Trust Yourself

Your eyes, ears, and intellect have intrinsic value—believe in your own judgment

Boz (Andrew Bosworth)
Making Meta | Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth (CTO)

Trust Yourself

"I just had faith that I was making good decisions. Your eyes, ears, and intellect have combined to give you a point of view that has intrinsic value and deserves your respect—as opposed to reading that newspaper article about your company and believing it over what your own eyes and ears have told you." - Boz

What It Is

This framework is about developing and maintaining conviction in your own judgment. It's the family motto Boz adopted, inspired by a Tracy Emen neon artwork in his home that says "Trust Yourself."

Trusting yourself doesn't mean ignoring external input or refusing to change your mind. It means:

  • Believing your perspective has value
  • Not deferring to external narratives over your own observation
  • Having conviction when making decisions
  • Being willing to take risks because you trust you can handle outcomes

How It Works

The Foundation Success often comes from having conviction and acting on it. This is especially true in:

  • Startups (where you're betting on an uncertain future)
  • Building products (where you must have conviction despite user resistance, like News Feed)
  • Career decisions (where you must bet on yourself)

What It Enables When you trust yourself:

  • You can make controversial decisions and stick with them
  • You can take risks knowing you'll handle whatever happens
  • You're less swayed by external narratives that may be wrong
  • You can navigate peer pressure and self-doubt

The Balance Trusting yourself doesn't mean:

  • Ignoring data or feedback
  • Refusing to change your mind
  • Thinking you're always right
  • Dismissing others' perspectives

It means giving your own judgment appropriate weight alongside other inputs.

How to Apply It

  1. Build from Experience Trust is earned. Make decisions, observe outcomes, learn. Over time, you calibrate what you can trust yourself on.

  2. Separate Internal from External When external narratives conflict with what you've observed directly, don't automatically defer to external sources. They know less than you do about your situation.

  3. Include Risk-Taking Trusting yourself includes trusting that you can handle things when risks don't pay out. This enables taking risks in the first place.

  4. Resist Peer Pressure When facing pressure to conform, ask: "Who do I trust—them or myself?" Sometimes the answer is still them. But often your judgment is right.

  5. Apply to Career Decisions Trust that you're making good decisions about your career. Don't defer to what "everyone says" you should do.

Example: The News Feed Launch

When Facebook launched News Feed, users were outraged. Every external signal said "this is wrong, kill it." But the team noticed usage doubled even as complaints spiked. They trusted what they observed—revealed preferences—over what was said. They were right.

External voices often don't have the full picture. Your direct observation does.

When to Use It

  • When facing major career decisions
  • When external narratives conflict with what you're observing
  • When under peer pressure to change direction
  • When building something new and facing resistance
  • When self-doubt creeps in

Caution

This framework can enable confirmation bias and stubbornness if misapplied. Balance it with:

  • Genuine openness to feedback
  • Willingness to update your views with new information
  • Awareness of your own blind spots
  • Humility about the limits of your knowledge

Source

  • Guest: Boz (Andrew Bosworth)
  • Episode: "Making Meta | Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth (CTO)"
  • Key Discussion: (01:36:27) - "Trust yourself" as a family motto and philosophy
  • YouTube: Watch on YouTube

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