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PODCAST

S2: Episode one: Self-Trust: 7 Honest Lessons on Confidence, With Kaz Hassan

Self-trust is where this conversation begins, and it reframes almost everything you thought confidence was about. Kaz Hassan leads Partner Marketing and Thought Leadership at Unily and has interviewed everyone from Tan France to Mo Gawdat. This time, Advita Patel turns the tables and interviews him about what confidence really means.

What follows is a candid, practical conversation about backing yourself, building trust on stage and off it, and refusing to become someone else just to belong. Here are seven lessons from the episode.

Table of contents

  1. Confidence is self-trust, not volume
  2. Remember that everyone is just a person
  3. Do the prep, then trust yourself to improvise
  4. Build self-trust by watching yourself back
  5. Self-trust comes before any trust tactics
  6. Protect your self-trust from unhelpful feedback
  7. Build a learning circle you actually trust

1. Confidence is self-trust, not volume

Ask ten people what confidence means and you’ll get ten different answers. For a long time, Kaz would have linked it to extroversion and appearing bold. As someone who likes to observe and read people, though, he now looks for something quieter. Does that person back themselves? Do they feel internally aligned?

That’s the heart of it. Confidence is self-trust. It’s whether you stand by your conviction and trust your ability no matter what life throws at you. The word itself points there.

Advita makes the same case from the other direction. Some of the loudest characters she knows are the least confident, masking their doubt with volume. Loudness and boldness get mistaken for confidence all the time, but they are not the same thing. Real self-trust is often calm, and it doesn’t need to announce itself.

2. Remember that everyone is just a person

Kaz has interviewed some genuinely intimidating names in front of huge audiences: Mo Gawdat, Steven Bartlett, Grace Beverley, Tan France, Emma Grede. The thing that steadied his self-trust wasn’t a technique. It was a realisation.

Once you’ve worked alongside C-suite leaders at some of the biggest companies in the world, you notice that everyone has things they’re good at and things they’re bad at. Everyone is just a person. Learning that, bit by bit, made him more confident about showing up in those rooms.

Advita felt it too. She had to hype herself up to speak to Mo Gawdat backstage until she reminded herself he’s simply a human being with a deep interest in something. That thought settles the inner critic. Her favourite illustration is the goldfish: ask it to climb a mountain and it fails, but put it in the ocean and it thrives. Nobody is more important than anyone else. People just have different jobs, skills and ways of thinking.

There’s a lovely detail that makes the point. At one event, Mo Gawdat walked in alone, made his own cup of tea in the green room and wouldn’t have stood out from the crowd. The reflex to find that surprising is exactly the reflex worth unlearning.

3. Do the prep, then trust yourself to improvise

So what actually happens in the ten seconds before you interview someone in front of five hundred people? Kaz’s process is worth stealing.

The preparation is non-negotiable. He watches their talks, reads their books and learns their tone and expertise until he understands who they are. That input lives in his head so he doesn’t have to reach for it live.

Then he lets go of the script enough to stay present. His ideal is to start with one question and pull the thread, listening for something atypical in the answer rather than racing to the next item on a list. He resists formulating his next question while the guest is still talking. Instead he takes a beat once they’ve finished, then decides what to ask.

That’s where self-trust does the heavy lifting. You prepare so thoroughly that you can afford to trust yourself in the moment. Advita’s rule holds for any high-stakes setting, whether you’re presenting to a board, a leader or an investor: when it really matters and people are depending on you, do the prep. Flying by the seat of your pants is fine for the small stuff, not the big stuff.

4. Build self-trust by watching yourself back

Here’s the habit almost nobody enjoys and almost everybody needs. Watch yourself back.

Kaz reviews his own interviews constantly, looking for the one question he wishes he’d asked or the beat he wishes he’d taken. Colleagues have caught him doing it at his desk and found it odd. His answer is simple: he wants to get better, so he has to. The trick is to be your own honest critic without beating yourself up, because every interview is a unique, living moment you can’t recreate.

Advita’s story is proof of how far this goes. Before 2019 you wouldn’t have found her near a stage. She hated how she sounded and looked, and avoided being recorded. So she forced herself to record her presentations and watch them back, roughly a hundred times, until she was genuinely comfortable with her voice, her tone and her delivery.

That’s the number one step, because fear of how you come across can quietly stop you showing up at all. Reviewing your own work is how you build the self-trust to keep going. She still records her talks today and listens back on what she could do better.

5. Self-trust comes before any trust tactics

When Advita asks how to build trust quickly with audiences, clients and stakeholders, Kaz offers two tips, and the order matters.

First, work on your own self-trust before anything else. He’s watched people binge content on body language and persuasion, then apply it before they’ve done the inner work. The result is a machine that has lost the human element. As he puts it, you’re adding polish on top of the wrong foundation. Advita’s version is blunter and funnier, and it involves polish on top of something far less flattering.

