Jan. 20, 2026
Self-Trust and Inner Practices
There's a lot of data showing that trust in governments, institutions, and organizations is declining worldwide. Employers were once considered the last trusted institution—and even that is eroding. As someone who has spent years working independently, I've often noticed that these conversations leave out people like us entirely. When you don't have an employer, trust shows up differently. Stability looks different. And the relationship you have with yourself matters more than most people realize.
So I wanted to start there.
I talk about what it actually means to trust yourself when you're self-employed, when you don't see many role models living or working the way you do, and when the noise—from well-meaning friends, family, and society—keeps asking, "Why don't you just get a job?"
For me, self-trust isn't abstract. It's practical. It shows up in how I decide to work, how I communicate, and how I choose between remote, in-person, or hybrid ways of connecting. It shows up in my values—impact, meaning, and helping shape a future of work that supports people, families, and communities, not just productivity metrics.
I also share the inner practices that help me stay grounded when things feel uncertain. Meditation. Walking. Swimming. Paying attention to my body. Noticing what has always been true about me—what I'm drawn to, what calms me, what fuels my curiosity. I talk about rituals, habits, and even "extreme noticing": light on water, changes in seasons, how my body reacts to people, places, and decisions.
These practices help me recognize what's changing, what isn't, and where opportunity actually lives—for me.
As we move through uncertainty, I believe self-trust becomes a form of leadership. When you know your own reactions, values, and rhythms, you're better equipped to make decisions, form opinions, and move forward without needing constant external validation.
I close the episode with an invitation:
What helps you trust yourself? What rituals, habits, or inner practices keep you grounded? I'd love to hear your stories, and I may share some of them in a future episode as we explore how self-trust shapes how we lead, work, and relate to others.
Because maybe—just maybe—trusting ourselves more is the first step toward trusting each other again.
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Find yourself in.
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I am the host of the Hope
and Possibilities podcast.
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I'm Nola Simon, and thank
you for joining me today.
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This topic is self-trust, so there's
a lot of talk about how trust
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itself is declining worldwide and
people are in trust governments.
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They're not trusting organizations,
they're not trusting other
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countries, politicians.
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Religious leaders all that kinda stuff.
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So there's a lot of ink being spilled
about the fact that employers are
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really the only people that, a lot of
people trust, and even that's declining.
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So the interesting thing about this
is the company that actually issues
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a lot of the trust reports that are
referenced in these articles that
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are written about trust is Edelman.
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And one year I asked Edelman, who
self-employed people trust, and they
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blew me off because self-employed
people are not their core audience.
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So they sell to.
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Organizations.
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They sell to governments,
they sell to business
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and self-employed people, honestly, unless
they really become successful and grow and
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become organizations themselves that are
well funded are the Edelman core business.
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So they blew me off and
told me that people who are
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self-employed trust themselves,
which you know that's true, but.
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They also trust other people as
well too, but who do they trust
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and how does that work for them
when they don't have an employer?
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And their interactions with organizations
look different than people who are
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employed full-time and their income
streams are different and their
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version of stability is different.
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So one of the things I wanted to
talk about is actually self-trust.
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So who do you trust?
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And honestly, a lot of times
that comes with self-trust.
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Now that may sound easy, but honestly,
self-trust can be challenging as well too.
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Especially when you're self-employed
and you don't actually have a lot of.
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Role models who are working the
same way that you do, who are
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living the same way you do that are
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maybe living out their
values the same way you do.
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And so it becomes challenging to have
that self-trust and to continue that way
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when you're getting a lot of noise from.
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Every direction.
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I don't know a single person who's being
self-employed who hasn't had people say
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to them, why don't you just go get a job?
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It happens all the time.
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Actually, one of the reasons I decided
to pivot away from hybrid, remote and
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look at leadership more closely as
this core of my business is one day
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my husband said to me, you could get
a job and it would be work from home.
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And that's the only thing
that matters to you.
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No.
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Honestly, that's not the only
thing that matters to me.
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Having impact makes matters to me, having
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my words, my point of view,
respected, and action.
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And working in a way where I'm actually.
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Helping people create a future
of work that's going to set
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themselves up for success.
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Set the people that they work
up with, success, their families
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and industries and society.
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If you are really looking whole picture,
that's really what I'm looking at.
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The impact of what my work could be.
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That's what's important
to me, how I do that.
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Will change.
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So yeah, a lot of times I work
from home, but it's not that I'm
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opposed to working in person.
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I've always actually preferred
some version of hybrid where you're
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meeting people in person because quite
honestly, the skillset of people.
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At all different levels of business and
whatever you actually do for work differs
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whether you can actually communicate
effectively in person or remotely.
