Confidence

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough” Albert Einstein

When tackling a problem, it is good to be confident in the approach taken to find a solution. There is however a point where confidence stops being beneficial. That point is when confidence encourages you to bluster forward despite the fact that you don’t really understand the situation.

People tend to associate lack of confidence with weakness and insecurity, but I would like to purpose a more accurate definition of lack of confidence. Lack of confidence is the skepticism that allows us to question the nature or reality.

• Is this really what is happening?

• Is this how things work?

There a 1,000,000 ways to make a situation worse and only a few that can make a situation better, so it is probably a better course of action to practice the skills and gain the understanding before acting on the things that really matter. Sometimes the consequence of a reaction is far more detrimental than the consequence of inaction would have been.

Elon Musk talks about his “first principles” approach to problem solving. And if you follow this approach, you break problems down into the most basic principles, or the facts that you are confident in.

Be confident, but be confident because you understand the situation.