The Real Cost of Underselling Yourself

When you undersell yourself, you are literally selling yourself short. There are tangible personal and professional costs to doing so.

Over the years, as a founder and investor, I have seen many frustrating patterns, specifically among Asian Americans, that hold them back in their careers. Much of it has to do with fear of disappointing others, which no doubt originates from the childhood fear of disappointing their parents. They set expectations lower so they can meet or exceed those expectations. They lower the bar for themselves so they don’t let others down. They don’t make claims that they can’t prove or back up with complete certainty. People want to follow someone who leads with boldness and confidence, and none of these patterns are indicative of those qualities.

The anxiety about making a mistake or failing has become hard-wired from childhood for many. Much of this self-preservation comes from a place of scarcity and not wanting to risk being wrong, because of the assumption that being wrong comes at a cost. The childhood trauma is the source of imposter phenomenon, which “significantly impacts mental health, often leading to heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as affecting career progression by obstructing professional development and reducing overall job satisfaction.” Habitually underselling yourself has real costs, not only limiting external opportunities, but also eroding internal confidence and satisfaction. When you undersell yourself, you make yourself small and ultimately devalue your self-worth and self-pride. You have to silence your inner critic and stop allowing self-doubt overcome you. Those who succeed in the world ask forgiveness, rather than asking permission, even if they are wrong. That is what it takes to have main character energy.

Raising Capital

One of the clearest examples of underselling is when you lower your projections so you don’t miss your targets. I’ve noticed a pattern that a number of Asian American founders who pitch their company to me, show me their projected revenues that are extremely conservative, to the point of being underwhelming. I even had one team show me a line sales chart of competitors and their line showing the “worst possible outcome” instead of the best. No one wants to invest in founders who aren’t optimistic or don’t believe in the potential of what they’re building enough to have an ambitious outlook. Many founders wouldn’t think twice about boldly projecting ludicrous revenue estimates. Who would you rather bet on? The founders who are delusionally positive or founders who are timidly conservative? No one is going to hold you to the number in your pitch deck, but even then, these founders are uncomfortable with presenting numbers they don’t feel 100% certain about.

The fear of failure or missing a target, is ultimately a fear of disappointing someone and not living up to your word. The fear of disappointing your parents is deeply culturally ingrained in Asians because of filial piety. Unfortunately, this fear translates to not being able to make mistakes or be bold. It leads to constantly hedging and being overly cautious. Those are not desirable traits in a leader or founder.

Applying for a Job

There is a commonly shared statistic from an internal HP (Hewlett Packard) report: Men apply for a job when they meet only 60% of the qualifications, but women apply only if they meet 100% of them. This is often interpreted as men having more confidence than women when applying to jobs. When surveyed in a Harvard Business Review article, there wasn’t a huge disparity in confidence between men and women to do the job well. The author found that 46.4% of men don’t apply to a job because they think they would get hired since they didn’t meet the qualifications and didn’t want to waste their time, compared to 40.6% of women. These people thought that the required qualifications were actually required, so they didn’t bother applying. Others will apply even if they don’t meet the qualifications, because they know there are other ways to tell their stories and convince the hiring manager that they’re a good fit or leverage relationships and ignore the requirements. In other words, those people know that the front door isn’t the only way into the building.

What was more telling was that 22% of women said their main reason they didn’t apply for the job was that they didn’t meet all of the qualifications and didn’t want to put themselves out there if they were likely to fail. The cost of applying was the risk of failure. Meanwhile, only 13% of men responded that didn’t apply at the risk of failing at the job. As the article points out, this gender difference highlights a fear of taking risks and being too afraid of potential failure. The data supports the Confidence Gap that shows that women are less-assured than men, and that confidence is just as important as competence to success.

15% of women indicated that their top reason for not applying was that they were “following the guidelines about who should apply” compared to only 8% of men. This points to the fact that girls are more socialized to follow the rules at a young age, while “boys will be boys” let’s them off the hook for breaking the rules.

