Mindset

She said: “I have to build my confidence. That’s what keeps me down.”

I replied: “No, it’s not. Who cares about confidence!!!”

I recently became friends with a wonderful person. I’ll call her Felicia.

She didn’t reach out to me. I reached out to her after exchanging a couple of emails through work.

And I did because I felt that person had so much value.

I wanted Felicia to be in my network (or better say, myself to be in her network!) and possibly become friends one day.

As we were chatting, Felicia told me she had recently started exploring new avenues in her life but there had always been something stopping her – her lack of confidence.

She seemed to believe that she had to do a great deal of work on building her confidence.

This is what I wrote to her and the reason I’m making my answer public is that I’ve been getting this “I lack confidence” type of thing a lot lately from the most capable, wonderful, amazing, exceptional, and worthy women.

I hope Felicia (not her real name) wouldn’t mind I’m making this public. I believe it’s my duty to share this with everyone here.

This is my reply to Felicia word by word.

My reply to Felicia

Felicia, I read your message very carefully and a few things stood out to me…

For now, I only want to focus only on one thing that’s important to me and this is probably some feedback for you from the outside world as your confidence has to do only with your inner world.

You’re saying that “it’s difficult to know you via a message or any dealing we had with work” but the fascinating thing is that I did manage to understand and feel who you really are… via 3-4 “transactional” work emails.

I did see your value as a person, your genuine commitment to serving others, your kindness and your worth!

And that’s why I rushed to find you here on FB because I thought… this person has WORTH, I should connect with Felicia! And not just connect but really get to know Felicia! That’s why I messaged you right after you accepted my friend request.

As you said, confidence goes up and down and I don’t think that you will ever get to a point when you’ll always feel confident.

So, if confidence is a volatile asset, why don’t you invest into who you really are, and see that investment grow as you navigate life?

Because I know you will always be kind and helpful to others, professional, caring and all these good things that you are. That’s the most valuable asset you have and will never change!

And if one day someone says: “Ohh Felicia is all that but she lacks confidence”, I’d say “That’s a psychopath!!! Felicia, please stay away from them!”

And if you said to me, I like all that, Angelos, it makes sense, but I still want to show up “confident”…

Well, when you stop thinking too much about that confidence thing… you end up showing more confident… if that’s what you want, if that matters…

Felicia, I think you’re focusing too much on this confidence thing, it’s not real, to be honest, you have immense value and I don’t have to put you under a microscope to confirm that.

It’s just fine being you, and if you’re YOU, you’re also confident… but who cares?

You don’t have to prove your confidence to anyone… including yourself.

You appeared very confident to me by the way! And you’re sharing your “lack of confidence” with me, someone you barely know. That’s really “confident” of yours, Felicia!

But still… I never thought I had to measure your confidence… I only wanted to connect with you because of who you were, not how confident you were.

I don’t think there is much work that needs to be done here with you! What do you think?

Why don’t you turn your focus on what you want to do in your life rather than creating an inexistent problem and then trying to fix it?

As a coach, I’d refuse to work with you on building your confidence! Haha!

I’d say, OK, Felicia, is there anything else here? What do you want to create today?

Let’s have fun, let’s create something beautiful today and at the end of the day, I guarantee you’ll certainly feel fulfilled, happy, accomplished and … oh yes, that one too… confident!

But who cares… at the end of the day, you wouldn’t care either…

~ To all women who became confident by being them and are now on a mission to empower other women to do so.