The "Learn, Burn, Return" Framework for High-Performing Leaders | Dr. Cindra Kamphoff

How do executive leaders build self-running systems, foster true team autonomy, and step away from daily operational friction? In this episode of The Uncommon Leader Podcast, host John Gallagher sits down with Dr. Cindra Kamphoff—executive performance coach, high-performance strategist, and author of The Confidence Habit—to break down the intersection of executive mindset, operational excellence, and team empowerment.

Dr. Kamphoff shares ground-breaking research from her nationwide confidence study, revealing why 33% of employees quit confidence-draining environments and how executive confidence directly impacts team retention, culture, and bottom-line revenue. Together, John and Cindra explore actionable frameworks designed to help CEOs and senior leaders stop working in the business and start working on the business:

🚀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:

• The 4 Pillars of Confidence: Understanding confidence as a decision, skill, belief, and fluctuating feeling. 
• The Learn, Burn, Return Model: A simple 3-step tool to clear mental friction, process high-stakes operational mistakes quickly, and return to execution. 
• Eliminating Leadership Bottlenecks: How micromanagement crushes culture and how delegating authority accelerates system autonomy. 
• Capture Your Wins: How implementing visual tracking tools like the "Win Wall" drives organizational momentum and protects team confidence. 

📌 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 Cindra Kamphoff 👇
➡️ LinkedIn (primary):  (7) Cindra Kamphoff, Ph.D., CSP, CMPC | LinkedIn
➡️ Website: Cindra Kamphoff – Think Big – Play Big
➡️ YouTube: Dr. Cindra Kamphoff - YouTube
➡️ Book: The Confidence Habit – Cindra Kamphoff

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Transcript

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Confidence Is A Choice

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Confidence is the feeling that actually comes and goes. It is a decision you get to decide in the moment or not. And it's a skill you can develop over time, which is incredible. Many times the action of confidence comes before the feeling of confidence. So acting in a confident way, the feeling's gonna follow.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Hey

Meet Dr. Sindra Kampoff

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher, and my guest today is a powerhouse in the world of high performance. She's a certified executive coach, a mental performance coach, and award-winning keynote speaker and author. She spent years working one-on-one with the Minnesota Vikings, coached the USA track and field Olympians on the ground in Tokyo, and consults for massive brands like Target and Verizon. She's the founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, host of the globally top-ranked high performance mindset podcast. Let's see if I can get myself on this podcast, and author of the books Beyond Grit and Beyond Grit for Business. Her upcoming book with Simon and Schuster is hitting shelves this September, The Confidence Habit, Seven Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt to Self-Belief. Let's welcome Dr. Sindra Kampoff to the show. Sindra, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

I'm doing awesome. Thank you so much, John, for having me here today. Can't wait to have a conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

It's gonna be great. Look, I Minnesota. I mean, it's a place in my heart. I only spent one summer there. That was about two months. And then the rest is I just hear about the wintertime. You have like mosquito season up there. Are you in that season right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

No, it's so beautiful right now. This is yeah, I'm like on the lake, jet skiing, and like sweet to live in Minnesota. Yeah, it's the best.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Love it. That's it. It really was. I spent that summer minute in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was really cool. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about, the weather or where we live or anything else. It's great to have you on the show, and I'm looking forward to our conversation today to talk about your book that came out. Pretty exciting. And uh we are going to hit a lot of the keynotes there, but you don't get to, even though you're an author, the book comes out today, you still have to do the first question I ask all my first-time guests.

