The Confidence Paradox
Confidence is fickle.
Nurture it or risk it not being there when you need it most.
The more you seek it the harder it is to find. Like love and something worth watching on Netflix.
Nail the big presentation.
Step into the ring.
Book the one way ticket.
Approach someone you’ve never met before.
Start that new thing and share it with the world.
These babies demand confidence.
Everything worth doing requires confidence to get it done.
Confidence can make us the hero. The Sports Star. The Suave-AF-License-to-Kill type but it can also be Lance Armstrong level toxic to us.
It has a nature of its own, when left unchecked.
Any time, any thing goes awry, I can pinpoint it back to my loss of confidence:
I found myself starting on the bench mid-season.
Whilst presenting I lost my breath mid-sentence and thought I’d pass out.
I second guessed addressing you by your first name, even though I’ve known you for months…
I got heaped with too much work because I didn’t have the confidence to push back.
Overconfidence can lead to disaster. My (now healed) burst left scapula is a testament to this statement.
EPIC paths demand more confidence than ‘normal’ ones.
Becoming a professional fighter is impossible without extreme self-belief. So is bootstrapping a start-up.
Confidence can be sexy and ugly - Connor McGregor.
I feel good; my confidence is way up. I feel bad; it’s way down. As dependable as rough hangovers from Red Bull and Jägermeister shots, Japanese made vehicles and anything sung by Astrud Gilberto.
To gain and maintain confidence takes commitment to your craft.
We each begin with a different sized Confidence Well. How big our well gets and how full we keep it is entirely up to us. How thirsty is your village?
Confidence is subject to momentum.
I like to think of confidence like a muscle; we have to train it or it becomes weak.
We can be confident without needing to be a Confidence Man.
Well, I lost you at the border,
When you crossed it
Had your number, baby,
But I lost it
I know your love,
Was just a flimflam
Well, you can't pull the wool over me,
Cause I'm a confidence man
- ‘Confidence Man’, Jeff Healey Band
Be your EPIC
We out. 🙇
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