bcg blog

Confidence In What?

It’s March of 2021 and the University of Dayton Arena is as full as it’s allowed to be, given the lingering Covid restrictions. The entire boys basketball season has come down to one final game, the Division I State Championship game. It’s the first basketball state finals for our team, our school, and our community. 

Following our regional final win, I knew I would need to address this group’s surprising opportunity to win our school’s first basketball state championship the next weekend. I also knew the message I wanted to convey, but it took a few days for just the right delivery to become clear.

The make-up of our team was somewhat unique. It consisted of a handful of incredible seniors with exceptionally high character and humility, several talented juniors who were the first group to progress all the way through our youth program to varsity basketball, and a few sophomores who had been fearless to this point in the season. We had a lot of things going for us, but experience and knowledge of playing on the stage in front of us was not one of them. 

Nonetheless, here we are. I think, in large part, because we didn’t know we shouldn’t be.

But all that was okay. We didn’t need any of it. We had something that could rival experience and knowledge. We had confidence. My job was to remind them of what it was in. 

Pre-game is now well underway. Our guys are returning to the locker room from the court, just as scheduled, with ten minutes remaining in our warm-up - like the previous twenty-eight games. The energy and emotions are running high as you would suspect. On the board at the front of the room I have their matchups and key points for the game listed. But, I’m taking this talk in another direction.

Rather than refresh our familiarity with the game plan, I reach into the ball bag sitting under the white board and pull out an ax. The guy's faces immediately light up. The ax hangs in our locker room and represents several key beliefs in our program. Things we are confident in. 

I toss it into the middle of the room. 
The guys yell and leap into a huddle.
“Chop wood on three. 1 - 2 - 3. CHOP WOOD!”

Why Should We Care?
Confidence is a tricky commodity. Some seem to have unlimited supplies, while others struggle to muster enough to get by. And, of course, we have plenty of fakers out there - usually the people talking the biggest game are actually the least confident. 

My friend, and host of The Learning Leader podcast, Ryan Hawk likes say confidence requires evidence. We create evidence by doing. Practices in the dark and games under the lights both can provide that evidence. Each success adds to the ladder and each failure generates a new opportunity for a more meaningful win. This concept of evidence as it pertains to confidence makes perfect sense when applied to the four levels of confidence.

Level one is no confidence. Simple: no evidence, no confidence. 

Level two is confidence based solely on results. Think about it: isn’t confidence one of the things you need in order to achieve the result you’re pursuing? How would anything worthwhile ever be achieved? If you find yourself constantly lacking confidence, there’s a good chance you have begun tying your confidence to your results. The randomness of the confidence matches the randomness of the evidence. 

Level three is confidence based on approval of others. In level three you will find your confidence fluctuating … much like the approval of the people around you. Worse than that, you’ll begin compromising who you are in order to gain favor and evidence. You’ll be confident, but will you be you?

Level four is confidence based on a process. Notice the previous levels rest outside your control. So, the creation of evidence lies outside your control. If your confidence resides in your process, it becomes unlimited and you become unstoppable because you have full control of your process. Evidence is mass produced. 

REAL TALK - Action Steps
The ax is a symbol of our process. Everyone of our guys knows it. Bringing out the ax was my way of reminding them of our process. We keep swinging. We don’t know if it’s coming down with that swing or not. We just know we keep swinging. THAT, we are confident in.

Here are a few thoughts to consider when trying to clarify your process:

• What do your core values look like in action?
  
  • Your core values can be a rich source of evidence if you’ve done the work to translate them into behaviors. Simple, clear actions that you can repeat day after day serve as the best evidence creators.
    

• When things get tough what do you do to get back on track?
  
  • Adversity reveals a lot about you. For most, when things get really tough we instinctively allow the trivial to fall away and commit fully to the few things that are the most important - back to the fundamentals would be the coach speak.
    

• Where is your identity?
  
  • Simple question, powerful answer. 
    

Confidence is not something we attain once and check it off the list. We must be making deposits, creating evidence, consistently in order to maximize and maintain our confidence. Rooting your confidence in a process is the best way to do that.

Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!