 |
|
|
|||||
Below, Shadé Zahrai shares five key insights from her new book, Big Trust: Rewire Self-Doubt, Find Your Confidence, and Fuel Success. Shadé is a peak performance educator to Fortune 500 companies, leadership strategist, and former lawyer. Over the past decade, she has trained leaders at Microsoft, Deloitte, JPMorgan, and LVMH, educated millions through LinkedIn Learning, and spent five years researching self-doubt and self-image as part of her PhD. Whats the big idea? When you change how you see yourself, you change whats possible for you. Big Trust doesnt require becoming someone new; it requires you to finally trust who you already are. By strengthening the four drivers of Big Trust, you give power to back yourself when it counts. Listen to the audio version of this Book Biteread by Shadé herselfbelow, or in the Next Big Idea App. 1. You will never rise above your opinion of yourself In the 1970s, Dartmouth professor Robert Kleck ran a fascinating study. He sent participants into conversations with strangers, but before he did that, he took a group and applied a scar to their face. They saw the result in a hand mirror, confirming that they had a disfigurement. Then both scarred and non-scarred groups were sent into conversations. Afterward, the scarred participants reported that people treated them differentlythey felt that others were less friendly, more tense, and more uncomfortable. They were convinced the scar changed how the world saw them. Except . . . the scar never existed. Right before the interaction, the researchers pretended to touch up the makeup but secretly wiped the scar off completely. So, they walked in with no scar at all, but they believed they had one. And because they believed it, they expected they would be treated differently. Expectation shaped their interpretation. Thats confirmation bias and selective attention in action. They didnt respond to reality. They responded to the reality that their self-image prepared them to see. This is the power of self-image. You dont respond to the world as it isyou respond to the world your brain expects to see based on how you see yourself. They responded to the reality that their self-image prepared them to see. So, ask yourself: What invisible scars am I carrying into every room, every opportunity? How are they shaping the way I show up? In my work with high performers, Ive seen this pattern again and again. When someones self-image is distorted, every room feels threatening. Every text left on read feels like rejection. Every silence feels personal. Every piece of feedback feels like a verdict. One of the fastest ways to uncover these invisible scars is by identifying the labels youve attached to yourself. Labels like Im boring, I always mess up, Im not confident, Im not leadership material, Im too much, or Im not enough. Most of these werent created by you. They were given to youby family, early teachers, old bosses, past partnersat a time you were too young and too unsure to question them. But labels are just stories. And stories can be rewritten: Swap Im indecisive with Im thoughtful and deliberate. Swap Im intense with Im passionate and deeply invested. Swap Im boring with Im steady and grounded. Simple, but neurologically powerful. Every reframe weakens an old neural pathway and strengthens a new one. Bit by bit, your brain updates its blueprint. When the blueprint changes, your self-doubt loses its grip. The essence of Big Trust is updating your blueprint to trust your worth, capability, and capacity to show up fully when it counts. 2. Transforming your self-image with Big Trust Big Trust is that deep, internal sense of self-trust, and its shaped by your self-image. Self-image isnt abstract. Its made up of four measurable dimensions that psychologists call your core self-evaluations. Decades of studies (including meta-analyses of over 100 papers) show that these four dimensions predict job performance, career satisfaction, happiness, and earning potential. The idea that personality is fixed is outdated. Yes, we tend to stay consistent over time, unless we intentionally target a specific aspect with new habits and experiences. When we do, we can reshape our traits in meaningful ways. And core self-evaluations are based on four psychological personality traits: Acceptance your sense of Am I enough as I am? It reflects what psychologists would call self-esteem. Agency your belief in your ability to make things happen. This is the lived experience of self-efficacy. Autonomy the degree to which you feel in control of your life and choices, instead of feeling like it just happens to you. This reflects your locus of control. Adaptability your ability to stay steady when life doesnt go to plan and regulate your emotions when things feel uncertain. This maps onto emotional stability, sometimes called the opposite of neuroticism. Together, these form your Doubt Profile, the psychological fingerprint for how and where self-doubt shows up. Heres what this looks like in real life: If youre low in Acceptance, you constantly feel like you need to prove your worth. You take feedback personally and chase approval as though your value depends on it. If youre low in Agency, you