80. How to Build Confidence When You Don't Feel Ready: The 5 C's to Creating Lasting Success

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hey friends, you may have heard of the four C's to build confidence, but do you know about the fifth C? Well, that is what we're talking about today. I'm going to share with you one other secret little tool for you to have in your tool belt to build grounded, aligned success. Let's get started. Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hey, friends, welcome back to the podcast. For those of you that are new, I'm Dr. Vanessa Calderon, and I'm so happy to have you here as part of our podcasting community. I developed a podcast a little over five years ago before podcasting was what everybody was doing. And it started off as just kind of. a passion project. wanted to do something new, different that would sort stretch me. And I started my first podcast called The Empowered Brain. It has over 180 episodes. You can search for it. It's awesome. It has a lot of great content. And about a little over a year ago, I knew it was time to close the chapter on that podcast as something new was being developed. and created through me. And that's what this podcast is. The Authentic Path another offering here from my heart to yours, really as a way to be in service and do my best to support you in what it is that you want to create in this world in a way that feels grounded and aligned and whole, where you get to bring all of you and All of your parts get to show up and get to know that they're safe as you continue to be in service to the world and do big, audacious, beautiful things and create great success in the world. Again, in a way that feels whole and grounded. And that's sort of the inspiration for the episode today. And also, I think this is episode number 80, which think it's a huge landmark for me. You know, I've been podcasting for a long time, but I love to find reasons to celebrate. So today's episode 80, 20 more, we're at episode 100. That's a pretty big deal. Most podcasts don't make it past the first three months. Most of them start and then slowly start to teeter We've been creating weekly episodes for you since this one started, but for close to five years now. So I am just so grateful that I get to be here with you, bringing you episode number 80 of The Authentic Path. And in this episode, what I want to do is I want to teach you the five C's to create not just confidence, but to create holistic success. So the concept of the four C's to confidence is nothing new. In fact, one of my teachers, Dan Sullivan, created that a long, long time ago. And I'm going to review the four C's he talks about, but I'm going to add a fifth C today because in my experience doing this work for so many years. I know it's the super simple things that create the most grounded holistic success. So, and that is what I want for all of you. I want you to have grounded holistic success where you are proud of what you've created on the outside, but also so proud of what you've created on the inside. so let me just talk about why this matters. So I've come to understand that there are two different types of what we define success as. There's performative success. Performative success is I think what The majority of people are doing where you have everything on the outside. You maybe are making good money. Maybe you have a flashy career. Maybe you have a flashy house, flashy clothes, a flashy car, those types of things. If you're an online entrepreneur, you might have a flashy social media account with a lot of followers. But on the inside, there's something missing. You might feel depleted. You might feel like an imposter, like you're still trying to prove yourself all the time. You're feeling a sense of unfulfillment, like there's something that you're not connected to that you're missing. You're feeling exhausted and you feel like you're still chasing something. Happiness or peace or something just feels off. Maybe it's your own personal health, like your physical health. Something feels off. That is what I call performative success, where you are chasing all of these things outside of you to try to feel something inside. But you don't know. Most people that I've worked with, they don't realize that what's actually missing is something inside. They think it's outside of them. If I just get a different job, if I just get a different car, if I just get, you know, this new hobby, then I'll finally feel good inside. I'll finally feel grounded inside. But usually what's missing is something inside. OK, so let's talk about the opposite. So that's performative success. And the other type of success, and this is what I want for all of you, is what I call aligned, grounded success. Aligned and grounded. Aligned with what? Aligned with who you are, with your deepest values, with your highest self, essentially. What I mean by that is you are clear on who you are and who you are not. You are clear on what it is you stand for and what you don't stand for. You're clear on your values. when you are clear on your values, yeah, you might have some stuff externally, right? You might have a home and it might be comfortable or it might be nice. It might be a big home. And you might have some flashy things that you really care about. You might have a flashy car, but you might not because maybe that doesn't matter to you. You might have some name brand clothes, but other things you maybe you don't because you don't care. But you are so confident in who you are that that stuff doesn't matter to you. You're not doing this to prove yourself to anybody else. And I'm not here to be I'm here to be an example to some of you if you're looking for an example of what's possible. But