Random Acts Of Confidence

Based on a palmful of events yesterday, I got a snapshot of how complex self-confidence is and with what surgical precision it strikes.

First the crap news: our launch date is looking more like November now. I'm enlisting the buy in of one of our finance VP's to do it in October but he's not the only one to approve it but his opinion carry's a lot of weight. Probably more weight than anyone else.

I rallied yesterday for retention bonuses and vacations for hourly staff members who are impacted by this extension of hell. I've never done that before but I went all Norma Rae on the situation because I have legitimate concerns about people's endurance and effectiveness over this long haul that got longer. Myself included.

Then I went to a big meeting that had all the heads of businesses and IT to discuss launch dates for all these projects we have on our plate right now. When I walked in, the CIO was in there. I had a very tough meeting with her two weeks ago where she went 6S on me (Six Sigma - look it up, it's terrifying if you go up againt a 6S blackbelt and you've had absolutely no exposure to it save what you know from Goooooooogle). I had no idea after the end of that if she thought I was an eejit or not but when I saw her in our meeting room, she smiled and winked at me. I was the only person she actually acknowledged as we walked in. I actually took some pride and confidence in that. Her respect is not easily earned.

But I was quiet throughout the meeting and then one of the VP of I.T. made a VERY disingenous comment about a statement I made. Greg (the consultant I have constant fights and 2 hour reconciliation sessions with) started to defend/clarify what I had said and I just talked right over him and slammed her back down. I was SO ANGRY that she called me out like that and was outright wrong. I let it rip and said, "I am not going to sit in this room filled with the most intelligent people in our company and tell them ____" I got a lot of smiles and nods and she backed off. I could have told her it was her department that caused the f'up in the first place but I didn't.

When I take a step back and look at my day - rallying, coaxing, commiserating and yelling with VP's and C level officers of a Fortune 200 company, I'd have absolutely no issues with self-confidence or esteem. But those strike surgically, because as we know from the last 10 or so posts I have extremely low self-esteem and confidence personally.

I did all this, by the way, while fielding a bunch of hotel related questions for C. How can I cover the professional front while conducting a personal one?

(random injected thought - what IS this playlist? Alanis, Tina Turner and now the Spice Girls?!)

So, why is it with all that confidence, is it so vacant in other parts of me? Why do I think my experience isn't worthwhile against the density and mass of others? Why do I think my opinion counts for a Fortune 100 company, but not for myself?

Time for me to get to work. Ha.