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I learnt that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.

Nelson Mandela

Could you get turned down dozens of times every day, week after week after week, year after year?

I couldn’t. In fact, when I was at university and needed a temporary job, I tried my hand at telephone sales.

I lasted one day.

But that’s the reality of life for most salespeople. And that’s why it takes bundles of confidence to approach dozens or maybe even hundreds of people every single day and get knocked back by most of them.

Permit me to introduce you to a dogged sales manager I’ll call Julia Kryger. I clearly remember the first time we met because I wondered if she might be trouble. I was running a workshop – the first of five leadership development boot camps – and she was one of the half-dozen senior managers I was working with.

Nearly everyone else in the workshop seemed chatty, friendly, engaged. They listened attentively as I presented. They reflected on the questions I asked them. They took part in the discussions and raised sensible queries. But not Kryger.

She sat with her legs crossed, checked her smartphone every few minutes and said almost nothing. With her tanned, athletic frame and North American accent, I imagined she was probably a cheerleader or even a mean girl at school. She came across as aloof, tough and iron-lady confident. I wondered if she might be a sceptic, thinking she already knew it all or didn’t believe that leadership was a teachable discipline.

Fast forward nearly a year and she laughed warmly as I shared my recollections of my first impressions of her.

“If you were to do a survey of my colleagues, they would probably say that I’m one of the most confident people in the business. They would describe me as really ambitious, confident, on it, quite matter of fact, very business oriented, just like a bulldozer,” she told me.

Kryger is Head of International Sales for a UK-based “audience technology” start-up. The fledgling business uses clever algorithms to help advertisers target people online. Within the space of just over a year, she has already recruited a sales squad of three people who report to her and she has landed deals with top brands, including Adidas, British Airways, Volkswagen and Marriott Hotels, to the tune of £2 million. She’s the youngest person on the management board too. Not bad for a 28-year-old.

“I say this not to toot my own horn but I do feel I’ve excelled really quickly. I’ve moved up the ranks pretty quickly and on minimal experience,” she said.

She had just got back from a business trip to Germany where she and her boss were pitching to a major advertiser. She was in France and the Netherlands not long before that too. Clearly, she’s the kind of strong-willed individual who just loves high pressure and landing big deals, right?

“Even [my boss] said this to me: ‘You must love presenting in front of a room full of people. You’re like this power woman. You eat people alive.’”

But it’s an impression that conceals an emotional battle raging secretly within her. Only a handful of her closest compatriots know that she has wrestled greatly with fear, suffered overwhelming panic attacks and has even sought medical help for anxiety-related health issues.

There are people that mask anxiety really well and others that cower and hide.

“There are people that mask anxiety really well and others that cower and hide and I’m definitely one of those people that puts on a face when I walk in the door at work,” she admitted.

Kryger experienced her first panic attack three months into her current role. Ironically, her boss had that day told her how proud he was of her rapid success. He had initially set her a target of bringing in £25,000 of revenue and she had brought in over £50,000.

In celebration, she went shopping for a new pair of jeans in Top Shop when she suddenly noticed that she felt really “spaced out”. She rushed home with the sense that something terrible was happening. The moment she walked through the door, she was hit by a wave of new crippling sensations. She was so scared that she asked her flatmate to phone for an ambulance.

“I thought I was dying,” she remembered.

Later, a doctor explained that she had experienced a panic attack. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be her last.

Like many people, she experiences the greatest anxiety when she feels she is being judged. That’s tough given that, as a representative for her business, she is naturally being scrutinized by every prospective client she meets.

“Sitting down in a board room can produce a physical response in me that’s almost like I’m fighting my body. Elevated heart rate, shortness of breath, sometimes fully fledged panic,” she said.

“It’s not the kind of job where you come in and you have a job description and a daily to-do list. It’s being in the middle of this massive, fabulous storm that you’re incredibly passionate about, but that can be quite overwhelming. So overwhelming,” she continued.

Advertisers often pull out with little notice, leaving the business with gaping black holes in its finances. When that happens, she has to scramble to bring in sales from elsewhere.

“There are days when I feel like I’m really on top of my game but it’s like the more success I have, the more the pressure mounts. And I can’t live up to this. The bar just gets set higher and higher – if that makes any sense?”

