Age 26
What I know now
This year helped me realize I need to work on my self-confidence (I don’t think this is necessarily a new realization to me but it’s definitely become clearer to me as the earth takes another spin around the sun). That’s why this year, you can read this article on Medium or watch the video recording of it here.
What I know now is that confidence doesn’t just come from mindset it also comes from repetition; at least that’s how it works for me.
How did I come to this? Well this year, like any other year, had it ups and downs. I was a speaker at a prominent engineering conference, but not without confronting the real fear of speaking in front of large audiences. I left a job I was terribly unhappy at to find myself at home in new workplace with a fresh perspective and new problems to solve; a true breath of fresh air, of course, not without a good handful of discouraging interviews at other companies in the months prior. I traveled to 4 new countries, was hustled for a cab ride in France and started my own business, a San Francisco coed basketball league — an experience that has been both exceptionally rewarding and equally challenging. All in all, I think most importantly, the basketball league helped create some important clarity for me. I’ll tell you how.
In September, I was interviewed by a basketball startup who wanted to highlight my story on why I started Golden City Sports for their company’s blog. It was a wonderful experience but while we were shooting it, I recognized how nervous and uncomfortable I felt. I didn’t feel very confident in myself and what I was going to say. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say? Or rather, I was nervous that what I wanted to say wasn’t going to come out the way I intended. Getting the message right is everything to me. This reminded me a lot of my experience at The Grace Hooper Conference. The speech I gave for this conference was on design critique — which I was already well versed in. Regardless, I practiced this speech until I had memorized it word for word. Now, I’m extremely confident in my ability to speak freely about this topic more so than I had ever been before. I had spent a siginifigant amount of time thinking about and speaking out louad about this topic with extensive repetition. I needed this type of repetition for Golden City Sports.
This year, I want to continue to work on my self confidence. I’m sure there are a lots of different ways to get there but I’ve decided that I’m going to try and record myself speaking more in order practice what I’m uncomfortable with. Observe how I communicate from the opposite perspective. That way, next time when I’m put on the spot, which takes many different forms, I will have already practiced, I will feel confident in what I have to say and I will know I’ve commnicated it in the way I intend it to.
Today, I can clearly see that my self-confidence has taken more than a few hits this year. I recognize it, accept it and am excited to keep on working on myself in order to work towards accomplishing what I really want to do with my time: to help people maximize their potential.
Until next year…
If you’d like to see what I learned last year, then check out: Age 25
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