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That really is a challenge.
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And so a lot of times it's easier
for me to meet in person with
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people that I know they're.
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Best method of communication
is actually not remote, right?
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And that's an example of self-trust.
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Do I trust myself to understand the
skillset that's involved both for me
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and the person that I'm working with,
and whether that's actually going to be
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productive.
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In a remote setting or an in-person
setting or somewhere in between, right?
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So that's a version of self-trust, but
it's also how do you make an impact?
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How do you support your family?
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How do you do work that you feel is
meaningful, that is fulfilling, that
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is again, setting you up for success,
both from a professional point of view,
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but also from a personal point of view.
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How do you trust yourself?
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And a lot of times it comes down
to what practices do you have in
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place to help yourself do that?
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So when the pandemic first
started and I was feeling
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uncertain, I started meditating.
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And that was a gradual thing because quite
honestly, I wasn't going anywhere anyway.
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And my coach happened to be certified
in meditation, and so she was sharing
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a lot of her practices and it's why
don't I try this and see what it is?
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And from my approach for it, a lot of
it is really just noticing how do you
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notice what's going on in your body?
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How do you notice what's
going on in your environment?
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What's going on in nature, in your
neighborhood with your people.
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There are lots of different
ways to actually notice, right?
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And a lot of it is internal.
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How are you feeling?
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Where do you feel fear?
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Where do you feel excitement?
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Where do you feel
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uncertainty?
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Where do you feel boredom?
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What happens when you're bored?
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What do you do?
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What never changes?
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What are you always interested in?
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What captures your attention?
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I am, historically, have always been.
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Anything that glitters draws my
eye I love sparkles on water.
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I have a countertop
that has sparkles on it.
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And little glimmers like
that just make me happy.
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So the ankle of the sun,
golden, things like that.
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The way sun bounces off snow, the
sparkles on snow, reflections, all
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of that kind of stuff make me happy.
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And it's always been like that.
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When I walk into a library or a
bookstore, I go to the mystery
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section, I go to the thriller
section, I go to the romance section.
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Those are the areas that never
really change in my life.
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This is what I enjoy.
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When I get up in the
morning, I make coffee.
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These are my habits, these are my rituals.
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I take my dog for a walk.
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What are the habits, the rituals
that fuel you, that keep you feeling
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grounded in your life, that help
you feel that you trust yourself?
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And even when you have.
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A different event to go to.
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What do you keep going?
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So for example, when I travel, I know for
a fact I can't really keep late hours.
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I know for a fact I need to have access
to water because water is really good
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for me and I need to be able to swim.
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I. Drink tea on the road.
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I don't drink coffee.
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I really need to pay attention to eating
healthy and, fruit and vegetables and
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not drinking alcohol, not doing things
that are going to run me down and I
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need to make sure that I'm feeling
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safe and secure and supported.
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So how do I change those for the days
where I'm not actually gonna be at home?
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And what does that look like?
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All of those things help me trust myself.
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And again, it can be extreme
noticing as well too.
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During the summer, I
like to float in my pool.
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I swim a lot.
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I run a lot.
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It's a small pool.
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It's just 18 foot round and it's,
I run around in circle a lot, but
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sometimes I really just float.
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And I remember one day I was really just
watching when daylight became twilight.
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And the change in the angle of
the light and what changed and
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how it felt when you could feel
the light creeping away and more
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dark and shadow was more apparent,
and how that changed the water and
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how that changed how my body felt.
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A lot of it's really just extreme
noticing, and so when you are.
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Aware of your own reactions, you're
aware of your own body, you're aware of
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where things live in your body, what's
normal, what's abnormal then you actually
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start to pay attention to how other
people make you feel as well too, right?
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You can start to notice the stories
that people tell themselves about
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their work, about what's important
to them, what their curiosities are.
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What's true and what
they wish would be true.
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And you start paying attention
in a different way, right?
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And you can do this with people that
you meet in person, but you can just
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do it with friends and neighbors that
you don't necessarily see all the time.
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Family members, extended family,
coworkers and then people that you
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actually don't know online, right?
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What are they showing you?
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But what are they?
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Careful never to show you, right?
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And this becomes this focus of attention.
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What are you noticing and what do you
pay attention to on a regular basis?
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And what are your blind spots?
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And if you're starting to
pay attention to all of that.
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You are really forming a point of view.
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You're forming a mindset.
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You are developing your
worldview, and it helps you
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make decisions and move forward.
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When there's uncertainty,
there's instability, there's an
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instability, and no one really has
an understanding of what's going on.
