Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi there. I'm Bradley Charbonneau, and there's a repossible podcast and YouTube channel. I'm here with Karina Klassen. Klassen, right?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: Yes, that's right. Yes.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: And this is our, I think, fourth take because the camera keeps falling over the tripod, although it looks perfect. Kept. I don't know what was going on. There was some odd balance thing today. We're talking about confidence, and I think had the two of us not as much confidence as we have, I don't know. It could have wrecked our interview. It could have thought, oh, this is a terrible beginning. Oh, what do we do? Should we go somewhere else? Should we try? It's not the right day. I don't know, but I don't know. This is my opinion. I think this is a pure sign of confidence and how we can go with things.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Welcome.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: That was my wacky introduction with what's going on here. So welcome. It's great to talk to you.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Thank you very much. It's really nice to have me here. And we can also look at from another angle because it's all about balance, and we found the balance in ourselves with our confidence as well and our self love.
So maybe this is a sign.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
Because I just think this could have gone so many different ways.
It fell over several times. We've moved around this table, I think three times. There were people sitting here. There's all kinds of distractions and things that could have made it go wrong. And so do we have the power? Do we have the control? Do we have the.
What's the word? Power to decide?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Yes, I believe so. Yes, I believe. I think you can't always, you know, prevent what's going to happen to you in life. There are going to be bad things. There are going to be good things. It's how you deal with it. And I think we do have that power to, you know, to decide. You have a choice how to react to it.
And I think we just saw the fun, fun of it instead of seeing it as something that went wrong.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Confidence. And we were saying, so you think we decided we have the. Keep using the word control. Is it the power to decide whether or not we're okay with that? We have the confidence to make what happened, this rough beginning we had today. We didn't let it ruin our afternoon. We didn't say, forget it, we'll do it some other time. We went with it.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: And maybe power is a bit strong. Maybe we say we have made a deliberate choice to not let it ruin us. Maybe because we have confidence.
I think one of the things when you have confidence is that you are not easily out of balance, so you remain much more stable, so no matter what happens. Whereas in the old days, when I used to be very insecure, when something small would happen, it would affect me, but now it takes much more to change my attitude, to change my mind, etcetera.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: You know, I think if you're watching or listening to this and you hear this and you say, and you're someone for whom external factors can change your mood or your day so much, and you feel that you're, like at the mercy of external factors, then you don't have this strong tripod and your confidence can be knocked off of, knocked off the table and need to regroup and can't deal with it, and you're having a freak out and forget this. Oh, you know, forget it today. We're not going to do it today. And yet we were laughing about it. Thankfully, my whole phone didn't fall off the table and we just rolled with it and even enveloped it into what we're saying.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: For me, this is really what happened in my life. I used to let my mood, my confidence, much more be influenced by what happened from the outside.
And I think the more confident you become, there is this stable base inside of you. So rather than being the victim of everything that happens outside of you, you can say, okay, no, I can make a choice. Those things will keep on happening.
But if you deliberately choose to respond differently, you have different outcome.
Because now we just had a laugh and it could have been that. I would have thought, oh, Bradley, you could have organized it, blah, blah, blah. There wasn't even that thought didn't even cross my mind because I choose not to think like that.
[00:04:58] Speaker A: Okay.
I like your use of words. Choose. I choose not to think like that. And I, like you said, powers may be too strong. Choice is nice. Yes, I can choose how to react to this situation.
Wow, that's powerful stuff. To bring back the word power. I keep going with the word power.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: I don't know why.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Powerful stuff to be able to have the ability or even the idea that I can choose here. How are we gonna react to this?
[00:05:31] Speaker B: Yes. And this is a small thing, yeah, but with the bigger things in life, you know, you can't prevent them.
But I see so many people that let something that happened in the past ruin the rest of their lives.
And I think it's realizing that, okay, it doesn't have power over me because I can choose, you know, to respond to that differently and to still be happy and to see, okay, what did I learn from that bad thing?
[00:06:07] Speaker A: Wow.
