Carrie Heimer contrasts self-confidence with deeper self-worth, discusses Jamie Kern Lima’s book Worthy, and explores building an internal belief of being enough rather than relying solely on outward confidence.
Carrie opens with casual greetings, mentions her background and role, and introduces the session's focus on the difference between self-confidence and self-worth.
Carrie references Jamie Kern Lima's book Worthy and reads a definition distinguishing self-confidence—linked to external comparison—from self-worth—the internal belief of being enough.
She recounts how despite projecting confidence through training and coaching, she still questioned her inherent value during a career transition and after a pitch that went quiet.
Carrie invites viewers to notice moments when they seek external validation, question whether it's confidence or worth talking, and to pause, reflect, and reframe their thoughts rather than equating outcomes with personal value.
She closes the talk with encouragement for the week, a promise to return next Thursday, and a warm goodbye.
Hello everyone. So excited to be with you today. I missed last week and so I've been missing all of you. I'm excited to be here. We'll wait just a couple few more seconds before we get started. I think I have a good internet connection today. So hopefully I don't have any glitches as we go through this. My puppies are also all in with my husband so I think I should be good to go without any barking but well happy I guess it's Thursday today my name is Carrie Heimer and I have been a part of cadre for about the past year and a half for those I haven't met I was the former CHRO for Red Wing Shoe Company and my passion around this work stems from my role leading people, and then also my own lived experience with mental health.
So grateful to be here today. So the topic today, I hoped that it would pique your interest. Is it a question of self-confidence? One of the things that I will do from time to time is I'll share books that have been particularly influential in my life. And the one I'm going to talk about today is a book called Worthy. It's by a woman by the name of Jamie Jamie Kern Lima. She is the founder of IT Cosmetics for what it's worth. And one of the things she does is such a beautiful job of distinguishing between a couple of things that I think we oftentimes interchange, and that's the notion of self-confidence versus self-worth.
You know, think about how much of our lives, how much time in our lives we spend Being told we have to be more confident, we have to project more confidence, we need to show that we believe in what we're doing, we need to assert ourselves and demonstrate to the world our capabilities. And confidence does matter, but what I find so interesting is how little time we spend focusing on building our underlying self-worth. I'm going to read a definition here from my notes that Jamie uses to differentiate between self-confidence and self-worth.
She says self-confidence is generally linked to our assessment of how we compare ourselves to the outside world. Self-worth, on the other hand, is the internal, deep-rooted belief that we are enough exactly as we are not because of what we've accomplished, but because of who we are as human beings. Confidence, as we know, can fluctuate with our circumstances, with our mood, with things that we have going on in our life. But she goes on to describe self-worth as being the foundation that's unshaken and unrattled.
This distinction really resonated with me. I think of my life in particular, and despite having many, I guess, years of of training and coaching and therapy. I've talked about this on other lives. I really did develop the skills and abilities to project outward self-confidence and yet there were so many moments when I still found myself questioning my value, my inherent value as a human being. Was I enough? Was I doing enough? This happened to me recently. As I've talked about before, I'm in a period of transition from my full-time role in corporate America to being a solopreneur and I had pitched an idea to somebody in my network about a program that I was going to be bringing to market and I was so prepared and I was so confident when I gave that pitch.
And I left the call very confident. And as the days went on and weeks went on and I followed up and I didn't hear any feedback at all, what did my brain start doing? My brain started not only questioning was the work that I was doing valuable, did it matter? But was I valuable and did I matter? And that's the distinction that I want to kind of bring to our awareness over the course of this next week. So when we notice that this is happening, when a conversation doesn't go as expected, when a relationship is off, when we get feedback or we get what we feel is a rejection, here's my invitation for you this week is to try your hardest to not let that be a judgment on your value and your worth as a human being.
We were enough before the opportunity. We're enough in the midst of uncertainty, and we are enough regardless of the outcome of things that we put ourselves out there to do. So this week, this is what I'd encourage you to do. Notice one moment when you find yourself looking to the outside world for validation of your work and of your worth, and ask yourself, Am I looking for feedback that will give me the validation I'm craving? Am I looking for reassurance that I'm enough? What would I say to somebody that I love if they were having some of those same thoughts?
Just pause and reflect, jot it down, and ask yourself, is this my self-confidence talking or is this a judgment about my self-worth that I'm experiencing? Notice it. Name it. That's the start. So that's my invitation for you this week. I hope you have a wonderful week. I will be thinking about all of you and I will see you next Thursday. Take care.
Reactions and comments are for members. Joining is free and takes a minute.
