How To Become Truly Confident

Who likes arrogant people?

Raise your hand…. 

I thought so.

It’s the quality that gets under our skin and makes us cold to others who think more of themselves than we think they should.

Common perception is that there’s a fine line between being confident and being arrogant, but in fact the gap between them is as wide as the Grand Canyon.

Arrogance is demonstrated when a person needs to convince themselves and others that they are good at something. 

Maybe you’ve seen someone deny they are scared to take a risk. They tell you that they are not scared because they wouldn’t waste their time on such a petty activity like fear. 

You feel as if you’re beneath them for even suggesting the idea. Arrogance shouts from the rooftop, “It’s not me that’s the problem, it’s you!” Their need for approval also drives their grandstanding whenever they do something well.

A confident person is convinced of their own strengths while being fully aware of their weaknesses.

This is the person who tells you quickly they don’t know how to do something and looks to you or others for guidance so they can grow. They are known by their results and their walk goes before their talk.

Select any two people and observe them closely over a period of time. Their actions will demonstrate to you the reasons why one keeps going  and the other stands still.  

The one who is still going believes in himself. You won’t hear him clamoring for attention or praise. He’ll quietly demonstrate his confidence through the aggressive and dynamic action that he takes. That’s how you’ll know he believes in himself.  

You’ll clearly see the one who doesn’t advance, too. You’ll see the look of fear on his face that others will find out the true nature of his results. The look on their face, the posture of their body and the uncertainty with which they speak, will tell you they lack confidence. 

No one is going to pay much attention to the person who has no confidence in himself.  That’s why he seeks attention by speaking of his common results as if they are exceptional.

The results of this observational learning can sound like nonsense to our logical thinking.  

For most of my life I believed that arrogant people were also confident.  

I believed that if  I could do something well, I would be labeled as “arrogant” and ultimately be criticized, rejected and fail.

This belief was birthed through the law of social heredity.

Somewhere at some time I heard it said that humility is a great virtue and that to push myself to the front of the stage in the game of life would make me appear egotistical. 

So, I would sit in the back and not speak up all for fear of what others would say of me.  

Is it not strange that we fear most that which has never happened?

This principle fascinated me, and I have been obsessed with answering this question:

Why do we allow fear of the imaginary to erode our confidence and control our outcomes?   

I read books, acquired mentors and teachers, watched documentaries and devoured content.  

Everywhere I looked I found the same answer.

The development of self-confidence begins by eliminating the demon called “fear”.

Fear sits upon a person’s shoulder and whispers in their ear, “You can’t do it – you are afraid to try – you are afraid of public opinion – you are afraid you will fail – you’re afraid you don’t know how to do it.”

Science has found a deadly weapon anyone can use to devour this fear demon once and for all and that weapon is unwavering belief. 

Once I started to trust the proof that my abilities were helping solve real problems for other people, I began to achieve higher levels of success. 

My business went from feeling insignificant to  impacting thousands of lives and delivered a predictable monthly revenue that gave me the luxury of choice.

What did I change?

How did I escape the feeling that failure was fatal and that my contribution was insignificant?  

There isn’t enough time for me to share all I have learned and done but I’ll leave the 3 most important with you now and let you decide if you should apply them to your life and business.  

1.      Leverage the law of habit

Habit grows out of your environment.  Habit is repetition. We repeat the same thoughts, the same actions, and the same experiences over and over again until they are incorporated with our being, until they are built into our character as part of ourselves.”

Our virtues are habits and so are our vices.  

Most owners are too distracted to create habits that will develop self-confidence.  

You probably have a vague idea of what “Shiny Object Syndrome” is.  Ted Bauer clarified it when he said, “It’s a culture where it’s always about the next thing, and priority walks out the door 744 times a day.” 

Most owners do a lot and get very little in return.  

It looks like this- you know what you need to do but you don’t want to do it because your bored of doing it.  

You seek out a thrill that unlocks those “feel good” feelings and you end up scrolling on social media, amazon or Netflix and when you sign up for a new tool, make a new purchase or binge watch the latest show you get that rush of endorphins that creates the illusion of excitement.

Only to come down off of your false-high and see the thing you are avoiding is still there for you to do anyway.  

The two most important habits an owner can obsess with are:

1.      New client acquisition.

2.    Our solution to solve a real problem for those clients.

Habits that lead to self-confidence require you to demand more of yourself.  

If you demand nothing more than the ordinary from yourself 

you will never achieve more than that.  

2. Believe the proof 

 There is difference between wishing for something and actually believing you will get it.  

The lack of understanding of this difference has meant failure to millions of business owners. 

There are “doers” and “believers” in every walk of life.

Those who believe they can achieve the object of their deepest desires do not recognize the word impossible.  Neither do they recognize temporary defeat.  

They KNOW they are going to succeed.  If one plan fails, they quickly replace it with another plan.  One built off their learning from each new experience.

I agree with Napoleon Hill when he said, “self-confidence is the product of knowledge.” 

The knowledge that matters to the owner that is scaling without failing includes:

1.      Knowing yourself

2.    Know how much you know (and how little)

3.    Know why you know it

4.    Know how you will use it

5.    Know the people you will use it with

Believe in proof of your own concept.   Measure your value by the results of your clients.  

Believe in yourself, but do not tell the world what you can do – SHOW them!

3.  Think Accurately 

If you permit yourself to be influenced back and forth by all manner of information that comes your way you will never become an accurate thinker.

If you cannot think accurately you cannot attain your most desired outcomes.  

As an owner it is both your privilege and your duty to know the facts, even though you must go out of your way to get them.  

Many an owner has lost it all due to his own lazy behaviors that lead him to fail to search out the facts.   

Owners who lose it all believe that they don’t know where to get the facts or how to read them and so they rely on others to do this for them.

Look for those in your industry who appear to accomplish more with less effort than most others.  

Study this person and you will find that they are a strategist and have learned how to organize facts so that they bring in the highest returns on their investment in less time.

The owner that knows they are working with facts goes at his task with a feeling of self-confidence which keeps him from procrastinating, hesitating or waiting to making sound decisions. 

Accurate thinkers know in advance what the outcome of their efforts will be, therefore, they move faster and accomplish more than the owner who must “feel his way through” because they are not sure that they are working with facts.

The owner who has learned the advantages of searching for facts as the foundation of their thinking has gone a long way toward developing accurate thought.  

The owner who has gone further is the one who has learned to separate facts into important and unimportant.  

You should be cautioned not to mistake self-confidence for arrogance. 

If you have confidence those around you will discover this fact.  Let them make this discovery.  They will feel proud that they discovered it on their own and you will be free from the suspicion of egotism.  

Opportunity never seeks out the person with a highly developed state of egotism, but ugly behavior does.  

Opportunity has a fondness for self-confidence rather than egotism.

Allow your confidence to be given a voice to speak only through service that delivers your highest value and is beneficial to all who receive it. 

I hope this helps you!  

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