Confidence in the Making

Note: This is the second article of a new series I'm writing titled In the Making. The first article in this series is about strength, so if you enjoyed this article be sure to check that out and stay tuned for all future articles.

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Introduction

Getting up in front of people to present something is challenging, even if you’re good at it. Even just talking to people you may not know so well, or do know well, can be challenging. However, having the confidence to talk and socially interact without being awkward is an absolute necessity to have in terms of practical skills. This is not built easily, but when the time, efforts and techniques are applied, it can be really beneficial to getting through social interactions in daily life.

This is my two cents on the best ways to develop your personal confidence and not look like as much of a fool as you were before.

Building Core Confidence

The first and foundation layer of confidence needed to be built is what I call core confidence. You are special, in every single way. Be proud of yourself and who you are, don’t be embarrassed by any aspect of it, even if some parts are potentially embarrassing. The best actors, influencers and educators all succeed at what they do because they are sure of themselves and can express themselves in ways that make them look confident (granted the actors do play other characters besides themselves, but they are still confident of their characters’ roles while playing them). If you want people to look at you like you know what you’re doing, you need to be sure of yourself and your amazing character. Wear it like a badge of honor, not a cone of shame.

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Being More Sure of Yourself

You know you best. Not even those who say they know you best know you better than you do. You control your reactions to everything that happens to you, you interpret, filter and analyse everything that you experience. You know what you can do, and you know what you do best. Be proud of that. Act as if you have something to live for, because you do. Every single person was brought into the world for a reason, not always the same reason, but we all have our goals and missions in life to fulfill. Believing in yourself is the first step towards being a more confident person.

There is one thing to keep in mind though; confidence is not arrogance. You can be sure of yourself in ways that don’t come across as negative or annoying. People only judge if you repeatedly highlight that you know something or something went well for you. There is a fine line that dare not be crossed.

Everything I said above applies to internal confidence, the core foundation of everything, but what about the confidence that people see when you walk down the street? Here are a few tips that will help you look more confident in yourself to those around you.

• Broad shoulders. It gives a strong and grounded look to those around you. It also shows signs of dominance and assurance.

• Straight back. People tend to respect those with good posture more than those who look like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

• Relaxed arms. Tense people tend to look scared and conservative to others, walking casually with fluid arm movements gives a more friendly and less protective look to others.

• Smile. People enjoy looking at happy people rather than grumpy people. People will think more fondly of you if you have a bright smile on your face, just not too much of a creepy one.

• Even steps. Yes, people notice your walking habits. Subconsciously, taking evenly paced and spaced steps gives off a more organised and assured vibe to others. It also makes you look less like a hobo or somebody who recently had surgery on their leg.

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Don’t Let Others Push You Around

“When you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.” - Stan Lee

That will forever be your wisdom, Stan. A big part of core confidence is not being easily talked out of things that you are passionate about. You are just as entitled to have an opinion as the next person, this next person shouldn’t dictate your preferences.

If you are confident in an idea or belief, then you should pursue it to the fullest extent. If someone ends up persuading you to do otherwise, then by definition you aren’t confident in your idea. However, if you do think you have something gold (which is possible, think of all the great minds and great ideas - anyone can do it), you shouldn’t let anyone get in the way of developing your idea and making it reality.

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Presentation to Others

I already touched upon this earlier, but essentially you want people to think/know that you’re confident in yourself and what you do just by looking at you. Being well groomed and walking with better posture are just some of the ways that you can subconsciously give off the confidence vibe.

What I did not mention earlier is the presentation of confidence through speech. Speaking fluently with little to no pauses or unnecessary sounds when talking to someone already gives off the impression that you know what you’re saying. It proves that you know what you’re talking about and that you have practiced exactly what to say. This is useful in terms of job interviews, awards speeches, pitch meetings, etc.

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Takeaways? Good body language, good speech, belief in yourself.

Developing Confidence When Risk Taking

The next layer of confidence that can be developed once you have the foundations is having confidence while taking risks. This includes how to deal with the risk, and the risk assessment involved.

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Taking Necessary Risks

When pursuing any kind of venture, there are bound to be risks. Even something simple such as walking down a hallway has its inherent risks.

Fun fact: Did you know that the chances of you dying in a plane accident are lower than you dying while walking down a hallway?

What I hope to teach you here is how to build the confidence to face those risks front on and maximise your outcome from it.

Contextualising it to current times, say you need to travel for god knows why right now, but in order for you to do that you need to take a COVID-19 test before departing. There are a few problems with this to start off with.

Taking the test means going outside, which is already a hazard to some extent. Taking the test means going to the hospital, probably the worst place for one to be right now. Taking the test means taking risks to even get to taking the test, which ironically is what’s supposed to be checking for risks.

Even though the risks exist, if travelling is truly what’s most important (for god knows what reason), and this is what is needed to travel, then using some elements of your core confidence from above, you need to accept that this is ultimately for your benefit and just hope for the best.

If you spend every moment avoiding every single risk in life, big or small, you’ll not end up doing anything resulting in boredom, unproductive behaviours and a waste of life.

