Lessons from the Field
There's a version of confidence that looks great from the outside and collapses the second something goes wrong. And there's another kind, the kind that doesn't ask reality to cooperate first.
That's the distinction I'm digging into on this month's podcast episode, out today: the difference between "I'm fine" and true grounded confidence, and why so many high-achieving women (especially in medicine) have built their whole professional identity on the first one without realizing it.
You'll know which you have by how it reacts to uncertainty. If you find yourself very confident in your decisions when you have all the information, but paralyzed when you don't. You are probably pushing through with the mask of "I'm fine"
I also talk about something I think gets confused constantly: self-trust versus self-reliance. Self-reliance says handle it alone. Self-trust says I know how to find my way through this, and I know who to call when I can't find it by myself. One of those is sustainable. The other one is how most of us end up burned out and still somehow being called "strong."
Listen to the full episode here →https://www.buzzsprout.com/2628115/episodes/19780030
The Story
For most of my career, I worked inside the prestige of Harvard. It was the kind of place where the name on your badge did a lot of talking for you. Leaving that, to become a hospice doctor working in community, was not a decision that made sense on paper. It confused people. It confused me for a while too.
What made it possible wasn't a five-year plan or a pro/con list that finally tipped in the right direction. It was self-trust I had been building quietly, in small ways, long before I needed to use it for something this big.
Part of that came from learning to actually listen to myself, instead of defaulting to what I thought I was supposed to want. Part of it came from what I've started calling my square squad, a term I borrowed from Brené Brown: the small, tightly held group of people whose names you'd put on a one-inch square of paper because you trust their opinion of you completely. Not everyone gets a square. Most people don't need one. But knowing exactly who does made it possible to make a hard, unconventional choice without losing myself in everyone else's opinion of it.
And part of it came from practice, literally: yoga and meditation, returning to my body and breath again and again, especially on the days when the thoughts and feelings got loud enough to drown everything else out. Self-trust isn't a single moment of clarity. It's the accumulated evidence, built one small return to yourself at a time, that you can be trusted to come back.
That's what let me walk away from prestige and toward the work that actually fit. Not certainty. Self-trust.
The Coaching Concept: Your Square Squad
This month's concept builds directly on that idea. Not everyone in your life should have a vote on your biggest decisions, and pretending otherwise is part of what erodes self-trust in the first place.
The names of the people whose opinions matter need to ALL fit on one square of paper. And that square is 1x1 inch.
A square squad is small on purpose. It's the handful of people who have earned the right to speak into your life, usually because they've shown they can hold your full story without trying to fix it, shrink it, or perform a reaction for you.
This week, try this: write down who's actually on your square. Not who you feel obligated to include. Not who would be offended if they knew they weren't on it. Just the real list. Then notice how many other voices you've been treating like they belong there.
Self Trust School: Founding Member Enrollment
Self Trust School is open for enrollment now through September 13.
This is the work behind everything in this newsletter: a monthly membership built for women in high-mortality medical fields (oncology, palliative care, hospice, emergency medicine, the ICU) who are ready to build the kind of self-trust that holds up on the hardest days, not just the easy ones.
Founding members get locked-in pricing for as long as they stay, plus the Founding Member Toolkit, included free:
- Your Personal Mission Statement — the clarifying work that anchors every other decision you'll make from here
- Skills training for managing thoughts and feelings — practical tools for the moments when your mind won't settle and you still have to function
- The Thrive Dashboard — a way to track and see your own growth in something more concrete than vibes
Doors close September 13.
Join Self Trust School →https://www.emmajonesmd.com/self-trust-school-enroll
Practice
Before you close this email, take sixty seconds. Hand on your chest, hand on your belly. Three slow breaths.
Ask yourself one question: What do I already know, that I've been talking myself out of?
You don't have to act on the answer today. Just let yourself hear it.
Until next month,
π Emma
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