Three men at TEDxDetroit event. The first man is wearing glasses, a black suit, and a purple tie, speaking. The second man has a bald head, is wearing a blue polo shirt, and is posing thoughtfully with his hand on his chin. The third man is wearing glasses and headphones, sitting at a table with laptops and water bottles, with a TEDxDetroit logo visible.

Confidence and Personal Growth Keynote Speaker

Confidence Follows Action

Waiting until you feel confident keeps you exactly where you are.

You don’t need confidence before you speak up in the meeting, volunteer for the assignment, learn something difficult, or walk into a room where you aren’t sure you belong. Confidence comes later. It is the evidence you collect after doing something you weren’t sure you could do.

Christopher Johnson learned this by becoming a beginner when he didn’t want to be one. He learned to swim at 56 after decades of being afraid of the water. That experience confirmed something he had seen throughout his career in technology, training, broadcasting, and live events: capable people often mistake discomfort for evidence that they aren’t ready.

Confidence Follows Action breaks that habit. Christopher shows audiences how preparation makes action easier, why an intimidating next step probably needs to be smaller, and why being quiet doesn’t require being invisible.

Audiences leave with ideas Christopher learned the hard way:

  • You can start before you know what you’re doing. Christopher’s first training assignment began when his boss handed him a WordPerfect manual because the scheduled trainer had called in sick. He taught the class. Then he taught another. Training became part of nearly every job he held afterward. The confidence wasn’t there before the first class. The first class produced it.

  • A very short Hero’s Journey. Christopher trained for four months for his first triathlon. Then he got in the water, dog-paddled about 15 feet to the first buoy, realized he could stand up, and walked back to shore. Four months of training for 15 feet. He was relieved to be out of the water. He was embarrassed. And somewhere in that mix was a question he hadn't expected: Could I actually learn to swim?

  • Sometimes progress is letting go of the wall for two seconds. When Christopher finally learned to swim at 56, he didn’t begin by swimming laps. In February, he was working on being comfortable enough to let go of the pool wall. By May, he was swimming laps. May was possible because of what looked almost insignificant in February.

  • Seven minutes of sports changed his drive home. Early in radio, Christopher’s boss casually told him he would need to fill seven minutes of sports that afternoon. He got through it, but hated being that unprepared. So he started listening to sports talk radio on his commute, not because he became a sports fan, but because he never wanted to be caught that flat-footed again. Later, “Red Wings” came out as “Wed Wings” on the air. He stumbled over the words, not the job.

Let’s Talk

If you are planning a conference, leadership retreat, or internal event and want a speaker who brings clarity without chaos and confidence without bravado, I would be glad to support your event.