The emPOWERed Half Hour

Confident as F*** with Elle Russ

• Becca Powers / Elle Russ • Season 1 • Episode 73

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What if confidence was the key to unlocking the life you truly desire?

In this episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, I sit down with Elle Russ, author of Confident as F***, to dive into the transformative power of self-assurance. From breaking free of victimhood to harnessing your true potential, Elle shares how confidence shapes every aspect of our lives.


Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

  • Defining Confidence in Action
    Elle defines confidence as “the sum of the thoughts you think and the actions you take,” emphasizing that it’s a skill anyone can cultivate by changing their mindset and behaviors.
  • Failure as a Stepping Stone
    Elle dives into the concept of failure as feedback, sharing ancestral wisdom about resilience and adaptability that can empower us in modern challenges.
  • The Luxury of Victimhood
    Elle explains how modern society allows us to wallow in self-pity—a luxury our ancestors didn’t have—and shares strategies for breaking free from this mindset.


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Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of the empowered half hour. And I'm so excited to bring you today's guest. I am bringing you today bestselling author podcast host and master coach L Russ. I was on her show a couple of weeks ago. I think we became instant friends and I was like, you have to come on my show.

So welcome to the show. 

Elle Russ: Thank you. You know, it's just, sometimes you meet people through all these years of podcasting and like right away, you're like, Oh, this is my people right here. This is what we're talking about. This is my kind of lady. So, uh, really grateful to be here and chat with your audience today.

Becca Powers: Yeah, that's cool. So I don't know for those of you who aren't watching and listening, which is most of you right behind Elle, she has a book titled confident as fuck. And this is like, so of my alley, I wish I would have named a book like that because it's just in my DNA to kind of Curse like that and also own the empowerment of that.

Like that is so freaking cool. So today's conversation is going to be centered around confidence, empowerment, and all of that strong energy that comes with that. But Elle, I would love to ask you, what's your backstory? Like, how did you get to this point of. Owning that message confident as fuck, because that's like, it takes a lot to own that and I'm pretty sure you have a good story behind that.

Elle Russ: Well, it's also seemingly pretty cocky, isn't it? You know, I am confident in saying that. That doesn't mean that if you come to me and you ask me to teach you how to bungee jump, clearly I'm not confident that you're going to die. Right. So obviously, some people say what everyone needs to know right off the bat is that what is confidence and just here's the general definition.

It literally is just the sum of the thoughts you think and the actions you take. That's all it is. It is the sum of the thoughts you think and the actions you take. The thoughts you think and the actions you take are absolutely within your power to change. Now there could be someone at ground zero who can't even talk to people.

They're so debilitatingly shy. Great. Well, that person would need to get a social coach that requires a little bit more psychological, professional intervention, Most people are not at ground zero. So then we've got to really talk about it from that perspective. So it's available to everyone.

I want everyone starting listening. Oh, no, I can't be. I've never been this way or oh, you've always been this way. And I get that while I might have had more of a confident baseline. It's not that it didn't get chipped away at over the years. This is what's happens to everybody. We're kind of born confident unless you're, beaten white out of the womb or something from a parent, but you're kind of born confident.

You're like, give me that. No, this is mine. Right? no problems. You're worth and everything that you want, but then something happens. The teacher tells you you're not going to be anything. The parent tells you you're a loser and now you go through life and your confidence is getting chiseled away at. So for me, I was sort of confident, but.

Then, when I was 22 years old, I was in the corporate world, being confident, being a badass, kick an ass. And then suddenly out of nowhere, both of my hands and arms, Stopped working, became completely disabled. still, to this day have a very serious hand disability. It's permanent injury. I am rated by the California court system at 40 percent disabled.

So if you're in a wheelchair, you're about 60 percent is what they rate you. Makes sense. Upper extremities, lower extremities. You can only imagine what this did to my confidence. Suddenly I'm out of a job a couple of years in after college. I'm killing it. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to make it in this world.

I'm, rocking it. And now I have no job prospects because 99, now this is 1997. There was no podcast, there was nothing, people weren't even using cell phones. So it's not like you could just go make a name for yourself. Like you can now, you can just get on YouTube and start talking.

Couldn't do that then. So here I am. And I am immediately, immediately just. Catapulted out of 99. 9 percent of every single job in the world because every single job that you can think of right now involves the repetitive use of your hands, which I cannot do. So, I'm speaking to you now. I write books with my mouth.

