Social Media's #1 Confidence Coach Ben Clark | Digital Social Hour #66

Why do you think a lot of girls say they like confident guys?

When you're confident in yourself, when the guy is confident, we project that onto the people around us and we help girls feel confident, right?

Girls don't want to deal with insecure guys, bro.

That's when you get domestic violence.

It's where you're going, why you dress like that.

You're fighting guys at the grocery store because they're staring at her.

But insecure guys are a problem.

With confidence, you unlock doors.

You open opportunities.

You can do more things.

You can take risks.

And

so, man, I just think confidence is the missing piece for so many people to like actually live

awesome life.

Welcome back to the digital social hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up, and our guest today, Ben Clark.

Stoked to be here again.

Wayne.

Thanks for having me.

Popping.

Flewing from Denver today.

Yes, sir.

Figured first time in Vegas.

Make a couple days out of it.

Yeah.

See what it's like.

We'll show him a good time.

Yeah, we will.

Is this still cold in Denver?

It's warming up.

Yeah, we got 70s.

Sun's out 300 days a year.

Why'd you choose Denver?

I'm curious.

Dude, growing up, we did a ton of trips to national parks, and I just love the outdoors.

And Denver's, it's got the mountains, it's got, you know, places just where we can just adventure.

and it's just a slower area.

Um, I've never been like a huge city vibe, like to be able to sustain myself there.

So, Denver is kind of something I picked in college, and just made it happen right when I graduated.

I feel the same way about Washington State.

Yeah, that's somewhere I have not been.

I've never been.

Oh, my God.

Naturistic there?

The air quality is amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I will say the air quality here is not that good.

No.

Denver's not great.

When I moved here there a couple years ago, it was like some of the worst they'd ever have.

Wow.

Man, I mean, anywhere, anywhere you go with a lot, big population, a lot of buildings nowadays, you're going to have a hard time getting a great deal.

So you're a confidence coach.

How did you get into that?

Yeah, man.

I mean, I struggled with anxiety for a long time in my life back in college.

I mean, I grew up always kind of being like the nice guy, always being the people pleaser,

trying not to rock the boat.

And so like, what comes with that is really always seeking validation from people.

And I always kind of felt like growing up that I wasn't confident in myself.

I like knew I could be, but I just didn't feel like I was and could just express myself authentically.

And coming into college, I just really was struggling, like feeling like I could fit in with what I deem kind of the cool crowd.

I just wanted to be confident in myself.

And

really

that kind of spiraled me down into a lot of social anxiety, getting to a point where I felt depressed in my life, man, and I, you know, didn't want to go do things, didn't want to interact with people.

Um, and uh, kind of just one night sitting in my dorm room, avoiding going out and hanging out with people, I really just kind of came across this idea where, like,

I could change my life.

Like, if I start doing things differently, operating a little bit differently, um,

I could make help myself become confident.

And so, I just kind of went on a journey of like figuring out what is this game, what is this game of like, how can I be confident?

And slowly over time, started finding finding a part of myself that was a lot freer, able to express myself more authentically, and not feel like I had to compare myself to everyone else and worry about what all people were thinking of me and all these things.

And like, in that journey, became confident in myself and like

really awakened this kind of confidence that I always knew I had deep in me.

And with confidence, you unlock doors, you open opportunities, you could do more things, you can take risks.

And

so, man, I just think confidence is a missing piece for so many people to like actually live

awesome life.

And because I had went through that journey myself and figuring out like what it takes and I found that I'm good at kind of creating a space for people to feel confident in themselves when we're just talking.

I just was like, this is what I'm supposed to do.

And I kind of had this internal intuition that I just kind of allowed to guide me.

And here I am.

Nice.

Do you think there's a line in between confidence and cockiness?

For sure, but

cockiness is definitely not confidence.

Because I think confidence truly is being able to walk into a room and not need to compare yourself to anyone in the room.

It's an energy.

It's an energy, exactly.