also, I want you to find this for yourself, because for me, for example, Having a big home didn't necessarily matter to me, but having a comfortable home did. Having a big flashy car, again, that's not my jam. don't really, like cars have never been something I've cared a lot about, but if it is for you, that's great. But I wanted to have a reliable, comfortable, nice car. Same thing with my clothes. I want to clothes that fit well, that I look nice in, that I feel beautiful in, that feel comfortable, but I don't necessarily need to be branding my clothes with all this stuff and doing... the work for Gucci or whoever else sells clothes that you're like, doing their marketing for them. but the things I do like to spend money on, for example, I love experiences and adventure. I want to take like really incredible trips around the world because I want to experience the entire world. So that matters to me. I love learning. So I spend a lot of money on books and courses and stuff like that. teachers and so on and so forth because those are the things that I care about that I love to learn. Again, what I value is not better or worse than what anybody else values. What you value is not better or worse than what anyone else values. The name of the game here is understanding what it is you value and is that coming from inside or is that coming externally outside of you because you think you're supposed to. You know, if you have flashy clothes, a flashy purse, all that stuff, do you like that stuff or are you just doing it because you're trying to keep up with your whatever other mom dropping off their kids at school who has that same bag or whatever. So just get clear on that. So the other thing we talk about is when it comes to aligned, grounded success, it's not just about what you have, but it's what is it that you're doing to contribute to the world? Do you love what you're doing and is it in service to the world? I've come to understand that as we continue to grow and evolve and you think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top of the pinnacle is this sense of fulfillment, this excessive self-actualization. And Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs has been adapted from this really beautiful indigenous practice. And at the top of the pyramid of that indigenous practice, it wasn't self-actualization for the sense of self. It was self-actualization for the sense of giving back. You get to know who you are at your deepest core and what you are good at so that you can give those gifts back to the world. And I think that for all of us, It is about figuring out what it is you love and what you're good at, what your passion is, what it is, what's your deepest gift inside so you can give it back to the world. The world might be your world. It might be your family. It might be your, your neighborhood, your community, your church, whatever that is, or it might be bigger than that. You know, it might be a platform you have on social media. It might be something bigger, but it doesn't have to be. But the point is in terms of creating a line grounded success, it's understanding your values. understanding what it is you want to own and not own. What it is you're doing is, it in service to the world and are you enjoying that? Not just about proving yourself, are you smart enough or good enough or I'm going to get this degree or that because I'll finally be good enough or whatever it is. And the last piece of this is, do you have a deep sense of inner peace and fulfillment? Do you have a sense of peace and fulfillment? That could be pretty heavy for people. Like a lot of people may not know what that means. And I'll say, if you are sitting quietly by yourself, if you were to close your eyes and just quiet yourself for a second, what comes up for you? Is it uncomfortable? Is it like, wait a second, I got all these things to do. And so really the question is like, when you quiet yourself down, are you happy with who you are? Are you happy? If you would ask yourself where I focus my time, does that bring me joy? Does that energize me or does that drain me? Is that aligned with my values? Okay, that is a line grounded success. And I started with that because as we go through the five C's, I want you to think about these five C's and supporting you in creating who you want to be in the world. Not just who you're performing to be, but who you really want to be in the world. Your most authentic expression of who you are. In a sense, not again, not performative success, but aligned success. Because these five C's could really set you up to create incredible results. And they could set you up to create incredible results in any area of your life. Even if what you're choosing to do right now is performative success. It's gonna help you be successful doing that. And also, I want you to know that that will bring you joy up until a certain point. And then there will come a time in your life where you're feeling like something is off. I feel like I'm just misaligned, like something is wrong. Like I'm just doing this to prove something to somebody else. But what about me? What about what is it that I like? What is it that I enjoy? Okay. So the other thing that might come across as you're learning these five C's is that, smokes, they're incredibly simple. They're very simple. And the truth is they are. Because sometimes what creates the most stellar results at the end of the day are not necessarily complicated things. It's the simplest things done over and over again. So it's not about working harder necessarily. It's about letting go of the things that are not working and focusing on what is. Okay, so let's jump in and go through them. one last thing before I jump in that I wanna talk about, which