I’m often told I need to “be more confident”.

My question in response is:

What does confidence look like when it’s balanced with risk assessment?

Over-confidence causes us to fail in costly, embarrassing, and dangerous ways.

Are you sure you want someone who is overly-confident?

Personally, I trust those who are “cautiously right” more than those who are overly-confidently and mostly wrong.

“Confidence” is not the same thing as “certain”, “assertiveness”, “competence”, or “correctness”.

If you’re demanding someone be more confident, be sure that is the right word you mean.

I came across an old note that detailed how two members of a team I was once on was showing the rest of the team how to estimate.

Me, being a fan of #no-estimates, or continuous forecasting if we are asked to predict the future, was really going to enjoy this.

On May 11, they were able to T-shirt their way into confidently saying that the project would ship on August 20.

Of course they didn’t hit that. Last I heard it was at least a year late.

This still cracks me up.

Confidently declaring a date is not confidence.

It’s false-confidence. Don’t believe it. Don’t ask for this. All it does is lead to distrust.

Being “Overly-Confident” just to show confidence is not a good thing.

You wanting me to be “overly-confident” to ease your need for a false sense of certainty is a you problem, not a me problem.

I feel like it’s the same people pushing for “overly-confident” ways are fans of radical candor. Their way is the only way. There’s no room for people who think different and if you do, you get labeled as not having confidence.

I like to be deliberate and think through the information, wrestle with it and really process it. I’m the opposite of what is wanted by the people who have the overly-confident disease.

I want us to be on the same page.

I’m not going to lie to make you feel better.