Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shows being underestimated can be a superpower

Contrary to popular belief, class has never been dead in Australia, particularly among politicians. The Sydney Morning Herald published research by Noah Yim and Daniel Carter prior to the last election that demonstrated 30 per cent more MPs attended private schools than public school. Of the Coalition's cabinet prior to the May election, 87 per cent attended private school, whereas less than 50 per cent of Labor MPs enjoyed the same education background, and over 75 per cent of all MPs have at least one undergraduate degree, representing more than double the rate among the Australian public. Furthermore, high-income fields such as law and business are overrepresented within the Australian Federal Parliament, with only 22 per cent of MPs coming from blue-collar or service backgrounds.

While the PM didn't attend a non-government school or come from a blue-collar or service industry employment background, I can see how his childhood and adolescence could set him up to be underestimated. Attending a non-government school while living in public housing would likely bring with it a host of psycho-social self-perceptions that would colour his sense of self and how others perceive him.

And feeling constantly underestimated can be a damaging experience.

As with many experiences, it's the little things that count the most.

The microaggressions, the sense of surprise at your success "despite" your humble origins, questions of legitimacy, credibility, bias, all contribute to feeling like others don't believe you're "good enough" to achieve anything particularly noteworthy.

Arlan Hamilton, founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital noted that the difference between the mostly white and male millionaires/billionaires and the rest of us is that "they were told that they were Superman at three years old. We were not."

It's all about marketing, he believes. He shared that "a perceived lack of faith from those who know us, teach us, or pay us can seep deeply into our state of mind and can be difficult to detach from," and this itself can lead to us believing the anti-hype about ourselves and hold us back.

But being underestimated can also be a superpower. You can use it to your advantage - the PM certainly did.

It gives you a little latitude to take risks, to make mistakes, and try new things. If others don't expect much from you, you have very little to lose in the way you play the game.

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This can give you freedom to be yourself, to recover quickly from errors along the way, and find innovative ways to address solutions with less pressure to succeed on your first attempt.

We all learn more from our failures than our successes. Pushing boundaries, trying new things, living in the now - and not in the past - are all important aspects to ultimately achieving success. But success doesn't look like a shiny golden object that you hold onto for all perpetuity; if you stop trying, stop taking risks, stop making decisions because of a fear of failure and the subsequent drop in your perceived estimation, then you aren't free to really challenge yourself and redefine what success looks like and find yourself living in the past, polishing the trophies of yesterday.

Being underestimated can be one of the greatest gifts. And not just because success tastes sweeter when it surprises those around you, but because it can drive a person to shape their own destiny.

But let's give credit where credit is due: everyone knows that Australia loves an underdog. We have a long cultural history of backing the little guy against the Goliaths of the world. In a world of politics, perhaps it was just a stroke of political genius to shape Anthony Albanese as an underestimated candidate; as the underdog of the political class growing up in public housing despite his non-government schooling privileges.

Afterall, he is now the elected Prime Minister of Australia: as a nation, we appear to have put our faith in him, no?