96. The Key to Confidence

Summary

The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni

Episode 96: The Key to Confidence
Date: September 23, 2025
Hosts: Patrick Lencioni (Pat), Cody Thompson

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Episode Overview

In this insightful episode, Pat and Cody delve into the concept of confidence, examining common misconceptions and connecting true confidence to self-awareness, humility, and the Working Genius model. They discuss how embracing both strengths and weaknesses leads to authentic confidence, why many struggle with imposter syndrome or overconfidence, and how naming one’s unique gifts—using the Working Genius framework—can fundamentally boost confidence in both personal and professional life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining True Confidence vs. Misconceptions

• Distinguishing Confidence from Arrogance:
  • Pat opens by highlighting that confidence is often misunderstood and mistaken for arrogance in today’s culture—especially on social media. (01:14)
  • Defining humility as “correspondence to what is true,” Pat explains that both underconfidence and overconfidence are distortions: “Overconfidence is violation of what is true. So the best thing we can do if we want to be confident is to know what is true and be good with that.” (01:39, Pat)

The Role of Humility

• Humility and Confidence Go Together:
  • True humility isn’t self-deprecation, but accepting strengths and weaknesses honestly.
  • Pat shares: “The best definition of humility is correspondence to what is true… understanding ourselves, what we’re really good at… and what we’re not good at… is the key to confidence.” (01:39, Pat)
  • Cody points out the danger of always underplaying oneself: “A lot of times when we talk about humility, we also talk about the inverse of that, which is kind of underplaying who you are or what your value is.” (02:28, Cody)

Naming Weaknesses Is as Important as Naming Strengths

• Comfort with Limitations Builds Real Confidence:
  • Pat encourages embracing areas of “working frustration” and models this: “If you can get somebody to stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I’m really terrible at something,’ suddenly they’re like, ‘Oh, nobody killed me for saying that… now I can say what I’m good at without feeling like I’m lying.’” (03:41, Pat)

The Communal Power of Vulnerability

• Honesty Creates Space for Others to Share:
  • Cody comments that communal confidence grows when people see each other being open about both strengths and struggles. (04:25)
  • Pat: “It’s not until you know that they’re comfortable saying what they’re bad at that you feel like you can trust them and want to be with them… I admire most in the world… when they acknowledged what they weren’t good at.” (05:28, Pat)

The Working Genius Model as a Confidence Tool

• Adding Language and Evidence to Gifts:
  • Cody notes: “Working genius allows us to put language to the way we’re wired. So if you don’t know who you are – of course it's going to be hard to know what you should be confident in.” (06:19, Cody)
  • Citing Alex Hormozi: “You don’t become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are.” (02:28, Cody quoting Hormozi)

Practical Steps to Building Confidence

• Understanding and Articulating Your Working Genius:
  • For those struggling with confidence (children, coworkers, friends), Pat suggests: “The first thing you should do is say, I want you to know who you really are. Give them Working Genius and go over it with them and say, I want you to acknowledge…” (07:05, Pat)
  • Important distinction: gifts are about where you get “joy and energy,” not just ability. (07:05)
  • Being equally bold about what you love and what drains you is both attractive and more impactful than external methods (like public speaking classes). (07:05)

Overconfidence as a Symptom of Insecurity

• The Myth of “All Six Geniuses”:
  • Pat references a person claiming mastery of all “six geniuses”—he explains that this is unrealistic and often rooted in insecurity. (13:57–15:27)
  • “There’s nothing more unattractive than somebody who’s in denial about something that they don’t like and they’re not talented at.” (13:57–15:27, Pat)

Early Confidence through Clarity

• Impact for Young People:
  • Cody and Pat reflect on wishing they’d had this model earlier in life, especially for students exploring their identities. (15:27, Cody)
  • Pat: “What a tragedy if you’re coaching a sport and you need 10 different things and there’s somebody who’s good at a few… and you never talk about it. Everybody has talents in one thing or another.” (16:40, Pat)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Defining Humility:
  “The best definition of humility is correspondence to what is true.” (01:39, Pat)

• Confidence vs. Arrogance:
  “Overconfidence is violation of what is true. The best thing we can do if we want to be confident is to know what is true and to be good with that.” (01:39, Pat)

• Alex Hormozi's Perspective:
  “You don’t become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are.” (02:28, Cody quoting Hormozi)

