Pramukh Blog 16: Confidence and Memory
After the Beloved Socratic seminar, I asked my friend how he was able to do so well even when he did not finish reading the book fully. My friend enlightened me that as long as you speak confidently a lot of people will believe what you are saying.
This conversation reminded me of the biotechnology entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes who fooled investors and pulled a nine billion dollar fraud with her company Theranos. To give you a bit of context, Holmes dropped out of Stanford at nineteen and sought to change the world; however, she failed to change it positively.
Holmes started her company in 2003 with the help of one of her professors and claimed they could create revolutionary healthcare devices. These devices only needed 1% of the blood other products required while still “[administering medication, monitoring the patients' blood, and changing the dosage” (How it Happened). These are some pretty large claims, so how did she convince large Silicon Valley investors to pour money into her idea?
Silicon Valley has a tendency to invest in big ideas even when the companies have little to show. Knowing this, Holmes went to numerous press conferences, dressed like Steve Jobs, deepened her voice, and even called her product Edison to market herself. (How it Happened).
In 2010 she was offered a 1 billion dollar investment, and she accepted it as long as she never had to show how the technology worked (How it Happened). In 2018 however, she was charged with massive fraud for cheating her investors, and the company shut down.
You do not need to “fake it till you make it” to prosper but being confident can affect how you perceive yourself and how others perceive you.
I believe there are two main ways you can show confidence: through practice or by physically appearing more confident. For instance, if you go for a job interview after practicing interview questions and the required material, the company will remember you as someone who is qualified for the job.
If you act, talk, and dress professionally, the interviewer will remember you as someone who takes pride in their work.
Confidence can help you succeed in every aspect of your life and will save you during stressful times.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyfW7TQpa0
I am not sure your friend would appreciate that you called them out like that, but I guess it does not really matter because the socratic seminar is over. I definitely do see the positive consequences from using a tone that displays confidence and as horrific Elizabeth Holmes' fraud may seem, it just proves how gullible Silicon Valley investors can be. I guess faking it till you make it does work to some extent.
ReplyDeleteHi Pramukh! Confidence really does serve you good when it comes to public speaking. Often times during presentations, people pay much more attention the delivery than the content itself. I recall being extremely mesmerized by Sahana's confident delivery of her POAS presentation; almost too mesmerized to pay attention to what she was actually saying.
ReplyDeleteHey Pramukh, I've found too in my own experiences with people, both talking and listening, often the way we speak matters infinitely more than what we actually say. If someone says something that makes absolutely no sense with confidence and another says something intelligent in a wavering voice, people will still often lean towards those with confidence. Just instilling confidence in your words and how you dress allows other people to reflect that same confidence in your words. This works especially well when the audience has no clue about a topic. Unless you are talking to an expert on your subject, the audience will have no way to gauge the truth of arguments and will only be able to judge intellect based on confidence. This was something that we struggled with often in lay debate where presentation skills would matter much more than actual content.
ReplyDeleteHi Pramukh! You are so very right when you talked about how confidence really is the key to doing well in a certain set of things, especially in public speaking or presentations. I think more than the content itself is that confidence that so many of us lack to make our presentation the best it could possibly be. Obviously, we can't just go into an important presentation with no prep and just confidence, but having confidence is more like a cherry on the top to make the presentation feel so much more put together and amazing as compared to one given with a lack of confidence.
ReplyDeleteHi Pramukh! For the longest time, I believed in the phrase "fake it till you make it" and I associated it with having confidence even if you are unsure about what you are doing. However, in my opinion, having confidence without substantial backing is quite dishonest and especially embarrassing if someone were to find out and expose you. Though if the person were to possess the educational or professional backing required, confidence could really be the factor that brings them to success.
ReplyDeleteHello Pramukh,
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with Carolin in that I find people who compensate for lack of knowledge with confidence to be insincere. I have spoken to several marketers, teachers, and students who rather than have a genuine conversation often choose to manage their tone a certain way even if it is not a true reflection of their mentality, leaving me with more questions than before our conversation. Being confident should be a reflection of how comfortable you are with your information and communicating that information to others. Especially in a Socratic seminar when others are frantically attempting to contribute to the conversation, I believe that what someone says is more important than how they say it.
Hi Pramukh, in today's world, communication is the most important tool. The smartest scientists are not considered "smart" if they aren't able to communicate their research and ideas. This fact makes it so that frauds, like Elizabeth Holmes, are able to trick industry-leading investors and the public that her company is doing well. There have been a lot of "fraud" stories recently, from Adam Neumann, Holmes, to the 'Tinder Swindler.' If you're able to communicate well, it seems like you can trick anyone.
ReplyDeleteHi Pramukh, being confident is important and as you point out a normal amount of confidence is certainly not the same as the specific type of overconfidence that gets into fraud territory. The media also has a role it plays in a lot of cases, including Elizabeth Holmes’ case, by making something that is quite shallow look a lot more important. I do agree that “fake it until you make it” is not the right approach to everything, but I still think there are places where acting a little more confident than you truly feel can help improve confidence in the long term. For example, when playing an instrument, I often play with more confidence than I actually have. After practicing for a while, though, I can play pieces much more accurately. So, I think “fake it until you make it” does apply in some cases, but only if you truly “make it” in the end.
ReplyDeleteHi Pramukh, I had actually heard of Elizabeth Holmes, but I did not really know the entire story behind the fraud, so I thank you for informing me. Confidence is key when it comes to attaining success in the professional world, and although I do not want to encourage fraud by acting confident, Holmes used that formula to the max. My parents always tell me to be confident, act confident, and dress confident, and it really shows results in situations like interviews, where first impressions are everything. I am slowly working on becoming more confident in myself and in my knowledge, and I hope I can be a confident professional in the future, although I do not plan on swindling a billion dollars. Although Holmes is a rare and terrible case, her story is a lesson showing the testament of confidence in the business world.
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