People wrote me off, but I believed in myself. I got the confidence back, and it grew and grew. I won my first major and my last at the place that changed my life.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had gained so much confidence through my college achievements that I wanted to tackle the world.
Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.
I became much happier when I realized I shouldn't depend solely on my career for my sense of self. So I developed other interests and surrounded myself with a small group of friends I could trust.
I willed myself through a junior college to a university and, ultimately, a Ph.D.
People tried to make me something that I wasn't at the beginning of my career.
I wanted to be famous. It's embarrassing to admit, but I came out to L.A. thinking it would happen in no time. I thought, 'Once they see me, they'll be so glad I came.' I always had a ridiculous amount of self-confidence about what was going to happen to me.
My confidence came from the way I grew up, and I'm grateful for it.
I had a great deal of confidence when I graduated from Berkeley. I had almost none when I was at Princeton. After a while, when people tell you you can't do something because you're a woman, you begin to believe maybe they're right.
Confidence was never in short supply in my case. If anything, I think I overshot the mark with confidence way too early in my career, and gradually, it's about just getting more humble and wanting to sit down more.
In college - while figuring the things out that most people do in college - I had no game. No confidence. I had Birkenstocks. And overalls. A budding romance novel addiction. But no cool. No poise. I was trying on a thousand different personalities, but a lot of them were formed by the perceptions of others.