You Don’t Build Confidence First

You could stop.

Stop asking permission to live your life right now.

What’s your biggest dream?
Not the watered-down, permission-seeking, playing-it-safe version.
Your actual dream.

This week, I heard someone say that confidence is a derivative of completion and mastery.

I immediately thought back to the beginning of my time in property management. I felt a lot of things, but confidence wasn’t one of them.

The first property I managed was so mismanaged that when they called me for an interview and told me where it was, I laughed and said, “Absolutely not. No thanks. Best of luck finding someone to go into that mess.”

The property was notorious across the entire county for illegal activity and filth.

I felt convicted almost immediately.

I hadn’t asked whether they were new owners or whether they had any plans for the property’s future.

So I called them back.

Two weeks later, I went in for an interview and was working for them within the same month.

The property’s physical condition could be addressed through infrastructure upgrades and construction.

The condition of people’s lives was different.

That job required me to develop a level of professional composure that will serve me for the rest of my days.

The very first thing I was asked to address was a seven-year-old who was being left to roam the property at all hours, and the number of used syringes on the ground during school bus pickups and drop-offs.

That property was successfully flipped, and over 100 families call it home every day.

I went on to manage 19 communities over nearly 9 years, seeing firsthand how systems shape outcomes.

It was then that my understanding of the effects of poverty deepened significantly.

Mastery of that chaos is what built the confidence I carry today.

I like to win, and I like to win big.

But I learn the most when I fail.

Failure shows us what will not work.
It’s the voice of “not this way.”
It facilitates success through the process of elimination.

My advice?

Ensure you have the right data collection in place, and then fail as quickly as you can.

Know which metrics matter.
Know where you’re trying to go.
Then execute.

Yes.

Fail faster.

Move fast enough that success becomes inevitable.

Confidence is a derivative of completion and mastery.

 

Ginny Boling is an operations and community development consultant and the founder of The Black Polish Society, a marketplace collective built around real people and shared growth.

Connect with her at ginnyboling.carrd.co