That is bigger than the camera falling over.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it is.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see that.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: And so this is a tiny little example, but having more confidence can help in so many ways.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: So many ways. So many ways. Yes. And also what I've seen with myself, because I've had quite a journey gaining this confidence, and then from that, I gained confidence because I noticed that I'll survive, you know, being through those rough things and knowing that you'll pop out. So now when something bad happens to me and I think, okay, couple of weeks, couple of months, I'll be 100% back to where I was. And also try to see, what is this telling me? What can I learn from it so.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: That maybe not even be, if you're at a certain level, not even be back to where I was. Back to where I was and then learn from it. So maybe go even higher. Yes.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Because what I see in my life when things nowadays go wrong, there's always a hidden message for me, and sometimes it's difficult to read the message. And then I think, okay, what is it saying to me? Why did that go wrong? What did I have to learn from this? And then sometimes, you know, like weeks later, I think, oh, that was the message.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: Okay.
Wow.
You mentioned the word journey.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Usually I think the word journey is overrated, but I do like it in the phrase, it's the journey, not the destination.
How did you come to write this book?
Why did you write this book? Or what is your story that you felt the need to write this book?
[00:08:01] Speaker B: First of all, it came to me like, okay, like, intuition. You need to write a book. And at first, I was like, no, I'm not.
Why should I write a book? And about what, et cetera. But then I let it rest for a while, and then I realized, you know, I come from a background where I was so insecure and so many things I didn't do, I didn't get promotions I didn't dare to do because I was so insecure. And over time, and because of things that I've learned and done, I've gained now so much confidence, and I noticed that it totally changed my life, and I am 1000% more happy. I can say now that I feel the way I feel. So I thought, okay, even if I can just help a few people with this book to have that same feeling that I had, then it's already worth it.
[00:09:01] Speaker A: Okay, you said you've had several challenges insecure and then several challenges along the way. So why didn't those challenges just knock you down and you're done? How did you get through them and then be able to use these learning points?
[00:09:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think maybe part of it is I am a positive person, so that's one thing.
But I also realized because of coaching and personal development, like, okay, if I look at it in a different perspective, if it was not against me, but if those things happened for me to learn this lesson, then what am I supposed to learn?
And for me, a big eye opener was because a lot of things happened in my life that had to do with boundaries.
And at a certain moment, I realized maybe I need to learn in this life how to set boundaries. And the funny thing is, when I got that realization and I started practicing setting boundaries, I didn't get those challenges anymore because it looked as if I became proficient in setting boundaries, and that increased my confidence.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Okay, did it help increase your confidence because you got better at the boundaries? And so then they weren't as much failures, but learning, and you progressed forward both.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: Well, that's one aspect. And another aspect is what I earlier mentioned, you know, like, okay, I can overcome this. And what I also always try to do is take it up and see, okay, in the bigger picture of the whole world, how big is this problem?
Yeah, well, usually not that big.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: That is a positive mindset attitude.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yes. Even, you know, like, okay, so I didn't get a promotion. Okay, so I did lose that. Okay, so. But I'll get there. And having this, you know, through confidence comes also faith and trust. Trust in yourself.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: That you will land again. And knowing that is like, okay, so these things happen.
I'll be back.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Wow.
I have a certain person in mind I'm thinking of. I won't. I won't mention him by name, but if he watches this, he'll probably know who he is. So he's a young guy, and he and I could even be speaking of myself, actually, at age 20, but he just doesn't. And I know I'm not talking about just him. I know there's a lot of people out there who probably have this especially. I would stereotype and say more male than female, but he doesn't ask for help.
And one of. As a.
Okay, I'm giving it away. I was gonna say, as a father, I'm like, oh, is it your son? Okay, fine. The cat is out of the bag. It's my son.
