The Leader’s Journey: How to Turn Self-Doubt into Confident Leadership

The Leadership Struggle Is Real

Do you ever feel like a fraud in your own office? Does your mind race with doubt before a big decision? You are not alone. Even the most successful leaders face moments of crippling self-doubt. The difference between those who stay stuck and those who break through lies not in talent, but in a simple shift in behavior.

In a powerful episode of the Luxury Unplugged Podcast, renowned Latino leadership coach Raul T. Pereyra sat down with host Neeti NK to unpack this exact challenge. Raul, a specialist in behavior-first coaching, shared a clear, actionable road map for leaders ready to move from insecurity to impact. This article breaks down that conversation into a complete guide for anyone who leads a team, runs a business, or wants to step more fully into their own potential.

We will explore how to transform self-doubt into confident decision-making, especially in a high-stakes environment. You’ll learn why high achievers often play small, and how to unpack your bag of old beliefs. We’ll cover Raul’s powerful be do have framework and the mindset shift to see challenges as something that happened for me not to me. This is not theoretical advice. It’s a practical playbook for leadership transformation.

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Part 1: The Core Problem – Self-Doubt and Playing Small

Why Smart Leaders Freeze

Imagine this: You’re in a critical meeting. The future of a project depends on your next choice. Data is on the screen, but your mind is blank. A voice whispers, “What if you’re wrong? What will they think?” This is self-doubt in action. It’s not a sign of weakness; it’s a universal human experience.

Raul Pereyra points out that in a high-stakes environment, our brain’s old protective patterns take over. We default to fear. The problem isn't the doubt itself, but our response to it. Most leaders try to think their way out of it, which leads to overthinking. Raul offers a counterintuitive solution: “Confidence follows action. It’s not the other way around.”

The High Achiever’s Trap

A surprising truth is that many top performers are secretly playing small. They excel in their roles but avoid the bigger stage, the larger vision, or the difficult conversation that could define their legacy. Why?

According to Raul, the root cause is a lack of self-trust. “It’s really just not trusting themselves and not having the confidence to move beyond it,” he explains. They wait for a certificate, a promotion, or a magical feeling of readiness before they leap. This creates a cage of their own making. The key to escape is to take one small action, one day at a time. Action, not analysis, builds the evidence you need to trust yourself.

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Part 2: The Foundation – Behavior-First Coaching and Self-Awareness

What is Behavior-First Coaching?

Traditional coaching often starts with goals and strategy. Behavior-first coaching starts with you—specifically, how you show up in the moment. It’s built on a simple idea: your outcomes are created by your behaviors, and your behaviors are driven by your ingrained patterns.

Raul describes it as focusing on “how you’re showing up.” If a leader keeps rescuing their team and avoiding hard conversations, no strategy will work until that behavior changes. Behavior-first leadership is about identifying these automatic reactions and consciously choosing a more effective response. It’s practical, immediate, and transformative.

The Unbeatable Power of Self-Awareness

The first step in this method is the cornerstone of all growth: self-awareness. Raul states plainly, “If you’re not aware of what’s triggering you and how you’re showing up, then you’re not going to show up fully and holistically for your employees.”

How do you build this awareness? It starts with pause. Before reacting, ask:

• “What emotion am I feeling right now?”

• “What old story is this triggering?”

• “Is my response serving my team, or just my fear?”

This moment of pause is the birthplace of confident decision-making. It creates space between a stimulus (a critical email, a missed deadline) and your response. In that space, you find your power to choose.

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Part 3: The Framework – Unpacking Your B.A.G.

To help leaders build self-awareness, Raul uses a memorable and practical tool: the B.A.G. framework. B.A.G. stands for the invisible luggage every leader carries.

B – Beliefs: These are the deep-seated “truths” you hold about yourself, others, and the world. Examples include “I’m not a natural leader,” “People will take advantage of kindness,” or “I must be perfect to be respected.” Often, these are limiting beliefs formed from past experiences.

A – Assumptions: These are the predictions and stories we create based on our beliefs. If your belief is “I’m not good at public speaking,” your assumption before a presentation might be, “Everyone will think I’m incompetent.” You act as if this assumption is a fact.

G – Guardians: This is Raul’s powerful term for our protective behaviors—the armor we developed to survive. This includes people-pleasing, perfectionism, aggression, avoidance, or rescuing your team. Guardians were useful once, but in leadership, they often wall us off from trust and authenticity.

The process of unpacking your bag is the work of leadership coaching. It involves:

1. Identifying: Naming the specific belief, assumption, or guardian at play.

2. Questioning: “Is this still true? Is this helping me lead?”

3. Releasing: Consciously deciding to release old stories that no longer serve you.

This isn’t about blaming your past. It’s about understanding your wiring so you can rewrite it. As you unpack your B.A.G., you make room for a new identity.

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Part 4: The Mindset Shifts – From Victim to Architect

Shift #1: “It Happened FOR Me, Not TO Me.”

This is perhaps Raul’s most profound concept. We all have past hurts, failures, or criticisms—our “old stories.” The natural view is to see ourselves as victims of these events: “My old boss criticized me, to me, so now I’m scared to speak up.”

Raul challenges leaders to flip the narrative. “I challenge people to stop having a victim mentality and look at it that this trauma or experience didn’t happen to you, but happened for you.”

What does this mean?

• That harsh criticism? It happened for you to develop a thicker skin and learn to validate yourself.

• That early failure? It happened for you to understand resilience.

• That difficult upbringing? It happened for you to build the empathy that makes you a great leader.

This shift is “very liberating,” Raul says. It moves you from passive victim to active learner. You reclaim the power to interpret your own story. This is essential to build a future self-identity that is not chained to the past.

