How was he SO certain in himself? 🤨

I remember gazing at him in fascination…

What was it, that made him state his opinion with such certainty?!

I assumed it must be his superior knowledge about the topic.

I mean that’s where confidence comes from right?

Knowledge, expertise, experience… 🤔

So, you can guess my ‘grand plan’ to feel more confidence…

I put my head down, worked harder, built my expertise.

And waited…. for the magical day when self-confidence would appear.  

Ha. 😀

At some point, I realised that the guy I was comparing myself to, had pretty much the same levels of expertise and experience as me.

WTF? My grand ‘self-confidence’ plan shattered. 😂

This is a good news, bad news situation.

The BAD news is that expertise is not the source of self-confidence.

Annoying I know. After all that hard work. But logically it just can’t be true that one causes the other. Just look at all those people with objectively high levels of expertise, who still struggle with self-doubt, imposter syndrome etc.

The truth is, self-confidence is a state of MIND, created (or blocked) by our brain.

And here’s where we get to the GOOD news. It turns out that self-confidence is just another skillset that can be learnt.  Something to be mastered REGARDLESS OF, and SEPERATLEY from, your knowledge and expertise.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not saying expertise isn’t important. Of course it is. It creates economic value. The more value you create, the better for your career. 🤷‍♀️

I just want you to know, that if you have a brain that blocks you from feeling SECURE or CONFIDENT or ACCOMPLISHED in face of that value…

That’s a separate problem. With a separate solution.