Do you lack confidence as a leader? Think you’re the only one who feels this way? That’s a bad place to be mentally because the feeling of isolation further erodes your confidence and makes the situation worse.
Ever had that experience or is it just me?
If you have, I want to help because I’ve been there.
So, if you get nothing else from this post, take this with you. I’m a leader. I assume you’re a leader. And, at times, we both lack confidence.
You are not alone as you face this challenge and neither am I. I’m right there with you.
So, there are at least two of us in the world. But, it’s not just us.
The reality is all leaders lack confidence at times, even highly successful ones.
To support my position, I want to introduce you to two women who inspired and encouraged me with their recent conversation. I’ll share some key takeaways so you too can be equipped to be a better leader through their wisdom.
Oh, and by the way, they are both highly successful entrepreneurs. And, they too lack confidence.
Even highly successful people sometimes lack confidence
It’s one thing for the two of us to say we lack confidence, but when someone who has influenced thousands, probably even millions of lives, makes that statement, it gets my attention.
That was the case with a podcast episode I listened to recently.
A valuable podcast episode for leaders who lack confidence
This is the podcast that caught my attention.
Amy Porterfield
I knew quite a bit about Amy Porterfield from listening to her podcast. And, I had heard Tom Bilyeu, Lisa’s husband, on this Entreleadership podcast episode, but I didn’t know as much of her story.
I was curious what these two business leaders had to say about confidence.
I wasn’t surprised Amy Porterfield had a guest on to talk about this topic. Listen to her podcast once and you’ll hear her admit confidence is something she’s had to address.
Here’s what Amy says about herself in the introduction to her podcast.
I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business. But it wasn’t all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget, and the time to focus on growing my small–but–mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you’ll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream.
Amy Porterfield in the introduction to her podcast, Online Marketing Made Easy
Even if you’ve never heard of Amy Porterfield, you know from her introduction that she doesn’t let a lack of confidence stop her. And, neither does Lisa Bilyeu.
Lisa Bilyeu
Never heard of Lisa Bilyeu? Maybe you don’t know her name, but if you like Quest protein bars, you can thank Lisa and her husband, Tom.
As Amy describes in the podcast introduction “Lisa is the co-founder of Quest Nutrition, and without any prior entrepreneurial experience, she helped grow the company by 57 thousand percent — that’s 82.6 million dollars in revenue — in just three years.
Lisa and her husband, Tom Bilyeu, have gone on to sell Quest Nutrition, a protein bar company, and have built a successful media company called, Impact Theory and Women of Impact.”
I encourage you learn more about Women of Impact. With this headline from their website, it’s sure to be a valuable resource for both men and women leading with kindness and confidence.
EMPOWERING YOU AND ALL WOMEN TO RECOGNIZE THAT YOU REALLY CAN BECOME THE HERO OF YOUR OWN LIFE.
Two impressive leaders who lack confidence and succeed anyway
Quest Nutrition sold in 2019 for 1 billion dollars. Yes, with a “B”.
And, as Amy says in her podcast introduction, she’s the “CEO of a multi-seven figure business.” If you’re not good with numbers, that’s a multi-million dollar business. Not with a “B”, but still impressive and growing.
Despite the level of success they’ve each had, Lisa made this comment that caused Amy to reply with an “Amen, sister!”
I lack confidence in everything I start.
Lisa Bilyeu
Wow. That’s comforting to know.
When we lack confidence, we are not only not alone, but we are in a group of outstanding leaders doing impressive work.
Even when faced with feelings of inadequacy and lack of confidence, these two women figured out how to achieve amazing financial success and change countless people’s lives for the better.
What are their secrets?
Here’s what they do when they lack confidence
Thankfully, through their conversation, they share what they know to help other leaders like us know what to do when we lack confidence.
Here are a few tips they share in their conversation.
Believe you can figure it out
Lisa encourages us, when faced with something we don’t know how to do, to simply believe we can learn how to do it.
We don’t (and shouldn’t) have any confidence that we can do something we’ve never done before.
But, if we believe we can figure it out, through teaching ourselves or getting more formal training, we can have confidence in knowing we will be able to do something in the future even if we can’t do it right now.
Embrace the reality that you will make mistakes
We all want to be perfect, or at least near perfect, right from the start. But, Amy and Lisa, remind us that this just doesn’t happen.
Just like we don’t expect a baby to run a marathon, we shouldn’t expect a leader (including ourselves) doing something new to get it exactly right the first time.
We need to keep getting up and taking the next step when we fall down. Just like a baby learning to walk
Learn from other leaders
Lisa encourages leaders who lack confidence to learn from others who have already done what we’re trying to do.
Amy highlights Patrick Lencioni as one of her favorite authors. If you’re regular reader of this blog, you know I share Amy’s respect for him. I wrote a series of posts on his exceptional book The Ideal Team Player [affiliate link]. I also created a free guide so you can quickly and easily get the most out of the series.
Click here to get a free guide to The Ideal Team Player Blog series
Invite and accept honest feedback
Lisa explained how she and Tom shipped free bars to start their company. With each bar, they included a note that said this.
“Here are some free samples. If you like us, please talk about us. If you don’t like us, please talk about us. All we want to know is the truth.”
That invitation to know the truth takes courage and thick skin because honest feedback will not always be positive.
However, even in negative comments we can learn something and improve.
Negative comments sting and can wreck our confidence. But, if we’re ready for them and get over our ego to see what is actually true, we will be better, more confident leaders.
And so many more tips
This podcast was packed with many, many more lessons. Lisa and Amy even share advice on building a strong marriage and working with your spouse.
This podcast is definitely worth the time to listen and learn from two women who have lacked, then built, confidence in many areas of their lives. They’ve done it using the techniques they freely share with us.
The biggest takeaway
To wrap up this post, I’m going to share Amy’s words in describing her biggest takeaway from the podcast instead.
A lot of times, … so many of you… will tell me, “I struggle with confidence,” and it’s like you’re supposed to have it. But you’re just starting out. You have no idea what you’re doing. You’re just getting going on this journey. You’re in your first few years, and you’re like, “I really need to get more confidence. That’s one of my biggest struggles.” What if we just owned it? and we said, “Of course, I don’t have a lot of confidence just yet. I’m figuring this out. So anything I’m new at, I don’t have a lot of confidence, that’s going to take time.”? And then you just ease into it. And as you take action, the confidence starts to build.
Amy Porterfield
That my friends, is great advice for all of us who lack confidence. I’m taking it to heart and I hope you do too.
Let’s lead with kindess and confidence.
Greg
Discussion Questions
- What is your biggest barrier to being confident when leading a team?
- If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing to give yourself more confidence, what would you change?
I’m interested to know how you put this into practice in your life. Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.
Confidence can be a struggle for many at different stages. It was especially challenging for me!
We often see others, their accomplishments, and feel inadequate. We are scripted to compete and compare, and that critical “inner judge” can stop us from moving forward and living out our potential.
Thank you for bringing attention to such a challenging issue for many!
You are so right, Christa. It was your podcast last Monday that got me moving forward to create this post and keep the conversation you started going.
I appreciate you, my friend.