furniture from the flea market for his launch weekend. He only had enough money to buy individual beers. He couldn’t even afford the keg deposit. That was the 3rd weekend when he could afford to have a keg deposit. And he built an empire from that.

14:00 JIM BEACH: And about 3 or 4 years after he was making money and looking good, the guy across the street bought a place and it was a church center and he turned it into a brewery, high-end brewery with those big brass things in the front door. They brewed, you know, the big machines, spent $2,000,000 on the buildout. And so the question is, how many beers do you have to sell to recoup $2,000,000 versus how many beers do you have to sell to recoup $5,000? I just think there’s so much to learn from Joey in that.

14:39 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Absolutely. You know, I’m I’m, I’m not great at uh, doing math in my head, but uh, that’s a lot of beers, man.

14:47 JIM BEACH: Well, if you make a dollar a beer, it’s 2,000,000 beers, you know, and a dollar beer would be a very, very realistic number, you know? And so, uh, That’s just a lot, a lot of beer. And so, you know, then the next place he bought, or I don’t know what it was, was a slightly better place, you know, and then the 3rd or 4th place was the dream that we all have of walking where everyone knows our name, you know? Ricardo. Ricardo, sit next to me. You know, that place.

15:23 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: I love it.

15:24 JIM BEACH: Can we go through the five tools? Um, one by one and… Should we do that? Should we go through focus? We kind of did focus didn’t we? We did focus. We can, we can…

15:38 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, so tool number 2 is to look and to look at the data from multiple perspectives. And this is super powerful because a lot of times our tendency is to just be one track mind and say, I’m going to look, only look at it this way. And what I found by working with Major League Baseball teams and SpaceX and the US Army is that the best decision makers know that the moment that you take a different perspective, whether it’s the perspective of the opposing team or the perspective of your allies, or the perspective of your competitors, the solution may look totally different.

16:19 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: And and that’s a skill that I think people can very easily adopt. They can they can take this on right away without a huge investment in time or energy, but it’s just knowing that by changing your perspective, you can make better decisions.

16:34 JIM BEACH: I have a friend. I went to high school with and he now builds $2 million to $20 million homes in the Georgia area. And I saw him at 38th reunion or something like that, whatever it was. And he told me that one of his things is for the final inspection, he gets on his sheet rock, um, ladder, extension shoes. You know, the, the, the sheet rockers use those shoes that raise them up 4 feet so they can do the ceiling without having to have a ladder at all. Have you ever seen this?

17:08 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yep, yep, yep, I know those.

17:10 JIM BEACH: He walks around to inspect the house on those. So that he can see the house from a different level and to see if you look at it from up here, do you see the top of the door and see that it’s not painted, those sort of things. He changes his perspective and the focus.

17:34 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: That’s a perfect example because you’ll see things that you don’t start. From standing on the floor.

17:40 JIM BEACH: Yeah. Yes. Then you also cuts his legs off and walks around at 2 feet as well. As well. But this is also, I think, this is, you know, the value of the psychiatrist or the bartender or the best friend or someone to, One of the stories that comes to my mind is I was running a business that was out of business. We didn’t know it yet, but it was out of business. And finally, my friend Mark Towery looked at me and was like, Jim, you’re out of business. You’re insane what you’re talking about. You are out of business. And that’s what it hit me.

18:22 JIM BEACH: It took, you know. Took someone that I knew for him to slap me in the face.

18:29 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, I mean, that’s a great example because oftentimes we’re blinded by our own desires and and it does require somebody else to slap us in the face and and realize what is the reality that’s happening and and those are trusted people that we have in our lives. And the point is to include them in these decisions.

18:57 JIM BEACH: Yes, I’m writing a new fiction series and he is still, we have been friends since 1995. Four, 1994. And I’m writing a fiction series and he’s the 1st person to have read it.

19:08 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Oh. I love it.

19:09 JIM BEACH: Yeah, it’s a great series. It’s going to be fun.

19:14 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: I love it. The idea is perfect.

