Charisma Expert: 5 Ways To Project Confidence (Even When You Don’t Feel It) | Dr. Shadé Zahrai

BigDeal

Codie Sanchez

Business, Marketing, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.9 • 972 Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2026

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most people think self-doubt is the enemy. Dr. Shadé Zahrai knows better — it's actually a signal. After spending years researching the neuroscience of confidence and studying thousands of high performers, this Harvard-trained leadership expert has cracked the code on why self-doubt never fully disappears and what top performers do differently when it shows up. In this raw conversation, Dr. Shadé breaks down the exact four drivers of self-doubt that hold people back, why waiting to feel confident is the wrong goal completely (confidence comes after action, not before), how expectation bias creates the reality you experience, and why the opposite of self-doubt isn't confidence at all — it's self-trust. But this isn't theory — it's applied neuroscience. We get into the five elements that increase your perceived confidence (posture, eye contact, gestures, vocal tone, and walking speed), why smiling doesn't equal weakness, how to use the CUT method to handle manipulators, and why writing things down by hand increases recall by activating different parts of your brain. If you've ever felt like self-doubt is holding you back, or if you're tired of waiting to feel ready before you take action, this episode will rewire how you think about confidence, competence, and what it actually takes to trust yourself. Check out Dr. Shadé Zahrai’s new book Big Trust: Rewire Self-Doubt, Find Your Confidence, Fuel Success — out January 20th. Pre-order now: https://www.shadezahrai.com/bigtrust Download Dr. Shadé’s free Morning Clarity Reset tool: https://bit.ly/morningclarityritual Keep up with Dr. Shadé Zahrai Website: https://www.shadezahrai.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/shadezahraiLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shadezahrai/YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/@Dr.ShadeZahraiTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shadezahrai I say it all the time: building real wealth doesn’t require a flashy startup — it just takes one boring, cash-flowing business. Join me at Main Street Millionaire Live to get my exact playbook for finding, buying, and scaling a business. Stop wondering how ownership could change your life, and come find out: https://contrarianthinking.biz/MSML26_BDYT ___________ 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:28 The Scar Study: How Your Beliefs Create Your Reality 00:03:43 The Four Drivers of Self-Doubt 00:08:18 You Are Not Your Doubts: The Ping-Pong Ball Analogy 00:11:20 Affective Labeling: Name Your Emotions to Tame Them 00:14:21 The Opposite of Self-Doubt is Not Confidence, It's Self-Trust 00:16:57 Manifestation Done Right: The Michael Phelps Pre-Mortem Strategy 00:23:41 The Five Elements of Charisma: Posture, Gestures, Eyes, Voice, and Walk 00:43:52 How to Win Any Room: The Five-to-One Question Rule 00:47:42 The CUT Method: How to Handle Manipulative Behavior 01:01:15 Imposter Syndrome and the Citibank Napkin Story 01:07:18 The Top Five Regrets of the Dying 01:22:51 Morning Clarity Reset: The One Daily Ritual That Changes Everything ___________ MORE FROM BIGDEAL 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@podcastbigdeal 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdeal.podcast 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@big.deal.pod MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ 🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@codiesanchezct 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/codiesanchez 📽️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@realcodiesanchez OTHER THINGS WE DO 🌐 Our community: https://contrarianthinking.typeform.com/to/WBztXXID 📰 Free newsletter: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3XWLlZp 📚 Biz buying course: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3NhjGgN 🏠 Resibrands: https://resibrands.com/ 💰 CT Capital: https://contrarianthinking.biz/4eRyGOk 🏦 Main St Hold Co: https://contrarianthinking.biz/3YfGa8u Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Waiting to feel confident is the wrong goal completely. Confidence comes after we take action.
0:06.2	We're building the skill, building the competence, building the sense of evidence, hey, I can do this,
0:10.8	which means that waiting to feel confident, which is what so many people do. They wait to feel ready.
0:16.7	And then they're always waiting because they never reach that state.
0:19.1	She's a Harvard trained leadership coach, helps people rewire the way they think, lead, and perform. Dr. Shaday Zari. In this episode, you'll learn how to build confidence backed by science, not slogans, and shift from burnout to breakthrough. But if you've ever wondered, why do I keep getting in my own way? This episode is your unlock. Do you make yourself more charming?
0:37.8	There's a few things that you can do. You know when you see that amazing person on stage? Everyone is hanging onto their every word as they tell that story. That's what I call captivating charisma. But then what happens when at the end of that keynote that person walks off, and no one really wants to talk to them. That's because they lack magnetic charisma. You can have one without the other. Really, the magnetic piece comes down to.
0:55.3	Back up that for a second.
0:56.3	I have found that to be so true. Don't one-up people. The best thing you can do is be interested. People generally like talking about themselves. It lights up a part of our brain, which is rewarding. If you can offer it to be of value to them, then it doesn't feel like you're just trying to take or impress. What is the line between manifesting and believing in yourself and execution for the two?
1:15.7	Manifestation itself has been misunderstood to be dream it and you will achieve it tomorrow.
1:20.2	When we look at the research, especially the work on goal identity, you need to...
1:24.6	What does neuroscience show us is the main obstacle that prevents people from reaching their full potential?
1:32.8	It entirely comes down to what we believe about ourselves.
1:37.9	Entirely comes down to our perspective, our perception of our abilities, our worthiness, our sense of control over our lives.
1:45.0	So Cody, let me tell you this fascinating study.
1:47.0	It was from the 70s, so a while ago now, but it helps to articulate why our beliefs are so incredibly powerful.
1:53.0	So in around the 1970s, a psychology researcher at the University of Dartmouth was conducting a study to determine the role of expectation, how expectation
2:03.1	shapes how people show up in the world. So he brought a huge number of people together. His
2:06.9	name was Robert Cleck. Huge a number of people together, split them into two groups. One group,
2:11.9	he drew a scar on their face from their ear to their mouth. The other group had no scar.
2:17.4	Then they were able to see themselves
2:19.3	with this scar so they could confirm, okay, I've got this visible disfigurement on my face.
2:23.3	Then he sent them into conversations with strangers. Now when they came back, he assessed how they felt the conversations went.
	...

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