Confidence and Guts

A few days ago Seth Godin posted the following piece on his blog:

Too many MBAs are sent into the world with bravado and enthusiasm and confidence.

The problem is that they also lack guts.

Guts is the willingness to lose. To be proven wrong, or to fail.

No one taught them guts in school. So much money at stake, so much focus on the numbers and on moving up the ladder, it never occurs to anyone to talk about the value of failure, of smart risk, of taking a leap when there are no guarantees.

It's easy to be confident when you have everything aligned, when the moment is perfect. It's also not particularly useful.

I agree with these sentiments, though I will add a couple. First, I think “MBAs” could easily be replaced with “people” (in general). Obviously not all people enter adult life with “bravado and enthusiasm and confidence.” But even if you don't, what Seth says is worthy of consideration. Second, his understanding of the word confidence seems to be more narrow than my own. This may be a little “nit-picky” on my part, but Seth appears to be referencing what I would call a “lower-level” aspect of confidence. That is, equating confidence with mere faith in oneself and one's abilities. While he is right to use the word in this way, I would go a step further. In my view, confidence presupposes a complete understanding of failure and adversity, and as such I would say that confidence is more qualified, that is, it would by definition include what Seth calls “guts.”

Guts, which he rightly defines as “the willingness to lose, to be proven wrong, or to fail,” are an essential part of life. In other words, if you are not willing to take risks—to lose, be proven wrong, or fail—you probably won't do a whole lot. This is good advice. It is also an essential characteristic of true confidence.

The Confidence Formula

The following formula appears in Lesson XI: Confidence and Humility:

Hard Work → Progress → Confidence

Though this formula has been briefly touched upon in the book, I will add some further clarifications and comments at this time.

The proposition “hard work” starts us off, but what exactly does “hard work” refer to? It should be said that one of the primary aims of Lesson XI: Confidence and Humility is to illustrate the absolute importance of the “complete understanding” of the ten lessons previous it. The concept of “complete understanding” is defined in the Lexicon as the ability “to know or understand something on an intellectual and functional basis.” This idea was first presented in the Introduction and thus finds it's consummation in the eleventh lesson. Hence, it is because our goal is not merely the intellectual, but also the functional understanding of the first ten lessons, that we are better able to identify the concept of “hard work.” Here, “hard work” essentially refers to the actions necessary in order to functionally understand the first ten lessons. In other words, it refers to the work that must be done consistently in order to functionally apply what we have intellectually learned. The word “hard” is used to emphasize that though the lessons are relatively simple, they may not necessarily be easy to apply or integrate. As we have seen, it is one thing to intellectually understand something, and it is quite another to incorporate it into our everyday life.

The “hard work” that is done consistently over time which is necessary to functionally understand the first ten lessons brings us to “progress,” the next step in our formula. Progress, whether internal or external, is the natural result of consistent hard work. Internal progress should be understood as “progress in thought or act,” while external progress pertains to progress in reaching an extrinsic goal of some sort. Through working to apply and incorporate the first ten lessons we will eventually begin to see progress. Such results may not show up immediately, nor be ostensibly large, but neither should this properly surprise us, especially considering what is said in Lesson VII: Failure and Adversity. After all, even small progress is progress.

Visible progress—whether seen in our personal selves or in our external circumstances—in turn, validates our hard work and reveals to us a glimpse of our potential. This glimpse, which may begin as a very faint and miniscule spark, will, over time—and through our continued efforts—begin to grow, and as our understanding of our potential grows and expands, so too does our confidence and faith in our abilities. Confidence, as it is said in the Introduction, stems from our capacity to acknowledge and understand the reality of human potential. But it specifically the acknowledgment and understanding of our own potential, which can result in nothing less than a genuine state of confidence on our part.

Between Two Extremes

Perhaps a better understanding of the nature of genuine confidence may be had from analyzing an aspect of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, in which he discusses the concept of virtue.

According to Aristotle, a virtue exists as the mean between two extremes. For instance, temperance would be defined as the mean between the deficiency and excess of a pleasure, such as (say) consuming alcohol. Though there is nothing wrong with consuming alcohol in itself, the excess—in Aristotle's view—would be drunkenness, while the deficiency would be abstaining from alcohol consumption altogether. Thus, the virtue of temperance is the center point, the mean, or the “balance,” between two extremes (drunkenness and abstinence) of “the pleasure of consuming alcohol.”

In the same way, genuine confidence can also be understood as the mean between two extremes. Namely, between an extreme state of pride and an extreme state of humility. I use the phrase “an extreme state of” to illustrate the severity of that which I am referring. An extreme state of pride, for example, would be an attitude characterized by arrogance, vanity, or conceit. i.e., a general feeling of superiority over one's contemporaries. On the other hand, an extreme state of humility would be an attitude of inferiority or worthlessness in comparison to others. It naturally follows that genuine confidence is the mean or “balance” between these two extremes.

Without well ordered self-love (pride) a person becomes a worm. But by the same token, without an awareness of one's limits and shortcomings (humility), a person becomes an egomaniac. Neither extreme is desirable in any form whatsoever.

As such, it is the mean or “balance” which our sights should be set upon.