19:17 JIM BEACH: Fun little business crime thriller. So number three, analysis, please, sir. Analysis Did I get that right? My notes good?

19:29 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, it’s it’s to, um, analyze the consequences. And this is, uh, Basically what this means is you think about the decision in your mind. You simulate it in your mind and you try to think of, well, what happens as a result of that decision? And then and then what happens after that? And just thinking about the unintended consequences of decisions, really forces you to evaluate whether it’s a good decision or not.

20:03 JIM BEACH: Okay. And for every business and every job, that’s going to be different, right? I mean, what are the standards? I’m sorry, I interrupted you. You were about to say something.

20:14 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, and what I wanted to elaborate there is that oftentimes people think about unintended consequences as bad. Like, oh, something bad is going to happen. Well, that that’s possible, but it’s also possible for something good to happen that you didn’t anticipate what happened. So, uh, let’s go back to your example about your your family member owning this ATM machine. Right? Uh, There was probably some things that unexpectedly happened as a result of making that purchase that could have helped his business a time, right? And you said that he, He like turned that into, uh, a bar or a hangout place, right?

20:55 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Um, and maybe that led to some other opportunities that he didn’t anticipate. These are unintended consequences. Right? And in your example, they were all positive. Like, he just stacked good decisions on top of good decisions and it was like a positive spiral, right? So, does that, does that resonate with your ATM example?

21:16 JIM BEACH: Yeah, we call that the the corridor principle. Have you ever heard that term used for this, the idea that you are standing at the beginning of a long corridor, and you can see that there are doors, but you can’t see into the doors, and the only way to learn or achieve anything is to start walking down the corridor, and that allows you to finally see what is in room 101 on the left. And by doing that, that gives you the opportunity to go to room 102, where you learn a life lesson that sets up room 107 or, you know, we call that the corridor principle.

21:54 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Bingo. Yeah, and and sometimes what’s behind those doors is a good thing. And sometimes it’s a bad thing.

22:01 JIM BEACH: Yeah. Uh, number four, scrutinize.

22:02 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Scrutinize the options and, you know, this is really easy to do is, when you look at the alternatives that are available to you is just to kind of pick them apart and say, well, uh, what’s what’s the cost benefit of each one or what are the pros and cons of each one? Um, so that, that’s like the most basic way of thinking about the scrutinized tool, but there’s another deeper one, which is often we have to scrutinize ourselves. Like, what are we not asking? Sorry, Jim, I didn’t mean to go that deep, but guess what? It matters when making good decisions.

22:44 JIM BEACH: Oh, fun. Yes. We do have to self-analyze and come to reality. What’s your best advice for accepting the brutality of the hair in the sink or the employee? This is, let me, Ricardo, I had an employee, and I liked him so much, and he was just great, and he quit unexpectedly, and 3 years later, I ran into him at the mall, and I was like, man, why’d you quit? And he was like, because of you, Jim, you. I couldn’t stand you stalking me. And I was like, what? How do we deal with that? How do I accept that now, Ricardo?

23:24 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Yeah, well, I mean, to just to relate to your story, you know, people don’t leave bad jobs, they leave bad bosses.

23:33 JIM BEACH: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

23:37 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: And and part of that is like wondering, why did that person leave? And then, you know, doing some self-reflection? And maybe, maybe if the reason was you, then if that doesn’t change, then people are just going to keep leaving. Nothing is going to shape. You don’t actually solve the root cause of the problem, it’s never going to go away.

23:59 JIM BEACH: It was actually funny. Our office was 2 stories and we had a balcony that overlooked like the big common area down below and I was upstairs, of course, because I was the boss. And I also was suffering from Guillain-Barré at that time. So I couldn’t, I had trouble walking, and so I was always looking down at my feet to not fall and kill myself. And when you came out of my office, the 1st desk out of my office downstairs below was his desk.

