Digging into Grounded Confidence with Megan Powers

Discovering Grounded Confidence with Megan Powers - Episode 162

Megan Powers shares a little bit about herself on Making a Marketer podcast

Megan: Hello. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Making a Marketer podcast. I'm Megan Powers with Powers of Marketing. Happy New Year to all of our wonderful listeners. I haven't done a solo show in a long time, so I thought I would do a brief one as our first show of 2025. I can't believe it's 2025. It's crazy. So, I think you learn a little bit about me each time I engage with Jen and with our guests, but I don't think I've shared much about myself with our listeners.

So I'll start there briefly, and then I want to dig, pun intended, into what grounded confidence is, and how we can think about it after reading about this in Brene Brown's book, Atlas of the Heart. You probably have heard me mention it before. I've taken, a couple of years to finish it because I always have many books going at once and I do not read nearly enough. But, I thought this would be an interesting topic to tackle, as we are starting a new year. Also, my editor, Avri -- shout out Avri -- mentioned that he just learned that I'm the youngest of nine children on episode 161, and this is the eighth year of him editing our podcast. So, I just brought to mind this, like, a fundamental element of who I am, so maybe I should share a little bit more about what makes me me, and then it'll actually also then flow into this, grounded confidence conversation.

So, yes, I am the youngest of nine children. I have six brothers and two sisters. There are 17 years between me and the oldest. My parents actually had eight children in 12 years. And then five and a half years later, they were blessed with yours truly. So, I was also born on the living room couch, not on purpose, and I was delivered by my dad, which is actually indicated on my birth certificate. So, needless to say, I entered the world in a unique way. And I've had an interesting upbringing being part of such a large family as you can imagine. There was rarely a dull moment in our home. Seemingly always distracted. The TV was always on. Not kidding, 24/7. And I was always, you know, in a dance class or piano, playing soccer, softball, singing in the choir. And this resulted, I think, in me, not being a very good student until, like, pretty late in my educational career. but more on that in a bit.

After my mom passed in 2015, my siblings and I were clearing out our family home, the donate, keep, toss exercise that you have to do. And in Doing this, we found that my dad had actually kept a folder on each of us. and in there was artwork and school stuff and there was a progress report from my kindergarten teachers. apparently even back then I was struggling academically. not kidding. They said I was going to have a hard time in first grade and then I ended up in summer school every year between, ah, third and sixth grade, I think. I'm not sure, something like that. but my kindergarten teachers did say that they enjoyed my sparkly personality, which I got a kick out of reading. I also stood on the picket line, with them, as a kindergartner. so I think they had a special place in their heart for me because of that. they definitely. I saw them years later and told they at a restaurant and they told all their friends that I had stood on the picket line. So I thought that was cute. So, you know, I think when we aren't great students, we lean into other things, right? So that I did, with all my extracurricular activities throughout life. So between that and trying to be heard, you know, with so many voices around at home, here we have, I think, my extrovert personality. I really do love learning new things. I did get almost a 4.0 in my master's program, so I eventually became a good student. And I love collaborating with my co-host Jen on this show and, getting to engage and learn from so many of our amazing guests.

Brene’ Brown writes about developing grounded confidence in Atlas of the Heart

So in terms of the grounded confidence heading in that, that direction here with the conversation, I think being confident is something that can ebb and flow and actually can be related to different parts of our lives. Some people might be super confident socially or, or appear so, but not as much in school or at work. We also go through times where we may fake it too though, right. When a new year comes around, it causes us to self-assess. And so it, it made this last chapter of Atlas of the Heart come. I think at a perfect time that the name of the chapter is Places We Go to Self-Assess. Brown dedicates full pages throughout the book to one quote. And in this chapter, I just love this one, it says, I'm here to get it right, not to be right. Okay, so this is a lot to try and cover in a brief podcast episode, but I shall do my best. so in this chapter, Brown shares her grounded theory on cultivating meaningful connection. It's all worth reading, absorbing and reading again. I think I reread a couple of the pages like three Times this morning. there are three areas. They are developing grounded confidence, practicing the courage to walk alongside, and practicing story stewardship. So for the purposes of this episode, I want to focus on developing grounded confidence as, she goes through skill sets she developed for each area.

She divides the skills into skill sets for cultivating meaningful connection, near enemies and far enemies. So these are things that we need to be aware of as we work to develop grounded confidence. An excerpt from the book. I'm going to read it. rather than paraphrasing, this is it. Developing grounded confidence is driven by a commitment to learning and improving. Its near enemy is knowing and proving. In our culture were quick to mistake knowing and proving for confidence when they're actually a function of low self worth. Fragile self worth is the far enemy of grounded confidence. A, fragile self worth drives us to self protect at all costs. This really struck me. I used to be quick to try and prove that I was right. Throughout my childhood. I would be defensive, of course. Looking back now, I think it's because I wasn't doing well in school. and then because my confidence was low, when I truly thought I was right, I would stand my ground or worse. I wanted to prove the other person wrong, subconsciously, of course, in an effort to make me feel better or superior, I'm guessing. So some of the skill sets that she lists for learning and improving grounded confidence are practicing courage, rumbling with vulnerability, staying curious, of course. Very important to us here on, Making a Marketer and Committing to Mastery and Practice. She indicates that grounded confidence is driven by learning and curiosity, even about our own bodies. When we only live in our heads, our body can get our attention other ways. Insomnia, exhaustion, depression and anxiety, to name a few.

This made me think about how I may suddenly notice that I'm feeling out of sorts. And then when I think back to what it may be, I realize it was because of something that had happened or something that I had read. Maybe it's bad news, or someone said something to me, you know, an hour or two earlier that was affecting me physically. So Brown explains that this is, called embodied awareness. And that disembodied awareness can lead to an incongruence between what we do and the beliefs that we hold. This stuff's kind of heavy. I understand. If you might need to rewind, and then, to further quote her, we become what we do even when those things are outside of who we want to be. Our bodies are our teachers and the messengers who call our attention to what we're absorbing and becoming. This is why we have to learn how to listen. And this is why grounded confidence requires embodiment.

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So starting this episode, talking about my upbringing, even just a little bit, brings this to this sort of full circle, right? How we approach and handle emotions and experiences, they're all layers of our own biography, biology, behavior, and all of our backstory, not just the early years, but of course they play a part. The more we're willing to learn about how our emotions and experiences affect how we show up now, the more we can continue to connect better with others. And the better we connect with ourselves, the better we will connect with others. We gotta look inward first, right? So grounded, confidence is based on self awareness and practice. Let's figure out what our strengths are and where we have room to grow. It's not about proving your worth, but about continually using your strengths to improve your weaknesses. And I will continue to keep this in mind. I'm here to get it right, not to be right.

All right, y'all. I hope that, you enjoyed learning about grounded confidence. I'm going to reread this chapter and, go back to it. Keep these things top of mind when I'm, you know, engaging with, with co workers and, and whatnot. But also, you know, just as I, as I embark on this year with thriving in 25, and, I think we have so much to learn from Brene Brown, so if you're not already a fan, check her out. All right, thank you so much for indulging me with another solo show. I hope everyone's 2025, is off to a good start. I do want to say my heart and my prayers go out to everyone in the, Los Angeles area in Southern, California, at, at large, with, the fires and everything going on. it's, it's a lot. And, it's sad to say that it's, you know, we're, we've become used to it, but it just is so awful and impacts so many people. and so I just wanted to. To not forget to say that. All right, my friends, thank you so much. Once again, this has been another episode of the Making a Marketer podcast, and we will catch you next time.

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