June 21, 2026

Confidence vs Clarity

Today, in an interview about the authority-building benefits of writing a book, I got stuck on a word.

I was saying that there’s a noticeable difference between the folks I coach who have published a book vs those who haven’t published a book.

The other guy asked what the difference was, and I started to say that the authors were more confident than the non-authors...

...but even as I said it, I knew that confident was the wrong word.

My non-authors are often quite confident.

This seemed like an important point, so I waffled around a bit looking for the right word.

After a minute, I realized what the right word was:

Clear.

The authors are almost always better at articulating their expertise more clearly than the non-authors.

This clarity makes them seem more confident, which is probably why that was the first word I reached for.

Of course, there are other benefits to writing a book, but helping you get better at sharing your knowledge in a way more likely to produce a transformation in your audience is a really big one.

Yours,

—J

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