Sources of Confidence: Part 1

DNA. Confidence, or lack thereof, at the most basic level is simply luck of the genetic draw. Hereditary, even. The book goes way in depth on the science behind confidence...which I can't begin to relate as efficiently as Kay and Shipman did... but suffice it to say, my mind was officially blown. Turns out, as a woman, I'm disadvantaged in the confidence arena. I may have suspected this based on personal experience, but I was surprised to see science back it up. It's like we are genetically engineered for lower confidence! Why?

1. We produce 52% less serotonin than our male colleagues. Serotonin is a "relax" hormone that let's us keep our cool. Or not.

2. Testosterone. Again, we have less, which makes us less likely to take risks. 

3. Neurons. More. At any given moment, women have 30% more neurons firing than the guys around us. Our minds are always active, causing us to overthink, overreact, over everything! Ugh how do we even get anything done sometimes?!

4. Funny thing called a cingulate gyrus. It tends to be larger in females. Kay and Shipman call this little brain part the "worrywart center". Bigger means more anxious. All that anxiety prevents us from stepping outside our comfort zone as often as we'd like. The less we do that, the more we hold ourselves back. 

I don't have the ability to test my levels and brain function, so I can't compare my results to other people. I had to start with the basics, though. And this isn't even half of it! (Read the book). Other sources of confidence in the book touch more personal topics. Prepare to dig deep next few blog posts!

Meet my Partner

The old saying goes, behind every great man there stands a great woman. My husband will tell you that I am his number one supporter, and likewise, he's mine. Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In devotes a chapter to the important role that a "partner", or supportive spouse, plays in a woman's success. She admits she could not be the leader she is today without her husband. Regardless of where my confidence comes from (to be discussed later) there's no way I could keep it up without his advice, prodding, and love. 

My confidence code quiz result is...

...higher than average confidence. Like no one saw that coming. When I was a teenager, I decided that I wanted my motto to be "no regrets". I don't want to look back on my life and think about ten million things I could have done differently.  I ask myself the following question whenever I am faced with a difficult decision: "which choice am I going to regret?" (Or, which choice will I regret more?) My husband knows this thought process all too well, and loves to share this story:

When we were looking to buy our first home, we toured two townhouses with kitchen windows that faced each other. He wanted the cheaper one that needed work. Naturally, I wanted the more expensive one - it was turn-key. I stood in our (now) kitchen window and pointed across the way, "if we buy that one, I'm going to look out that kitchen window and wonder what it would be like living over here. If we buy this one, I'm never going stand here wondering about living over there." His response was "sold".

No regrets has been my approach to most everything. And the results have been pretty fantastic. Seriously, how liberating is never giving a decision a second thought? To get there, though, you're gonna need a whole lot of confidence. You'll agree with your decision, but not everyone else will, and you have to be confident enough to stick with it.

Where does confidence come from? A woman at work asked me where I got mine and I couldn't answer. I thought back to my teen years when I adopted "no regrets". What made me brave enough to even consider that, let alone follow through with it? Katty Kay and Claire Shipman do a great job explaining the source of confidence in The Confidence Code. I'm not going to rewrite the book here because you should read it yourself. I will identify a few key points:

1. Healthy levels of self-esteem, optimism, self-efficacy, and importantly, self-compassion: recognizing that you are human, and everyone else is just like you. You probably don't dwell on/take pleasure in others' mistakes. So assuming the other person is equally human, they're not dwelling on yours. So get talking, making mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward. I'll talk about these more in future posts.

2. DNA. Some people are genetically predisposed to have more or less confidence. Women are behind the 8-ball on this even at birth, because, well, science. Specifically, we have a large "cingulate gyrus", less gray matter in our brains, 30% more nerves firing, and 50% less seratonin flowing. (See my prior post "Sources of Confidence Part 1")

3. Support. From your spouse, from others. This is huge. My prior posts "Meet my Partner" and "Our Sisters Hold Up Our Mirrors" talk about this.

Take the Confidence Quiz!

Spent some time in Salt Lake City, UT last week. Learned a lot about the LDS church, of which I admit I was/still am completely ignorant. Also got some time for self-reflection. All that flying got me through a bunch of books I've been sitting on for awhile, one of which is The Confidence Code by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. Before I get into my results, take the quiz for yourself: 

http://theconfidencecode.com/confidence-quiz/

Photo: Great Salt Lake, Salt Lake City, UT, taken from my airplane window.

The Rules of "Nice"

I'm reading this book "Reunion: the girls we used to be, the women we became." It's about the lives of women 25 years after graduation from an all-girls' private school in Manhattan. The author, Elizabeth Fishel, one of the girls, spent time with her (living) classmates after their reunion to learn how their sheltered upbringings and old-school education influenced their lives post-1968 -  a period of changing societal/gender norms. Fishel found that these women had to "unlearn" how to be "nice." She describes the rules of "nice" this way:

"Nice is the social graces, dressing for dinner, and putting others needs before your own. It's smiling to cover your fears, camouflage your pain... Nice is 'what would people think?' and 'one doesn't do that, does one?'..." She goes on, but you get the gist.

It's not 1968 anymore, but I see women playing nice all the time: "I'm sorry", "I feel bad", "I don't want him/her to hate me." Women are afraid to assert themselves or afraid to say what they really feel because the boss might not like it, or their direct reports might hate them. Women are afraid to acknowledge personal success among peers because they fear jealousy and gossip. Women who keep playing nice, then, must accept that when others make their opinions known freely, and share their successes, the others are giving management an opportunity to take notice. 

You know that saying, "Well behaved women rarely make history"? Totally true at the office-level: Women who play "nice" won't make partner, manager, or CEO. To unlearn "nice", Fishel illustrates, you have to realize it's ok to be "not nice". "Not nice" doesn't mean "mean". And you don't have to be "well-behaved" to still behave. Years, decades, of rules about being "nice" hammered into our consciences tells us that speaking out is unbecoming, that correcting someone when they err may be offensive, and humility is always better than boasting. These are fine rules for maintaining community with peers, but when it comes to leading them, the rules of "nice" can't apply. 

Challenge: try for one day - maybe even a whole week - to ignore the rules of "nice" and not worry about what others (mostly you) think. Give your opinions the floor every time it's open, give criticism (when it's due), and allow yourself praise for work well done (because it's absolutely warranted). Compare your observers' reactions to the reactions you expected, and measure your results. The worst outcome from this experience is that you retreat back to status quo. The best outcome is you earn new respect - not only from your observers, but from yourself.

For my girlfriends

I have a really fabulous group of girlfriends. It started with me and my best friend J. We met on our first day of our first job - cash register training at a local grocery store. I was 15, she was 16. Years later, days before Christmas, we found ourselves squeezed together on my couch with seven other women who took a short break from the busy holiday season to spend an evening together. Each had started a friendship with one of us, and wound up friends with both. We showed up exactly as we were - in work attire, yoga pants, old college sweatshirts, even a pair of reindeer antlers - drank wine, swapped gifts, asked advice, and shared updates on our work and love lives. At one point J and I looked at each other to acknowledge our shared brainwaves: "Look at what we built." When people talk about the value of friendship and the importance of other women in our lives, I think of that moment on my couch and feel blessed. I can't imagine a world without friendships like these.