The Surprising Secret to Greater Confidence and Impact at Work

If you’re like me, you’re emotionally fried from the last 18 months. Whether you’re doing “okay” or barely holding on, I’m sure most days you feel just as mentally exhausted, on-edge, and uninspired as the rest of us.

Keeping calm and carrying on is not working.

You can’t keep going when there’s nothing left in the tank. You need to find another tank or fill up the one you’ve got.

That’s why I want to talk to you about confidence.?

No, I’m not talking about swagger. That’s not what confidence is about.

I’m talking about cultivating certainty in yourself and in the direction your life is headed.

When the world feels upside down like it does right now, you need to become your own lifeline.?

You need to know — I mean really know — that you can get through whatever happens next. You need to see how to get through the overwhelm and stress. And more importantly, you need to learn how to up your resilience and double down on optimism.

In other words, you need to tap into the confidence you were born with to take control of your work and life right now.

That confidence looks like...

• Learning how to believe in yourself, especially if you don’t believe in your manager or your company.
• Sourcing inspiration from inside of you, not from external validation.
• Making your own strategic plan instead of waiting for someone else to do it.
• Purposely building a career you love, instead of doing what you’ve always done or what pays the bills.

Confidence allows you to make positive changes. It empowers you to feel a meaningful connection with your work, and it inspires you to go after your big, crazy, awesome goals. But the thing is, you can’t go looking outside for your source of confidence.?

It’s got to come from you. I know you have it in you.?

You have a confident leader within you who has all the support, celebration, and optimism you need right now. It’s called the High 5 Leader, and every one of us is a High 5 Leader deep down inside. You just have to know the simple way to access it.?

High 5 Leader = Confidence + Impact. Let me explain:

Over the past year, when conferences went virtual, I was one of the most-booked corporate speakers in the world because I teach what people want to learn about most, especially in a crisis: behavior change, resilience, and confidence. I also had the honor of hosting LinkedIn’s summit on The Future of Work with some of the most inspiring leaders in talent development.

I’ve heard from executives across every industry who are desperate for tools to better motivate and inspire their teams.?

“There’s nothing left in the tank, Mel. How can I inspire anyone else, when I feel totally depleted?”

Sound like you?

?And it’s not just leaders who are exhausted. Their teams are exhausted too.

They’re sick of virtual meetings. They’re sick and tired of pivoting. They’re exhausted by the “new rules” that seem to change every week.

We’re all just DONE. The pandemic has taken its toll, and the fallout is already here. I’m sure you've heard about the Great Resignation.

No matter which end of the equation you’re on in the Great Resignation, buckle up. Stability won’t be something you can count on for a bit longer.

This is a time for confidence.?

You need the confidence to decide if you’ll make a new career or you need the confidence to look yourself in the mirror and know that despite what’s going on, this next chapter could be the greatest one of your life (remember, change brings opportunity!)

I’ve just conducted a year-long research project on the science of what motivates people and released an instant bestseller, called The High 5 Habit .

After presenting my motivation secrets from the High 5 Habit to many corporate audiences, I’ve distilled it into a simple mindset and management approach I call “The High 5 Leader.”?

I don’t even have to tell you what a High 5 Leader is.?

You just “know” because you know what a high five symbolizes.?

If you’ve ever played sports you know that when your team is down nothing picks you back up and helps you shake yourself off like a high five.

A high five says, “I believe in you,” “You’ve got this,” “You’re a winner,” and “I see your hard work.” A high five is the epitome of positivity, optimism, momentum, and celebration.?

And you can learn to become a High 5 Leader –– somebody who exudes those qualities in life and work.

So ask yourself:

• Are you working for a High 5 Leader now??
• Are you walking into work and acting like a High 5 Leader?

If you’re not, I want you to start practicing the core habit of a High 5 Leader, because it's the secret to inspiring top-tier performance, energy, and focus in yourself and others.?

Start practicing High 5 Leadership by giving that high five energy and confidence to yourself. It’s important. Actually, it’s everything:?

Research shows all of your relationships — especially work relationships — stem from the relationship you have with yourself.

Studies prove that being a supportive, compassionate, and empathetic manager comes more easily if you’re at peace with yourself. If you’re hard on yourself, you’ll be hard on other people. You’ll also focus on what’s going wrong instead of creating momentum by focusing on what’s going right.

