A warrior acts as if he knows what he is doing, when in effect he knows nothing.
…Carlos Castaneda
I’m known as a man of confidence. In fact, my wife once said to me “You’re so self-confident, sometimes it’s hard to be confident around you!”
The thing is, I recognized a while back that I frequently sound far more assured and confident than I am. This – no doubt – came from years of actual insecurity in which it seemed effective to sound like I knew what I was talking about.
A warrior.
Of course, Castaneda is really talking about more than faking it.
I believe that Castaneda is talking about a real warrior recognizing that he has just scratched the surface of all that may be learned. Like when my karate instructor said to me “the higher the mountain, the farther you can see.”
The more I learn, the more I realize there is to learn.
A true warrior acts strong and confident and able and in control, while recognizing that the reality is something else.
I see this in meetings all the time. There’s a common behavior (a pattern, you might say 
) in which the individual says everything as if it is so. This individual makes assertions in the face of disagreement and even hostility. And there are several possibilities “under the covers”:
- the speaker is completely convinced that she is right, regardless of what anyone else might think or feel
- the speaker speaks with conviction, in order to sway others, regardless of how the speaker actually feels, in order to achieve some goal (dominance, for instance)
- the speaker speaks with conviction knowing that she is not convinced of what she says, in order to provoke/elicit information from others
Warriors, all.
Motto: The end, if it’s what I want, justifies any means.
Motto: I don’t need to hear everything you have to say – I’ve got it!
