Confidence is not an innate trait but a skill that is actively built through courage, consistent action, and self-trust, rather than being a universal state or something bestowed upon individuals.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
I received this DM on Instagram and it
said, "You appear so confident." I was
like, "Huh?"
Nobody's ever appreciating me for confidence.
confidence.
It's always, "Who do you think you are?"
Or even better, "Who gave you your
confidence?" People are genuinely
bewildered. They're like, "What?"
But what have I told you? Confidence
isn't something that you're given. It's
something that you build. Let's redefine
what confidence is. Confidence comes
from the Latin word confid which means
to trust. Do you trust yourself to rise
to the occasion? Do you trust yourself
to be competent, to be skillful in
whatever this thing is that you care
about? It's trust in oneself. And one
misconception that people have is that
if you're confident in one area of your
life, that means you're confident in
your whole life. is universal.
But confidence is contextual.
You say that someone is confident
because they are confident in an area
that you value.
For example, if it's public speaking,
let's use a podcast for example.
If you see someone, they're laidback,
they're chilled, you're like, "Wow, that
person is really confident." that person
that's doing a podcast may not be used
to doing live shows but they're
comfortable in that area of podcasting.
So we need to understand that you can be
confident in certain areas and less
confident in other areas. So confidence
is really about having the courage to
overcome your fears.
Do you trust yourself in that journey to
become the person that you want to
become? So let's talk about that journey
of becoming. How do you become confident
in the things that you wish to be? Well,
when I was a teenager, I sought
confidence in the things that I cared
about. These were FIFA, football, and education.
education.
And if you talk to me about any of those
things in my teenage years, I'll be
confident cuz I can back myself, right?
But I didn't understand what confidence
really meant because there was still a
bit of uneasy tension inside of me.
So when I finished GCES, I said to
myself, look, I've got my grades. Cool.
But there's so much more, right? I know
there's more to life than just the grades.
grades.
So GCSE results day. I get my results. I
go to the school. The teachers are like,
"Well done. Well done. Well done. You
got the highest grades in our year. Whatever.
Whatever.
Take a break."
If you watched the third episode of my
podcast series, you'll know I did not
take a break. I kept going. But what
exactly was I doing? I wasn't working. I
was just experimenting. I was trying new
things. I did my first public speaking
experience when I was 15. I went to my
old primary school and I talked to them
about my life at secondary school cuz I
felt that was the right thing to do. If
I didn't do it then I will regret it
later on in my life. And 5 years later
from 15 I'm now 20. I still hold that
same belief. If I don't do it now, I
will regret it. Trust your intuition. So
the lesson from my journey of confidence
is that action came before confidence.
You have to be bad at something [music]
to then build your competency and then
become confident in it. Right? When I
put this camera in front of me, damn,
that first time if you saw my overcoming
the camera video on TTB, you know, I was
talking about anxiety. I was talking
about all these things. I was just like,
"Wow, this is completely different.
How about I just stay doing what I'm
doing and doing what I know?" But I've
been on that journey for so long now and
it met an inflection point where I said,
"Look, something has to change." Let's
talk about that confidence competence
[music] loop. How does it work? I'm
going to talk from my experience, so it
won't be perfectly scientific, but
hopefully it resonates more and it will
allow you to be more actionable with
whatever advice you get from me. So,
number one is courage.
Commit to that thing that you're fearing
but you know you want to do. I'm going
to use example of networking events
because I think that's the best example
from my personal experience.
It's getting that first ticket to your
networking event and confirming that
you're going to go to it in two weeks
time. That's the courage bit. So, second
thing in that cycle is [music] exposure.
When you go to that networking event,
are you standing in the corner of the
room looking around like guys
guys
or are you actually going to people and
talking [music] to them? Because it's
one thing to sign up and go there. is
another thing to be present and involve
yourself inside of the event. So talk
[music] to people, people that are
slightly younger than you, people that
are the same age, people that are triple
your age,
right? That's the exposure part of the
cycle. And then you gain your
competence. Keep doing it over and over
again. [music] Keep going to networking
events. Keep talking to different
people. Keep doing it over and over
again. It won't be easy, but by the time
you know it, you're going to be a little
expert. You know what I mean? You'll be
all right. And then finally, you have
the confidence and the trust that comes
with it. If you know you can go to a
networking event and you can talk to
someone that's completely different to
you, different demographic, different
[music] age, whatever,
you'll be fine, right? And that's how
you build for confidence in going to
networking events. So the key idea here
is immersion. When you go to the
networking event, are you involving
yourself or are you just in the corner a
bit reserved, not really fulfilling the
promise that you made to yourself?
Because when you expose yourself, that's
the first little, you know, level that
you jump because anyone can sign up for
an event. Not everyone actually shows
up. You'll be surprised. You can have
100 people that sign up for an event.
maybe only 70 show up, 50 sometimes.
And that's to me that's crazy. When I
sign up for an event, I make sure to go.
So, immerse yourself. That is a method
to build your confidence. Another thing
that I want to pick up on is addressing
fear because
fear can just hold you back, right? Fear
tells you don't do this thing otherwise
this bad thing will happen. But you need
to understand that fear binds to
self-limiting beliefs.
If you believe that you're not good
enough to do something, fear will just
latch on to it. Be like, "Safe, safe,
I'll take that. Let me take that. Let me
tell you, yeah, you can't do it." You
know why? Because when you go on that
stage, you're going to trip and fall.
You're going to stutter. Everyone's
going to laugh. Not to say that it's self-inflicted.
self-inflicted.