is if you are noticing that this feels really simple and you're trying to make it more complicated than it is, just notice that because if that's the case for you, it might be because simplicity feels uncomfortable to you. Simplicity or ease might feel uncomfortable to you because... Maybe for a long part of your life, you have been working so hard. And it could be because like me, maybe you were in medical school or in some sort of training that required you to push, push, push and work really hard. And maybe along with that came some insecurity, imposter syndromes, the sense of always trying to prove yourself. And now that is what you've normalized. That is what your system, your nervous system has made normal. So the concept of ease or simplicity might make you feel like, wait a second. If it's this easy, if it's this simple, am I doing something wrong? Or does this mean that if I create success this way, it's not good enough? Or it just feels uncomfortable to your system? Okay, we're gonna go through the five Cs now. And I'm gonna start with the first four. And again, the first four comes from Dan Sullivan. He's the founder of Strategic Coach and was one of my teachers. So the first C, and he calls it the four Cs to confidence. And what I'm sort of adapting this to is the five C's to creating holistic, grounded success. OK, so the first C is commitment. It's commitment. You make a clear public decision or private decision, but it's a clear decision to achieve some sort of goal before you know how to do it. And a lot of people use the reference of burning the boats, the whole thing with the Trojan War where they put the folks on that island, whatever island they were fighting in, they burned the boats and they couldn't leave. So their only way to live was to essentially win the war. So burning the boats. What this does is essentially forces you to move forward. Now, I like to think about this as starting with commitment first, because I like to differentiate it from motivation. There's a huge difference between commitment and motivation. Motivation, when you're motivated, feels good. Right? Like, ooh, I'm so motivated to do something. It feels good. And sometimes when we're like drafting big lofty goals, it could feel good if you're sitting there you're thinking about what we do for the future. I do a ton of leadership development workshops and we sit and think about what do we want to create? And people feel so good when they're thinking about it because motivation secretes dopamine and dopamine makes you feel good. It's a feel good hormone. But commitment is different. So commitment means, okay, yeah, maybe motivation feels good, but commitment is what actually needs to come in for you to actually do the work. Because there's gonna come a time where the motivation might not be there. And the thing that will carry you through is the commitment. I have decided I am committed to doing this. And that is what keeps moving you forward. What this also means when you commit to something before knowing how to do it, it means there's a possibility of failure. And this possibility of failure, is where so many people get stumped up from the beginning and they actually fail to commit to begin with because they're so afraid to fail at the end. And what I mean by that is, this could be you. Again, I work with a ton of people. I work with a lot of people and I work with folks at all stages of their career. They could be leaders, they could be directors, managers, they're physicians, they're lawyers, they're teachers. And what I find so fascinating is when I say, okay, tell me your goal. They make it, some people make it so fluffy. Like, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to commit to, and it's something so vague. And I'm, and when I get them to narrow down, narrow down, narrow down, there's so much discomfort in narrowing down because the more specific you get, the more clear you are on what you want to create, the more clear it is that you can fail. Like this is what you're saying you're going to do if you don't do But if you keep it super vague, then, you know, maybe I didn't. So there's a back door when you don't commit. There's a back door to failure, back door to like, maybe I don't do this, but it's not my fault. So commitment means that there might be a possibility of failure, but that maybe you're okay with that because maybe you're okay with at least trying. So. If you notice what this means is that if you're afraid to commit from the beginning because there's a possibility of failure, it just means that you're failing from the beginning. You're failing by not even trying. So if you're afraid to fail, then you're probably already failing from the beginning if you're failing to commit because you're not even trying. I'm not even going to try to do this thing I so deeply want to do because I'm afraid to fail. And the truth is that, yeah, there is always a possibility that you might not get it right the first time. And I like to say this. always and often to myself and to everybody I work with. The true real failure is never trying at all. And the true real failure is not getting up and learning from your lesson and going again. Because everything we do in life, there are no wrong steps in life. Everything we do is leading us to another place. So maybe you were meant to try that and maybe it was meant not to work out and you were meant to do it again and again and again, because every time you do it, you learn a different lesson and it makes you better for something else deeper later on in life. So Just remember that. And again, like, I think that the biggest failure is not trying at all. There's this really powerful story in one of my favorite books. The book is The