Some years ago, I visited a bike repair workshop. The bicycle mechanic who owned the store called me in with a smile and asked me about the issue. I told him the gears didn’t change smoothly. He took some time to do the repair work, took a road test and handed me the keys.
During that one hour or so, I kept noticing how cool, relaxed and confident he was, with his unkempt hair, dirty and almost torn clothes. The kind of self-assurance — where did that come from?
I have had this habit of looking at people, their confidence, and playfulness even when they were doing work that someone might feel ashamed of: the paan shop guy, the hotel supplier, the plumber. The driver I hired for long drives — not a very educated person — but as long as he was driving, I found him to be in his absolute best self. The way he talked was very different from when he was driving compared to when he was not.
I kept asking this question because I was reading self-help books, meditating, doing everything these books explained to understand what made people really happy — the secret of a joyful life.
They all looked happy. Maybe they did have many problems in their lives, but while they were doing their work, they were in the present moment, joyful.
I began to analyze this.
Imagine a situation where the same bike mechanic visits a hospital and meets a doctor for a medical check-up. Does the mechanic show the same level of confidence that he exuded while in his garage? Or will he face a person more relaxed and confident than he was — the doctor at his clinic?
I have been to doctors before, and I can imagine how the mechanic would behave while talking to a doctor. If he tried to show his confidence, he’d sound silly and arrogant. He needs to listen to him. Leave the mechanic for a moment; even the prime minister of a country will become humble while visiting a doctor.
Let’s imagine the second situation — the same doctor visits the same mechanic’s shop to get his bike repaired. Who do you think will be more confident in this situation? Of course, the mechanic.
Perhaps he is more modest because the doctor who treated him is now his client. But the mechanic’s level of confidence in the garage will be superior to that of the doctor.
The doctor can walk like a king in his clinic, but when he is in the garage, he needs to be quiet, watching and listening — just like the mechanic did at the clinic.
This shows that self-confidence is not something you develop by posing to be confident, or by using auto-suggestions. It develops by knowing who you are and where you fit into the world.
Let’s break it down a little bit further.
Recently, I was teaching my friend a few software tools I have used for years for my translation work. He was a journalist and was trying to get into the localization field.
While teaching, I observed that he understood it in bits and pieces, but couldn’t connect them because he did not have a big picture of the whole software. The big picture I had was because of years of my own trials and errors.
Similar to the doctor’s big picture of the human body and the mechanic’s big picture of motor vehicles — how they function internally.
For them, their own fields were like their hometown; they knew every street, they had the big picture of the whole town. But in another town, it would be hard for them to look beyond the street they stood in. In an unknown territory, you need to be observing and learning instead of trying to be confident.
Now, whenever I see a cook toss his wok, I see the years he spent trying and perfecting his skill. Doing one thing, and doing it repeatedly across years of trials and errors. The doctor, the mechanic, the cook — nobody worked to build confidence. They worked to build their skills.
When people say there’s no shortcut, this is what they mean. There’s no shortcut to expertise. The more time you give, the better you’ll know the territory.
But this state of mind won’t come on the first day of work. It builds over years of continued action. You need to make it your hometown.
As I observed, this skillful action was not just getting the work done; being immersed in their action was making them joyful. Both body and mind were involved in creating something.
For years, I tried several methods of meditation — sitting on a rock in a forest in a meditative posture, breathing techniques, and affirmations. But they never went as deep as when I was writing poems. As an idea flashed, I would sit or lie on the bed and go inside myself, looking for the continuation of that vision. And then I wrote. But before that, I had read a lot, I knew the language, and ingested the structure of poetry. Then it became an effortless effort.
As I observed the mechanic at work, I could recognize his confidence and joyfulness. It was coming out of being in the action mode — repairing the bike and riding it around. He didn’t try to be joyful or confident, but was immersed in his creative action mode. And the self-confidence and the joyfulness came out of it as byproducts.