• On Sharing Weaknesses:
  “Sometimes I think if you can get somebody to stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I’m really terrible at something,’ suddenly they’re like, ‘Oh, nobody killed me for saying that…now I can say what I’m good at...’” (03:41, Pat)

• The Importance of Sharing Gifts:
  “If you know somebody in life that doesn’t have confidence… the first thing you should do is say, I want you to know who you really are. Give them Working Genius…” (07:05, Pat)

• Confidence for Young People:
  “If only I knew this back then, it would have prevented me from years of exploration and guilt and shame around things I was not good at.” (15:27, Cody)

• On Overconfidence/Insecurity:
  “Overconfident people are usually insecure because they feel like they have to focus more on what they’re good at and actually helping them get comfortable with saying, ‘Yeah, I don’t like doing those things, and that’s okay.’” (13:57, Pat)

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Important Segments with Timestamps

• 00:47 – 02:28: Introduction, definitions of confidence, humility, and the problem of over/underconfidence.
• 02:28 – 06:19: The intersection of confidence, humility, and the need for communal vulnerability.
• 06:19 – 09:53: The power of the Working Genius model; building a foundation of confidence through self-knowledge.
• 09:53 – 15:27: Real-life effects of naming strengths and weaknesses and handling overconfidence/insecurity.
• 15:27 – 18:27: The special relevance for students and younger people in developing confidence early.
• 18:27 – END: Final thoughts—confidence enables you to help others grow confident, reinforcing the Working Genius model as a key to lasting assurance.

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Takeaways

• True confidence arises from honest self-assessment—naming both strengths and frustrations—grounded in humility.
• The Working Genius model gives language and evidence for people to own their gifts without arrogance or shame.
• Discussing both strengths and weaknesses publicly builds a trustworthy, productive community.
• Helping others, especially young people, know their genius gives a lasting foundation for confidence.

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“The key to confidence is knowing yourself and knowing you can't be great at everything, but you are great at some things.”
(18:48, Pat)

Transcript

[A]

If you know somebody who's overconfident, you might want to have them take this and say, hey, yeah, you're definitely great. But let's take a look at these other things. Because overconfident people are usually insecure because they feel like they have to focus more on what they're good at and actually helping them get comfortable with saying, yeah, I don't like doing those things, and that's okay. Welcome to the Working Genius podcast, where we discuss anything and everything having to do with the six types of working genius and how it impacts your work and your life. I'm Pat Lynchoni, your host, joined by Cody Thompson, my co host. How are we today, Cody?

[B]

Fantastic. Doing great.

[A]

I love to hear it. I love to hear it. This is going to be a fun topic today. What is that?

[B]

The key to confidence.

[A]

Yes, confidence. One of those things that we tell our kids. We talk to ourselves about everybody who says, you got to have confidence, and yet it's so elusive, and so many people in the world struggle with this, and they struggle with imposter syndrome and feeling like they're not enough. And we think that working genius is right in the middle of the solution to the confidence issue. Yeah, that's what we're going to talk about.

[B]

It'd be kind of fun to explore kind of what we mean by confidence, too, before we move into how working genius will help us be more confident. Because I think we live in an era where confidence is so misconstrued. Right. It's not like arrogance. There's. There's a handful of ways that we see confidence sort of come at us through social media and movies and other things. So maybe it's important for us to kind of define what that is.

[A]

Yeah. And I think the best way to do it is to look at humility, because they go together. Because humility isn't lack of confidence. In fact, the best definition of humility is correspondence to what is true. Right. And so overconfidence is violation of what is true. So the best thing we can do if we want to be confident is to know what is true and to be good with that. And to do that, we need to understand what's true about ourselves. So when a person lacks confidence, it means they don't really understand their goodness. If they're overconfident, it means they're exaggerating their goodness. And so understanding ourselves, what we're really good at and what we love doing and what we're not good at, which often corresponds to what we don't love doing is the key to confidence. And that's really what this episode is about.

[B]

Well, I like that new nuance because I think that's the obvious arrogance, the overconfidence thing. But a lot of times when we talk about humility, we also talk about the inverse of that, which is kind of underplaying who you are or what your value is. And I think that's sort of what we're going to touch on with working genius is like, how do you, how do you present yourself to the world? Knowing who you are in a way that is pretty accurate and lets people know that you have strengths and weaknesses. And there's a guy, actually, I love this quote. I was going to bring this up. Alex Hermosi is a podcaster, business guy. He says you don't become confident by shouting affirmations in the mirror, but by having a stack of undeniable proof that you are who you say you are. Trends.

