- Today I have three brilliant tips
that will build your confidence,
but perhaps surprisingly,
only by focusing on your competence.
So stick with me and I promise that it's lot easier
than just continuing to try to fake it 'til you make it.
Stay to the end and I'm happy to share with you
another book recommendation,
particularly, I think for parents, or anyone who wants
to stretch their boundaries.
But let's focus on your competence versus confidence first
'cause that's why we're here.
So before we click off, subscribe to our channel
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that are gonna help improve your career progression.
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one of our videos.
I'm Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris, founder of Inclusiq.
Now, as a consultant and author of my own books
about career progression,
I have talked with literally thousands of professionals,
particularly women, but over the last 15 years.
I have crowd-sourced the best tips
on how to improve your self-confidence.
But today, and now with this latest book,
I am tackling the battle between competence and confidence.
So let's get started.
Here are my three tips to build your confidence,
but solely by your competence.
Now, let's start at the basics.
Let's focus on what you are already really good at.
Now, none of us are perfect (laughs),
but there will be skills and competencies
on which you have received compliments.
Start there if you are feeling at a bit of a loss
as to how to think about your skills
and what you're really good at.
And then that's when you start to identify
what it's going to take to get better at those skills.
And one of my STEM clients was a woman I'm gonna call Renee
and Renee worked in pharmaceuticals
and she'd initially been dismayed and a bit pessimistic
in one of our sessions
when she told me she had been given a big project
where she was gonna have to manage
a multi-million-pound purchase and installation
of this massive microscope.
Now, the thing was so big
the company actually had to construct a separate building
just to house it.
So pretty big stuff.
Now, her boss who was a natural optimist
knew that he actually needed a skeptical pair of eyes
on this potential project.
Now, this method, the feedback that he and others
had been giving Renee for years about her sense of caution,
her eyes-wide-open approach and even her skepticism.
Well, they were real assets to this boss
and certainly to this project.
He knew that if he naturally plowed in
with all his gung ho-ness into what was gonna be a tricky
and costly project, potentially without kicking the tires
of his latest great idea, he could be in trouble.
However, when we looked at why Renee
had been given that role,
we saw that it was actually more of a compliment
from her boss about her pessimistic style,
'cause it had always kept her team safe,
projects delivered on time,
and it led to well-thought-through decisions
for the company.
So this was a groundbreaking project,
both figuratively and literally now I'm thinking about it,
for both the company's investors, but also reputationally.
By investing in this microscope,
they would be getting ahead of the market
on a pretty new technology.
Now, her boss had noticed all of these competencies
in Renee in years before
and he chose to reward here, but with a project that,
let's be honest, she didn't initially want.
But here's the thing, remember not all the greatest gifts
will come wrapped with a pretty bow (laughs).
The more she thought about this,
the greater her sense
that she was getting a vote of confidence
and this in turn grew her confidence over time.
She started being asked to more senior meetings,
asked to work with more suppliers,
and she was asked to scope out the likely cost
of buying this equipment.
And even if they could make an income,
from renting time on it to other early adopters,
that was all a part of the business plan that she,
let's be honest, didn't actually wanna ride initially.
It had its challenges, but her caution
and the time she took paid off.
And Renee was given a promotion that year,
something as her coach, I know she'd been waiting for,
for a long time.
Now, part of Renee's success
was in building up her confidence
from bulking up her growth mindset.
Now, clearly Renee had never managed such a large
and very visible project on a scale that time way before,
but she'd been demonstrating for years
that she could manage via her competence.
Simply put, with big projects,
you need to approach it as a learning journey
'cause it's gonna be something on which you're gonna make
a few mistakes, but that you can manage.
Even if it means a bit of trial and error,
but also asking for a lot of feedback from others.
Now, the tip for you in this
is to think about a skill of yours
that was initially pretty difficult,
but which you improved in over time
through hard work and relying on your competence,
rather than just your overflowing confidence (laughs).
That growth mindset is gonna help increase your competence,
which in turn will boost your confidence (laughs).
If you've been in a Renee-type situation before,
give me a thumbs up or a comment in the section below.
All right, and so my book recommendation
is perhaps not surprisingly a big shout out
for Carol Dweck's book, The Growth Mindset.
Now, as Renee found,
your competencies are completely malleable
if you take this approach,
realizing that this is where confidence actually comes from.
Now, by comparison, if you think of your intelligence
or even your confidence as a set point,
or something you probably can't do much to affect,
you're gonna be stuck where you are now forever (laughs).
While, my own books focus on getting ahead in your career.
Dweck's book also made me
think about the children in my life a little bit differently
because her book is a great reminder
that telling a child that you love
that they are a hard-worker
or that they did just a great try on something
is ultimately so much better for them
than telling them they are smart.
You can always work harder, but intelligence, by comparison,
can feel a bit finite.
But if you're building a career,
then The Con Job is actually for you
because we're in a society
where we rate confidence too highly.
And that means competent people risk being overtaken
by the overconfident, if less skilled, colleagues
that they've got all around them.
So if you wanna stand up to the status quo
and help me put an end to the way we overvalue confidence,
then click the link below
in order to take a look at the book
and you can follow all of the activity
around the book launch
by following #morecompetence on Twitter and Instagram.
Now, please share it with your friends and colleagues too
because it is the only way that we're going to make
a big impact into this huge problem.
And subscribe to my channel so that you're the first
to see the rest of the videos in this series
as they are released.
And if you've enjoyed this video,
it would mean a lot to me if you liked it, commented,
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And in the meantime, please subscribe to my channel too
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to see all the rest of the videos in our series
on competence versus confidence.
Thanks for watching
and check out the videos we already got on that playlist
because there's tons more on this topic
if it resonates with you.