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So you can look at
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what's changing, what's not changing, what
has potential, what has possibilities,
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and how it makes you feel both
intellectually, but also in your body too.
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And that connection between mind
and body is really important.
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So we think when we're
talking about trust.
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We really have to talk about self-trust.
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So again, how does that
show up in your life?
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Yes, I meditate, I walk a lot.
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I swim a lot.
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I spend time with my family.
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I like reading.
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I like reading nonfiction books, but
I also like reading fiction books.
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Romance books I generally love,
but I do not like romantic and I
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actually don't like the way romance
books are being written right now
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because there's a lot of tropes and
there's a lot of rules surrounding
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what actually qualifies as romance.
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And so you start to look at
something that you've always loved
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and what's changed about it and.
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Why that's triggering you
and you start to understand
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what's fueling that.
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And that also feeds into
other areas as well too.
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And you can.
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Move towards what you feel are the
opportunities for you and what aren't the
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opportunities for you right at the moment.
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So what other habits do you
have that are integral to
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how you show up in the world?
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And for me, it's walking in the forest.
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It's the swimming, like I said,
the walking the extreme noticing
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really paying close attention
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and valuing my own opinion.
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And that can be hard for a lot of people.
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Some people do it through journaling.
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I know a couple of different authors
that you know, their, they're really
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famous authors in their own fields.
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But their practices start with
journals and they do deep research.
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But where their research really
starts is with their own noticing.
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And that I think is fascinating
to me because those are the people
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that I really value their insights
because they're starting with
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themselves, not with what they notice
in the rest of the world, right?
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So they're forming their
own opinions and then.
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Sue me outwards from there, and
that's my version of leadership
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and that's how I feel comfortable
moving forward in a future where
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everything feels uncertain right now.
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I know my own reactions and so
that's my throw out to you is.
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How do you trust yourself and what
practices do you have in place to help
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yourself feel more certain of your
choices, your opinions, what you value
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and how that's gonna set you up for
the kind of future that you wanna have?
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Both, in work and personally, I
think that's a valuable exercise too.
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Start with, and I'll put the
the voicemail in the show notes.
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You can maybe call in and tell me
your stories about how you actually
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trust yourself and what rituals and
practices you create for yourself.
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That other people could maybe learn
from, and that would be very helpful.
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And if I get, a few, I can share
those in the next episode and we
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can talk about how to deepen those
practices and how to extend it.
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And I,
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if we're trusting ourselves
more, then does that help us
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trust other people as well?
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How do, what does that look like?
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What does that change?
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And that's a fascinating
exercise to explore.
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Anyways, thanks for listening.
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Talk to
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Find yourself in.
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you next time.
00:00:17,995 --> 00:00:18,900
Find yourself in.
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I am the host of the Hope
and Possibilities podcast.
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I'm Nola Simon, and thank
you for joining me today.
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This topic is self-trust, so there's
a lot of talk about how trust
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itself is declining worldwide and
people are in trust governments.
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They're not trusting organizations,
they're not trusting other
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countries, politicians.
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Religious leaders all that kinda stuff.
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So there's a lot of ink being spilled
about the fact that employers are
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really the only people that, a lot of
people trust, and even that's declining.
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So the interesting thing about this
is the company that actually issues
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a lot of the trust reports that are
referenced in these articles that
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are written about trust is Edelman.
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And one year I asked Edelman, who
self-employed people trust, and they
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blew me off because self-employed
people are not their core audience.
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So they sell to.
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Organizations.
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They sell to governments,
they sell to business
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and self-employed people, honestly, unless
they really become successful and grow and
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become organizations themselves that are
well funded are the Edelman core business.
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So they blew me off and
told me that people who are
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self-employed trust themselves,
which you know that's true, but.
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They also trust other people as
well too, but who do they trust
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and how does that work for them
when they don't have an employer?
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And their interactions with organizations
look different than people who are
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employed full-time and their income
streams are different and their
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version of stability is different.
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So one of the things I wanted to
talk about is actually self-trust.
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So who do you trust?
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And honestly, a lot of times
that comes with self-trust.
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Now that may sound easy, but honestly,
self-trust can be challenging as well too.
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Especially when you're self-employed
and you don't actually have a lot of.
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Role models who are working the
same way that you do, who are
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living the same way you do that are
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maybe living out their
values the same way you do.
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And so it becomes challenging to have
that self-trust and to continue that way
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when you're getting a lot of noise from.
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Every direction.
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I don't know a single person who's being
self-employed who hasn't had people say
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to them, why don't you just go get a job?
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It happens all the time.
