Confidence Matters More Than Anything

September 27, 2007 · Comments

I had an interesting plane ride over from Boston to Ontario, California. JetBlue has television sets on the backs of every seat, so I get the chance to catch up on all these shows I never see because I don’t have TV in my house, and my viewing habits are crazy. I watch stuff that is pure garbage, mostly because I find it fascinating that this is somehow on TV capturing the mindshare of humanity.

Take VH1’s The Pickup Artist. It’s a show where a couple of really cool guys teach a bunch of nerds how to pick up girls. This show is endlessly fascinating and here’s why: it’s teaching you (YOU, if you’re watching) about confidence. The actual mechanics of how to pick up a girl are kind of a sham, or rather, they’re just a skillset to get you closer to feeling confident. But ultimately, he’s teaching about confidence. If you watch the show with that lens on, it REALLY proves to be interesting.

At the same time, I was reading Jeffrey Gitomer’s book about persuasion. It’s the green one if you know Gitomer’s other works. Persuasion is ultimately heavily related to confidence as well. The more you can build on your confidence, the more likely you are to be persuasive, and/or make your point known.

Are YOU confident? What are you tactics for feeling more confident? If you’re not very confident, how has that affected your days?

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  • "Are YOU confident? What are you tactics for feeling more confident? If you’re not very confident, how has that affected your days?"

    Unfortunately, I'm not very confident. It affects many aspects of my life -- even my online projects. I often have (seemingly) good ideas, but I don't put them in practice because I'm afraid no one will be interested. However, I'm trying to overcome this problem. :)
  • Confidence is key in my book. In everything you do you must be confident in both yourself and in what it is your doing. Otherwise no one will take you serious and you'll be wasting your time.
  • I have zero issues with confidence. None. I find that so many people do though.

    I agree with Rick M. "Confidence can be circumstantial". You can be totally confident in one area and lacking in another.

    For me, I found that one sure way to destroy confidence was to appear unsure. In my former occupation as a tech intructor I never used the words "I don't know" if I didn't know the answer. That was a surefire way to lose my classes confidence in me. If I didn't know an answer, I always used "that is an excellent question" and later researched it and got back to the student.
  • The easiest way to instantly feel more confident - smile. Seriously, if you are feeling vulnerable a simple smile will do wonders.

    Also maintaining eye contact with your audience is a small but effective way to boost confidence.
  • I also read "The Game" but, like Chris, found it to be more like a bag of tricks. You just simply need to be confident. Even if you fake it (I guess that's why The Game suggests to wear ridiculous outfits). Though I realize now the bag of tricks can be applied to blogging and podcasting when building an audience.

    I've stuttered all my life so my confidence is really hampered by the fact that I appear unintelligent despite what I'm taking about! the only thing I do to help me feel confident is knowing what I'm talking about. For example, I'm not nervous in job interviews because I know what my skills are and can prove them. No need to fake confidence there! If I'm talking to a hot girl, my confidence depends on how friendly she is (I know, very anti-TheGame of me).
  • Chris, this makes me think of my mantra, "put the cart before the horse." Walking out in front of yourself, despite the cautions, the gremlins, your experience, your education, the predictions, you name it. There simply comes a time when you have to claim it, and do it.
  • Gems
    Somehow, the men on The Pick Up Artist have been convinced that they are failures. The host pushes them, through competitiveness that they can supercede their own perceptions of themselves. Who, in our lives, has convinced us of our own strengths and abilities?
    yes, you can make/create your own confidence, but I believe there is someone or something, that instigates self empowerment.
  • I remember when i had gone to an interview and i had met a person who did not know anything about related to the job but the way he handled himself was like a professional and he got selected for it. And when i asked him how he got the job without having much knowledge in that domain... he just answered one word...that is "CONFIDENCE." With confidence can accomplish even the most difficult goals.
  • Good stuff, one of the deep topics that comes up when attempting anything that stretches comfort zones. I've felt this myself, and your post reminds me of the old saw "fake it 'till you make it." Of course there's an issue - when does faking morph into making?

    Other connections: A client just mentioned yesterday that TV show. She also got a nice insight from it, in her case on having a good value proposition (heh heh).
  • As someone who is, shall we say, confidence deficient, I LOVE "If they can't eat you, do it." I've also been telling myself, "play like you mean it." Because in a lot of areas, lack of confidence equals waste of time. If I make a presentation and don't believe in it enough to think my audience will believe in it, I might as well skip it and go fly a kite instead, because that will be a better use of my time.

    This, by the way, I know, but execution is another thing.
  • The CEO of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, explained it best when he shared a story of how he was hesitant to take a leap and his father simply asked him: "Can they eat you?"

    If they can't eat you, do it.
  • Levels of confidence are often relative. That is, when talking to an "8", my confidence is thorough. Put me across the table from a "10", and my insecurities boil, sinking my confidence.

    Confidence can be circumstantial. Maybe I start off with lots of confidence, but depending on the reactions I observe - encouragement or dismissal, say - my confidence can, umm, grow or shrink.

    I think there are two keys to being confident: 1) How we account for victories and failures (do you give yourself credit, or blame/credit the circumstances) and 2) Trying a lot. If you try a lot, fail a lot, but win a lot, I think the confidence sticks. If you only try once or twice, and you fail either or both times, those failures loom a lot larger than if you try, say, 100 times and fail 75. You've still got 25 victories there, and that means a lot.
  • I just finished reading Toby Young's How Lose Friends and Alienate People. In it, he describes trying to sell a story idea to editors at Vanity Fair. He starts off shaky but then quickly realizes the way to persuade them is to act 100% sure that his idea is right and to ignore it would be perilous. Even though it was an act, it worked. The feature issue went ahead.

    (Here via Liz Strauss....)
  • kat
    I do really well picking up chicks
    for me it's because i know all the tricks
    confidence?
    well sure
    but it's also about making them think they have something interesting to say
  • Confidence is a learned behavior, I am always much more confident when I have learned something really well after doing it a few times.

    Practice makes perfect, whether you are talking to to people, giving a presentation, or building the next new website. Very few people have confidence right off the bat, and grow more comfortable/confident each time they do something.

    You can be confident at anything, it just takes some trial runs.
  • "Mystery," the host of the Pick-up Artist, is also featured prominently in the book "The Game."

    I devoured that book in about a day, it's utterly fascinating for all the reasons you mention. The author joined forces with Mystery to run pick-up seminars, and all their techniques can be easily tweaked and applied to just about any setting that would otherwise be intimidating. It's definitely not only useful to wannabe ladies' men.

    One thing I noticed though. Techniques like that are great for inspiring confidence, but fostering real relationships has to come from within. Getting a girl to come home with you, or give you her phone number, is definitely not the same as building a relationship with her. That's an entirely different set of "skills," for lack of a better word...
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