Childhood Racing And College Doubt

SPEAKER_01 2:12

And that's to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a person or as a leader.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Oh, what a great question to get started. So I grew up in Iowa in a really small town. And one of the things I loved doing was racing against the boys in my neighborhood. Andy and Ben Haugen, giving them a shout out. And uh I loved running. And my dad was really influential in my running career, um, would always de kind of uh de debrief every race afterwards around the dinner table the next day. And he would teach me about performance and sports psychology. So he was a person in sales, like a vice president of sales at the time, and he was learning all about the psychology of sales and then teaching me that uh to run faster. And my senior year, I ran the fastest mile in the state of Iowa. So it earned me a college scholarship to run cross country and track in college. Uh, but actually, John, there, that's where I really struggled with my own inner game and my mindset. Uh, I was, you know, everyone was just as fast as I was. And uh I didn't really know how to deal with that. And then I didn't necessarily have like my dad by my side. I mean, he sure he could be on the phone call, but he wasn't there like debriefing every race for me. And I, to be honest, really struggled with my mental health in college. I did not reach my potential, not even close. But what's interesting about that, John, is like that still shapes me today. You know, some 20 plus years later, is it 30? I don't know. It's it's a while ago. We'll say 20. But it's yeah, we'll say 20. We'll say 20. But it, you know, it shaped uh the book that just came out today called The Confidence Habit, because it's a really practical diet guide to grow confidence. And it's something I wish that I would have had when I was struggling with my confidence the most. So it absolutely shapes me still today, is probably the core at why I do what I do. Um and I think my life's purpose is to share common tools and practices that people can use to get unstuck and uh be their best more often.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

So good. You know, people get tired of hearing me talk about this when I coach others or when consulting. Uh, but you just you just told the perfect story of this because Rory Vaden has said it best. Yeah. Most powerfully positioned to help the person that we once were. And that's why I asked that question at the start, because generally, you know, those questions that come out are really framing people's lives, either successes or failures and challenges as a leader as well, but also how they help others through that. So I'm excited about that. And again, to write this book on confidence, that confidence habit is going to be something that's gonna be a great conversation for us. Let's before

What Confidence Is And Why It Matters

SPEAKER_01 4:54

we talk about the book, let's talk about the study, though, that you had the white paper that you had done as well, the 2025 research study on confidence, two pieces of data that I found fascinating in it. It found that 33% of people quit jobs that drain their confidence. And this was the second one that even 63% of Americans would take less pay to work for a leader who builds their confidence. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Those are two crazy numbers. You tell me two things. One is what was the number that stood out to you the most? And secondly, maybe it's the first thing, what is confidence? Okay. For those that you were going through it.

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Great question. So in the confidence habit, I talk about how confidence is for things. It's a feeling that actually comes and goes. We can't, we should not overthink that feeling. And when we're really pushing ourselves to try new things, you're going to feel anxious. You're going to maybe feel fear. That doesn't mean that you lack confidence. And so we over put too much emphasis on this feeling that can come and go. But it is a decision. You get to decide in the moment to be confident or not. And it's a skill. That's number three. It's not something you're born with, but you can develop over time, which is incredible. And it's a belief in self. And so think about those four things like on a continuum with the feeling is not very stable that can come and go. I mean, I can think of times where I felt a lack of confidence as a feeling, right? I felt a little nervous. I, you know, then I maybe listened to that self-talk. And so we have to make sure, you know, many times the action of confidence comes before the feeling of confidence. So acting in a confident way, the feeling's gonna follow. So those are four things that confidence is. You know, the reason we did this nationwide study on confidence, because as a coach, so I have a company called the Mentally Strong Institute. And so we have 12 coaches. Um there are executive coaches and high performance like coaches for athletes, like mental performance coaches. And the number one reason people come to us and come to me is because they want more confidence. And we're talking about professional athletes, high-level executives, you know, vice presidents of companies, owners of company companies, entrepreneurs. And you might think all those professional athletes that you see on TV, they never lack confidence. But that's actually not true. They're just human like you and I, and we know that confidence can fluctuate. And as I've talked to more people about this idea, you know, we we go through these life transitions where confidence can be um can waver a lot. Let's say um you get a new job, you get tough feedback, uh, you're you're retiring from your sport or your profession and you're looking for what's next. Uh, you know, and so these there's all these moments in our lives where confidence can be really fragile. And that's why we need to make confidence a habit. And it is a habit. It's a habit that we can continue to choose every day. And when you asked me what stat in the study was most surprising. So we surveyed people all over the United States in all different generations and different uh areas. Can I give you three stats?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

