Fearless confidence, that’s what I’m going to be talking about. Now let me explain, because it’s not a phrase that I have ever used, and I thought this was super fascinating. So I was delivering a workshop, but the night before I had an opportunity to chat with some of the attendees.
One particular woman shared with me that she had a really hard time speaking up in team meetings, especially if there might be senior leaders there. Her big fear was that she might say something that either didn’t sound super intelligent or the rest of the group may not have understood, and she had a fear of looking silly or unintelligent. We can all relate? Right?
We all know what that feels like. I asked her if she had received feedback from her manager and she said, “Yeah, actually my manager says I’m good and I should speak up more often.” Thought that was telling. So we start the workshop the next morning, I asked the participants to share what they were hoping to get out of the workshop, what skills did they want to learn? And this same attendee shared the phrase, “fearless confidence.”
I thought it was interesting, because she was adamant about the fearless in front of the confidence, and I really didn’t give it much thought at the time. But now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I almost feel like that can’t happen.
What in the world is fearless confidence? It, to me, doesn’t exist.
Every time I’m stepping into a high-stakes situation, where I really do need to exhibit my confidence level – whether that is a one-on-one sales call with a potential new client, or I’m stepping on stage in front of a thousand people, those high-stakes situations where we really need to have that confidence going into it. For her, it was a team meeting with maybe a senior leader there, that’s a high-stakes situation. Maybe for you, it’s going in and having a one-on-one conversation with your manager about a possible promotion or a salary increase.
Those are high-stakes situations, and they are absolutely where we want to have confidence! Because the more confident we are, the more likely we are to get the outcome we want. However, I can’t put the word fearless in front of it. I cannot think of a time where I needed to be confident in these high-stakes situations where I felt 100% fearless. There is always going to be some level of discomfort. And so I challenge you, where are you trying to get to this potentially elusive, non-existent, 100% perfect flow?
And if it’s centered around this confidence level, I’m giving you some bad news and a reality check – that it’s not about finding the fearless confidence, because the fear is always going to be there to some degree. It’s about finding how can we minimize some of that and show up as our strongest self, and deliver what we need to, ask for what we need to, get ourselves into those high-stakes, challenging situations, and come out the other side with that outcome.
Where are you today in that confidence level? What does that look like for you? I would love to hear that from you!