03 June 2019
Grant Guhlke, FirstPort’s Digital Eagles Lead, talks about digital confidence and how he has gained confidence by finding the zone and taking the plunge…
I’m sitting here writing my first ever blog as a small black circular device pipes up in its friendly female tone reminding me to buy my Nan a birthday card. To say that I have digital confidence would amount to an understatement so I thought I would share my journey…
What Digital Confidence means to me…
So I am now five months into my Role as in the Digital Eagles at FirstPort and I have witnessed all levels of Digital ability.
From a 9-year-old who spent 12 hours coding his own Pokémon game, an 87 year old man eager to learn how to send an email to his son who lives in the states, and a member of our exec eager to learn new tools to better improve their knowledge to be able to pass on to their team.
Some people may think that in doing these tasks that these three people are gaining Digital confidence, which to some degree is true, however, my opinion is that by taking just that initial step of doing something about it they have demonstrated already that they are Digitally confident.
Finding your Confident Zone….
We hear it all the time from people that they don’t have the confidence to do something, and a few years back I uttered those exact words to my manager who responded by saying “Confidence isn’t something you have, it is something you do”.
Confidence isn’t something you have, it is something you do
Grant Guhlke
We then went on and had a discussion about something I am really good at, I chose cooking #fatty, and how I felt when I was doing it. You can guess my answer… Confident.
So if I was “doing” confidence whilst cooking, why couldn’t I apply that confidence in different areas of my life. This advice has stuck with me ever since, and it really helps me to push myself out of my comfort zone and into my confident one.
Taking the plunge…
In my role, people automatically assume that I am a fountain of all digital knowledge. This could not be further from the truth.
I just have a lack of fear, which 90% of the time is to my detriment (especially in my teen years), however, it has benefitted me with embracing technology.
I speak to people with varying opinions on technology, such as “I turn my smart speaker off at night because it is listening to my conversations” or “one day my refrigerator will one day rise up and start hurtling my smashed avocado back at me”.
I like to think that these are excuses, and not actual beliefs (however if they are right I will be the first person to admit I was wrong, whilst in a duel to the death with my Nutri-bullet).
The best advice I could give to these people is not to jump in at the deep end and have an all singing all dancing house that does everything for you. But next time you are doing a task you have done the same way for however many years, is to stop and ask yourself “Is there a better way of doing this?”.
Then take five minutes to do some research and who knows what you might find, and you will be proving to yourself that you had the Digital Confidence all along.
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