I’ve stood on approaches where the noise was deafening.

Music blaring. Crowds screaming. Cameras rolling. And every single bowler around me looking like they owned the building.

Chest out. Jaw set. Eyes daring you to challenge them.

And here’s what I learned after fifteen years of international competition…

The loudest person in the room is rarely the most confident.

They’re the most nervous.

Performative confidence is a costume. It’s something you put on so other people will believe the version of you that you’re not sure you believe yourself. It’s posturing. It’s volume. It’s making sure everyone sees how confident you are.

But real confidence?

You don’t hear it walk into the room.

You feel it.

Quiet confidence is knowing. That’s it. It’s a knowing so deep it doesn’t need a microphone. It doesn’t need applause. It doesn’t need anyone’s permission or approval.

It whispers to your soul: You’ve done the work. You’re ready for this moment.

And you believe it. Not because someone told you to. Because you lived it. Rep by rep. Frame by frame. Failure by failure.

I feel most self-assured when I know I’ve done the work.

Not when I’ve won. Not when someone tells me I’m good enough. Not when the scores say I belong.

I feel it when I know I’ve learned the lessons from the defeats. When I’ve sat in the hard moments instead of running from them. When I’ve studied every spare I missed and gone back to the lane the next day anyway.

That’s where security lives. In the preparation, not the outcome.

And here’s the part that changed everything for me…

Whether I win or lose does not determine my worth.

Read that again.

Let it sit in your chest.

Because once you untangle your identity from your results, nobody can shake you. Not a bad game. Not a tough loss. Not someone who bowled better than you on a Tuesday in March.

You are not your scorecard.

So when a young athlete asks me how to find confidence, I don’t tell her to fake it. I don’t tell her to walk taller or talk louder or stare people down.

I tell her this:

Be confident in who you are and what you bring to the table.

Not who she is compared to the girl on the next lane. Not what she brings compared to the name on the leaderboard. Her. What she has built. What she has earned. What she carries inside her that nobody else on this planet can replicate.

Because no one is you. That is your superpower.

Will you be perfect? No. You will miss. You will doubt. You will have days where the pins don’t fall and the thoughts don’t quiet down.

But you grow from each experience. Every single one. The strikes and the gutters. The wins and the ones that sting so bad you sit in the parking lot and cry.

Growth isn’t selective. It doesn’t skip the hard parts. The hard parts are the whole point.

And to every young woman reading this…

Your strength comes from within. No one can give it to you.

Not a coach. Not a parent. Not a trophy. Not a title.

It was already there before you ever picked up a ball. Before anyone told you that you were talented. Before the world started keeping score.

It was yours the whole time.

So stop performing confidence. Start practicing it.

Show up prepared. Stay present. Trust yourself even when the results don’t come fast enough.

And when the noise gets loud and everyone around you is trying to prove something…

Be the one who doesn’t have to.

That’s not weakness. That’s the strongest thing in the room.