24:30 JIM BEACH: So every time someone heard me moving, they would see me looking down directly at him, and I told him the whole Guillain-Barré story and everything, and we all got a laugh out of it, and [unclear phrase]. That was quite the evil laugh. I like it But no, we did agree that that was really bad communication example, you know? I, that was the whole reason he quit was because I was looking at him all the time and he felt like I was stalking him. And the whole reason I was looking down 100% was so that I didn’t trip and fall onto him and kill him.

25:08 JIM BEACH: So, anyway, humanize. How do I humanize myself now that this is, I see this?

25:13 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Well, I mean, the point there is that at the end of the day, no matter how much data we have available or how much, uh, we utilize AI or or other things that are, like making it feel like we’re better decision makers. In reality, at the end, it’s human beings making decisions that impact other human beings. Right?

25:36 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: And so part of the humanized tool is to acknowledging that, hey, we are all here in this world, uh, technology aside, we’re all here in this world that we have to figure out how to coexist, and we have to figure out how to make this world a better place, and thinking about the decisions, the human element of the decisions is the 1st step in that direction.

26:00 JIM BEACH: That is a great point to wrap it up on, I am afraid, Ricardo. How do we find out more? Follow you online, get a copy of The Five-Tool Team book, please.

26:11 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Website is RicardoValerdi.com and check out The Five-Tool Team on your favorite online retailer, if you want to become a better decision maker, and you want to hear a couple of dad jokes. This is the book for you.

26:24 JIM BEACH: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being with us, sir. Great information. Congratulations on the book. It is 5 star rated, and we’d love to have you back. Thanks a lot.

26:35 DR. RICARDO VALERDI: Thanks, Jim. I appreciate you. Be well.

26:37 JIM BEACH: We’re going to be right back to talk about building confidence in just a second. Thanks for being with us. We’ll be right back.

26:46 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: That’s a great question.

26:47 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Well, I think it’s a great question.

26:49 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: It’s great.

26:50 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Great question.

26:51 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Yeah, that’s a really good question.

26:52 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Okay, that’s a great question.

26:54 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Yeah, it’s a great question.

26:57 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Those are two great examples.

26:58 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Oh, great, Jim.

26:59 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: Um, Jim, I think that’s absolutely perfect.

27:01 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: That is exactly it.

27:03 GUEST MONTAGE VOICE: School for startups, radio.

27:04 JIM BEACH: We are backing again. Thank you so very much for being with us. I am absolutely certain that this is going to be the best interview ever. I have the greatest guest ever, and we’re going to talk about the best topic ever. Please welcome Dr. Cindra Kamphoff to the show. She is a confidence researcher and an award-winning keynote speaker, performance psychology expert, author of The Confidence Habit, 7 core practices to transform self-doubt into self-belief. She is the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute. I actually applied there and was rejected and there was a big red ha on the cover, apparently, of my application.

27:42 JIM BEACH: I had to learn to live with that. She is a professor of Sport and Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University. And this is really cool. She has worked with NFL, USA track and field, and Olympic athletes on improving their mental performance during sports. She’s also worked with companies like Target, Verizon, and Mayo Clinic, helping their employees build strong mental strategies for confidence and maintaining focus. Damn it. Dr. Kamphoff, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

28:23 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Jim, you’re the best. Thank you so much for having me. Can’t wait to have this conversation.

28:29 JIM BEACH: It’s going to be the best ever. I’m confident of it.

28:33 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Exactly. Me too.

28:34 JIM BEACH: Why do we have so much self-doubt, though? It’s in my head. There’s a little thing in my head. Laughing at me. Why?

28:43 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Why we have self-doubt is because our brain’s main purpose is to keep you safe. It’s not here to help you be a peak performer or build the business of your dreams. It’s wired for safety and security. And so self-doubt is normal. It’s natural. We all experience moments of uncertainty and fear and self-doubt.

29:08 JIM BEACH: Okay, but it only happens when I’m about to ask that girl out or about to go in front of my boss, you know? So what do we do with it then?