 I can use my hands like I can't use can play a game of ping pong with you. I can go stand up paddling. I just can't use them like everyone else can eight hours a day. So that was a huge hurt. I got smacked down. I'm an alpha female. All of a sudden I'm embarrassed and ashamed. I don't want to tell anyone I'm disabled.

Like, you know what I mean? Who's going to want to be with someone. Yeah. 

Becca Powers: I mean, that's like a big mental shift from especially coming out of college, entering corporate world, kicking ass at it. And then all of a sudden, 

Elle Russ: wow, all of a sudden it's like, You're done. And I'm thinking, Oh my God, what am I going to do with my life?

And my first thought of shame was I was sitting in my apartment in San Francisco at the time, and I thought, who's going to want me. Like I'm 22 and I can't use my fricking arms. I can't be a mom. I can't cook. I can't do anything like, household relationship, kind of role, I can't do any of this stuff.

And frankly, I had to be honest. I was like, would I want to date a guy whose hands were ruined for life? At the age of 22. And the answer is no. And so there was my first thought of shame, that worthlessness, that who's going to want me, no one's ever going to want me and that breeds some bad shit. Right.

That can get in there. So I had to turn it around. But what I noticed in the real reason I wrote this book is not only my personal little journey, but because people have been coming to me for this forever. I've been getting calls from friends from college, like, Hey, can you look over my paper to write it?

Either that was writing or it's been, Hey, I got a bully at work. I need to come back to, or, how do I deal with this person? How do I ask my boss for a raise? Everyone was coming to me for pep talks and encouragement on things that just required speaking up and confidence. And I realized, my God, this is like, it's becoming a 

Becca Powers: superpower.

Right? 

Elle Russ: Yeah. But then here's the thing, and I want to share this with everyone. It's not me on the Oracle at Delphi, dispensing, you know, prophecies. It's also us learning from the people that lack confidence because they tell you what they have. They have diplomacy. They think a little bit before they speak.

When you're ultra confident and you're alpha, sometimes you don't. We got that to learn. Guilty. You know what? Yeah, guilty. I'm sure you are. You know what else we're guilty of? Hi, not being vulnerable. Bring an issue for you. Yeah, probably is an alpha female, right? So they're more vulnerable. They're more open to receiving, whether it be compliments or help.

Confident people have that issue. They're like, have issues delegating. 

Becca Powers: Help was a big one for me that has taken like effort. no, I'm good at it or at least decent, but it took conscious effort to ask for help and not only ask, but then receive it. What you're talking about, 

Elle Russ: but we can look at them and go, hold on a minute. they might be learning stuff from us. We can learn stuff from it's

Becca Powers: really wise 

Elle Russ: and also confidence can be silent. You don't have to be extroverted people like Becca and I, you can be the quietest person in the room.

 I know many of those. So you don't want to ever misgage someone's confidence. Or think that they're confident because they're on a stage talking to 50, 000 people, that person could get off that stage and be a fucking people pleaser and have miserable relationships. I've seen it a hundred times. I wrote examples of this in my book.

So you don't judge people's confidence on that. you judge it on their character and how they act. 

Becca Powers: I am such a big fan of character and, you know, there's cheesy sayings like character counts, but it really does. And I would love for you to share with the audience if we can just unpack character and confidence a little bit if you don't mind, because I just think it's a cool thing that I've never talked about on this show before.

Elle Russ: reason we're drawn to and attracted to people who showcase confidence is because we intuitively perceive that these people can approach any. Opportunity with assurance. It's like we trust their trust in themselves, So why is that? confident people not only appear to be true to themselves, but they enjoy themselves in their own company.

There are some characteristics right there. Let me rattle off a few. They approach challenging situations as something to be conquered, not as hazards to be feared. I'll get into that a little bit later. They,  are comfortable with failures and mistakes. They speak with authority as you can tell both of us do that.

So when you listen to us, you can tell that in our voice. We are dependable, reliable, trustworthy and on f*cking time. Okay, that is a confident person. All right. We encourage and we foster and we celebrate. The successes of others. So if you meet someone that thinks confident because they're boisterous and they're braggy, or they're a bully, that's a misuse of confidence.

