On Discomfort & Confidence

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Pressure is a privilege - it only comes to those who earn it. - Billy Jean King

Dear Daughters,

I know you have enjoyed quotes from 20th century American poet Robert Frost, so I wanted to share another quote attributed to him: “The best way out is always through.”

Frost, who worked farms in rural New Hampshire over various stages of his life, was curious about the deeper meanings behind everyday life and choices. He saw obstacles as inevitable facets of life and the confronting and navigating of them as golden opportunities to develop character.

Which brings me to the topic of confidence.

As you may have guessed, the best building blocks to create a citadel of confidence are of the sort hard things that Frost alluded to in his poetry: challenges, obstacles and tough choices.

Being able to embrace those building blocks without running away from the discomfort that you feel when you think about them or when you face them or when you manage them, is what builds confidence. Running away from mental unease may make you feel good at first, but that feeling is short-lived.

For what we thrive upon is confidence. The more someone chooses to deftly handle and engineer discomfort to their advantage, the more they grow confidence and the more they thrive.

So should we see hard things as gifts? I certainly think so.

Deciding to do hard things and to gracefully manage hard things that come our way makes us more confident. It’s that simple.

For many such as Frost, hard things may be involuntarily placed in front of them: financial hardships, health troubles or struggles to meet basic needs.

For others, those things may include voluntarily choosing to take harder paths, knowing that by doing so, they’ll get one step closer to becoming a better expressed and actualized version of themselves. People like Kobe Bryant and Teddy and Eleanor Roosevelt come to mind.

In fact, many of those who have lived highly confident and fulfilling lives, have had the opportunity to deal with both - involuntary and voluntary hard things. They found ways to gracefully, and often joyfully, manage the unease (I talk about this in another letter.)

In the end, as Frost noted, the best way out is through. Saying “yes” to opportunities that make you feel nervous; taking lesser-known paths that may you feel uneasy; stepping inside the arena knowing you will be challenged to level up - these are all decisions that move you through to an exit. Invariably, that exit will gift you with what we humans so prize: confidence.

As you move through life, you will notice people - they will be rare, mind you - who behave with admirable confidence. Not with ego, but with a quiet, formidable confidence. A kind of confidence that makes them delightfully attractive. When you encounter those people, know that they have spent a great deal of time building it. The respect they receive is well-deserved.

Let their confidence inspire you to continually and routinely build and hone yours.

Others around you may be stagnating or dulled by a lack of confidence. You may notice they’re hesitant about their next move or crippled by self-doubt or the opinions of others, unable to take the next hard step that’s necessary for them to grow as a professional, an entrepreneur, an athlete, a spouse or a leader. It could happen to people at age 20 or age 60 or anywhere in between.

If you care for them and they’re the kind of people that are open to advice, let them know, gently, that what they are seeking cannot be found in a life of comfort. Let them know that it is the building of confidence that they’re likely missing. And by doing hard things, they can build it once more.

Love,

Me

p.s. Robert Frost’s work is worth indulging in. I have attached a few of his most popular and notable poems here.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44260/birches

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42891/stopping-by-woods-on-a-snowy-evening

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