Where you just like, you know that you're good.

And there's other people in the room that might have done really

and might be great and whatever.

But like when you show up for yourself and when you know who you are, you don't need to compare yourself to anyone.

So I mean, cockiness and arrogance is like ego.

It's confidence and ego.

It's the cake.

It's ego and confidence.

You stir it up, now you have cocky.

Yeah.

Really?

It's like it's that inflated sense of you.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, where you just have to.

And arrogance is really actually the opposite of confidence in a way because when you're cocky, when you're arrogant, you have to express it like you're better than people.

You have to make yourself, because you don't feel like you're enough just as you are.

You have to make your presence felt and be known.

Exactly.

I feel like a lot of people have that.

Hey, for sure.

I made this much this year.

Yeah, once you start dropping numbers.

then you talk to somebody who made 100 million, they're like, you made a million, that's it.

Yeah.

So real Gs don't talk about that.

They don't sure.

It's like taboo.

You don't want to bring that up.

Would you say being a people pleaser is a bad thing?

Because we just had on a guest, Charlie Rocket, who is, that's all he does.

But it seems like there is a limit where it's kind of taken away from you.

Yeah, I mean, I

kind of refrain from the idea that it's a bad thing, right?

Because when we say it's a bad thing, then people start to feel like, oh, I'm a people pleaser and it's bad.

And then they feel more guilty about it themselves and they feel like they're not good, right?

I think people pleasing is kind of this, this line of like people pleasing itself is really just seeking validation.

It's really just, you don't feel okay just as you are.

So you need to please people.

You need to not rock the boat, not cause conflict, help, be the first to raise your hand.

I was that guy for plenty of years.

But ultimately, like helping people is great, right?

Of course.

Being a service to people is totally different than people pleasing.

Exactly.

Because people pleasing is really a way of manipulating that person into getting validation.

Not that the person's intentionally trying to manipulate for that validation.

It's all happening subconscious, right?

And so I think that genuineness of wanting to help, and that's part of...

like what I experienced was I loved helping people and like being a people pleaser and that nice guy gave me the like desire to want to serve people but I just didn't realize that there was so much of it where I just didn't feel like I was okay.

So, when you compare that, that you love helping people with knowing that you're okay, saying no, speaking your mind, having opinions, and causing a little bit of conflict with people, then you start to kind of get into that magic space where now you're actually able to serve people.

Because when you're people pleasing, you're just draining your cup.

You're saying yes to everything, and you're just like, you start to build resentment.

Like, you're like, oh, I have to help this person.

I really don't want to.

I have all this to do.

And so then you have this negative energy towards these people.

And again, it's like it's all this energy.

So when you fill your own cup up, when you put yourself first in a lot of ways and make sure that your needs are met, then you can really serve at a high level.

Yeah, absolutely.

So are a lot of people calling you selfish?

I don't think so.

No.

But people do have that fear, right?

But when is there a fine line between being selfish

and

just putting yourself first?

Because if Sean puts himself first,

and I'm pulling from Sean, but he's like, I can't do it today.

And I call him selfish.

Is he being selfish or does he just have it to do?

And I want him to do what I want him to do for my own pleasing and my own ego.

So selfish is more so a word that's being thrown at you when you don't appeal to his needs.

Interesting.

I didn't think about it that long.

Yeah, remember.

You would never call yourself selfish.

But unless that word is thrown at you,

it gives you a guilt trip.

for sure

that's true it's the other person trying to like get you to meet their needs there you go because they don't feel again like they are enough just as they are and they feel like they you know it's like oh you're not you're not validating me i need help and you're not going to help me but it's like if sean's got to do and sean's got you know things on his list or whatever and it's like if he if you know that that's going to drain energy it's like we got to make sure that we have good energy because then it can show up especially in relationships you know and that comes up so so often.

People not helping others, but it is this line, right?

And I think at the end of the day, whatever your intention is, if your intention is to serve people, you're going to have to put yourself first sometimes.

