The Confidence Gap: A Guide to Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt - Russ Harris

I run a book club in my studio at the Butler School of Music and we most often choose the book together as a team to find what current themes are running through each of our lives.  The Confidence Gap was a book that my student, Shruthi, kept bringing up and so we finally gave in to her insistence (Shruthi, btw, is now the most likely to succeed with her book recommendations). The title itself can turn most away – Fear and Self-Doubt bring in there right away strike warnings into the hearts of most people I assign this book to so much so that I now emphasize heavily the “Overcoming” before they can respond.  Harris approaches the issue of confidence by shifting the mindset of the reader in getting to know their fears and insecurities in new and different ways.  He shifts the mindset on what confidence is and how we can build it and how clarifying ones core values can help build bridges through your habits like no other process.  As I like to say (and wholeheartedly admit it’s stolen from an Oprah/Deepak meditation): invite your fears in for tea, get to know them, thank them for all they’ve shared with you, and send them on their way.  Harris through his writing does just that and we’re all better for it.