29:21 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Well, we’re really taking risks that automatic negative thoughts can be even louder. And notice how I just like automatic. Meaning you don’t choose all the thoughts that you have. What’s important is to continue to be aware of those thoughts and then choose a different thought that’s really going to help you build the business of your dreams. I think about my own confidence. It’s grown a lot. You know, I got interested in this topic because I was a high level track and field athlete myself, won the state championship in the mile when I was in high school. Didn’t struggle with confidence when I was in high school.

30:03 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Uh, 4:46, baby.

30:04 JIM BEACH: Very impressive. All right, keep going. You didn’t struggle with confidence. Keep going.

30:08 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes, and when I got to college, it was like everyone was just as fast as I was. And I thought, Jim, that the way to get ahead was to beat myself up. And literally thought that if I would be harsh and critical of myself, that would improve my motivation. But what happened is the opposite is, you know, um, by my, I mean, there’s lots of races I dropped out of, not because of my physical ability, but because of the negativity in my own head and the self doubt and just generally did not reach my potential in college.

30:42 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: I wanted to, when I 1st got there, you know, try to make it to the Olympics and I was far from that by the end, literally just wanted to be done. And so, you know, I believe, Jim, that my purpose is to help people reduce their self-doubt to provide tangible strategies on how to do that. And just the more and more I’m hearing after the release of this book is people are really struggling, Jim.

31:08 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: They’re struggling with negative thoughts that maybe negative statements that other people have said to them when they were growing up, when they, you know, when maybe they’ve been, they, they failed, and then they, it took a big risk and it didn’t go exactly the way that, that you planned it to. And so that’s why this topic matters more than ever before because our whole society, there’s so many changes and so much uncertainty in it, it’s easy to question yourself.

31:36 JIM BEACH: Yep. Very easy. And because of that, though, at my age, I’ve just sort of given in and I’ve just sort of accepted it. This is an interesting topic for the youngsters, but I’m not going to really apply this to me. I’m host 29. So this is not applicable to me, right?

31:53 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Oh, no, Jim, that’s not true. So, um, what’s interesting? I’m sorry. Oh, but what’s interesting is I guess 2 things I wanted to share with you is that, you know, last year we conducted this nationwide study on confidence and we surveyed people all over the world in all different generations. Here’s a couple of things. 70% of people struggle with a harsh inner critic and have difficulty letting go of mistakes. 70%. We also know that uh, a 3rd of people have quit a job because it was hurting their confidence. And when you think about entrepreneurs and business theaters. We, confidence isn’t just a personal issue.

32:38 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: It’s an organizational issue. There is a return on investment when you build the confidence of those people that you lead. For example, there’s more productivity, reduce stress levels, better decision making, higher retention, more creativity, and improved retention, and revenue. So that’s why this message doesn’t just matter to like us, you know, Jim and Cindra improving their confidence, but to everyone listening.

33:00 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And Jim, what’s interesting is that our confidence fluctuates, no matter how old we are, we could all experience moments of transition, uncertainty, difficulty, mistakes, you know, and one thing I’m hearing from the release of this book is that, you know, confidence can be impacted by transitions, mistakes and difficulties. And people will say to me, Cindra, I’m getting ready to retire and I don’t know what’s next and I’m not very confident. So you might think that confidence is just something you build when you’re a child, but that’s not accurate.

33:32 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: It’s something we have to keep resetting and confident people are not, you know, 100% if they are not, they’re not free of self-doubt. They pick themselves up. They learn to recover, and we all experience these moments of uncertainty and transition.

33:46 JIM BEACH: Yes, I will have to attest to that. My confidence has gone down since my dad died 4 years ago.

33:52 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes.

33:53 JIM BEACH: Um, um, went 1st and then he spent a year with us and then he passed and, um, my my confidence has gone down since then. So.

34:00 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yeah. I can, I can see that, you know, and and, um, Jim, you didn’t know this, but my dad passed April 29th of this year. There’s a, I know, very difficult. I can tell, tell you a strategy that we actually implemented from the book that we didn’t even know we were implementing, um, until a month later. Um, but, you know…

34:20 JIM BEACH: Got to give me that now.

