Confidence isn't something you wait for. It's something you earn.
The biggest lie people believe is about confidence. People feel like you have to be confident before you do the thing. You don't. You don't magically become confident and then start taking risks and doing cool shit. You have to do the cool shit while you're feeling nervous, while you feel like everyone's looking at you weird. That's literally how it works.
When I was in school, I wasn't confident. When I was a teenager, I wasn't confident. Even today, there are rooms I walk into and I feel way out of my depth.
But one thing I've learned is that confidence is something you build by doing it over and over again. In the beginning, you have to fake it. Fake it till you make it. You're going to feel awkward. But you have to stand there and act like you're the man. Stand there and act like you're the girl. Act like you belong. Carry yourself like you've done it a thousand times before.
The more you do that, other people will look at you and think, oh, this guy knows what he's doing. He's done it a thousand times before. And eventually you start believing it yourself.
Confidence isn't something you wait for. It's something you earn over time. Every time you do the thing when you're scared, that's when you build a little bit more.
These days when I walk on a stage to DJ, I do feel confident. That's not fake — that's real. But it's built over doing it hundreds and hundreds of times when I was scared, when I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was a freak, when I was fully faking it. And honestly, even today, there are still some stages where I don't feel confident.
The main message: don't wait until you feel confident before you start. Just start now. The confidence comes later.
