In Confidence

How can knowing what you want, more than you fear the challenge, unlock a confidence that endures?

In this episode, I sit down with Kristina Kloberdanz, Chief Sustainability Officer at Macquarie Asset Management and former CSO at Mastercard, to explore confidence from multiple perspectives: the power of strategic self-awareness, the courage to say yes before you feel ready, and what it means to build a life on your own terms.

Kristina shares remarkable stories from childhood through career-defining moments, showing how confidence isn’t about having it all figured out, but about knowing what you want, playing to your strengths, and trusting that everything is building towards something even when you can’t yet see it.

Key Takeaways
How confidence is not just an inner feeling but a strategic decision — choosing which room you walk into and engineering the environment to give yourself the best chance.
How the greatest block to talented people isn’t lack of ability, but the voice of doubt and how quickly it can take hold, even after you’ve already proven yourself.
How knowing your role in the room, rather than trying to be the smartest or most expert, is a form of confidence that opens doors and creates lasting impact.
How imposter syndrome can strike even the most accomplished people, and how being vulnerable about it creates a ripple effect that helps others do the same.
How preparation made years in advance allows you to say yes instantly when the right moment arrives, even when the timing looks impossible.
How priming your mind and energy before high-stakes moments, the way an athlete warms up, is a daily practice that builds confidence from the inside out.
How wanting something more than you fear the challenge is the clearest signal it’s worth pursuing.

About Kristina
Kristina Kloberdanz is Chief Sustainability Officer at Macquarie Asset Management, where she leads their global ESG commitments including managing its portfolio to meet net zero emissions. She previously served as Chief Sustainability Officer at Mastercard, and before that spent two decades at IBM leading global corporate responsibility strategy. She has spoken at Davos, the UN Climate Conference COP, and New York Climate Week, and chaired the World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees US Stakeholder Council. Kristina began her career as a professional ballet dancer, has trekked to Everest Base Camp, summited Kilimanjaro three times, and recently became a mother on her own terms and her own timeline.

Resources Mentioned
Superhuman app — guided meditations and affirmations for priming your mindset and energy.
Peter Attia’s Outlive — the longevity philosophy Kristina references for health span and living vibrantly.
Whoop — wearable health tracker. www.whoop.com
Eight Sleep — smart sleep technology for optimising recovery. www.eightsleep.com
Outward Bound International — the organisation that shaped Kristina’s early relationship with fear, resilience and possibility. www.outwardbound.net
The Wave — Gabe Smilovic’s Substack post https://open.substack.com/pub/amysmilovic/p/to-break-is-to-arrive?r=2ubilh&utm_medium=ios
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How can respect and excellence shape a confidence that endures?

In this episode, I sit down with Anton Mosimann OBE, one of the most influential chefs of the modern era, to explore confidence from multiple perspectives: the power of building on solid ground, the courage to pioneer a new way of doing things, and achieving extraordinary things while remaining deeply human.

We dive into how optimism, curiosity and a commitment to excellence shape lasting confidence, whether in a Michelin starred kitchen, a royal palace or a bar in Lausanne. Anton shares remarkable stories from childhood through career-defining moments, showing how confidence isn't about ego or status, but about preparation, respect and showing up as exactly the same person in every room.

Key Takeaways
How building confidence on solid ground (through experience, hard work and the right attitude) creates a foundation that lasts a lifetime, whatever your profession.
How the courage to pioneer a new way of doing things, even in the face of resistance, requires conviction, vision and the confidence to back yourself before anyone else does.
How leading people who are older, more experienced and initially resistant requires patience, consistency and the humility to listen.
How true confidence is never fixed. It remains open. The willingness to keep learning, to adapt, and even to step back and hand over to the next generation, is itself a form of strength.
How staying calm and prepared under the highest possible pressure (from royal weddings to Olympic celebrations) is a skill built through experience, not personality.
How treating every single person with the same warmth and respect, whether they are sweeping the street or sitting in a palace, is not just good character but the foundation of real leadership.
How generosity of spirit (being present, being warm, being of service without expectation) creates opportunities that no strategy ever could.