She understands that the pressure doesn’t come from her boss. She is savvy enough to recognize it comes from herself – that the standards by which she judges herself are far tougher than those of her workmates or clients. When she does make the smallest mistake or gaffe, she punishes herself more harshly than anyone else, too.

The easy option would be to quit and seek a less tempestuous, more predictable job, perhaps working for a large, established corporate media business rather than a fiery young start-up. But no, she is determined to soothe the madhouse of her emotions.

Over the last year, she has worked on her confidence. As well as making lifestyle alterations – cutting out caffeine and alcohol, exercising more and meditating – she has sought the counsel of a psychologist and regularly practises mindfulness techniques.

She has learnt to divorce her personal identity from her professional highs and lows. Yes, a bad meeting with a client may hurt. But it’s still only a job. It may make her feel anxious, but there’s nothing there that can physically harm her. It’s not the end of the world.

“There’s two ways that you can look at it,” she concluded. “You can either be one of those people who shrivels in a corner and says, ‘I can’t do it, I’m going to give up’ or you’re the type of person like me who tries to calm this inner shaky little lamb.”

So don’t expect Kryger to chicken out of the fight any time soon. She is growing her department by grooming the next generation of talent. She is working with some of the most enviable brands in the world. She has calmed the shaky little lamb inside her and may one day turn it into a tiger.

Being both successful and scared

Julia Kryger is succeeding in spite of how she feels. And you may be surprised to learn how very many people are in exactly the same situation.

Take north-London-born singer-songwriter Adele as a rather famous example. Despite having released her debut album only in 2008, she already has an enviable collection of awards and even world records to her name. Her 2011 album 21 topped the chart in more than 30 countries.

The first time I really noticed her was when watching her sing Someone Like You at the British music industry BRIT Awards in February 2011. Singing live under a spotlight accompanied only by a pianist, she cast a spell over an audience of thousands of the British public as well as hundreds of music producers, record label heads and other industry bigwigs. Her emotionally raw performance was possibly the highlight of the award show.

As I write this sentence, the YouTube video has racked up over 156 million views. Tap the words “Adele performing Someone Like You BRIT Awards 2011” into YouTube and you’ll find the video.1 Despite the less-than-perfect sound quality and the slight graininess of the images, I defy you to watch the performance and not be mesmerized.

So does she sing effortlessly? No. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, she confessed: “I’m scared of audiences. I get shitty scared. One show in Amsterdam, I was so nervous I escaped out the fire exit. I’ve thrown up a couple of times. Once in Brussels, I projectile-vomited on someone. I just gotta bear it. But I don’t like touring. I have anxiety attacks a lot.”2

Despite feeling anxious, she has managed to get on with her singing career. She even won an Academy Award for the theme song to the 2013 James Bond movie Skyfall.

In fact, there are many actors, performers and entertainers who suffer great fretfulness: actors Sir Derek Jacobi and Dame Judi Dench, the comedian and TV presenter Stephen Fry, to name but a few. But they all get on with it anyway.

Then there’s a client of mine, a 50-something advertising executive who admitted that he was wracked with insecurity. He frequently woke at four or five o’clock in the morning obsessing about the tasks that he had to do the next day. Yet he had created some of the most talked-about advertising campaigns of the 21st century.

Understanding the confidence con

We’ll encounter further examples of successful but less than entirely confident individuals throughout this chapter. All of them – famous and less famous – have succeeded in spite of their fears, their doubts, their worries. And they all illustrate what I call the confidence con: the external appearance of confidence in others deceives us into believing that they feel confident internally. The reality is that people often appear confident by how they behave publicly but can be afflicted by anxiety and doubt privately.

People often appear confident by how they behave publicly but can be afflicted by anxiety and doubt privately.

It’s a terrible state of affairs because it isolates the innumerable people who feel less than 100 per cent confident. When we feel worry, doubt or even dread and outright panic, we are conned into believing that we’re alone, that we’re losers and that few others can feel the same way.

1

Or go directly to the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qemWRToNYJY, accessed 5th May 2015.

2

Adele opens up about her inspirations, looks and stage fright (April 28th 2011). Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/adele-opens-up-about-her-inspirations-looks-and-stage-fright-20120210, accessed 5th May 2015.