Shared Confidence: How to Build Self Confidence

In this video, I explain how our self-confidence is generated by the way other people react to us and the way we process those reactions.

Then, I’ll outline how you can boost your own self-confidence by controlling the perception of others.

Self Confidence without Self: Shared Confidence

Lack of self-confidence plagues a lot of people. How many times in the past year alone have you thought about self-confidence, either yours or someone else’s?

Normally, that’s because we need confidence to go about our daily lives.

When you ask someone out on a date, they consider the invitation based partially on their impression of your self-confidence. After all, they don’t want to date someone with such low confidence that they can’t even pick a restaurant for dinner!

When we interview for jobs, we use our self-confidence to prove that we’re capable and better than anyone else being interviewed.

Experts depend on their self-confidence to write books and share their wisdom with the world. After all, lack of self-confidence is enough to fool you into believing you’re not enough of an expert and sometimes talk you out of writing at all.

Directors need self-confidence to make decisions and conduct an army of actors and crew on set.

Investors often educate themselves then make final decisions based on their gut. And what’s another word for gut instinct? Self-confidence.

Without self-confidence, 

any potential decision can seem impossible to make.

Realizing how important a strong sense of self-confidence is to our personal and professional success, I wanted to reveal what I believe is the lesser-known side of self-confidence, what I call “shared confidence.” 

For starters, I believe the “self” in “self-confidence” is what’s throwing everyone off. We spend our lives trying to build self-confidence ourselves, thinking that if we read the right books or follow the right experts, we can build our own self-confidence.

But I believe our self-confidence is generated by the way other people react to us and the way we process those reactions. That’s what makes it shared confidence.

Let me give you an example. I buy a new red shirt and wear it to work. Since people basically never comment on my wardrobe, I go about my day as usual. But suddenly, almost everyone I run into says, “Great shirt, Roger.”

After this happens multiple times, I can’t help but think that shirt is the best investment in a garment I’ve ever made!

Subconsciously, we take comments like this, even if it’s just about our choice of shirt, and immediately combine them with our own comments, like, “They really like the shirt. I must have good taste in shirts. Or, maybe this shirt just looks good on me. Maybe I look pretty good today…”

So I started with the shirt feedback and then added my own comments to conclude that I must look good today. I took whatever positive input they gave me and turned it into even more positive.

I now have the confidence that this shirt and my body are a winning combination. I then turn that confidence into self-confidence, fueled by other people’s reactions to my red shirt.

I’m using this example to illustrate how our self-confidence is generated by the way other people react to us and the way we process those reactions. This is simply gaining control over our own power, influence, and abilities, and using that strength to create more open and honest communications. If someone reacts to us positively and we turn that positivity into self-confidence, we have made the most of the situation.

In my perspective, you can boost your own self-confidence by controlling the perception of others. By turning other’s perceptions into positive interpretations, your self-confidence will skyrocket.

And it’s fine to sift through what people say and capitalize on the positive parts. That gives you the opportunity to take note of them and then try to be more positive towards them in response. That’s how we can turn their reactions and feelings into more positive ones more often, which might even make everyone happier in the process!

Let me address the naysayers and explain how it is not a sign of weakness to care about what other people say and think about you. There are instances when we present the best of ourselves to others and they still react negatively. However, I believe that if you keep showcasing your positivity, the negative or mean people can eventually turn around and find a happier side of themselves. The best way to go about this is to consistently produce positive communications towards those people.

Becoming more influential—for example, by accessing a unique vocal quality you never imagined to create sounds that make you seem attractive, brilliant, and engaging—means you are becoming an expert at presenting yourself. You can then devour the positive energy from other’s responses and turn it effortlessly into your own self-confidence and power.

After all, I don’t believe any of us start with high self-confidence. Instead, we watch other people exude those characteristics, imitate them, attempt to justify acting that way, and then try to find a way to adopt and adapt those characteristics for our own!

Let me give you a head start in your journey towards the significance of your speaking voice in becoming a better influencer.

Here’s how: bring more ascending melodies into your speech patterns today. Try to make sure that you’re walking up the stairs, going from lower notes to higher notes, throughout your conversations. [demonstrates]

These ascending melodies make others feel happier, so they should react to that positivity. Maybe they’ll say, “Somebody’s in a good mood” or “Looks like you woke up on the right side of the bed today!” Just smile at their reactions, take them in, and let it make you happy, too! Then, feel good about cheering others up in the process of boosting your own self-confidence.

Shared confidence is an effective way to quickly gain someone’s approval, build self-confidence and then use that self-confidence to make your life, and the lives of everyone around you, better.

If you want to grow your self-confidence and influence skills even further, go to the speaking section at RogerLove.com and get four free training videos to start now.