Cultivating Confidence

(Picture from the National Photo Company Collection)

Cultivating Confidence: 3 first steps to staying centred and strong

I survived 20 years in a business that is often described as “brutal” because of fierce competition, long hours, few holidays and constant judgment: television news. From an entry level job as a tape-loader, I worked my way up to an anchor seat in a top 10 market. Maaike had her trial by fire in another fiercely competitive world: being an opera singer where the genre is still central to the culture - Europe.  

Confidence was critical to our success.

However, if we allowed it, our confidence could have been shaken to the core, daily - by harsh critiques, angry emails, hiring and firing based on a subjective standards of “look” or “presence”,  instead of talent and work ethic...you name the feedback, we were vulnerable to it.

Without even knowing what to call it, we both figured out a formula to stay strong in the midst of the “storm”: cultivating confidence. It took trial and error, but we determined the best steps to success, a way to believe in ourselves and our ability to succeed.

Step one: Hold on tight to innate talents

We played to our strengths - the talents we knew we could call on 24/7, without question. Those are your anchors in a storm. And we didn’t coast - we worked hard to keep our talents sharpened. For some, however, just recognizing and appreciating their innate talents is a challenge.

We’ve worked with a midwife who dismissed her outstanding ability to seamlessly anticipate her clients’ and their families’ needs as simply “caretaking” - something she assumed anyone could do. We had to persuade a successful businessman, self-conscious about not having a University degree, that being a “self-made” businessman was a true strength he could rely on to mentor others.

It’s not just about knowing your strengths but also your weaknesses. We all have them. When Maaike and I finally realized, after trying for decades, that we couldn’t turn them into strengths, we brought our weaknesses to a manageable level and learned to work around them.

We call it Minding the Gap: managing expectations and relying on external resources to fill in the gaps that matter most.

Step two: Remain true to your core values

Contribution and creativity are values Maaike and I both share, and we are grateful we could make them our focus for many years.

However, when pushed by employers or circumstances year after year, to override another value very close to our hearts -  taking care of our families - we knew it was time to resolve that inner conflict.

How many employees wake up one day and realise what they do violates their values? It may not start that way, but as values shift in order of importance, sometimes you need to choose which value takes top priority at a particular time in your life. After identifying it, it may not always be easy to step right into another job that fits your new alignment - but awareness is always the first step.

Step three: Re-assess, recalibrate and refocus

Because value priorities do shift, always make sure to re-assess. When we felt out of alignment, it was a cue to make a change. Independently we each came to the same conclusion:  find a new professional niche that fit our strengths and passions and then upskill to be able to fill that niche. That recalibration helped us re-set goals and refocus on the best way to achieve them.

This third step may seem obvious but it can require courage. I retired from news, eyes focused on my future. I started a new life adventure by moving to New Zealand, sight unseen, where my husband had a new job. I decided to figure out what I'd do once we got here. For Maaike, the journey was similar. She abandoned her opera singing career and upskilled to follow another passion: guiding others - as a coach and a trainer.

These changes didn’t happen overnight and they took courage. We relied on our deeply rooted knowledge of our strengths, weaknesses and values to keep us moving forward.

When we first met, and compared our stories, we felt compelled to go one step further, and combine the skill sets we’d mastered. We created a company to help others do what we had done: build a strong, authentic foundation, aligned with personal and professional goals. To make sure our outside matched our inside.

We called our company Personal Branz (with a nod to our new home - the “NZ” at the end).

We know that today, the phrase Personal Brand is often considered nothing more than a marketing tool, used by people who want to sell themselves - persuading others to buy what they have to offer. But we believe a Personal Brand can be used to do something far more fundamental and internal: to provide not just an anchor but also a compass, both to inform the choices we make - personal life choices with compatible business choices. And it can help us stay strong, centred and confident when life knocks us off balance.

In other words, a Personal Brand helps cultivate confidence.

These first three steps require introspection, input from people you know and trust and a consistent effort. You'll be stronger for doing it. However, your confidence still will be tested. In the next three steps, I’ll clarify the challenges and identify tools to conquer them.