He doesn't ask for help.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: No.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: And one of the things as a father. I want to give him everything I can and give him the wisdom I have and help with my experiences I've already been through. And one of the things I want to tell him is that please ask for help because we talked about this earlier, a little bit vulnerability, but also, and I think this is a male thing. It's kind of like I went to some stand up comedy on Saturday and she was talking about men not asking for directions.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yes, same idea, same thing. Same thing.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So here is asking for help, but he doesn't ask for help for anything, really. And I always come back to this. I won't go into the entire story, but I really was trying to get a job in Germany. I tried my best, I did everything I could. I did, I can do it. I'm going to try harder. And I failed and I failed and I failed and I failed. I can try harder, I can try harder. Fail, fail. And I finally am like, this is not going to happen.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: No.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: And I'm super positive, guy, it's not going to happen. Finally I called my uncle and said, can you help? I'm struggling. And I even told him, I'm like, I've done everything I can. I don't want to ask for help, but I'm asking for help, can you help me? And she's like, sure.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: And how was that for you?
[00:13:28] Speaker A: It took. The first part was hard because I'm like, damn it, I failed because I'm mister tough guy. I can do this on my own. I don't need anybody's help. I can do it alone. And the first reaction was, dammit, I failed on my own and I had to show vulnerability and weakness. Typical male thing, probably that I'm asking for help. And he gave me the help and then I succeeded. So it was proof that I couldn't do it alone.
Then very soon after, and of course much later now, I realize I was going to say that's how the world works. I don't want to say that's how the entire world works, but okay, one note on that. Because I think people think asking for things is a sign of weakness or vulnerability. And I think I'm just mature enough or experienced enough to say, get that out of your head.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yes, definitely, stop it. Yes, stop it.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: Because another element of this, and you younger people maybe won't understand this, but like that uncle of mine, he was absolutely overjoyed to help me.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Yes, people want to help.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: He was annoyed that I didn't ask him earlier.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So maybe the rejections were lessons for you to learn how to ask for help, because like I said earlier, I think vulnerability invites vulnerability. And also as an example for your children, if you don't ask for help, how can you expect your son to ask for help? What kind of example?
[00:15:07] Speaker A: You.
I didn't then, I do now.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: You do now. But you see that. So it's also like, okay. And I think there are so many experts in the world, we don't know everything, so why not ask for help? And I get it. When I, when I was younger, I may not have asked for help that often either.
Maybe it's not only out of insecurity, but it's also like, okay, I want to find out on my own. You still have this young kind of feeling, like, you know, the whole world, you know, is waiting for me and I'll figure it out.
But on the other hand, there is failure.
So they go sort of asking. They say they go hand in hand. It means, like, not asking for help, maybe that you fail.
[00:15:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: Failing often may reduce your self confidence, and then it's maybe even harder to ask for help because then you have to show them that you completely failed.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
And be okay with that.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: And be okay with that. But that's where my last part of the book is about, that self love, because self confidence is very much depending on your skills or things that you achieve or maybe even how you look.
But self love is independent of that. So I think it's so important to have this base of self love so that, okay, I failed, but it's okay because you're still the same.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: And your wife will still love you.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
As you say this, and as experienced, immature guy, I understand what you're saying. Yet I think back to my younger self, and I think what you're saying is really difficult, I think, for a lot of people.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:59] Speaker A: So how, how can they, what if they're listening or watching and they, they say, yeah, sounds great, you two, you two confident people, you know, hey, I don't. I'm not there yet. I still at the failing, not getting a job stage or whatever.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: How? And they say, oh, you're so positive I can do it. What if they think I can't do it? No, I'm gonna fail again. If I try again, I'm gonna fail again. And I'm never gonna succeed. I'm never gonna get there.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Well, this is your inner critic. So what I also say in the book, first observe those voices in your head. What are they saying to you? And it's like, Waldorf and Staedtler from the Muppets. You have those two little men in your head talking, like. But the problem is that they're not just talking, they are shouting. And sometimes it's all we hear, and you start believing in it. So observe what they are saying to you. Write them down. Don't be judgmental about it, but look at it. So if that's what those voices are saying to you, if they were your best friend, would you still be friends with them?
Probably not.
So why are you telling this to yourself?
I think this is the first step. And then you can look at the methodology from Byron Katie, ask four questions, like, is it really true?
