Truly Confident People…

This is a quote I adapted from something I saw on Pinterest, and I love it because of the clarity it brings to the concept of confidence, especially with respect to interactions with others. For example, notice that this doesn’t say confident people don’t care about being right. Of course they do, just as everyone likes to be right. The quote says that they don’t just care about being right, which means that it is not the only thing they care about.

You see, there is a difference between wanting to be right and needing to be right. We all want to be right, but “needing to be right” actually speaks to a fear of being wrong. For those of you who follow my “Life from the Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that any fear comes from the lower 20% of the brain (the brainstem) and limits our response to either fight-or-flight.

You can see this in politics. When a politician fears being wrong (or always needs to be right) he or she comes across as very thin-skinned. These types of people tend to take any challenge to their position very personally, and will often attack back. In these cases, understanding and being understood are not what they are going for. They are playing a “win/lose” game, and being the “winner” is all that matters.

Truly confident people, however, are very interested in understanding because it not only gives them more information, it actually helps them be understood, or become more influential in the interaction. You see, when we take the time to understand another’s perspective, we automatically broaden our’s, either by learning something new, or by learning what is important to the person we are wanting to influence. We can then blend what’s important to them with what’s important to us, and thus become more influential in the interaction.

Therefore, if broadening your perspective and becoming more influential in your interactions is important to you, I encourage you to let go of the need to be right, and focus more on understanding and being understood. In this way, your confidence will serve you, and those around you will admire who you are (and thus value your opinion) versus interpreting your confidence as arrogance.