Yardi RISE – Building Confidence in the Workplace

Yardi RISE, Yardi’s internal initiative for inspiring women in real estate, returned for its summer event in Milton Keynes about building confidence in the workplace. As we discovered during the quiz part of the day, two-thirds of women are not confident in their ability to do their job, 96% of people experience imposter syndrome and 53% have turned down work opportunities due to a lack of confidence.

Smart Works Charity

To help others build their confidence, we worked with Smart Works, a UK charity that helps unemployed women get back into the workplace by providing high quality interview clothes, styling advice and interview training. Smart Works aims to give women the confidence and the tools they need to succeed at interviews and achieve their employment goals.

Confidence Building

Guest speaker, Lisa Phillips from The Confidence Coach, joined us to give an empowering presentation on confidence building and helpful tips for moving away from your “inner gremlin”.

Philips, the author of ‘The Confidence Coach’, is an award-winning life coach and confidence expert. With five international awards for her leading coaching techniques and over 23 years of experience, her work appears regularly in the media in both the UK and Australia.

Confidence may mean something different to everyone, whether you want to be more assertive, stop people pleasing or honour your own needs – it all starts with you. “Confidence is an inside job. We might believe it’s about being a good presenter or the life and soul of the party, but confidence is about how you feel on the inside and taking care of your own needs.”

“From the ages of one to five, we start picking things up. We are sponges. We soak up what others say and start to believe what we hear. If the message is positive, we build a positive belief system. However, we only need to hear something negative four times before we start to soak it in and believe it as a fact about ourselves.”

Philips explains how you can move away from this mindset and start building your confidence with 10 tips.

1. Guide Your Canoe Downstream

“The canoe represents your life and the stream represents your emotions. Your canoe of life can only go in three directions – stay where it is, go upstream against the current, or go downstream with the flow. When we build up our self-esteem and are kind to ourselves, we gain positive emotions and go downstream.”

2. Don’t Feed Your Inner Gremlin

“We all have an inner gremlin – it tells us what we’re doing wrong and eats at our self-esteem and says, ‘you can’t do that, you don’t fit in, you won’t be good at that.’ It’s the voice of our negative belief system. Instead, acknowledge it, laugh at it – oh, it’s that green monster again – and it reduces its power on you.”

3. Be Kind to Yourself As You Would a Child

“One of the most powerful things you can learn is to soothe, encourage and reassure yourself, just like you would a child. If you fear presenting, tell yourself you do not need to be perfect, you just need to do your best. It will get easier with time. Soon you’ll notice the resistance in your body dropping and your canoe will move downstream.”

4. Care More About How You Feel

“We all want to feel good about ourselves, but to do that, we must start to care about how we feel. It doesn’t feel good to put ourselves down. Ask yourself, how does this make you feel? And if it doesn’t feel good, encourage yourself out of it and do something to make yourself feel better.”

5. Approve Of Yourself

“When you approve of yourself, you’ll find other people do too. Approve of yourself first, then you can go away and make improvements, but it starts with you. If you seek approval from others, you will constantly be turning yourself inside out to try and please them.”

6. Calm Down Your Nervous System

“If you want to get more confidence or be better at presentations, take a minute to calm down your nervous system. If you use Microsoft Teams, try Viva Insights. There are one-minute meditations or breathing exercises to help you shift your energy and relax.”

7. Get Comfortable with Courageous Conversations

“You may never be comfortable with courageous conversations, but you should always have them as they allow you to set boundaries. Courageous conversations are about speaking up for yourself.”

8. Praise Yourself

“It’s easy for us to praise others, but when was the last time you praised yourself? If you’re at work, you can do it as a team and give praise about yourselves for five minutes. Saying something about yourself that you’re proud of helps boost your confidence.”

9. Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People

“It’s easy to look at other people, whether at work or in our personal lives, and compare ourselves. Especially now with social media. Take notice of the times you compare yourself and instead give yourself a boost. Be yourself. Own yourself. Be proud of yourself.”

10. Strike A Power Pose

“Striking a pose seems like a simple thing to do, but it will help increase testosterone and boost your confidence. Before your presentation or meeting, strike a pose. Do it where you are or go somewhere private. It’s all about self-care and changing your mindset.”

For more information about Lisa Phillips from The Confidence Coach, visit amazingcoaching.co.uk.

About Yardi RISE

Yardi RISE was created in 2022 as an internal event for women at Yardi to network, inspire and empower each other. For more information, visit Introducing Yardi RISE or use the hashtag, #RiseWithYardi on socials.

See how Yardi RISE is inspiring and supporting women in real estate.

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