You can.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Okay, number one, one in two Gen Zers, a Gen Zer is defined as ages 18 to 29 in our study. And one in two consistently or frequently feel like they're not enough. This is also the case with young millennials, 30 to 35. So this book, this mission, John, is like it's way bigger than Sindra Kampoff. It's way bigger than a book, it's like a movement to help the US people, young people, be more confident. And, you know, I think there was a football coach I worked with the other day that said everyone wants confidence, but no one knows how to grow it. And that's what I feel like my mission on this earth is to help people like learn tools to grow confidence. So that's number one that was really shocking, and maybe it's really shocking because I have two Gen Z of two boys, uh 18, 19, or oh, I got that wrong, 17 and 19. So I'm deeply concerned about them and their friends. Number two, the stat that, well, it didn't really surprise me, but is also part of my mission is we found women still scored lower on all markers of confidence compared to men. So women need this message today, even more than men, right? And men, you can help elevate women like John, you're doing on this podcast, you know. I and here's actually then I guess the the second shocking thing we found. We found that more confidence is connected to more revenue in companies. We found confidence is connected to better culture and more productivity. So, you know, I've seen it on sports teams and like leadership teams I've worked with, but what's cool now is like there's data to support like not only why leaders need to grow their own confidence, but why they have to grow the confidence of those people that they lead. And we found some really fascinating things about what leaders can do to kill confidence and grow confidence. And I'll read you a few of these things. Things that leaders can do to make confidence or accelerate, accelerate confidence are delegating tasks to empower people, embracing failure. That is so important, very hard for us to do as humans. Model authenticity and not having all the answers. So there's a couple of things that leaders you can do as a leader. Things that leaders do to kill confidence that we should avoid. And again, sometimes we kill these, we do these things, I do these things. I don't even, I don't try, right? But we can micromanage or provide a lack of direction or support, or we fail to accomplish recognize achievements, or we create a culture of fear where you can't take risks or share concerns. So the cool thing is you can actually go find our study at confidence tools.com where you can learn more about it and download the the white paper. There's much more than in this report that you and I aren't even talking about right now.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, right. You know, yeah, no, they looked incredibly uh detailed that that puts a lot of information out there. And to hear that, boy, to hear that that one and two, I've got the millennials, I've got two millennial sons.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah, I would agree.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

And while I'm not necessarily in this, you know, you look did did your study talk about COVID at all and the impact of that, or did they talk about what did it did it sense there was an impact on confidence with COVID?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah, you

Why Confidence Is Dropping Today

SPEAKER_00 11:17

know, the number one reason people said that we are in this confidence crisis in America today is it's actually social media. So an average Gen Zer spends six and a half hours on their phone every day. You know, and you know, when you're on social media and I'm on it, like it's so easy to compare and think you're not enough. But second reason is COVID and the pandemic pandemic. And I think about my two boys, you know, my son was the first person who got COVID. I it felt for sure in our community, but it felt like in our town, you know, I felt like we had like this X on our door, which we didn't, but you know, because we had all these misperceptions of it. Or I don't, I don't know if it's misperception, John. I don't know. But but my point is, you know, there's just been a lot of uncertainty for young people, and they're in the age of you know, phone usage, and it's really easy to compare someone else's highlight reel to your beginning, or you know, you see all your friends uh at this event and you're not you're not invited. And so it's easy to give into the lies that our brain tells us that creates a lack of confidence.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

So good. So I mean, it it makes so much sense in terms of understanding that with regards to that comparison and things like that, and the ease or uh of access to those types of comparisons that exist. You know, every book has kind of its own catalyst story of how it was born. Is there a story that you know ultimately you have that said, I gotta write this book, the confidence happened? Was it a client

