Confidence is a core attribute among great leaders. Confidence to make challenging decisions. Confidence to anchor to your values when “easier” and “faster” paths seem tempting. Confidence to pivot when customer needs and wants shift.

While people universally value and seek greater confidence in work and life, actually becoming more confident can be tricky. Based on my experience as an executive coach, confidence can be gained through an array of efforts such as the achievement of small wins, focusing on the process and not just the outcomes, adopting a lifelong learner mindset, and joining a peer group. The first step to becoming more confident however, is to focus on your mindset.

As individuals, we can use questions to challenge assumptions we have about ourselves and tackle self-limiting beliefs. In The Savage Leader, I shared the story of how serial entrepreneur Michel Kripalani used a “How might that work…?” question as the jumping off point to start a mobile app company around the Dr. Seuss series of books. Doing so helped him beat back his self-limiting belief of his readiness to start a company and basing it on a child’s classic.

I used a similar question as the genesis to launch my first company, Nexus Surf, a surf travel company based in the South of Brazil.