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Part of my research this week for hosting The View was to read a book called The Confidence Code. It was written by journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. Shipman was to be a guest on the show.
Quite frankly, I wasn’t looking forward to reading the book because it appeared to be one more self-help book. Even less appealing to me; the book is geared towards women and why their confidence is so much lower than men in their professional lives. But a funny thing happened while perusing “The Confidence Code,” I started to relate to it.
In one of my first college journalism courses in Louisiana my professor told me I’d never make it because I had trouble mastering videotape editing. I wasn’t terrible, but I wasn’t great either.
However, my writing, shooting and on camera abilities were far better than most of my classmate’s; most of whom were white. His expectations of me were different than they were for the other students in the class who didn’t look like me. What he was saying to me was go find a job more suitable for someone like you.
I had lived in Louisiana all my life and when that man spoke those words to me, I knew where he was coming from. I don’t need to spell it out.
That incident stuck with me. It affected my self-esteem and my confidence. I left LSU and Louisiana in large part because of that incident. I packed up my bags and my 1987 Jeep Wrangler and moved to New York City with $200 to my name, and I never looked back.
DON LEMON: “The Confidence Code”
was originally published on
blackamericaweb.com
When I finally got a job in a newsroom in New York City my confidence was at rock bottom. The Confidence Code states that men are more confident than women even when they are less qualified or less talented than them, that they speak up for themselves more often and that they demand and often receive higher wages for the same.
I can relate to that and I’m sure many minorities can as well.
In my first job in a newsroom, the young people, most of them white, carried themselves with a confidence and a sense of entitlement that I and the few minorities there didn’t have.
And while they certainly weren’t more talented or hard-working as the blacks and Hispanics in the newsroom, they very often got promoted faster and were paid more than us.
Luckily for those of us who struggled through, a new woman news director came in and corrected the situation immediately.
No. We weren’t crazy, lazy or complainers.
We were just victims of entitlement and bigotry.
Soon after, we became more confident in our work and began to perform even better than we were before.
That was 20 years and six jobs ago, yet as I read through that book it was like it was yesterday.
Funny thing is that all of those unfair experiences motivated me.
And more often than not the people who helped me the most professionally were women who clearly in my humble opinion and experience, the more evolved of the sexes.
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DON LEMON: “The Confidence Code”
was originally published on
blackamericaweb.com