Second, treat every person as an individual. If you go looking for a single equation that equals trust, you lose the depth. One of Kaz’s core values is depth with individual people, so he builds a real, specific connection with each person rather than running them through a formula.

And you don’t need everyone to like you. As Kaz says, if you’re everyone’s cup of tea, you’d be a mug. Understand that each person has their own lens, take the more understanding route, and stop trying to be liked by all. Trust is built through honesty, respect and genuinely seeing the person in front of you.

6. Protect your self-trust from unhelpful feedback

Not all feedback deserves your attention, and some of it can quietly erode your self-trust.

Kaz has been told how he should dress and how he should show up in corporate rooms. For a while he treated that as gospel. With experience, he learned to trust his own natural gauge instead. He’ll adjust for the room, but he won’t shrink into a cookie-cutter version of himself, because we never change spaces or shift opinions if we simply conform.

Advita has seen the damage this does. She mentored a brilliant young woman in PR, an award-winner at 23, who was told not to wear the same style of dress to every event because it looked unprofessional. The feedback sent her spiralling, even wondering whether to take out a loan for more outfits. It had nothing to do with the quality of her work.

Her advice is firm. Disregard vague, personal feedback in performance reviews when it comes with no evidence of impact on your work. “You talk too fast,” “you’re too expressive,” “you move your hands too much.” If someone can’t show how it affects your output, it’s noise. And if you manage people, be conscious of the feedback you give: make it specific, evidenced and genuinely designed to help them grow, not shrink.

7. Build a learning circle you actually trust

The antidote to the noise is a learning circle, or as Advita also calls it, a personal board of directors.

This is a small, intentional group of people whose feedback you genuinely value and who want you to thrive. She describes three types: believers who champion you, mirrors who reflect you back honestly, and connectors who build bridges for you. Everyone else, especially unsolicited advice in your LinkedIn comments, you’re allowed to mute.

Kaz loves the concept and wants to structure it more deliberately in his own life. He already does a version of it for events like Unite, trusting a handful of colleagues on the specific things he knows they’re brilliant at. When people come together ready to listen and ready to talk, the whole product gets better.

Advita’s boundary is clear. She takes feedback from her trusted circle and ignores the rest, because advice from people who don’t know you, haven’t done the work or don’t understand your world is a moot point. As you grow more senior, that filter becomes essential.

One question, before the tables turn back

Advita closes by asking what Kaz would tell the younger version of himself, moments before his first big interview with Tan France. His answer: always be perceptive. Commit fully to the moment, really listen, and understand that each scenario is unique and can never be recreated. That, he says, is where flow comes from, and it loops right back to the beginning. Understand the person in front of you, and trust yourself to meet them there.

FAQ

What is confidence, really?
Confidence is self-trust. It’s whether you back yourself, stand by your convictions and trust your ability no matter what happens. It is not about being loud or extroverted. Some of the loudest people in a room are the least confident.

How do you build trust quickly with an audience or stakeholders?
Work on your own self-trust first, then treat every person as an individual rather than running them through a formula. Trust is built through honesty, respect and genuinely understanding the person in front of you.

How do you prepare for a high-pressure interview or presentation?
Do thorough research, then stay present enough to improvise. Listen for the unexpected thread in an answer, and take a beat before your next question rather than planning it while the other person is still talking.

What is a learning circle, or personal board of directors?
It’s a small group of trusted people whose feedback you value: believers who champion you, mirrors who reflect you honestly, and connectors who open doors. You take advice from them and tune out the rest.

How should you handle unhelpful personal feedback?
Disregard vague or judgmental feedback that comes with no evidence of impact on your work. Good feedback is specific, evidenced and designed to help you grow.

Timestamps

00:00 Pre-chat and getting set up
01:28 Welcome to season two and flipping the interviewer role
02:28 What confidence really means
04:09 Big names, big rooms, and why they still feel human
05:23 Natural curiosity versus learned confidence
06:58 Why remembering “we’re all just people” changes everything
10:02 The pressure of interviewing live in front of huge audiences
11:55 How Kaz prepares, then improvises in the moment
13:49 Why watching your own work matters
15:33 Prep, practice and reviewing your talks
18:42 Why LinkedIn visibility makes some people uncomfortable
22:14 Being visible at Unily without wanting the pedestal
27:14 How to build trust quickly with audiences and stakeholders
28:13 Why self-trust comes before trust tactics
30:26 Don’t overcomplicate trust
33:17 Unlearning people-pleasing
34:44 Bad advice about authenticity and dress code
38:09 Personal feedback that can damage confidence
41:12 Why a trusted learning circle beats random advice
44:34 What Kaz would tell his younger self before the Tan France interview
46:52 Entering flow through presence and perception
48:38 Learn from many styles, not one formula
53:02 Closing reflections and thanks

Resources and links mentioned

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