About Anton
Anton Mosimann OBE DL is one of the most celebrated chefs in the world, renowned for revolutionising British cuisine and earning two Michelin stars at The Dorchester — the first ever awarded to a Grand hotel restaurant outside France. He founded Mosimann's, his legendary private dining club in Belgravia, and has cooked for 15 sets of kings and queens, 4 generations of the British Royal Family, 8* British Prime Ministers (*correction the episode said 5), 6 French Presidents and 7 US Presidents. He is a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) awarded in 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II. He also holds a Royal Warrant and honours from the French government. He has won more than 50 gold medals. Other achievements include an Honorary Professorship Thames University London 2x, Honorary Doctorate of Culinary Arts Johnson and Wales University USA and Honorary Degree, Doctor of Science Bournemouth University GB 1998.

Through his museum in Switzerland he continues to inspire the next generation of chefs with one simple message: Go for it!

Resources Mentioned
Anton's museum ‘The Mosimann Collection’ is home to a remarkable personal collection of over 6,000 cookery books and 30,000 menus spanning centuries of culinary history. https://www.swisseducation.com/en/mosimann-collection/
Mosimann's private dining club, Belgravia, London. www.mosimann.com
Anton's cookery books (including ‘Mosimann’s Fresh’ where you can find his world-famous risotto and bread and butter pudding recipes) are available via his website at www.mosimann.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can respect and excellence shape a confidence that endures?

In this episode, I sit down with Anton Mosimann OBE, one of the most influential chefs of the modern era, to explore confidence from multiple perspectives: the power of building on solid ground, the courage to pioneer a new way of doing things, and achieving extraordinary things while remaining deeply human.

We dive into how optimism, curiosity and a commitment to excellence shape lasting confidence, whether in a Michelin starred kitchen, a royal palace or a bar in Lausanne. Anton shares remarkable stories from childhood through career-defining moments, showing how confidence isn't about ego or status, but about preparation, respect and showing up as exactly the same person in every room.

Key Takeaways
How building confidence on solid ground (through experience, hard work and the right attitude) creates a foundation that lasts a lifetime, whatever your profession.
How the courage to pioneer a new way of doing things, even in the face of resistance, requires conviction, vision and the confidence to back yourself before anyone else does.
How leading people who are older, more experienced and initially resistant requires patience, consistency and the humility to listen.
How true confidence is never fixed. It remains open. The willingness to keep learning, to adapt, and even to step back and hand over to the next generation, is itself a form of strength.
How staying calm and prepared under the highest possible pressure (from royal weddings to Olympic celebrations) is a skill built through experience, not personality.
How treating every single person with the same warmth and respect, whether they are sweeping the street or sitting in a palace, is not just good character but the foundation of real leadership.
How generosity of spirit (being present, being warm, being of service without expectation) creates opportunities that no strategy ever could.

About Anton
Anton Mosimann OBE DL is one of the most celebrated chefs in the world, renowned for revolutionising British cuisine and earning two Michelin stars at The Dorchester — the first ever awarded to a Grand hotel restaurant outside France. He founded Mosimann's, his legendary private dining club in Belgravia, and has cooked for 15 sets of kings and queens, 4 generations of the British Royal Family, 8* British Prime Ministers (*correction the episode said 5), 6 French Presidents and 7 US Presidents. He is a Deputy Lieutenant (DL) and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) awarded in 2003 by Queen Elizabeth II. He also holds a Royal Warrant and honours from the French government. He has won more than 50 gold medals. Other achievements include an Honorary Professorship Thames University London 2x, Honorary Doctorate of Culinary Arts Johnson and Wales University USA and Honorary Degree, Doctor of Science Bournemouth University GB 1998.

Through his museum in Switzerland he continues to inspire the next generation of chefs with one simple message: Go for it!

Resources Mentioned
Anton's museum ‘The Mosimann Collection’ is home to a remarkable personal collection of over 6,000 cookery books and 30,000 menus spanning centuries of culinary history. https://www.swisseducation.com/en/mosimann-collection/
Mosimann's private dining club, Belgravia, London. www.mosimann.com
Anton's cookery books (including ‘Mosimann’s Fresh’ where you can find his world-famous risotto and bread and butter pudding recipes) are available via his website at www.mosimann.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can owning your expertise, and learning to tell its story, unlock confidence?

In this episode, I sit down with Ken Deeks, communications expert, former journalist, PR agency founder, and media trainer, to explore confidence from three angles: how you communicate it, how you spot it in others, and how you build it in yourself.