You got something to do, right?

You got responsibilities.

But a lot of people are afraid that they're being selfish when we're putting ourselves first.

Oh, if I like, that's a lot of people come to me and they're like, in order for you to serve the proper way, you would have to have served yourself first.

I can't serve you until I'm put in a position to serve you so

you have to put yourself first it's it's almost like it's it's it's inevitable right 100%

too right

you are no value if you haven't placed value on yourself in order for you to be a value to him to me Fox Fox

it's we live in a weird society we do but and that's the point though like you were making is People shame selfishness.

They say, you're selfish.

You're being selfish.

So then people are afraid to put themselves first because then they have this connotation that if I put myself first, I'm selfish.

But exactly as you said, you can't serve anyone if you've got no energy yourself and you don't put this value onto yourself.

More value you feel within yourself that you know you have, you give that to the world.

Right.

And you help other people feel more valuable.

So the greatest act of service is

taking the time to love yourself and to be confident in yourself.

And yeah, so I mean, that's what I love helping people do because we have these conversations.

It seems so obvious, right?

Yeah.

But to so many people, we don't learn this.

It's just like gilted onto us.

Well, because it's these kind of

gimme-gimme mentality that we live in, especially now, bro.

I mean, when you even just look, stroll on social media,

it's a what you can do for me first.

Yeah.

Never like what you can provide for the world, what you can give to the world.

It's like what you can do for me.

Right.

So that's the society that we grow up in.

I mean, that's the society that we're bringing up in, a society that we're actually raising.

For sure.

So now you have this gimme, gimme, gimme type of mentality.

So it's kind of hard to someone not to call you selfish.

If I want you to do what I want you to do.

Facts.

Yeah.

One of the things you talk about on your social media is energies.

You believe there's masculine energy and feminine energy.

Do you believe guys should tap into their feminine energy more?

Absolutely.

I mean, we all have a balance of masculine

and feminine energy.

Like, everything in the universe has a masculine and feminine energy.

I mean, We talk about, you know, God or the universe or source energy as the father.

We talk about nature, the earth, as mother, right?

It's like we all intuitively know it, but again, society has shamed this idea of men having a feminine side because it's so bad to have it.

It's like, but

there's the words masculine and feminine have a connotation to us, but like we just make it out to be something that it that it's not because we hear masculine, we think man.

We hear feminine, we think woman.

but it's not it's masculine is the the sense of drive right it's the sense of us putting our will into things and making stuff happen and moving forward feminine energy is the intuitive creative nature within us it's our it's when we get present and we calm down we stop with all the thinking and the the planning and the problem solving and we just allow something greater than us to kind of work through us and i think A lot of people in a lot of ways, when we slow down and we kind of reflect on our life, like there's moments where you're like, wow,

I don't even know where that idea came from.

Or I don't know where that deep connection that I had with someone came from.

And that's really where the feminine energy is coming into play.

It helps us nurture the things that we're doing.

And so, yeah, I think absolutely men should take the time.

And here's the thing: you don't have to go act like a woman, right?

It's just

like people have this idea.

That's what that means.

It's just like, slow down and just like stop trying to fix everything and solve everything and try to find the solutions.

And if we quiet ourselves down and we just stay in the moment, we find that solutions come to us more naturally.

Opportunities do.

How do you feel about women exuding masculine energy or bragging about I have masculine energy?

How do you feel about that?

Like, granted, you said men should have a, not, I'm going to go say an equal balance of masculine and feminine, but you like yours, you were saying that it means that you kind of settle and you kind of allow things to kind of pass you.

But how do you feel about a woman exuding masculine energy?

I think it's beautiful, right?

Because we all have a balance within us, and it's not 50-50 for everyone.

It could be 80-20, 60-40, whatever, right?

And so, every woman has masculine energy.

And here's the thing: is, I mean, we talk about it's the same thing as yin and yan, right?

That's masculine and feminine.