And I can tell you, well, I would say 99.9% it's not true.
Like, I will never get there. I will never, never, ever watch what you're saying to yourself. What if you would change that and said, I may not be there yet? Because then it has this aspiration and also faith. And even if you don't believe it yet, I believe everything is energy, and it will shift the energy.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, yeah.
[00:18:59] Speaker B: If you believe strongly in something, the universe will help you to accomplish it. So if you say, I'll never get there, you will never get there.
[00:19:07] Speaker A: You will never get there. Yeah.
[00:19:08] Speaker B: You'll never get there. On the other hand, even if you don't believe it yet, you could say, like, I'll get there.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: The universe will make it happen for you to get there. May not be easy.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. May not be tomorrow.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: I've had my struggles. Struggles, I can tell you, because it might seem right now, like, okay, like, you and I are confident, but we didn't get there from day one to day two, it was a struggle.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of right now, I've been taking improv comedy classes in Amsterdam at boom, Chicago. And when I say that to most people, they are horrified because they think, why in the world would you torture yourself like that and go do this thing that most people think is only going to happen, like in a prison when they're torturing you and go on stage, you have no idea what's going to happen. You're going to get some suggestion from the audience and go and figure it out. And the people in the class, we all think that's fun, but most people think that's terrible. And yet still, in the very beginning, the very first class, we had to go on stage, the very first class. And it was. It was scary. It was super scary. But now I've been at it for a year and a half, I've been. I'm on stage every week, and I have no idea what I'm gonna say, no idea what the suggestion is gonna be. And I'm just ready.
I'm just. And so what is that? Is that there's some experience there. I, of course, failed miserably many times. I'm in a very safe environment. Boom, Chicago. We're all in the same boat. We're all doing it together.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: And trust that the inspiration will come because you've experienced that before, that the inspiration will come, and probably. So you fail.
So what?
Have a laugh about it. Don't be so serious about it. And we condemn so often. We judge all the time.
What if we didn't judge that much? What if we had loads and loads of compassion with ourselves, as much compassion as we would have with a friend?
Things would be different.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
No, I worked in Germany. I've lived in Germany, in the Netherlands and France, and I think that northern european countries, especially as an american, it was more especially with the idea of failure, especially like a business failure. A business failure. I remember in Germany, you failed. Not your life is over, but pretty close. It's not good. You have a big stamp on you that you're a failure. And whereas, especially I came from San Francisco, especially Silicon valley, where they would say, fail fast, fail often, and go fail. And you're going to learn more from your failure than your successes and that. Yeah, definitely. It's not the same as it used to be in Germany and Hollande.
[00:22:12] Speaker B: I think we should embrace so much more because first of all, like, with the finger, like, you failed, but also, you know, like, it does something with you. And what about thinking, okay, I needed to fail to come to where I am today.
My first business failed. And then a friend of mine said, what if you would see it as a very expensive school? You did.
And that changed the whole game because I thought this is what it was, because somehow, deep within me, I knew it was not going to be successful. But I also knew it would lead me to something else. So I needed to go through that path. And I like that. And if we look at history, the biggest inventions were failures at first. Penicillin, post it notes, microwave. There are so many examples in history where if we hadn't embraced failure, we would never have gotten to it. If you were a baby, and if you start walking after two tries, you say, I'm never going to do it again. It doesn't work that way. We didn't have that. That kind of feeling yet. We just went on and on and on, and we succeeded.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: You know, speaking of kids, like, with the bicycle thing, they. You can't. The kids aren't going to read the manual and how to ride the bike.
[00:23:42] Speaker B: No.
[00:23:43] Speaker A: They're going to get on the bike, they're going to fall over, they're going to crash, and they're going to say, oh, gravity. Oh, balance. And they're going to figure out, oh, I got to pedal and I got to steer, and I got to balance, and, oh, look, I'm doing it.
[00:23:54] Speaker B: Isn't that a beautiful metaphor for life?
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: If you would look at life like that.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Would be so much lighter, you know.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: In talking with you. It's funny because I'm the inner critic or negative.
