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The moments that matter most rarely feel calm. When the room is watching, consequences are real, and your heart is thumping in your ears, practice confidence often falls apart. We dig into that performance gap and share a practical, science-backed path to make your skills travel from safe rooms to high-stakes arenas.

We start with Sarah’s journey from silent manager to someone who can speak up in senior meetings, revealing how solid habits still crumble when visibility, hierarchy, and uncertainty spike. I share my first board presentation and the reframe that stripped away mystique: they weren’t dissecting my every word, they were moving through an agenda. From there we map the biology of pressure. The amygdala flags social threat, the sympathetic system floods you with adrenaline, the prefrontal cortex goes dim, working memory shrinks, and attention tunnels. That’s not weakness; it’s human.

Then we get specific. You’ll learn the five mechanisms that derail performance and a framework to train pressure tolerance: gradual exposure across rising stakes, simulating pressure with audience, time limits, evaluation, artificial consequences, and elevated heart rate. We show why performance dips at first and why that’s the point. We practise recovery lines so stumbles don’t end the attempt. We reframe threat to challenge using real evidence rather than wishful thinking, and we separate skill learning from pressure training so your brain isn’t overloaded.

Finally, we share six execution strategies for the moment itself: accept the physical response, use micro actions, externalise attention, recall your evidence, commit to imperfection, and have a recovery plan if you freeze. High-stakes confidence isn’t the absence of anxiety; it’s the ability to act while anxious. Each imperfect rep becomes proof you can perform under load, and that evidence compounds into durable confidence when the stakes are real.

If this helped, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s training for a big moment, and leave a quick review telling us the one pressure element you’ll add this week.

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🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email info@breakthroughchange.com

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You've pushed through the boring middle bit. You haven't quit. But how do you know if it's actually working?

In Episode 3 of Confidence Unlocked, John M Walsh reveals what the shift feels like when confidence genuinely starts to build - and why most people miss it entirely because they're looking for the wrong signs.

Here's the truth: there's no breakthrough moment. No sudden transformation. The shift is quieter than that. And if you don't know what to look for, you might quit right when things are starting to work.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• What the confidence shift actually feels like (hint: it's not what you expect)
• The 7 signs that prove confidence is building - even when it doesn't feel like it
• Why progress is inconsistent and what that really means for your brain
• The two mistakes people make when they start seeing results
• When to increase the challenge - and by exactly how much (20-30%, not 200%)
• The "minimum viable practice" strategy for maintaining momentum when life gets busy
• Why each new level has its own difficult middle phase

Follow Rachel's journey as she moves from small assertions in team meetings to high-stakes situations with senior leaders - and learn the exact progression framework that works.

This episode gives you the tracking tools to prove to yourself that the process is working, even on days when doubt tells you otherwise.

#ConfidenceBuilding #ProgressSigns #SelfImprovement #PersonalGrowth #ConfidenceUnlocked #TrackingProgress #MindsetShift #JohnMWalsh

www.breakthroughchange.com

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email info@breakthroughchange.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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Why do 74% of people fail to build lasting confidence? They quit during the "boring middle bit" - that brutal stretch where the novelty has worn off but results aren't visible yet.

In this episode of Confidence Unlocked, John M Walsh draws on 27 years of experience working with 34,000 people to reveal exactly what happens during this critical phase - and how to push through when everything tells you to stop.

You'll discover:

• Why the middle phase feels so difficult (and why that's actually a sign of progress)
• What's happening in your brain during those repetitions that feel pointless
• The "evidence log" technique that keeps you going when motivation disappears
• How Rachel, a project manager, nearly quit at attempt 47 - and what changed
• Why counting attempts matters more than measuring outcomes
• The 5 survival strategies used by the 26% who reach high performance

If you've ever started building confidence only to abandon it weeks later, this episode explains exactly why - and gives you the tools to break the pattern.

Based on research into high-performing teams and real client transformations, this isn't motivational fluff. It's the practical psychology of persistence.

#ConfidenceBuilding #PersonalDevelopment #Persistence #SelfImprovement #Mindset #HighPerformance #BoringMiddleBit #ConfidenceUnlocked

www.breakthroughchangemanagement.com

Support the show

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎧 SUBSCRIBE & FOLLOW
Never miss an episode - subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

💬 CONNECT WITH JOHN
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/johnmwalshbreakthroughchange

Website: www.breakthroughchange.com

📣 SHARE YOUR STORY
Building confidence? Share your progress using #ConfidenceUnlocked or email info@breakthroughchange.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━