Freezing On A TEDx Stage

SPEAKER_01 12:44

breakthrough? Was it was there was there anything that that stood out?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Well, the opening chapter of the book is actually me telling a really difficult story. So several years ago, I did a TEDx talk. And it, you know, like as a speaker, I'm a keynote speaker, I do over 125 speaking engagements a year. So that basically means like I'm speaking like every three days. And you know, the thing is, is like I speak from my heart. You know, I I don't, I, you know, I might have some slides or whatever, but I don't have it scripted word for word. And that's actually how you connect with people. So I did this TEDx talk and I wanted to crush it, John. I wanted to go viral, like a Brene Brown TEDx talk or a Simon Sinek talk. So I hired a short talk expert, somebody who was gonna like help me kind of nail this talk down. I had it scripted word for word for word for word. And guess what? My family got there an hour and a half early. My parents were sitting in the front, my kids were right there, my sister was there, everyone was there to listen to Sindra camp off. And you won't believe it, but I froze on stage. You can't even make this up. I forgot what I was gonna say. And you know, it's like, yeah, as a speaker, like this is your pinnacle. This is like, this is like the moment. And you and you know, and it was so cute because someone in the front was like, You got this, go girl, or something. And then that helped me get back on track, but it's something I've never done before. And you know, I wasn't afterwards, I wasn't too worried about it because I knew that either they they could actually edit that out. And so I was like, okay, no big deal. But then, John, all my family was like, Are you okay? My family, it was my family and my my family's reaction that was like, I completely bombed this. And instead of like everyone like being so proud of me, it was actually really shameful. And then I showed it to the the short talk expert, and she was like, This is the worst TEDx TEDx talk I've ever heard. You know, like this is bad lighting, all the stuff, like someone who I thought was supposed to be there to build my confidence. And so guess what? I almost didn't let Ted put it on. I did, but I didn't promote it, I didn't tell anybody about it for two years. And so I was at a speakers conference, and honestly, it was a mastermind speakers conference, and I was really struggling with this. Like I felt like it had impacted my confidence as a speaker, like honestly, a little bit of my self-worth. And you know, it was it was really shameful. And I I had my friend John watch the talk in his in his like hotel room, and he was listening to it, he's getting ready. And then my friend Jason was rooming with him. And Jason the next morning comes up to me and was like, Oh my gosh, Sindra, you've grown so much as a speaker. I can't even believe this video I heard John listening to, and I started crying. And I was like, Are you kidding me? You know, I have been like just so embarrassed of this talk. And then to hear like a friend say, This was incredible. And so this that's actually how I start the book. And you might be like, Well gosh, she's writing a book about confidence. But the reason I start the book that way is because I'm human just like you are, right? And I can let other people's opinions impact what I believe about myself. And also I didn't show up authentically in that space. I tried to be somebody that I wasn't. I tried to be this person who said it word for word for word, and that's that's not how who I am. So I can't wait for like my next opportunity to do a TEDx talk on confidence, and maybe it'll literally be called like how I froze on the TEDx stage.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

I I think you're probably right. I think you're there's some, there's something like rewind or whatever it is. I mean, there's something to it that we could figure out. But you know, as I look, I didn't get a chance to preview the book uh that's coming out today. And that's one of the things if I'm preparing for an interview like this, I'm looking for stories, and I didn't know that one. Yeah. And my favorite part of the books generally in preparing are the forwards, the introductions, and the acknowledgments at the end. Like I find the I find the sizzle in those stories, and that's a great story. I appreciate you sharing that. One is the hard one that you share just to uh talk about it, right? And and yeah, that somebody's gonna go out on the TEDx website and like find they're gonna go, they're gonna read it. Like, let me go find how bad this really was and see what that is.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, and then you can see, you know, and honestly, it's not that bad. So, you know, I think that's also important for me to say out loud because I was creating that it was so bad in my head. You know, it's actually a really good TED talk. It did not go viral, but you know, it it is a good TED talk. And so, but I I think I look back in that and I like I let someone else's opinion determine what I was gonna do with my career, you know, and uh and overthought that a lot. And so, you know, I I've since learned just the importance of like, hey, my opinion matters the most. And you know, you I know you ask your listeners, like, what would I put on a billboard? And this is what I would put on a billboard, that confidence many times is borrowed before it's built. And kind of what I mean by that is like, I think for me, my dad, I think you know, my high school career, he I borrowed confidence from him. He was like, You can do this. You know, I believe in you. You know, I know you can win the state championship. You know, he he told me he was gonna buy me a new car if I won state. But then once I won state, he forgot that he was gonna buy me a new car. So I actually had this mantra when I was in high school called State Champ New Car. That's actually got me out of bed every morning. Oh, then he forgot.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Inspiration, absolutely. Hey, Uncle

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SPEAKER_01 18:24

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Borrowed Confidence And Confidence Armor