doubt your abilities. You compare yourself to others, feel like an imposter, and wait to feel ready . . . which means you rarely take action. If youre low in Autonomy, you feel powerless. You get stuck in blame, resentment, or old stories that keep you small. If youre low in Adaptability, emotions like anxiety or overwhelm take over when the stakes are high. You know what to do, but you cant bring yourself to do it. None of this is fixed. These four elements of your self-image are trainable. When you strengthen the Big Trust attributes, you reshape the underlying personality patterns that have been keeping you stuck: You build Acceptance so your worth stops feeling conditional. You strengthen Agency so you move even when doubt is loud. You grow Autonomy so you reclaim your power. You cultivate Adaptability so your emotions dont shrink your potential. When you work on these four attributes, youre not just thinking more positively. Youre fundamentally reshaping the self-image that your doubt has been feeding on for years. When you understand the four attributes beneath your self-image, you finally know where to direct your energy. And once you strengthen them, self-doubt stops running your life. 3. Overthinking isnt a thinking problemits a self-trust problem Overthinking is ften what your brain does when it doesnt feel safe handing over the steering wheel to you. When your self-image tells your brain, Youre not safe in uncertainty, your mind compensates by producing more thinking, more scenarios, more mental rehearsals. And because of our built-in negativity bias, the mind typically fixates on the negative: What if I fail? What if I cant do it? What if I embarrass myself? You start catastrophizing, because your brain is trying to create a sense of certainty where none exists. It magnifies what could go wrong to keep you safe. If youre aware of all the possible risks, maybe you wont try. And if you dont try, you cant fail, or be rejected, or judged. On some level, your brain thinks its protecting you. And to be fair . . . it is. But its also keeping you stuck. The antidote to overthinking isnt clearer thoughts or more clarityits deeper self-trust. When you strengthen the four Big Trust attributes, decision-making becomes lighter. You no longer need more information or perfect information. You dont spiral into worst-case scenarios. You dont get trapped in What if I choose wrong? because you know you can handle whatever happens next. You have Big Trust. I often tell my clients, Youre not overthinking because youre unsure of the world. Youre overthinking because youre unsure of yourself in the world. When you shift that, when you trust your own competence, resilience, and adaptability, the overthinking naturally settles. Youre not forcing your mind to quiet down, but it no longer has a job to do. You start catastrophizing, because your brain is trying to create a sense of certainty where none exists. One of the simplest yet most powerful tools comes directly from research on anxiety and worry. Its called Stimulus Control for Worry, and its incredibly effective at reducing overthinking. Instead of letting worries hijack your mind all day, you train your brain to contain them. Every time a worry or distracting thought pops into your head, write it down. Then say, Ill worry about you later. Then, each day, schedule worry time. Up to 30 minutes to pull out your list of worries and let your mind run wild with worry. Once the time is up, thats it. Close the notebook or the app. After that, decide your next step. Ask yourself, Is this worry real, or am I catastrophizing? Is there anything I can do about this? If yes, commit to doing something. If not, redirect your focus to something that deserves your energy. And finally, periodically review your worry list. Look for patterns. Notice how many worries never became problems. This strengthens self-trust because you begin to see, in your own handwriting, how often your mind predicted danger that never arrived. You start to internalize that youre safer, more capable, and more resourceful than your brain gives you credit for. 4. Confidence is an outcome of self-trust When I run workshops or speak to audiences, and I ask people what they think the opposite of self-doubt is, about 90 percent will say confidence. And what that tells me is that most people are waiting. Theyre waiting to feel confident before they take action. Theyre waiting for readiness, certainty, and the perfect moment. But thats the wrong goal. Years of psychological research point to the same truth: confidence doesnt come before you take action. It comes after. Heres the loop that builds confidence: You take a small action. You watch yourself do it, and survive it. That creates a proof point. Your skills grow. Your competence grows. Your brain updates its internal script: I can handle this. Thats self-efficacy rising, and as self-efficacy rises, confidence follows. Confidence is the result, not the prerequisite. Its the outcome of action, not the gateway to it. So, if confidence comes after, what comes before we take action? Thats Big Trustthe trust in yourself that you can handle whatever happens next because, even if the outcome isnt perfect, youll learn, adjust, and improve. Even the word confidence gives it away: it comes from the Latin con + fidere, meaning with trust. Dont wait to feel confident to act; act to become someone you trust. 