And so, when women start to embrace that masculine energy, their drive to do things, that excitement to actually solve things and and go in and make things happen,

you're helping balancing the energy.

And so, but I think at the end of the day, it's like whatever really feels good.

Like that's, I mean, because we can't, I can't say, oh, I have 60% masculine and so I'm going to lean in 60%.

How do you know?

You just like allow yourself to find the balance of what feels good.

And so like if a woman has a drive to go do something, to

make something happen, to build a business, all the power to you.

But at the same time, like a lot of women aren't necessarily going to have that drive to want to do that a lot have a lot of feminine energy and want to nurture and be creative and and support you know people that have more masculine energy and are building something so yeah man i mean i think i support everyone leaning into what feels good and not shaming women for being in the workforce or not it's like we just get we create all these conversations to try to it's like this kind of toxic energy to try to figure out what's right versus wrong whereas like we just allow ourselves to flow through life and do what feels good and is of service to others.

And like, I think it really comes down to that without overthinking too much more.

So if someone comes to you, lack of confidence, I mean, in all aspects, let's just say they have no confidence.

What's the start of building that self-confidence?

What's the first thing that you tell them to do?

First thing is focusing on what I call life force.

And, you know, Tony Robbins talks about life force force as well.

So it's not just my thing, but it's really this idea that we have this underlying energy that emanates through us.

And there's times in our lives where we feel fired up, excited, we feel really good.

And there's times when we feel really down, we feel like actually contracted and compressed in our energy.

So what I want to do with someone that's really feeling low energy, low confidence, is start just getting that life force flowing because that's something that we can naturally get going in our lives.

And when we have that energy flowing, it makes really awakening this confidence that's already within us so much easier.

So, really,

the life force, I look at it as like a three-tiered pyramid.

At the bottom, is our relationship with our body, then it's our relationship with ourself, and then it's our relationship with our people.

A lot of people try to go right to the people because they want to have friends, they want to have a relationship because they don't feel whole inside and they think that that's going to complete them, right?

But when we get our relationship with our body right, the base of the pyramid, by eating healthy, moving daily, getting sleep, like the simple things like i mean my background is in evolution and ecology right and so what i like to think about is like how did our bodies evolve we evolved out of the savannas we ate natural organic foods we slept with the sun um we were moving daily so

yeah yeah man and you probably have noticed the more that you get into it the better you feel by far once i started grounding once i started eating organic you know getting sunlight as soon as i get up my life changed john is literally i'm surprised he got shoes on yeah dude

I'm surprised he's not naked in here.

I go pretty hard.

Yeah, you've been going hard.

I'm out barefoot as often as I can, man.

But the more we do it, the better we just, we start to tap into something within us that, like, again, I keep talking, like, awaken confidence, right?

We have this innate confidence within us, but starting to awaken it.

And by getting our life force right, but treating our body well, we start to do that.

And then we start building our relationship with ourself.

And then our relationship with our people will come more naturally when we get this flowing.

So that's the first thing we're doing, man.

So that's step one.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then after that, what's the move?

Yeah.

So the next is really starting to create some clarity in our lives because, I mean,

most people are just, we're funneled through a school system.

We've got our parents are telling us this is what makes sense.

This is what we're going to do.

We've got society.

We've got the government.

Like all of these things telling us what to do.

Food, right?

Food.

Blocking clarity.

Everything.

And it's so it's like we're funneled down this path and we're never really taught to say, what do you really want to do?

And like, maybe in college, they ask us, like, well, what do you want to pick a major?

But it's like, these are the majors where you're going to be able to make money.

These are the ones where people are going to look like you're not that great.

These are the ones that are going to give you high status.

We're pressured into this, like, what does everyone else really want us to do?

So helping people step back and say, what do you want to do?

What are you passionate about?

What are you good at?

What do you love to do?

What could you get paid for?

What does the world need from you?

And just helping people start to tap into like this innate sense of reason for being, right?

The Japanese call this icky guy, a reason for being.