[A]

That's true.

[B]

Yeah. The truth. And I think, like, we live in an era where all these influencers online think like, well, just go be everything to all people. Say you can do it, like over project who you are and just like kind of live into this inflated idea of self when the reality is when you can just settle into exactly how God made you and present yourself to your co workers, your family, your friends. That way it allows you to tap into this level of self assuredness and confidence that is really hard to attain otherwise.

[A]

Yeah. And sometimes it's easier to actually go to the opposite too, to say, so be truthful about what you're great at. Be just as truthful about what you're not great at. And to me, that second one actually might precede the first one because they go together. Because I think what people do is they feel like if I have a weakness, I need to hide that. And that makes them then want to overplay their strengths or they feel. And so sometimes I think if you can get somebody to stand up and say, yeah, I'm really terrible at something, suddenly they're like, oh, nobody killed me for saying that. Everybody confirmed that. That's true. Now I can actually say the things I'm good at without feeling like I'm lying about it.

[B]

So I love the you honing in on the working frustration and how that can build confidence too. Because I think, let's imagine a world where we just talked about working genius and we just said, here's all the things I'm great at, then it doesn't allow room for your coworkers or your friends or family to feel. Feel like you have deficiencies. And so there's this, like, communal side of this, too, where confidence can be a little contagious when it's put in the right context, where we're both emphasizing how we're wired and what we're good at, and we're emphasizing the things that we don't do well. Because you and I both have been in scenarios where, you know, a friend or acquaintance or somebody is, like, never. We talk about this regularly. Like, we'll come to the office and say, I got in a fight with my wife last night and here's why. I was. You know, I thought about it the wrong way. When somebody is not able to say that they have any fights with their wife or any deficiencies, it kind of robs the whole group of wanting to share what you're not good at. And it sort of presents this idea that you have to be good at everything to be confident.

[A]

Right? Yeah, it's. That's so interesting. We are. And when we can realize that confidence and humility go together, because humility is the most attractive quality in the world. So when. And I. I've heard a guy named Matthew Kelly said Jesus was the most attractive person to walk the face of the earth because he embodied humility. It was. It was true what he said, and he didn't need to brag. He was just stating truth. And when you meet somebody who is really comfortable with what they're great at and what they're not great at, it's very attractive. And I. And I think it's not until you know that they're comfortable saying what they're bad at that you feel like you can trust them and want to be with them. And so most of the people I admire most in the world, I finally came to the conclusion that I admired them when they acknowledged what they weren't good at. And it made me feel like, oh, I can do that, too, around them. And it doesn't diminish me.

[B]

Absolutely. The other thing that I think is interesting, going back to that Hermozi quote, is it says that you have an undeniable stack of evidence that you are who you say you are. I think the other thing that working genius does for us is sometimes we just don't know who we are or what we're good at. And there's this whole season of life where. Where you're kind of in an exploratory phase where you're like, what am I good at? What should I be confident around? And working genius allows us to put language to the things like the way we're wired. So if you don't know who you are, and of course it's going to be hard to know what you should be confident in. So the first step is almost understanding who you are, who your identity is, and then kind of presenting that to the world in a really humble way and saying, yeah, this is. This is who I am, and this is what I do really well.

[A]

