Be intentional with your decisions and choices every day. Don’t let time pass without having a purpose. This starts each and every morning with a morning ritual that is simple, repeatable and you count the things that are going right in your life. At the end of the day, have another ritual where you ask, how did you get better today? Focus on getting 1% better every day
Starting something new is scary. Learning to believe in yourself can be a critical precursor to starting a new initiative. Why is it so important to learn to believe in yourself? How can someone work on gaining these skills? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders, authors, writers, coaches, medical professionals and teachers to share empowering insights about “How To Learn To Believe In Yourself.” As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Todd Baker.
Todd Baker is a transformation coach and founder of Project 9 Life, a platform that helps others to achieve their dreams.
A former real estate agent weighing 310lbs with his relationships suffering, Todd knew he had to change something. He said he “didn’t want short term change” but “to be a different person”. Todd has since created his simple plan to reach his goals which changed his life so much so that he now helps others do the same. He adds ‘For anything in your life, the first step is to simply write your goal and vision down.’ Project 9 Life helps those feeling trapped to create the life of greatness they were made for.
You can find Todd at: https://www.project9life.com
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I have a younger brother and younger sister and all three of us were active in sports so most of the year was full of practices and games. During summer, when no games or practices were planned, we would be out of the house playing with friends and getting in some form of ball game. Once in high school, I played football and baseball and was a good student, mainly to keep my grades high enough to not have to foot the bill for car insurance. We had really good teams when I was there but never quite won state, a fact that both my siblings remind me of every chance they get as they both won state in football and soccer. Summers were spent on the road with a travel baseball team. In the end I chose to play baseball in college which took me to Kansas for a couple years and South Carolina for my last two. Playing ball in other parts of the country was a great experience and also taught me what a “really good” player looked like. It didn’t take that long to realize that my career was ending as soon as college was over. Sports aside, I grew up always active and outside — camping, fishing and going to off the map places with my family. As I get older, the more I value the upbringing and opportunities I had and I want to continue that for my kids and show them what this world has to offer.
What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
Admittedly, I have taken a road not traveled by my parents or siblings or other family members. Getting out of college, I went to work in an office in a cubicle with no windows, no internet access (ages me a bit) and spent each thankless day finding small dollar amount errors amongst transactions that had thousands of dollars. So, I left that and started bartending, say what you will but a job like that taught me how to talk to anyone and to ask questions. Then I saw an ad in the paper one day that said simply “unlimited income potential.” I thought, sounds good to me and I became a mortgage broker. What led me to what I do now and my mission came much later in life, through personal experiences of “life happening” and putting together what I desired and how to do it. With all that said, my family has always been supportive and there to lean on for advice or an ear to work through things. Words cannot express how much I value that support.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I first started, I didn’t realize all the tools necessary to make things run the way I was seeing. I spent money on a website, not knowing that you don’t really need one. I didn’t spend money or attention to the backend systems and prospect flow through the program. I was involved with a coach and they were asking about my CRM and funnel and lead magnets etc…. I literally had to say that I didn’t know what I was using or how or any of the KPIs. Bluntly, my coach told me that I didn’t have a business, I had a hobby. What I learned was that there is a lot more to running my business as a business. It made me slow down and put myself in the shoes of a prospect and ask what is the experience they get from start to finish with my company? It made me stop and figure out all the backend systems that I needed and how they worked to run a successful business and not just have a hobby.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
I am a “why” type of person, I have coaches I lean on heavily to figure out the “how”. As we sit here today, I have my main coaching program, Project9LIFE and I also have a podcast. I am working on the details to expand to a few different divisions, Project9WOMEN, Project9BUSINESS, Project9COACHING and Project9KIDS. I am also writing a book that should be ready 1st quarter 2024.
Of these, the couple I am most excited about is the coaching and the kids, The idea behind the coaching is to bring new or just starting out coaches and be able to let them know the must haves, the nice to haves and the don’t needs. Once they graduate from the program, I’ll give them the opportunity to facilitate however many weeks of the program, and get paid, until they are ready to launch their own program. I view it as a coach incubator, not just a program to learn. For the kids, it would be focused on 12 to 18-year-olds but the facilitator will be in that same age group. So, a development program for kids, facilitated by kids.
I believe this diversity of programs will help people feel more aligned with others that are the same age or looking for the same things and will also help coaches and even kids figure out that this is a potential career choice for them that they can excel at.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. This will be intuitive to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out directly. Can you help explain a few reasons why it is so important to believe in yourself? Can you share a story or give some examples?
It is important to have personal belief because that is the base for your choices and decisions. It is amazing how if you approach life and daily interactions positively, how many different experiences and opportunities show up. If you don’t believe in yourself, how can you expect anyone else to believe in you? The simplest exercise that I practice every day is having a morning and night ritual. I spend a few minutes not only looking for what I am thankful for in my life, but also what in my life is going right. If you spend some intentional time going through what is going right, you’ll start to see that what is going right far outweighs what is not. Some of the opportunities I have been able to be involved with and people I have met, things like this article or being one of 150 speakers at the recent Think and Grow Rich summit, I can directly attribute to have a strong belief in myself and the work and focus I have.
