BoldJourney is all about helping our audience and community level up by learning from the experiences of others. One of the most important topics we’ve been focused on sharing insights and lessons on is confidence building and self-esteem. Below, you’ll find some brilliant entrepreneurs and creatives sharing their perspectives and advice.
Matt Brewster
Confidence and self esteem are things I’m always working on, especially when there are so many younger and more talented bass players in the world. But my journey to achieving self confidence started with the fact that I’m handicapped. I’m missing 4 fingers on my right hand, and I’m missing my right leg from below my knee. Couple that with being an adopted Korean and raised in the 90’s in a predominantly white town, and you have a recipe for a whole lot of childhood bullying. It was hard growing up being so different from my peers; as I got older, I came to accept that this is the only body I’m ever going to have and that I should love it regardless of whether or not I thought anyone else would. Read more>>
Just Fresh
Confidence and self-esteem don’t just pop up out of nowhere—they’re built over time. For me, a lot of that started with sports. In high school, I learned resilience real quick—whether it was bouncing back from a tough loss or pushing through an injury, you just had to keep going. Sports drilled into me that discipline is key: you can’t just show up and hope for the best; you’ve gotta put in the work. That’s where my confidence grew. Read more>>
Malcolm Havens
Confidence and self esteem come from different sources. Confidence is a belief in your abilities. In general, I’m a confident person but I’m confident in my ability to put in the work to create results in any given arena that I choose. If someone put me in a new environment, I wouldn’t start off confident, but i’d have confidence in my ability to learn the skills necessary to succeed. Read more>>
Alex Robinson
I think the ‘fake it till you make it’ mentality is incredibly helpful in developing the confidence and self-esteem that many people seek when starting a new endeavor. It’s not about faking it in the sense of applying for a bartending job when you’ve never even touched alcohol. It’s about pretending to believe in yourself, even when you don’t. Read more>>
Kaitlyn Bui
I’m all about “fake it ‘til you make it.” For me, that means being so prepared that confidence just naturally falls into place. When I’m fishing, I always make sure I look the part—not just so people take me seriously, but so I can feel like I belong. It puts me in the right headspace, like, “Yeah, I can totally do this.” But let’s be real—looking the part is only half the battle. You’ve got to act the part too. Read more>>
Termrak Chaiwat
Keep creating cool stuff, and dive deeper into the topics that fascinate you. Staying persistent in your lifestyle is key to slowly building up your self-esteem. Consistently making and publishing your work helps a lot because the mindset you have when creating and when curating for the public is completely different. Keep creating cool stuff, and dive deeper into the topics that fascinate you. Staying persistent in your lifestyle is key to slowly building up your self-esteem. Consistently making and publishing your work helps a lot because the mindset you have when creating and when curating for the public is completely different. Read more>>
Patti Shene
One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence? Positive feedback about interviews I had conducted on the podcast boosted my self-confidence. I especially felt encouraged when literary agents referred their author clients for interview and I learned I was listed as a podcast reference for certain writing and speaking groups. Read more>>
Cameron Sabin
I attribute a lot of my current confidence and self-esteem to creating videos, actually. I am not a naturally confident person, and to be honest, have struggled with self-esteem issues my entire life. I think a lot of this was down to feeling lost and not feeling like I had found my place in the world yet. But, when I started creating videos on YouTube, I suddenly had a thing that was all mine, so to speak. I made the decisions around what videos to make, how to research them, how to write scripts, and how to edit them. I learned a lot of skills by doing that, and slowly but surely found my creative voice, which translated into real-world confidence. At first, my videos were voiceover only, but I eventually made the decision to appear on camera. Read more>>
Eric Bergman
I feel that it came from experience and persistance. The film industry has many faces, and you need to learn how to naviagate them on your journey. Its not an easy journey and you need to learn by making mistakes. I am a different person now from when I started due to my experience on different projects and the people that I encountered though the years. All of this has given me confidence and a lot of self-esteem. I will not work on certain projects if I am not treated with respect and that comes from self confidence. I feel I earned that with my experience and work accomplisments. Read more>>
K Lashawn Powell
Confidence and self-esteem didn’t come naturally to me; it was a journey filled with ups and downs, self-reflection, and intentional growth. I started by embracing my flaws and realizing that perfection is an illusion. Instead of focusing on what I wasn’t, I began to celebrate who I was and the unique qualities that set me apart. Read more>>
Megan Grace
This question is so beautiful and deep, I feel like the journey to embody confidence in the body and to then also believe it in the mind and spirit space is ever evolving. I have a true belief that we have never been the person we are today, and so on each morning when I wake up my quest is to learn who I have developed into for that moment. This curiosity and openness to the truth of who I am in the moment has been a key piece in having a healthy relationship with my self, and foster my self esteem. Read more>>
Neil Rogers
When I worked behind the bar, that’s really where I started to build my confidence and self-esteem. It wasn’t just about serving drinks; it was about dealing with all kinds of people and situations. You never knew what was going to happen on any given night, and that unpredictability forced me to learn how to think on my feet, keep calm under pressure, and communicate clearly. Read more>>
Pavel Dianov
Self-confidence is an essential quality for any successful person, and so is self-worth. If a person lacks self-belief, who will support them? How can one develop these qualities? First, reflect on your life journey and recognize the achievements you’ve already accomplished. Often, individuals overlook their successes and focus solely on their shortcomings. Second, consider your surroundings. The people in your life serve as mirrors; if you are surrounded by successful and positive individuals, it indicates that you also possess similar qualities. Read more>>
