At some point in your life, you may have wonder how to believe in yourself when other people doubt you, Cole Brauer’s story offers an unusually vivid answer. Her path into professional sailing was anything but predetermined: she grew up on eastern Long Island, discovered sailing relatively late, taught herself the technical skills required to work on boats, lived in a van, faced rejection from an elite ocean racing team, and ultimately became the first American woman to race solo, nonstop, and unassisted around the world.

Her story is compelling because the central challenge was never simply crossing an ocean. It was learning to trust herself when circumstances, institutions, and other people’s judgments suggested that she should choose a smaller ambition. In this conversation, Cole explores self-belief, resilience, purpose, solitude, failure, preparation, and the complicated process of discovering who you are when familiar structures fall away.

What Happens When You Stop Believing in Yourself?

Why Other People’s Doubts Can Become Our Own

One of the most difficult forms of self-doubt begins outside of us. Someone else makes an assessment about our abilities, and over time that assessment can become part of the story we tell ourselves. Cole’s career offers a useful counterexample. She entered sailing without the conventional background many competitors had, and she encountered people who questioned whether someone her size could handle the demands of offshore racing.

What mattered was how she responded to that judgment. Cole describes having an internal confidence that continued to exist even when circumstances pushed it toward its lowest point. She compares confidence to a heartbeat, with moments of strength followed by moments when it drops. The important lesson is that self-belief does not require a permanently elevated sense of confidence. It requires enough trust in yourself to continue moving when confidence temporarily disappears.

The Difference Between Someone’s Opinion and Your Potential

An outside assessment can describe what someone has observed, but it cannot fully describe what you are capable of becoming. Cole’s own trajectory demonstrates why potential is difficult to evaluate before someone has had the opportunity to develop it.

She did not begin her sailing career with mastery. She learned by doing. Her path included technical work, boat systems, rigging, electrical work, mechanics, and countless hours of practice. Competence accumulated gradually, and that accumulated experience became a form of evidence she could rely upon when other people’s opinions were less encouraging.

What Happens When You Let Other People Define What You Can Do

Allowing someone else’s judgment to become your ceiling can quietly narrow a life. Cole’s experience suggests that belonging is sometimes something you establish through participation rather than something another institution grants you in advance.

Her decision to continue pursuing sailing ultimately created an opportunity to answer the question through experience. Instead of spending her life wondering whether she belonged in offshore racing, she entered the arena and discovered what she could actually do.

How Do You Believe in Yourself When Nobody Else Does?

Start by Trusting What You Know About Yourself

Cole did not have complete certainty when she began changing the direction of her life. At 18, she describes wanting to restart and figure things out. She moved from art toward medicine and eventually toward sailing, with each chapter contributing something to the person she would become.

Her mother’s advice became particularly important: the things Cole had learned previously were never wasted. Art, medicine, sewing, boat work, and sailing were not disconnected failures or abandoned identities. They were accumulated knowledge. That perspective offers a more generous way to think about personal growth: changing direction does not erase what came before.

Stop Waiting for Other People to Validate Your Potential

Cole’s career developed through a series of actions taken before she had conventional validation. She contacted the University of Hawaii sailing coach despite having little sailing experience, showed up, and eventually built a career through persistence and technical competence.

That pattern is central to understanding how to build self-confidence and self-trust. Sometimes confidence arrives after action rather than before it. You learn by attempting, you develop competence through repetition, and the resulting evidence gradually changes your assessment of yourself.

Take Action Before You Have Proof That You Can

Cole’s around-the-world voyage represented an enormous leap into uncertainty. She had never previously completed that journey alone, and the experience required her to confront circumstances she could not completely anticipate.

The broader lesson is that self-discovery often requires participation. There are questions about your potential that cannot be answered through reflection alone. At some point, you have to make the attempt and allow experience to provide information that speculation cannot.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• How to believe in yourself when other people doubt your potential, and why self-trust can become stronger through action and experience.
• How purpose helps you keep going through difficult seasons, particularly when external rewards such as money, recognition, or status are insufficient.
• How Cole approached rock bottom, rejection, negative thoughts, and the uncertainty of spending more than four months alone at sea.
• Why preparation, solitude, and difficult experiences can help you develop a clearer understanding of who you are and what you are capable of.
• Why Cole’s message to anyone who has been told “you can’t” ultimately comes down to persistence, hard work, and the willingness to find out for yourself.

