Learn: Paradox of confidence, personal values, Brené Brown

Read: 3 mins

Greetings from Austin,

This is the 90th weekly newsletter (no missed weeks). Have some big updates coming for you soon. 

But this newsletter is all about things you can use right now. Here are 3 goodies for you this week. 

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🤔 Paradox of Confidence 

I keep a swipe file of great ads and copywriting examples to study why they're so effective.

For example this ad headline: “Become the most interesting person in the room.”

Or, of course, one of the most successful ad campaigns of all time…"The most interesting man in the world."

Why is this “most interesting person” thing SO effective in ads? 

Well, it pulls yanks on a core emotional desire we all share.

Who wouldn’t want to be the most interesting person in the room (or world)? 

This persona would be oozing with confidence. And EVERYONE wants to be more confident. 

But just as one doesn’t wake up “fit,” there are necessary prerequisites to confidence (aka trait of the most interesting). Here is how it *actually* works.

Insert the 4 C’s of confidence: 

Commitment → Courage → Capability → Confidence

Take, for example, riding a bike.

• Commitment: “I’m going to learn to ride a bike”
• Courage: “Ah I’m scared, but I have my elbow pads, and I’m going for it”
• Capability: “Ohh, that wasn’t so bad. NOW I can ride a bike.”
• Confidence: “Look ma, no hands!”

Or a few other examples: 

So, paradoxically, confidence comes from our relationship with what we're NOT confident about. 

It’s our commitment to try something new and our courage to do it even when we suck at first.

As Nassim Taleb says, “It is a sign of weakness to avoid showing signs of weakness.”

Out of the 4 c’s, courage is the hardest one and where most people give up.

So our choice of WHAT we commit our courage towards is critical.

Here's how to keep it aligned. 👇

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​​🧭 Personal Values

Look, I get it. 

When I hear the word “values,” I think of companies posting random words on their website like “transparency” or “innovation” that mean nothing. 

But here’s the thing. When you replace those fluffy words with words (and emotions) that actually mean something to YOU... They become quite useful.

Like a personal GPS that you can reference for quick directions, it won't magically solve your problems or transport you, but it will help your navigation.

I recently updated my personal values into a simple acronym, HIRE, and used the following format. 

I started keeping personal values in 2019. They've changed along the way, and that's the point. They're like updates to our personal operating system. The coolest part is seeing how they impact us along the way.

A few years ago, I found myself in a pickle. I had my values set, but then I watched a TED talk about “adventure.” 

I thought oh man, I wish I was the adventure guy. I wish that was one of my core values. :( 

Then the lightbulb moment hit me…

These are MY personal values. I can change them at any point. So that day I added “Adventure” as a core value, which instantly added an extra pep in my step. Who knows, maybe that new value helped lead me to make the move to South America for 12 months...

Looking back now, I made the South America decision just a few months after updating my values here:

I now think of adventure as a subset of my “Energy” core value, but the point remains. We are in charge, and we make updates along the way.

What are your core values? (Hit reply and let me know.)

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🧵Tieing it together 

"Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them."

- Brené Brown 

In good health,

Mitchell

Ps. Want a quick overview of my process of how to choose values?

PPs. How do you Poupon?