It's like our purpose.

So helping people kind of tune into what makes sense with their strengths, their weaknesses, what they're interested in.

And then just like say, okay, if your parents weren't here like telling you this is good, this is bad, if society didn't say it's like, what do you want to create in your life?

What would you want to do?

And a lot of people get paralyzed with the sense of clarity because it's like i don't know what i want to do or you start you write something down and a week later you're like but is that it it's like you just need something so then we've so we've got our energy flowing right our life we're starting to get going now we have a vision for ourselves that's compelling that excites us right now we've just got this fire lit under us and now you know then we can start diving into kind of the deeper spots of of really helping ourselves awaken confidence but like that we got to have clarity and direction over where we're going because otherwise we're just floating around like trying to figure out.

Do you ever get frustrated on your like on your mentorship or your coaching cause when when you can't really like penetrate people or they're not really grasping the concept?

Do you ever get frustrated?

You know

sometimes I'm more frustrated not that they can't but that I can't help them see something that I might be able to see.

But here's the thing is like it's not about me and it's not about me getting them to see something.

It's about me helping them see what they already know, but maybe forgot.

Like,

so again, when I get frustrated, it's about me, right?

It's about me wanting the validation of, I got it.

But I don't know your life.

I don't know your life, right?

There's so much that's involved in other people's lives.

And so it's really just when that happens, I slow down and I see like,

what outcome am I trying to get them to that I want them to get to?

And it's just like, how can I ask better questions?

That just helps them start to illuminate things that make more sense to them.

But yeah, I mean, for sure, because I'm like, this could really help you if you see it this way.

But,

you know, and part of it, man, is just like giving that energy of listening helps people actually start to see it.

What would you say percentage-wise?

Like, how much, how many men do you speak to that just aren't confident?

Like,

I mean, out of, let's say, out of 20, what are we looking at?

Man, I mean, it's tough because the people that come to me aren't feeling confident, right?

Oh, so they come to you purposely because they're not feeling confident.

Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, people are coming and and it's like, hey, you talk about confidence every other time, and I don't feel confident, feel anxious.

But, I mean, I think there's more people that really don't feel confident in themselves, truly confident, that than we think.

I mean, like, I don't know, 15 out of 20 people.

It's got to be high because the obester rate is 60%.

So those people aren't confident in their body, most of them.

It's got to be pretty high.

Yeah, and we're all caught up in kind of this narrative in our minds, the story that the ego really tells us.

We talked about ego earlier, but ego isn't necessarily arrogance.

Ego is just the part of our mind that's really creating all the stories.

It's producing these thoughts.

And so, like, people, and that part of us never feels like it's enough.

It always needs more, needs validation, needs this outcome.

It never feels enough.

And so, the more that people are identified with the ego, that part of us, the more that we're not going to feel whole, and then we're not really going to feel confident.

But I think a lot of people do a good job of putting on a facade of confidence.

Right, for sure.

But when we really get into it, there's a sense of lack there.

Yeah.

So, what advice do you give for guys like when it comes to dating?

Do you deal with those guys too?

You know, yeah, because everyone wants like so many people, especially when we're not feeling confident, wants to be in a relationship.

It's like, because we're trying to feel a part of us that feels empty.

So truly, like, that's the hard part is I'm kind of like, like we talked about earlier, like, we got to get our relationship right with ourselves before you're trying to seek out someone else to help you do that.

Because like, that's a sense of object consciousness where then we start to project onto someone else.

This person makes me feel good.

Then we get in a relationship, and we haven't completely became whole within ourselves or recognized that within ourselves.

And then we start putting our feelings, like giving that person control of our feelings.

So, I mean, because when you really learn how to love yourself,

I mean, we reflect onto the world what we're feeling about ourselves, what we think about ourselves.

So, if we don't feel whole within ourselves, we project that onto people.