How Purpose Helps You Keep Going When Things Get Hard

Purpose Gives You a Reason to Get Up in the Morning

Cole describes purpose in remarkably practical terms. For her, the question was essentially what gets you out of bed each morning. Sailing provided an internal reason to keep working, learning, repairing, improving, and moving forward.

Money and fame were not sufficient explanations for the sacrifices involved. She continued because she loved the work and because she wanted to advance within a demanding profession. That distinction matters when thinking about how to keep going when things get hard. External rewards can motivate us, but they are often too distant or uncertain to sustain a difficult process. Purpose operates closer to the source of effort.

The Difference Between Chasing Success and Pursuing What Matters

Cole had several reasons for attempting her solo circumnavigation. She wanted to prove to herself that she could do it, demonstrate to the wider world that she could do it, and provide an example for young people entering an industry where they might feel that the barriers are too high.

The achievement therefore carried meaning beyond a finishing position. It represented an answer to a personal question and an example for people who might otherwise assume that they did not belong.

Why Knowing What You Want Can Make Hardship Worth It

A difficult experience becomes easier to interpret when you understand why you chose it. Cole’s years of demanding work were not simply sacrifices she endured on the way to a glamorous destination. They were part of becoming the sailor she wanted to become.

That distinction can change how we understand resilience. Hardship does not automatically become meaningful simply because we survive it. It becomes more intelligible when it is connected to something we genuinely value.

The Boat That Became Part of the Story: Cole Brauer, First Light, and a Remarkable Partnership

When Cole first saw First Light, she was living on another boat, under a tarp with a beanbag chair. First Light was originally named Dragon and carried a giant red dragon painted along her side. Cole remembers being struck by her immediately. The boat was twice the size of the one she was living on, and something about her presence captured Cole’s attention.

Their relationship developed gradually. When Cole eventually delivered First Light from Charleston to Stonington, the boat became more than a machine to operate. Cole began speaking to her in much the same way someone might speak to a dog or another trusted companion.

That relationship became particularly meaningful because First Light was powerful enough to demand respect while remaining, in Cole’s experience, remarkably forgiving. When Cole made mistakes, she could recover, learn, and continue. Cole describes the boat as feeling generous, almost as if she were saying, in effect, that the mistake had happened and it was time to pick things up and keep going.

By the time Cole began writing her memoir, she realized that a straightforward account of a sailing campaign could not fully capture what First Light meant to her. The book became, in part, a love story about a boat that had witnessed her entire experience. First Light saw Cole’s best moments as well as her difficult ones, and Cole came to think of the boat as a mirror reflecting her own capacity back to her.

That idea gives the book its deeper resonance. First Light is not simply the setting for an extraordinary achievement. She is part of the story of how Cole learned to see herself differently. In the solitude of the ocean, the relationship offered Cole a kind of continuity: she could change, struggle, recover, and continue without having to perform a different version of herself.

How to Believe in Yourself When Someone Says “You Can’t”

Don’t Confuse Someone’s Limitation With Your Own

Cole’s experience provides a useful distinction between being given information and being given a verdict. Someone may identify a genuine challenge, but that does not automatically determine what you will eventually be able to do.

Being told she was too small for the Southern Ocean became one of the defining moments in Cole’s career. The answer came through preparation, persistence, and eventually entering the very environment that others had questioned her ability to handle.

Let Doubt Become Fuel Instead of Identity

Being underestimated affected Cole, but she did not allow the judgment to become the final description of herself. Her response was to continue building capability.

That is a more durable approach to overcoming self-doubt than simply trying to silence criticism. Doubt can contain useful information when examined carefully, but it becomes destructive when it is accepted as an identity.

Sometimes You Have to Say, “Just Watch Me”

Near the end of the conversation, John asks Cole what she would tell a 14-year-old girl who wanted a life like hers. Her answer captures the philosophy running through the entire interview. She acknowledges that the path will be difficult, then returns to the importance of hard work, showing up, and refusing to allow someone else’s prediction to determine the limits of your future.

