How Confidence Really Works

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have you ever found yourself wondering

things like

why am i confident with most people but

there’s this one person

who throws me off and leaves me

unsettled

why do i feel less than certain people

why do i sometimes behave like a

complete jerk

well if you resonate with any of those

questions

here’s one more what is it about

managing our confidence that makes it

such a universal challenge

when i was in my early thirties the

struggle with some of those questions

brought me to a place where i hated

myself

my wife’s father and i started a

furniture factory together

in reality he started it with his money

and then he put me in charge as a young

man this was a great opportunity but it

was

also saturated with pressure i dealt

with

my fear of failure by becoming a tyrant

the power went to my head

and i became the boss from hell so i’m

four years in and disgusted with myself

in my heart i believed i was a nice guy

but as a boss i was controlling verbally

abusive and hurtful

i remember laying in bed several nights

a week promising myself

that i would be different the next day

but by noon when i was screaming again i

would just give up

around the same time i was also

volunteering on the board of a

non-profit organization and like with

the factory i

saw the success or failure of the

organization as my own

i remember sitting around a table with

the board one evening

passionately making a point and pretty

much being

ignored i felt the success of the

organization was hanging in the balance

and i was

furious but there was one big difference

when i was at the factory i used to lose

my temper and become a complete jerk but

with the board i was able to control my

temper and be respectful

up until this time i used to claim i

cannot control my temper

that evening i realized i was wrong

i went home at asking myself this

question

why can i control my temper with the

board

but can’t control it with the factory

the answer changed my life over time i

discovered that despite being angry in

both environments the difference stemmed

from how i perceived myself

compared to my audience while i regret

to admit it when i was at the factory i

thought

i was better than everybody else i

thought i was smarter

i thought i was always right and of

course nobody’s work was

ever as good as mine but with the board

i regarded my colleagues as equals

well you might be wondering what in the

world does any of this have to do with

managing our confidence

and as it turns out pretty much

everything

we often think of confidence like a

switch on or

off either we have it or we don’t i

discovered

it doesn’t really work like that instead

of a switch that we turn

on or off confidence works more like a

dynamic continuum

with pride or arrogance on one side

insecurity on the other

and that perfect place that desired

place of

confidence right in the middle

confidence

not overconfidence confidence

not under confidence navigating this

confidence continuum is a lot like

trying to fly an airplane

we can turn the controls to the right or

to the left

but if we want to make any significant

forward progress the goal

is to steadily hold the controls in the

middle

that’s why i like to call this

confidence continuum

the cockpit the cockpit is not as simple

as

only being proud insecure or confident

it’s a number line with varying degrees

of pride

or insecurity with confidence at zero

right in the middle as it turns out

where we fall on the continuum at any

given point in time has a huge

impact on several things first whenever

we talk

people do not just hear us they

experience us we communicate at least as

much

through our tone and the micro

communication of our body language as we

do with our words

one of the greatest things people

experience from us

is the leak from our cockpit let me

illustrate

think of the most arrogant person you

know

does that person’s arrogance leak out of

most

everything they do the way they walk the

way they talk

their tone their body language how do

you

feel when you are with them

take the opposite extreme think of the

most insecure person you know

does that person’s insecurity leak out

of most everything they do

maybe they won’t look you in the eye

maybe they’re a pushover

how do you feel when you are with them

well the same is true for us hopefully

we’re neither severely to the pride side

nor severely to the insecurity side

but the fact remains that wherever our

cockpit is

at any given point in time it’s leaking

and other people are experiencing us and

forming

impressions of us on the basis of that

leak

so if that’s true what does that mean

for you

how do you think other people experience

you

what do you think you are leaking

they experience you as arrogant

as insecure and how does that make them

respond

our cockpit is also a key driver of

observable behavior

my horrific behavior as a boss was not a

subtle leak

it was much more than that observable

behaviors like

interrupting being argumentative or

verbally abusive

and consuming too much air time in a

conversation

are often the result of a cockpit toward

the pride side

similarly behaviors like not pushing

back when we have a different opinion

or regularly conceding to another

person’s point of view

often traced back to a cockpit toward

the insecurity side

so you can see there really are two

things that result from our cockpit

how other people experience us from the

leak

of our microcommunication and tone and

much of our observable behavior

if our cockpit plays such a significant

role in our behavior

how then can we manage it it’s one thing

to know that our cockpit is out of

balance

but how do we bring it back to the

center

remember the question i asked myself why

can i control my temper with the board

but

can’t control it at the factory and the

answer

when i was at the factory i thought i

was better than everyone else

but with the board i regarded us all

as equals equal is the key

to managing our cockpit when we consider

ourselves better than others

we think we are greater than our

audience

and when we are insecure we consider

ourselves less than our audience

but when we neither think we are better

nor less than our audience

we see ourselves as equal

and the simple truth is the key to the

whole equation

first we need to know where our cockpit

is

when i am in this environment is my

cockpit toward the pride side

the insecurity side or roughly in the

middle

and then we need to have a conversation

with ourselves to correct the deviation

if our cockpit is toward the pride side

we essentially believe

that we are greater than our audience

so that conversation tends to sound

something like

