I love what David Perell, in his fantastic article on maximizing serendipity, wrote about the Hotel Bathroom Priniciple:
“Whenever I’m in a city and I need to use the bathroom, I walk into a fancy hotel.
Fancy hotels always have nice bathrooms. And if you’re dressed well and walk confidently, you won’t be hassled for using the bathroom.
…When you want to cultivate serendipity, stick to the “Hotel Bathroom” dress code. Always dress well enough to walk into a bathroom at a hotel you’re not staying at and get away with it.
If you remember the “Hotel Bathroom Principle” you’ll always look sharp enough to capitalize on a serendipitous encounter.”
– David Perell, “Maximizing Serendipity”
Like David, on occasions I’ve walked into a fancy hotel just to use the bathroom. Unlike him, I’m always dressed in flipflops and a T-shirt.
Of course, it seems important to look the part while walking into a fancy hotel.
But on reflection, we can see that some of the actual residents of the hotel are the worst dressed. Think of the banker on vacation or the eccentric CEO.
None of these people have trouble walking back into their hotels dressed as comfortably as they are.
This begs the question: If you lack the hotel bathroom dress code is there still something else you can use to get in?
I present to you, Hotel Bathroom Confidence.
Hotel Bathroom Confidence: The ability to walk into opportunities you believe you’re unqualified for.
Hotel Bathroom Confidence allows you to take on opportunities that even you’re not sure you can. And it will get you into far more than a fancy hotel.
People with Hotel Bathroom Confidence take the lead in chaos and are the first to break social norms. They take on projects that are blatantly impossible, and propose solutions they‘re obviously unprepared to deliver.
Then, to everyone’s surprise, they make something of it.
The punchline though, is that Hotel Bathroom Confidence isn’t about knowing better. It is about knowing that no one really knows, and backing yourself to lead the way out of ignorance.
The essence of Hotel Bathroom Confidence is the recognition that the most qualified candidates appear unfit at the beginning — even to themselves.
When Do We Need Hotel Bathroom Confidence?
Let’s not get it twisted, some of us — like myself — probably need Public Toilet Humility as much as we do Hotel Bathroom Confidence. It is possible to be over confident.
Yet, even for the most confident of us, there are two crucial moments when we truly need Hotel Bathroom Confidence:
1. Being More You
Doing more of what feels natural to you, despite it appearing audacious, silly, or illogical.
Even the most confident of us struggle to be confident in the right things. We might be confident in our ability to tango, make scrambled eggs or converse with a stranger, but lack the confidence to show our art, or follow our convictions.
Yet, to do more of what is deeply fulfilling, we need to be willing to experiment with activities, pursuits and careers that defy social expectations. We need hotel bathroom confidence.
2. Surviving the Dunning-Kruger Valley
The famous Dunning-Kruger Effect is the phenomena in which your belief in your competence steadily decreases as your actual ability increases.
You are most confident in your abilities right after you are an absolute beginner — and the more you learn, the less confident you become (at least proportional to your ability). Only much further down the line — at a significant level of expertise — does your confidence pick up again.
While the study’s effects appear to have been overblown (mostly by its media representation), even if it is partially realistic, the upshot is signficant:
As you become more skilled, your confidence reduces (at least as a proportion of your ability).
Being able to persevere despite diminishing confidence then, is instrumental to mastery.
The Final Flush
I hope you’ll remember this the next time you select yourself out of an opportunity. I hope you’ll wonder whether it’s a hotel bathroom moment.
Does anybody truly deserve the fancy hotel bathroom? And if nobody does, why shouldn’t you be the first to walk in?
If you enjoyed this, consider signing up to my email list, which I decided to start in a moment of hotel bathroom confidence.