In the opening to the movie Match Point the main character says "I'd rather be lucky than good". He then goes on later to shag Scarlett Johansson which backs his point up largely. Although he also does some very bad stuff so maybe we should leave it there.
Well I would rather be confident than good. I mean I want to be good too, but however skillful you are, having confidence lets you do something at the peak of your ability and lacking it drags you down to way below your actual skill level.
Whether it's snowboarding, going for a job, talking to a girl or standing up in front of a crowd and giving a presentation confidence is about the most important thing you can have, closely followed by preparation. The two are often closely related as doing preparation often gives confidence.
Because I am quite shy around girls, I do some preparation normally before phoning them. I run through a script in my head "Hi, this is Adrian the guy you met at Bob party, How are you, How was your weekend ...". I sometimes write down a list of points to talk about. Should I panic and their is an uncomfortable silence, and just glance down at the list and grab a point and have something to say. I may also write down a list of places to go or things to do, should the conversation get to that point.
It's not that I need my notes to talk, but by thinking about what I am going to say before hand, it gives me the confidence to actually make the call. And phoning a girl for the first time is about one of the most nerve wracking things you can ask me to do. That's why I am better on the net or over text. It's my territory and I have the mask of the medium. I can be confidence.
Snowboarding is another example. When we were out on the slopes three weeks ago, I really struggled to get along this long narrow traverse, banked by a vertical drop on the one side. Every time I picked up to much speed, I slowed down, as I was worried I couldn't control myself and go off the cliff. But then I didn't have enough speed to get along the traverse and it was a frustrating painful start to every morning.
However later on a very wide slope, I was carving perfectly fine, but using up less of the slope than there was on the traverse. So when their was this nice wide slope, I could carve in this small space because the wideness of the slope gave me the confidence that I could sort it out if something went wrong. But the fear of the cliff on the narrow slope took away that confidence. So although I could carve in the space given, it was confidence that let me do it or help me back not skill.
Confidence is almost like a magic superhero power. With it you can leap tall buildings. Without it, it feels like you can't get over a speedhump.
I need confidence more than anything. I know it comes from within, and I just have to keep telling myself "I am the man" "I can do it" "I am the fucking bomb" "This is mine" "I am the man"
With confidence I have my best chance at success. Without it I can only fail.
1. Jack
But if I could only be one or the other, I’d choose good over confident. The world is quite full enough of all those empty vessels that spawned the popular idiom.
2. Adrian
Idiom? I made that up for the post.
And if I am good but not confidant, I perform worse than if I am confidant, but not all that good. Lack of confidence is more detrimental to me doing well, than lack of skill.
I would rather be an empty vessel that does well, than a full vessel that sits on a shelf with no confidence to do anything.
Fortunately it’s not an either or proposition, and normally when you know your stuff, you are confidant, but what worse shame than to fail, not because you lack the skill, but because you lack the confidence to show you have the skill.
3. Fer
Vertical drop? Slight exaggeration.
4. Adrian
Not really, the drop was steep enough for me really really not to want to go over it.
5. Clair
Ah, confidence would be a really nice thing to have. Shame you can’t buy it in the shops.
6. Destructor
I find the ‘scripted calls’ concept hilarious. Is it all like:
“Hey, hi, how are you?”
“I’m good, how are you?”
“How did that project you told me about work out?”
“Oh, really well, funny story actually…”
“Did you see Lost last night?”
“Wait, I have to tell you my funny story…”
“Did I mention I just bought a new car?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I like horses. Do you like horses?”
“What the hell?”
“Do you want to go out next week?”
7. Adrian
It’s more a starting point, and a place to come back to when their is a “shit I don’t know what to say” silence.
Think of it more like a comedian doing a routine, and going off on tangents. If the tangents and the heckling is funny he goes with it, but if it dries up he comes back to his routine.
Incidentally I’ve pre-scripted my calls since I was about 16.
8. nat
erm….’vertical drop’ and ‘cliff’? are you talking about the practically green run with a gentle slope off the edge?!?
9. Adrian
I didn’t see you or anyone who is very skilled else skiing down it. If it was so gentle, why did you lot not ski down it?
It was the drop along side the long traverse. And it was a drop, that would have carried me very fast down into a tree or ravine and broken something.
Anyway it doesn’t really matter if it was a cliff into a ravine, or just a steep drop or even something you could ski down. It wasn’t something I could ski down, nor was landing up at the bottom of it, far away from the actual slopes with a broken leg all that appealing idea.
10. matthew
If you were confident, but not good, you quite probably would have tried to go along this narrow traverse much faster, probably resulting in several broken limbs and bruised pride. But you still say you’d rather be confident than good? I’d rather be good and intelligent, knowing my weaknesses, than confident and stupid.
11. Jack
Big Brother contestants is what you get when you choose confidence over good.
12. Tyrannize
I agree with Adrian on most of this, I had better considering that I place the majority of where I am today on confidence and belief over skill and knowledge. I am continously surprised that I am evaluated highly by people when in reality I know so little.
As for the Traverse….it was mighty steep down the side and I didn’t want to fall down there.
13. Fer
If it was so gentle, why did you lot not ski down it?
Perhaps because we didn’t want to have to wait for the rest of you wimps (mostly walking) along the traverse any longer than we already had to?
14. Adrian
It’s all very easy to talk when you have been doing something for many many years. If I’m a wimp then strap on a snowboard (or anything you haven’t been doing for orders of magnitude longer than me), and tackle that traverse.
Anyway the point of this post is about confidence, and not about whether the slope was doable. Even the point about snowboarding was that on a wider (and even steeper) slope I could handle it, but on the narrow traverse, I didn’t have the confidence to do the exact same thing, because of the worry the edge of the slope gave me.
If you want to wind me up about the slope, do that in person, as it’s now going a off topic.
15. Destructor
Think of it more like a comedian doing a routine, and going off on tangents.
Yes I said I found the concept hilarius.
It was the drop along side the long traverse. And it was a drop, that would have carried me very fast down into a tree or ravine and broken something.
I’m sure if you had felt yourself losing control you could have always, oh, I don’t know, driven directly into the wall on the other side of the path? Oh yeah…
If you want to wind me up about the slope, do that in person
Okay!
16. Ian
I did once read a quote which read, “Confidence is the best predictor of success.”
Someone should do a study on that.
17. tucola
Mate, I reckon there’s a lot of truth to what you say here.
What people accomplish seems often to be directly proportional to what they have the chutzpah to think they have the right to attempt. Anyway, I don’t believe that the people of the world can be organised into league tables from 1 to 6.5 billion based upon how “good” they are each going to be at any specific thing. Most people are potentially good enough at quite a lot of things. Confidence is absolutely key to what people achieve (+ vision +focus +determination?)
18. bezwick
Aaaah that treacherous traverse, so gentle it wasn;t even a green run, so wide vanessa feltz and her family could have strolled down it hand in hand. I think the true reason why Team A did not ski down it was simply that it would take us IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. Hence why we were traversing. I only wimped out on one thing all holiday, and that involved nappies.
That said, these days I don’t find anything more scary than going down a flight of stairs. I am selling up, and buying a bungalow, or at least a flat with one of those granny stair lifts.
And finally, in the words of Mr Albarn, as recited by Mr Daniels “Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as …… PARK LIFE”
19. Destructor
Confidence schmofidence. Success in life is determined entirely on one’s height! I would trade both my boundless confidence and my remarkable aptitude for everything I set my mind to in exchange for a few extra feet of height, to tower over all of you! Bwhahahahaha!