Daniele Bolelli
I’d love to claim to have being born from a rock and forged my own self because it sounds cool and manly. But the reality is that I had a huge advantage from the get-go, since I had parents who showered me in love and attention every day of my life. They didn’t have money. I wasn’t privileged in that sense, but I was in terms of being raised in a highly emotionally nurturing environment. Of course, this doesn’t guarantee that a person will develop self-esteem. Many things can go wrong along the way. Yet, what I received from my parents made the task of developing confidence infinitely easier. Read more>>
Drey Nelson
Before getting into the performing arts, basketball was my safe haven. Being on the court made me feel like I was worth something. It confirmed that I existed. When that was taken away, I felt like a complete failure. Basketball was the only thing that never rejected me. Rejection will humble you. It took a while, but then I realized that God was using basketball to prepare me for what was next, which turned out to be my journey as an actor and artist. Read more>>
Louise Kendra Isabela Criselda Lao
My journey in developing confidence and self-esteem has been an ongoing process, shaped by the diverse career paths I’ve followed and the challenges I’ve faced along the way. One of the biggest contributors was realizing that my unique experiences are my greatest strength. Initially, transitioning from veterinary medicine to environmental science, and then to design, left me questioning how it all fit together. I often felt like I was starting from scratch in each new field, which led to a lot of self-doubt and imposter syndrome, especially in design school where I was surrounded by classmates with traditional design/ art backgrounds. However, over time, I started to embrace the idea that my interdisciplinary journey is exactly what sets me apart. Read more>>
Thaddaeus Watkins
I’ve spent a lot of time getting to know myself—understanding what I truly like and don’t like, identifying what I’m passionate about and even the types of people I connect with. This self-awareness has been crucial. It allows me to make choices that align with my values and preferences, which naturally boosts my confidence. When you’re in tune with who you are, it’s easier to stand firm in your beliefs and make decisions that resonate with you. They play hand-in-hand. Read more>>
Inez Barberio
For most of my adult life I was an extremely shy introvert. It was a lonely feeling knowing how much I had to offer to the world. To combat this, I decided to learn how to face my fear of being in the spotlight. I took an acting course in college, enrolled in public speaking courses, took a course on how to be a stand-up comedian (though this was totally by accident) and eventually got certified in Emotional Intelligence and became a speaker on the topic for many years, Read more>>
Petro Ninovskyi
It’s funny you ask this. Because even though many of my friends/collages/classmates perceive me as an extremely confident actor, I think that I’m a deeply vulnerable person with not the strongest sense of confidence. I’m working on it, of course. I think many actors are that way. There is a fine line between being confident and being uncertain. As one of my teachers said once: the less certain you are-the more freedom you have; the more work you do-the less certain you are. I think, I just try to do “my thing” and find the balance between these two, absolutely necessary, conditions that actors need to have- confidence and uncertainty. Read more>>
Jennifer Salvati
I am a firm believer that we all have confidence within us, we just need to know how to foster it so that it grows and develops into something powerful that we can use for the greater good. It took me a while to learn this, as I wasn’t always this confident. Growing up, I had a medical condition called Precocious Puberty. I spent ages 6 through 11 on hormones and it was during this time that I began to gain weight. My pediatrician put me on a diet and even gave my mom a doctors note to take to her gym so I could go with her before I was technically at the appropriate age to be working out at an adult style gym. Read more>>
Ash Soriano
Honestly, I’m still working on my confidence and self-esteem– I don’t ever think I’ll ever stop learning and growing in that aspect! It’s taken a lot of self reflection and grace towards myself, especially looking back on how my self talk used to be. A lot of my insecurities came from comparing myself to others and feeling like I wasn’t good enough or that I wasn’t doing enough. Whether it was in academics or with my slow-growing art career or even with my own identity, I struggled very heavily with my self image because I felt that it wasn’t what the world expected of me, and that impacted the way I talked to myself. I truly believe that if it wasn’t for the kindness and gracious support of my friends, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Read more>>
Hannah & Kyle Fitzgerald
A lot of growth and self-work have gotten us to where we are today. When you struggle with low self-esteem for a long time, it can be tough to break free without support. We were fortunate to have people in our lives who helped pull us out of that mindset and gave us a wake-up call that we do matter and are capable of achieving great things. When you start to see that in yourself, you realize you can become whoever you want to be. Read more>>
Jeff Hyman
I have always believed, and taught my children, that if you want to feel good about yourself you need to accomplish something meaningful. More than anything, that requires a good work ethic, and the desire for respect. I have always had both ever since I can remember, but that didn’t nessesarily apply to school. Haha. I totally underachieved there because it didn’t motivate me and getting good grades wasn’t that important to me. But with everything that I have embraced since, meaning my career, my music, my weekly global radio show, and my popular music news newsletters, it was another story. Read more>>
Matt Zabierek
My confidence in myself has grown over time from my work ethic. There have been times when I’ve started out pursuing something without any natural talent or reason to be confident, but I succeeded because I put in the time it took to learn and improve. Read more>>
Kelly De Leon
It took me a really long time to be able to believe in myself. In an industry like this one where we’re supposed to help make others feel beautiful. Read more>>
