How can you start banishing self doubt? Mistakes can be part of living, growing, and learning, especially if you are attempting to do something new or difficult. You can’t be good at anything without pushing yourself to do better. On this episode of A Glimpse Inside, host Wendy Perrotti talks to stand-up comedienne, Elaine Williams, about that nasty little voice of self-doubt. Elaine is an award winning comedian, speaker, and performance coach who’s been on Saturday Night Live, America’s Got Talent, HBO, ABC, NBC, and FOX TV. She has gone from never doing any speaking live or on video to having her own YouTube channel, performing on International book tours, and even speaking for NASA. Join in now as Elaine and Wendy share some stories about their own inner voice and share the tools they’ve used to lean in when things get scary. Join us as we explore the secrets to banishing self doubt.
Welcome. This is A Glimpse Inside. I’m Wendy Perrotti, and today we will launch into our four-part series, creating confidence, with a chat and I’m thinking probably a few laughs about how to banish self-doubt. Get ready.
I’m here with the incredible Elaine Williams. Elaine is a Certified Coach who uses her 30 plus years of performing professionally in theater, film, TV, voiceover, radio, and stand-up comedy to transform her clients into captivating speakers. She’s taken folks who have never done any kind of video or speaking, this is the truth, to having their own YouTube channels, doing international book tours, speaking for NASA.
Elaine’s appeared on, here comes another list, Saturday Night Live, America’s Got Talent, HBO, ABC, NBC, Fox TV. She’s been featured in the New York Times, Hay House radio, and the Huffington Post. Her TV pilot, that’s right, TV pilot, Room for Improvement, was about her life as a landlord, comic, and speaker. It was a finalist with Lifetime TV and A&E in the New York TV Film Festival. At the New York Underground Comedy Festival, Elaine was voted the top up and coming comic.
If your head’s not spinning already, Elaine is the author of three books, Stop the Madness! How to Identify Addiction Warning Signs in your Friends … and What to do About it, What Every Student Needs to Know Before They Leave for College: How to Stay Safe and Stay Smart, and Nothing but Net: Creating Your Customer’s Wow Experience with Humor. Wow indeed. Elaine, I’m super glad that you’re here.
Oh, thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk with you, Wendy.
Yeah, we met in Dallas at a networking conference, right?
Yes. Yes, we did. Texas, Texas. Yee-haw. That’s where I’m from originally.
Is that, I don’t remember that. I always think of you as a New York girl.
Well, I’ve been here for 20 years, so I always say I got here as quick as I could.
So, in the work that you do, helping people to figure out how to be better speakers, how to improve their relationship with their audience, you’re dealing with people’s insecurities and self-doubt all the time.
Yes.
There ever anyone who you thought, “Uh-oh, this guy’s not going to be able to do this.”
Oh yes, I did. And I guess I’m so grateful because I had my own doubts, which I’m sure we’ll get into later, but I just kept asking him to trust the process. And in my head, a part of me was like, “I don’t know.” But he improved and he just needed to have a tiny bit of improvement to pass these boards that he was doing. He was in Europe and he had to pass these technology boards, and I remember I’m making them do these crazy vocal exercises, but he was so committed, but I did have moments where I thought, “Oh wow. This is going to be hard.” But he did it. He did it.
And was it because he was afraid, or was he just somebody who this was not his skillset? Was it a skillset thing?
Well, I mean, it’s this thing in technology. So most people who get drawn to technology, right, they’re not expressive. They’re like okay, great, and he was in Luxembourg, which is not as an expressive kind of place like Italy or Spain or even France, so I think part of it was culture and part of it was his, he was young, but I was always impressed with how committed he was, and to bust through his own stiffness. Because he had to.
It’s interesting that you say he was in a tech background. I’ve done a lot of work in leadership training with millennials who have these huge jobs making tons of money in tech startup companies, and because they’re startups and they need to be really agile, these young people are being moved into management positions.
Oh my gosh.
Right? They don’t have the communication skillset, and they’re terrified about communicating because they’ve never had the communication skillset.
Oh, isn’t that crazy? I know. That happens in restaurants too, where like the best waiter gets promoted to manager, but they never get trained properly. Oh, it’s so painful. Yeah.
Yeah. It’s true. I’ve found, I think what you found with that client that once you open the door and let them know that this is … We all have our personality tendencies, right? We all have our general go to skillsets, but overall, communicating is a learned skill.
Yes.
You can really open the door to communicating confidently, and I think the people that I worked with, once they saw that little crack in the window, they got excited. I mean they really lit up, and it changed them and their organizations. I mean, this is powerful stuff that we do.
Yes. And it’s interesting because I have a feeling that you and I are similar, like I’m an extrovert, but I’m also an introvert, so I’m sort of half and half. But I think some of the things that I’ve learned, because I waited tables when I was 16 there’s some things I learned that a lot of other people just haven’t learned yet.
Yeah. Yeah. You know what? You’re right about that. I’m an introverted extrovert or an extroverted introvert. I’ve never figured out which one, but I’m right with you on that, sister. And it’s actually why I wanted you to be the opening episode for this confidence series with me, because I think people see you and I, and certainly if they read your resume, honey, they’re going to say, “Wow, these two girls are confident.” Right? “These are some competent chicks.” Not always the case. Right?
No. No, and I’m so happy to share all of that, however much, how long do you have? No.
Yeah, yeah. Get ready. We’ve got some stories for you folks.
Oh, honey, yes.
So first we’re going to take a super duper quick break, and when we come back, Elaine and I are going to take our pants off and share some of our own stories of self-doubt and what we did about them, too, because as you know, on A Glimpse Inside, we really always want to give you stuff that you can use immediately in your own life to make your life better, happier, more confident. So, before we take this little break, Elaine, what can our listeners do if they want to get more of you?
Oh sure. You can go to captivatethecrowd.com. So that’s all Cs, the crowd.com. That is the best way to find me. You can always email me at [email protected], and I would love to connect with you and see how I can serve you.
Cool. Stay with us. We’ll be right back as we continue to discuss banishing self doubt.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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