97 Things Every Information Security Professional Should Know

Chapter 88. Comfortable Versus Confident

Tkay Rice

In the tech industry, a common phrase you may hear often is “Fake it until you make it.” This phrase has always brought a questionable expression on my face with thoughts of laziness. I would sometimes ask myself, Why spend so much time faking “it” when you can spend time actually learning “it”? Then suddenly it dawned on me: people would rather appear confident than comfortable.

The idea of being confident is to be self-assured by feeling or displaying confidence. But what does this really mean? Is it not OK to worry about a speaking engagement or to question if something you said was right? Many times, people associate not having confidence as a sign of weakness, but instead it is a sign of lack of comfortability. If you think about it, confidence and comfortability go hand in hand. Some cannot portray confidence until they are comfortable.

Is Lack of Confidence the New Imposter Syndrome?

Be aware that people may make you feel like you have imposter syndrome just because you have not displayed a level of confidence to their satisfaction. Disregard the unsolicited advice and work on how you can build your confidence through comfortability. It is better to focus on being knowledgeable in a subject because as you become more knowledgeable you will get comfortable, and that will turn into confidence. For IT (information technology) ...