In this episode, we dive into how belief in ourselves and the support we get from others can truly shape our lives. Belief isn’t just a feeling; it’s a powerful force that drives us forward, helps us tackle challenges, and pushes us beyond what we thought possible. We’ll share inspiring stories and practical tips on how self-belief and encouragement from others can lift us to new heights.
Join us as we explore the magic of believing—whether it's in yourself or boosting someone else. We’ll look at simple ways to build confidence and support others on their journey. Tune in to discover how to harness the power of belief to change your life and inspire those around you.
In this episode, we dive into how belief in ourselves and the support we get from others can truly shape our lives. Belief isn’t just a feeling; it’s a powerful force that drives us forward, helps us tackle challenges, and pushes us beyond what we thought possible. We’ll share inspiring stories and practical tips on how self-belief and encouragement from others can lift us to new heights.
Join us as we explore the magic of believing—whether it's in yourself or boosting someone else. We’ll look at simple ways to build confidence and support others on their journey. Tune in to discover how to harness the power of belief to change your life and inspire those around you.
Hello and welcome to the Cameo Show. I'm your host, cameo, and thank you so much for being here. If this is your first time hanging out, welcome If you're here every Wednesday. Glad to have you back.
Speaker 1:
Today we're exploring a powerful concept that touches every aspect of our existence belief. Whether it's the belief that other people have in us, the belief that we have in ourselves, or the belief we extend to others or other things. In every way, belief plays a pivotal role in our success and in our struggle. So we're going to unpack the transformative force of belief, how it leads to profound changes in our attitudes and in our actions, and the importance of paying attention to where it shows up in our life and how it shows up in our life as we move forward. So let's start with belief in ourself. Belief makes things real. That's actually a song, gavin DeGraw, circa 2020, no, 2003, 2020. Sheesh, it's way older than that 2003. Ish, it's called belief. It's a great song. Anyway, the song starts with the statement belief makes things real.
Speaker 1:
When you believe that you can succeed, you are more likely to take action, action that leads to success by creating a positive feedback loop that further strengthens your belief in yourself. Just cyclical start with belief. It gets reinforced as you take action and then it strengthens the belief that you have in yourself full circle. Self-belief fuels motivation and sustains it over time. It's like a driving force that keeps you moving forward, even when you experience setbacks, even when there's adversity. When you believe in your abilities, you're more likely to set higher goals and commit to achieving them. Refer back to that loop. It strengthens your self-belief. You grow from there because you see difficult tasks then as opportunities instead of threats that might lead to failure. Ew, failure, failure is necessary. In previous episodes, we've talked about how failure is necessary for success. So is belief, because it allows you to overcome your fear of failure. Believing in yourself affects your cognitive process. It helps you combat the negative thinking and reduces the likelihood that you'll feel helpless or depressed. It enhances your problem-solving skills. It regulates your emotional responses and when you believe in yourself, you learn to trust yourself.
Speaker 1:
Greg and I just watched a movie about Vincent Van Gogh. It was called at eternity's gate. It was amazing. It was Willem Dafoe. He was Vincent Van Gogh. Um, it's very artsy. So it's definitely a little bit more out there. See what I did there. It was artsy, um, sorry. Anyway, back on track, but I feel very inspired by Vincent Van Gogh from watching that movie recently. I know my husband, greg, feels very connected to Vincent Van Gogh as an artist himself, just in the musical arts as opposed to painting.
Speaker 1:
So I found this quote by Vincent Van Gogh that captures the essence of self-belief. It's a quote about the importance of believing in yourself. He says if you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. Self-doubt is the antithesis of self-belief and this quote encourages overcoming self-doubt through action and perseverance. Because the key to silencing self-doubt through action and perseverance, because the key to silencing self-criticism and inner criticism is to continue forging ahead with your passion and with what sets your soul on fire, believing in your talents, believing in the science from the universe, whatever the case may be, belief. It begins there, and all of that self-belief is also relevant to belief from others.
Speaker 1:
About a year ago, greg and I went to see Michael Phelps speak. Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time. I think he has 28 medals. You've all seen, probably, the picture of him with, like all of his medals hanging around his neck and on his arms. It was amazing to hear him speak and I took notes and the very first thing there in my phone notes, the very first thing that I typed in the notes from hearing him speak, was literally the word belief. And as he was speaking he talked a lot about the impact that the belief his coach, bob Bowman, had on his career. He said Bob taught me that I could always believe in myself, even when I didn't think I had anything left. His belief in me made me a better swimmer and a better person. So this quote encapsulates the crucial role that someone else played in his life by believing in him, seeing his potential, and that led to his development as an athlete and as a human, and it highlights how pivotal someone's belief in you can be in achieving greatness. It illustrates the incredible power that belief has and how it shapes our lives.
Speaker 1:
So I invite you to take a moment to reflect on a specific instance in your life. So I invite you to take a moment to reflect on a specific instance in your life. Think back to a time when someone genuinely believed in you. It might be a teacher or a friend, your parents, a coach. I feel like I have a lot of references to teachers and coaches my parents, of course, but definitely some really important teachers and coaches that made a major impact at very important points in my life by just simply believing in me, by showing that they believed in me. So, as you think about this person for yourself, think about how they believed in you. How did it manifest? What actions or words did they use that made you feel supported? How did their belief in you affect your confidence and has that belief at whatever phase in your life? And whoever this person was that you're thinking of, was that belief something that has impacted who you are still today?