And so, I mean, you know, all the power to people that want to go go and be in relationships and explore that but at the end of the day man it like working on yourself spending some time with you getting that masculine that feminine energy balanced with you it's going to help you have a much more meaningful

work on yourself first yeah goober big on that um why do you think a lot of girls say they like confident guys

because i like we were saying earlier man confidence is an energy right and when you're confident in yourself when the guy is confident we project that onto the people around us and we help girls feel confident, right?

So if you feel confident, then that energy goes around as the girl is going to be with you.

They're going to feel confident being with you, they're going to feel more confident in themselves.

So, it's just a magnetic energy.

When people aren't confident, it's like,

I mean, honestly, you know, you were with someone that you could tell really is not confident.

You're just kind of like, it's hard to kind of build a really good relationship with that person because they haven't, again, they haven't done a real thing.

Girls don't want to deal with insecure guys, bro.

That's when you get domestic violence.

It's where you're going, why you dress like that.

You fighting guys at the grocery store because they're staring at her.

It's a bus.

Insecure guys are a problem.

For sure.

Yeah.

Is meditation underrated?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, when I, that was one of the early things that I started doing as like, how can I start to become more confident?

And people talked about meditation of like, it helps you be more in the moment.

First of all, it's huge for tapping into that feminine energy as a man and as a woman, right?

I mean, women themselves don't all have a really healthy feminine energy.

So allowing allowing women a space to slow down.

So, but here's the thing is

we are not our thoughts.

We are the one behind our thoughts that's aware of all of them.

Meditation is the practice that helps us.

Build the muscle of coming back to who we truly are, of seeing our thoughts and saying, oh, someone cuts me off on the way to work.

And I could get super sucked into that and frustrated and ruined my whole day.

Or I could say, because I've been practicing meditation, oh, I noticed those thoughts just came up and drove me to feel a way that didn't make me feel good.

Come back to center, come back to my breath.

And when you do that, you just start to feel way more peace in your life.

I never practice meditation to be really confident.

Well, I've done meditation, but not in a sense of like to go with the, like, feel confident.

I haven't heard of that.

Yeah, there's different types.

I do a manifestation meditation.

Okay.

Joe Dispenza.

Yeah.

So you're more, is there more visualization involved there?

Yeah, how does that work?

I'm not there yet.

My eyes are closed and I'm trying to manifest good things in my life and be grateful and thankful.

So is that the more of the thinking about everything?

Yeah, I'm trying to manifest.

So I'd say thinking.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, which also super powerful, right?

But I think there's definitely, yeah, it's something different of just tapping into being right here.

And that's the thing is when we start meditating, like we get lost in thoughts.

It's like you get lost in a story and it comes back.

But we are so used to being lost in our thoughts that it feels good.

It feels normal.

It feels familiar.

So like we might be sitting meditating and all all of a sudden, a good idea comes, and we're like, run with it, run with it, run with it.

But the practice is saying, okay, I can detach from that.

That idea has now come up.

It's there.

I can tap into that at any point now, but I have to slow myself down and be quiet.

So, yeah, and visualization, that manifesting energy of feeling what you desire now, so powerful.

And if you're not doing it, do it, right?

So the thought of having a clear mind during meditation is certain practices.

In your case, you're thinking about everything good.

Your mind isn't clear.

Yeah, but it's focused focused thinking.

I'm not letting my mind wander off like you said.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

And you're tapping into energy.

Yeah.

Yeah, dude.

That was a great episode.

Learned a lot.

It was over?

Yeah, it's been 30 minutes, bro.

Holy shit.

Wow.

Any closing comments?

Dude, happy to be here, man.

If people don't feel confident in themselves, just know that you can become confident.

And confidence will unlock so many opportunities.

Yeah.

So that's what I'm here to do, man.

I want to just help people learn how to love themselves and spread that to the word or to the world.

And so I appreciate you guys having me on and being able to have a conversation about it.

Love it.

Wayne.

Follow me on Instagram at the Creator.

Sean Mike Kelly, Digital Social Hour.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

See you next time.

Peace.