In the pursuit of your goals, your dreams, a successful career, or anything like that in which the outcome is not dependent on you alone\u2014you have to get someone to greenlight your idea, hire you, promote you, follow you on social media or whatever\u2014the age-old question is it better to be super confident or take the modest approach?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay, so maybe that\u2019s not the age-old question, just wanted to add a little drama to my intro. It is, however, a question that I sometimes grapple with \u2013 like which is more socially acceptable, will garner more respect, or piss less people off?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently I was watching old clips of \u201cAmerican Idol,\u201d which I do from time to time, because that show really did have some talented people grace its stage. And I watched this one person, (who shall remain nameless, only because I think naming them would be sort of a distraction. It\u2019s not so important who they are as what they did.) an American Idol contestant, perform with an actual well-known singer who\u2019s been in the game for a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, I don\u2019t know, but the way this person carried themselves during their set with the professional singer was a bit off-putting for me. They showed little to no deference, almost tried to out sing the celebrity a bit. Even when there\u2019s two bonafided stars performing on a stage together, they usually have some chemistry: one holds back at certain times to let the other shine and vice-versa, they look at each other from time to time while singing. But to me, there were times, when this American Idol contestant was acting like they were onstage by themselves. To be fair, they didn\u2019t do this the whole time. There were times in the set when they did acknowledge their partner, but overall I sensed that this person felt that this was their time to shine, they were going to milk this American Idol thing for all it had to give, and seize the opportunity, celebrity singing partner be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While my initial reaction was that I found their behavior to be a bit cringeworthy, after further consideration I understood. I mean it\u2019s a dog-eat-dog world out there. So often an \u201cyou only get one shot\u201d mentality out there. And if you are fortunate enough to get a rare opportunity to showcase your talent in front of the world, I understand the inclination to take it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not a fan of modesty. I\u2019m defining modesty as people who downplay how great they think they are in an effort not to appear arrogant. Like maybe they wrote a song, and they think the song is the best thing they ever heard, but when they get in front of people they be like, \u201coh I just wrote a little something, nothing special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate shit like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They do it so that you can be the one to tell them they\u2019re great. It\u2019s a backwards way of fishing for compliments. Now obviously some people do this out of insecurity, but I\u2019m not talking about them. I\u2019m talking about the ones who actually think that whatever they\u2019re criticizing is actually good, yet they don\u2019t want to be the one to say it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said that to say, I can make a case for the argument that it\u2019s better to talk yo shit. It\u2019s better to showboat if you feel, as long as it\u2019s about you just doing you, and it\u2019s without malicious intent. Because the way I see it, if you get out-of-hand (and you probably will), life has a way of humbling you. Life has a way of putting you in your place so that you learn how to temper that bravado, when to turn it up and when to calm it down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides, I think you can\u2019t always depend on someone giving you a compliment after you put yourself down. Sooner or later, you are going to run into someone who agrees with you, or even pretends to agree with you. One day you\u2019re going to say something you love and worked hard on is nothing special and somebody is not only going to agree with you, but they\u2019ll take it even further and harp on how bad they think it is. Then what do you do? Do you keep up the act? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then again, I guess the answer is as varied as the situations and circumstances in which the option to be overconfident or modest arises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just something that was on my mind.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the pursuit of your goals, your dreams, a successful career, or anything like that in which the outcome is not dependent on you alone\u2014you have to get someone to greenlight your idea, hire you, promote you, follow you on…<\/p>\n