Shift #2: The “Be, Do, Have” Framework

Most people operate on a “Have, Do, Be” model. They think: “If I have a CEO title (Have), then I can do big leader things (Do), and then I will be a confident leader (Be).” This puts your power outside of yourself, waiting for permission.

Raul’s be do have framework reverses the order:

1. BE: First, decide who you want to be. Envision your future self: a confident, decisive, inspiring leader. Connect with the identity, values, and presence of that person.

2. DO: Then, ask, “What would that person do?” Start taking those actions now, today, in small ways. Would that leader speak up in a meeting? Delegate a key task? Address the elephant in the room? Do it.

3. HAVE: Finally, as you consistently do the actions of the leader you are being, the results (the “have”) naturally follow: respect, trust, promotion, impact.

This framework bypasses the need for external validation. You become the leader by acting like one now.

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Part 5: Real Stories of Transformation

Case Study 1: The Leader Who Stopped Rescuing

Raul shared the story of a female leader who was highly capable but deeply frustrated. Her team wasn’t taking initiative, and she was constantly exhausted. Through coaching, they discovered her “Guardian” was a rescuer. She would jump in to fix problems, avoid giving direct feedback, and shield her team from stress.

The turning point was when she practiced addressing the elephant in the room. She called a team meeting and said, “I realize I haven’t been giving you the space to solve problems yourselves because I jump in too quickly. I’m working on that. I need you to step up more.” This act of vulnerable honesty, a key part of behavior-first leadership, changed everything. The team felt trusted. Accountability increased. She created space for her own strategic work. The culture shifted from dependency to empowered ownership.

Case Study 2: The Nonprofit Leader and the Steward Mindset

Another powerful example was a nonprofit leader paralyzed by anxiety about sharing her organization’s work online. She felt the pressure was entirely on her shoulders, which triggered old stories of not being good enough.

Through unpacking her bag, Raul helped her reframe her role. She wasn’t the “star” of the nonprofit; she was the steward of its mission. This was a classic application of be, do, have. She needed to first be a steward. Then, she would do what a steward does: tell the organization’s story with humility and passion. The result (have) was attracting funders and support.

“When she realized she was just a steward, that the mission was bigger than any self-doubt, then she was really able to start flowering,” Raul recounted. The nonprofit’s success grew as her identity shifted from “anxious figurehead” to “confident steward.”

Raul’s Own Story: Reframing a Difficult Past

Raul doesn’t just teach from theory; he teaches from lived experience. He shares that he was able to reframe a childhood with an alcoholic father using the “for me, not to me” lens. That difficult experience didn’t just happen to him as a source of pain; it happened for him to develop deep compassion, resilience, and the drive to help others heal—the very core of his coaching work today.

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Part 6: Your Action Plan – From Reading to Leading

Knowledge is useless without action. Here is your step-by-step plan to apply these lessons.

Step 1: The 5-Day Self-Awareness Challenge

Start with Raul’s suggestion of a free 5-day challenge. You can design your own:

• Day 1: Identify one recurring stressful situation at work.

• Day 2: Notice the primary emotion you feel in that situation (fear, frustration, inadequacy).

• Day 3: Ask, “What’s the belief behind this emotion?” (e.g., “I believe I’ll be rejected if I disagree.”)

• Day 4: Identify the “Guardian” behavior (e.g., staying silent, people-pleasing).

• Day 5: Choose one small action to break the pattern (e.g., voice a mild opinion in a safe setting).

Step 2: Schedule a “BAG Unpacking” Session

Set aside 30 minutes each week for a personal audit.

1. Write down a recent challenge.

2. Analyze it through the B.A.G. lens: What Belief was triggered? What Assumption did I make? Which Guardian showed up?

3. Practice the reframe: How could I see this for me? What would the leader I want to be do next time?

Step 3: Implement the “Be, Do, Have” Daily

Each morning, ask:

• BE: “Who is the leader I am committed to being today?” (Choose one quality: e.g., “I am a calm and decisive leader.”)

• DO: “What is one specific action that person would take?” (e.g., “Make that tough phone call first thing.”)

• HAVE: Trust that the results (respect, progress, peace) will follow the action.

Step 4: Embrace “Confidence Follows Action”

Stop waiting to feel ready. Identify one area where you’ve been playing small. Commit to taking one small action, one day at a time in that area. It could be sending an email, asking a question, or sharing an idea. Document these actions. Watch as your confidence grows from the evidence of your own bravery.

Conclusion: The Journey to Confident Leadership Begins Now

The path from self-doubt to confident leadership is not a mystery. It’s a series of deliberate, behavior-first choices. It starts with ruthless self-awareness, moves through the courageous work of unpacking your bag, and is powered by liberating mindset shifts like it happened for me not to me and the be do have framework.

You don’t need another degree or to wait for someone to anoint you. As Raul Pereyra’s work brilliantly shows, you have the power to transform self-doubt into confident decision-making right now, by changing how you show up in the next moment, the next meeting, the next difficult conversation.

Start small. Start today. Take one small action, one day at a time. Remember, confidence doesn’t come first—it follows the brave steps you choose to take. Your journey to becoming the leader you are meant to be has already begun.

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Meta Description: Struggling with self-doubt as a leader? Learn how to transform self-doubt into confident decision-making using Raul Pereyra's behavior-first coaching methods. Discover the BAG framework, the be do have model, and how to release old stories to become a stronger leader.

Author Bio: This article is based on key insights from Latino leadership coach Raul T. Pereyra from his appearance on the Luxury Unplugged Podcast. It distills his expertise in behavior-first leadership into a practical guide for leaders at all levels.