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Actually, one of the reasons I decided
to pivot away from hybrid, remote and
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look at leadership more closely as
this core of my business is one day
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my husband said to me, you could get
a job and it would be work from home.
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And that's the only thing
that matters to you.
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No.
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Honestly, that's not the only
thing that matters to me.
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Having impact makes matters to me, having
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my words, my point of view,
respected, and action.
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And working in a way where I'm actually.
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Helping people create a future
of work that's going to set
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themselves up for success.
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Set the people that they work
up with, success, their families
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and industries and society.
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If you are really looking whole picture,
that's really what I'm looking at.
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The impact of what my work could be.
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That's what's important
to me, how I do that.
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Will change.
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So yeah, a lot of times I work
from home, but it's not that I'm
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opposed to working in person.
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00:04:30,294 --> 00:04:34,853
I've always actually preferred
some version of hybrid where you're
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meeting people in person because quite
honestly, the skillset of people.
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At all different levels of business and
whatever you actually do for work differs
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whether you can actually communicate
effectively in person or remotely.
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That really is a challenge.
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And so a lot of times it's easier
for me to meet in person with
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people that I know they're.
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Best method of communication
is actually not remote, right?
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And that's an example of self-trust.
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Do I trust myself to understand the
skillset that's involved both for me
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and the person that I'm working with,
and whether that's actually going to be
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productive.
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In a remote setting or an in-person
setting or somewhere in between, right?
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So that's a version of self-trust, but
it's also how do you make an impact?
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How do you support your family?
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00:05:43,454 --> 00:05:48,554
How do you do work that you feel is
meaningful, that is fulfilling, that
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is again, setting you up for success,
both from a professional point of view,
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but also from a personal point of view.
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How do you trust yourself?
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And a lot of times it comes down
to what practices do you have in
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place to help yourself do that?
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So when the pandemic first
started and I was feeling
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uncertain, I started meditating.
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And that was a gradual thing because quite
honestly, I wasn't going anywhere anyway.
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And my coach happened to be certified
in meditation, and so she was sharing
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a lot of her practices and it's why
don't I try this and see what it is?
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And from my approach for it, a lot of
it is really just noticing how do you
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notice what's going on in your body?
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How do you notice what's
going on in your environment?
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00:06:33,894 --> 00:06:37,854
What's going on in nature, in your
neighborhood with your people.
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There are lots of different
ways to actually notice, right?
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And a lot of it is internal.
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How are you feeling?
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Where do you feel fear?
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Where do you feel excitement?
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00:06:50,454 --> 00:06:51,444
Where do you feel
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uncertainty?
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Where do you feel boredom?
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What happens when you're bored?
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What do you do?
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What never changes?
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What are you always interested in?
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What captures your attention?
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I am, historically, have always been.
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Anything that glitters draws my
eye I love sparkles on water.
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I have a countertop
that has sparkles on it.
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And little glimmers like
that just make me happy.
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So the ankle of the sun,
golden, things like that.
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The way sun bounces off snow, the
sparkles on snow, reflections, all
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of that kind of stuff make me happy.
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And it's always been like that.
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When I walk into a library or a
bookstore, I go to the mystery
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section, I go to the thriller
section, I go to the romance section.
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Those are the areas that never
really change in my life.
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This is what I enjoy.
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When I get up in the
morning, I make coffee.
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These are my habits, these are my rituals.
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I take my dog for a walk.
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What are the habits, the rituals
that fuel you, that keep you feeling
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grounded in your life, that help
you feel that you trust yourself?
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And even when you have.
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A different event to go to.
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What do you keep going?
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So for example, when I travel, I know for
a fact I can't really keep late hours.
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I know for a fact I need to have access
to water because water is really good
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for me and I need to be able to swim.
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I. Drink tea on the road.
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I don't drink coffee.
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I really need to pay attention to eating
healthy and, fruit and vegetables and
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not drinking alcohol, not doing things
that are going to run me down and I
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need to make sure that I'm feeling
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safe and secure and supported.
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So how do I change those for the days
where I'm not actually gonna be at home?
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And what does that look like?
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All of those things help me trust myself.
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And again, it can be extreme
noticing as well too.
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During the summer, I
like to float in my pool.
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I swim a lot.
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I run a lot.
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It's a small pool.
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It's just 18 foot round and it's,
I run around in circle a lot, but
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sometimes I really just float.
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And I remember one day I was really just
watching when daylight became twilight.
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And the change in the angle of
the light and what changed and
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how it felt when you could feel
the light creeping away and more
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dark and shadow was more apparent,
and how that changed the water and
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how that changed how my body felt.
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A lot of it's really just extreme
noticing, and so when you are.
