The confidence gap

The Wellness Puzzle Podcast

In Jerry Scarlato's own words:

One thing I’ve struggled with on and off throughout my life is self-confidence. Which is ironic considering, from the outside looking in, I had a lot of the boxes checked to have enough confidence for anything.

I grew up in an upper-middle-class family. I had good supporting parents. I was born with a ton of natural physical ability to help me excel in sports. I had enough brains in my head to get through school without much effort. And yet, my confidence was always a soft spot that kept me from pursuing and reaching my true potential.

Of course, at the time I wouldn’t have pinpointed self-confidence as the problem. At the time I would have pointed to everything and everyone else around me. Either a Coach didn’t give me a fair chance. Or an injury kept me from getting better. Or my dad wouldn’t let me make my own decisions. Whatever excuse I could find to justify my shortcomings, I would use it.

And it wasn’t until my early 30's that those beliefs and justifications really started to feel like bullshit. At that time, I had owned a fitness studio for about 4 years and had been married for the same amount of time. The fitness studio was growing enough for it to feel successful. And the marriage was comfortable enough to make it feel…well…comfortable. But things just didn’t feel right. I had run out of excuses as to why things weren’t continuing to improve and doing the hard work of introspection to see if something inside of me was holding me hostage.

By the age of 39, which is where I am now, I had put enough pieces together and done enough internal reflection to realize that the life I was living was not my life at all. The reason, or at least a big reason, why I struggled with confidence when I was young and through to my mid-30s is because I wasn’t aligned with the person that I truly am, which wasn’t allowing me to pursue higher and higher levels of potential.

In other words, I was trying so damn hard to make other people happy that I wasn’t being my true self. And because I wasn’t being my true self, I wasn’t able to level up my life in the way that I knew that I was capable. That year, 2023, I got divorced and left the fitness studio business, both of which had been part of my life for 10 years. The marriage was fine, but not flourishing because our values didn’t align and I was trying too hard to override mine to fit with hers. The business was good, but not empowering because it was in a poor geographical area and I had to be a different person to attract the right demographic. I had figured out that I was not giving my true self to the world and it was time to wipe the slate clean and start from the very beginning.

Jerry and I discuss real stuff to help people fill their confidence gap and live the life destined for them. This is a wonderful conversation, not to be missed.

More information about Jerry, click here.

My website is www.andrewjobling.com.au