Who do I Trust, and When?
"Believe in yourself" sounds like great advice. So why is it so hard?
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."
That’s a frequently-Instagrammed bit of advice from Dr. Maya Angelou. If you think you know it, you should give this clip on YouTube a quick watch.
In a conversation between Oprah and Dr. Angelou, the quote is discussed in a way that surprised me. They describe the very literal idea that you should listen carefully when people tell you who they are, e.g. “I’m so crazy” or “I can’t be trusted around chocolate.”
Maybe it’s just me, but I took a very different meaning from the quote. I understood it to mean that we should closely observe what people do, and trust that their behavior reveals their true self.
The video suggests that same information is revealed in the words they say — perhaps without intending to reveal it. Thinking back on the people who have surprised me the most, I suppose both are probably true: People reveal themselves through both their actions and their words.
That’s easy advice to understand, but it’s harder to remember when you’re not hearing what you hoped.
What to Believe
What about when someone tells you how you are? Should you believe that?
Mary, you’re so talented. Everybody here is so jealous of your abilities.
You’re our favorite professor, Dr. Jerome. We love your lectures and your hilarious jokes.
Excellent student, talks too much.
(That last one is from my second-grade report card.)
I try not to believe everything I hear. I don't take to heart an insult hurled by an angry motorist, for example, though I might try harder to remember to use my turn signal. Measured advice from someone paid to give it thoughtfully — like my therapist or trainer — is usually pretty dependable.
Since I'm not blessed with outstanding self-awareness, confidence, or an awesome assessment of my own limitations, I've learned to try to listen to the people who love me. Those are the people who know me best. They give reliable advice on when I’m being awesome, and on where I need to improve.
I’ve learned to be careful when interpreting what I hear from the people I work with, and especially with those I manage. Most people can be trusted to say what they believe, not what they think will earn favor.
At the other end of the spectrum, one manager cautioned me against giving positive feedback to their skip-level manager, because it they’d perceive it as “polishing the apple” and it would undermine my credibility.
“Positive feedback can undermine your credibility” isn’t exactly something that you hope to see in the orientation manual. Detecting insincere compliments is not an overly burdensome problem for most of the executives I know. Getting sincere, challenging feedback when it matters — that almost always is.
Another manager I worked with denied any possibility of their own micro-management tendencies because “nobody on the team has said it’s a problem.” My mouth opened a little bit, and for just this one time, dear reader, no sound at all came out.
It reminds me of this quote from Carl Sagan:
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Some people have their head so deep in the sand, even the crabs have started working from home. Watch out for that very common logical fallacy — the “appeal to ignorance” that says that something must be true simply because we cannot prove it is not.
Sagan summed up this idea in his amazing book, hauntingly but not succinctly titled “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark:”
There is no compelling evidence that UFOs are not visiting the Earth; therefore, UFOs exist
People with power should expect that those with less of it will be reluctant to tell them the truth. Put another way, there is no future in insisting that you are ready and willing to hear unpopular ideas if people are scared to talk to you at all.
Who to Believe, and When
Many of us struggle for a firm purchase in assessing our own capabilities. Some call this impostor syndrome, but I despise a term that pathologizes something we all seem to have — a persistent, nagging suspicion that we're just not good enough.
It’s not a syndrome, it’s just Tuesday.
Well, it’s Tuesday again and I still haven’t beaten my syndrome. Though coaching my clients, and from the inexhaustible patience of my wife, I’m learning how to separate thinly-sourced and anxious worries from concrete sources of evidence that come from, you know, the actual outside world.
The stories I tell myself seem to come in two polar versions. One supplies anxious, undermining thoughts that fill my mind with insecurity and worry. On the other side, I’m reminded that my true worth is measured through my family, friends, relationships, and accomplishments.
I call the first side “anxiety,” and the other is “reality.”
Some Notes for You, Dr. Angelou
When people you trust tell you who you are -- when they say you're talented, or that you're a great friend, or an awesome sibling -- believe them.
When people who know tell you that you're doing a great job, when a mentor encourages you to take a risk because they believe in you, or when someone trusts you with an opportunity that you're not sure you can pull off -- believe them.
When people you love are inspired by your art, or your friendship, or your leadership, when they tell you they're grateful for something you've done -- believe them.
As for the the haters, well, we know what they’re going to do. If one person says something awful about you, try to let it pass you by, and watch it shrink behind you in the rear-view mirror.
Even the best people in the world earn an extended middle finger on the freeway, from time to time.
If you hear the same thing more than once — especially from someone who cares about you — try to give it a listen.
The most important thing is to learn to believe in the people who believe in you. That’s the first step towards believing in yourself.