Episode #703 Stop Waiting for Confidence and Start Building Boldness
“I didn't become a different person. I became the full me, I the world got the full Fred.”
Fred Joyal
Entrepreneur, Author, Founder of 1-800-DENTIST
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Boldness is not inherited. Fred Joyal reveals how audacity is built through action, failure, and everyday courage.
Episode Summary
What if confidence isn't something you need before taking action, but something you develop because you took action?
Fred Joyal knows that transformation firsthand. After describing himself as a “painful introvert,” Fred explains how he gradually learned to emulate bold people, expand his comfort zone and discover that many of the negative outcomes he feared simply didn't happen. His journey eventually helped him build 1-800-DENTIST into a business with 250 employees and nearly $50 million in annual revenue.
In this conversation, Fred and Audley explore why discomfort, rejection and failure don't have to be signals to retreat. Fred explains how deliberately doing uncomfortable things when the stakes are low can prepare us to act boldly when the stakes are much higher. He also shares lessons about entrepreneurship, building a people-first company culture and the danger of accumulating regrets from opportunities never taken.
If you've been waiting to feel ready, confident or fearless enough to make your move, this conversation offers another way forward.
Key Takeaways
1. Boldness can be learned.
Fred's own journey from painful introversion to becoming deliberately bolder convinced him that boldness isn't simply something you're born with. It can be developed through repeated practice.
2. Discomfort can become training.
Fred recommends deliberately doing things that make you uncomfortable when the stakes are low, training your reflex to act rather than hesitate when an important opportunity arrives.
3. Failure is part of growth.
Fred compares developing boldness to strength training, where reaching the rep you cannot complete is actually where growth happens. Instead of treating failure as proof to stop, it can become part of the learning process.
4. Trying can hurt less than regret.
Fred argues that trying and failing ultimately feels better than never trying. His own missed opportunities taught him how easily hesitation can turn into accumulated regret.
Meet Our Guest
Fred Joyal is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and author best known as the founder of 1-800-DENTIST, which he led for nearly three decades. A former introvert, Fred transformed discomfort into confidence and now teaches boldness as a practical, trainable life skill. His work focuses on leadership, mindset, entrepreneurship, and helping people live with fewer regrets.
Special Offers
📘 Book: Superbold: From Under-Confident to Charismatic in 90 Days
📽 Upcoming: Online video course on boldness
🎤Speaking: Keynotes and workshops on confidence, leadership, and audacity
Audacious Insight
Blog Post Title: "Why Playing It Safe Is the Riskiest Decision You’ll Ever Make
Explore how comfort quietly limits growth and why calculated boldness creates lasting impact.
Audley's Personal Insights
What really connected with me in this conversation was Fred's belief that boldness is something we can develop. I've always believed that audacity exists within all of us, and Fred approaches that same idea from an incredibly practical direction: if you want to become bolder, you have to practise being uncomfortable.
I also loved the idea that our actions can become permission for somebody else. When we take the chance, make the move or show up fully as ourselves, we may never know who is watching and thinking, If they can do it, maybe I can too. That's part of what living audaciously means to me. Our courage doesn't only change our own lives. It can create evidence for someone else that more is possible.
Best Point of Contact
🌐 Website: fredjoyal.com
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