Hey there,

exciting announcement before we dive in:

Medium invited me to speak at Medium Day on August 12th! It's a virtual conference with expert-led sessions, workshops, and networking events hosted by authors, thinkers, and, well, yours truly.

I'll be speaking about some of my favorite topics: loneliness, minimalism, and pen names. You can watch my talks at 9:30 am ET, 10:30 am ET, and 11:30 am ET, respectively.

So, save the date!

You can register here to secure your free spot.

Or, check out this post to learn more about my talks and how to register.

I can't wait to see you on August 12th!

And now, let's talk about something closely related to public speaking. Let's talk about shyness. And confidence.

Let's talk about confident shyness.

On confident shyness

When I go to a party, I avoid standing in the middle of the room. When I sit at a table with more than five people, I hate being the only person talking. When I meet new people, the vast possibilities of greeting them intimidate me: Should I give them a hug, handshake, nod, kiss, or the good ol' fistbump?

Until a few years ago, the thought of picking up a phone and calling someone paralyzed me. (It still does sometimes.) I also used to avoid asking strangers for help -- unless it was a life-or-death situation.

In other words, I've been shy for as long as I can remember. And I'm starting to be okay with that. I'm starting to embrace my shyness.

But to get here, I first needed to abandon confidence.

***

Many years ago, my shyness got me into self-improvement. But not in a healthy way. Being shy, it appeared, was a malfunction I needed to fix. Something to cover up. I saw a world full of people who couldn't stop talking, so I figured there would be no room for another shy person.

Soon, I devoured hundreds of videos from dating coaches, professional speakers, and betterment gurus. And they all agreed: my shyness was unattractive, undesirable, and "ruining my life." But luckily, they also offered a magical solution: puffy, alpha-male, I-don't-give-a-fuck CONFIDENCE. The best part? I was only five steps away from unlocking this confidence.

"Wow," I thought unironically. "These people got their lives figured out. Confidence really is the key to peace, success, love, and happiness." The path to salvation was written in the stars:

I needed to become more confident.

And so, my shyness became something I simply denied. After all, confidence and shyness were two opposing concepts, and if I wanted one, I had to banish the other into the deepest, darkest dungeon of my mind. Judgments were passed in my mental courtroom. The verdict: Shyness had to be exiled. Confidence would be crowned king.

Little did I know that this would be the start of tyranny.

I desperately forced myself to appear more confident. When I made a phone call, I put on my serious, sonorous voice rather than my genuine, soft-spoken tone. When I met new people, I pretended I knew exactly how to greet them. (This typically resulted in a cool nod followed by a confident "heywassup.") And when someone made an offensive remark, I just laughed, pretending it was meant as a joke.

I was too confident for insecurities.

***

A few years passed like this. But there was no sight of all the promised results of confidence. Strange. Where was the success, the love, the happiness?

It wasn't until the pandemic forced me to retreat into my natural hermit habitat that I finally sobered up from the CONFIDENCE brainwash. I realized I had started wearing masks. So many masks. As it turned out, confidence had turned me into a confident psychopath.

And who was I kidding?

During all this time, my shyness had never disappeared. It had always been there. But, because I had censored it with CONFIDENCE, my shyness did what it had to: it picked up the pitchforks and started a revolution. It made itself noticeable. And so, rather than confidence, I had actually cultivated self-hatred, anxiety, and the need for a therapist.

Then, I started to write.

That's when, for the first time, I could appreciate my inherent shyness. Suddenly, all my shy traits -- hesitancies, insecurities, tendencies to overthink -- became superpowers. Writing enabled me to mold, edit, and delete what I wanted to say. Shyness helped me embrace these tools. Confidence, on the other end, made my writing sound fake, rushed, and rash. Which was, of course, how confidence had made me appear in real life all those years.

And so, something miraculous happened. Something that, according to my CONFIDENCE gurus, would've never been possible. I became confident through my shyness. I became confidently shy.

***

The German word for confidence is Selbstbewusstsein. But literally translated, Selbstbewusstsein means "being self-aware." So yes, in German, we actually use Selbstbewusstsein to express confidence and self-awareness.

It may sound obvious, but it took me decades to grasp what this implies:

Confidence and self-awareness are the same thing.

See, it was only when I became aware and accepting of my shyness that I benefitted from it. Conversely, when I denied it with CONFIDENCE, my shyness manifested itself as anxiety. Why? Because I was afraid of getting exposed. I was afraid to be vulnerable. To be judged.

Self-awareness removed much of the fear of not being confident. If someone ever criticized me for being shy, I would simply reply, "I know."

***

There are mountains of advice telling us to stop being shy and start being confident. To stop being lazy and start being productive. To stop being sad and start being happy.

But none of this advice acknowledges that absolute confidence leads to recklessness, pure productivity to burnout, and endless happiness to inertia.

The world isn't black or white. It's an infinite spectrum of shades, colors, and blends. This isn't problematic. It's beautiful. The problem arises when we try to censor one color with another.

Of course, I can only speak for myself, but trying to brush up on my insecurities by wearing masks, putting on my sonorous phone voice, and pretending I had the answers -- all these things didn't make me more confident. They made me less confident. "Fake it 'till you make it" is a myth if you ask me.

What made me more confident was becoming self-aware and compassionate about my insecurities. That's when I could finally take off the masks.

Will I stutter while delivering my speeches? Will I be insecure when no one shows up? Or panic when too many people show up?

Probably.

But I'll embrace it. I'll be at peace knowing that's part of the package when you ask me to give a talk.

I'll be confidently shy.

Until next time,

Stephan

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