Let me tell you something nobody tells you when they say, "just be more confident."
They don't tell you how.
For years, Lena Coates heard those three words without a roadmap, a toolkit, or so much as a starting point. As a woman who grew up in a traditional Italian household were speaking up was optional, who built a career as a senior executive search professional and coach, and who spent decades watching brilliant women hold themselves back for reasons that had nothing to do with talent - she decided enough was enough.
Cracking the Confidence Code: Show Up, Speak Up and Stand Strong is the book she wished she'd had. Practical by design. No fluff. No reinvention required. Just clear tools, real-world strategies, and the kind of straight-talking guidance that actually survives contact with real life.
Confidence is not a personality trait you either have or don't. It is not bestowed on the lucky few. It is a skill - built through action, reflection, and the slow accumulation of evidence that you are more capable than you've been giving yourself credit for. Research from Albert Bandura, Bessel van der Kolk, Carol Dweck, and decades of gender psychology all point the same direction: confidence is constructed. Which means it can be built. By you. Starting now.
Structured across three stages and ten chapters - each packed with CONFIDENCE EXERCISES you can use between meetings, before difficult conversations, or in those 3am moments when the inner critic is loudest - this book gives you a clear, practical framework for building self-trust that actually holds under pressure.
You'll learn to spot self-doubt early and interrupt it kindly. You'll discover how your body, breath, and posture either signal confidence or quietly undermine it. You'll reframe setbacks as data rather than verdicts. You'll learn to ask for what you need, set boundaries without a three-page justification, and build a network that genuinely lifts you. Baby, it's time to get out of the corner.
This book was born from real conversations - from women who said "I don't have all the skills" when they were missing just one. From senior executives who disappeared in meetings despite having the best ideas in the room. If any of that sounds familiar, you're in the right place.
"Insightful, evidence-based, and deeply human. Provides practical tools to build confidence where it matters most - in real moments, real conversations." - Nicole (Aquilina) Oborne OAM, PwC Partner, CPA Australia
"Very readable, highly instructive, and practical." - Dr George Stamatis Pappas AO, Former Chancellor, Victoria University
"A must read for executives." - Peter Dawson, The Dawson Partnership
"Authentic, insightful and immensely valuable." - Brad Collins, Insightful Coaching Solutions
You don't need permission. You need tools.
Consider this your toolkit.
Show up. Speak up. Stand strong.