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, but I also think like in my case, it's like I borrowed confidence from John and Jason who watched that TED talk and were like, Sindra, that was great, right? But then I I, you know, these people in your lives, you know, that I maybe shouldn't have borrowed their confidence. Like I listened to their like I listened to their criticism too harsh. And think about confidence like we need an armor around us. You need a confidence armor. You need uh a con like let like sort of like a night, right? Like in the media media medieval days when it's like things bounce off that armor. Think about that. When you hear criticism and negativity, and you know, many of that times isn't completely accurate. That short talk expert who I hired as my coach, like I actually disagree with her now, you know, but I let her negatively impact my confidence. So we have to be careful what we say to other people. And when you think about how confidence can be borrowed before it's built, like you can be the person to instill confidence in others. And honestly, just like uh a positive comment can go a really long way. Sure. Like, you know, build be a builder instead of a person that tears others down.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

I love that. And as a, you know, as you talked about again, you are a coach to elite athletes. And the thought that went through my mind about kind of the borrowing the confidence was uh the walk-up song in baseball to get your confidence won. So what what would what's your walk-up song on stage now? What are you walking into?

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Well, my you know, I was uh for many years, I I trained for marathons. And so I would uh and in winter in the winter, it can be really hard in Minnesota, and so you have to Yeah, it's a run, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

I mean, what the snow up to run up to your waist, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Exactly. And so sometimes I would run my 20 mile runs on the treadmill, believe it or not. I know, but you know, it's better than especially the ones you had to do pacing on. And so I would listen to like the firework song by Katie Perry. So that's my walk-up song, like you're a firework, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I'm I'm not embarrassed to say that that was on my first 5k playlist. Firework. But it's on my first the first song that popped on I had a playlist that would have been the length of the race, and that was the first song that was on it.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

So yeah, maybe I should have listened to that before you know when I have my next TEDx talk TEDx talk, I'm gonna listen to that before I go on stage.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Before you walk up. That's that borrowing the confidence that exists, but borrowing your own. That's usually one of the things I asked at the end. So I love that. Look, and then the introductions and the acknowledgments and all those things are really cool with regards to stories. In between that, the bookends are the the frameworks and the way you teach people about confidence and about the habits. So I want to talk about a couple of those, realizing, folks, you need to go out and get the book now, okay, because it's out and you need to learn these habits. When I got a chance to hear Sindra talk back in November at the Book Thinkers Conference, I knew I wanted to bring her on to the Uncomment Leader podcast to share that message with the listeners who didn't get to hear it then because of the conversation. Confidence that you exude because of the stories that you told within that and because of the frameworks that you used. One of them you used up on stage then is in your book is the learn, burn, and return framework for confidence. Tell

Learn Burn Return For Mistakes

SPEAKER_01 22:13

me about that one. How did that one come about?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

A great question. So it came about, uh, and so that by the way, the the confidence habit book is around these seven core practices to transform self-doubt to self-belief. And one of them is called Clear Your Past. And uh that's number two. And so, you know, failure is just a part of growth if you're trying new things and you're taking risks. And so the learn burn return tool can help you process mistakes, show yourself some compassion and move forward with confidence. And again, think about something like confidence is something that you have to protect. And uh it came about in my work with professional athletes and football teams specifically. So uh I work with a lot of football teams during the fall. And one of the players that I've spent a lot of time with, and he he he wrote about this, or this was written about in ESPN, so I'm not, you know, over disclosing anything that I should have kept confidential. But his name is Adam Thielen, and Adam played for the Minnesota Vikings and then played for the Carolina Panthers, and he lasted in the NFL 13 years, which is pretty incredible. He's an undrafted free agent. The average NFL career is only 2.9 years. And actually, John, NFL doesn't stand for National Football League, it stands for not for long.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

No doubt, yes. No doubt. Very great. No doubt. Another framework, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Yeah, exactly. So, anyway, he used this tool in a playoff game where the Vikings were playing the Saints in a playoff game. Um, you know, obviously, you keep winning, you go to the Super Bowl. And Adam made a huge mistake at the beginning of the game and he fumbled the ball. And when he went over to the sidelines and he put his fist kind of like by his cheek, like this, and he pushed it down. Okay. Now no one knew exactly what he was doing, besides I knew it, because I had taught him learn burn return as a college athlete. And so he played at Minnesota State, where I still work with their football team there. And so he makes this action in the next drive, he's right back in that fast and he catches this 43-yard catch over his head. Absolutely gorgeous, right? And because he had this kind of next play, that fast mentality, he catches this 43-yard catch, right? And he sets the Vikings up to win the touch, win the game with a touchdown. So afterwards, this uh ESPN reporter named Courtney went up to Adam and said, Adam, you know, there's so much pressure in wide receivers during a playoff game. What did you do to move on so quickly? And she said, What was this weird action you made? And now I'm a little embarrassed to tell you what he said. Would you like to know?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

