Stop Ruminating and Give it a Listen

Any additional comments?

I read the teaser article about this book in The Atlantic and was intrigued enough to read the actual book. I'm not a self-help or trendy non-fiction reader, so this book was quite the departure for me. However, the thesis presented in the article in the The Atlantic really resonated with me.

As an adult whose returned to college, I often find myself appalled at the lack of confidence and agency in the young women I take classes with. Often, in many settings from school to work I find myself as the only outspoken woman in a group, and even then, I know how much confidence I lack in comparison to my male colleagues.

I interned at a literary journal and while 70 to 80 percent of the classes, workshops and conferences for creative writing I attend are populated by women, strangely those numbers flip when it comes to who is submitting work to magazines and journals. It's strange that while the majority of writing students are female, an overwhelming majority of those who submit stories are male. It's something I've always found puzzling and concerning. But after reading this book it seems to me that a business, like writing, that involves monumental amounts of rejection, is something women in our society have not been trained to accept.

One of the main ideas in the book is that women are not given the same opportunities as men to fail and fail often enough to become well-practiced in failure, and thus when encountering failure in the real world for the first time as adults, we shrink back and learn we can't fail if we don't try. Which becomes learned helplessness. Women learn to only go for sure-bets and keep reinforcing their lack of confidence by avoiding failure. The book posits that failure, and lots of it, is a necessary building block of confidence.

I wish a lot attitudes and ideas in this book were not true. It was disheartening to realize how much we as women tend to work against ourselves and our success in order to be considered "good girls." There are three things I will take away from this book and internalize for life. Fail harder, stop ruminating, and own my success - I will never again credit luck for what I have achieved.

There are no great epiphany "ah-ha!" moments here, but rather confirmation backed up by scientific studies on why we, as women, lag behind once we leave the sheltered world of school to the business environment. But the book is quick to note, as well, that it's not as easy as Leaning In, because self-assertive women at work are labeled as aggressive bitches. And for this, the book has no solutions, save some very wide platitudes about blending male and female qualities to succeed in the workplace. And that is a very nuanced process that would probably take up another book.

Great read if you have a daughter, work with girls, or if you're doing everything right, but not getting ahead at work and can't figure out why.

61 people found this helpful

Hoped for more practical advice

I do love the concept of the book and sharing the science behind confidence. Having that basic understanding is important to get ourselves to the next level. I had hoped more practical advice and tips on managing our perception of confidence and how others perceive us.

10 people found this helpful

A disappointment

Having heard the authors on the radio, I wanted to see what additional wisdom I could glean from listening to the whole book. I could barely make it through (and skipped a lot). The information was repetitive and laboriously presented. Worse, the book focused on the problem and spent little time talking about solutions. I guess I wanted more of a "what can we do about this" book rather than a "here's the problem" book.

The other problem was the narrator. Her high-pitched, lispy voice drove me a little nuts and didn't seem to fit the tone of the subject. I could hear her doing, for example, a YA novel, but this didn't seem like a good fit.

46 people found this helpful

Life changing...REALLY!!!!

What made the experience of listening to The Confidence Code the most enjoyable?

What made the experience most enjoyable was the information that was imparted. I learned new things and old lessons sunk in deeper.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

Information that every woman and every girl needs to know. Some guys can benefit from a brush up on this as well, but the testosterone driven corporate culture is so foreign to us women. There are many rules of the game that we need to learn and we need to keep reminding ourselves. I will listen to this at least once/ year for the rest of my life!

What about Sandy Rustin’s performance did you like?

The narrator was pleasant, conversational, just fine..wouldn't change a thing.

What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?

Competence is worth something, but not nearly as important as exuding confidence when you want to be consequential and successful. Don't automatically apologize for your work or for your actions. Stop being overly polite - don't immediately apologize when you walk in to a meeting late. But don't be rude or obnoxious, of course.

Any additional comments?

As a 44 year old woman I knew much of what was written, but the authors so thoroughly explored the idea of confidence, from so many angles;the gender differences, nature vs. nurture, sports, the work environment, etc. I listened to it approximately 1 month ago and it has truly changed the way I carry myself at work as well as in my daily life.

20 people found this helpful

Pratice what I read!

I truly enjoyed this book! Every woman no matter the profession can only benefit from reading the is book. There were so many takeaways that I found myself taking copious notes. I replayed chapters several times. What should have taken a day or two took two weeks because I replayed so many parts of the is book. There is a level of confidence I have been lacking and this book has helped me to search within myself and work to bring it out. Wonderful book, should be the text book for my Womens Study course.

10 people found this helpful

Great to listen to if you struggle with confidence

I enjoyed how the authors used science and research to explore confidence and summed up a quick blerb to remind oneself how to “be” confident: think less, take action. This book really resonated with me because I find myself facing a lot of the issues that the authors presented. I caught myself using “lilting” speech and holding back day-to-day, just as the authors had discussed. Now that I have recognition of what I am doing, I have decided to make changes to improve my confidence. I gave 4/5 because the flow of the overall book felt a little disjointed while listening, and the conclusion too abrupt.

4 people found this helpful

Average

Not very interesting after you get the point. The chapters aren't connected to each other and doesn't make me want to listen to the end. Pretty boring "read"

13 people found this helpful

Well-written, unclear how actionable

I enjoyed listening to The Confidence Code, but afterwards when I tried to think of what I'd do differently, I came up empty-handed. This may be because I'm not quite the right audience. While I found the parts of the book that painted lack of confidence as a real issue very compelling, I didn't take away too many next steps for my own life, except perhaps "Call out women you see doing these things." Since I can't change my genes, and can't get a different mother, I'd have liked more clear-cut To Do's for the already-adult. It's possible they were there and I missed them, but I listened to the book twice to be sure, and nothing jumped out at me on the second runthrough. That said, I'm very grateful they wrote the book because it does such a good job of drawing attention to the very real issue.

18 people found this helpful

A lot of research, and no valuable takeaways.

I purchased The Confidence Code for Girls for my daughter and I think very highly of that book. When I realized there was a book for women, I had high hopes that I would gain useful tips to further build my confidence. This audiobook turned out to be a regurgitation of research, which made listening to it fairly boring. In hindsight, I could have skipped chapters 1-5. It isn't until Chapter 6 where you begin to receive some confidence-building tidbits but it wasn't anything life-changing. I would not recommend this book.

2 people found this helpful

Enjoyable, but not that deep

This book was impressively researched and the narrator had a great, clean delivery. There were a couple things that stood out to me: 1) Virtually all of the interviews in this book are from women who are famous or wildly successful in their fields. This isn't incredibly relatable to me - would have loved to hear from more "regular" women who were insecure earlier and life and built up confidence to move up in their field. I get that it was from a good place/supposed to be inspirational but to me it felt a little alienating. 2) I'm white but I noticed not a lot of interviews from women of color. They were there, but the book definitely centered whiteness. Would have loved to see it be more inclusive. 3) They do talk about how confidence is formed in childhood and I would have loved to see more about that. Lots of interesting points they bring up especially towards the end of the book felt too short - I was left feeling like I wish they had explored ideas deeper, addressing things without talking in depth about how to work through them. Overall this is a good "confidence 101" book if this is your first time reading something like this. For me it left something to be desired, but I recognize that lots of women will probably feel differently. I did like it!

1 person found this helpful