Okay. Confident people aren't threatened by other people's success period. We compete. When you compete, you lose. Let me get into that. You'd say, L how is that possible? I'm in a marathon with a hundred people. competing against them. It's your mindset. When I go into a race, when I go into something that's competitive against others, I don't go in there with the mindset of kicking their ass.

That mindset goes to the aftermath of, Ha ha, they lost, I won. It's in relation to them and how it makes me feel. Instead, I go in with, I'm just going to win and be the best. I don't care I don't give a shit about anyone. I'm going to dominate. That is a different, It's a nuance. I hope you see that.

we're leaders. We're decisive. I'll rattle off a few more. Um, we use effective communication skills. We focus on our strengths, not our weaknesses. We have the ability to laugh at ourselves and we're not easily offended. Okay. So we are kind and encouraging to others. People are often very like, Oh my God, you're so helpful.

Or someone will come to me and they'll be like a competitor. And they'll be like, Oh, I want to do what you do. I don't feel threatened right away. When you're confident, you don't feel threatened because you know, there's an abundance for everyone. When you're confident, you go help the person who's your competitor actually succeed.

Becca Powers: I love that so much 

Elle Russ: and we'll unpack it. I, one of the things I just want to say before we do is I want to get into the ancestral edge here because I did write a book called the paleo thyroid solution. I believe in ancestral health as a great baseline for, human health and anti aging.

However. Confidence does provide an evolutionary edge. Okay. Confidence helps us navigate challenging situations with ease. Confidence helps us navigate tasks, social situation, let's say accomplishing our goals. Here's the problem. Nowadays, modern times, we're not out there with the fight or flight pressures of having to kill something.

Nowadays, it's a luxury. It's a modern luxury to wallow in self pity and despair. Okay. That's modern luxury. They didn't, do that. They weren't able to do that. Why? Imagine two hunters back in the day, they didn't kill the beast. Can you imagine them sitting together by the watering hole and the dude's like, I don't know, man.

 I'm so bad at it. 

Becca Powers: 

Elle Russ: No, they devised a new plan. It was onward and upward failure was feedback. Now we have time to wallow in here and sell. They didn't have time for that, man. If, the water hole was tainted, we got to move on, man.

Jenny's dead. Don't cry for Jenny. We got to go. Let's go. Now that's very harsh. course different in modern times. You're not just like mom's dad, whatever. Next business meeting. Okay. Bye. We don't want to go back to their human rights. You and I would have been dragged into caves and who knows what else.

But we do need to get back to that failure is feedback. 

Becca Powers: I love that you just reinforced that because I was holding on to that nugget and hoping to reinforce it for the listeners because I want you to continue, but I just want to talk to the listeners for a second. Like we have a whole bunch of high performers on here that listened to this, high achievers and some of them still take failure as failure.

And I want you to hear this message that failure is feedback and it's part of our growth. And I'm going to turn it back to you, Al, but I just wanted to reinforce that for the listeners. Like listen, if you're somewhat listening, like tune in, put your ear in, let's go. 

Elle Russ: So yeah, let's get back to that.

So they're not moping around with their heads hung low and they didn't catch the beast, blah, blah, blah. So here's the thing. It's not that they didn't have disappointments. They had, monumentous amounts of, disappointments, But here's the thing. To a hunter gatherer, a victim mindset would be a recipe for death.

It's a recipe for death and disaster. They didn't have time for that. And in this life, it's not a recipe for physical death, but I guess you could say like the death of your soul or not fulfilling your purpose. So there's a,survival required that the ancestors regrouped and forged ahead to the next challenge when they faced unfavorable circumstances, right?

So they did things with a purpose, a goal. Maybe, had the outcome not been to their advantage, They likely accepted it and moved on. They might have tried again later and devised another plan, but they moved on. It's onward and upward thinking. It's not that they're not simmering in the disappointment.

They didn't catch the beast they're not going to eat. That's going to suck. But they didn't sit there completely crying about it. The response was, what do we do next? How can we do it better? Devising new plans. this is the message I want to impart on you because it's in our DNA as humans.

We are no different DNA wise than a hunter gatherer ancestor 60, 000 years ago. Yeah, 60, 000 years ago. The Bible is only 3500 years old, right? And 

Becca Powers: talk about that reinforced DNA. And now we're in aday and age has, how you were saying, where we get to choose whether we want to be challenged or not more often than not, people sit in their despair and we see it in the rise of disease, dysfunction, even, death.