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Aware of your own reactions, you're
aware of your own body, you're aware of
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where things live in your body, what's
normal, what's abnormal then you actually
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00:10:00,849 --> 00:10:05,769
start to pay attention to how other
people make you feel as well too, right?
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You can start to notice the stories
that people tell themselves about
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their work, about what's important
to them, what their curiosities are.
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What's true and what
they wish would be true.
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And you start paying attention
in a different way, right?
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00:10:27,369 --> 00:10:30,849
And you can do this with people that
you meet in person, but you can just
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do it with friends and neighbors that
you don't necessarily see all the time.
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Family members, extended family,
coworkers and then people that you
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actually don't know online, right?
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What are they showing you?
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But what are they?
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Careful never to show you, right?
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And this becomes this focus of attention.
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What are you noticing and what do you
pay attention to on a regular basis?
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And what are your blind spots?
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And if you're starting to
pay attention to all of that.
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You are really forming a point of view.
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You're forming a mindset.
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You are developing your
worldview, and it helps you
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make decisions and move forward.
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When there's uncertainty,
there's instability, there's an
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instability, and no one really has
an understanding of what's going on.
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So you can look at
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what's changing, what's not changing, what
has potential, what has possibilities,
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and how it makes you feel both
intellectually, but also in your body too.
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And that connection between mind
and body is really important.
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So we think when we're
talking about trust.
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We really have to talk about self-trust.
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So again, how does that
show up in your life?
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Yes, I meditate, I walk a lot.
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I swim a lot.
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I spend time with my family.
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I like reading.
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I like reading nonfiction books, but
I also like reading fiction books.
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Romance books I generally love,
but I do not like romantic and I
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actually don't like the way romance
books are being written right now
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because there's a lot of tropes and
there's a lot of rules surrounding
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what actually qualifies as romance.
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00:12:23,184 --> 00:12:28,284
And so you start to look at
something that you've always loved
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and what's changed about it and.
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00:12:34,134 --> 00:12:37,614
Why that's triggering you
and you start to understand
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what's fueling that.
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00:12:41,424 --> 00:12:44,714
And that also feeds into
other areas as well too.
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And you can.
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Move towards what you feel are the
opportunities for you and what aren't the
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opportunities for you right at the moment.
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So what other habits do you
have that are integral to
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00:13:06,343 --> 00:13:07,723
how you show up in the world?
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00:13:08,834 --> 00:13:11,293
And for me, it's walking in the forest.
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00:13:11,668 --> 00:13:16,468
It's the swimming, like I said,
the walking the extreme noticing
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00:13:17,038 --> 00:13:19,108
really paying close attention
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00:13:21,959 --> 00:13:23,818
and valuing my own opinion.
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And that can be hard for a lot of people.
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Some people do it through journaling.
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00:13:32,628 --> 00:13:38,268
I know a couple of different authors
that you know, their, they're really
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famous authors in their own fields.
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00:13:42,178 --> 00:13:48,598
But their practices start with
journals and they do deep research.
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But where their research really
starts is with their own noticing.
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And that I think is fascinating
to me because those are the people
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00:14:00,168 --> 00:14:05,448
that I really value their insights
because they're starting with
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00:14:05,448 --> 00:14:11,538
themselves, not with what they notice
in the rest of the world, right?
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00:14:11,538 --> 00:14:14,738
So they're forming their
own opinions and then.
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00:14:16,733 --> 00:14:21,023
Sue me outwards from there, and
that's my version of leadership
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00:14:21,263 --> 00:14:28,253
and that's how I feel comfortable
moving forward in a future where
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00:14:28,433 --> 00:14:30,183
everything feels uncertain right now.
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00:14:30,873 --> 00:14:36,053
I know my own reactions and so
that's my throw out to you is.
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00:14:37,373 --> 00:14:43,253
How do you trust yourself and what
practices do you have in place to help
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yourself feel more certain of your
choices, your opinions, what you value
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and how that's gonna set you up for
the kind of future that you wanna have?
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Both, in work and personally, I
think that's a valuable exercise too.
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Start with, and I'll put the
the voicemail in the show notes.
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You can maybe call in and tell me
your stories about how you actually
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trust yourself and what rituals and
practices you create for yourself.
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That other people could maybe learn
from, and that would be very helpful.
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And if I get, a few, I can share
those in the next episode and we
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can talk about how to deepen those
practices and how to extend it.
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And I,
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if we're trusting ourselves
more, then does that help us
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trust other people as well?
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How do, what does that look like?
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What does that change?
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And that's a fascinating
exercise to explore.
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Anyways, thanks for listening.
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Talk to
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Find yourself in.
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you next time.