5. Identity changes lasthabits are how you rebuild self-trust Self-trust isnt built in big, dramatic moments. Its built through small, repeated habits that teach your brain a new story about who you are. We often think change happens when we finally feel ready, or when motivation strikes, or when we find the perfect strategy. But identity doesnt shift from insight alone; it shifts from evidence. If your habits say, I avoid hard things, or I break promises to myself, or I wait until I feel confident, your brain stores that as identity. It becomes your self-image. But when your habits say, I follow through, I take small risks, I choose what matters over whats comfortable, your brain updates your identity to match. Big Trust is built through repetition of aligned action. Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea app. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Category:
E-Commerce
Working at the office all day was a struggle for Nicola Sura. Shed seen the toll that working a corporate job had taken on her moms physical and mental health, and she never wanted the same thing to happen to her. Around six months into Suras first full-time role in 2019, she started questioning her life choices, as well as those of everyone around her. I was, like, how are people doing this? Everyone seems completely fine. Everyone’s just going about their day, Sura, who works in corporate retail, tells Fast Company. It was killing me to just be there for eight hours at my desk. The move to working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic was when Sura learned a trick that would change everything: time theft. She started taking long lunches and watching TV while on the clock because nobody was monitoring her, and she finally found time to do her chores. I started feeling, like, okay, this is how I’m going to get through corporate America, Sura says. For me, it was always a means to survival. Time thievery is defined as stealing back moments in the workday to run errands, put on the laundry, take a nap, and do anything else that isnt in your job description, without taking official breaks. Sura now runs a TikTok account where she helps her 57,000 followers become better time thieves. Her number one rule: You have to be good at your job to get away with it. If you are very clearly a slacker or very clearly struggling, then it won’t work, she says. That is the foundation you have to start from, or else you will get fired. A productivity hack, or a risky coping mechanism? Time theft has become more common since the working-from-home era. One recent survey of over 5,000 people across Europe by the market research firm YouGov Switzerland found that 80% of work-from-homers admitted to doing nonwork tasks during paid hours. A 2025 study, published in the journal Behavioral Sciences, found that working conditions that have become more commonplace since COVIDsuch as a lack of supervision for those working from homecorrelated with employees taking extended personal breaks and sending personal messages during paid work time. Productivity experts and organizational psychologists have mixed views on time thievery. Some see it as risky, or as an unhealthy coping mechanism that masks deeper dissatisfaction. Others see it as a natural progression toward a more flexible way of working. Circa 2020 or earlier, some remote workers might have felt guilty tending to the laundry during a lull in the daybut given the nature of remote work, why feel guilty about juggling chores at all, so long as the work gets done? Selda Seyfi, a management consultant who writes about productivity on her Substack called “Maximize Your Minutes,” views time theft as energy management and an intentional integration of what you want to do versus what you have to do. The whole concept assumes we still work in a 1940s factory model where your employer owns your brain for eight hours, she says. Any deviation from that is seen as stealing, which feels outdated. Seyfi also argues that its unrealistic for workplaces not to expect employees to do necessary life admin, especially when banks and post offices are only open during work hours. Everyone talks about protecting weekends, but no one questions you when you’re checking emails at 9 p.m., she says. The boundary always seems to go one way. How reclaiming time changes workplace dynamics From an organizational perspective, when used occasionally, time theft can reduce absenteeism and presenteeism, says Amanda Tobe, an organizational psychologist who specializes in career progression. She says it can reduce anxiety and mental fatigue when used within reason, supporting emotional regulation and cognitive functioning, which may indirectly improve focus and work quality.” Anita Williams Woolley, associate professor of organizational behavior at Carnegie Mellon Universitys Tepper School of Business, notes that many jobs are lumpy: Some days are overloaded, others slower. People use lighter periods for errands, because work isnt