And I really love what you said when you are not striving for this more. You said something about, your soul taking a hit and not feeling purpose driven. And I don't know if you'd like to expand on that, but that really caught my ear as you were talking. 

Elle Russ: so here's the thing.

Um,if you're in any kind of victim mentality, you feel as though bad things just keep happening to you. Kind of, everything's happening around you. You may even feel that everyone's against you. You don't really take any responsibility as though everything's out of your control, our hunter gatherer ancestors, right, they took everything in their control. They felt it was in their control. They had nothing else but them, right? If you're in a tribe, you're wandering around. You don't call a buddy in another area for advice, right? You only have your wits and devices. And like you said, it is a great contrast to think about the fact that we get to choose to struggle if we want.

We do not have fight or flight. selection pressures. So then they kind of go up here. And, I don't know if I'm clarifying your question. Maybe my mind got off. Did I clarify? 

Becca Powers: No, no, that was, good. And you had just also said something that, yeah, how it was tied to soul and purpose. And I was like, I caught that.

And I was like, I want to ask Elle about that. 

Elle Russ: Right. Because here's the thing,your failures are hits. But they will actually add up to be regrets. And so, if you don't have the onward and upward, if you don't see failure as feedback, You're just not going to move as fast towards your goal.

And then what's going to happen is, and this is what I find a lot. This is why people come to me or as coaches, this is what we do. People want accountability. they want to move forward, but they kind of simmer in a limbo uncertainty. And I mean, look, there's probably a lot of people listening that have things that they want to do, and they've been thinking about it forever, but then they don't do it in contrast, our hunter gather ancestors, they would do it right away. We hesitate. We have time to simmer. We're not. fighting beasts around us. So we can just kind of be in here. And I'm saying, yeah, be in here, but get out of here because it is empowering your intentions with confidence that give you the actions towards it.

instead of giving up, otherwise you're just going to give up on all your dreams and purposes, or you're going to hit pitfall and then you're not going to pivot. You're going to just. dive right into it and go, I give up. And that's not what our hunter gatherer ancestors did. They devised a new plan.

They pivoted, they moved onward and upward transitioning. This is what we have to do. 

Becca Powers: I love that. You just ended there because I'd like to, ask you a question, which is, Kind of just going to be a natural segue from where we just ended, but how would embracing this concept empower someone's life? Like you had mentioned, people, you know, they have their dreams, they're not taking action on them and things like that.

So maybe you want to take it there, but I would really just open this up as like, if people embraced what you were talking about, how would it change and empower their life? 

Elle Russ: Because it's opportunity minded. Do you know what I mean? I guess that's really it. I mean, if you want to put a nutshell, one of the pitfalls to this, and I'll just throw this out there because while some people are powerhouses and are not quote shy, most of the people that I've coached, for example, when I did a writing program, I coach people who want to write books, This comes up every time.

It's really not about what they're writing. It's always about, what's Joan going to think? What are my colleagues going to think? They're already at the end to what people will think of them debuting the project before they fucking It's there's always an element there. So you can be really confident and do stuff, but still have that element.

And if there is that element in there, then you've got some stuff to work on. That's okay. It can be changed. It's just the light to let you know. And I want to say something about shyness. Any element of shyness. There's a very harsh quote. It's harsh, butit's true, man. I gotta just say it.

There's a guy that, his name's Andre Debusse, and he says this about shyness. Shyness has a strange element of narcissism. The belief that how we look, how we perform is truly important to other people. Bitches, they don't care. They don't care. They don't care. And I know we think that I know I've been through it all.

They don't care. And so what do you think? That was a hunter gatherer mindset. I don't care. Let's move on. so Joan died. Yeah, it's sad. I'm gonna miss her, but we gotta go. Yeah, we gotta go. no, no, I'm not saying they flipped their psychology that quickly. There might have been crying for a week, and confusion, obviously, if it was the first person that died in the trap.

So hopefully that kind of gave a little, no, 

Becca Powers: that's awesome because, you know, I think a lot of people do, they might have a dream they want to explore and their confidence is somewhat teetering because they care about what other people think. And what I have to say is you might lose friends.

