Derek Sivers
from the book “Hell Yeah or No”:

You don’t need confidence, just contribution.

2018-08-06

Years ago, I was so confident and so naive. I was sure I was right and everyone else was wrong.

After I sold my company, I felt ready to do something new, so I started to learn. But the more I learned, the more I realized how little I knew and how dumb-lucky I had been.

I continued learning until I felt like an absolute idiot. By then I was paralyzed, unable to create anything new.

I’d start to make new things, but then see how stupid they revealed me to be, so I’d stop. I lost all confidence. I spent a few years completely stuck.

Eventually, some new thoughts helped:

I’m glad my old confidence is gone because it thought I was right, and maybe even great, but not anymore.

Now I aim to make my work — my little contribution to the world — just unique and useful.