What exactly does it mean to believe in yourself? Can I believe that I can be a great artist even though I’m not very talented? Can I believe I can be a gold medal Olympic even if I’m not athletic? Can you please explain what you mean?
I am so thankful you asked this question and how you asked it. It echoes the issue that most of society has with regard to their lives and what they want out of it. They compare themselves to what they see in society and social media etc…. That is NOT your comparison, you need to focus on being the best version of yourself and our only comparison should be to ourselves from the day before, get 1% better every single day. If your belief comes from making improvements over who you were the day before, you have gotten better. That is the only goal and that is something personal to you and not comparing it to external things or other people we see.
Was there a time when you did not believe in yourself? How did this impact your choices?
There was, I had just got a divorce and had two young kids that I was now raising by myself and felt like a failure because I could not keep my wife. I felt as though my kids were pulling away because I was dwelling on that failure feeling and I was removing myself from society.
One day my son looked at me and said, at age nine or something, ‘Dad, why don’t you do anything anymore?’ I realized in that moment that I was dwelling on the negatives of what we had gone through and decided to reengage with them and take an “us vs the world” kind of attitude. Yes, we are a unique family but that’s part of what makes us great. We have each other to depend on and the world is still out there for the taking. Our relationship and bond strengthened over the coming months and years and we have shared in some great adventures. Sometimes the most sage guidance, words and confidence can come from the most unexpected source, the words of a nine-year-old.
At what point did you realize that in order to get to the next level, it would be necessary to build up your belief in yourself? Can you share the story with us?
It was January 2020 and it was a normal morning. I got up but I caught a view of myself in the morning and thought, wow, that does not look good. I was overweight, inactive and not eating healthy. I set a resolution to lose weight that year, a resolution that lasted three days. I live in Colorado and day four was cold and snowy. I spent that day thinking why it was so easy to give up even when I knew it was important and something I needed. Finally, it came to me in the afternoon, I did not want to be the dad that could not be active with my kids and was always on the sidelines instead of leading that way for them. They are the fire that burns deep inside me that there is no way I will fail. I restarted walking the next day and have done every day for the last almost four years. People tend to look for motivation, which is fleeting and external, when you need to focus on the “why” behind what you are going after and find your true inspiration.
What are your top 5 strategies that will help someone learn to believe in themselves?
1 . Be intentional with your decisions and choices every day. Don’t let time pass without having a purpose. This starts each and every morning with a morning ritual that is simple, repeatable and you count the things that are going right in your life. At the end of the day, have another ritual where you ask, how did you get better today? Focus on getting 1% better every day
2 . We are all miracles to be here. I think I saw somewhere that it is a 1 in 4.5 trillion chance that we were born exactly how we are. How lucky are we to even be here? Focus on the opportunity we have every day to exist and experience life. We owe it to ourselves to make the most of this.
3 . Often times, the harder choice is the most rewarding. When posed with a choice between easier and harder, choose harder. The sense of accomplishment you will get will be more than worth it and by continuing to put yourself in positions like that, you will build your self confidence so that it is nothing you can’t handle.
4 . We are never too old to learn. Focus part of your day, for the rest of your days on self-education. There is always new stuff to learn or see or experience, gaining new skills and knowledge will only help you be more confident.
5 . Celebrate your successes. No matter how small they may be, celebrate when you accomplish something you set out to. You mind, thoughts and spirit thrive on that feeling and will want more and more and will only drive you to new heights
Conversely, how can one stop the negative stream of self-criticism that often accompanies us as we try to grow?
I truly believe that no one fails at anything they try, they only either give up or learn. If you look at challenges as learning opportunities and when something doesn’t quite go right, but you learned from it, that is success. When asked, Thomas Edison said he never failed to make a light bulb, he just figured out thousands of ways to not make one.
Are there any misconceptions about self-confidence and believing in oneself that you would like to dispel?
People will talk about self-confidence in that you need to have a big ego. That is simply not true, confidence is how you carry yourself and view what you offer and has nothing to do with showing off or boasting. You absolutely can and should have a huge amount of self-confidence and be humble and thankful for all you have worked hard to get.
What advice would you give to someone who is struggling with imposter syndrome?
There are so many people out there that can benefit from some guidance or a different point of view on what they are dealing with, why not you? The most important part is the message, not the messenger. Focus on your message, what results are you delivering and most importantly, why are you choosing to deliver the message. Knowing your why will go a long way in dealing with imposter syndrome.
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
The biggest movement would be to have people be action takers instead of action talkers. Too often, I hear people talking about what will happen or waiting for the time to be right or a bonus or something else to happen before they do anything to change their situation. They only talk about actions that will happen in the future. Guess what, they never will happen and you will spend your life waiting. Action takers don’t talk about what will happen when or wait for the time to be right, they make the situation and time right based on the actions they take and put in motion.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
A lot of options but if I had to choose one, it would be Richard Branson. He continues to create and build and look for areas to expand. I would love the opportunity to pick his brain and just take his thoughts in, and learn how he thinks about things and approaches them to always seem to be ahead of the curve.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Www.Project9LIFE.com Facebook and LinkedIn Todd Baker Instagram @project9life YouTube @project9life
Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.