Are you brilliant? Well, convince me!

Atomic ideas from 'Convinced'

Last week, I finished watching ‘The Designated Survivor’ (on Netflix) and one of the most elegant silence in the series (would really recommend watching this) was when the accidental president, Tom Kirkman was asked ‘why are you running for president’.

In 1979, senator Ted Kennedy who was campaigning for the US presidency was asked the same question in one of the high-profile TV interviews.

“Senator, why do you want to be President?”

Ted took Ten incredibly long seconds passed – an eternity of dead air – before Kennedy came up with an answer. This was the precise moment when Kennedy’s presidential campaign inexorably started downhill (inspite of him winning the Times polls with 54% votes).

Apparently, he wasn’t prepared for this question and failed to give a convincing answer. It didn’t matter whether he was competent or not - he lost the perception war post that interview.

The question is if you are competent, why do you need to prove it? Why do you have to convince others, when you are good at what you do?

(Unfortunate) truth is that you need to.

Competence does not speak for itself! You can't simply display it; you have to draw people's attention to it - Jack Nasher.

Sharing atomic ideas from the book ‘Convinced by mentalist Jack Nasher). The core idea of the book is straightforward: It’s not your actual competence that counts. It’s how people perceive your competence that makes the difference.

Note: A lot of ideas from this book is controversial - and though I don’t agree with it 100%, but I believe you still need to be aware of them decide for yourself. So here we go 👇