I Multiplied My Confidence Using the Lefkoe Method

I was a very shy and depressed teen. Nothing helped… until something did.

Photo by Courtney Cook on Unsplash

I always mark 17 years old as the year my life made a turn for the better.

I was a high school senior with the confidence level of a moldy carrot. I was too anxious to talk unless people approached me first. Basic conversation and friend-making 101 felt like witchcraft — beyond my muggle comprehension.

I was depressed, angry at my mistakes, and ashamed of my sexuality.

One day, I found a strange video on the internet. A cartoon character started talking me through my shyness.

That ‘character’ in the animated video was an independent counselor named Morty Lefkoe. Though not a psychologist, Morty had devised a method for ‘eliminating beliefs’ that was confirmed by 3 scientific studies. His work helped incarcerated offenders, and it lowered folks’ fear of public speaking. The third study tested his online self-help program, called Natural Confidence. Results were comparable to what people got when they did cognitive-behavioral therapy, a more long-established therapy that is considered the “gold standard” of psychotherapy.

So basically, this guy was legit. But I didn’t know that yet. I just wanted to get through…