A brand new study from McKinsey asked employers why they thought their employees had recently quit. The employers thought it was because of compensation, work-life balance, and poor physical and emotional health.?

Yes… these issues did matter to employees — but not as much as employers thought they did.?

Instead, the top three factors employees cited as reasons for quitting were:

1. They didn’t feel valued by their organizations (54 percent)

2. They didn’t feel valued by their managers (52 percent)?

3. They didn’t feel a sense of belonging at work (51 percent).?

Basically, the employees didn’t feel validated or understood.

And you’ll never be able to understand or validate someone else unless you can validate and understand yourself first.?

That’s why I want you to be a High 5 Leader.?

A High 5 Leader brings harmony and positivity to the team. They create a sense of belonging. It sets the stage to get important work done.

The easiest way to practice this?

This is going to sound like the dumbest thing you've ever heard but trust me, the research on this simple habit is mind-blowing.

I call it The High 5 Habit:?

Every morning, I mindfully stand in front of my bathroom mirror to see (I mean, really SEE) the person staring back. I think about what she needs (Some kindness? Some quiet? Focus on the good?) and make an intention about how I’m going to show up for her today. I literally send myself into the game of life the way a winning team gets back into the game.

This allows me to see and validate myself. Then, I raise my hand to the mirror and give myself a high five.?

I know it sounds unbelievably schmaltzy, but before you roll your eyes and stop reading, let me tell you: I'm a former lawyer. I’m skeptical and cynical about quick fixes. I’d never share anything with you unless there’s deep research that proves it really works.

The high five reprograms your brain to see yourself as someone who IS doing a great job. If you’re an overachiever like me, it feels weird, because you think that unless you’ve done something worthy of celebration, you don’t deserve celebration.?

And as a leader, it’s made me realize that the people that work for me are also very hard on themselves, which means I need to be the one doubling down on the good, especially right now.

Why does high fiving myself build confidence?

I wanted to know, “Why is something so contrived, and so simple, so damn powerful and contagious?”?

I interviewed the people who were high fiving and spoke to some of the world's leading experts in behavior change and neuroscience. I dove into studies, research, and literature on motivation, happiness, self-esteem, and leadership.?

There is so much deep, compelling science behind this habit. There’s so much more that I explore in my new book, The High 5 Habit , I’ve put the highlights below.

First, Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the world’s leading experts on brain health, said The High 5 Habit boosts your mood, confidence, and energy. Why? Because your brain gets a drip of dopamine with every high five. That’s how it switches your mood from “Blah” to “OMG” in seconds.

And that’s not all. You’ve got a lifetime of positive associations with giving high fives to other people. When you give somebody a high five, it says, “I believe in you,” “I love you,” “You got this,” “Let's do this.” So when you raise your hand to the mirror, all that positive programming gets fused with your reflection.?

This is a field of research called neurobics. Neurobics uses mental exercises to create new neural pathways in the brain by employing the senses in unconventional ways, like a high five in the mirror. MIT uses similar body/brain exercises in their lab schools for kids with learning differences. Using the positive associations with a high five is one of the fastest ways to create new neural pathways associated with your reflection, and you don’t need to travel to Cambridge to do it!??

Make The High 5 Habit part of your morning because it’s a way to foster self-confidence, motivation, and of course, more happiness in your life. You get a whole new relationship with yourself (and a brain rewired for more positivity) –– one that makes you ready to lead others.?

You don't need to believe me. You just need to do it for five days. Why five days? Because you’re going to resist it for the first few days. It’s normal for your mind to resist it — it’s a new habit. Ignore the resistance and do it anyway. Within five days you’ll be creating more positive automatic behaviors, beliefs, and new neural pathways in your mind.?

When you high five yourself, you can high five others.

You may think elevating others hurts your chance at getting ahead. That’s not true.? It’s the opposite. When you are a High 5 Leader, you have confidence in yourself and you know what elevating others helps everyone in the organization and every customer you serve.

I talk more about it in my new course on confidence here on LinkedIn.

Celebrate yourself as you go through life and you will become more confident. It’s then that you’ll realize celebrating others as you celebrate yourself will create a happy, inspired, and courageous team that will outperform in ways you never imagined.

Confidence is not passive. Confidence requires partnership from you. It demands it. It's not something that you're going to think your way into being better at. You must act your way there. Learn more in my course, Mel Robbins on Confidence. Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/gijVnQAP