Her closing words are simple: “Yeah, okay. Just watch me.”

7 Ways to Believe in Yourself Again

1. Stop Asking Everyone Else for Permission

Cole’s path was built through decisions that often preceded external validation. Her story suggests that waiting until everyone agrees with your direction can prevent you from discovering whether the direction is right for you.

2. Remember What You Are Working Toward

Purpose gives difficult work a context. Cole’s reason for sailing was connected to the work itself, the person she wanted to become, and the example she hoped to provide for others. Knowing what matters can make the daily effort easier to understand.

3. Take the Next Step Before You Feel Ready

Cole did not begin with the complete skill set required for her eventual career. She learned through participation, work, mistakes, and repetition. Readiness often develops alongside action.

4. Turn Setbacks Into Information

A rejection can be painful while still providing useful information. Cole’s experience of being cut from a major racing team became a point from which she reconsidered how she would enter the professional racing world.

5. Prepare for What You Can Control

Preparation gave Cole a way to respond when circumstances became dangerous. Creating processes in advance can provide the same psychological benefit in other areas of life, especially when uncertainty is unavoidable.

6. Spend Time Alone Without Distraction

Cole’s time alone at sea eventually became an opportunity to listen to herself. Intentional solitude can create enough distance from external expectations to clarify what you actually think and value.

7. Let Your Actions Prove What You’re Capable Of

Self-trust becomes stronger when it has evidence behind it. Every difficult problem solved and every commitment honored adds another piece of experience to the internal case for your own capability.

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About Today’s Guest, Cole Brauer

Cole Brauer is an American ocean racer and solo sailor who became the first American woman to race solo, nonstop, and unassisted around the world. Her voyage aboard First Light lasted more than 130 days and covered approximately 27,000 nautical miles. Her story combines offshore racing, resilience, personal growth, and the pursuit of self-belief.

What is Cole Brauer’s book First Light?

First Light is Cole Brauer’s memoir about her life, sailing career, and extraordinary solo voyage around the world. During the interview, Cole explains that the book evolved into something deeper than a conventional sailing memoir because of the relationship she developed with First Light, the boat that carried her through the journey.

They Told Her She Couldn’t Do It. She Said ‘WATCH Me’ | Cole Brauer

Learn More and Connect

👉 All episode links, my books You Matter, Luma, and The Mattering Effect, The Ignited Life newsletter, and the Start Mattering store are here: linktr.ee/John_R_Miles

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

What does it mean to believe in yourself?

Believing in yourself means developing enough self-trust to act, learn, adapt, and make decisions even when you do not have complete certainty about the outcome. Cole’s experience suggests that this belief can grow through action and accumulated evidence rather than depending on constant confidence.

How do you believe in yourself when nobody else does?

Separate another person’s assessment from your own potential. Cole’s story shows the value of continuing to learn, preparing carefully, taking action, and allowing experience to reveal what you are capable of. Her career demonstrates that external doubt does not have to become an internal verdict.

How do I stop doubting myself?

Self-doubt does not necessarily disappear, particularly when you are attempting something difficult. Cole describes learning to understand negative thoughts rather than being frightened by them. Preparation, action, and repeated experiences of handling challenges can gradually strengthen self-trust.

How do you build self-trust?

Self-trust develops when your actions provide evidence that you can depend on yourself. Taking difficult steps, following through on commitments, learning from mistakes, and continuing after setbacks all contribute to that evidence.

How do you keep going when things get hard?

Reconnect with the reason you began. Cole describes purpose as the thing that got her up in the morning and kept her moving through a demanding career. When hardship is connected to something that genuinely matters, the difficulty becomes easier to understand as part of the process.

What should you do when someone tells you that you can’t?

Treat the statement as an opinion or assessment rather than an automatic definition of your potential. Consider whether there is useful information in the criticism, determine what you need to learn or prepare for, and then decide what you are willing to attempt.

How can failure help you believe in yourself?

Failure can clarify what matters and reveal where you need to adapt. Cole’s rejection from a major racing team was devastating at the time, but it eventually became part of the path that led her toward solo sailing. A setback can therefore become information without becoming an identity.