Focus on how much you’ve grown and accomplished. Think about where you were 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ago. What has changed? How have you improved your skills, your career, and most importantly yourself?
Starting something new is scary. Learning to believe in yourself can be a critical precursor to starting a new initiative. Why is it so important to learn to believe in yourself? How can someone work on gaining these skills? In this interview series, we are talking to business leaders, authors, writers, coaches, medical professionals, teachers, to share empowering insights about “How To Learn To Believe In Yourself.” As a part of this series we had the pleasure of interviewing Colin Helm.
Colin is the CEO and Founder of Bldng Blck Studios (and CaesarVerse.io) and an avid gamer. Having launched his first startup while studying entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Boulder, he has held marketing positions at numerous startups. These include two Techstars backed companies in DeFiner, a decentralized lending platform, and Poliloop, a biotech specializing in the disposal of plastic waste. Colin brings a passion for history and a competitive gaming background to the team and manages business operations at Bldng Blck Studios. Bldng Blck Studios was founded with an emphasis on combining the two passions to create immersive historical environments that educate gamers through engaging and captivating gameplay within a historically accurate setting.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory?
I’m originally from the Seattle area and was fortunate enough to be exposed to technology at an early age. My friends and I spent a lot of time on Halo LAN parties and gaming quickly became a hobby as it does for many.
What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.
One of my advertising professors told me that I would start my own agency by my early 30’s. While I may not be in advertising anymore, I certainly carried the creativity over into video games. I’ve always been attracted to startups because I love to build. The idea of being an impactful member of an organization, the journey of growth, and the satisfaction of creating and executing strategy.
It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When I was 25, we had a meeting with the CMO of a VERY prominent company in the industry who we were finalizing a strategic partnership with. I was in charge of marketing and was added to the call on short notice to schedule the promotion of the strategic partnership. Because of this, I did not have time to research their products and the integrations. When she asked if we all knew what they did and how it would be used, I flatly said “No, not really”. It was a very awkward moment and my coworkers were shocked. Since then, I always keep the website of any potential partner or service open during meetings. It turns out that it is important to do your homework post graduation as well.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
We are currently building an open world MMO game set in the Roman Empire — CaesarVerse. The environment, character models, cosmetics, and storylines are meant to be as historically accurate as possible. We are working to gamify education, as education is greatly outdated and many universities do not effectively integrate technology to maximize its capabilities. We have an accompanying tool that allows professors to build a course curriculum that consists of missions as homework assignments. This would not only save students money compared to textbooks, but deliver a more engaging and enjoyable experience. Our goal is to create a play to learn environment that is the best homework that students have ever had.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. This will be intuitive to you but it will be helpful to spell this out directly. Can you help explain a few reasons why it is so important to believe in yourself? Can you share a story or give some examples?
A lack of self belief will limit all aspects of your life. Self belief is innately tied to confidence and confidence is essential in social interactions, networking, fundraising, sales, and presenting. Most communication is based on body language and is nonverbal, and confidence is key to conveying the intended message. If you do not believe in yourself, it is hard to convince others to. Confident people are often tasked with greater responsibility and therefore promoted due to their ability to inspire and influence others. Without self confidence, it will limit your career and social opportunities.
What exactly does it mean to believe in yourself? Can I believe that I can be a great artist even though I’m not very talented? Can I believe I can be a gold medal Olympic even if I’m not athletic? Can you please explain what you mean?
There is a key difference between confidence and arrogance or delusion. While your lack of athleticism may limit your prospects in track and field or basketball, there is still an opportunity to be an Olympic medalist in curling or archery. A 4.40 second 40 yard dash time is not an indicator for success in golf. An artist who lacks the talent to paint portraits may still find great success and renown through interpretive art or sculpting. The key is to combine humility and a willingness to learn with belief in your abilities. Believe in your ability to improve and find what your strengths are. One can realize they have a lot to learn while still being confident in their current knowledge and abilities, and it is likely that this approach will eventually result in mastery of their craft. Arrogance or overstating one’s abilities will simply lead to failure and a lack of credibility. If you’re able to combine belief in yourself with a passion or interest, you will likely find success from a constant desire to improve and be better each and every day.
Was there a time when you did not believe in yourself? How did this impact your choices?
Everyone has experienced doubt at some point in their life. We as humans have a tendency to focus on the negative. Whether news headlines, personal relationships, or in the workplace, we tend to focus on what is wrong and not what is right. The key is to look back on all that you have accomplished to get you to the point where you are at and stop comparing yourself to others. This change in mindset truly gives perspective on the impact of one’s accomplishments.
At what point did you realize that in order to get to the next level, it would be necessary to build up your belief in yourself? Can you share the story with us?
I was shy and timid throughout my internships and at my first job out of college. I realized as an extrovert that I need to interact more in order to not only make the impact that is expected of me, but to find happiness in work. I would keep quiet during meetings and not share ideas or opinions on how we can improve as an organization, on a campaign idea, finding inefficiencies. Validation from my boss encouraged me to be more proactive and vocal. Sometimes all it takes is a little support from those around you.
What are your top 5 strategies that will help someone learn to believe in themselves? Please share a story or example for each.
1 . Be true to yourself
2 . Find your passion
3 . Be honest with yourself about strengths and weaknesses
4 . Take action to act on your strengths
5 . Take action to improve your weaknesses
Conversely, how can one stop the negative stream of self-criticism that often accompanies us as we try to grow?
Focus on how much you’ve grown and accomplished. Think about where you were 1 year, 5 years, 10 years ago. What has changed? How have you improved your skills, your career, and most importantly yourself?
Are there any misconceptions about self-confidence and believing in oneself that you would like to dispel?
I’ve never been a fan of the “fake it until you make it” concept. I believe that you’ll eventually be exposed and it is better to be confident in your abilities but transparent about shortcomings when necessary. Honesty breeds credibility, and in many situations your word is all you have.
What advice would you give to someone who is struggling with imposter syndrome?
You are where you are because of preparation to take opportunities, not luck. It is impossible to get lucky each and every time and there are so many chances in life for luck to run out. The reason you’ve achieved what you have is because of your skills, abilities, and preparation for when the moment presents itself. One must put themselves in the position to have an opportunity and be ready to seize the opportunity. Luck is a byproduct of action.
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Politeness and positivity. Be kind to a stranger and you’ll feel better about yourself. Hold a door or elevator for someone, compliment the people around you, thank others. It costs nothing to be friendly and kind and far too many people in modern society are negative and critical.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
I have multiple people I’d love to meet for a variety of reasons.
David Droga — David Droga for his creativity, especially at Droga5.
Elon Musk — Elon Musk for his organization and vision. He somehow is able to juggle multiple CEO roles while simultaneously exploring Earth and space.
Gabe Newell — Gabe Newell for game design and conceptualization. Valve created some classics and pioneered many mechanics that are now common in gaming.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I post on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-helm/ and follow our game development at https://caesarverse.io/
Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.