Build an evidence archive for more confidence on stage

About this episode

This episode discusses building evidence-based confidence for improv performance, contrasting it with traditional affirmations.

"Just be confident." "Trust yourself." "Ya got this." You've heard these things, and you might have even said them. And for a lot of brains, especially analytical or pattern-driven ones, they don't work. During the 2026 Olympics, Eileen Gu described herself as an evidence person, not an affirmations person. Her confidence before competition comes from the specific preparation she's done: the hours of training, the technical breakdowns, the repetitions. Her brain trusts that archive because those are things she's actually executed. This episode applies that distinction to improv. Affirmations are belief-based, and they get shaky when a scene goes sideways. Evidence-based confidence means keeping a specific, honest account of what you've worked on and what has improved. You'll get a partner exercise for practising real-time recognition of competence and a solo method for building your own evidence archive over time. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Affirmations can increase anxiety in analytical brains because your internal pattern-matching flags them when they aren't backed by evidence. Evidence-based confidence means your brain has something concrete and verifiable to draw on under pressure, and a…

People in this episode

Host: Jen deHaan

Topics covered

• confidence
• improv
• evidence-based preparation
• performance anxiety
• self-trust

Keywords

• confidence
• improv
• Eileen Gu
• evidence archive
• performance preparation
• anxiety
• self-trust

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