The Podfather Chronicles – Chapter 3: “The Self-confidence Myth”

by Neel Desai, M.D. 

The Happy Doc Podfather Playlist

The School of Greatness Podcast: The Power of Infinite Mindset with Simon Sinek

You often hear about going inward to develop self-confidence. I recently heard Simon Sinek being interviewed by Lewis Howes on The School of Greatness podcast and he made me rethink all of this. In the episode, he talks about how the term “self-confidence” is a misnomer.  It implies that you go within yourself to find confidence. But if you break down the word “confidence”  into its’  basic parts you get – “con” – meaning “with” and “fidence” which comes from the root “fidre” or “to trust” as in fidelity or “to trust with (another party)” (As an aside, one of the core tenets of The Happy Doc is confelicity –  ” con “= “with”  plus “felicity” =  “happiness” — which means deriving intense happiness with others’ joy and good fortune). 

So why did Simon deduce “self-confidence” is a misnomer? His deduction was that building confidence was not from drawing upon some deep some inner tank of reserves. No, it was from building trust with others outside ourselves. Simon advocates allowing others to help us help ourselves and in so doing, develop more confidence in ourselves to overcome self-doubt. He uses the example of a close friend who was struggling with finding her own self-confidence. Simon told her some things he was genuinely struggling with, and in asking and allowing her to help him she developed great self-confidence in herself.

So how do you build self-confidence and  overcome self-doubt? By helping someone else overcome self-doubt. This also applies to us at The Happy Doc.

In one of the very first conversations I had with Taylor, I remember discussing this concept. Taylor was not a “happy doc” in training. He wanted to find other “happy docs” out there so they could help teach him the mindsets, habits, insights, actions, and lessons learned to become a “happy doc” himself.

In over 2.5 years of developing The Happy Doc, Taylor now continues to learn how to be the best version of a happy doc he was looking for in himself. He asked and allowed other people to inspire, enlighten, direct, and instill confidence in him from a community he created. His community compounds and continues to collectively create confidence in Taylor. Come on now, it wouldn’t be one of my posts without an amazing and awesome alliteration.

So what’s the lession? Acknowlege you need help first. And then ask for what you want to happen. The key is to get past our friction of thinking we don’t need help.

How often do we hear we need to ask for help yet are too prideful, resistant, and stubborn to ask for help? “Don’t tell me what to do! You’re not the boss of me!  I can take care of it myself!”  Reminds me of one of my nephews when he was like 3: “NO! ME DO IT! Zachey do it!! ME DO IT!!!”. 

I also remember the time my 8-year-old son was struggling, contorting, and writhing with just putting on some freakin’ dress clothes. You would have thought someone was twisting a dull knife blade into the kid’s spleen. Seriously. All over having to wear a dress shirt and pants for some family event. (Mind you, this is the same kid that will wear a pair of shorts without any shirt, shoes, or socks year round. He is literally Mowgli  from The Jungle Book. Give him a loin cloth and he is good to go.)

By all objective standards though, the boys were clearly struggling, and could have used a little guidance to head in the right direction.

So what can we learn from this? If you want to build your own self-confidence, look for the highest versions of yourselves in others you seek to emulate, go to them, ask questions, and learn from them. The only question is, can you have the courage and humility enough to do it? This is a big friction point, as many of us may worry we may be perceived as weak, incompetent, or “less than”. We tell ourselves we don’t need anyone. We can do it ourselves.

“Me do it.”

But the truth is that no one gets through life alone. We are born requiring help. At the end of our lives we require help. The most confident people in the world will tell you it came from having the humility and modesty to have so many help them get them to where they wanted to be and continue to go. And then they pay it forward to others and build even more self-confidence in themselves.

Developing sustained self-confidence is about having the humility, modesty, maturity, and self-awareness of knowing what you are struggling with. And then allowing others to develop your confidence in yourself. Confidence in yourself arises by allowing others in your community to help you help yourself. So you can either continue to 3-year-old “ME DO IT!!!” , or you can “Hey, I am really struggling with this. Can you help me and teach me what you did, so I might be able to apply it my space and get better?”  Choice is up to you.

If you want to learn more about the self-confidence misnomer, I am going to link the the pod episode I based this post on. And if you want to do some deeper dives, this is part of the The Happy Doc Podfather Playlist we created.

The School of Greatness Podcast: The Power of Infinite Mindset with Simon Sinek

The Happy Doc Podfather Playlist

Neel Desai is a family physician , father, active contributor to The Happy Doc, digital creative evangelist, and still not as funny or clever as he thinks he is. Follow him on Twitter/Instagram @drneel1973.