Confidence From One Life-Saving Thought
When I was in the emergency room at Memorial Sloane Kettering just 24 hours after I was diagnosed with AML Leukemia, a stream of doctors asked me the same series of questions about my symptoms.
I was surrounded by family and my closest friends, and what I saw in their eyes mirrored my own feelings. Out of control and just terrified at the thought of being hospitalized to undergo excruciating treatment to save my life. There were also the thoughts of not surviving.
Then Dr. Jai Park walked in. He was calm and had an ease about him. He asked me the same series of questions, and then he gave me a life-saving thought.
Dr. Park very matter-of-factly shared:
You don’t come to MSK to be treated.
You come to MSK to be cured.
I was like game on!
I needed to hear it, and wanted to hear it, but I also wanted more. At that moment, did I want my Oncologist to be confident or competent?
What is confidence?
Confidence is a feeling.
Confidence is not a fact.
Confidence is not a result.
Confidence is not evidence of competency.
Here's how Webster’s Dictionary describes competency: the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.
Dr. Park has lots of letters after his name and his bio lists his many achievements. All facts. All results of his hard work.
In that moment in MSK's ER, I wanted Dr. Park to be competent to the degree he could be confident in my being cured.
Confidence driven by competency.
At that moment, I cared less about his confidence level because what I needed more than anything was for Dr. Park to be competent.
Have you had these thoughts?
I’ve lost my confidence
I wish I was more confident?
If I was confident, things would be better for me.
If I was more confident, I’d be more successful.
Waiting for confidence to show up to get you something or somewhere is a trap.
You think confidence will be the solve when the foundation of your personal confidence sits within your competency.
Confidence is something you want, but what people want from you is your competence not your confidence.
For the CEOs and Founders reading this, you are not alone. Your feelings of worry, self-doubt, and being a fraud, along with not having the CEO-playbook are felt at one time or another by all of your peers. I know this because I've heard it 100s of times in my work.
No matter where you are in your career and your success you, likely at some point, have struggled with a lack of confidence. We all do. It comes in all shapes and sizes and at all of the wrong times, especially when you are feeling uncomfortable, often before moments of personal growth.
“The right amount of confidence is that which aligns with your actual competence”, according to a Harvard Business Review article titled, ‘7 Pieces of Bad Career Advice Women Should Ignore.’
This article is a must read for its spot-on frankness. It’s written by Cindy Gallop who is a joy and a pleasure to follow for her direct, no BS style, and her confidence which comes from a heaping amount of competence.
When your confidence is lacking or you are wishing for more, focus on your competency -- the ability to do what you've done before successfully, and build from there.
When you become more experienced you build more competency.
Don't forget to give yourself permission to celebrate your competency as it is today. You've worked hard for it.
Those are the building blocks to becoming more confident.
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