Lost Confidence
The article explores the common experience of losing professional confidence, particularly among experienced leaders and founders. It discusses the psychological roots of impostor syndrome and self-doubt, and offers practical strategies for rebuilding trust in one's own abilities without relying solely on external validation.
Background
- Jason Cohen is a longtime tech entrepreneur and writer who runs WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting company. He blogs at "A Smart Bear," a popular site for startup founders and engineering leaders.
- This post is about the crisis of confidence that founders and senior engineers face when their past successes stop feeling relevant — a common mid-career psychological crash that isn't often discussed openly.
- Cohen distinguishes between "junior" confidence (naive but necessary for taking big risks early on) and "senior" confidence (knowing your limitations, which can look like weakness from outside but is actually a more mature understanding).
- The key idea: losing confidence after years of experience is not regression but a natural, necessary phase of growth — analogous to the "Dunning-Kruger effect" curve where expertise first dips before rising again.