Don’t Sell Yourself Short

Monique Mills, MBA, PMP
2 min readJul 18, 2021

COMPETENCE ➡️ how well you do something

CONFIDENCE ➡️ how well you think you can do something

Big difference!

Some people substantially OVERestimate their abilities.
That's called the Dunning Kruger effect.

And our society labels those people as competent because of their confidence. But those 2 things ARE NOT the same.

However, there is a large group of brilliant people that highly UNDERestimate their own abilities.
And these people get the scraps.

Why?

Because they don't exude confidence, thus people don't respect them the same.

I see this A LOT in startup ecosystems.

I meet many brilliant founders who underestimate themselves, but have brilliant products, business knowledge, and capabilities.

However, their lack of confidence prevents them from selling their product and the business eventually dies.

➡️ To build a business you must sell your product (yes, YOU, the founder), at least in the early days.

I keep saying this. And the founders who won't listen find reasons why they don't have time to sell.
But I know time IS NOT the main issue.

Most founders who refuse to sell are afraid of REJECTION. And this is a dreadful cycle that holds you and your business…

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Monique Mills, MBA, PMP

Serial Entrepreneur — Strategy — Engineer (EE) — Tech Startup Founder —President of SMB Acqusiitions at Focused Innovation Group — CEO of TPMFocus —#womaninSTEM