How to Teach Yourself to Trust Yourself9:48 AM Wednesday November 3, 2010  | Comments (81)

Last week I went to an evening to honor and advance the vision of the late Dr. Allan

Rosenfield, Dean of Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health for twenty two years.

Allan was a giant in global health, dedicated in particular to women's reproductive health

and rights.

There was a long slate of estimable speakers but as the evening wore on I began to

lose attention. Then Jerry Hoosen Coovadia, a Professor at the University of KwaZulu-

Natal, South Africa, stepped up to the lectern.

He looked at the audience, and, without fanfare, put aside his speech. "Most of what I

planned to say has already been said," he told us.

Then, instead of reading his prepared remarks, he spent a few minutes talking, off the

cuff, about Allan's uncommon ability to "see in the dark" — to see injustices that the rest

of us overlooked — and take action.

Of the many speeches that night, his talk, unscripted, simple, heartfelt, is the one that

affected me the most.

Jerry modeled what Allan lived: he saw in the dark. The evening didn't need another

eloquent, grandiose speech about the state of global health. Jerry let go of all his hard

preparation in favor of what he saw was best in the moment. His ability to notice the

need, pause, and spin on a dime was remarkable. It showed flexibility, presence, and

focus. But there's something deeper: it showed his trust in himself.

In last week's post, I shared how I over-worked, over-thought and over-prepared my

recent TEDx speech on learning.

Each time I created a new version, I sent it out to trusted friends — smart, generous,

insightful people — and asked for their advice and direction. Was it interesting enough?

Clear enough? Creative enough? Funny enough?

Yet each time they came back with their valuable, thoughtful feedback, I became a little

more lost. A little less sure of my message. My ideas. Myself.

It's not that I had a hard time hearing criticism. It's the opposite: I was too quick to

incorporate it. Too eager to please. Too willing to change in order to get the right

response.

In his poem "The Hero with One Face," David Wagoner writes:

I chose what I was told to choose:

They told me gently who I was...

I wait, and wonder what to learn...

O here, twice blind at being born."

Many of us have spent our lives listening to our parents, our teachers, our managers,

and our leaders. Choosing what we are told to choose. Being told gently who we are.

Molding ourselves to the feedback of others. Seeking approval. Reaching for

recognition.

There is good reason to learn from the wisdom of others. But there is also a cost: as we

shape ourselves to the desires, preferences, and expectations of others, we risk losing

ourselves. We can become frozen without their direction, unable to make our own

choices, lacking trust in our own insights. O here, twice blind at being born.

There is a simple remedy to the insecurity of being ourselves: stop asking.

Instead, take the time, and the quiet, to decide what you think. That is how we find the

part of ourselves we gave up. That is how we become powerful, clever, creative, and

insightful. That is how we gain our sight.

After becoming distracted by the feedback I was getting, after Eleanor suggested I was

trying too hard, after I ran out of time to make five more revisions, I finally did what Jerry

did: I put the speech aside and made very personal choices about what I wanted to

share.

How did I arrive at those choices? I looked through the thousands of words I had written

in preparation for the talk to find something I felt added my unique perspective to the

conversation about learning. It seems obvious to me now, but how could I have hoped

to find my unique perspective by asking others? Instead, I looked into the dark for what

others had overlooked.

This trusting of yourself is not just about writing a speech. It's about speaking in

meetings. It's about choosing projects to pursue. It's about advocating for budgets. It's

about having the courage to do work that moves you. Can you trust yourself enough to

follow your own impulses?

Once I decided to stop asking others what they thought about what I thought, I noticed

something interesting: I try harder when I'm not relying on others. I fix things I might

otherwise leave for others to fix. I work more diligently to ensure my perspective holds

together.

In the past, when I sent someone an article for comments, knowing it needed some

work, I was being lazy. And my laziness, enabled by the generosity of others, had the

side effect of reducing my faith in my abilities to work through the places I got stuck.

I am not suggesting we ignore feedback. It's useful to know how others react to our

work. After my complete rewrite, I performed the speech several times to different

audiences as practice.

But this time, I didn't ask them to assess my message. I asked them to assess my

delivery. What did they get from my talk? Did I convey my message in a way that

communicated my passion for it?

And when I finally gave my speech in Flint, MI, it felt clear, focused, and authentic.

It felt mine.