😎 How I Cultivated Confidence

Good morning.

Thank you for reading and joining me on this adventure, week in and week out.

It’s been a fantastic year of personal growth, skill-building, and experiencing more of our incredible world (i.e., lots of travel).

My “year of consistency” or “streaking” has opened new doors, cultivated confidence, and fostered joy.

Progress has felt slow, but meaningful.

While I’m sometimes impatient (a foreign concept for me), I’ve repeatedly reminded myself that the best things take time and require more of us than we’d like.

Today, I’ll share what I’ve learned about confidence.

Let’s start.

— Gordon

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😎 How I Cultivated Confidence

Confidence has never been a strong suit of mine.

When my confidence is high, it’s similar to Anthony Edwards.

Standing tall, talking that shit, come and get you some, high. 😮‍💨

Unfortunately, my confidence comes and goes fast and rarely makes a cameo when I need it the most.

We could spend hours dissecting why some people have more confidence than others. I prefer to focus on what I can do to be who I want to be and get where I want to go rather than what may have happened in the past.

Confidence is cultivated through consistent action.

The more things you do for the first time, the wider variety of challenges you face and overcome, and the faster you learn from your mistakes, the more confidence you’ll have moving onward.

If you could use more strength in your strut, like me…

HERE’S HOW:

1. Choose To Be

2. Do 100 Reps

3. Know Great

Let’s dive deeper.

Step 1: Choose To Be

Step one and step two go hand-in-hand.

First, you choose to be the person you want to become.

Second, you do the things required to become that person.

Be. Do. Achieve.

People often think that once they achieve a certain level of success, they’ll begin doing what they should already be doing and will become who they desire to be.

Life doesn’t work that way. You have to make a decision, then do the work.

Deciding who you are (and will become) forms your identity, aligns it with your vision, and lays a foundation to build your confidence.

Step 2: Do 100 Reps

Knowing my confidence was fleeting, I learned to devour information on new topics to compensate. A solid foundation of understanding a topic provided a baseline level of confidence going into any venture.

This logic proved faulty, though, as it delayed action and experience.

No amount of knowledge, learning from others' experiences, or a mental library of best practices could provide what experience can.

That lack of experience created uncertainty—uncertainty that left my confidence shakier than a one-legged stool with no screws.

Over the past two years, I noticed a pattern among the most successful creators and entrepreneurs.

It takes at least 100 reps to clearly understand what you’re doing and begin to see some success.

YouTubers often see their channels begin to grow significantly after 100 videos.

Most successful channels post weekly, so that’s two years of dedication to your craft before you know whether it will be worth it. That’s real commitment.

Sure, some will pop off sooner. Maybe your first video goes viral.

Those are outliers and highly unlikely.

When you start, you don’t know what you don’t know, regardless of how much research you’ve done before you started.

Start sooner and do more reps faster.

Do. Track. Analyze. Iterate. Do again.

If two years feels too long, then post twice a week. Instead of 20 sales calls daily, make 100 sales calls daily.

You can’t skip the process but can work through it faster.

Do the work consistently, learn from your experiences, and your confidence will become unshakeable.

Step 3: Acknowledge Your Greatness

We each have something that sets us apart.

Our unique combination of traits, skills, and perspectives creates it.

YOU ARE GREAT. 🤩

Too often, we compare who we are to how we see others.

Remember that, in this case, perception isn’t reality. The thing that makes each of us great is balanced by something that sucks about us—the yin to our yang.

We tend to think that just because a person is an absolute rockstar in one aspect of their life, they are awesome in every way. We know that’s not true, but we still believe it for some strange reason, making us feel inferior.

Remember that we all have superpowers and kryptonite when you notice yourself feeling small.

Focus on your strengths and step into your greatness. 🦸

🥂 Tis’ The Season

Like last year, I’m taking the holiday season off to unplug, focus on family and friends, and recharge. I wish you and your loved ones the same.

You may hear from me in December, but most likely on January 2nd.

Thanks again for reading. I’m glad you’re here. 🙏

ONWARD TOGETHER.

Together with beehiiv 🐝

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