Elchemist, if you have not yet read it. It's the Paulo Coelho book, super famous book. And it's about this dude, Santiago, who goes on a quest. And on his quest, my family, play a game and the game is... I call it the movie game and we played in the pool where somebody is like describing a movie and we all have to try to guess the movie and swim to the person who's describing it as fast as possible. And it's so funny how many books, movies, stories start with a quest, right? It's like all of them. This is a story about a person going on a quest, which is the story of the alchemist. Okay, so Santiago is going on a quest. And I'm not gonna give away the entire book, but you should read it. But part of the book, if you've read it, you'll remember. He gets a job at a glass shop, this merchant's shop. And what he learns in that glass shop is that he's telling the person that's hiring him, you know, my journey, the reason I'm here is because I'm saving money to go to Egypt to find the pyramids, because that's where he knows his treasure is. That's what his journey is. And the merchant tells him his own dream, which was to visit Mecca, to go on a journey to visit Mecca. The merchant tells him how he has been wanting to go, wanting to go, but he never, he's never gone. And Santiago is shocked. He's like an older man. He has money. Why hasn't he ever done this? And this is the other thing I want to name here because his biggest fear, the merchant's biggest fear is that like, what if I go and do it? Then what is my life all about? If I actually commit to something and do it, am I going to feel like, okay, then life is not worth living anymore? then I need to keep some kind of like dream over here in the future because I then that's what's going to keep me going every day. Just something that I will never never achieve, never fulfill. So I bring up that example because so many of us have this like secret wish, secret desire, secret thing that we're afraid to actually say we are going to do, that we're going to commit to, maybe because it will never happen, but maybe because you think that assuming that it might always happen gives you this sense of like joy and excitement. Ooh, one day I'm going to do this. One day I'm going to do that. But if you're living your life like that, there's going to come a day where you realize, holy smokes, I waited so long, I never did that thing I wanted to do. So commitment itself has boldness and genius to it. There's this beautiful quote that Guotti says, he's a philosopher, that whatever you can do or dream, you can begin it. Whatever you can do, whatever you dream of, you can at least begin it. Because boldness, like beginning something that you didn't even know you could do, boldness has genius in it. Boldness has power, boldness has magic. And there was this beautiful quote that was adapted from Gauti, which is, until one is committed, there is hesitancy. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, this chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas as splendid plans, that the moment one definitely commits, providence moves too. That was a quote written by this dude named Will Murray in a book that he wrote, and he was inspired by Gauti. And I want to say that again. What he says is, the moment that you commit oneself, providence moves to you. It means that as soon as you commit, that the universe starts working in your favor. That's the whole point of the power of intention. The power of intention is as soon as you state something out loud that you're going to want to do, then the whole universe will work to support you. That's super powerful and we can look at it sort of the science of intention. But I think it's bigger than what know scientifically. Scientifically, we know when you set out intention, it primes your premotor cortex to do what you say you're going to do. But I think it's deeper than that, that when you set an intention, when you say it out loud into the world and you say, OK, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm committed to, help me, support me, I'm ready to go, then heaven and earth or providence moves in your favor. The universe moves in your favor. That's the power of commitment. And the more you can give yourself just kind of a little bit of space to commit to things, the more you'll start noticing what's possible when you commit. I think it's really, really beautiful, really, really powerful. And for me, I've had so much fun growing. I think I have a very strong muscle, a very strong discipline muscle and a very strong commitment muscle. Once I commit to something, I'm pretty disciplined and I go after it. But it doesn't have to just be because you push yourself. It's just because for me, it's exciting to see what's possible and what I can create. So it's why I commit to things, because I just think it's fun see what else is possible. OK, so the first C is commitment. I spent a lot of time there. I don't know if I'll spend as much time on the other But anyway, commitment is just so important. And it doesn't feel good when you actually have to access it. But it's what you need to keep going. OK, so the second C is courage. Courage, courage. Courage is a state of discomfort because courage is taking action when there is fear present. Courage is essentially this uncertain phase of acting despite fear and again, high risk of failure. Courage means you are bridging the gap between where you are and where you wanna go, taking action in the face of fear. The root word of courage, C-O-R, means heart, corazón, C-O-R, corazón. So it's beautiful to know that when fear can show up, fear is of the mind, but it's also of the nervous system. We have biological fear when we think we might be in danger, makes a