Confidence is overrated, and here's why, Redux

Roughly four years back, I wrote a blistering piece on how confidence is overrated. I stand by everything I said back then, but there are nuances to it. There are cases where projecting confidence actually helps your case, even if that confidence is not being backed by any substance. Confidence cannot be a substitute for actual substance. In that sense, it absolutely is overrated. I would rather be operated on by a cautious but extremely qualified surgeon who is constantly second-guessing himself (or herself) than some supremely confident upstart.

But in cases where the confidence is more important than actual skill, those are the cases where confidence is the skill.

John Cena

Someone recently told me told me that "John Cena speaks fluent Mandarin". Given that I had never heard this individual speak in anything but English, I was naturally skeptical - how would this guy even know what fluent Mandarin sounds like? Nevertheless, I had to check out this claim, and came across this video clip on YouTube. Somewhere in the middle, John Cena starts (or attempts) to speak Mandarin.

If anyone reading this blog is actually a Mandarin speaker, I apologize for what I just put you through. Yes, that was a long, long way from being "fluent". In fact, it was extremely hard for me to understand Cena's butchered version of Mandarin.

But as I watched on, my ears burning in agony, I noticed one other thing.

Despite his obvious deficiencies in the language, John Cena maintained a big smile as he uttered the gibberish they called "Mandarin". As he regaled the audience with his horrible Mandarin, the massive shit-eating grin on his face never wavered. He did not hesitate, or show any signs of being anything less than confident. And the non-Chinese crowd just ate it up.

This is the lesson I got from this. John Cena knew his Mandarin was crap. But it didn't matter. He wasn't there to teach linguistics, engage in a debate in Mandarin, or read a documentary. He was there to entertain, and by God, that's what he did. For the largely monolingual crowd (this being the USA, that's a safe assumption), it didn't matter either.

The confidence that John Cena projected, was the skill. Not his Mandarin, which was rubbish.

That job interview

I have mentioned before my habit of attending job interviews even though I have no intention of taking the job, just for the practice. I don't do it much these days, but there was a time I was doing it constantly.

At one such interview for the position of a Software Engineer, I went into the interview and did my thing (at this point I could pretty much do it with my eyes closed) and at the end of it, my interviewer asked me why I was so confident. He'd noted that my resume didn't showcase any skills or achievements that would have been special considering my years of work experience. There was nothing in it that warranted that air of confidence I projected. (If nothing else, I'm very honest in my resume and I flatly refuse to inflate anything).

Nerves of steel.

Shucks, I wasn't sure what to tell him. That his company was the tenth I had interviewed at this month alone? That I'd already been rejected by companies far bigger and more prestigious? That what he saw as supreme confidence was simply a case of me being inured to interview anxiety simply through constant exposure? And that since I did not lie on my (admittedly mediocre) resume, I felt completely able to back up everything on it?

Then he surprised me. He asked me if I would be open to a Managerial position instead. He explained that as a Software Engineer, I would probably be totally mediocre and he had many good candidates he was already considering. But what he needed was someone who could project the same confidence I did, to customers. Any technical work would be handed by the Software Engineers, so all he really needed was my confidence, and the actual substance would be provided by the technical team.

No, I didn't wind up working for him. By the time he came back to me, I was already working somewhere else.

But you see, this is another example of confidence actually being the skill rather than the supplement.

Don't get me wrong...

Confidence is still overrated. We cannot afford to think of confidence as a crutch for any deficiencies.

What confidence can do, is amplify what you're already capable of. It's a good complementary attribute. Conversely, lack of confidence can negatively affect your actual qualities.

What makes you confident?
T___T