You know, if you know somebody in life that doesn't have confidence, if it's a child or a friend or a spouse or a coworker, the best thing you can do, instead of like, I'm going to. I'm, you know, we think you have to take a public speaking class or you have to do this, the first thing you should do is say, I want you to know who you really are. Give them working genius and go over it with them and say, I want you to acknowledge. Now I want to say this. There are people in the world because it's not about what you're good at and not good at. It's about where you get your joy and energy. There are people in the world that are good at things that don't give them joy and energy. There are. But for most people, they're going to correspond to their working geniuses and make sure that they actually are comfortable acknowledging their working frustrations. And then when they do that, then you can say, now I want you to be just as bold about what you're, what you. What you do that gives you joy and energy as you are about the things that deprive you of that. If you can have a really good conversation, conversation with a person about this, they're going to move so much more toward confidence. And you know what's interesting? I think what's good for people to hear is people are actually not attracted to human beings who diminish themselves. And I think that probably people are mistakenly thinking that if I diminish myself in the eyes of others, people will like me more. And actually, it's kind of disconcerting when a person does that, because if they're good at something, they want to be able to celebrate what you're good at, too. And when you deprive them of that, it's not actually an attractive thing. You know, Scotty Scheffler, right now we're in the world of golf. I mean, this guy is one of the greatest golfers of all. Nobody's ever done quite what he's done. I mean, you can put him up there with Jack Nicklaus, Tiger woods, he's just an amazing things. He is a really humble guy. But if they went up to him and they said, hey, do you think you're the best golfer in the world? He wouldn't say, oh, no way, man, I'm not. He would have to go, well, ev. Like Alex Hermosi says, well, the proof would be there. Yes. Now he would then go, but I really don't want to talk about myself all the time. But to deny that would be ridiculous. So humility, again, is not denying what is true. It's just, I don't have to tell you about it all the time, but when asked, you have to say, yeah, that's. I really love doing that. And for people here, find people in your life that don't have confidence and get them to be equally bold about what gives them joy and energy and what deprives them of joy and energy, and you will probably have a bigger impact on them than any other method of trying to give them confidence. That is probably more surface level or external.

[B]

Yeah. And Pat, I want to get into the working genius side of this conversation, but I actually think it's kind of interesting how we came up with this topic, because in terms of working genius, now we're four years into it, and you asked the question, like, what is this really about? What's the elevator pitch? What does it do for people, an individual person? And it does a lot of things. And that's kind of the hard part of trying to distill it down. Right? Because we had talked about in the past, like, oh, this is about productivity and joy and fulfillment, which it totally is. It will help you be more productive and joyful. But when you use the word confidence, that's a way. We've never really talked about it before. And it resonated with me because it was like, prior to working genius, I didn't have the language to say, hey, you know what I'm actually pretty gifted at and I love doing. I conceptually could kind of tell you and coworkers about that. But I think that it's, you know, when we talk about the elevator pitch, like, what? Like, if you were telling a friend, hey, you got to take working genius, what is the. And they said, well, what's in it for me? Like, what's the reason I should do it? We could say productivity. We could say joy and fulfillment. And if we said, you know what? It's. Because a lot of times we have a hard time understanding who we are, and what we're good at. And it will give you so much confidence to be able to present this to friends, family, coworkers, and say with relative assuredness, this is who I am. This is what I'm good at. Here's how I can contribute, and here's some things that I'm not particularly good at. And I think more than guilt and shame and judgment and all the concepts that we've talked about, this might be one of the anchor pieces of what working genius does for people.

[A]

Yeah. And that just came to us last week.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I was having a conversation with some other people about some things, and we were talking about, well, like, people who lack confidence. This would be the antidote to that. But I think sometimes guilt and shame is the window into that. It's like people who lack confidence feel usually unnecessary guilt and shame, but it's better to say, be appropriately, humbly confident. And I think people go, you mean I could be humble and confident at the same time and avoid these negative feelings. I want to figure that out what a gift it would be to somebody. But don't just have them take it. Talk to them about it, and help confirm in them that it's real. And I've done this with so many people of all different ages. And I do think about all the people in my life who I've done this with. It allowed me to say to them, this is really a gift. You are gifted in this area. And a lot of people don't like to acknowledge that they're gifted. I mean, if you were to stand somebody up and say, say this out loud, I have a gift in this area. It sounds like it's bragging. And it's not. Especially because when you're given a gift, you should brag about the giver of it. Not the gift, not the fact that you have it. So it's really a violation of humility. If you're gifted in something, you should say, yeah, I really have a gift in this area.

[B]

Yeah, I love that you said, sort of talk people through it, because I think we're so conditioned because of this lack of confidence or perceived arrogance or whatever else it is to present ourselves to the world with all of our flaws. Right. Like, oh, I'm not that good at that, or, oh, hey, that's. And. And what's interesting is if you introduce yourself to a group of folks, you're. You're less likely to. To lead with the qualities that, like, hey, you know, here's what I'm particularly good at. But if I were Introducing you to people, Pat. You know, like, we'd almost be embarrassed by what your coworkers and friends would say about you if they knew you're working genius. Like, hey, here's Pat Linchoni. He's written a bunch of books. What he does really well is he invents things. He has this gift of invention and discernment, and with those gifts, he makes really complex things. Simple. Like, you would never introduce yourself that way. But because I know you, I've worked with you, and I know what your working genius is, that's exactly how I talk about you behind your back. You know.

