Confidence

     “What are your strengths?” “Why are you qualified over everyone else out there for this position/job/role?” … For as long as I can remember I have had the biggest problem answering these questions. In a world where it’s all about getting bigger, better and faster – where a college graduate is now expected to have had a substantial amount of work experience before evening entering the “real world”, it’s hard for me to see myself as “ready”. But Ken Fairchild pointed out that each and every one of us has the tools to go out there and work in any job in the Communications field. All we need to have is confidence.

     Confidence can often times be mistaken for arrogance. But Ken Fairchild set the perfect example for us on what true confidence looks like. Ken has had such a successful career and has made such a difference in his field of work yet you wouldn’t know it by looking at him, or by taking a moment to have a conversation with him. Humble, I believe, is the word that fits Ken’s demeanor to a tee. And it is a character attribute that seems to be rare in the working world where the competition is high.

     Confidence is not selling yourself short, confidence is believing in yourself and confidence is having faith that you really do have the tools to succeed.

    At the start of his lecture, Ken told us if we took away nothing else, he wanted to leave us with confidence. As far as I’m concerned I am always and have always been a work in progress. I can always do better, learn more and work harder. But having confidence doesn’t mean I have to be “finished.” It doesn’t mean that once I jump off the cliff, just like the lemmings, into the real world that I have to know anything and everything there is to know. It just means that I am ready. I am ready to say I can try that, or I will learn that and to have the confidence to know I will be able to get it done.