An Experiment in Self-Trust
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I’ve been running a personal experiment lately. It has to do with trusting myself, and it comes with some risk, but if I start in lower-consequence situations, like small meetings or quick decisions, I can gradually build my confidence to handle higher-stakes situations. Many of you know I’ve been doing a lot of work and thinking on the stories we tell ourselves.
Back to the stories we tell ourselves and the experiment about having trust. Do you find yourself slightly anxious about an upcoming meeting because you don’t know where the conversation will lead? Do you stress out about revenue if it starts to dip? Do you overthink decisions that knowingly or unknowingly bog you down because you take too much time, hold others up, and overwhelm yourself in the process with too many open loops? Yeah, me too.
The Anxiety of Not Knowing
All this nervous, anxious energy comes from uncertainty about what the future holds. And some of us thrive in uncertainty, like Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, who told Guy Raz in How I Built This about the years they waited for Nvidia’s AI features to find the right handhold and get traction, eventually exploding and making them the most valuable company in the world. But it took almost a decade, and he never wavered. That’s a resilient way of dealing with uncertainty.
I’m not that strong. Just no way. In their book The Upside of Uncertainty: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown, Nathan Furr and Susannah Harmon Furr write that uncertainty is good and we shouldn’t work so hard to eliminate it. For example, something I used to do to eliminate uncertainty was to time-block out my workshops and keynotes into ten-minute blocks and pack them with content to make sure I had everything planned to the minute, leaving nothing to chance. What is something you might do to eliminate uncertainty?
Eliminating uncertainty “quashes innovation,” they say. We need it to introduce “surprise, change, and enthusiasm into our lives.” It is the pathway to possibilities. Fascinating, right?
They suggest meeting uncertainty with courage, resilience, and skill. I don’t disagree, but I think there is another critical element they left out: Self-trust.
Trust that you know, that you can handle, and that you have what it takes. Recognizing this can help you feel more confident and capable in uncertain moments.
Enter: Self-Trust
So I’ve been experimenting. What would it look like if I didn’t have the entire 90 minutes planned out, but I had a list of options I could pull from? What would it look like if I woke up the morning of a talk and hadn’t quite sorted out which story I would use to make that point about that thing? I’ll answer that last question. I went for my morning walk and thought of a funny moment, which I ended up sharing and got a great laugh.
My experiment has been going well. I'm starting to trust myself more and more, and I feel more at ease, more in the moment. And I’ve been having more fun. Because listen, I made it this far and I’m ok. I’ve had some worst fears come to reality, like making a mistake or not having all the answers, and I've made it through just fine. What would happen if you tried it?
By the way, we still have one room left for our retreat, Pause in Provence, September 22 to 27, 2026. Designed for people navigating change, seeking clarity, or simply craving a reset, this intimate experience blends rest, exploration, storytelling, and coaching to help you reimagine your story and step into your future with renewed energy and focus. We’d love to have you join. Details here.
