How To Be Confident
The Problem with Under-Confidence
In this section, the speaker discusses how under-confidence can arise when we become too attached to our own dignity and fear looking ridiculous. This can cause us to hold back from challenges and miss out on opportunities.
Skewed Perception of Dignity
- People often try to boost our confidence by drawing attention to our strengths.
- Under-confidence arises when we grow too attached to our own dignity and become anxious around situations that might threaten it.
- We don't venture far from our comfort zone in a bid never to look foolish, thereby missing out on opportunities.
Liberating Argument
- Pieter Brueghel's work proposes that the way to greater confidence isn’t to reassure ourselves of our own dignity but rather grow at peace with the inevitable nature of our ridiculousness.
- Erasmus advances a liberating argument in his book 'In Praise of Folly' where he reminds us that everyone is a fool, including himself.
- Brueghel’s and Erasmus’s work propose that once we learn to see ourselves as already, and by nature, foolish, it really doesn’t matter so much if we do one more thing that might make us look a bit stupid.
Embracing Our Ridiculousness
- The way to greater confidence is not through reassurance but rather growing at peace with the inevitable nature of our ridiculousness.
- If someone thinks us ridiculous or regards us with contempt, it wouldn't be news as we have already gracefully accepted in our hearts long ago that we are all fools.
Conclusion
In this section, the speaker concludes that under-confidence can arise when we become too attached to our own dignity and fear looking ridiculous. However, embracing our ridiculousness can lead to greater confidence and opportunities.
- Under-confidence arises when we become too attached to our own dignity and fear looking ridiculous.
- Embracing our ridiculousness can lead to greater confidence and opportunities.
The Benefits of Failure
This section discusses the benefits of accepting failure as a normal part of life and how it can lead to greater confidence.
Accepting Failure
- Accepting failure removes the fear of trying and failing.
- It allows us to grow free to give things a go by accepting that failure is an acceptable norm.
- Every so often, amidst the endless rebuffs we’d have factored in from the outset, it would work: we’d get a kiss, we’d make a friend, we’d get a raise.
Building Confidence
- The road to greater confidence begins with a ritual of telling oneself solemnly every morning before heading out for the day, that one is a muttonhead, a cretin, a dumbbell and an imbecile.
- One or two more acts of folly should thereafter not matter very much at all.