The "C & C" of Confidence

“Just be confident.”

How many times have you heard those words? Or yelled them – with your heart in your throat - to your children when they get up to bat at a Little League game? Or whispered them to yourself just before making a major presentation?

“Just be confident.”

I don’t know about you, but the phrase always remind me of the lyrics from “Maria” in “West Side Story.” Say it loud and the music is playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.

“Just be confident.”

I spend my days teaching how confidence affects the choices we make; and I am always surprised by the response I get when I ask groups to tell me what it really means to be confident – particularly given how often we use the phrase. 

What is so interesting is that instead of getting explanations, I get examples: LeBron, Beyoncé, Bill Gates. Professional athletes, star performers and CEOs always end up on the list. So, too, do doctors, lawyers and politicians. More than ever, we associate confidence with celebrity status and wild acclaim.  To be confident today requires two million Instagram followers, mountains of money and fabulous fame. Confidence somehow requires ALL CAPS and fireworks emojis.

This spring I was so struck by the long list of celebrities my students offered that, just for fun, I asked them if our college librarian – a wonderful woman who runs one of the best research libraries in the country – could be confident. The class laughed. Having never met her, they dismissed the idea out of hand. A confident librarian? No way!

What my students – and most people I talk with – miss about confidence is that status and occupation have little, if anything, to do with it. Confidence isn’t about who or what we are, it is about how we think. It is about what is going on between our ears, not what’s on the stage or the basketball court. 

Through my work, I have learned that confident people have two critical perceptions – what I call their “C & C.” Confident people have a sense of certainty and a sense of control. They believe they know what is ahead and they feel prepared for what’s coming.

So rather than whispering “Be Confident” to yourself at the last minute before you go on stage to make a speech or into an important meeting, there are two questions you need to ask yourself well before the event.

Where don’t I feel certain? And where don’t I feel in control?

What I love so much about these questions is they are not judgments. There is no right or wrong or good or bad. They are perceptions. Even more, they are your perceptions – and those are the only ones that matter when it comes to your confidence.

By focusing on our perceptions of certainty and control, it becomes clear where we feel unprepared or where we are letting a bad prior experience get in our way. Knowing these things well ahead of time then give us the opportunity to address them.

Confidence isn’t celebrity. It is your feelings of certainty and control. And the more you focus on your “C & C” the more successful you will be.

This essay was adapted from a recent speech given by Peter Atwater. Peter is an adjunct professor at the University of Delaware and at William & Mary, where he teaches classes on the role of confidence in individual and group decision making.

peteratwater.com