Of course I want to know. Are you kidding? I have to know.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Of course. So he said, Well, I was pretending to flush a toilet. So this action was flushing it. And so, anyway, next day it's headlining ESPN and it says, like, mental coach top Vikings Adam Thielen to flush away his mistakes. And I'm like, really, that's how I get a headline in ESPN? Flushing a toilet, you know, like of all things. But I was teaching him learn, burn, return. So you need to do all three steps to move on quickly. And the great, great part is you can strengthen your brain with a new neur new neural pathways, right? And in our study, John, we found 75% of working Americans struggle with a harsh inner critic and have difficulty letting go of mistakes. And honestly, when I ask my audiences, 75%, when I ask my audiences, like, raise your hand if you're an overthinker, 90% of the people raise their hand. And the other 10% are just overthinking that they should raise their hand.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, or they're overthinking a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

They're, I don't know. They're like, am I an overthinker? And so, like, I find like most high achievers are overthinkers because they want to really do their best and be their best. And so you can use learn, burn, return anytime you're overthinking, anytime you're ruminating, you know, you're sitting there. I mean, geez, I wish I would have used learn, burn, return on that TEDx TEDx stage afterwards, right? But when things are really important to you, it's more difficult to let it go. And that's when it's really important to move on more quickly. And so the learn just means asking yourself, what would you do differently next time? Trying to think objectively about it. Then after you take that lesson, right? So I think my lessons in that TED talk were like, okay, speak from your heart, not your head, Sindra. You know, like write an outline. You don't have to have it word for word. That's not the, that's not the TEDx talks you love anyway. It's like the ones that people are just in their heart, right? That's what I learned. I learned that next time I'm gonna do it differently. And then burn means you choose the same phrase or action. And you want to choose the same phrase or action every time because that's what allows you to move on more quickly. So Adam's, of course, is flush it with this action. Mine is how fast with a snap. I work with this um hospital administrator who loves golf, and his is swing easy. So he just says swing easy and like he's walking around the hospital, he feels really tight, swing easy, just allows him to take a breath and get back to the present. Okay. So you want to choose the same one, and then the return means you build yourself back up. You say things like, you know, this is my passion, this is my purpose. I'm an incredible speaker that, you know, has done this 130 times a year, right? Like, and so what happens is most people get stuck in the learn. They learn, learn, learn, learn, learn. They don't intentionally burn, and then they don't return, they don't build their confidence back up. And I was thinking about that movie Inside Out 2. Have you seen it? It's like this character. I've not seen two.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

No, I've seen I saw the first one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:25

Okay, it's it's beautiful. And it's all about this hockey player who lives actually in Minnesota, which is pretty cool. But this hockey player, like her emotions are hijacking her, and her emotions are in charge of what gets moved to long-term and short-term memory. And so we don't we want to make sure our emotions don't decide what's in our long-term and short-term memory. And so the more quickly you can move on, honestly, like having a long-term memory for your successes is key. And then moving on quickly, having a short-term memory of your failures, mistakes actually protects your confidence, allows you to let go of the past. And think about, you know, every you, everyone who's listening, what do you need to let go of that you know isn't serving you? You know, and it's it's the meaning we create around the stories in our lives. It's actually not the stories that create this lack of confidence, it's the meaning we make around it.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Really cool. Well, I mean, I know I I I told Cinder beforehand before we hit the record button, I said I borrowed that one myself, uh, not only in uh the flush, I remember the Adam Thielen story when I heard you speak, but also, you know, just that that stuck with me uh in in a book that I've written recently that uh folks can uh deal with later on. But I'm I love the framework that you talk about. It's very simple, and you'd love to talk about those. Another, we're gonna talk about one more practice in terms of time and things like that. But

Capture Your Wins With A Win Wall

SPEAKER_01 28:42

one that you talked about is one of the seven practices is capture your wins. So what do you mean by capture your wins?