lot of sense. But some of the fear is made up in our mind. There is no threat and we're still afraid. So in those instances, when fear shows up in those ways, it's really beautiful to know that you can lean into your heart to take action. Courage comes, I think, from the heart. It's this really beautiful energy that's coming from your heart. Your heart is also considered your portal to your highest self, to your most authentic self. Your heart is what connects the higher dimensions, your sort of higher energy centers, your chakras, if you want to call them chakras, which is the crown chakra connecting you to divine, your third eye. It connects those chakras with your lower chakras, your sense of safety, security, your rootedness. So courage is what you can lean into to help you create and it's an energy that comes from the heart. And courage does not feel good. It does definitely does not feel good when you are taking action you're leaning into courage to take the action. It's going to be an uncomfortable action because if it wasn't uncomfortable, if there was no fear involved, it wouldn't be courage. It would just be an action that you're taking. So I want to say that again, because. Every time I work with folks, they tell me, I'm just not brave enough. I just need more courage or I don't have enough courage. And then when we really dissect everything they've done, it's incredible to see how much courage they actually have. But most of us don't identify with that word because the word is uncomfortable. We think people with courage like some different person outside of there that's like doing all these crazy, ridiculous, wow, really, really crazy things. And they're so brave and they have so much courage. But sometimes you're doing the same thing too. You just don't see it in the moment. I have this really funny story. A girlfriend of mine who, before she was my friend, I saw her as, you know, this really incredible person doing amazing things in the world. And she was an author of a book and she put together these incredible retreats. We happened to be speaking at the same conference and we were on our way to that conference and happened to meet at a layover. So we were at the airport, happened to meet at a layover, about to take the same flight to a conference. we didn't really know each other well. We knew each other because we ran in the same circles. So we're sitting down at the airport and she's asking me my story. So we're just like getting to know each other. And I'm sharing with her my story about, you know. my background as a physician leader and how I had this CMO job offer and how I turned it down to follow my heart instead and how I opened this coaching practice and how I leaned into wellbeing and how I, you know, all of these things, how I changed specialties. FYI, I started as an anesthesiologist and then shifted into emergency medicine. Anyway, I'm sharing all these little things with her and she is just like paying attention attentively and she says to me, wow. You have so much courage. And in my mind, I didn't see any of that as courage. I just saw it as the way it was and making these decisions that were, of course, they were hard, but I didn't look at any of that as having courage or as an example of courage. And I guess I share that with you because sometimes we don't see for ourselves how courageous our actions have been, our choices have been, the things that we've done in this world have been. We just see them as something else that we did or we look back and we're like, yeah, that was really hard. But it's really important to look back and also celebrate when you've made decisions that were difficult or harder. When you push through something that didn't feel good, that is an example of courage. And it's beautiful. And again, courage doesn't feel good in the moment. That's why it requires courage. I have this quote hanging in my office. It's right over there. And it says, lean into the discomfort because on the other side lies greatness. And I wrote that because I realized I really needed to lean into some of the things that didn't feel good. And when you lean into discomfort, when you know like, gosh, I just need to work a little harder. I just need to push. I just need to keep going. On the other side is everything you want is on the other side of pushing through that discomfort. And what we need to push through the discomfort is the feeling of courage. Okay, so we talked about commitment. So you first commit to what it is you want to create. And then you require some courage because you got to take action to do the things you want to create. It requires courage. It requires doing things in the face of discomfort because in the beginning you might not know exactly what's needed. So then you commit and then you have courage and then you start doing it. And when you start to do it, you create the third C. The third C is capability. Capability means you build new skills, you have new talent, you're practicing an ability as a direct result of pushing through something that was uncomfortable. You create capability. Again, you commit to learning, you commit to taking actions. Even when you're not good at them at the beginning, you keep going. My son, is so good at not being good at things. He is so good at like starting something and being like, I don't know, I'm just not very good at this and just going and going and going. I've told this story before, but we got this ping pong table and he just loves playing. He thinks it's so fun to play any game. He wants to play games all the time. You have a second, let's play a game. And we got this ping pong table and we start playing it and he keeps hitting the ball and it's going over here and to the left and he's and he's missing balls. He's like, let's play again. