The Confidence Code Book Review - Book on Desk with Coffee

"The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance - What Women Should Know" past Katty Kay & Claire Shipman

When I began reading, "The Conviction Code" by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman, I felt compelled to immediately grab pen and paper to take notes. Then I realized I was essentially taking notes at every turn of the folio - there were and so many insightful nuggets of data that I knew I was going to employ with my coaching clients. And so, I put downward my pen and just read. Just my volume is now very dog-eared, tagged with sticky-notes, and the once white cover has faded into a shade of beige. In other words, I reference this book a lot.

In this book, the authors explore the science, the sociology and the personal experiences of confidence. And they both uncover myths about how to go more than confident, equally well equally provide actionable advice on what really supports us in nurturing our confidence.

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About the Authors

The authors of this interesting volume ready out to investigate what the research actually tells us about confidence. They also wanted to discover if confidence is a fixed psychological state or if it is influenced past genetics or gender. Are men more confident than women?

Being investigative journalists, they explore these questions through interviews with a diverse group of scientific researchers - neuroscientists, psychologists, etc. - and also with women leaders from government, military, science, the Imf (International Monetary Fund) and sports. This makes information technology an interesting read because it is a blend of literature review, discussions and first hand stories, and then it is conversational in tone rather than a dry out science review.

half-dozen Reasons to Read The Conviction Code:

Read this volume if you desire to:

  1. Ensure you have an evidence-based understanding of how to heighten confidence, and so that you lot are not perpetuating unhelpful myths.
  2. Understand the neurological and psychological factors that either support or hinder confidence.
  3. Discover actionable tools to more effectively support your clients in building confidence - peculiarly your female clients.
  4. Develop a deeper knowledge of the drivers of human behaviour via what the enquiry tells us (possibly you lot're a research geek, similar me!).
  5. Support your clients in their self-sensation, helping them improve sympathize their blind spots and biases.
  6. Enhance your ain confidence.

Confidence - Hardwired or a Choice?

There are two pervasive myths about confidence:

  1. Confidence is innately hardwired.
  2. Confidence is institute simply past squaring your shoulders, thinking positive thoughts about your self-esteem and 'faking it until you make it'.

The Confidence Code dives into the research that dispels these myths, and provides answers equally to why some people bear witness up as less confident than others even when they take equal capacity and qualifications.

eight Ingredients for Confidence

Based on the author'due south discoveries, here is my summary of some of their advice for enhancing confidence:

one) Aim for mastery:

This is the crux of the matter. The authors conclude that conviction is gained through mastery, and mastery is gained through process. Mastery is non an end goal (every bit many perfectionists would think), but more than a concept of learning through process and progress. What's important is how you encounter hurdles, and your mindset towards trying and learning.

Then, information technology's in the procedure of mastery that you lot gain confidence, not the mastery itself.

2) Action learning:

You accept to be in activeness. Hesitation or rumination does not serve your conviction. This goes hand-in-paw with the next factor.

3) Learn to neglect fast:

You take to be willing to have some risks, be willing to neglect, be willing to learn from those failures speedily and and so put that learning into action. Bogging downwardly in cocky-recrimination or hesitation does not serve your confidence. Try, fail, learn, repeat, try, succeed, learn, repeat, try, fail, acquire, repeat….

  • Embrace where you did well
  • Exist honest and ain what you did not do well
  • Acknowledge the external factors that contributed (don't personalize the failure)
  • Assess what you learned and seek feedback
  • Make a plan for how yous will improve or practise things differently next time
  • Celebrate the learning

4) Choose a mindset of externalizing attribution:

Make an endeavor to stop self-blaming and over-personalizing challenges, failures and foibles.

The authors talked to many researchers whose findings show that women tend to personalize challenges and failures making it about a personal flaw, whereas men will more than often point to an external attribute as playing a role in their failure. The result is that they do not diminish their sense of capacity.

v) Embrace imperfection:

Learn to exercise things 'well enough'. This helps you exist more than effective, and gives you time to productively focused on career building opportunities.

half-dozen) Ruminate less, focus thoughts towards action more than:

Learn to allow things go rather than ruminating on them. The authors discovered, much to their chagrin (being women), that the area in the brain responsible for worry and rumination is larger and more than agile in women'due south brains than in men'southward.

This ways women exercise worry and ruminate more. This slows women down and decreases women'south sense of confidence.

TIP: I tell my female clients to harness this facet of their brains equally a superpower - ruminate for good - and to train that office of the brain to give vocalization to the inner sage and to focus thoughts towards solutions and positive actions.

seven) Become meliorate friends with your inner sage and learn to reframe:

Kay and Shipman telephone call our cocky-talk NATs – Negative Automatic Thoughts. And they uncovered that those who have killer NATs have low confidence. The trick is to practice reframing, and to build up your firewall to proceed toxic thoughts at bay.

8) Speak up and speak more than:

This is especially true for women in male person dominated spaces. Both the women and the men interviewed for this book, in both leadership and research positions, said that women tend to hesitate. This is likely due to the bulldoze for perfection, and it plays a powerful office in holding them back in their careers. Women take the capacity, only they don't step up - or speak upwardly readily.

At that place are many more than useful and fascinating pieces of data in The Confidence Code on how our brains piece of work and how to harness them to boost confidence.

My Key Takeaways:

My didactics background includes neuropsychology, simply I learned new and intriguing data from this volume about how our brains are wired to either support or erode our confidence.

The authors do a skilful chore of teasing out what the enquiry really tells us about conviction, and provide an interesting and informative overview of the neurological, social and emotional factors that bear on conviction. And they don't cease there. They then offer a guide on how to rewire our brains and behaviour towards confidence.

I was likewise surprised to learn how some of the structural differences betwixt male and female brains play a office in our thought patterns and approaches. To exist clear, the neurological differences are neither inherently negative or positive for either gender, just different. Simply when paired with the differences in how men and women are socialized, these differences can play a strong role in how each gender experiences their sense of capacity and confidence.

This is useful information for those who coach both men and women in leadership roles, and it can too help coaches better understand clients of a different gender from themselves.

I oft utilise the data from this volume in my coaching engagements. When I share some of the facts I've gleaned from this book, it really resonates with my clients and helps them make sense of their experiences and build awareness of how they may be shooting downwards their confidence.

Other Books You May Also Like:

  • "Insight: The Surprising Truth About How Others Come across Us, How Nosotros See Ourselves, and Why the Answers Thing More Than We Think" past Tasha Eurich Ph.D.
  • "The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Call up Y'all're Supposed to Be and Comprehend Who You lot Are" by Brené Brown

If you liked this article, you may also like these three articles, also by Delaney:

  • 8 Hurdles Women Leaders Face & How to Motorbus Them Effectively
  • 27 Focused Questions to Boost Your Clients' Conviction!
  • 7 Ways You can Help Leaders Enhance Their Confidence

And this new infographic inspired by i of Delaney'south Manufactures:

  • Confidence Infographic: 10 Savvy Means to Exist More Confident

Delaney Tosh Headshot

Contributing Author:

Delaney Tosh, CPCC, PCC, coaches women who desire to radiate with conviction and thrive as leaders. She helps her clients navigate the hurdles unique to women in leadership and also delivers the Resilience at Work® Toolkit and Resilience at Work® Leader Scale, helping leaders and teams create optimal performance through resilience. She is co-creator of the Phoenix-Hearted Woman retreats and webinars, designed to help women build resilience and strengthen their foundation for existence heard and making a deviation in the world. Connect with Delaney at SquarePeg Leadership or on LinkedIn.

Learn more about Delaney & run across all their articles here >>