On confidence

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go." — Dr. Seuss

Confidence. One word that changes everything about how you’re perceived and how you perceive yourself.

I speak about confidence because I have struggled with it too. The thoughts that creep in uninvited: Am I good enough? Am I the right person to be speaking about this? Are there better people in my audience who should be up here instead of me?

These are destructive thoughts, what we often call imposter syndrome, and if you’ve felt them, you’re not alone. In fact, you’re in very good company.

Years ago, I landed what I privately called my “big girl job” at Oracle in Kenya. I was fresh in, joining the technical sales team as an intern, and I had a wonderful manager who connected me to mentors. One of those mentors was leading strategy in the market. Senior, sharp, the kind of person whose calendar you feel lucky to get on.

In one of our early sessions, I told him I was struggling with confidence. I was terrified of customer meetings. My mind was full of worst-case scenarios: What if I mess up a deal? What if I say something I’m not supposed to? What if I go completely blank when a customer asks me a product question?

Photo by Alysha Rosly on Unsplash

He listened, and then he said something I’ve never forgotten.

“Confidence comes from knowledge. Every time you acquire knowledge, your confidence builds. And any time you feel unconfident, ask yourself: what knowledge gap should I be filling?”

That question has carried me ever since. It reframes confidence from something you either have or don’t into something you can actively build. It turns anxiety into a to-do list. And it introduced me to something I now believe deeply: confidence follows action, not the other way around. You don’t wait until you feel ready. You build knowledge, you step forward, and confidence catches up.

Last week, I attended my first ever org-wide strategy meeting. Every team presented what they’d accomplished and what they were planning. It’s a brilliant opportunity to find synergies, spot collaboration opportunities, and make sure effort isn’t being duplicated across the organisation. Great concept. Important room.

And I could not figure out why I didn’t feel confident presenting.

I know the globalisation work I lead inside out. I am the most knowledgeable person in the room on this topic. So I asked myself the question: What knowledge gap should I be filling?

There wasn’t one. I wasn’t unconfident because I lacked knowledge. I was nervous because it was my first time in that particular room, at that particular level. That’s a very different thing. And naming that distinction out loud, even just to myself, immediately reduced its power. That’s the thing about imposter syndrome: it shrinks the moment you call it what it is instead of letting it masquerade as truth.

The day before, we ran a dry run. My manager, a genuinely kind soul, quietly asked whether I’d like him to take the intro, or if I felt ready to do it myself. I told him I was confident to do it. Inside, I was scared. But I said the confident thing out loud, and something shifted.

The presentation went really well. A few thoughtful questions came up during the session. And what stood out most was that during the break, people came over to share feedback and ask follow-up questions. That told me it had landed. That it was worth saying.

Here’s what I’ve since learned about moments like that one: attribute your success accurately. Imposter syndrome has a sneaky habit of making you over-credit luck when things go well, and over-blame yourself when they don’t. When that presentation landed, I asked myself ‘what did I do that contributed to this?‘

The preparation. The clarity of the content. The decision to own the intro rather than hand it off. Those were mine. Claim your wins.

What imposter syndrome actually means

One thing I’ve come to understand is that imposter syndrome tends to be loudest precisely when you are growing. You’re in a room you haven’t fully grown into yet, which means you are exactly where you should be. The discomfort is the feeling of expansion, not proof that you don’t belong.

It also helps to remember that everyone in the room has doubts. The people who look most polished are often just the most practiced at performing confidence while still feeling the fear. When I’ve had honest conversations with people I deeply admire, the ones who seem confident, almost all of them have said some version of: I felt like a fraud too. That’s data. Imposter syndrome tracks ambition, not incompetence.

One of the most practical habits I’ve built is keeping what I call a wins file, a running note where I log accomplishments, positive feedback, and moments where I genuinely added value. When the doubt gets loud, I open it. Evidence is a powerful antidote to a feeling masquerading as fact.

Even the people who seem the most confident feel scared sometimes. The difference is rarely the absence of fear but the decision to act anyway, and to know the difference between a knowledge gap and first-time nerves.

When imposter syndrome shows up, ask yourself: What knowledge gap should I be filling? If there’s a real gap, fill it, that’s growth. If there isn’t one, recognise that you’re simply in a new room, doing something for the first time. That’s not a reason to shrink. That’s a reason to show up.

Lastly, reframe how you think about your own perspective. For a long time, I assumed that if someone in my audience had more experience, my voice added less value. I’ve come to believe the opposite. People want perspectives. They want to hear how you see something, especially if you see it differently. As long as you stay open to learning, your perspective is always worth sharing.

You belong in the room. Now go present.