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Let's play again. And he wants to keep going and going. And eventually he becomes great at it because for him, it doesn't matter that he's not good at the beginning. He's just having so much fun learning. Holy smokes. Can you imagine if we all approached? the world that way. Like, it's okay that I'm not good at the beginning. I'm just having so much fun learning and getting better. It's a skill that I've tried to take from him. Like, wow, how much more joy can I find in the things that I'm learning how to do? It's such a fun way to approach life. I think about that too when I was learning how to intubate patients. So playing ping pong goes one thing, but learning how to intubate a patient, intubation means you are putting a tube down a person's throat when they're not breathing for themselves and you have to breathe for them. That's sort of life or death. In the beginning when you're learning though, you're learning on mannequins and you're learning on models. So you're not actually learning on a patient. And I remember in the beginning, it was so exciting for me to be like, ooh, what does this tool do? And what does this scope do? how do I use this scope? And like, ooh, look at the anatomy and look at how fun and look at how different the anatomy can be on all these different people. And it was so fun for me to learn. how to do it that I just wanted to keep going and keep going. And because I started off as an anesthesiologist, I got a lot of practice intubating patients before I went into the ER. So that when I came to the ER, intubation was super fun for me, but it was also, of course, life or death situations sometimes could be really, really scary. And I tell you the story of intubation because there came a time where I was the only emergency medicine doc at a big trauma center and We had a trauma that came in in the middle of the night and the trauma surgeon is in there with me in the resuscitation bay. It's me, the trauma surgeon and our nurses and the patient is not doing well and needs to have, it needs to be intubated. And in those settings, the ER doc is the intubator, but the patient is having what we call the difficult airway. It's not going to be an easy intubation. They have a lot of trauma to the face. There's a lot of blood. And if I put something down there, I might not be able to see anything. And so you need to see the anatomy so you know where you put the tubes. And so I'm sorry that this is getting a little gory. My apologies. It's a happy ending, I promise. So anyway, I put in and again, I've had a lot of practice. I've been doing this for a long time. And I remember the trauma surgeons and I didn't know this trauma surgeon was my first time working with him and I was at a new place. And but I felt confident because I had done so many intubations in the past. And here's the fourth C is confidence. I had done so many intubations in the past. that I was like, you know what? I'm gonna do my best. I see what's happening here. And so I went in and I got the right scope and I looked inside and there was blood everywhere. And I remembered all of my anatomy and I got some of the blood out and I suctioned I had a simple tiny little glands and I wasn't even sure if it went in, but I was like, you know what? Let's try it. We put it in, we test the tube and it worked. And I remember being like, holy smokes. Thank you, God. for guiding my hands, for making sure that this went into the right place, and for keeping this patient safe. and it was really difficult intubation. And I remember the trauma surgeon looked at me afterwards and was like, wow, that was really hard. Thank you. And for me, felt like, oof, thank God. knew how to like, I've practiced so much that I was willing to lean in in the beginning. I was committed to learning. I was willing to do it over and over again, even if I didn't know what to do. I had the courage to raise my hand and ask questions when I was learning. I kept practicing and kept practicing to build the capability to do it over and over again. now I felt this level of confidence, a sense of self assurance and certainty that flows from your acquired capabilities. That's what confidence is. You feel confident in knowing that you can do something because you've done it over and over and over again. That's where confidence comes from. Confidence is the last thing that comes when you are learning something new, something that I'm practicing a lot and being an example for my kids because it's hard to not be good at something. And sometimes when we're not good at something, we don't want to try. But what I want to make sure that I show my children and show my students and I want to share with all of you is that sometimes it requires you trying over and over again, even when you're not good at it and letting yourself not be good in the beginning and just find so much joy in the learning. Okay, now I'm going to introduce you to the fifth C, the last C. And I'm bringing in this last C because, man, because it is so important because I have realized that, again, what is going to determine whether or not you are experiencing success and joy you're achieving the goals that you want to achieve and you feel good in the life that you're living and proud of yourself, it's not necessarily that you are performing for somebody else, but it's that you're creating what it is you want to create for yourself. And that fifth c in, but it requires it's not like jumping here and jumping there and doing all these things. No, it's being consistent. It's the simple act of consistency. The simple act of consistency is what is going to create the biggest success for you in the long