I’ve always considered myself a confident salesperson.
I’ve sold phones, cars, services, and plenty of things I had no personal attachment to. Of course I wanted the sale, and there were times I went home thinking about one I lost, but the next morning was usually a new day.
There was another customer.
Another opportunity.
You moved on.
What I’ve discovered is that I don’t always give myself that same freedom when the thing being sold is something I created.
That “no” feels different.
And I’ve been trying to understand why.
I Know I Have Confidence
That may be the strangest part of all of this.
I know what confidence feels like because I’ve experienced it.
I’ve succeeded in sales. I’ve had clients trust me with their businesses. People have purchased things I designed. I’ve created videos that people now expect a certain level of quality from.
There is evidence that I’m capable of doing these things.
The problem isn’t necessarily having confidence.
For me, the problem is holding onto it when something becomes personal.
When I was selling somebody else’s product and the customer didn’t buy, I looked at what happened.
When it’s something I created, I have a tendency to start looking at myself.
Those are two completely different conversations.
One asks:
What happened?
The other asks:
Do I actually know what I’m doing?
That second question can get out of control pretty quickly.
When the Product Is Yours
My apparel has probably made this easiest for me to recognize.
People have bought my designs. Something that existed as an idea in my head became a real product, and another person decided it was worth spending their money on.
That matters to me.
I also use products for models, photography, and content because that is part of marketing and building an apparel brand.
So this isn’t a situation where I’m waiting for someone to finally prove that they will pay for something I created.
They already have.
Yet a design can perform below my expectations and suddenly I’m looking at everything differently.
It starts with the product.
Then the brand.
Then my decisions.
Eventually I can find myself wondering whether I know what I’m doing at all.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped evaluating the result and started evaluating myself.
The Failures Seem to Stick Around Longer
I have a feeling I’m not the only person who does this.
You can have plenty of evidence that you’re capable of something, but somehow the thing that went wrong is the thing you remember.
That has certainly been true for me.
The wins get an expiration date. The failures get a permanent address.
I wish that line weren’t as accurate as it feels.
I see the same pattern in creative work.
I’ve made a lot of videos over the years. Most of what I know came from simply making them.
You create something. You watch it back. You notice something you would do differently. Then you make another one.
Eventually you improve.
Over time, people began expecting a certain level from the videos I created.
That didn’t happen because every video was perfect.
It happened because I kept making them.
The same has happened professionally. I’ve had clients hire me and trust me to create things for their businesses.
Again, there is evidence.
The question I’ve been asking myself is why one bad experience can make all of that evidence suddenly feel less important.
Why Do I Give Someone Else’s Product More Grace Than My Own?
This is probably the part of the discovery that has bothered me most.
I already understand that not everything works.
I’ve understood that throughout my career.
A customer says no. A sale falls through. Something doesn’t perform the way you expected.
You deal with it.
But when I have an emotional attachment to the thing, I can treat the result as though it means something much bigger.
And logically, I know better.
Sometimes something simply doesn’t work.
That doesn’t automatically mean I’m incapable of doing it.
Yet I haven’t always been very good at applying that same logic to myself.
That’s where my confidence starts getting tested.
I don’t need proof that I’m capable.
I already have proof.
But whenever something goes wrong, I can start looking for new proof.
Another sale.
Another yes.
Another positive result that gives the confidence back.
That gets exhausting.
Because now somebody else’s response has far too much control over how I feel about what I’m capable of.
Confidence and Confirmation Aren’t the Same Thing
Starting my YouTube channel gave me a small example of handling this differently.
I published my first video on a brand-new channel with zero subscribers and no audience waiting for it.
About an hour later, it had zero views.
Considering the video was called I Have 0 Followers. So I’m Starting Anyway, YouTube was certainly committed to the concept.
Eventually someone watched it.
Then somebody else did.
But the interesting part wasn’t the number.
It was my reaction to the number.
I expected a slow start. I wasn’t embarrassed. I wasn’t thinking about taking the video down.
I was already thinking about the next one.
That made me realize that I may have been confusing confidence with confirmation.
Confirmation comes after something works.
Now you know.
Confidence has to exist before you have the answer.
For me, confidence doesn’t need to mean:
I know this is going to work.
I think it is closer to:
I don’t know what’s going to happen with this, but I think it’s worth finding out.
That feels much more honest.
I’m Still Working on This
I’m not trying to become someone who never doubts himself.
I’m not sure that person even exists.
What I want is to stop letting one bad result erase all the reasons I had to believe in myself five minutes earlier.
I want to become better at looking at something that didn’t work and asking:
What happened?
instead of immediately asking:
What does this say about me?
There’s a big difference between those questions.
One gives me something I can work with.
The other can convince me to stop.
I’m still learning how to separate the two.
For now, confidence looks a lot less like knowing I’m going to succeed and a lot more like being willing to come back tomorrow.
To try again.
To keep finding out.
And I suspect that continuing to do that is going to require something else I’m still working on.
Courage.
