Aug 13, 2026 · 13 min · 8 segments
So many of the women I work with carry the same quiet fear: that believing in themselves might make them arrogant. In this Body and Mind Strong episode, we're pulling apart two things that get…
Now, today we're going to be talking about something that my clients bring up quite often.
And I hear this, especially from women I work with, the tangled up relationship between confidence and ego.
Now, here's the pattern.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us got the message, sometimes loud, sometimes so quiet we didn't even notice, that we should be staying humble.
Don't take up too much space.
Don't brag.
Don't be too much.
And at the same time, we got a second message stacking right on top of it.
Be excellent.
Do it well.
Do it right.
Don't mess up and be better, right? Does some of this sound familiar to some of you guys? So you end up with this impossible ask.
Be quietly, invisibly perfect.
And when something doesn't go right, a mistake at work, a hard conversation, or a goal you didn't hit, a lot of women don't respond with, well, that happens.
They respond with something much harsher, self-criticism, shame, a voice that says you should have known better or done better.
I've sat across from client after client who mistakes that harshness for humility, like being hard on themselves is proof they're not full of themselves.
And on the flip side, when they start feeling genuinely proud of something or comfortable saying, I'm good at this, the alarm bells go off.
Is this ego? Am I being arrogant? So today I want to pull these two things apart, confidence and ego, because they get treated like they're the same thing and they're really not.
One comes from a settled sense of your own worth.
The other is usually covering something up and knowing the difference changes how you talk to yourself, especially on the days you don't get it right.
Now, today we're going to be talking about something that my clients bring up quite often.
And I hear this, especially from women I work with, the tangled up relationship between confidence and ego.
Now, here's the pattern.
Somewhere along the way, a lot of us got the message, sometimes loud, sometimes so quiet we didn't even notice, that we should be staying humble.
Don't take up too much space.
Don't brag.
Don't be too much.
And at the same time, we got a second message stacking right on top of it.
Be excellent.
Do it well.
Do it right.
Don't mess up and be better, right? Does some of this sound familiar to some of you guys? So you end up with this impossible ask.
Be quietly, invisibly perfect.
And when something doesn't go right, a mistake at work, a hard conversation, or a goal you didn't hit, a lot of women don't respond with, well, that happens.
They respond with something much harsher, self-criticism, shame, a voice that says you should have known better or done better.
I've sat across from client after client who mistakes that harshness for humility, like being hard on themselves is proof they're not full of themselves.
And on the flip side, when they start feeling genuinely proud of something or comfortable saying, I'm good at this, the alarm bells go off.
Is this ego? Am I being arrogant? So today I want to pull these two things apart, confidence and ego, because they get treated like they're the same thing and they're really not.
One comes from a settled sense of your own worth.
The other is usually covering something up and knowing the difference changes how you talk to yourself, especially on the days you don't get it right.
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