How to Back Yourself: Evie Capon’s Top Tips for Building Confidence and Resilience in Business
What would you do if someone told you that you’d never be successful at anything in life?
For Evie Capon, that’s not a hypothetical question. At nineteen years old, the principal of her drama college said those exact words to her as she was leaving. She stood up, walked out, and decided she was going to prove him wrong.
Two years later, Evie bought a Little Voices performing arts franchise at just twenty-one. She now teaches drama and singing to four to eighteen year olds across Suffolk, building confidence and life skills in children through the performing arts. She’s a national franchise award finalist. She’s co-founded a CIC called The Opportunity Stage. And she is one of the most quietly determined people I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to on this podcast.
Evie’s story is not a straightforward one. She was told repeatedly she was too young to be taken seriously. But every knockback shaped something in her — a clarity about who she wanted to be, how she wanted to lead, and what she wanted to build.
I asked her to share her honest tips for building confidence and resilience — whether you’re just starting out in business, recovering from a setback, or simply trying to back yourself a little more. Here’s what she said.
1. Consider the source before you take criticism on board
Not all feedback deserves equal weight. Evie’s first tip is one of the most important: before you let someone’s words affect you, ask yourself who is saying it and why.
“It’s really important to know who’s saying that to you,” she told me. “If it’s somebody you know is not a positive person to have in your life, don’t listen to it. Whereas if it’s someone closer to you, ask them a question back: why do you think I won’t be successful? What’s your reasoning?”
The person who told Evie she would never be successful had already shown her, repeatedly, that he was not someone who had her best interests at heart. His words said more about him than they ever said about her.
In business, we are constantly putting ourselves out there — our ideas, our products, our services. Not everyone will get it. Not everyone will respond. And occasionally someone will be actively unkind. Learning to filter that noise and decide whose opinion actually matters is one of the most valuable skills you can develop.
2. Define what success actually means to you
One of Evie’s most powerful points was this: success doesn’t have a single definition. We each get to decide what it looks like for us.
“There’s not a definition of success,” she said. “We can make that what we want it to be. For me it might be teaching three hundred people a week. For someone else it would look completely different. It’s really subjective.”
When we measure ourselves against someone else’s version of success — the six figure business, the viral post, the sold-out event — we set ourselves up to feel like we’re failing. But when we get clear on what success looks and feels like for us personally, we stop chasing the wrong things and start building the right ones.
Evie also made the point that success changes over time. What it meant to her at nineteen is completely different to what it means now. Give yourself permission to evolve your definition as you grow.
3. Use setbacks as fuel, not as evidence
Evie could have let drama college break her. She had every reason to. Instead, that experience became the foundation for everything she’s built since.
“I just wanted to prove him wrong,” she told me simply. “And then two years later I saw him at a show and he ignored me. Which I thought said everything really.”
That experience also gave her absolute clarity about the kind of leader she never wanted to be. The way she was taught — torn down before she was built up, criticised before she had the foundations to take it — shaped her entire approach to teaching children. Little Voices is built on encouragement, not pressure. On building skills quietly and confidently, not on putting children on a stage before they’re ready.
When things go wrong in your business — and they will, because that’s just part of it — ask yourself: what is this teaching me? What do I now know that I didn’t before? And how can I use this to build something better?
4. Back yourself enough to put your hand up
Evie recently put herself forward for a national franchise award for young people in franchising. She’s a finalist. But she told me that even the act of applying was a confidence leap.
“This year I just went, why not? Let’s just do it.” she said. “And actually it’s a really good reflection piece because when you’re going through the application questions you’re asking yourself, what have I done? And you realise: I have actually done quite a lot.”
How often do we talk ourselves out of opportunities before we’ve even tried? Too young. Not ready. Someone else will do it better. Not experienced enough.
Evie bought a franchise at twenty-one after being told repeatedly she was too young. She didn’t wait until she felt ready. She just did it.
And two years later she’s still here, still growing, and being recognised nationally for it.
Sometimes backing yourself just means pressing send before the self-doubt kicks in.
5. Start with one small step
When I asked Evie what she’d say to someone who’d been told they weren’t good enough, her answer was refreshingly practical.
“What’s the first step I need to take? It only takes one thing to start getting on that road. You don’t have to do a hundred million things at once.”
Confidence doesn’t arrive fully formed before you start. It builds as you go. Every small step you take — every event you attend, every service you launch, every message you send — adds up into something you look back on and think: I did that.
We often wait to feel confident before we act. But actually, it works the other way around. You act, and the confidence follows.
6. Know yourself well enough to advocate for yourself
One of the moments in our conversation that stayed with me most was when Evie described calling her drama college to say she couldn’t come in. The principal told her that if she didn’t come in she’d only make things worse.
Her response was calm and clear: “That might be how it works for some people, but I know myself quite well. I know how I need to deal with this.” And she didn’t go in.
That self-knowledge — the ability to know what you need, to trust it, and to act on it even when someone in authority is telling you otherwise — is an incredible form of confidence. And it’s something we can all develop.
In business, that might look like knowing when to push and when to rest. Knowing which feedback to take seriously and which to let go. Knowing when a collaboration or opportunity is right for you — and when it isn’t, even if it looks good on paper.
You are the expert on yourself. Trust that.
A final thought from Evie
I asked Evie what she’d say to that principal now if she could say anything.
“I’d just quite like to tell him what I’m doing and ask: is that still unsuccessful to you?”
That’s the energy. Not bitterness. Not anger. Just quiet, steady proof.
If someone has ever told you that you won’t make it, that you’re too young, too old, too much, not enough — keep going. Carry on building your business. Do the work. And one day, you’ll have the most satisfying answer of all.
What you’ve built. 💛
About Evie
Evie Capon runs Little Voices Suffolk, a performing arts franchise for four to eighteen year olds teaching drama and singing with a focus on building confidence and transferable life skills. She is also co-founder of The Opportunity Stage CIC, which works to make arts, sports and wellbeing activities accessible to all young people regardless of their background or circumstances.
Find Evie here:
🌐 Website: https://littlevoices.org.uk/suffolk/meet-the-team/
📸 Instagram: @littlevoicessuffolk
👤 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/littlevoicessuffolk/
Want to hear the full conversation?
Listen to my full chat with Evie on the Women Inspired Networking Conversations podcast, available now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0DM7Ooc5nLezg4u91OklYo
Come and find your people:
🌐 www.womeninspirednetwork.com/events
👤 Facebook: Women Inspired Network: Networking for Women In Business
📸 Instagram: @women_inspired_network