We explore how so many people undersell what they bring to the table, how to find and tell the stories that make your expertise stick, and why the most powerful communicators are often the best listeners in the room. Ken also shares his own experience of stepping well outside his comfort zone, including performing Shakespeare in his sixties, and what it taught him about confidence, teamwork, and doing things that scare you.

Key Takeaways
Why so many people undersell what they bring and what believing in your own skill set has to do with confidence.
The NICE framework (New, Important, Clever, told with Emphasis) a practical tool for communicating with clarity and impact in interviews, pitches, and presentations.
Why the most memorable stories aren't about what you do, but about the people your work has helped and how to tell them that way.
Why confidence isn't always loud and what personality profiling reveals about the different ways it shows up.
The block and bridge technique: how to stay composed and credible under pressure, even when you don't have the answer.
Why the most persuasive communicators lead with listening and what genuinely confident leadership actually looks like to the people being led.
How taking action on one small idea (a poster on the tube, a phone call) led to 14 million pounds raised and an MBE from Queen Elizabeth II.

About Ken
Ken Deeks is a communications expert who has spent decades on both sides of the microphone. He began his career as a journalist before moving into PR, where he founded and ran his own agency. He later co-founded The Amber Group, where he works with individuals and organisations to sharpen how they communicate, present, and tell their stories. He is also the founder of Boycott Your Bed, the UK’s largest corporate sleepout, which has raised over £14 million for Action for Children over the past 20 years—an organisation where he also serves as Vice President. In 2015, he was awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth II for services to children. Ken is also the author of The Little Black Book of Presentation Secrets.

Resources
The Amber Group: www.ambergroup.co.uk
Insights Discovery: The personality profiling tool that Ken uses in his coaching and training work. www.insights.com
Book: The Little Black Book of Presentation Secrets by Ken Deeks.
Boycott Your Bed: Ken's charity sleep out supporting Action for Children www.actionforchildren.org.uk/support-us/boycott-your-bed/
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What happens when you ask four artificial intelligences to define something deeply human?

In this episode, I do something different. Instead of interviewing CEOs, creatives or coaches, I bring together four AI systems (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok) and ask them about confidence.

Each system has processed more human writing on psychology, performance and self-doubt than any individual ever could. I wanted to know: where would they agree? Where would they diverge? And would they tell us anything we don’t already know?

What emerged was both reassuring and unsettling. Reassuring, because across their different “personalities,” there was striking agreement: confidence is self-trust built through action, not bravado or certainty. Unsettling, because they all surfaced the same modern risk — that in a world saturated with AI, we may quietly outsource the very judgement that real confidence depends on.

This conversation explores what confidence actually is, why so many capable people wait to feel ready, how judgement and vulnerability shape self-trust, and what will matter most for human confidence in the decade ahead.

Key Takeaways
Confidence is self-trust under pressure. It isn’t loudness, certainty or bravado. It’s the belief that you can handle what happens, even when you don’t control it.
The biggest misconception is that confident people don’t doubt themselves. In reality, they feel doubt. They simply don’t treat it as a stop sign.
Confidence is embodied. It lives in the nervous system as much as the mind - shaped by repetition, physical cues, breath, posture and exposure to manageable discomfort.
Judgement and vulnerability both shape confidence. Anchoring your self-worth internally while using feedback as information (and sharing vulnerability with discernment) strengthens trust rather than weakens it.
In the age of AI, confidence is shifting. The skills that matter most now are discernment, adaptability, creativity, emotional intelligence and presence. The qualities technology cannot replicate.
The greatest risk to human confidence is outsourcing judgement. Real confidence still has to be built through experience, failure and the discomfort of thinking for yourself before reaching for the fastest answer.
Real confidence remains “old-fashioned.” It is still built through failure, reflection, discomfort and lived experience, something no algorithm can shortcut.

About the Panel
This episode features four AI systems trained on vast bodies of human language and research:
ChatGPT developed by OpenAI, designed to engage in conversation and reflect patterns in human thinking and behaviour.
Claude created by Anthropic, focused on helpful, honest and safety-oriented dialogue.
Gemini built by Google, designed to process and synthesise information across domains.
Grok developed by xAI, positioned as a more direct, irreverent voice in the AI landscape.

While none of them experience confidence, each analyses it through patterns in language, behaviour and research at scale offering a mirror to what humans repeatedly reveal about themselves.
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