[A]

You know what's interesting? I've actually gotten better at being comfortable going, hey, as it turns out, I like doing these. It's easier for me to say I love doing this than it is to say I'm good at it. And then I could say, and as a result of that, you know, I was given a gift to enjoy this, and I've gotten good at that. It doesn't feel like bragging anymore, but for the longest time, I would actually deny the people. Well, I don't know, you know, and that's actually just silly. And, you know, if you know somebody who's overconfident, you might want to have them take this and say, hey, yeah, you're definitely great. But let's take a look at these other things. Because overconfident people are usually insecure because they feel like they have to focus more on what they're good at and actually helping them get comfortable with saying, yeah, I don't like doing those things. And that's okay, because if there's nothing more unattractive than somebody who's in denial about something that they don't like and they're not talented at, you know, like, we had that one person, God bless them. And hopefully since then, they've seen this. But right after this came out, Matt got a note from somebody saying, I have all six geniuses. And we tried to explain, well, maybe you've gotten good at them, but. And they said, no, no, no, I love them all, and I'm really good at all of them. And we were like, oh, that person. It must be so hard to be around them, because they must constantly say, no, I'm one of the best at this and at that and at this and at that. And that's just not true about anybody.

[B]

Yeah, you know, Pat, I didn't plan on saying this, but I was thinking about my own experience because, you know, we came. You came up with, we you know, discerned through working genius. Only four years ago, I was in my mid-30s. And both our sentiment and even your wife. And my wife was like, man, I wish I had this when I was younger. Because I think there's this certain age, like out of high school into college where confidence is really lacking and people don't know who they are. And so like a part of our desire when we developed the student version of this assessment was to say, Ben, if only I knew this back then, it would have prevented me from years of exploration and guilt and shame around things I was not good at. And so just an encouragement. If you're listening to this and you have a young person in your life. I was a youth pastor at one point. I have a heart for that age group that's in such an exploratory phase to say, hey, listen, let's just fast track you getting to know yourself and help you discover what you love to do and then put you in a position to do what you love. And so I just think that that age group where confidence is most lacking, this might be a booster for people that are struggling to figure out who they are.

[A]

You know, I used to coach my children in sports for years and every kid, you want to find out what the thing they do really well is on the field, you know, and what a tragedy if you're coaching a sport and you need 10 different things and there's somebody who's good at a few of them that you never talk about. And everybody has talents in one thing or another. And so to have somebody play a sport or go into any activity and not know that they do bring something to the table is tragic for them and for the team. And so I love this. I mean, boy, how exciting it is. I have a 19 year old son, my youngest, and we've just figured out that he's a wg and to give him permission to know that he actually does really think about things, he's really thoughtful and observant and that he does like to rally people to get things done allows him to recognize I have a place in work and in life. And until that. That's the rarest type, by the way, the wg. I know that he would think like, I don't know, whatever I'm ever going to do. And he's finally thought, yeah, I can use these things. I have handles around something that I could actually be confident around. And yeah, until he understood that, it was really tough to talk to him about confidence because it would seem too much like a parent saying, you're wonderful, you know, oh, you're a great kid. And he's like, yeah, but what am I good at? What do I love doing? So I do think this is one of those things, like, I wish now I had four more kids coming along that I could say, I want to help you discover your genius.

[B]

Yeah. That's why I think this. This idea of the key to confidence. I think if you're in a situation, whether work or life, where you're not confident, you're not understanding who you are and what you have to offer the world, I think 12 minutes of your time working genius dramatically changed that for me and a lot of people in my life. So would really encourage people to dive in more.

[A]

And let me finish with this thought. One of the greatest things about developing your own confidence is that now you're in a position to help other people develop theirs. It's really difficult for a person who lacks confidence to help other people. So find out what you love doing and you're great at and then give other people that gift, too. And that's what we want to say. The key to confidence is knowing yourself and knowing you can't be great at everything, but you are great at some things. All right, thanks for listening. We love talking to everybody about this, and we love the feedback we get. So thanks for listening. Go ahead and, like and subscribe and do all that fun stuff. We appreciate it when you do, and we'll talk to you next time on the Working Genius podcast. God bless.