34:23 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Okay, I let me tell you that now. And I think about for me, you know, my dad was my biggest cheerleader, and so I have to still just know he’s still with me to keep growing my confidence. But there’s a practice in, um, the book called Capture Your Wins. So the book covers these 7 core practices to transform self-doubt into self-belief. Practice 5 is capture your wins. And what this means, Jim, is that we spend so much time looking forward to where we have to go that we don’t take a step back and think about how far we’ve gone.

35:04 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And one of the things our brain loves evidence of times we’ve been successful. And so my dad was in the hospital for 51 days. And the 1st 2 weeks were really hard, Jim. Like we couldn’t even see what was good and I had a really hard time just even seeing the progress. And so one day I took out a sticky note. And I wrote a win on a sticky note and that day it was that he got a pillow.

35:32 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Literally, he got a pillow after 14 days and I would read it to him and then we’d put it on the wall and my sisters ended up making like this win wall for us, this trifold win wall, and we did this every day where we put a wind. It was something really small, sometimes something really big. And the nurses and doctors. They told us, wow, your room feels so different than other rooms. I can see that you’re making progress and he kept fighting.

36:01 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And one of the things I realized during that time period is I didn’t look back at my book and say, um, you know, what do I need to do to improve my confidence in the situation, it was just like, I needed a tool. And you can use this, by the way, in your family. Why not start a win wall in your family where around the dinner table, you each write a win and you sell, you know, you say it out loud.

36:28 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Um, and the best part is, you know, we started this in my family and my son the other day, he’s 19 years old and he, he wrote, I loved playing golf with dad today, and the best part was I beat him. And so many times you’re a 19 year old’s not like, you know, describing what they love about hanging out with their parents.

36:49 JIM BEACH: No, that’s a great example. Before we go through the 7 habits, can we talk about confidence traps?

36:55 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Absolutely.

36:56 JIM BEACH: Is that a good place to go, Cindra?

36:58 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: That’s an amazing place to go. And so these are helpful because so many times, people don’t even realize what gets in the way of their confidence. So here are the 5 confidence traps. Number one fear. Everyone experiences fear. I love this acronym for fear. I wish I knew where it came from, but it’s called false evidence appearing real. And so many times we think that what we fear is actually real. It’s not. Number two, it’s limiting beliefs, beliefs about ourselves, and a thought repeated over time becomes a belief. So you have to pay attention to what you’re saying to yourself about yourself.

37:42 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: That impacts your, impacts your confidence. Comparison. So easy to compare someone else’s highlight reel to, you know, what maybe you don’t have. It’s so easy to compare one thing that we admire about someone and put ourselves down. Pay attention to that comparison. That is what’s hurting our Gen Zers and our young, um, young people a lot right now, Jim, because it’s like, uh, you know, it’s easy to go on social media.

38:07 JIM BEACH: Exactly, exactly.

38:08 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Judgment of ourselves is the 4th one or judgment of others and that’s really normal and natural to judge. We can be so harsh and critical of ourselves. And the last one is perfectionism. And you might think, oh, well, maybe perfectionism is a good thing, but people can have such high rigid expectations of themselves that they are just really harsh and critical. There’s a couple of types of perfectionism. One is called adaptive perfectionism, which means that we can be flexible and adaptable when we fail, and the other is called maladaptive. This means we were really harsh and critical of ourselves when we don’t lead our expectations.

38:45 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: We want to be kinder to ourselves, have more self-compassion, and that’s been, that’s the key to getting ahead and growing your confidence.

38:53 JIM BEACH: All right, wow, those traps were great. I’ve, uh, I’ve done one, three, four, two, and five. Look at those.

39:00 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Me too. Me too, in that order. You know, and even somebody who studies confidence, you might think, oh, Cindra’s always 100% confident all the time. But we’re most unconfident when we’re going after a goal that we have not yet accomplished. And I just want people to realize that that’s really normal to doubt yourself. It’s really normal to experience the negativity in your head. The great thing is you can take control of it and your brain has what’s called neuroplasticity. [unclear brief interjection] [unclear brief interjection] You already used that word earlier, Jim.