x is equal to me if our cockpit is

toward the insecurity side we believe

that we are less than our audience

and that conversation often sounds like

i am equal to x let me share

two real world examples the first person

i’d like to tell you about is susan

not her real name susan was part of an

executive leadership

program i was running and her cockpit

generally leaned

toward the pride side as a result the

leak of that pride

affected all of her interactions in our

first executive coaching session

susan expressed that she wanted to

change

the dynamic between herself and her team

so i gave her an exercise i said susan

i would like you to identify ten people

whom you

think are absolute morons

well as you can imagine her face lit up

she knew

that was going to be easy and then i

gave her the difficult part

i said susan for each of those 10 people

that you think are morons

i’d like you to identify at least three

ways that each of them

are better than you

after three weeks we had our next

session and susan reported mike that

exercise was so difficult but you’re not

going to believe this

the other day my team came to me and

they said

susan what happened to you she said what

do you mean and they said

we don’t know you’re you’re different

somehow you’re you’re nicer

if that were not enough even more

significantly susan continued

she said i went to my mother’s house for

lunch on sunday

and she said the same thing

what were we doing through that exercise

susan’s cockpit leaned towards the pride

side

and other people were experiencing the

leak of her pride

the exercise forced her to acknowledge

that

other people were equal to her

and when she reflected on other people

being equal

her cockpit automatically shifted back

towards the center

the people in her life experienced the

difference

the second person i want to tell you

about is steve

in an executive coaching call i asked

steve what he wanted to work on

steve said mike i have a sales pitch to

mukesh ambani tomorrow

and i need your help to prepare for the

meeting

mukesh ambani is one of the richest men

in the world

our conversation went like this steve

are you ready he said yes mike i said

okay steve here it comes

mukesh ambani puts his pants on the same

way that you do

he puts in one leg and then he puts in

the other leg he does not

miraculously appear in his trousers

what was i saying equal

i was suggesting that for steve to be

successful

in that sales call he was going to have

to be

confident and to be confident he

had to see himself as equal

i’m very happy to share that steve

managed his cockpit the next day

and he and his company won that contract

so the name of the game when we are

trying to manage our cockpit

is to see ourselves and our audience

as equals take a moment

and think of someone who makes you feel

insecure

what would happen if you saw yourself as

equal to that person

how do you think that might change the

dynamics of your relationship

the last thing i’d like to share was

perhaps my biggest discovery of all

we’ve said that confidence works like a

dynamic continuum

with pride on one side insecurity on the

other

and confidence in the middle we’ve said

that our confidence

or our lack of confidence leaks out

through our tone

and the microcommunication of our body

language

and that other people experience us

on the basis of that leak we’ve said

that our cockpit

is a key driver to our observable

behavior

and we’ve said that whenever we notice

our cockpit is swung to the pride side

or to the insecurity side one of the

most

important things that we can do to

manage our confidence

is to see ourselves is equal to our

audience

but why why does our cockpit swing to

one side or the other

and why does it change depending on the

context

imagine you trip and fall and you’ve

crossed that critical

angle where you know you’re going to

face plant

in the ground you throw your hands up to

brace yourself

against the fall i want to invite us to

face

a critical reality the truth

is that most of us are deeply

insecure deep down emotionally

we feel like we are falling and it’s

only

natural for us to look for things to

prop ourselves up

we’ll call these things we prop

ourselves up under

crutches crutches are essentially the

paradigms

upon which we define human value

they’re the measuring sticks we use to

assess our own value

and the value of those around us our

crutches

fuel those greater than less than

conversations which drive

our cockpit and they determine which

context impact our confidence the most

to illustrate imagine a person props up

their self-esteem

on a value system of a crutch of

intelligence

that crutch of intelligence will govern

their cockpit

if they walk into a meeting and believe

they are the smartest person in the room

their cockpit will swing to the pride

side with

all of the ramifications thereof

but that same person can walk across the

hall

to their next meeting believe they are

not the smartest person in the room

and become deeply insecure the cockpit

can swing

in a matter of seconds what’s

interesting about

crutches is that they are unique to the

individual

some of us prop up our self-esteem with

knowledge or iq some with our wealth or

our income some with productivity

physical fitness our positions of

hierarchy

our relative spirituality and so on

crutches originate from at least three

places

our personality type our family of

origin

and even our traumatic experiences

from my observations people have at

least three crutches but it’s not

uncommon to have six or seven so

as we go deeper can you identify

at least one of your crutches

it will be one of the value systems you

use to evaluate your

and others worth it will be the reason

you get proud or insecure and the lens

through which

you judge other people

each of us have a unique set of crutches

that we

use to determine our value and the value

of others

when we believe that we are better than

our audience

in the paradigm of those crutches our

cockpit will swing to the pride side

that pride will display itself through

our observable behavior

and through our leak people will

experience us

and respond accordingly when we believe

that we’re less than our audience

in the paradigm of those same crutches

our cockpit will swing to the insecurity

side

we will display insecure behaviors and

leak

that insecurity people will experience

us and respond accordingly

so as i close let me ask you how do

people

experience you

what crutches deep inside of you

cause you to see yourself as less than

or greater than others

when we are able to go to that level

we will not only have confidence we will

have confidence

at the core

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you