term. Even if you think about like, okay, I've committed to lifting weights. I don't know. Let's say four days, four days a week. Some days I'm going to feel like, I really have to go. Some things I might make an excuse. Some things I might not just be able to go. I'm not feeling good, but I don't quit. I go the next day or I keep going. I keep getting myself up and going over and over and over again. That's the fifth C. The fifth C is consistency. The reason I was able to intubate that trauma patient, yes, I had capability. I practiced over and over again, but I was so consistent in my methods. I knew... what I look for, I knew what to do, I had a process, I'd been practicing this for so long, I was very consistent. It's the same thing when I think about, know, my son and the table tennis I was talking about, the same thing with him. And you think about basketball players, you know, I'm a big fan of, we watch a lot of basketball in my house, big fan of the NBA the WNBA. you see these players who are at the top of their game and they've gotten so good, why did they get so good? It's not because they're like learning how to dunk the ball and all these new different ways. No, they get so good at the fundamentals of basketball. I'm really good at shooting a free throw. Free throws win games. Free throws lose games when you miss them. I'm really good at shooting from the right, from the left. And I've mastered the left hand. I'm just going to focus and be consistent on dribbling with my left hand so I know how to get good with my left hand. All of that is just consistency. And consistency seems so simple. It's like doing the small things over and over again. It can seem so simple, but extraordinary results are created through these ordinary repeated actions over and over and over again. Whether that is mastering a skill, whether that is growing your business, whether that is being excellent as a physician or whatever it is you do in the world, whether it's building wealth. I have this consistent practice where I take X amount of money, I put it in investments, I don't touch it. I have a practice where we only spend X amount of money, whatever it is, but whether it's building wealth, mastering a skill, growing your business, deepening your spiritual practice, I sit and I meditate for X number of minutes a day. And I'm doing that consistently over and over time. That is what's gonna create the most extraordinary results in your life. One of my teachers once said, consistency will compound just like the Colorado River, the Colorado River, this tiny little river that carved out the most incredible, beautiful canyon in the world, the Grand Canyon, that people travel from all over the world to come and just look at. That was carved out and created by the Colorado River, the Colorado River consistently flowing through it over and over and over again. So I think it's really important for us to realize that. The most extraordinary results comes from very simple actions. It doesn't come from doing new, big, all these things. It comes from taking away the things that are not serving you, focusing on the things that you actually want to create. That's it. That's consistency. That's the fifth C. And that's what's going to create the most extraordinary results in your life and the most deep sense of like aligned, successful, grounded success. Now, this does not mean don't ever try anything new again ever. Of course not. That's not what I mean. I hope no one's taking that away from this. It just means when you do try something new, make sure you're doing it not from a reflexive place like, I've got to do this because I have all this downtime and now I got to keep going. No, it means you do it from a place of intention, not reflexively. In fact, if you are noticing that you're incredibly uncomfortable with downtime, when you have time on your hands, you're incredibly uncomfortable. You feel like you got to get up and do something. I'm being lazy. I want you to sit with that discomfort because that might be your biggest area of growth is that discomfort. And I think what I've come to see often over and over again, it's knowing that sometimes again, our biggest wins, our most elegant improvements in the things that we do in the world can come from just slowing down, eliminating what no longer serves you and focusing consistently on the small things that do. So there you have it, sweet friends, the five Cs. Again, it starts with committing to what it is you want to create in the world. Having courage to take the actions to do it, even when you're not exactly know how, you're not an expert yet, you don't know what you're doing, but you're learning how to do it as you go. And you're learning how to find joy in the doing. Learn how to find joy in the doing. Think about my son. So commitment, courage, which helps you create capability. Capability is now I have... the capacity, the capability. Now I know how to intubate a patient. Now I know how to shoot from the free throw line. That is how you build confidence. And then when you add the five C, which is consistency, that is how you get the success that you want in the world. Right, sweet friends, go out and try it for yourself. See how it works with you. Let me know which of these five C's you feel like, I'm pretty good at that one, but this one I'm not so good at yet. Yet is the magic word. I'm not so good at this one yet. This is the one I'm gonna practice. Let me know. You can listen to this, tag me on Instagram and let me know what you think. I'm at VanessaCaldronMD.com. And if you are enjoying these episodes, please leave us a rating and a review. It really helps other people find the episode. All right, sweet friends, I will chat with you next week. Adios.