#100
Hello friend 👋🏻
I’m so excited to be sending you the 100th edition of this newsletter! 🎉
The first letter I sent out was “If Mondays Give You Anxiety, Read This”. I did a lot of positive self-talk before I could summon the courage to click “publish” on that post.
I wasn’t sure anyone would read it. Not sure if I even qualified to share my story.
I had to remind myself multiple times that the only goal I have for this newsletter was to hit 100 posts. I’d be glad if it were read, but that was out of my control. What was within my control was writing & publishing.
Yet I couldn’t bring myself to hit “publish.”
I started having flashbacks!
I could see everything as though I were watching a movie.
The church was ghost-quiet except, for a few pockets of laughter from the back of the building and the piercing eyes of my father screaming at me for embarrassing the family name.
My legs instantly became softer than cooked noodles. I had forgotten my lines in front of the entire church.
I have embarrassed myself and my family.
I was about 8 years old, but the memory is still so fresh.
The “publish” button felt like the microphone I had in my hand on that fateful day. Light yet heavier than Olumo Rock.
Somehow, I ended up not deleting the entire draft. To my surprise, it was read over 1,000 times by the following week!
Today, I am sending you my 100th love letter sponsored by requstory.com, a tool that helps you brainstorm ideas, draw process maps, and write user stories & do much more. Startup founders, Product Managers, Designers, and the like find Requstory super helpful.
For this special episode, I want to share with you the things I did (and still doing) to build & rebuild my confidence as a professional.
Before we go any further, here are the top 3 misconceptions about confidence:
Confident People are Outspoken
Not necessarily.
Donald Trump is a confident person but so is Mahatma Gandhi.
Confidence can be as loud as it can be quiet.
Confident People are Bold & Fearless
Sorry to be a spoiler but we are all afraid. The difference is that some choose to act despite being scared to their marrows.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” ~Mark Twain
Some People are Born Confident
I disagree.
Confidence is like a muscle.
A skill that needs to be developed.
Remember when you were learning to drive?
At first you were so scared. Even the sound of the radio distracted and scared you. As you continued your driving lesson, you got better at it. Today you drive and text— I don’t recommend but you get the point.
Same way you learned to drive you can learn to be confident. In this post I will share 3 practical tips on how to do just that.
Over the years, I looked at the field of sports to learn a thing or two about confidence. I can boil down everything I learned into these 3 key action points, in no particular order.
Let’s get started!
I Talk to Myself
Since we all talk to ourselves, we might as well use that time to say positive, encouraging things to ourselves.
A few years ago, I realised that I spoke to myself in the most brutal, mean way possible. At first, I thought I was only being “real”
Then it dawned on me that I said more mean things to myself than I said to my enemies.
I had to change that.
All the sports people I admired always encouraged themselves. They always said nice, inspiring things to themselves. When they say it long enough they’d believe it and we would be forced to believe them too.
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was” ~ Muhammad Ali
… and that is how the then 22-year old Ali beat the heaviest puncher at the time, Sonny Liston, to become the yongest heavy weight champion.
Around 2021, I started to try out positive affirmations for the first time. I like Ali a lot so I adopted “I am the greatest”
Unfortunately, I couldn’t convince myself that I was. So, I had to change it a bit. For the next 2 years, I said to myself “I am Good Enough” several times a day.
Before I write my to-do for the day or week, I would first write “I am Good Enough”. Almost any chance I get, I would remind myself that I was good enough.
This encouraged me to take on things/tasks I would have been uncomfortable with.
After a few small wins, I started telling myself that I was, actually, the best. And this time, I believed it a lot more than when I first attempted it.
“I am The Best!!!”
Say it out loud with me… “I am The Best!!!”
In summary, “You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind” ~ Joyce Meyer
I Train to be Confident
We have established that confidence is like a muscle.
And like all muscles, when you train them they grow bigger and stronger.
Corporate people are the only set of professionals who don’t train beyond their education. Even after graduating from music school, violinist continue to train. Footballers continue to train after turning pro. Tennis players, golfers, boxers… they all continue to train.
Corporate people? They become “experts” at their job and that means no more trainings. Unfortunately!
I started to train to be confident. That meant different things at different times. At first, it meant learning everything I could about my job, industry, tools of trade, etc. At some other time, it meant taking courses in communications or training on presentation and public speaking.
I used to record my meetings and rewatched them to see what I could improve on. I bet you, it wasn’t fun but you cannot improve without feedback.
Like sports people, you have to identify an area of your game that needs improvement and work on that.
For more on training and deliberate practice, I recommend the book “Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise” by K. Anders Ericsson. It made a huge impact on me.
Competence is the bedrock of confidence.
Master Your Body Language
The 55/38/7 Formula.
According to body language expert, Albert Mehrabian, our typical face-to-face conversation can be broken down into:
55% nonverbal,
38% vocal, and
7% words
Sports people know this. Before every race, you see Usain Bolt spread his arms and wide to do the “Lightening Bolt” gesture.
Boxers jump up and down in the ring.
Animals know this too. Gorillas spread themselves wide, beat their chest to show “power”.
But what do most professionals do? They close up. Too afraid to take up spaces.
Just like dogs know when you’re scared, people can tell from your body language when you’re not confident.
You must learn to take up spaces. Spread your arms. Chest out and hold your chin up.
Your handshakes must be firm.
When I started working on my body language, I watched this Ted Talk by Amy Cuddy titled “Your Body Language May Shape Who You Are” almost every morning. I highly recommend.
In summary…
Confidence is a muscle and like all muscles, they grow bigger and stronger with training.
Train to be confident.
Talk to yourself nicely.
Appear confident to be confident.
Thank you for supporting this newsletter.
If you’re feeling generous today, please, restack or share this post.
Until Next Week,
— ❤️ Azodo
You can reach me on:
I am the Best! Said it loud, typed it out 😊
Congratulations on your 100th newsletter! I just discovered your Substack and immediately subscribed. Wow, what a gem! I really love your analogy comparing corporate professionals to athletes and musicians who never stop training, even as pro. This was a light bulb moment for me. It’s a powerful reminder to keep honing our skills to build true confidence.
Thank you for sharing Azodo here’s to many more milestones!🥂