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Um what I mean is that, you know, one of the best ways to grow your self-efficacy, which is like a situation-specific confidence, is to look back at your progress. And many times we measure our success based on where we want to go, not where we've come. And so I have a really personal story around capture your wins that I'd love to tell you about. And so, you know, when you write a book, you write it, and then it takes a while, you pitch it to publishers. And then it, you know, I mean, I think I started writing this book like, I don't know, three years ago, two and a half years ago, something like that. And uh, my dad was in the ICU for 51 days, and he was in the ICU in Omaha, Nebraska, which is about a four and a half drive for an hour, four and a half hours for me. It was actually really difficult because I just told you like how much my dad was just a central part of who I am. I'm an entrepreneur because of him, and he just has been my biggest cheerleader all throughout my life, just really proud. And so the first two weeks was very, very difficult. It was like uh nurses would tell us one thing, doctors would tell us another thing. It was just like really hard to, I don't know, even understand, even have hope. And uh two weeks in, I was like, I am losing it. And so I put a sticky note on the wall. And every day I put a new sticky note on the wall that was a win for that day. And then my sisters made this little, you know, went to the dollar store and got this little like trifold wall and we called it our win wall. And every day we put something on the wall. And one day was like he got a pillow, like literally it was 17 days in before he had a pillow. You know, he just was like um on total life support. Uh one day was he got his ECMO out, which was the life support in his heart. Another day was, hey, Dr. G said that you can't, you can't um stop that fight in Hank, you know? And what happened was that the nurses and doctors said our our room felt very different because we were celebrating the wins. And I think it gave my dad hope that it was uh, you know, something he could see progress and helped all of us. And so they were like, you need to bring wind walls into organizations and you need to do something with this. And what's wild, John, is uh it wasn't until like, I don't know, like sometime. So he he ended up passing away on April 29, which was very, very difficult. But also one of the reasons I'm telling you the story is to live his legacy because he was just this optimist that uh always was looking for the bright side. And uh we started a nonprofit called Hank's Hope to bring windwalls into hospitals and organizations. And it wasn't until like June that I was sitting at my desk and I was like, oh my gosh, like uh, I don't know, sometimes when your work is so close to you, you kind of forget it. And I was like, practice five is capture your wins. So I was practicing the book, I was practicing the practices when I was really struggling with confidence. And so one cool thing is like we decided to do a win wall in our family. And each one of our family members puts a win on there. And the other day, uh, you know, again, I have two teenage boys, so they don't always like, you know, share their wins verbally.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

And I loved what my son wrote. He said, like, I loved playing golf with dad, my dad today, or like my husband, uh, Dan. And what was great is that I beat him, you know? And so it's actually just really cool to see, like, then now that's that special memory that they can keep seeing on the wall. And he wouldn't have maybe said that to my husband, you know, but just like having on the wall. And so I'm gonna encourage everyone, you know, this doesn't have to be very expensive. You can go to the dollar store or you can go to Hobby Lobby, get one of those trifold wind walls, or maybe a poster board, and start putting your wins on the wall. And in the book, I actually tell the story about um hyptathlete who I worked with at the Olympics. Her name is Kendall Williams. And she did something similar. She didn't have a trifold, but she just had a dry, like a poster board she put in her kitchen. And I started working with her during COVID. And if you remember, all of the sports stuff was like canceled for like, I don't know, six months or whatever. And so if we people who were training for the Olympics, it was really hard because the Olympics got pushed back a year and no one knew actually if the Olympics were gonna happen or whatever. So it was really hard to keep training. And so she ended up putting like just these wins on her wall that was like, hey, I PR'd in the long jump today, or I had a great, you know, hurdle event today in practice, or you know, I remained mentally strong. And when she started questioning herself, this allowed her to like we called it her confidence bank. You know, it's a little bit different than a wind wall, but kind of the same idea. It's this confidence bank to like help her, you know, see the progress and building up an account. You know, yeah, we can get so caught up in how far we have to go that we we don't celebrate how far we've come.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

That love that story. Thank you for sharing that on the windwall. I think it's a great idea. And I love sticky notes anyway, in terms of how you use things. So it can be pretty cool. The uh book is out today as we release this podcast.

