Ask any caveman and he’ll tell you that he’s master of his domain (and I don’t mean in the Seinfeld sense of the phrase either). Right after he’s established that he’ll probably beat you with a club and make Sunday lunch with you.

Why would he tell you he’s master of his domain and then eat you? 2 reasons–

1. Because he’s learned to shape his environment to suit his needs.
He’s made a lovely home in the cave around the corner, learned how to hunt and make weapons, learned how to make a fashionable coat out of an elk in the winter, etc.

2. Because his environment has shaped his behaviour.
He knows he has to hunt food to survive, so when a tasty-looking mammal strolls up and starts asking him questions he sees dinner.

This is the same with you and me. We don’t go around eating each other (if you do, you’ve got more to work on than your self-confidence) but we have the unique ability to shape our environment and are also shaped by it.

Just like Mr Caveman, we respond to and adapt to the environment around us – that’s the only way we can survive and live effectively. If you live somewhere that’s hot all year round then you’d be stupid to walk around in a thick wool coat, your home won’t need underfloor heating or a roaring fireplace and you’ll probably have air conditioning. You might have one of those silly hats with a fan attachment.

The same goes for your beliefs and behaviours – they’re shaped by your environment.

If your environment is filled with people who lack confidence or who tell you that you won’t amount to a hill of beans in this world, then that becomes the truth that your environment feeds you and you respond and adapt to it.

If you’re surrounded by unhappy people then you’ll be more inclined to unhappiness.

If you’re surrounded by people who bash down your ideas then you’ll be inclined to play it safe and to not let your ideas take shape.

If you’re surrounded by people who lack confidence it makes it so much more difficult to become truly confident yourself.

When you get down to brass tacks it boils down to the fact that if you surround yourself with the wrong people and you’ll be as miserable as a 10 month Winter.

I sometimes call these ‘wrong people’ negative swimmers. Swimming is all about using the water around you to propel you forwards. The water is there to help you move, your body works in co-ordination with it, and the whole things works gracefully.

Negative swimming is the opposite of swimming – you thrash around, cause a hell of a splash, swallow half the pool and go nowhere except down.

If your environment is one of low confidence – i.e. you’re surrounded by negative swimmers – the only way to become truly confident is to reshape the environment in line with that new life and new experience.

Of course, if you lack confidence yourself it becomes a huge task to find the balls to step up, think differently, do differently and become different.

Like Mr Caveman, you can’t wait for your environment to change around you. That simply doesn’t work. Did Mr Caveman kill a moose to feed the wife and kids, then build a nice pile of branches and sit down waiting for them to catch fire?*

No. He figured out a way to make them catch fire, using some kind of catalyst to create a spark.

That’s exactly what you need to do.

You can’t wait for your environment to change around you. That’s like waiting for the kettle to boil when you don’t have anywhere to plug it in.

Or any water.

Or a kettle.

You have to surround yourself with people who add to your environment rather than take from it, and sometimes that means making choices to remove people who are taking away from your ability to play a great game. That might sounds harsh but think about the alternative.

Think swimming rather than negative swimming.

You want people in your environment who support you, encourage you, cheer you and motivate you. You want to create a congruous environment that supports who you are and what truly matters to you.

That’s where you can become truly confident and create fire in your life.

* (Specific prehistoric and evolutionary details may be inaccurate, I’m no Simon Schama you know).