39:40 JIM BEACH: Okay, that’s the word.

39:41 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes, you can change your brain. And what is important about that is what you repeat to yourself you become. So you got to keep leveling up that self-talking, your belief in yourself to really go after your dreams.

39:54 JIM BEACH: I can’t believe we got a neuroplasticity. I am just so having to take extra notes and stuff. That is my favorite word of all time. Before it was too small, medium words instead of one big word. It was a veritable plethora was my favorite word, but now like a year ago it became neuroplasticity. And so every time I hear it, I just get so excited because I could stop being dumb. That is the best.

40:19 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: I wish I had a favorite word. I mean, I guess mine is right now confidence.

40:24 JIM BEACH: Yeah, yours has to be confidence.

40:28 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Definitely. Yeah, it has to be. As to me.

40:33 JIM BEACH: Can we go through the 7 ways to become more confident?

40:37 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes, I would love to. And then I would love to dive into a few of them. I’d love to dive into clear your past and compose your winning team because I think people will love that and maybe number one, craft your inner coach.

40:53 JIM BEACH: Okay, let’s go to number one and start there, please.

40:57 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Okay, so craft your inner coach is all about how you talk to yourself about yourself. The 2nd way is called clear your past. [Unclear phrase.]

41:07 JIM BEACH: Go through each.

41:08 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Okay, got you. So your self-talk shapes your confidence. And so think about how you have an inner coach and an inner critic. Each of you has this voice, right? The inner coach is telling yourself the ways you got it. It tends to tell yourself the truth. It talks to yourself powerfully like your best friend would. Your inner critic is harsh and rude and mean. Intensity on repeat. And it does? Okay, it has a PhD. My inner critic sounds like, um, you don’t, you’re not smart enough or, uh, you don’t really matter.

41:41 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Like, it’s really crazy like statements I would say to myself that actually when I look at them, I’m like, that’s actually not even true. In the book, I talk about this tool called the Truth Meter. And it’s a, it’s a, just 3 quick questions you ask yourself to get unstuck from the, the thought and you might believe in like tools because if we have a tool, we know what to do. We have a strategy when we’re overcome or overwhelmed by our negativity.

42:11 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: So let’s take, um, let’s take, um, actually, Jim, you got a, you got a negative thought you want to share with me that tends to repeat in your mind.

42:20 JIM BEACH: Um. Uh, inner thought, like a negative self-doubt about, like, my big bald head. I can’t think of anything. Nothing comes to mind, Cindra. Except my bald head.

42:30 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: All right, we’re gonna start with that. I have a big bald head and people don’t like it. Okay, I don’t know. Maybe that’s the statement. Isn’t that true, Jim? That people don’t like it? Or you don’t head. You got a big bald head. What’s wrong with having a big bald head? Like, why is that? Why does that matter to you?

42:53 JIM BEACH: Um, society tells me it’s supposed to. I’m supposed to spend $5,000 a follicule to get it fixed.

43:02 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Okay. All right.

43:03 JIM BEACH: Have you ever turned it on the radio and heard? I mean, you turn on the radio and that’s what they tell you. That is what they tell you. So I have a big bald head and I should get that fixed because big bald heads aren’t acceptable in our society.

43:22 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Number. Okay, so here’s the 3 questions of the Truth Meter. Number one, is that actually true, Jim? Our big bald heads.

43:32 JIM BEACH: No, because Captain Stubing and Telly Savalas did very well.

43:35 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes. And I think about all these people I know that have bald heads and a bald head does it, big bald heads. That doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful. You can’t doesn’t mean that you’re not accepted. Number two, is that thought serving you by focusing on your big bald head?

43:55 JIM BEACH: No, it’s just serving the specialty shampoo companies.

