Confidence: Why You Don't Have to Lead Alone - Field Note
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Confidence is a tricky thing in midlife leadership. For some of us it's been quietly draining away — through a loss, a reversal, an injury, or pain we've carried a long time. For others it's a newer ache: there was once a confidence tied to our wins, and now a fresh challenge has us rattled. Either way, the higher we climb, the lonelier it can get. We "mask up" for the day, hold it together for everyone around us, and tell ourselves we can't show the cracks.
In this field note, Noel sits with that tension and then does what we love to do here at Canyon Pathways — he goes back to the word itself. Confidence comes from the Latin confidentia: con (with, together) and fidere (to trust). Tucked inside it are the words confide, confidant, fidelity — every one of them about trusting someone outside ourselves. Which turns the whole thing on its head. Confidence, it turns out, is less about belief in ourselves and more about belief in others. Self-confidence may even be a kind of oxymoron.
But to live like a son is to live in abiding confidence — always trusting that we are seen, known, covered, and provided for by a faithful Father who has already prepared a table for us, right here in the valley. That's a confidence the canyon can't take away.
Pull up a chair, brother. We'll stoke the fire while you settle in.
What we explore in this field note
* Why confidence wavers in the canyon — and how the isolation of leadership quietly erodes it
* The word behind the word — confide, confidant, fidelity, fiduciary, and what the Latin root reveals
* The difference between a confidence and a secret — one unites, the other divides
* Three takeaways:
1. The confidence we usually imagine is born out of individual experience — "I've done it, so I can do it again." But over the years that can curdle from I can into I must, only I can — and that's where the isolation begins.
2. Confidence is inherently relational. It literally means together-trusting. We were made for the "we will do it," not the lonely "I can."
3. The deepest confidence is the confidence of sonship — we're not a hired hand whose contract is running out. We're sons and heirs, with a Father who has already prepared the inheritance, and the table.
A line worth sitting with
> "It's not that I can do it, it's that we will do it. And by the way, we will continue to do it. That's the essence of Psalm 23."
Scripture & references
* Psalm 23 — the Shepherd, the valley of shadow, the table prepared in the midst of it
* Hebrews 4:16 — "Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace…"
* Epicurus — "We do not so much need the help of our friends as we do the confidence of their help in need."
* Back to the Future — George McFly as the unlikely patron saint of confidence
Coming up next
We're staying with confidence — but moving from the field note to the fire pit. Next episode, Luke Smith sits down with Canyon Pathways brother Kewmars Kazemzadeh (name spelling to confirm — see note below) for a conversation about his own journey into sonship and how the Father has guided him through his life. You won't want to miss it.
Resources
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* Discussion questions (PDF) — use this episode for personal reflection or with your small group. [link]
* More field notes: canyonpathways.org/blog [https://www.canyonpathways.org/blog]
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* About Canyon Pathways: https://www.canyonpathways.org/about [https://www.canyonpathways.org/about]
* Learn about our retreats: https://www.canyonpathways.org/retreats [https://www.canyonpathways.org/retreats]
* The Heart of Man Film: http://heartofmanmovie.com [http://heartofmanmovie.com/]
* The Canyon Pathways Spotify playlist: https://canyonpathwayspodcast.com/cpspotify [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5XT2TpA0AZ6eD0dQ6tAjZB]
Produced by the team at Maroon Harpoon LTD. Thank you to our donors who make this venture possible — and thank you, friend, for being part of this Canyon Pathways community as we together live like sons and lead like fathers.
