Do Something Amazing and Tell Nobody

all right you good

all right you’re gonna go in five

four three two

one

socrates once said the only thing i know

is that i know nothing

now wait a second i know what you’re

thinking did i just click on a video to

hear some 17 year old kid who

just figured out how to ask a girl the

prom try and tell me how to live my life

with a generic socrates quote

well yes but hold on there’s a little

more to it than that

i didn’t quote socrates because it was

truly necessary to introduce my argument

i didn’t even quote socrates because i

wanted to

i quoted him because i

care that you think i’m impressive i

wanted you to think that i’m smart

and insightful and that i spend my free

time pouring over ancient greek texts

when in reality i got that quote from a

fortune cookie

i don’t pore over dense philosophical

works i just really like crab rangoon

i mean it’s fried cream cheese and so

that very thing is the one i want to

discuss with you today

no not crab rangoon but the

externalities

of our self-esteem what is true

internally rooted confidence

and how can we build it in order to

answer this question

let me put you in my shoes when i was 13

years old

in elementary school everyone always

tells you that kindness is everything

and that you should be nice at all costs

so

throughout middle school you are nice at

all costs

even when that means getting taken

advantage of

not only that but to you being kind

meant making sure you never made anybody

uncomfortable

so of course you would stay away from

speaking your mind out of worry that you

might offend someone

as you can imagine quite quickly this

abundance of kindness

became inflated and since it’s what you

identify and pride yourself on

the lack of appreciation caused your

confidence to dwindle

you see you were nice for all the wrong

reasons

you were kind not purely because of your

good will

but largely because you saw no other

option true kindness

doesn’t come from a place of necessity

true kindness comes from a place of

strength

and options it is to have the capacity

for disagreeableness and yet choose the

other path

you your kindness was not a choice

your kindness was a rationalization for

your weakness

and your confidence didn’t come from the

satisfaction of doing good things

it came from people’s admiration of that

trait

which in turn just led you to emphasize

that trait even more in your personality

for example you’d give out compliments

for the sake of appearing kind

like the time you told your friend’s mom

that her cooking could win a michelin

star

i’m sorry miss peters i don’t think they

got michelin stars for chicken that’s

about as flavorful as a bike tire

and really this need to always be seen

as kind was quite dangerous

just because you weren’t able to be

difficult or ill-tempered at times

didn’t mean you didn’t want to be

everyone wants to say no to things they

don’t see the point in

like when your mom tells you joe go

clean your room in your closet there’s

guests coming over

i promise you if guests somehow end up

in my closet the dust is not what’s

going to make that situation weird

of course you had to suppress perfectly

reasonable thoughts and feelings like

those

because after all if people thought you

weren’t kind

then what were you

but like most things you suppress these

emotions just built inside of you

until one day you couldn’t take it

anymore in your eyes

you had given the world so much and had

gotten nothing in return you decided

you know what i’m done i’m done putting

others before myself i’m done

letting their opinions control me and i

am done caring

about what people think of me and so at

15 years old you did it

you no longer cared what people thought

of you

well at least that’s what you wanted

everyone else to think

in reality nothing changed before you

prided yourself on how kind people

thought you were

now you pride yourself on how little

people thought you cared

you didn’t transcend the scale you just

swung too hard in the opposite direction

and i mean evelyn always tells you not

to care what people think

the real problem is nobody tells you how

to do that

to you not caring meant making jokes

acting cocky and above all always

projecting security

and so in order to feel like you cared

less you decided to act like you cared

less

you acted arrogant

condescending and whenever someone

criticized you

you wrote it off as jealousy looking

back

you missed a lot of good advice that you

were too confident to take

and soon this heart and exterior started

to take a toll on your relationships

because vulnerability is essential to

any meaningful relationship

and you couldn’t be vulnerable you went

through life pushing people away

instead of welcoming them and that

that was a breaking point for you after

pushing away

one particular person that should have

been embraced

you had one honest moment with yourself

and in that moment you realized

that your confidence was still in the

hands of others no matter how much you

tried to convince yourself

otherwise there was obviously a problem

and yet you still had no idea how to

solve it

all you did though was that for the past

year and a half everything from the way

you

dressed to the way you spoke was loud

but your confidence was still fake and

so from that moment on

you promised yourself that everything

you would do would be

quieter you’d still strive for success

but instead of accomplishing things for

the way they will make you look

you vow to accomplish them for the way

they will make you feel

and to make sure that was actually the

case and your actions weren’t corrupted

by validation

you’d ask yourself one simple question

why you’d say why am i climbing this

mountain

is it because i want to have an

experience for myself

or is it because i want to post it on

instagram and show how adventurous i

you’d even ask yourself why am i hanging

out with this person

is it because i genuinely enjoy their

company

or is it because they’re super

attractive and being with them makes me

look good

however uncomfortable to answer it was

these questions

that slowly shaped the way you behaved

for example

you no longer used fancy words like

abysmal because

anytime you were going to use the word

abysmal you were just trying to make

yourself look smart

you even started to pass upon chances to

brag when people would ask you

oh hey joe what have you been up to and

everything in your body wanted to say

oh i don’t know i’ve just been writing a

ted talk

but you wouldn’t and to be honest in the

moment

passing upon those chances to brag felt

pretty

abysmal but you also knew like most

things worthwhile

this was going to be hard and that quick

fixes for confidence

were what got you into this mess and so

you kept quiet

and you kept humble and even if this

modesty was fake at first

it started to feel like it was working

all the things

you would normally scream from a rooftop

you kept to yourself

but more importantly for yourself in

other words

because you forced yourself into modesty

you had to do things

for personal satisfaction instead of

external validation

and that personal satisfaction is the

defining characteristic

of where true confidence comes from that

is what people mean

or should mean when they say confidence

comes from within

so by doing amazing things and telling

nobody

you were able to develop true

self-confidence

the kind that doesn’t rely on how many

people know your name or whether that

girl over there thinks you’re cute or

not

but more importantly the kind of

confidence you don’t have to prove that

you have

and that is where our story ends

that’s where at least i wish it ended

more realistically

our story it doesn’t end

take this for example i’m standing on a

stage with my name plastered on a video

i mean the mere fact that i’m giving

this talk without a bag over my head

makes me a hypocrite

and i would be lying if i said i was not

alert by how

maybe you would think wow he seems

pretty articulate

or even he’s kind of cute

but the point of my talk is not to run

from praise

or public achievements it’s to be honest

with ourselves

when we answer three simple questions

one

where does your confidence come from two

how much control do you have over that

source and three

do you actually want another order

of crab rain good thank you