This week I will share a brief thought on confidence, some inspiration from Winston Churchill and why I believe Jay-Z is underrated.
I’ve been thinking a lot about confidence lately.
What is confidence?
Why is it so important?
/ˈkänfəd(ə)ns/
noun
the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.
the state of feeling certain about the truth of something.
a feeling of self-assurance arising from one's appreciation of one's own abilities or qualities.
Up until this point in my life, I’ve undervalued the importance of confidence. I’ve noticed the more confident I am in any situation, the better I perform. If I’m playing basketball and I have doubts as to whether or not my shot will go in, it’s probably not going to go in. If I believe it’s going to go in, there’s a much better chance it will.
You can get burned from being overconfident, but without it, failure is inevitable.
Lately, I’ve found it helpful to remind myself to be confident in whatever it is I’m doing.
Winston Churchill Slogan
Winston Churchill had a famous slogan regarding the potential invasion of England by the Nazis during WWII which I find beautiful and inspiring:
“you can always take one with you.”
He alluded to it often. I will share two of my favorite examples with you.
From his famous speech to the House of Commons on June 4, 1940, “We Shall Fight on the Beaches.”
“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”
Churchill’s daughter-in-law Pamela recalled an amusing occasion where he used this famous phrase. They were having dinner at 10 Downing Street during the height of the London Blitz.
Churchill apparently burst out and exclaimed, “if the Germans come, you can always take one with you!”
Pamela, not amused at the idea of going up against a German soldier, asked her father-in-law “what can I do if they come?”
Churchill turned to her with a grin and said, “You, my dear, may use a carving knife.”
Music
Jay-Z is one of my favorite rappers and I believe that he is counterintuitively underrated.
He is underrated due to the amount of success he has had on the pop charts, with the Grammy’s, with business, with life in general. He is recognized now as many things including: Beyonce’s husband, business mogul, pop artist.
What he is not recognized for often enough in my view is what he brought to hip-hop. Which is, authenticity, swagger, lyricism and skill, the likes of which rap had not seen before him or since. He is underrated for how much he changed Rap and for how good of an emcee he truly was.
This is one of my favorite Jay-Z songs.
That’s all for this week folks. Thank you for reading! It means the world to me.