Ranjay Gulati

It's looking fear in the eye and still choosing to do something.

Actually, there's a really interesting body of research on self-efficacy by a Stanford psychologist, Albert Bandura.

And he said that, you know, there are two aspects to confidence.

One is domain-specific efficacy.

I'm the master of my craft.

I know my job.

I know my skills.

You know, Captain Sullenberger has to fly a United Airlines flight where the engines both fail at takeoff from LaGuardia.

And he has to land the plane in the Hudson River.

He's a 40-year season veteran pilot.

He's, you know, he knows what needs to be done.

That's called domain-specific efficacy.

But there's a second kind of efficacy, which is the generalized can-do efficacy.

I got it.

I can do it.

So when Katie Couric asked Captain Sullenberger, like, listen, what did he need to do?

Did he know what he needed?

He said, I knew what I needed to do, but I'd never done it before.

So Katie Couric said, but there's a big if, you know, you hadn't done it before.

And he looks her in the eye and says, I knew I could do it.