The Confidence Guy

Wired into Truly Confident Living

Category: ‘Uncategorized’

Oct 20

Stock brokers and bankers have had their confidence strippedYou can’t go anywhere at the moment without being slapped round the face with yet another doom-mongering headline or another bank being plucked from the edge in the nick of time. An astonishing £2trillion has been pumped into the financial system globally since this whole thing went pear-shaped, and still there’s no confidence in the financial markets.

Our beloved leaders have stood firm behind their little lecturns, looking stern and telling us that it’s getting sorted. But still the headlines show panic and chaos in the markets, and there’s no sign of the fat lady singing just now.

Just what the hell is gong on?

Well, I’m no financial expert, a fact that the huge amount of debt I racked up in my 20’s is a testament to. I’m a financial dunce. If I went to the stock exchange people would laugh and point and kick pennies in my face.

So while the truth behind what’s going on in the markets isn’t something I’m overly familiar with, I have my own ideas about where this whole thing has come from. And it ain’t pretty.

The reason for this whole thing is the fact that the entire global financial system is founded on 3 of humanities worst traits.

Greed. Fear. Self-preservation.

The famous Wall Street BullTraders and bankers right around the world are reacting from the human instincts of greed and fear, with the overwhelming urge to protect their own interests.

How can the civilised world be so dependent on the whims of a few, when those whims are fuelled purely by such selfish and reactionary qualities?

It’s like having the global financial market under the control of a couple of monkeys, trained to push a button when they’re hungry and trained to throw shit around if the other one takes too much food.

It’s too crazy for words. How can any of us have confidence in such a flawed system?

To have confidence in something you need to have trust in it, and all of this shenanigans has proved that it’s not a system that can be trusted. Same goes for things in your own life as it does for the financial markets, by the way – real confidence is being able to choose your behaviour with implicit trust in that behaviour, and knowing that you can deal with whatever happens.

How successful would you be if you had implicit trust in your own fear and greed, and chose to operate from those places?

The system’s deeply flawed, and I hope that it goes for good to be replaced with something that’s more humanistic and value-led. But my fear is that it’s far too deep rooted to shift without something utterly seismic, and I don’t think this is it (yet).

There are some signs of European countries taking action and there seems to be a ground-swell of opinion that’s noticing what’s wrong, so I guess the trick is for us to keep noticing what’s wrong and talk about what we see.

If everyone was to engage with the things that having meaning and relevance to them and to reject or let go of the rest – perhaps that’s the only way to have this adjustment play out and see things reset to a more human, meaningful level.

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Sep 04

The difference between confidence and arroganceI’m always surprised at how many people say to me, “Don’t some people you work with become really arrogant?

Other people think that I’m arrogant because I assume to know how to make people become self-confident. They think that I stride around being full of myself, while I tell people how to be outwardly self-confident.

A bit of striding once in a while never hurt anyone, but I’m surprised because they couldn’t be further from the truth. In my mind the there’s no confusion at all between confidence and arrogance and I can say, hand on heart, that not one person I’ve coached has become arrogant. I coach people on bringing out their natural, inner confidence and am probably the least arrogant bloke you could meet. (That’s not me making arrogant claims by the way, it’s an observation based on my experience).

Confidence and arrogance are 2 very different things; the line between them isn’t as fine as people seem to think.

  • Arrogant people strive to be right
    Someone who’s arrogant is more interested in being right than being happy. They’ll go out of their way to prove their position or opinion is right over someone else’s. They won’t think about the opinion’s they’re rejecting or the people they’re dismissing – what’s important is that they’re proven right, if only in their own heads.
  • Arrogant people want to build themselves up
    Show me an arrogant person and I’ll show you someone who’s most interested in elevating their perceived position, sometimes to the detriment of others. This is about their validation, and an arrogant person will aim to feel good about themselves by reducing the status of others or making them feel less than.
  • Arrogant people bluff their way
    An arrogant person will try to bluff their way to success rather than achieve success through applying their strengths and working hard. They’ll make it known that their ability is greater than it actually is, which might not be a problem in itself (I’m all for stretching yourself) but when coupled with arrogance means they’ll be less inclined to own up to or learn from their mistakes. They’ll paper over the cracks, concerned as much with their image as their results.
  • Arrogant people don’t’ listen
    An arrogant person will rarely listen to you, me or anyone else. They might appear to listen, but will go right back to their own way of doing things and their old beliefs. Perhaps more importantly, an arrogant person often won’t even listen to themselves – they won’t hear the little voice inside that tells them how much easier things could be if only they’d let go of the need to be right.
  • Arrogant people talk first and think later
    An arrogant person will open their mouth and say what comes to mind without thinking, after all, in their mind it’s a spot on observation, the wittiest of comments or a flawless piece of reasoning. The impact of what’s said isn’t of much concern, what’s important is that they’re heard.


The gap between true confidence and arrogance is a wide one, and when people do stray into arrogance (we all know someone, right?) it’s normally down to ignorance rather being than a conscious choice. Someone who’s trying hard to come across as confident, for example, can mistakenly behave arrogantly simply because they haven’t figured out what real confidence is or what it means to them.

Make sure you know the difference.

Dealing with arrogant people is a whole other deal. Let me know if you have a hard time dealing with difficult people and stay tuned for some tips on how to handle them…

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