Speaker 1:
Many, if not all, of our previous guests on this podcast have mentioned someone that believed in them, or mentioned a way that they've believed in themselves, or mentioned the importance of having a supportive partner who believes in them. So having someone else believe in you, maybe when you aren't able to believe in yourself, is so so important, maybe when you aren't able to believe in yourself, is so so important, as is this last piece belief in something or someone else, belief in the process, belief in positivity. It's maybe a little bit more generalized or maybe about a specific situation, but this type of belief in something else or in a process is equally as important as belief in yourself or having someone else believe in you. I found this interesting. A study published by the American journal of epidemiology found that individuals who maintain positive expectations about their recovery from heart surgery specifically, are significantly more likely to have better outcomes and faster recoveries than those who had a pessimistic outlook. Those who had a pessimistic outlook, belief in the process, belief in healing, belief in positivity made all the difference.
Speaker 1:
Now I have a personal story to share about that and I won't go too far into detail. Some of you who know me personally may already know this, but many of you listening do not. We just celebrated our son's 14th birthday. He was born at 24 weeks. He was what? At 24 weeks? He was what's considered a micro preemie. He was one pound six ounces and I went into labor out of nowhere and he was born hours later, even though we did everything we could to stop me from progressing in my labor. He was born and he didn't breathe for the first seven minutes. They intubated him twice, you know, put a tube down into his lungs to pump him full of oxygen, and this all happened really fast and out of nowhere, and it was a shock and very scary, but where I'm going with this is that someone in the hospital one of the nurses I think mentioned to us not to get on the internet and not to look up what the probability of him surviving was, to just listen to the doctors, to believe in modern medicine, to believe in what they could do and provide for him as we started out on what ended up being a really long journey of extreme ups and downs in the NICU emotionally, physically, obviously, medically for him.
Speaker 1:
So where I tie this back to belief is that Greg and I chose to heed that advice that, instead of getting online to see you know what are the stats of babies who are born at 24 weeks, what's the survival rate, what are the possible issues that they may encounter we chose to just do what the nurse said and believe in the process, believe in the doctors, believe in the medicine. And it wasn't until long after he had made his way through the NICU, graduated, came home, was a healthy toddler, that I allowed myself to even go look at those stats and they were not great. I believe about 10% of babies survive when they're born at 23 weeks and that number goes up to around 50% when they're 24 weeks, which is what Ben was. We were right on the brink of turning into 24 weeks, based on our estimates, of course, so our probability of him even surviving was pretty dire, had I looked at that stat while we were in the hospital and we were going through that, and that was what I believed and that was what I allowed myself to consider. I can't speak to whether or not it would have made an impact on his trajectory, but I can tell you that it would have had a great impact on my mental health. Greg and I chose to believe, like I said, in the doctors and the medicine. We chose to believe that he was going to make it and that he was going to be healthy and that someday we would be celebrating this boy who was bigger than his mama, and I remember the nurses saying that, like, someday he's going to be bigger than you, mom. It was when Ben Roethlisberger was the quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, whom I'm not a huge fan of if we're talking football, but we're not. But they used to call him big Ben, and so this tiny, little eensy, teensy baby that looked like a little tiny baby bird in a nest, all the nurses called big Ben and they would tell me about that day, and I believed in that, and so where I'm going with this is that belief in something else, belief in the process, can carry you a long way, and I can attest to that in my own personal experience with this particular story.
Speaker 1:
The way that belief shows up in our life is beyond verbal Belief might look like mentorship. It might look like an investment into you or someone else, financially or through time. It might look like a promotion at work or delegating a large responsibility to you or someone. It might look like supporting someone when they experience a setback, or receiving support from someone when you experience a setback. It might look like encouragement to persist and persevere. It might look like celebrating success. By incorporating these behaviors into our daily interactions toward ourselves, toward others, accepting them from others to us, and also in believing in some outside force or in the process, we can foster an environment of growth and mutual respect, and it boosts morale and encourages positive development, collaboration and a supportive community. I mean there's just so many benefits. That all stems back to belief, showing belief, verbalizing belief. It really shows just how critical belief, whether in ourselves or from others, can act as a driving force in achieving goals or overcoming challenges everywhere in between.
Speaker 1:
As we wrap up, I want you to think back to the person that you thought of when we started talking about Michael Phelps about the middle of the episode.
Speaker 1:
I encourage you to share this with them, maybe send them a thank you. Sometimes, just acknowledging these moments in our lives can reveal just how transformative these acts of belief really are, and it reinforces that not only do we need to believe in ourselves and pay attention to the belief coming from external, but also extend belief into others. Thank you, as always, for tuning in to the Cameo show. If today's topic resonated with you and you want a deeper dive, I encourage you to check out some of our past episodes, specifically the ones with guests. As I mentioned, many of them talk about the importance of self-belief and the importance of belief from others, or you can visit my website, cameoelisebrauncom, and sign up for my newsletter to stay updated on all of the latest episodes and content to empower you and inspire you and arm you with knowledge and tools. Don't forget to join us next time. New episodes every Wednesday and until then, keep believing in yourself, because that belief is the first step toward achieving any dream, small, big, all of them Take good care.