Listen, when I started writing books and speaking, I lost probably three friends, but guess what? I gained purpose. I gained a mission. I. am making an impact in the world. I am meeting people like you, Elle and like my whole world changed when I was able to get through that block. And it is just that it's a block.

You have this whole big, beautiful world I love that you said opportunity in your answer. Two. And I would love to unpack that a little bit, because I think so many people can see the problem. Like, Oh my God, what is Susie going to think if I write this book? Well, Susie might freaking hate it.

Yeah, but. You might find five other people that you change their life by what you wrote. And so let's talk about the opportunity side of things. 

Elle Russ: I'll give a couple examples. One time someone asked me, they said, in this exact tone, they were like, Elle, do you think that I would make a, good coach?

And I said, no, because the way you just asked that tells me absolutely not. No, you wouldn't be terrible. fact that you're asking the question means no, as of right now, you shouldn't even be asking that question. It should be, I think I'm going to be a good coach. What do you think? Or Iso a lot of people go for ideas cause they think they might be good at something.

I just want to throw that out there. And then as far as, getting back to opportunity, the one I get the most is. What if I try and it's a disaster and it fails or what if it doesn't work? Then you are exactly where you are right now. So, okay, nothing's changed. Great. So you can take a shot and fail or never do it.

And you're going to wonder for the rest of your fucking life where they ever did it. I'll guarantee you that shit. You will wonder for the rest of your life. Why you didn't write that book? Why you didn't do that thing? Or, you know, I wish I could have done that. And that's the reason to do it. And I want to say something about confidence.

It's compounded and it's not comfortable, man. No one wants to speak up what's comfortable for me. But I love that you 

Becca Powers: said it's not comfortable because as you're. working through those layers, like when I was peeling through my layers and working through them and rising into this new version of myself, I think I did barf like twice.

Elle Russ: It's gross. It's uncomfortable. And when I've coached people and they have to make a small step, like speaking up to their hairdresser. I want to say this about confidence. Speaking up about anything, when you are lacking confidence and self esteem, you see it as it might be speaking up will be confrontational, doesn't have to be at all when you're confident, there's no confrontation really, unless you want it.

So, that's another misgage of life that people who aren't confident thinking that speaking up is going to cause a confrontation. That's inside of your head. The way you address things do not have to be that way. I got challenged myself. I tell a story on the podcast where I was on someone else's podcast and the podcast was so horrifically bullying awful to me.

I had to bully the bitch back in real time before the podcast started. Thank God I did, or I would have never been able to record that podcast. I had to bully a bully to her face and she's, Quite well known. Okay. So now was that comfortable for me? Oh, no, it wasn't. Oh, no, it wasn't. I mean, my heart was racing.

I was shaking inside, but the difference between me and other people is that I do it anyway. And I'll tell you this to this day. I am so fucking proud. I bullied that bitch back, immediately put her in her place, and, course, gave her a great episode, and it was all goody goody and good vibes. She didn't know I feel this way about her, she has no idea.

 that was not uncomfortable for me. I was shaking, it was a high level thing, I mean, listen, you know, here, here's a person who, right, has a very big audience, da da da da da. Bye! And I'm on their show and most people would cower. Most people would have not said the things I've said and then what they would have missed out on a show.

So I say that to say that I do it anyway. And I will say that it's compounded in terms of, I'm still proud of myself for that one. And that happened like five years ago, still proud of it. This shit fuels you for life. You look back on this stuff, you go, thank God I said that. Because most of the regrets come from people saying, I wish I would have done that.

I wish I would have said 

Becca Powers: that. Yes. I don't have that 

Elle Russ: in my life. It's very rare that I regret, because I said it. and it fuels me to this day. When some rando tried to bully me four years ago at the gym or some shit, she, Obviously chose the wrong person and regretted it like horrifically immediately, but I'll tell you that to this day that still fuels me I'm like, oh, that was so good.

Oh, that's worked out so well cuz I stood up for myself You're not talking down to me. Nope. Now sometimes am I gonna zip it? Absolutely Not a time to be authentic and confident in every situation You got a white lie if I'm at your house for Thanksgiving Your grandma's got an ugly sweater on and asked me what I think of it.

I'm gonna fucking lie Yeah, 

Becca Powers: you got me like, 

Elle Russ: it's beautiful. Right. Because you know what? Right. So confident people are authentic. We tell it like it is, but you know, nuances, right? So I know that's a lot, but 

Becca Powers: no, but I love that you've shared that. I mean, you know, we have about five minutes left, but I do want to reinforce that with the listeners.