He's little in me. Right. I am a positive, confident person, but still, part of me is like, damn it, you have a solution for everything. Can't you just let me fail and be miserable and not confident?
[00:24:27] Speaker B: But I'm not saying that if you fail that you can't have a thought like, oh, I hate.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Because.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: Not Pollyanna.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: No, no, definitely not. Because if you ignore it, I always say it comes up, it comes back like a pimple.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:24:47] Speaker B: You know, like. And worse being imputed.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: Probably worse.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yes, probably worse being, like, really big, you know?
So you need to acknowledge it.
But there's a difference in, you know, letting it ruin or dictate everything or looking at it like, okay, it happened. Yes. It is what it is. Have some compassion. Okay, so what are we gonna do about it and go and move on? No, I'm not saying a deny, because I think that's where spirituality sometimes goes wrong. Like, we have to be this happy, the peggy all the time.
That's not working. Everything.
[00:25:26] Speaker A: Also, I understand what you're saying about denial.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:31] Speaker A: Also, you have so many. It sounds like you have so many tools to help you get out from under. Or, like you say, the learning. Turn the failure into a learning moment. And then. And of course, if you're. If failure, I mean, it's not fun. It sucks to fail, and it's going to be awful and it's going to be sad or mad or whatever, but it depends on that. Some great quote, like, life isn't what happens to you, but how you react to what happens to you, or something like that.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yes. That's the choice we started with.
[00:26:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: So. And maybe because I have had so many failures and I've gone through so many deep, deep areas that I.
I'm so glad that I learned the tools, how to get me out of there and to be a different person, because it's just I'm still the same person. It's just the way I think has changed. My mind has changed.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: And that changed my complete career, my life, everything. I want that for everybody.
[00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: I see so many, especially young women nowadays. I see them struggle with their confidence and I wish. I wish you would just, you know, know these kind of tools which are not difficult to.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yes.
My undergraduate was first mathematics, and so. And I don't. I'm not into complex mathematics. I like very simple mathematics, like zero sum. The idea. Right. Where the. If here's two books and if I take one away, we take both way. Now there's zero.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Zero.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: Yeah. So what I like about confidence, in my opinion, like love and happiness, it's that it's not a pie. That if I take a piece of pie, there's less pie.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: No.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: So, in fact, I can add more and then we can have even. So, like, what you're saying to help the young women, that you give them some confidence and they have more, and then the real magic, I think, is that they get some and you even get more back. So it's not that one plus one is two. It's really one plus one is three. And there's more and more. And we can. That's why also we're here. We're not holding back the secrets of confidence. And we have all the secrets.
[00:27:56] Speaker B: No.
[00:27:56] Speaker A: And we don't have them.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: No, we don't. It's just experience. And, you know, having had a lot of training, have a lot of coaches. So I know it works.
And being really humble in a way that I may be able to support others with this.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker B: Also with my book. And I think, yeah. If somebody is, then if we make this place, this world a little bit better, then my mission is succeeded.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Wow. On that note, that is a wonderful ending note.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: I think so, yes.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Tell us, where can people find. Here's a hardcover, by the way. Here's a paperback. Where can people find your book? When? September 27.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: September 27. It will be available through Amazon and through draft two digital, various.
[00:28:47] Speaker A: Through various distribution channels.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: The first one is Amazon, and it will be released on the 27 September.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: Well, I look forward to talking with you. I would love to talk with you again after your book is launched and maybe a couple months down the road and seeing what kind of feedback you're receiving and what you're hearing from people about your book. Her book is mind your confidence. Mind your business. The seven step gateway to happiness and success. Success.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: And it's a gateway, so you still have to lose yourself.
Yeah.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Karina, thank you so much for being here.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: This has been. It was a pleasure.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: It was. Yeah. And the camera even stayed up the whole time.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
I didn't feel the camera was on anymore.
[00:29:28] Speaker A: No.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: I just think we had a beautiful conversation.
Thanks so much.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Bye, everybody.
