Confidence

"The man who has confidence in himself gains the confidence of others." - Hasidic Saying

How can one become more confident? Confidence comes from skills (being able to do) and knowledge (being able to know). Knowledge is not power. Knowledge applied is power. Confidence also comes from experience. "Been there. Done that." Nothing succeeds like success. Success (or failure) comes only from doing. So, if you want to feel confident you have to expose yourself to variety of experiences. "Nothing that kills you only makes you stronger" - this is something we should remember when we feel anxiety about trying something new. There are only few foolhardy things, if and when tried ,can be fatal. All other experiences are fine to go after. Moreover, every experience is an experiment. Experiments do not have failures or successes. They only have outcomes. It is our reaction to outcomes makes us term an experience as success and other as failure.

It is one thing to have confidence and a totally different thing to portray confidence. Confident people are not very defensive. They are not shaken when you dispute what they say. If someone goes on defensive as soon as you show even mild disagreement, you can safely question his confidence. If you are confident about yourself and your ideas, why do you ever want to get defensive? You and your personality is not something which need to be defended from every minor attack.

If someone is not very good at displaying their confidence even when they are confident, how can we determine their level of confidence? You see, we sometimes need to do more than merely scratching the surface of someone's personality if we want to benefit from their vast experience and expertise. If we  write them off just because they are not very good at portraying their confidence, it is us who is going to lose out.Try to learn as much about the other person as you can. If you find the person has had a lot of experience, you can benefit from his experience even if he does not know how to portray that into an external confidence. You may also be able to make him understand how valuable his experience and skills are and help him become more confident. Many times we bump into such raw diamonds. All they need is just some polishing to shine. What can be more fulfilling  if you can help someone feel more confident about himself?

Always sharpen your intellect so that you can differentiate genuine confidence from mere hot air. These days everyone knows that one has to come across as extremely confident to succeed. Nothing wrong with that. But, a lot of people do not have what it takes to feel the level of confidence they want others to see in them. It's all pomp and show. Help such people too. Make them understand it is okay to feel less confident at times. Everyone feels confident in some areas and if you want to succeed you should know your strengths as well as weaknesses.

Cheers!

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