“Confidence is when you believe in yourself and your abilities. Arrogance is when you think you are better than others and act accordingly” – Stewart Stafford

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The Devastating Destruction That Being Unconfident Causes in Your Life

Yesterday you learned that being unconfident could cost you $250,634.89 on average throughout your lifetime. In addition, you were asked to think about all the other ways that being unconfident is hurting you. 

Not just in your intimate relationships, but also your friendships and professional relationships, and how being unconfident was causing you to fall short of where you want to be in life in general. You learned what it’s doing to your life and loved ones and what it will continue to cost you. 

After answering the questions from yesterday’s homework you’ll realize that being unconfident is like cursing yourself and everyone around you. It’s like an absolute curse… 

Which is why it’s important to quickly cover the three main pillars of confidence, starting with the first one. 

The First Pillar of Confidence: Competence

The easiest way to understand competence is like this: how good you are at something. For example, if you’re good at a sport like basketball then you’re going to be comfortable and confident in your skills playing basketball. But then if you suddenly have to start playing the violin you’re not going to be as confident because they’re extremely different things. 

Likewise, if you’re good with people, then you’ll be confident when in social situations but might struggle in business, or vice versa. In fact, picture the superstar CEO of a company making millions of dollars a year but is still a virgin who can’t talk to women. How confident do you think he is around women vs talking to his employees? 

Probably very little in one and overflowing in the other! 

Which is the power of competence at work! 

Being competent at something means being good at it, or at least capable and understanding that you can do whatever you need to do. You’re not going to have a lot of stress or anxiety because you’ve got experience. 

And this is something that you’re going to learn about in much more detail tomorrow. Tomorrow, for example, we’re going to cover how you can learn how to master new skills 10x faster than anyone else. Because if you’re good at a certain skill you’re going to feel confident when doing it. And if you master skills that you need in life, like at work or even social skills, then you’re going to become a rare type of person that people can’t do without.

But for now, let’s look at the second pillar of confidence that we’ll cover in a few days in more detail:

The Second Pillar of Confidence: Congruence

If people appear unconfident we assume that there’s a reason they’re unconfident. After all, we can’t know every little thing about someone to know if they can do what they’re promising. Therefore, we shortcut the process and look for something called ‘congruence’ as well as ‘honest signals’ to see if we can trust them (honest signals we will cover later in the course). 

Congruence means that someone’s actions line up with what they’re telling us. 

Here’s an example; if someone says they’re honest and would never steal, but then you see them taking 5 dollars from someone’s pocket like a lying, thieving and backstabbing politician that would make them incongruent. They’re incongruent because their actions and words do not match. 

Sure, it’s only 5 bucks, but are you going to trust that person anymore or are you going to doubt what they tell you because you caught them lying? 

Likewise, if someone tells you that they’re honest and would never steal but then you see them pick up a wallet off the ground and return it to someone that dropped it that would be congruent. Their actions and what they tell you are one and the same. They’re truthful when they say they don’t steal. 

And the same works with body language and our hypothetical surgeon from yesterday’s story. But let’s use a different example; let’s say a car salesman says they’re confident they have the perfect car for you. You’re going to love everything about this car and there’s nothing wrong with it! 

But then you start to notice little things about this salesman’s body language. Just like the surgeon they can’t quite make eye contact with you. In fact, the salesman’s body language is also hunched over and they keep their palms closed together in front of their body, almost like they’re hiding something… 

Would you trust that they’re telling you the truth or would you assume they’re lying to you? 

Personally, I’m not going to trust someone like that and assume they’re hiding something from me. Which is why we feel weird and creeped out around people who act incongruent. It’s our brains telling us that something’s wrong and that we need to pay attention. 

Which again, you’re going to learn about how to spot people who aren’t as confident so you don’t get tricked as well as how to appear more confident in your own life. That way you can get the respect and admiration of people that you deserve. And this concept is closely tied to something else we’re going to cover later in the course once you invest in yourself; honest signals and the halo effect. 

But for now, there’s the third pillar of confidence to take a quick look at:  

The Third Pillar of Confidence: The Belief That You Will Be Okay

This is what you could argue confidence truly is: the belief that no matter what the outcome of any given situation, you will be just fine (and everything else helps us get this belief). 

Say you’re in a meeting and you’re doing a presentation. If you believe that no matter what happens you will be okay, you’ll go into that presentation a lot more relaxed and confident than you would otherwise. The reason for this is because if you go into a presentation with thoughts like “If I don’t do well on this presentation then my boss is going to fire me and then I’ll lose my car and my house and then…” you’re going to be stressed. 

Or likewise, maybe you’re someone who is nervous around that special someone you’ve been daydreaming about for months. And after months of pining away for them you finally work up the nerve to talk to them. But as soon as you try you get this heavy feeling in your chest, your hands start sweating up a storm and your mouth’s as dry and empty as your chances seem to be. Given this situation, how likely are you to be super smooth and suave around this person? 

Probably not very likely… 

And there’s a simple reason for this: stress and anxiety. Basically, stress makes you dumber than you actually are. 

Here’s an example: remember a time in school where you studied for a test. You did your best and studied but were worried that you couldn’t remember everything on the test. If you didn’t ace this test then there were going to be consequences. Maybe you fail a class, or your parents chew you out or whatever. 

So you studied and studied for this test. And then the day finally came. You sat down to take it and as soon as you read the first question your heart sank… 

You remember reading about what this question was and the answer, but you couldn’t quite remember the actual answer. 

That’s the power of anxiety and stress making you dumber because of the consequences of not remembering the answer. The same thing happens in our above situations about talking to that special someone as well as presenting something important. 

It’s called “choking under pressure”. And this, along with everything else is what we’re going to explore in the upcoming days. 

So stay tuned! Later on down the line we’re going to cover how to gain these three pillars of confidence as well as how to project confidence so that we come off more capable, more attractive and just better people in general! 

We’re going to do all of this using scientific principles that are well-established and tested in the scientific community but without the jargon and impossible-to-read crap those academic types like to use. That way, you can learn how to control your own life and get what you want out of life. 

I’m excited you’re here and I’m excited to see you tomorrow! Tomorrow we’re going to cover the first pillar of confidence in greater detail. And after that you’re going to learn so much more about how to be confident all because you chose to invest in yourself and upgrade your life with this course! And as always, if you’re enjoying what you’re reading here then you’re going to get SO MUCH more through a discovery session with me!

Keep Moving Forward

-Alexander 

P.S. If you’re curious about what a consult with me would be like then check out what Travis had to say: