Low Confidence? Here’s How to Build It | Dr. Nicole Gabana Chiesa: #171
If you grew up in a broken or divorced family, struggling with confidence isn’t random.
Research has consistently shown that children of divorce are more likely to experience lower self-esteem, higher anxiety, and greater insecurity in relationships. When love feels unstable or conditional early on, it shapes how you handle pressure later in life.
You might:
Overthink conversations
Freeze in high-pressure moments
Feel like you have to perform to be loved
Or believe everyone else is just naturally more confident
In this episode, licensed psychologist and Certified Mental Performance Consultant Dr. Nicole Gabana Chiesa breaks down what confidence actually is — and why it’s not personality.
We explore:
The subtle belief that makes confidence collapse when you fail
What’s happening in your brain when anxiety spikes
Why hyper-focusing on yourself increases insecurity
How to stop just listening to your thoughts — and start talking back
And why confidence is built through imperfect reps, not feelings
If your family didn’t model emotional stability, healthy conflict, or secure love… this episode gives you a roadmap.
Confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build. And you can build it.
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
Joey Pontarelli (00:47)
Welcome to the Resort Podcast, I'm Joey Ponnarelli. If you come from a divorced or dysfunctional family, this show is for you. We mentor you through the pain and help you heal so you can avoid repeating your family's dysfunction and instead build strong, healthy relationships. If you grew up in a divorced or broken family, struggling with confidence is not random. Research consistently shows that children of divorce are more likely to experience lower self-esteem, higher anxiety, and greater insecurity in relationships.
Basically when love feels unstable or conditional early on, it doesn't just hurt you in the moment, it trains your nervous system and it shapes how you handle pressure later in life where confidence is essential. You might overthink everything you say, conversations, feel like you have to perform and be perfect in order to be loved, and assume that everyone else got the confidence gene and you didn't. But what if that's not true? What if confidence isn't personality, it's actually a belief that you have what it takes
based on proof. In this episode, we unpack what confidence actually is and why most of us have been building it the wrong way. We explore why emotional regulation under pressure matters more than hyping yourself up. We talk about the subtle belief that quietly makes your confidence collapse when you fail. My guest shares how to stop just listening to your thoughts and start talking back to them. I love that piece of advice. And why hyper-focusing on yourself actually kills confidence and why confidence doesn't come.
Before action, it comes after enough imperfect reps done scared. My guest today is Dr. Nicole Gabbana, a sports psychologist, certified mental performance consultant, and former director of sports psychology at the University of Massachusetts. She's worked with division one athletes at schools like Harvard, Ohio State, Indiana, and Florida State, and is listed in the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Mental Health Registry. She specializes in helping high performers stay steady.
under pressure, when pressure hits, when the moment gets big and nerves spike. And what she teaches athletes about performing under pressure applies directly to our lives, to dating, to work, relationships, and even healing from a broken family. She doesn't just talk about confidence as some abstract idea, she actually trains it. And so if you've ever asked yourself, why do I choke? Why do I overthink every little thing? Why does everyone else seem so much more confident than me? Or why do I feel like I have to earn love? This episode is for you. Confidence is not magic.
and it's not personality, it's built and you can build it. In this episode, we do talk about God and faith and if you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. Anyone listening for a while knows that this is not a strictly religious podcast and so wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. If you don't believe in God, my challenge for you is this, just listen with an open mind, even if you skip the God part, you're still gonna get a lot out of this episode.
other things as well. And with that, here's a conversation.
Dr. Nicole, so good to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. One of the huge struggles that my audience faces is feeling unconfident, low self-esteem, feeling insecure, whatever word we put on it. And not just in sports, of course, I know it's your background, but really in life, work, dating, friendships. In this interview, I really would love your best advice for how to build confidence, how to go from maybe being unconfident or insecure or low self-esteem to having a good...
Dr. Nicole Gabana (03:31)
Thanks for having me, Joey.
Joey Pontarelli (03:58)
good confidence where you can do the things that you need to do that you want to do. But before we get into all the details of that, which I'm really excited for, I was curious, like, how do you define confidence? Like, let's give people an idea of maybe what we're talking about.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (04:09)
I think confidence is generally the way that we regard ourselves. So the belief in my abilities, the belief in my character, my capability, and it's closely related to self-efficacy. So self-efficacy is the belief that I can do something, that I have the ability to do something or the power to do something. So I think that ties into self-confidence of just my belief in my ability to
achieve a certain goal or certain, to complete a certain task.
Joey Pontarelli (04:41)
Okay, that makes a ton of sense. And one of the things I was thinking of is it's a continuum. Like it's not like you're confident or you're not confident. It's more about like how confident are you and perhaps how confident are you in a given scenario in a situation? Like it's, you know, I might have very different confidence of like, you know, making a checking the oil on my car versus like changing the oil. And I know that's more related to like task confidence, but, but would you say that's true that it kind of varies depending on like the situation you're in and that it is a continuum?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (05:11)
Yes, absolutely. as I'm trying to define confidence, even though you gave me a heads up about this question, I'm realizing I don't feel so confident in my ability to define it. But I think it has ties to this concept of identity, how we view ourselves, how we define ourselves. So I think there's an element of identity and then there's an element of action, right? How confident am I to do something specific, like you're saying?
to change the oil to perform the sports task to achieve this goal. I think there's an internal dimension of confidence of how we feel about ourselves. And then there's what is my belief about what I can do with who I am and my skill set.
Joey Pontarelli (05:56)
That's really helpful. Okay, yeah. I remember growing up, especially like I, there were certain things I felt really confident about, know, especially like sports related things. I loved playing sports with my brothers and I played baseball a lot, we football and hockey players and all of that. But then if you threw me in like a social environment, was a very different story in some cases. And thankfully, you know, I was able to grow there. But yeah, I could totally see the difference of like, what are, if we're calling it, yeah, like task confidence or whatever the right term would be versus maybe like you said, an identity or like a personal confidence.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (06:25)
Yeah, it is a continuum and I think there are many factors that influence your level of confidence in something. You know, some of those might be past experiences, like successful experiences you've had, mastery experiences. So with the sport example, if you've had successful performances in the past, you're more likely to be confident with your performance in the future. If you've watched somebody doing something well and you can have a vicarious experience of
watching someone perform well, then that might make you feel more confident in mirroring that or practicing it. Also, the feedback we get affects our confidence. So if I'm getting positive or encouraging feedback from supportive others, then that increases my confidence that I will be able to do something. Also, if we imagine ourselves doing it, if we kind of use imagery or mental rehearsal to picture ourselves doing something.
That can increase our confidence. And lastly, our ability to regulate our physical and emotional states when we're working toward a goal or performing or doing something. The ability to do that, to regulate our emotions, to regulate the results and our response to those results, that can also affect our degree of confidence in doing something.
Joey Pontarelli (07:44)
So good. So there's a lot at play and it totally makes sense. And as you're saying all that, the thing that comes to mind for my audience, for those of us who come from broken families, is I think the biggest area where we don't feel confident is in relationships. And it's interesting to compare that to an athletic environment like in sports, how they've actually seen relationships play out so poorly. Like you were saying, if you watch the pros do their thing,
and you watch, maybe amateur too, I think it's very different and you can learn a lot from the pros. I remember one of my coaches always encouraging us to watch the pros, watch the pros, watch the pros, you'll just learn from their example. But in these really broken families, the relational example that they're seeing, the marriage that they're seeing is really broken and so that is their training in love and then they go out and they try to build their own relationships and they end up being often very unhealthy. Do you see the parallel there?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (08:36)
Yeah, and we are shaped so much by those early experiences, both by ⁓ what we experience directly. So like how someone is relating to us, the way that they're talking with us, the way that they're demonstrating love or lack of love, and also by what we observe. So the way that we see our parents communicate, the lack of communication, the love that we observe, or how relationships are functioning around us.
teaches us a lot about where we fit in relation to others and how relationships occur between two people. And so a lot of it is, as we get older, as you know, is kind of unlearning some of those unhealthy behaviors that we might have experienced or observed, and then learning ones that are more ordered or more healthy, more of God's design, rather than broken or wounded interactions and relationships.
Joey Pontarelli (09:34)
I want to circle back to this in a little bit, this whole idea of relational confidence. I think this is really good, but I wanted to welcome your dog to the show if you're watching on video. See, a five month old pup, which is awesome. I love it.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (09:47)
fit on my lap. So she just puts her front two paws up and she just kind of hangs out there. So
Joey Pontarelli (09:52)
I love it. So good. So good. She's, she's adorable. Um, what do you think maybe people, what are maybe some misconceptions or unhealthy like beliefs when it comes to confidence?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (10:02)
I think one of the biggest ones I see as a sports psychologist and also as just ⁓ a Christian psychologist is this belief or vow that I need to perform for love. And performing, it can be sports, it can be school, academics, work, professional life. It could even be in the spiritual life, in our relationships, you know, that I have to maintain a certain level of performance to be loved.
or to be accepted or to be worthy. And I think that whenever we're chasing our worth or our value or our identity in something other than the core, is unconditional love of God that we're created to be loved, and before we even do anything, we are loved. If we don't have an anchor in that reality and that experience, then it makes it very hard
to feel confident in who we are, because we're constantly chasing that validation and chasing that justification of, I'm worthy, I'm valued, I'm good enough in our performance in a variety of areas.
Joey Pontarelli (11:13)
So good, and I'm excited to get deeper into that too, because I think that's huge. think, especially as a man, I can only speak as a man, I think I have that tendency of thinking that, my value, my worth comes from what I can build or what I can do. And so I think I definitely could see how you would not feel very confident if you base all of your worth on your ability to perform or make money or be good at a sport or.
you accomplishes of that and then you don't do that or you for some reason you're thrown off that then you would feel like I have nothing to offer it worries me I know people who so much of their value the way that the value that they feel comes from their job it's like that is their life it's what they focus on it's the thing that they're really proud of which is great but man if they ever stop working I've seen this play out where they stop working or they lose their job
and they're crushed and it's almost like they just don't know who they are.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (12:08)
I see that with athletes all the time, both in when they're in their sport experience and then, you know, if they retire, if they have a career ending injury, something happens that that changes their ability to perform, then all of a sudden, their their identity is totally tied up in their performance or their athletic identity, we call it. And once that is threatened or they experience a loss in that dimension, it totally shakes them as a person.
And I think that's a common area is like our work, family life, our life accomplishments. A lot of those markers can be sources of that, we're putting maybe too much of our identity into those areas and not having things ordered as they should be. And it's not to say that we shouldn't care about our performance, our work, our sport experience or our relationships. It's just to know that I need to keep it in the
the bigger perspective that no matter what happens that I'm still a child of God and I'm still loved by the Father and that will be a constant reality that I can't earn, I don't have to earn.
Joey Pontarelli (13:18)
that yeah and I like what you said how it is a part of your identity all those things you mentioned but it's only a part that doesn't make the whole and it's certainly not the foundation I think that's like you were saying where we often get it wrong we make some aspect like our job or career whatever the foundation of our identity and then when that cracks or falls apart then we're in trouble so I'm curious like is it possible to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you yeah make your identity so dependent on like what you can do and and what's the solution to avoiding that
Dr. Nicole Gabana (13:47)
That's a big question and a great one. And I think naturally as human beings, we all have that tendency to idolize, which is biblical. And I think putting too much of our identity in any one area comes from that temptation or that sin of putting something above God, worshiping something above God. So if we are regarding our successes in work,
as more defining in terms of our worth than who God says I am as His child, then I'm going to experience dysfunction. I'm going to experience unrest in that area. If I'm putting my bank account and securing my bank account above my security in God and His divine providence, I'm going to have things out of order. If I'm putting it in my youth or my appearance or my sports performance or whatever it is,
then I'm idolizing this thing that usually the world says is the most important thing or one of the most important things that gives you glory in a worldly sense. And God is saying, all of these things are passing, they're all temporary. They can help you get to heaven, they're designed for our good, they're designed for us to have an abundance of life, but they're not designed to be in that number one spot on a pedestal before God.
Joey Pontarelli (15:10)
So it sounds like what I'm hearing you say is like, there's this aspect of like formation or knowledge that we need. They're like, no, like this isn't the thing that defines you, your child of God, your son, your daughter of God, that being at the core. I'm curious if someone's listening to this is like, yeah, well, I know that, or I get that to some degree, but I maybe just don't like feel that at my core. Like I don't, like how do I make that shift from just like having the head knowledge and really like kind of living from that place?
where if I went through a career ending sports injury or lost my job or my dating relationship ended, I would be okay. It obviously would hurt, but I'd be okay because I'm not putting all my worth in that. How do I make that switch? All the easy questions today.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (15:53)
It's so challenging because we very rarely see that modeled by the adults around us, whether we're young and growing up as a child or even in the world around us. And I think that's why environment is so important. But also, like you said, there's a degree of formation there that, you know, it's who you're surrounded by greatly affects your own mindset. And so if you grew up with a parent saying,
You know, putting a ton of pressure on you to perform well in sports or even maybe they didn't do it explicitly, but you knew that they were kind of vicariously living out their own dreams through your sport experience. Or, you know, you grew up in an environment where you had a parent that was very insecure about themselves, whether it's their appearance, whether it's their ability to provide, whether you had a parent that was addicted to some, something that when we don't see.
those priorities modeled in ⁓ a rightly ordered way or a healthy way, it makes it very difficult for us to kind of change our hardwiring to learn that this really is the most important thing, that our relationship with God and our identity in Him is actually the deepest sense of who we are. And I think one way to go to begin to try to understand that and to plant seeds of belief, because it does take time, it's not like,
You know, we can expect ourselves to wake up and be like, I 100 % buy into all of this and all my self-confidence issues are fixed. Right. But just to think about the fact that we were created out of nothing before our parents even knew that we existed, you know, within our mother's womb, God created us. He breathed life into us and he intended us for, for us to be here. So even, even before anything of human origin,
God put that spark of life into our soul and wanted us here. So if we go back to the very beginning of our existence, it came from God. And if we go to the very end of our existence, of our end of life and what happens after we die, that we will meet God and that we'll see Him as He is and have a full understanding of our human experience and our life and be presented with an account of our life.
If we go to the beginning and the end, becomes very clear that everything in the middle is secondary because it should be a means to the end and not an end in itself. so thinking about, I know it sounds kind of morbid, but thinking about, you know, what happens after this life? What does it all mean? What does it all matter? You know, what does it matter if I'm all state?
or if I win the national championship, or if I achieve all of these things intellectually, athletically, professionally, even with my family and maybe some of the expectations I place on my relationships, what does that all mean if I haven't fostered a relationship with God the Creator, the one that I will face and that has eternity in His hands? That all being said, I think just beginning to foster a relationship with God through prayer,
by having conversation with Him in prayer. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. It doesn't have to be anything advanced, but just by acknowledging His presence, acknowledging that He created us and that He loves us, and then asking Him to reveal Himself so that we can come to a deeper understanding of who He is, I think is a great place to start. Because knowing who He is and reading His Word and understanding who we are,
will lead us to have a more healthy sense of confidence and put all those things in right order.
Joey Pontarelli (19:45)
Okay, real talk, if you've been trying to get in shape so you feel better physically and emotionally but nothing is working, you're not crazy. I've been there myself. I recently read a free guide by Dakota Lane, a certified personal trainer who we've partnered with that's helped about a thousand people and it was really helpful for me personally. In the guide, he breaks down the biggest fitness mistakes that we all make, like under eating.
overstressing or focusing too much on the scale and it gives really simple practical tips that you could actually use that you can implement today. And so if you're tired of feeling like you're never going to get in shape, just click on the link in the show notes and grab the guide today. It's totally free and it might just be the thing you need to start feeling healthier physically and emotionally. Love that. And I love the whole idea that you said that we can't do this alone. Like we need to be in a community of people like in relationships, whether that's mental relationships or friends or whatever it looks like who can really model this for us so that we can like,
you know, the whole saying of like way more is caught than taught. It's not something we really just study in a book, but we can see someone living it out. And when you do like, I've definitely been around people where it's like, no, they, their value does not come from their work. Their value does not come from money they make or, you know, how fit they are, how good looking they are, like all the things he went through. And you can just tell a difference. And maybe if you spend around time around something like that, you'll kind of learn, okay, maybe this is how I can do it too. But I do think there's this kind of bedrock foundational.
Knowledge like you said formation. That's like, okay, you're not made for just Performance like you're made to be loved and you stripped of all that is so you're so valuable
Dr. Nicole Gabana (21:15)
Yeah. And the ironic piece is that we see this in sport performance a lot is that once you can detach yourself from, know, your worth and confidence being totally dependent on the outcome, we actually end up performing better. You know, when we can let go and take off some of that pressure that, you know, the outcome will define me and I am how I perform.
We take off that pressure, we actually enter into a sense of freedom that the outcome of this performance, whatever it is, whether it's sports, whether it's professional, whether it's a relationship, that the outcome of that does not define me. So then, you know, I can exhale, can relax and know that I'm still going to be okay. And then we actually are more relaxed and loose and we're able to be more present in the moment and we're able to participate in the process.
because our attention is not so focused on the outcome, ⁓ which actually impedes performance.
Joey Pontarelli (22:18)
I'm curious, when did you first learn that and maybe when did you see that play out where you, if you don't put all of your value in your performance, you actually can perform better? I'm curious where that lesson came from. It's fascinating.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (22:28)
Yeah, I think just in my studies of sports psychology, you know, my education and then my experience as a sports psychologist working with a lot of athletes that were dealing with performance anxiety with pressure. I've had my own personal experiences of that, you know, from an early age, but then especially in my athletic career as a rower, we would have to do these rowing tests on the ergometers. And I would get so in my head about
you're staring at a screen and you're seeing the output of your power and your time, projected time. And so you're racing against a clock and physically exerting yourself as much as you possibly can and having to process the pain, the physical pain that comes with that. And you're also having to calculate and look at a screen and see these very real time numbers. And then you start, you might start hyperventilating and breathing more heavily.
even though physically you're breathing as much as you can. it's a very, for me, was a very anxiety provoking experience. When I got on the water and I didn't see the numbers, it was like, I could just pull as hard as I possibly could and be in the rhythm of my teammates in the boat and enjoy, you know, being on the water and the movement of the boat as we were rowing and just be giving it my all and like going all out and.
My power was so much greater when I wasn't thinking about the numbers all the time and when I didn't have that in my face. ⁓ but it was something that I had to cope with because inevitably seeing the numbers was something I had to deal with in my sport experience. There's things we have to do to test as being part of a team. So it was a constant struggle for me. ⁓ yeah. And that's something that I see a lot of athletes, regardless of sport time, there's different ways that performance pressure shows up for athletes.
Joey Pontarelli (24:23)
Okay,
yeah, so to be that cool, calm, collected athlete is hard. I remember hearing Jocko Willink, the Navy SEAL, who talks about leadership saying that that was like one of the qualities that they would look for and try to train in their like Navy SEALs in the middle of combat. And one of the ways it's played out, it's so fascinating, was literally
Nicole, they're in the middle of war. There's bullets flying everywhere. They would get on the radio. You see this in movies and you think everyone's yelling into the radios and things are going crazy. And they would get on the radios as little as they needed, or as little as they could, by the way. They weren't talking more than they needed to. But they'd get on the radios and they'd be like, hey, I need an airstrike to this location. And as calm and as collected as you can be. And I think there's something in that lesson. You can learn that,
even in like the most hellish of scenarios like war to have that clear headed, but it obviously takes practice. And I'm sure the modeling is like another thing where if you're around people who do that, you can kind of pick up on it. But was there like one hack or thing that you learned? Like were you able to improve on that when you, I you said when you're on the water is a different story, but was there anything that you learned? Were you able to transform into being a little bit more cool comp collected and being able to perform better because of that?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (25:38)
So ⁓ I had a mentor of mine recently tell me that a lot of this both relationally but also in sports performance, it comes down to regulation. How we're regulating our emotions and our physiological state and that is one of the factors that contributes to confidence. But I see this in sports and I also see this in my own experience of relationships that
it can be very challenging to regulate our emotional responses and our physiological responses. And so when I'm having a conversation or an argument in a relationship, you how am I able to regulate my own internal emotional experience? And how does that impact that performance, if you will, or outcome of how I'm communicating with the other person in front of me? Am I...
able to manage my own emotional state, my own internal experience so that I can communicate in a way that is not coming from a place of defensiveness out of self-protection, or it's not coming out of a, you know, totally losing my cool and yelling or saying something that I don't mean in the moment because I'm so triggered or my emotions are so activated.
that I can't think clearly as I would if I wasn't emotionally activated. So a lot of times things like fear, anxiety, fear of abandonment, rejection, those things will trigger an emotional experience. A lot of times there's connections to past relational experiences we've had, whether traumatic or not, or just ways that we've learned to relate to people that are close to us that can also have an impact on, you know, or almost
Repeat we have we have a repeat experience that we're playing out a pattern that we may not even know we're doing but until we take a step back and see You know, am I even able to regulate which most of us struggle with? That can give us a lot of insight of of where to go when we're having difficulty experiencing the anxiety in those situations
Joey Pontarelli (27:52)
That's fascinating. This whole idea of like regulation being like a core piece of confidence and being able to like perform all that's really fascinating. I remember there's one therapist, one of therapists I worked with in the past. He told me that they apparently did a study on like NFL players and I don't exactly know the details of the study, but the outcome was that when they were emotional, I think, especially when they were angry, they were able to measure that their IQ dropped by about 30 points.
So for anyone listening, if you're like an average IQ of like 100, that puts you in the 70 range and that in his words, he said that's a range of like mental retardation. And so you're trying to like maybe resolve a conflict with your spouse or boyfriend, girlfriend, or, you know, trying to perform on the sports field or work or, whatever the scenario is. And you're literally on the level of your brain, you're disabled because at least what he was sharing and feel free to push it back and says, you're, you know, you're,
the dysregulation like causes you to not be able to be your best.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (28:49)
Absolutely. Yeah. And we see this in, I was reading about this recently, you know, in cases of trauma and what traumatic experiences do to our brain. And so there's a high activation of our limbic system, which is the emotional center of our brain. So when, when that is highly activated, it kind of shuts down the activity of our, prefrontal cortex, which is like the executive functioning. And so that
tracks with what you're saying about the IQ dropping. You know, so when we're angry, that limbic system is highly activated, the amygdala, it's more of a primal area of our brain that is having, you know, an instant emotional experience, but we're not necessarily using that high level of functioning, executive functioning, and part of our brain. And so in DBT, which is a type of therapy, they talk about having a wise mind where you're having
If you think of a Venn diagram of our emotional brain and our rational brain, they put wise mind in that middle area of the Venn diagram where we need to have, you know, we need to keep our emotions in our experience because they're useful. They tell us something, they're meaningful. We don't want to shut off our emotional experience altogether, but sometimes we do because of trauma or because of experiences in the past where we've been in a vulnerable state.
and those emotions were not helpful to us or they were too overwhelming to us. In the case of the Navy SEAL, that is not the time or place for emotional experiences. So I would say it's dependent on the task too, that if the task is requiring precision and a quick reaction time, there's very like executive functions that need to be firing to execute this task well.
which is a lot of sports as well, not on that same level as military tasks or executions, but there's a level of I need to perform this task well without getting my emotions, having them pull me away from what I need to be doing cognitively or physically in this moment. So it's more of a time and a place of a win, you know, how much of do I need my focus versus how much do I need my emotions in this moment? And
All the while we're just living our human experience and we're not thinking about it that much. And that's why having someone where you can process this, that's why therapy could be so useful, that's why mental skills training can be useful because we have a place to sit down and say, how can I look at my reactions and kind of understand what's going on within me in this moment?
Joey Pontarelli (31:36)
So that you can retrain it. That's so good.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (31:38)
So that you can see, you know, how much is this helping me or hurting me when I'm trying to do X, Y, and Z, when I'm trying to have a conversation with my spouse, when I'm trying to, you know, play my best on the court, even though I made a mistake in the last quarter. How can I keep my focus on this military task when stuff is going on at home? Like I need to also know how to compartmentalize at times, but then not just to leave it there.
I need to come back and attend to it at an appropriate time.
Joey Pontarelli (32:12)
Just to summarize for everyone again, we're talking about how do we become more confident. Nicole is basically saying that one of the skills we need is emotional regulation. When we get really anxious or we feel really depressed or sad, when we go kind up and down on that scale, getting ourselves back into that calm, collected, cool spot that we're talking about, that's really key. It's fascinating that we're tying those two things together. makes a lot of sense. I want to share an embarrassing story, since you were so vulnerable, about rowing.
But before I do that, just like where my confidence, the time when my confidence really faltered and kind of what I learned from it. But before we get to that, I wanna say in this idea of emotional regulation and how that relates to confidence, what would you say are the best tips, the most practical tips that someone can take away when it comes to, in a moment where...
maybe they do feel the dysregulation, maybe they get super nervous, they get the performance anxiety, whatever environment, whether it's for a job interview or a first date or maybe a hard conversation that they need to have, and their body's kind of freaking out, right? We've all been in these scenarios, like, yeah, talk me through that, like, what do they do in that moment?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (33:13)
Yes, I think the first step is just to be aware of it because sometimes it happens to us and we have no consciousness whatsoever of what's going on. So the first step we always work on with athletes is just, you know, can I catch myself in the moment and just be aware of what's happening? Once we're aware of it, it's really important that we just observe it without jumping on the judgment bandwagon with ourselves. So
Often what we do is once we're aware of the jitters or the anxiety or the nervousness, we start judging ourselves for it. And I can't believe you're so nervous. I can't believe that, you know, this is bothering you so much. And we start beating ourselves up for the reaction or experience that we're having. But chances are there's a reason for that reaction. And so, you know, that's something that can be unpacked over time.
But if we judge ourselves for the reaction, it's not going to make the reaction go away. And it's usually not very useful or helpful in the moment. So once we acknowledge and we have that awareness, we have to accept this is the reality that I'm working with. And then accepting that allows us to move forward with some skills and tools like breathing for regulation to understand that.
Butterflies are a normal experience for most people who are getting up to give a speech or going out to play a game or a musical performance or even maybe it's having a tough conversation with someone. It's normal to feel some anxiety because you care. When something's important to you, it naturally brings up fears of what could go wrong and ⁓ hopes for what you want to happen.
So just knowing that it's normal to experience some of that activation because you care about this thing. Then it comes to surrendering, you know, and being like, okay, God, I am putting this in your hand, I'm in your hands, I'm entrusting this to you. I am praying for the trust that you're gonna take care of it no matter what happens and that you're a good father and that I'm yours and you're gonna be there no matter what the outcome is. And so I'm gonna give it to you.
all the anxiety, all the worries, the fears, the hopes too, and it's in your hands now. And I'm gonna do the best that I can with the skills and talents you've given me. ⁓ Another aspect of anxiety and confidence is our preparation. So the more that we can be physically and mentally prepared for whatever the thing is, the more confident we're going to feel by going into the task. It doesn't mean that it's gonna eliminate anxiety.
But if I know that I've been training for this, I know that I've been preparing for this, then that's going to help my level of confidence when it comes time for that moment to perform or to have that conversation or whatever it is. So doing some reflection, doing some journaling, getting some input from trusted others who are supportive, who are positive and encouraging, that can all be part of the emotional or spiritual preparation too.
Joey Pontarelli (36:15)
But I love the idea of like just the awareness as the starting point. think like you said, it's easy to maybe skip over that. ⁓ but yeah, I totally agree. Like we can be experiencing feelings or things in our body that like we don't quite put words to, we're not quite aware of. And once you do at least say, yeah, this is going on, then you can move to that acceptance, like you said, and then, you know, move through the other steps as well. And I love the, yeah, the ideas you had. And I think, like you said, the expectations so huge. I, you know, I do a lot of speaking with what I do and
Obviously early on it was terrifying. And still my body is like, this is something big you're doing. You're getting up in front of people, it's a vulnerable, bold thing to do. And I know you do this as well. So what I try to remind myself of in that situation is my body's actually doing what it's supposed to do. It's preparing for something big and that's normal. And so I actually remind myself, I have a whole checklist I work through when I give a talk. The talk I've given at this point is to about 2,000 people.
And that one was scary, but I worked through the checklist and I reminded myself, yeah, I'm gonna feel this, I'm gonna feel that, I'm gonna feel that, that's all normal, it's part of the process. And when I went through that, once I got up there, I actually didn't feel nervous. And the preparation piece, which I'll maybe get into a little bit, was another thing as well. So I totally, I'm tracking with you and it definitely has worked for me and hopefully can work for everyone listening too.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (37:34)
Absolutely. And something else that helps me, there's a couple others that are coming to mind as you're sharing your experiences, you know, getting a good night's sleep, minimizing or eliminating caffeine in the morning if you have a speaking event. But even for me, like getting on this podcast with you, I've done podcasts before, you know, and it's like you asked me that question of defining confidence and I'm like,
Everything that I was preparing just totally left my brain. And so I think having a sense of like, ⁓ humanness and humility and sense of humor, you know, and just being able to, again, be human and understand that we're often striving for a level of perfection that doesn't exist. And that doesn't need to exist that people actually relate when you can be a little transparent or open with your experience that.
Because you're not setting this expectation that everyone else needs to be perfect either. So the people that I've felt most comforted by or that I admire are ones that can also share their flaws and their faults and that are humble in that, that don't put on this false sense of perfection or false sense of strength that, you know, they have it all figured out. I think that's where like the self-reliance piece comes in.
that's not so healthy.
Joey Pontarelli (38:56)
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to get the book or download the free chapters. Again, that's restoredministry.com slash books, or just click the link in the show notes. agree. And one of the, I heard someone say once, like the best, it was probably the best advice on like public speaking I've ever heard. And they told the person who was about to go on stage, like make a mistake. And then so I tell myself that, and I've told other people that are like getting up in front of people like,
Dr. Nicole Gabana (40:10)
Yeah.
Joey Pontarelli (40:16)
hey, good luck, make a mistake. like, because it takes a little bit of the pressure off of like, yeah, you know, don't need to be flawless and perfect and people are still going to be helped in that environment. But no, I think it applies in every other environment too. if you're going on a first date and make a mistake, if you're going, doing a job interview, make a mistake. If you're having a difficult conversations, like make a mistake, like you're not going to get through it perfectly. It's, okay to be a little bit flawed, but yeah, curiously, any further thoughts on that?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (40:41)
I think it makes you more relatable and it creates a space for other people to be human as well. So like with the first date example, I'm not saying that you need to like spill everything and overshare, right? Like that can be a little cringy too. So we need to have a healthy sense of like self-disclosure and boundaries. But you know, just to be able to put something out there and be like, I'm actually feeling a little nervous right now. You know, I was really excited to meet you and it can be an open door for someone to be like,
yeah, I was feeling that too. Or in other examples too, it just creates a space for other people to be vulnerable and then for them to there and feel accepted and for them to take some of the pressure off. Like, okay, I'm not the only one. A lot of times we feel like we're the only one. We're alone. I think of the classic example of like going around the room in a circle, doing introductions. Like to this day, I hate it.
I've done it with students. I've been on the other end of it so many times and I still get this like my heart starts fluttering and I'm just like, like I hate this feeling. And one of the other tips that I've learned is that when you really try to focus on what other people are sharing in their introductions, if you really try to keep your focus and attention on the other person and truly listen to what they're saying, it will decrease your own anxiety.
And that is because we're not staying in the self-focus, we're staying in the other focus. A lot of times, everybody's going around the circle and they're sharing what they're, and we don't even hear it because we're like, what am I gonna say? What's my unknown fact that has to be funny and has to sound a certain way? And you're all stressed out about what you're gonna say rather than being attuned to what other people are sharing. And I think I tell my athletes this too, like if you're sitting on the bench,
and you're worried about how you're gonna perform when you go in the game, pick a player in your position or even pick an opposing player, watch what they're doing and mentally rehearse how you're gonna respond to this. Try to put yourself in the game and focus on them, focus on what they're doing. And when we take ourselves out of ourself, we naturally lower that pressure, lower that anxiety because I'm not just obsessing about myself.
I'm focused on the other or I'm cheering on my teammates and paying attention to what they're doing rather than worrying about what I'm going to do at a future point in time.
Joey Pontarelli (43:14)
so good. I love this idea of overthinking being maybe at the core of a struggle with confidence. I remember I was talking with one of my cousins and she was saying that she was I think talking to mentor or something and he said, IQ is a little too high. If your IQ was a little lower, you would actually perform better, be more confident because you think through things too much.
And I've totally found myself falling into that as well. And so that's fascinating of like, the focus off of yourself. And I know I wanna come back to like this idea of visualization. think that's like, that's really helpful for me in a lot of arenas. But yeah, but this idea of preparation to art is also like really important. But I love that idea of like, just stop focusing so much on yourself. But I wanted to share the embarrassing story. So yeah, just a time when my confidence falters, because you shared so vulnerably. I was in college, right? And for some reason, Nicole, I just like hated.
reading in class. know, some teachers will like, you know, not just have you like answer questions, but they'll actually like, hey, read this part of the book. I don't know why I like up to that point, I'd given some like talks and done things like that. But like for some reason, reading just freaked me out. So I remember being in class with like all my friends and classmates and, just, got called on to read and I was like, and I got to a point where I just like couldn't continue. I like locked up. I like, I started reading. was like,
Literally choked. it was like, and it might even happen twice and it was so embarrassing and it's just so ironic. It's like, I guess God has a sense of humor now. puts me in front of like hundreds and even a couple thousand people to give talks. But it's, but yeah, that was like a very embarrassing moment. But I think, think one of the lessons I took away from it was like, putting so much pressure on myself to like perform. And now, you know, this whole idea of like,
I'm gonna give it my all. I'm put in the hard work, the time to prepare, and then whatever comes out, like the outcome, I'm leaving it all in the field. Whatever happens from that, it's like great, it's on God's hands, it's not under my control, but I'm literally putting to the best of my capacity now, I'm putting my effort in. But that was such a painful experience.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (45:19)
⁓ yeah. And I think that's such an excellent point that what you just said about putting it all out there and giving it your best, because this is not like I take my hands off the reins and I don't care and it doesn't matter. The outcome doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what happens to me. Like it's no big deal. It's not this laissez faire like attitude, like whatever. I
need to put an effort, I need to prepare, I need to try, and that's a good thing. And so we're more likely to walk away from something with our confidence intact when we have prepared and we have given our full effort. Sometimes what happens to athletes or other performers is that when they feel pressured, when they feel performance pressure or anxiety, they let go, but in a way where they give up effort.
and they stop caring, but out of the place of a loss of motivation because of the fear of failure. And so they're like, if I check out and I stopped trying, then I can't be blamed that it didn't happen because I'm not going to allow myself to be disappointed. And so I would just say that that trying is so important because even if you lose, right, proverbially or literally, you still can walk away saying, I gave my best effort.
I didn't give up and I think that means something. Like the quote by Mother Teresa always, Saint Mother Teresa always sticks out to me where she said, God didn't call me to be successful, He called me to be faithful. And so can I stay faithful to whatever I'm giving my all in the moment, whether it's in a relationship, whether it's in a sport, whether it's in a speaking event, can I give it everything that I have that I've learned and trained to up to this point? ⁓ And then can I
be faithful to that training and not just evaluate myself on my successful outcome or the degree of the outcome at that point.
Joey Pontarelli (47:18)
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or just the trailer. Again, thanks to Blackstone Films for sponsoring this episode and for telling such an inspiring story that I myself watched and really appreciate it. So good. I love it. I want to get even more tactical. think we've already been tactical, but just talking with people about like how they can implement this stuff in their life. And so one of the things that I just wanted to share from my personal experience was when I was in high school and college playing baseball, I came across the winning state books. I don't know you're familiar with those, but
They're great. We'll link to them in the show notes, but they have like I think it was a sports psychologist who wrote them and he has different books for different sports and I'm sure like the tactics are similar across the board but those are really really helpful and a few of the tools that I took away from that that I still use this day in different areas of my life was one ⁓ He said this like kind of like calm intensity is one of the things you want He gives the analogy of like like whenever you know, you're tackling one of these kind of big things in life whether it's know relationship
Job thing whatever and he said he gave the analogy of like a dog who was just like like a mom a mother dog Who is laying like by her puppies? Let's say she's just laying there calm But you get close to her and she'll give like a little growl like a And and like like like it's an intense growl like you're not like you mess with me I'm gonna like take you down, but it's not like a dysregulated like crazy psycho thing It's like no like I am like intense and so that that's been really helpful in a lot of different things. I even you know
before doing podcasts or whatever the scenario, kind of having that idea of like, okay, I'm like that calm intensity has been really helpful for me. Another thing that I took away from, might've been another book, but I think they talked about in those books as well was like you said before, having experiences that you can fall back on. So they would, I forget what they would call it, but like some sort of an anchor where I would think of like these just three scenarios that I, they were kind of mimicked when I'm walking into where maybe I was nervous, maybe I didn't do it perfectly, but I did get through it and maybe even did it well.
And so I always try to fall back on those things and that's been really helpful for me because it starts to change the way that you feel when you remember, and I you know this, but for everyone listening, it starts to change the way you feel when you remember those situations and think, yeah, okay, I was at that wedding and I gave that speech and people laughed and that was a couple hundred people and I got some good compliments about, I kind of forgot about that. And I'm feeling so nervous about this speech I have to give, then maybe.
I need to remember those things where it went well. And so that's been really helpful for me. But love for you to maybe expand on that and add anything else that you would add in as like these tactical tools that people can take away from this conversation and start using today.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (50:47)
Absolutely,
I love that example because that's one of the things I frequently encourage my athletes to do is to reflect on their previous successful experiences and it's kind of like watching tape, right? So there's multiple purposes of watching tape in sport but usually it's for the purpose of learning something but it's much more helpful to watch tape of yourself successfully performing well, like highlight reels.
because then you have those images in your mind and those memories in your mind of, yeah, I've done this before. And that goes back to one of the sources of confidence being past successful experiences or mastery experiences that we so often forget. Our brain is really good at focusing on negative information because it's built to protect us from a primal sense. So we are naturally going to attend to negative cues or cues of stress or danger.
just more than positive cues because they could be threats to our life. And so we need to be prepared. ⁓ But the way that happens in sport, this is again often takes place in overthinking is that we get so focused on the negative, the fears, the what could go wrong that we're just wasting mental energy on things that are not actually helping us to increase the likelihood of a future successful.
performance. So one of the things that I often work with my athletes on and people in general, especially from a Christian perspective, is the idea of our self-talk. We all have this voice in our head that is constantly chattering, constantly. And so we talk in sports psychology, we talk about talking to yourself more than listening to yourself. So oftentimes we have all these thoughts that come into our mind and we just automatically accept them as true.
So we're listening to all these thoughts that are flooding our mind. We don't often stop and pause and say, how true is this thought that I have in? How much evidence do I have for this thought? Is this thought coming from a positive, encouraging, kind place, which is the voice of God, essentially? Or is this coming from a voice of accusation, of doubt, of fear, of criticism, which
we know who the accuser is. So we know who wants to instill fear in our hearts and minds. And so if that is not the voice of God, then why am I paying so much attention to it? Why am I giving it so much power? And then we have to do the work to replace those thoughts with more helpful and they don't even have to be positive in the sense of fluffy, but just more realistic thoughts of, I've done this before.
I'm going to do my best to do it again. I've prepared for this. Think of all the positive comments and encouragement, the feedback that I've gotten in the past. Rehearse that in your mind and talk to yourself more than you're just automatically listening to all those unhelpful negative judgmental criticisms, doubts, fears. It's not going to help.
Joey Pontarelli (53:53)
never heard it said like that. That's really helpful. And man, yeah, there's so much to say, but one of the things I was just thinking of was like, so much of what we fear never actually comes true. And we would kind of forget that. In the moment, it just feels so real when it's actually not. It's just, yeah, like you said, our brain protecting us, which not a bad thing, but yeah, I can definitely hold this back. One of the, probably the best advice I've ever gotten when it came to confidence and performance and doing things that you want to do but maybe scare you is just to do it scared. Do it scared?
I love that and that's something I try to remind myself of and my four year old daughter, Lucy, she's got that ingrained in her now and so when she's scared I'm like, what are you gonna do? And she's like, I can do it scared. was like, yeah, that's Yeah, but I think that's really helpful because what some people might be thinking when we talked about the highlight reels, which I totally agree with, that's amazing, is like, I don't have that to fall back on.
And so I love your thoughts on that. Like what if they don't have that track record yet to say, to help them feel confident? What I would say from my experience of like messing up and doing things poorly is like, it's okay, like do it scared, like fail, struggle, do it imperfectly, and then in time you're gonna have enough successes or enough, you know, of a track record to fall back and say, no, I can do this, I know I can do it, it won't be perfect but I can do it. What would you say?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (55:14)
Yes, I would say everybody starts at that point. You know, we, of course, we're born with natural talents and gifts and things, but a lot of us end up doing things that we didn't expect to do. Like you said, public speaking, that's something that I never would have anticipated either. And we all had to start at that point. And I think the thing that has been most helpful for me is doing research and gathering as much information as possible, talking to people as much as possible.
So, you if you wanna improve your speaking skills, watch some videos on, you know, how to deliver a speech, talk to people that you admire that are good speakers, ⁓ you know, rehearse, make videos of yourself, like prepare yourself as best as you can, knowing that it's not gonna be perfect, that it's gonna take time to build up experience, and then remind yourself of the why. Remind yourself of why you're doing this, because if you're not connected with that sense of purpose,
The challenge is going to feel like, well, I'm just going to give up because this doesn't really matter. We know that we're doing it for a reason, that it has purpose or God has called us to it or that we've been given these gifts and we have a responsibility or an invitation to share them with others. Then we know that, OK, I can get through this hard thing. I can do it scared. I can. We often say like I can feel the fear and do it anyway. I like that movie In and Out.
with the characters, I think, or inside out.
Inside out, yes, with all the emotion characters, that. ⁓ Fear is just one of those characters and we don't have to let fear drive the bus. So like it can drive the bus and it can make our decisions and it can lead our behaviors, but we don't have to let it. We can feel it and acknowledge, say like, Hey, I know you're there. I see you, but I'm going to do this anyway, because you are not my identity. This fear is not my identity.
Something else I heard recently, think it was Father Mike Schmitz said it in one of his homilies or something, but I may be misquoting that, I'm sorry if I am, but that faith and fear both require you to believe in something that you can't see. So both faith and fear require you to believe in something you can't see. So when we believe, when we choose to believe in the fears, we can't see it, it hasn't happened yet, and we have just as much of a choice to have faith.
in what could happen if we push through the discomfort, if we challenge ourselves, if we go for it, if we do it scared.
Joey Pontarelli (57:54)
I love it. That's so good. And I know we're talking about a lot of different examples and public speaking has come up a lot. I wanted to kind of talk about that for a second. There's a podcast episode I'll link to.
where there's actually a world series of public speaking. one of the, think two of the guys who run a business teaching people how to speak well. So we'll link to that and it might seem kind of random, but I think it's really important because one of things they say in that episode is like speaking is kind of what they call like a keystone or a cornerstone habit, a linchpin habit where it's like, if you get better at that, then you're actually gonna feel more confident in other areas of your life too. And so I think that's something for if, especially if that's.
you know, maybe you need to talk a lot at work. Most speaking, by the way, is not getting up in front of a stage and giving a talk. That's actually pretty rare and like a low percentage of for most people. Most speaking is like impromptu stuff where you're getting up in front of like maybe a meeting of people at work or your classroom in school and, and being able to get better at that will instill a sense of confidence in you that will translate into other areas of life. And so I'll link to that episode. but yeah, I think, I think that's, know we're using this public speaking analogy and, and on that note,
You talked about the importance of preparation. So I know we're getting closer into our time here, but I just wanted to really focus on this and double down here. I heard Alex Hormozi, one of the top business content creators now, ⁓ he talks about this a lot. He says that confidence, like you said, is your belief that you can accomplish something, And so it's like, and it's more of, says it's like your percentage of likelihood that you could. So it's like, how confident are you? Like we said, it's a continuum. And if you're like,
If you've practiced so much and you're really good at that thing, like your percentage likelihood that you're gonna like knock it out of the park, it's pretty darn high, as opposed to something you kind of prepared for a little bit. And so one of the things that he says is like, confidence is the byproduct of proof. Where, just like you said as well, it's just he puts different words to it, where it's like if you've done this thing so many times, you have so much proof that you don't, in his words, he's like, you don't even need confidence, you're just sharing your experience, you're just talking about like what you've done.
in his environment at least. And so ⁓ he said, know, sometimes like the whole idea of faking until you make it, I think, I don't know his whole thought on that, but I think he gets it. But at the same time, he's like, no, it's better to have proof than trying to fake it. Now you need to start somewhere like we were saying. So doing it scared is I think the best advice. But yeah, I know like when he gives talks and things like he did this whole like ⁓ book launch, business book launch, I mean, he prepared for a whole year. He wrote a book.
I think he put like at least a hundred hours into preparing his presentation. And so I think like by the time he said he gets up in front of, know, these, I think it was millions of people online, it just felt like another rep. Like it felt like another practice because he had done it so many times. And so I think there's an important lesson in that too for preparation. But what else do you teach when it comes to preparation?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:00:47)
There's the physical element. There's the mental element and there's the in between of that would be like the physiological element. So what we're looking at is like for an athlete, you know, how have they physically trained? Have they put in the reps? Have they put in the time? What kind of coaches do they have? What kind of training experiences have they had? And so how are they training their body to be prepared to execute the sport that they play?
and the position that they're responsible for. Then you have the mental preparation, which a lot of athletes miss this. And then that's why you see very, very talented people choking or getting overwhelmed by the pressure and then not playing to their potential, even though physically they have not lost their skill. But there's what we call like a mental block or something that's
getting lost in that translation. So I think we underestimate the value of mental preparation. And what that can look like is doing some reflection on things that have gone well in past performance, things that could be better, and then how you wanna take tangible steps to continue improving. Mental preparation might also look like practicing gratitude, like before you get up for a speech or something that you're a little anxious about.
takes some time to just do a little bit of journaling, make a list of everything that you're grateful for today. And, you know, for this opportunity, for the people that have poured into you, for your life, for your ability to speak and communicate. And sometimes that takes us our focus on the deeper quality of our human experience rather than just at the surface level, I'm giving this talk and I want to be successful. Okay. Why am I here?
Why am I pushing through this discomfort to give this talk and what can I be grateful for before I perform and then doing that after to doing some reflection after the performance and again, going back to what went well, what could be better? How am going to do that? And what am I grateful for in this experience that I just had? Sorry, I just have to throw in the last. ⁓
Joey Pontarelli (1:02:57)
So good.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:03:03)
So the physiological would also be like the things like deep breathing, exercise, sleep, nutrition, caffeine intake, all those kinds of things that can affect our physiological functioning and regulation that can help us. It doesn't usually make or break the performance, but it can help us create an environment and an internal environment that is more conducive to performance. The last one would be spiritual preparation. Prayer for me is like the core of everything.
So like, you you and I said a prayer before we got on this podcast and it's that act of surrender and ⁓ just asking the Lord to use it for His purposes and for His glory. I think when we do that before we perform and then thank Him after we perform, it sits different.
Joey Pontarelli (1:03:49)
No,
it's so good. And I love the gratitude piece. I think it kind of reframes the whole situation that you're going to as opposed to being like, oh, like I have to do this. Then maybe see it as like, I get to do this. Like, this is amazing. I, yeah. So I think that I love that advice. That's really, really good one. There's so much more we could talk about. I wanted to tie what I was saying about.
and what you said multiple times in this conversation about proof, back to this whole idea of relational confidence. I think everything we've said can be applied to relationships, especially, you come from a broken family, let's say you haven't seen romantic relationships and marriage handled well, you don't really have a good pattern for that. I think what Dr. Nicole said about surrounding yourself with people who do model healthy relationships will, by osmosis, kinda help you to do that too.
But then if you can build healthy friendships, this is one thing that was really helpful for me, you know, well before I got married with, you know, they're a little safer. You can be vulnerable. You can build something healthy there. That's proof. That's a little bit of a track record. Maybe you have mentor relationships where you can have a good, healthy relationship. can essentially like experience loving and being loved.
And then that kind of overrides that maybe experience you had at home where that just wasn't the case. And then once you have enough of those experiences, that becomes your proof that you can then take into maybe a romantic relationship into a marriage. And that will give you, think, a greater capacity to love while there and to feel confident. Because I think, yeah, we're not meant to fake it till we make it forever. Like there are times where we have to push through it and do the whole scared thing, like we were saying, but I think like the proof piece is so key. So I wanted to tie that together. Would you say it any differently?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:05:27)
I wouldn't,
I think that's a great point of just building up to, you know, with experience. And I would just add that even once you get to a place where, you know, you feel called to marriage and you're ready and you get married, like you're still learning, you're going to be learning for the rest of your life. And I think we, we all are going to mess up and we make mistakes and things get, patterns get triggered and we start learning more about our spouse. And so I think just,
that understanding that we are constantly learning and we're constantly in a process of healing. Even when we have made a lot of progress and God has done a lot within us and within our relationships and our healing journey, we're continuously healing. And so there's always something more to learn. So I think if you don't have proximity to learn from people that you personally know, there's so many great books and this podcast and other podcasts out there.
They have retreats, they have, you know, and then going and seeking out if there's a couple that you admire, like having a conversation with them or like you said, even with the friendship piece of just, you know, even making friends can be really as challenging as dating, you know, and ⁓ intimidating and you don't know where to start. So I think just trying to put yourself out there and gain experience and give yourself grace in the process.
And even once you've achieved that next milestone, you have a really good friendship or you have a marriage or you have children, like you're always gonna make mistakes. And like you said, make a mistake and then you figure it out.
Joey Pontarelli (1:07:06)
I love it. Awesome. Yeah. No, and I think this whole idea that confidence is not about perfection, but it's just about, you know, kind of this belief that you're to be able to get through this and do the best you can. And even if it's not perfect, like that's okay. There's like a level of like peace. I think that probably comes along with confidence too. Yeah. So, I mean, we talked about so much, but I want to make sure that people, they want more from you, ⁓ how, yeah, where can they find your work and who do you typically work with?
No, it's like who's best suited to what you offer.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:07:36)
I typically work with athletes primarily and other performers, I do, I'm a general psychologist as well. So I do see, you know, teens, adults, young adults all the way up through older adults. So I have a private practice and ⁓ I've worked at universities in the past. I've worked with, you know, anything from youth sport to professional sport. So that's, that's primarily my population.
Joey Pontarelli (1:08:03)
So good. just to clarify for our audience too, since you do have the private practice side of things, are you unable to see people in Florida or do you, know there's SIPAC and different ways of.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:08:13)
Yes. So I do see ⁓ for clinical mental health cases, so like for clients that are coming in that, ⁓ you know, maybe struggling with something like feeling depressed or feeling like generalized anxiety or with the trauma history that are seeking mental health services or therapists for those purposes. I do work with people only in Florida. So I'm not side packed yet. I haven't taken that leap yet, but I'm considering it.
But I work with athletes from all over the world, actually, if we're just doing like mental skills training. So if we're focused mainly on performance and working on sports psychology concepts, like focus, motivation, performance anxiety, pressure, things like that, confidence, and it's not going into the realm of like clinical mental health, then I can see anyone from anywhere.
basically. And I just, give the caveat that like if something comes up and it seems like you're presenting with symptoms that would be better addressed in like a therapeutic clinical setting, then I make a referral, but it doesn't mean I can't stop seeing that person. It's just that they would be talking with someone else about more of those clinical issues.
Joey Pontarelli (1:09:28)
Great. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. That's helpful. So if someone's in Florida, you do virtual as well. Okay. Great. So someone in Florida, at this point, you know, maybe in the future you'll be somewhere else, but at this point you're in Florida, you can see people virtually or in person and like the Jacksonville area, ⁓ or north of Jackson.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:09:43)
I
don't have an office right now. Sometimes I'm able to find a meeting space, but most of the clients that I see are virtual because they're kind of spread out through Florida, or like I said, athletes who are spread out throughout the country or throughout the world.
Joey Pontarelli (1:10:00)
Okay, yeah, on the athlete side, it's really anyone, it's more coaching, not therapy. And then on the therapy side, it's in Florida. And eventually, maybe by the time you're listening to this, CYPAC, for anyone who's not familiar, gives therapists the ability to see clients in other states, certain states. It's a lot of them now. So maybe by that point, they could reach out to you and see if you're CYPAC'd.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:10:20)
likely that I will be doing that in the near future.
Joey Pontarelli (1:10:23)
Great, okay, so yeah, so maybe ⁓ to reach out, think is probably the best option. And how could they contact you? ⁓ Your website, email, what's the best option?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:10:32)
Yes, so if you go to PAXPerform.com, P-A-X-P-E-R-F-O-R-M, that will have all the contact information and I'm happy to talk with people too if they're unsure about services or any details, just to briefly chat and then decide if that's the right fit.
Joey Pontarelli (1:10:52)
Great, I love it. Well, it's been so good to talk with you, Dr. Nicole. Yeah, I'm really glad and hopefully this gives people a little bit of a roadmap. I know we kind of jumped around with different analogies, but the whole idea is like if there's an area of your life where you don't feel confident and you want to be more confident.
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:10:55)
Thanks for having me.
Joey Pontarelli (1:11:08)
some of the principles and tools and lessons that we brought out today from these different environments like sports and public speaking. You can use and apply that to that area of your life. And if you need help doing that, someone like Dr. Nicole would be perfect for you. We will link all the links, you know, the books and different resources that we mentioned in the show notes for you guys to make that easier for you. But I definitely encourage you to check out Dr. Nicole's website and maybe schedule a free consult if that sounds like it'd be helpful to you. Nicole, before we close down, I just want to give you the final word.
What final advice or encouragement would you offer to everyone listening, especially to that young person listening who maybe has a lot of brokenness, emotional wounds from their family's dysfunction, their parents getting divorced, and they want to be that confident, healthy whole person, but maybe they're not there quite yet. What final encouragement would you give them?
Dr. Nicole Gabana (1:11:55)
I would just say you're not alone. I was that person, I am that person, and there's always hope. And I would just say that God loves you so much, and there is a reason that you are here. And you will learn that everything that you've experienced, even the worst parts of it, God can transform it into good, and he can make all things new. So I just want you to have that hope that things do get better.
and you will end up using your experiences and the things that you learned in ways that will help other people and that will tie into your mission and calling in life.
Joey Pontarelli (1:12:36)
That wraps up this episode. this podcast has helped you, feel free to subscribe and rate or review the show. You'll avoid missing future episodes and help us reach more people too. In closing, always remember you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction. You can break that cycle and build a better life and we are here to help. And keep in mind the words of C.S. Lewis who said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.
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