What We Want Readers To Feel

SPEAKER_01 33:56

One year from now, it's gonna be sitting on folks' shelves like the ones sitting behind me right now. When they see the binder of that book, one year from now, Cinder, after they've read it, what do you want them to feel? And what do you want them to do when they when they see that book?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

That is such an awesome question, John. I want them to feel like belief in themselves. I want them to feel like they matter and that they're enough. And underlying everyone's negativity is they're they they don't feel like they're enough. And so I want them to look at the book and say, like, I am enough just the way that I am. And I want them to see it, and I want them to realize they're here on this earth for a reason and their gifts and their purpose is unique. Like no one else has the same mix of experiences and gifts and dreams as they do, as people who are listening. That's how I want them to feel. Like they have a unique purpose in this world and they need to shine their gifts and shine their light. I want people intellectually to know when they see it, to know, okay, this is my toolkit. This is like how I can grow confidence and I gotta keep on resetting that you're gonna experience highs and lows. You're gonna experience times where you gotta, you gotta learn burn return. You gotta use the truth meter, you gotta take out that wind wall, you know, you gotta set a gallery of goals. I'm just thinking of like the other types of tools that are in the book. You know, you need a dream team of confidence, a cheerleader, uh, a mentor, a coach, a uh a best friend, a challenger. You need all those people in your life. And I want them to look at that and say, like, okay, I gotta keep, I gotta keep resetting, I gotta keep growing my confidence because it's something that is one of the strongest predictors of happiness and performance.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Well, love that. So good. Well, if it's gonna be there in a year, it's gotta be there on day one or or up there pretty soon. Where do you want where do you want them to go and get the book, Sandra?

Book Bonuses And Where To Buy

SPEAKER_00 35:48

You can go anywhere that books are sold, Amazon, Barnes and Noble. I'd love for you to go over to confidencetools.com, which is really cool because we have over $500 of bonuses over there. So you can buy the book anywhere and then just put in your order receipt over there. And you get uh you get a workbook that goes with it. You get a study guide, you get um this mental performance summit we hosted virtually, you get a mentally strong comment conference uh that we hosted virtually. And so you get all these various bonuses over there to help you like really make confidence a habit. So I'd love for you to check it out, confidence tools.com.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

So good. Sindra, I'm so glad we had a chance finally to uh get together and have this conversation, get get you on to the uh Uncommon Leader podcast. I wish you the best in the book and the book launch, and I expect it to uh be hitting that uh bestseller list that you're looking looking for. Uh I have confidence uh that's nice. I have confidence too. That's gonna happen. Yep. Well, we let's stay in touch, okay?

SPEAKER_00 36:48

All right, awesome. John, that was an amazing interview. What great questions. Question for you. How can people find your book? Because you mentioned it and learn, burn, return is in it. So I've got to return the favor for you.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

I read there did mention learn burn return in my book, and I'm going to send them to my website uh when folks are out there, coachjongallagher.com, and it'll be on Amazon as well. So I'm going the self-publish route for the first one. You know, you got to write the first one to get to the 90th one, like this guy, John Maxwell, did at some point. Amazing. At least you got to write one to get to 90. So yeah, I'll send folks out to Amazon to make that happen. Thank you for calling that out.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Okay, thank you, John. Thanks for having me on. That was so fun.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Oh, you're welcome, Cinder.

Final Takeaways And Share Request

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Yeah, I hope you all enjoyed that conversation as much as I did with Cinder Kampoff. That was awesome. The confidence habit. Be sure to get out there and get a copy of that book and see what uh you can do to build your confidence, use some of those frameworks to grow in those areas that you know you need to. The critic uh in you is not giving you the right answer. But these habits, these processes that you can take a look at to build that confidence is something that you really need to do. If you know someone who you heard, who you thought about when you listened to this episode, please feel free to share it over to them. That's how we get it in the hands of many other leaders is go from uh one leader to the next and uh grow the tribe. So we would appreciate that for sure. Until next time, go and grow champions.