Like, you know, there's nothing in what Elle is saying. That is rocket science, We're talking Nettie grit, daily decisions, how to approach life. Don let, your dreams die because you're comfortable or you're afraid, or you're sitting in self loathing. We're talking about standing up for yourself, using your voice.

And that at the end of the day, when you do. It does reinforce the confidence within you. I still remember being a senior leader. And the first time I said no to taking on something and I thought I was going to get fired, like in my head. And so I just wanted to share based upon something you said is that no one challenged me back.

I was like, I always said, 

Elle Russ: yeah, I said a 

Becca Powers: confident, no, because I couldn't. And they were like, okay, moving 

Elle Russ: on. And I was like, holy shit. It's an example now though. And here's the thing you bringing it up shows me it's a compounded confidence interest type of thing where it's still a proud moment. Yeah. [Sound]

Becca Powers: go back to that all the time. I'm like. I stood up for myself and you know what it did? Oh, it created space inside me to do the things that I really wanted to do. So ityes, it was also, I could get into boundaries, but I stayed confident in my, yes, or. My no, and my no was to taking on more work and my yes was to myself and I still today I smile ear to ear.

So 

Elle Russ: I don't know if we have time. I mean, I can always give some specifics. my goal really is that I don't like self help books that are just acronyms and to do lists. Like give me some real life fucking examples I want to sink my teeth into so that I can get it. I love giving that to 

Becca Powers: my listeners too.

So if we go a few minutes over. Okay. 

Elle Russ: going to just give a couple, of quick ones. one has a low confidence. One is high confidence still needs some work, low confidence. Here's one where the person thought it was confrontation 56 years old, by the way, she's 58 now, since my confidence course has written and become a number one bestselling author.

But before that, she couldn't speak up to her hairdresser. So here's the deal. Her hairdresser. She has straight hair. Her hairdresser on the bottom was cutting it up with scissors, like I guess a feather cut, I don't know, versus a blunt cut, like just straight across. Barbara wanted a blunt cut, but again, her hairdresser, and if you're not confident,you're like, I don't want to, right?

So they're thinking about approaching it like, I don't really like what you've done. Like that has to, that puts someone on the defense. And I'm here to tell you that these little small things can be positive throwaways. So we're talking with Barbara in the course of the time. And I said, Barbara, you're going to have to go talk to her.

How long have you known the woman a long time? Oh yeah. 10 years. Okay, great. Did she mention something to you last week could bring up was a, birthday party of her. daughter, like anything. And she goes, Oh, she gave me a conditioner. I really liked. I said, great. We're going to set that aside. And there's a lesson here.

Confident people don't over justify and over explain. And this is the perfect example. So I said, great, let's just put this little conditioner. You liked to the side. It's going to be your segue out of your uncomfortability. And then you're going to go to her and you're going to do this. It's just going to be real light.

It's be like, Oh, you know what? I'd love to try a blunt cut. moving forward. I know it may take a few or whatever, but I'd love to try that. Oh, by the way, I love that conditioner. You sent me. Seems so easy, right? But see, she was like, I don't want her to not like me. I don't wanna tell her I don't like this.

She keeps doing this cut. I never asked her. You don't have to go in there and go, Hey, I never asked you for this cut. What the fuck were you do? . It can be story to say, Yeah, let's try a blunt cut. We try a blood cut. I said to try a blunt cut from now on. I know we've been doing it the other way.

Oh and here's the thing, the conditioner was there because. When you're not confident, know, you're going to talk for three hours trying to explain the book so that they get you out of it out. So it worked by the way, it was a no brainer. She came back. She was like, that was easiest. I said, it is.

It's just that it's in your head that it has to be confrontational or it has to make the other person upset. In fact, the woman goes, okay, great. It might take a couple of times. Let's do it. End of story, two seconds. In her head for weeks, not getting the haircut she 

Becca Powers: wanted. Dude, this is the stuff, I'm so glad you're just talking about something as simple as a haircut, because this is the shit that stays in our heads for weeks, it takes up space.

Elle Russ: Like, she's gonna give me the wrong cut, I'm never gonna be able to get it, I'm gonna lose the cut, she's gonna hate me, and you got a whole story going on. And it's a throw awayers. It's a real simple positives and you don't need to make it something that's not. and that was a really easy one. has since, Barbara Diaz de Leon.