But fear is natural. Nervousness is
natural. You are in control of whatever
comes after that. Do you perpetuate that
cycle? Do you do you keep telling
yourself the selft talk right is it
telling you ah maybe I'm not cut out for
this maybe I'm not good enough and you
haven't even tried yet so please
understand that there is nothing wrong
with you everything is pretty bad in the
start and it's fine to feel nervous it's
fine to feel that little anxiety that
thing telling you like something's bad
is going to happen right something bad
is going to happen but
you have to acknowledge it, accept it,
and just keep going because that fear
actually never goes away. All right,
let's get a level deeper now. Let's say
you've gone to a networking event.
You've done everything you need to do
and you still feel like I'm not really
I'm not get it's not getting easier, you
know, and you want to build that
unshakable confidence. You want to step
into every room. Everyone feels your
aura. Everyone feels your presence.
Let's talk about it. It starts before
you step into that room. That might
sound obvious, but let's break it down a
bit more. Let's talk about your actions
in your personal life. Do you do the
things that you say you will do? Do you
wake up on time? Do you study when you
say you're going to study? Do you say
you're going to put the phone down, but
you don't actually put the phone down
and you're distracted all the time? All
these little things is about integrity
to yourself.
Because if you're fooling yourself in
your personal life, that will leak into
your self-esteem, it will show your body
language, you're showing how you talk,
you're showing your relationships [music]
[music]
because that internal conflict is going
to leak out. The reason why this is so
important is because
again, just back to my earlier point,
confidence starts from within. It's
trust in oneself. So if you can believe
in yourself that okay, I can follow my
own lead.
There's no worry when it comes to I'm
going to set myself this this [music]
ambitious goal and I'm going to achieve
it. You're not worrying about confidence
there. You're just saying if I follow
through, I'm going to be fine. That self
asssurance is [music] invaluable. I want
to tie this into my journey on LinkedIn.
So, I didn't just start posting videos
and content like this. If you've been
following me for a long time or you're
friends with me, you'll know I'm very
active on LinkedIn.
And I started LinkedIn when I was in
year 12, so when I was 16.
I didn't really know what LinkedIn was
about at that time. I had a little idea.
It's for professionals. It's like a
social platform for professionals and
that's about it. When I was posting, I
wasn't really worrying about what other
people thought. Because when I looked to
myself and I said, "Why am I posting?" I
just said, "Look, I've done this amazing
thing that I've never done before. I'm
going to share what I learned. I'm going
[music] to share what I found
interesting. I'm going to appreciate people."
people."
That's just a common thread with every
event I go to. And that comes with intention.
intention.
So please understand that courage
without intention does not equal confidence.
confidence.
Courage without intention does not equal
confidence. When you step into a
networking event, if you're not
intentional in what exactly you're
doing, if you're not actually talking to
people and trying to learn about them,
you cannot build that confidence.
There's a missing link there. You're
going to feel empty
and it's going to feel like I'm doing
the same thing over and over again. It's
because the intention is not there. your
values are not aligned within you
because you can do the same thing 100
times but it feels like you're not
really making progress. It's because of
the intention. So why is building
confidence so important?
If you're a student watching this or a
young professional or an entrepreneur,
you know that confidence is important,
but you're not really sure why.
Well, confidence is the gap between
where you are and where you want to be.
Because if you're saying you want to be,
I don't know, let's say you're an
entrepreneur and you want to make this
pitch deck and you want to pitch it to
these investors, you know that if you're
unprepared, you're stuttering, you don't
really believe in your vision, that's
going to affect your likelihood of
getting that investment. If you're a
young student, you know that if you're
not confident in your ability to show up
in that test, it's going to show. You're
going to make mistakes. You're going to
feel [music]
a bit nervous. You're going to waste time.
time.
If you're young professional, maybe
you're not asking the questions you're
meant to ask, and that's limiting your
development. Confidence is a gap between
where you are and where you want to be.
It doesn't actually have to take a
drastic shift. It's just a little steps
one by one building that confidence,
laying it out, compounding it to the
[music] point where you reach that
breakthrough point. So, let's round off
the points from this video.
Why am I talking about confidence? Well,
confidence, I want to break that
misconception. It's not about
personality. It's a skill that you
build. Every repetition, every time you
put yourself in a position where you
need courage, you're building confidence.
confidence.
with intention.
Don't forget the intention.
And another thing I want to say to you
is don't let ego and perfectionism get
in the way of your confidence because
there's actually two sides to ego. This
is how I see it. There's the ego that
protects you and your identity today. So
let's say you're just a student and
you're high you're a high attainer. If
you're getting maybe maybe the highest
in your class and you start doing
videos, I might be talking about myself
here, but [laughter]
but let's say you start making videos
now and it's pretty bad. You know, it's
kind of ruining the halo effects.
Well, that's unfortunate, right? Because
you know that when you start something
new, you're going to be bad at it. But
is that going to stop you from doing the
videos even though that's something you
want to do? or you're just going to
stay, you know, you can just stay in
your bubble and your resilience in other
areas is going to it's going to wilt.
It's going to struggle. So, ego can come
from that side. But ego can also say,
look, I'm this, I'm that. I'm
egotistical. I'm like, I'm the man a
little bit, right?
And doing all of that posing, all that nonsense,
nonsense,
you can fake the confidence, I guess.
How long can you keep up for? I don't
know. I've never tried to do that
before. So, I feel like if you go if you
go from that angle, there's only so much
you can fake until it really comes out.
And perfectionism is quite simple. If
you're trying to be perfect all the
time, this video that you're watching is
not perfect, right? I'm just putting it
out there because I think it's at a
level at a standard that I think is good
enough. It's the same with everything in
your life. And if you want to learn a
bit more about that, check out my 20
lessons video on TTB because I talk
about the 80% rule, not having to put
100% into every commitment you do. If
you've made it this far to the video,
comment 100% so I know that you've
completed the video. And please share
your key takeaway. It will help for the
future videos and hopefully someone else
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
