Day 219: Remember the Time... Uber Confidence Does Not Always Help Win Bets

Every school day during first grade, we'd start the day by reciting the pledge of allegiance, then would recite the names of the U.S. Presidents. Their pictures formed the border around the classroom. We started with just Washington, then every few days would add the president's successor so before long we'd be reciting, "Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe..." all the way to George W. Bush.

Brent did not know this about me, so when he was boasting about how easy it was to name all the NFL teams, which was one of Sporcle's daily challenges today, I retorted that naming sports teams was too easy and that I bet he couldn't get a perfect score on the "Name All The U.S. Presidents" quiz.

He, predictably, said there was no way I could do that either, so I pulled up the quiz and said, "What do you wanna bet?" I then (stupidly) agreed to something completely ridiculous if I lost because I was that confident that I'd win.

I had 10 minutes to name them all and named 40 out of 42 in under four minutes. But then I started panicking because I always get tripped up with the order around Teddy Roosevelt because I tend to skip the five presidents between him and Franklin Roosevelt.

This was the case this time, so I started thinking about my work with the U.S. Presidents on the timelines project I am working on at work. That worked for four of the five names.

There was just one I could not think about as I watched the clock tick down to zero. 

Woodrow Wilson. I got all the "forgotten" presidents, like Harrison, who served just 32 days in office, but forgot Woodrow Wilson - the star of the "Bart the Lover" Simpsons episode where Bart writes love letters to his teacher Mrs. Krabappel to get revenge on her for giving him a month's detention.

Therefore, I lost the bet. And was taught a little something about my confidence. Brent has told me several times that it's great to be confident, but oftentimes I'm so confident that it turns into cockiness and rubs people the wrong way.

And of course when you're overly confident about something and it backfires, it's that much more shattering to you when you lose.

But I learned something about myself and vow to try to be confident, but not cocky. And keep the trash talking to myself because I just feel silly when I can't back that up.