Asian Americans are all too familiar with being raised in households where failure was not acceptable and breaking the rules was frowned upon. You dishonor your parents and family by doing either. Perfectionism and obedience are the keys to success in most Asian immigrant households. But in the real world, taking risks and breaking rules is what makes you stand out from the crowd and become successful. Never making mistakes and always following the rules makes you a productive and compliant worker bee. That’s why so many programs hire armies of Asian American college grads for their analyst programs, but few get promoted to leadership. No one is inspired by someone who is a good worker bee.

In the Workplace

Many Asians are unwilling to make a claim or take a position unless they’re 100% sure it is accurate, for fear of being wrong or making a mistake. Other people will confidently state something as fact when they are only 50% sure it’s true. You don’t always have to be perfect to take a stance of have an opinion. It’s okay to be wrong sometimes, just not all the time, otherwise you will lose credibility. You have to be willing to take a chance on your intuition. You also have to be able to deliver that position with conviction. You can’t sound wishy washy or uncertain, otherwise no one will believe you, because you don’t even believe yourself. Don’t hedge to avoid being blamed for being wrong by saying something like “I think”, “I’m pretty sure”, or “I could be wrong”, because that comes across as weak.

You have to have confidence in your statements and suggestions, whether backed by data or intuition. This is how you get recognized and acknowledged by your superiors, by sticking your neck out. Putting yourself out there with your ideas and solutions shows leadership. When you do so, you will get credit for your work, and in turn, earn the respect of your peers and managers. That is how you get promoted, not by quietly sitting on the side doubting yourself and whether or not your contributions are worthy or valid. Research has shown that lack of willingness to self-promote leads to pay and promotion gaps.

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All of these are forms of self-sabotage of your career: Not being able to raise money for your startup. Not getting the dream job you wanted. Not getting the promotion you deserve. They all stem from a lack of self confidence. Not believing you’ll be able to hit the numbers you promised. Not believing you are able to do the job. Not believing you know the answers. Every one of these situations allows doubt to win.

In fact, the way to counter this behavior is to start selling yourself. When I say sell yourself, I mean making sure you get the attention and credit you deserve. When you make an impactful contribution or add value, do your best to get recognition for your work, otherwise someone else will. You may even want to err on the side of “overselling” yourself, because if you’ve never been self-promotional, it is likely that you will still sell yourself short when you try. Promoting yourself is one of the rules of gaining power and as a result, influence and success. You should be proud of your good work and make sure you own it, whenever possible.

“Act As If" requires individuals to consciously act as though they have already achieved their goals, even when they may doubt their abilities or face daunting challenges. This helps build self-confidence and creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, where the mind and body work in tandem to manifest positive change.

- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Los Angeles

The “Act As If” technique is a cognitive-behavioral strategy that can help overcome your self-doubt or lack of confidence. It is a practical way to build new patterns of behavior and self-confidence by consciously acting as if you have already achieved your goals, even in the face of doubt or difficulty. Over time, this change in attitude, emotions and abilities will be reinforced with your own behaviors, which will ultimately alter your self-perception. “Act as if” can literally can mean playing a role by immersing oneself in the character of the person you want to become. That role-playing will allow you to internalize the attitudes and behaviors required for success.

You only get better if you set goals for yourself. When you compete against someone better than you, you perform better. When I played competitive tennis growing up, I would always play better when I was playing someone who was better than me. The same is true when you’re running a race and trying to keep up with someone who is faster than you. When you are competing against someone who is at a higher level, they will push you more than you would normally push yourself. The same is true when you set goals. Without goals, there is no objective or target to reach for, so you don’t reach. If you set the bar low for yourself, to avoid failure, you are essentially cheating only yourself. Stop selling yourself short, and start giving yourself the benefit of the doubt. Only then can you truly push yourself to be the best version of yourself.