You can look her up. She's since became the number one best selling author of Feel Great in 28. She has a model body for someone who's post menopausal and 58 years old and she's amazing. She couldn't talk to her hairdresser, so go look her up and you can go, okay. And she was 56 at the time. It's never too late.

here's another one. This comes from a confident person, real confident. Okay. But the client is like, Hey, I got an offer from a company. I'd like to counter offer them. So let's say the company offered them 200, 000. They wanted a counter with 230, 000. All right. So they sent me their counter offer letter to the company arguing why they should give them more money.

And I read it and I called them and I said, okay, there's one little paragraph in here that needs to go. Can you figure out which one it is? And they couldn't. And it was this paragraph. It was the paragraph that said, you know, I've got an older sister in college, one about to start cut. I hope everyone hears where I might be going with this.

Becca Powers: Yeah. Nobody cares. 

Elle Russ: Tell an employer why you need the money. You tell them why you're worth it. Because let me tell you something. I'll break it down. First of all, the person might not have kids. That's your fault. You had fucking kids and it's expensive. That's not my shit. That's not my problem. I don't care if you spend your brokers and blow, not my business, not their business now you've just given them a reason to judge you they could be like, well, why'd you mismanage your fucking money?

Becca Powers: Like, It's so low confidence. He didn't even see it because it was a reason you don't give people reasons why you need it. You give people reasons why you're worth it. am just so freaking excited that you said that because just to share another story for the listeners recently, 

Elle Russ: the 

Becca Powers: subtleties, but this is how you navigate.

there was like, you know, an internal, Project going on and people were running for the position. Right. And this is like at work they're sending letters. So we know what they're about. And someone's like, I talked to my wife and she's supporting me. I'm like, I don't give a crap.

If your wife is supporting you, I want, you're good for this role. And immediately in my head, I'm like, not it. Like, Nope, I don't want that person. 

Elle Russ: You come out with confidence. That's what. By the way, used to hire people for a living a long time ago. So, let me tell you something. The people that come in to a meeting about salary and are like, I can't make less than 70 K they get it or more.

It's the people that come in are like, well, I'm looking somewhere between. I'm like, 

Becca Powers: no, 

Elle Russ: I'll tell you why. Because as an employer, and this is just true. And I hate to say it, but it's true. And that's why you got to get on the confidence. An employer would rather hire a confident person than someone who's skilled, who doesn't have the confidence.

You might be like. What? Yeah, because see, when someone's really confident, I know they're proactive. I know they're going to learn the thing. I know they're going to pick it up. I know they'll 

Becca Powers: learn the skill. I can't teach confidence. 

Elle Russ: You can't teach confidence. That's right. But if you're confident, then you're proactive.

You want to learn. You feel good about you feel confidence. Essentially is the overall arching feeling that you're going to prevail in life. Or at a specific thing. 

Becca Powers: I love it. So let's wrap up and I want to ask you to share whatever comes to mind, but let's leave the listeners with an empowering message, whatever you want that to be.

Elle Russ: No one cares more about you than you. Period. [Sound] You are it for you. Now that sounds depressing, but wait, my mother, my dad, yeah, yeah. No one gives you confidence. No one will help your health. My first book is the number one best selling, uh, book because I had to fix my own thyroid problem after two dozen endocrinologists and doctors couldn't.

I actually had to become my own doctor. So perseverance with that, But also it's just to say, no one cares more about you than you. No doctor helped me. No one helped me. No friend. It was me. right on sister truly for confidence because you can't go to a doctor and have them prescribe you confidence.

You could go to a doctor and have them fix your issue with the prescription or something. no, one's going to do it for you. That's the thing. It's self generated. And most people are looking outside of themselves externally for the validation versus generating it from within. That's the overall message.

No, one cares more about you than you, your success and your health and everything else. So, are you an advocate for yourself? 

Becca Powers: Damn, Elle, thank you so much for coming on the show and listeners. I hope you're as pumped as I am. I hope this episode I'm dropping it here in the beginning of the year too, because this is the way you want to kick off your year.

Let's embrace what Elle shared. Be confident as fuck, work 

on these little micro decisions and, and choices and have yourself a freaking kick ass 2025.