This is an excerpt from Finding Mastery #090 with Victoria’s Secret CEO, Jan Singer, in which she shares how she builds confidence.
I think I put myself out of my comfort zone all the time. I like to push it so I can see what my skills really are and what I have the propensity to learn.
I come from a place believing that just about anybody can learn anything if you give them the information in a way they’ll understand and enough time. I believe that and I keep testing that theory every year with what I take on for challenges and I say well can I really do that? What about this? Let me push it a little harder.
And so that gives me confidence.
Every time I learn and I grow, I say to myself, well I could do more because I don’t believe that there’s a limit to it except that you die at some point and then it’s a different kind of thing maybe I don’t know.
I think confidence comes from the continued pressure testing of the edges.
When I used to snowboard, you’re staring down a run and you’re like, “Well I don’t know, I’m not an extreme athlete that just has that adrenaline thing I don’t have necessarily that.”
I remember snowboarding and saying if I don’t commit, if I don’t commit to the edge, if I don’t commit to the turn and I’m basically going to hit the tree and die and that’s how it’s going to go.
I know every time my mind is engaged in it, I make the turn and I’d make the run. Same with golf. I had to be very mentally present.
That gives me the confidence, that I can focus and do it once then I build on that and learn and keep pushing see where the edge is.
Listen to full podcast here.
This post originally appeared on Finding Mastery.