43:58 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: It’s not so true. And maybe in some ways it’s holding you back. Number three, what would be a more empowering thought that you could say instead?

44:06 JIM BEACH: That my hair grew inside and became brain. [unclear word, likely a neuroplasticity joke]. [unclear phrase].

44:12 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: You know, and and Jim, underneath everyone’s negativity is this beliefs are not enough, and just realizing that you’re not alone by believing you’re not enough is really helpful. It takes the pressure off. And so let’s say if you’re listening and you’re thinking, well, that’s actually my automatic negative thought is I believe I’m not enough. And I would say is that true? And it’s not true because you are enough. You need to kind of focus on the ways you have been successful and what you have done. Number two: is that thought serving you? No, it’s holding you back from your potential.

44:51 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: So what is a more empowering thought you could choose instead? You could choose a thought related to the reasons you are enough, your unique strengths, that you have a unique purpose that no one else does. You have unique values and gifts and dreams that no one else in the whole world has. When you can continue to recognize and see your strengths, that is going to help propel you to where you want to go and instead of holding you back and playing small.

45:24 JIM BEACH: All right, so that’s number one inner coach. Can we now go to big number two?

45:29 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Yes, this one is my favorite.

45:32 JIM BEACH: Oh, excellent.

45:33 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And the one that people struggle with the most. It’s called clear your past. And the point behind this is that failure is part of growth. If you’re trying new things and taking risks. So you should use a tool called Learn, Burn, Return, to process your mistakes that fast. I just snapped. I don’t know if you heard it, but to show yourself some compassion and move forward with kindness. So what does this mean? One of the reasons that we hold ourselves back is because we are replaying negative mistakes, negative thoughts, disappointments. And every time you do that, you’re chipping away at your confidence.

46:13 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Instead, I want you to move on more quickly, and you can use a tool called Learn, Burn, Return. The 1st thing is you put your fingers on your temples if you want to do these actions with me and you want to ask yourself, what would I do differently next time? Remember, you are not the mistake. Mistakes are never who you are, but ask yourself the prompt next time I will. Let go. All right? Take the lesson. Burn means you choose the same phrase or action every time to strengthen a neural pathway. I bet you like that word, Jim.

46:49 JIM BEACH: I love it.

46:50 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: I know. And that means like, for example, maybe your phrase and your action is that fast or you pretend to shake it off like Taylor Swift or you pretend to flush it, right? But the point is, you want to choose the same phraser action every time that allows you to move on more quickly. And then you want to return. You want to build your confidence back up, remind yourself, you got this. You’re here for a reason. Most people, Jim, they stick and stay at the learn. They just keep thinking about it over and over and over again. They go down to the doubt spiral.

47:26 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: They don’t intentionally burn and return. You can use this. I use this tool like 5 times in my day to help me reset because again, making confidence isn’t a habit doesn’t mean that you never experience self-doubt. It means that you learn to reset, that you learn to, um, you know, continue to regulate, refocus, take the next controllable next step, and every time you do that, you strengthen self trust. Um, and you can recover more quickly. [Unclear phrase], really before you even feel ready.

47:57 JIM BEACH: All right, I love that even before you feel ready. All right. Number three.

48:02 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Number 3 is called clarify your future. Confidence grows when you have a clear vision of where you want to go and you define what success means to you. On Saturday, I was on Good Morning America, um, Jim, I don’t even think I told you that yet.

48:23 JIM BEACH: Congratulations. That’s really cool.

48:25 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: It was so cool. It was one of the coolest experiences of my whole entire life. And the best part was they did my hair and makeup. I think I looked better on Good Morning America than I did on my wedding day. But I talked about having a gallery of goals. And what I mean by that is, as entrepreneurs, we tend to just, you know, have this one outcome goal that we’re working towards. An outcome goal is a goal that you can’t completely control. You want to have that outcome goal, but you need to have more of a range.

