There are moments in life that seem insignificant at the time, but forever change your trajectory. You don’t plan for these moments. In fact, you rarely see them coming. For me that first moment was an epiphany during a routine economics exam, when I was an 18-year-old freshman at Duke.
thanks Latham. Obv there are times when you need to learn certain skills as a pre-requisite, but I believe in the future, we'll see increased flexibility in how you acquire and demonstrate skills.
I love this article Sonny! Your story reminded me of the many times I behaved similarly as a young girl. Even as early as elementary school I would not do an assignment if I felt it was not aligned with my priorities. I remember my teachers calling home about it. I also just remembered that my mother actually never discouraged it. She reminded me that I needed to be respectful to my teachers of course, but allowed me the space to come up with my own path forward from whatever mess I had gotten myself into. She encouraged me to think, ok well that happened, so what’s the next move…? I ultimately became a dentists and entrepreneur as well. It sounds like Sue recognized your desire for control over your path and pointed you in the right direction. We were lucky to have those mentors!
I feel like immigrant parents and grandparents were so much more confident because they came from nothing, and they built everything for their kids. I don’t know if I agree with your thesis that confidence is the key skill that kids need. I used to fund social-emotional learning and I used to work with youth that had confidence and youth that didn’t have confidence, but it was resilience that kept them going, getting up after they got knocked down or knocked up, etc. It wasn’t confidence per se.
I appreciate your perspective! I think it depends on your definition of confidence.
I've been working full-time on this area to go deeper, and believe confidence is a skill measured by how you: 1. treat yourself (self-compassion), 2. see yourself (self-concept), and 3. believe in yourself (self-efficacy).
Each of these three areas can be practiced and improved upon, and are underlying skills for things like resilience (for example, you can't "pick yourself back up and try again" if you engage in negative self-talk, identify as a failure, and don't believe you can be successful).
what about the child in relation to the group or society? I wonder what is the relationship between confidence and narcissism. Very cool concept, hope to chat more about it!
It's a good point; confidence as I'm framing it isn't a zero-sum game.
Having self-compassion doesn't negate having compassion for others, just like believing in yourself doesn't mean you don't believe in others. In fact, there's typically a positive correlation between self-compassion / self-concept / self-efficacy and positive social impact. In other words, the most confident people are also often the most productive, valuable members of a group.
At the other end of the spectrum, narcissism and self-worth are only related at the surface. The former, however, is a personality disorder that's often correlated with insecurity or flawed self-concept (inadequate approval or excessive idealization, for example, where ideals and reality are not aligned).
I spit out my tea reading this: “If I’m paying for school, why do I have to take classes I don’t want to take?”
I wish I'd had the guts in college to recognize this. I suspect the Naval Academy wouldn't have reacted quite as well though.
Great story. Thanks for sharing.
thanks Latham. Obv there are times when you need to learn certain skills as a pre-requisite, but I believe in the future, we'll see increased flexibility in how you acquire and demonstrate skills.
I love this article Sonny! Your story reminded me of the many times I behaved similarly as a young girl. Even as early as elementary school I would not do an assignment if I felt it was not aligned with my priorities. I remember my teachers calling home about it. I also just remembered that my mother actually never discouraged it. She reminded me that I needed to be respectful to my teachers of course, but allowed me the space to come up with my own path forward from whatever mess I had gotten myself into. She encouraged me to think, ok well that happened, so what’s the next move…? I ultimately became a dentists and entrepreneur as well. It sounds like Sue recognized your desire for control over your path and pointed you in the right direction. We were lucky to have those mentors!
agreed! and I'm trying to do the same with my kids (including reminding them to be respectful even if the disagree with their teachers!)
I feel like immigrant parents and grandparents were so much more confident because they came from nothing, and they built everything for their kids. I don’t know if I agree with your thesis that confidence is the key skill that kids need. I used to fund social-emotional learning and I used to work with youth that had confidence and youth that didn’t have confidence, but it was resilience that kept them going, getting up after they got knocked down or knocked up, etc. It wasn’t confidence per se.
I appreciate your perspective! I think it depends on your definition of confidence.
I've been working full-time on this area to go deeper, and believe confidence is a skill measured by how you: 1. treat yourself (self-compassion), 2. see yourself (self-concept), and 3. believe in yourself (self-efficacy).
Each of these three areas can be practiced and improved upon, and are underlying skills for things like resilience (for example, you can't "pick yourself back up and try again" if you engage in negative self-talk, identify as a failure, and don't believe you can be successful).
what about the child in relation to the group or society? I wonder what is the relationship between confidence and narcissism. Very cool concept, hope to chat more about it!
It's a good point; confidence as I'm framing it isn't a zero-sum game.
Having self-compassion doesn't negate having compassion for others, just like believing in yourself doesn't mean you don't believe in others. In fact, there's typically a positive correlation between self-compassion / self-concept / self-efficacy and positive social impact. In other words, the most confident people are also often the most productive, valuable members of a group.
At the other end of the spectrum, narcissism and self-worth are only related at the surface. The former, however, is a personality disorder that's often correlated with insecurity or flawed self-concept (inadequate approval or excessive idealization, for example, where ideals and reality are not aligned).