Demystifying Excellence:
Insight #3 — Be Confident
 

Insight #3: You can, and should, be confident. All the time. Why? Because confidence is not based on the belief that you are the greatest. Confidence is not based on the belief that you are the greatest. Confidence is based on the understanding that if you’re headed in the right direction, there are going to be successes and failures along the way, and that’s okay.
 

Many people don’t get this at all, and it’s just amazing to me. During my brother’s illness, it started to occur to me that while Tracey had staples in his head from brain surgery, and he had no hair and was throwing up one day each week from a chemotherapy treatment that merely served to prolong his life for a few months, he was proactively embracing his every last day and opportunity. Meanwhile, I was worrying that some 15-year-old girl might say no if I asked her out, and that maybe I shouldn’t play my first rock band gig at my high school because I might mess up a song or two and get embarrassed.
 

And the contrast seemed ludicrous. It dawned on me that my lack of confidence was ridiculous. To have the confidence to do something you want to do, you don’t need to ensure success. You just need to understand that it’s okay to fail sometimes. And once I got the confidence, and stopped being a wuss, I instantly had tons more success. As I say to my young soccer players: If you don’t shoot, you won’t score.
 

When I was a freshman at Stanford, I got to know a girl named Janette Sampson. She was smart, she was beautiful inside and out, she had a gorgeous singing voice, she volunteered a fair amount for underprivileged kids and people with disabilities, and she had an adorable laugh that I worked hard to earn. I worked hard because Janette Sampson was — and is — a No-BS Zone — appreciative when I do something worthwhile, and unimpressed whenever I am unimpressive.
 

I found Janette particularly inspiring because — despite the fact that she was the most articulate and thoughtful woman I knew — she had been legally blind since junior high school, and therefore unable to read a book with her own eyes or read the teacher’s notes off the board at school. But through her gentle confidence and internal vision, she earned an acceptance to Stanford and worked all through college to help pay her way through an advanced Stanford degree.
 

So I did what any guy who’s smart enough to recognize excellence and secure enough not to fear or resent it would do: I wooed her. I wooed her a lot. Five years later, I asked her to marry me. And now, many years after that… I still have her, and I still build my life around her. So now I’m proud to say that I have found the one thing I sought most in my life, which is an amazing woman who loves me, and I strive every day to be an excellent husband. There are days when I succeed at being just that. And, of course… there are days when I don’t.
 

My wife has given birth to two exquisite daughters who are my greatest creative accomplishments ever. They look like her, they remind me of her, and I call them Mommy’s Masterpieces. In my wife, my kids have a role model with the same character as my brother to look up to every day. She’s an inspiration to both me and my daughters for effortlessly accomplishing things that most of us have trouble accomplishing with full vision. She’s a good person to have around when you’re feeling like you have unfair obstacles in your life. She’s a No-BS Zone. If you can find your own No-BS Zone to have around you every day of your life, you’ll be glad you did.
 
Read the next Chapter -> Ask Good Questions — And Give Good Answers.
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