48:59 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: So think about like at the Olympics, you get a gold, silver, and the bronze. Your gold goal is your ideal outcome. Your bronze goal is good enough. Something you still feel good about and you still and you feel satisfied with. And then that silver is still a strong, successful outcome, but somewhere in between. And this reduces perfectionism, keeps us motivated and helps us be flexible when things don’t go as planned. And so an example, um, that I gave actually on Good Morning America, because we were talking about how to build confidence in your kids. I said, let’s say your daughter wants to win a race.

49:36 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: That outcome goal. That gold goal is for her to win. But the bronze goal would be for her to have that final last lap, like strong and powerful and to really give everything she can on that last lap. And that silver might be, again, that somewhere in between might be to, um, to go ahead and run close to her personal best time. And I worked with a lot of athletes who go to the Olympics.

50:02 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And what this allows them to do is just be more free when they’re at the Olympics and they aren’t so tied to judging themselves in the moment because judgment takes us out of flow. It takes us out of peak performance.

50:16 JIM BEACH: How early do you start swim training for your children?

50:20 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Swim training? Is that what you said?

50:22 JIM BEACH: Yes.

50:23 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Um, my kids started swim training really early on, uh, maybe 3 or 4 years old.

50:29 JIM BEACH: Oh, okay. I was thinking 5 or 6 months. Have you seen that?

50:34 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Like swimming like, like in, uh, like at the Olympics or like, oh, or do you mean my kids or do you mean Olympians?

50:47 JIM BEACH: No, I’m talking about 5-month-old babies getting thrown in the water and getting to the [unclear] with all of their clothes. Have you seen that?

50:56 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Oh, I have seen that. And I think what’s interesting about that is, you know, there’s so many times we hold ourselves back from trying new things. And you know, when you think about failure, have you ever heard of the story about Sara Blakely, you know, she’s the founder of Spanx, and she became the 1st right here in Atlanta, she became the 1st self-made female billionaire in the United States. You know what she credits it to? Her dad that every time around the dinner table when she was growing up, her dad would ask her a big question and that was, how did you fail today?

51:34 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And so it was interesting that she said that she learned to embrace failure, that failure was a part of growth, and that she wasn’t going to be punished or hard on herself when she failed. That’s what allowed her to develop Spanx and helped her.

51:50 JIM BEACH: Wow.

51:51 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Make an incredible impact in this world.

51:53 JIM BEACH: Great example.

51:57 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Thank you.

51:58 JIM BEACH: All right how about we go to number four?

52:01 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: Create your identity.

52:03 JIM BEACH: All right.

52:04 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: This one’s all about how you talk to yourself about yourself. And confidence is built by acting like the person that you want to become. So what do you really, really want, what are the goals you’re going after and how can you keep crafting your own identity? Your identity can shift and change. For example, I, my identity is, I’m a kind, compassionate person, my identity is I’m one of the best keynote speakers you’ve ever heard, my identity is that I go after my goals with deep passion.

52:32 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: And I hope, you know, even as you’re listening to me today that you’re like, yeah, Cindra Kamphoff is really passionate about what she does.

52:43 JIM BEACH: Yes, she is. Unfortunately, you’re out of time and to get number five, what you might remember, if you were paying really close attention was the win wall. 6 and 7 are going to have to remain in the book only. You’re going to have to read the book, buy it, to find it. Again, the book is The Confidence Habit: 7 Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt into Self-Belief. How do you want us to find you, follow you online, all that, please?

53:20 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: We’d love for you to go over to confidencetools.com. You have over $500 of resources there around the book, including a workbook, um, and a discussion guide, some free summits we did, and you can follow me, Cindra Kamphoff anywhere on social media. I’d love to hear from you, so send me a message.

53:38 JIM BEACH: Fantastic. Thank you so much for being with us. Great stuff and we hope you’ll come back.

53:42 DR. CINDRA KAMPHOFF: I would absolutely love to come back, Jim. This was a blast.

53:46 JIM BEACH: I hope so. Thank you. That was nice for her to say that. We are out of time for today, but you know what we do. Well, that’s right. We come back. Be safe, take care, and go make a million dollars. Bye now.