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Taking Unnecessary Risks

This is something that shouldn’t be aimed to do a lot, but it can be positive in some circumstances. To some degree, breakthrough success requires taking some unnecessary risks. Cutting corners and implementing low percentage plays are all gambles one must take when making decisions that could potentially result in success. What is important is that once the decision is made, you stick with it the whole way through.

Be confident in your decisions. If they don’t pull off, that’s just life. It’s no excuse to bail on it early, even if its failure is inevitable. You made the decision, you have to see it through. Otherwise you, by definition, aren’t confident enough in what you chose. Furthermore, regardless of whether you were confident in the decision or not, it is your sole responsibility to manage it until the end.

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Knowing the Difference

How does one become more confident in their decisions? They need to first understand the difference between risks worth taking and risks not worth taking.

Any risk that is non-avoidable in terms of an idea potentially succeeding is a necessary risk. Any risk that is in the way of achieving success is a necessary risk.

Any risk that has a low percentage success rate and its more detrimental to well being than beneficial is an unnecessary risk.

Can it be more clear?

Enhancing Confidence Under Uncertainty

Once we’ve mastered being confident in general, as well as being confident when making decisions, we can now move on to being more confident under uncertainty. This is the true test of confidence, as being uncertain is naturally the point at which you are least confident.

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Facing Problems/Challenges

When a problem is thrown at us unexpectedly, chances are you won’t know how to solve it at first glance. This causes a degree of uncertainty as you do not know a way around the problem. However, leadership guidelines and being a good team player both dictate that one must be in total control of every situation and think of innovative solutions to anything that comes in their way, so the pressure’s on you to do something.

If in the event that you don’t have a solution to the problem, there are three ways to go about this situation. The first one is to panic and freak out. This shows little confidence in yourself, your abilities and your faith in getting out of the problem. Kind of not what we want.

The second way is to quit. This outcome isn’t wanted for self explanatory reasons.

The final way is to suck it up, put on a straight face and attempt to solve the problem while ensuring everything is okay. People rely on those who can tell them that they have things under control, even if they don’t. It also shows that you are putting effort into fixing the issue while keeping cool under pressure. All great qualities in a leader.

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When Faced With a Lack of Knowledge

Within the true test of confidence, this is probably the truest part of the test. Lacking the knowledge necessary to solve a problem, carry out a conversation, give an important speech is something that everybody experiences, and something that nobody loves. However, some are able to hide it better than others. While still being scared on the inside, on the outside, these people are able to cover up the fact that they don’t know anything with a smart look or dodging certain topics and questions. These people are able to fake confidence to make up for the fact that they have absolutely no idea what’s going on.

Who wants to be a millionaire? Charles Ingram, that’s who. For those who don’t know, Major Charles Ingram went on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? on the 9th of September, 2001. Despite using all his lifelines by the fourth question and openly stating that he basically guessed every single question, he ended up winning the one million dollar prize. However, it stripped from him as he was found guilty of cheating the system. He was allegedly having somebody in the audience communicate the answers to him via coughs and sniffles, therefore he had no chance of losing.

However, he was only found guilty of this after the show ended. The host, Chris Tarrant, even defended Ingram stating that he would not have written the cheque if he thought that Ingram was cheating. How did Ingram manage to fool everybody?

From any observer’s perspective, of course he was cheating, but in the moment, especially since nobody was looking out for it, he genuinely looked lucky purely because of his actions. He spoke calmly and made a few jokes, he pretended to use the process of elimination to decide on his answers. He made sure that by the time he got to the final question, everyone in the room liked him (might I say he was very crafty at it too). His entire performance on WWTBAM is on Youtube, you can decide for yourself whether he looks guilty or not.

That is my favourite example of how confidence, when applied properly, can make up for the fact that you don’t know how to solve a problem.

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Improvisation

The art of improvisation. Being able to create something out of nothing. An absolute necessity when faking knowledge with confidence. In order to improvise well, you need confidence in whatever you’re trying to convince the other person.

“97% of sales is showmanship.” - Boss Baby

That is essentially what all salesmen do. They confidently present their products to people, make it sound really great, make the price sound really affordable, and then boom! Sold. The skill of improvisation is so important in terms of interacting with people you don’t know, persuading people to make decisions, strengthening arguments, making up fictional scenarios, writing long articles about confidence (whoops), etc.

Improvising requires thinking on the spot, which is essentially making positive connections between what you’re talking about and similar instances where things went well (if you’re arguing for something positive). If you connect the right things consistently, with practice, you should become very good at improvising. Perhaps give yourself scenarios and attempt to tell a story with it, or try to convince one of your friends that you’re an expert at a topic that you’ve never heard of. The second one will really get your friend going if he believes you.

Conclusion

Confidence is essential when it comes to interacting with others and tipping things your way. It is useful when presenting, negotiating, speaking, acting, performing, persuading, decision making, game changing, etc.

What are some key takeaways from the mess of words above?

• Believing in yourself is always the first step

• Stand tall, have respect for your ideas and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise

• Body language says it all

• Stick with your decisions, good or bad

• Take the right amount of risk and always hope for the best

• Strong confidence covers up areas of weakness

• Improvisation tops it all off

Everybody starts with a certain degree of confidence, but the most confident people use what they have and develop it to become their best strength.