Three women who are hugely successful in their own fields appeared on Friday's Late Late Show to talk about fear, confidence and ambition.
Bestselling author Caroline Foran, Cocoa Brown founder Marissa Carter and business woman Chanelle McCoy opened the conversation by addressing the now-iconic Fearless Girl statue, which was designed by Kristen Visbal to highlight the gender pay gap and the lack of gender diversity in the financial sector.
Foran, the author of the bestselling books Owning It and The Confidence Kit, said she thought the statue was "incredibly powerful and motivating".
"It reminds me of myself and all of the times I’ve felt like a scared little girl who’s had to find that courage and bravery to stare down a charging bull, to feel the fear and do it anyway. It’s also a reminder that in order to achieve confidence you need to be able to stand up, like she is, and face the fear", she said.
"In a way I wish it was called the Brave Girl instead of the Fearless Girl because for me the idea of fearlessness means you have to wait until you feel no fear before you do something and I feel a lot of fear all the time and I show up and I do it anyway and I think that’s really important."
"I think fear and confidence and success are two sides of the same coin and it’s very necessary to experience fear and face it in order to go through and actually experience success."
Marissa Carter, the force behind Cocoa Brown Tan, opened up about her core strength and ambition which has paved the way for her popular brand.
"I come from a really big family, I’m the eldest of eight children and my parents were just 17 when they had me. Maybe because they had so many children and nappies were so expensive, we didn’t have very much growing up, and my mum particularly placed a great emphasis on how important it was not to let that hold me back, or any of my brothers or sisters", she told Ryan Tubridy.
"That it didn’t really matter where we came from, or what we had, that if we worked hard enough that we were well able to achieve whatever it was that we wanted to in life.
"That’s where my ambition comes from, it comes from not ever wanting to feel that I was in need, that I had that independence, that I was able to look after myself, that I was able to look after my family."
Meanwhile, business woman Chanelle McCoy spoke about why so many more men are in senior management positions than women.
"When a woman looks at a job spec, she will look at everything that she cannot do, whereas if a man looks at a job spec they will look at everything that they can do", McCoy said. "I think women need to look at it differently and have a bit more self belief and confidence."
Foran agreed, saying: "Definitely it’s more of an issue for women than for men, I think men have confidence and anxiety issues but women are more willing to vocalise it.
"From a biology perspective women are more inward and more likely to blame ourselves for a perceived failure or setback, whereas men, as the research shows, are more outward."
When asked about their advice to younger women who are interested in getting out into the world and are struggling to be fearless, the panel had some pertinent tips.
Foran said: "I think the most important thing to know about confidence is it's not a personality trait, you don't have to be loud or extroverted to have confidence, it's a skill that any one of us can develop whether you're quiet, or insecure, or anything. And secondly, the only way around fear is through it, so you have to just face it, and the only way you'll get confident is if you do that."
Carter offered: "I would say that I don't believe our biggest fear is failure, I think our biggest fear is comparison. We are afraid that we're going to be compared to other people's success, so I would say do not look at another woman's success as your failure."
McCoy added: "The comfort zone, we all love being in the comfort zone, it's such a lovely place to be. It's safe, there's no risk, it's very routine, but it's not a progressive place. I would encourage anybody to have the confidence to get out of the comfort zone and go for it."
Watch the full interview here.
The Late Late Show airs Fridays on RTÉ One at 9:35pm.