perfectly matched to a 9-to-5 grid, she says. Employers who dont acknowledge that force workers to do this without being transparent. Williams Woolley adds that errands can offer stress relief and a sense of autonomy, especially when work feels inflexible or surveilled. But she warns that there may be costs: Secrecy can push people into a more transactional relationship with work, eroding trust and belonging, she says. Even if performance is strong, unreliability can stick. Theres also the risk of discipline for time thieves who push their luck. Employers who suspect workers of being absent for long swaths of the day may enforce policies such as monitoring laptop activity, or even dishing out punishments like fines. In 2023, for example, a remote accountant was dismissed and fined around $1,000 for time theft after tracking software was uploaded to her work laptop. Career happiness coach Jenny Holliday warns that even if you get away with it, time thievery may work in the short term but become costly over time. She says it can mask deeper feelings of resentment or disengagement, and even be a means of revenge. If you’ve been passed over for a promotion or a pay raise, why not spend half your day on other things? she says. Productivity doesnt look the same for everyone Sura isnt convinced by the criticisms, especially as more companies push employees back into the office full time. She doesnt see time theft as quiet quitting or coasting. While she may occasionally reframe the truthlike saying her internet is down so she can catch up on sleep or watch a movieshe says shes anything but unproductive. Sura has since moved on from the job where she learned that it pays to be a time thief, and has held a couple of corporate roles since. She now juggles contract work with being a full-time content creator. In her previous roles, she was consistently promoted and received positive feedback from managers and colleagues, so she knows firsthand that productivity doesnt look the same for everyone. Your work speaks for itself, she says. You can do good work without operating at a 100% capacity all the time. Slowing down and working at a sustainable pace matters. Another criticism Sura often hears is tht time thieves leave others to pick up the slack. She rejects that, too. Nobody is telling you to work harder, she says. Go ahead and also be a time thief. We should all be existing this way.
Category:
E-Commerce
On the heels of its intriguing Super Bowl ad, AI.com is garnering all sorts of interestso much, in fact, that the company’s website crashed as Super Bowl viewers scrambled to see what the company no one has heard of was all about. The new AI platform, founded by Crypto.com CEO and cofounder Kris Marszalek, reportedly spent a whopping $85 million on the Super Bowl spot, only to garner such a heavy volume of traffic that he had to post on X: “Insane traffic levels. We prepared for scale, but not for THIS,” followed by three fire emoji. That 30-second commercial, which ran during the coveted fourth-quarter ad slot, encouraged fans to go to the site and create an AI handle, lured by the promise it would “perform real-world tasks for the good of humanity.” What exactly does that mean? According to the company’s release: “With a few clicks, anyone can now generate a private, personal AI agent that doesnt just answer questions, but actually operates on the users behalforganizing work, sending messages, executing actions across apps, building projects, and more,” the company said. The company also asks people to “join now to claim your unique ai.com/username,” which requires entering credit card information to allegedly “verify that you’re a human” in order to secure a handle. Fast Company has reached out to AI.com for more details on why a credit card is required for verification. However, many who scrambled to the site were left with more questions than answers. One X user wrote: “I’m on the site but it’s not clear what http://ai.com offers!” On Meta’s Threads, user hridoyreh posted: “Why and for what exactly do I need to add a card for my AI.com username? Is this how they want to recover the $70 million they spent?” To which one user replied: “Ran into that this morning and was a big NOPE from me.” And another commented: “Literally no idea what that website / product does.” Marszalek reportedly bought the domain for $70 million, which is estimated to be “the single largest domain purchase in history,” according to the company, as reported by the Financial Times. According to AI.com’s release, the company’s “key differentiating feature is the agents ability to autonomously build out missing features and capabilities to complete real-world tasks. … Such improvements will subsequently be shared across millions of agents on the network, massively increasing the utility of each agent for ai.com users.” It also said users will soon be able to deploy their agent to do a range of actions, like trading stocks, automating workflows, organizing and executing daily tasks with their calendar, or even updating their online dating profileall while remaining private, permission-based, and fully under the users control.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||