The Confidence Code by Katty Kay, Claire Shipman Page B

point of this chapter. But, what if? What if we didn’t like what we learned? What if the results reinforced all our negative self-stereotypes? No ruminating, we told ourselves. We’d just have to wait.
    What Happens When Life Happens
    If a large chunk of confidence can be explained away by genetics, we wondered what that meant for our theory that confidence might also be a choice. It turns out both are possible. We discovered that for a lot of the scientific world, the long-standing nature versus nurture formulation is old news.
    The pioneering thinking and research has moved on to examine the frisson that happens when nature and nurture interact. It’s the effect of nurture on nature that really matters and makes us who we are. In many cases, nurture is so powerful that it can alter nature’s original programming, turning genes on and off, as it were. Some scientists are uncovering “sensitivity genes”: genetic variations that may mean those who carry them are more susceptible to environmental influence than others. Still other researchers have found that the power of habitual thinking creates physical changes and new neural pathways in our brains, which can reinforce and even override genetics and change brain chemistry, as well. So, life choices do matter, as much as, if not more than, what we’re born with.
    Think about it like this. You have a blueprint for your new house, and the foundation has been poured. Some structures will be easier to build on top of that foundation than others. If you’re lucky, you already have the underlying support for a third story. But, even if your foundation isn’t as strong, and you have to pour a bit more cement, you can still add that additional floor later on. It might take extra work. And you might have to use different materials. Much will also depend on outside factors. How much will storms batter the house? Are you in an earthquake region? Or are you blessed with mild weather? Those weather and geological conditions will force the foundation to move and react in different ways than it otherwise would. However, your time and effort matter as well.
    Confirmation that this is the new-new direction in science came when we saw a very real structure, a half-billion-dollars’ worth, going up double time on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Our journey brought us to the front of what will be the home of Columbia University’s Mind Brain Behavior Institute. Its goal is to create a holistic approach to the study of the brain, its functioning, and its impact on everything from human behavior to health to emotion. Scientists and psychologists but also historians, artists, and philosophers—top scholars from every field—are converging on this Columbia outpost in West Harlem.
    The thinking is that this merged approach will bring answers faster and begin closing the gap between science and behavior. After countless uncomfortable hours of writing in our small home offices and at multiple Starbucks, of conducting frazzled interviews on trains, and reading research in cabs, we enviously examined plans for the institute by award-winning architect Renzo Piano, who specializes in buildings meant to inspire lightness and creativity. This one will give the appearance of floating above the ground and will have a vertical core of open space at the center of each floor designed to encourage interaction and brainstorming. Labs will be standing at the ready when ideas blossom.
    The institute’s codirector, Tom Jessell, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, used to spend his days studying the mysteries of the microscopic. Now he thinks irrepressibly big. He sees around the corners of confidence in ways we haven’t even imagined.
    For Jessell, understanding confidence from the cellular perspective, all the way out to its global implications, is the only proper scientific path of study. He told us to think about parts of the world where people lack a sense of individual power. He