Chapter 4: Becoming the Bold
What is the difference between the confident man and a poser? The poser looks very similar to a confident man, however at the same time the poser is a very different person from the man who has boldness and confidence in his heart. You see, the poser is someone who feels like they need to pretend they are something. These are usually the kind of guys who are big, mean and tough; they wear loud clothing on their bodies, they make lots of noise and are loud, aggressive and mean. You would look at those guys and think that they are really strong, bold and confident, but the truth is they are simply just posing. A confident man doesn’t need to pretend that he is confident, a bold man doesn’t need to show everyone in the room that he’s a tough guy. Rather he is seen as bold by his actions and by the words that he uses. Let’s not fall under the false trap of believing that just because someone looks confident that they actually are confident. Confidence goes deeper than appearance, it’s even deeper than actions. To be a bold and confident individual is to be someone who is free. Free from what? Well, if you’ve been paying attention so far, you should be able to answer my question on your own, free from control!
You see, when you are afraid of being punished and you feel a deep sense of anxiety and dread due to the control other people have had on you, you aren’t really free. Fear has a way of detracting all of our feelings of confidence. Our fear of punishment prevents us from having the strength to stand up for ourselves and be assertive. It is necessary for you to be free from controls in order to develop an authentic sense of confidence. Many times, we see inauthentic confidence from posers.
We talked a bit about how to be stronger and how to break the ties of control that bind you. Let’s assume that you’ve worked really hard to cut those negative ties in your life. Does that mean you are automatically confident? No, not yet. To develop a mindset of confidence, you’re first going to need to be able to understand what confidence is actually made of. Confidence is a combination of freedom, relaxation and self-esteem. If you want to be more aggressive in your life, you’re gonna have to develop a good mixture of all three of those in order to become as confident as you possibly can. Confidence put into action is boldness, when a person is bold they are often taking action that other people would be too afraid to do. So, if you want to become bolder in your life, then you’re going to have to learn how to master these three areas in order to be that confident, ruthless individual that you’ve always wanted to be. Let’s go over each one in detail.
Freedom:
As heavily discussed in the earlier chapters, in order be confident you also need to be free. You need to experience the ability to walk around without worrying about someone punishing you. Punishment can kill confidence because it creates fear; fear and confidence are natural enemies, they cannot coexist. You cannot be confident if you are constantly afraid. So, let’s talk about how to better build a sense of freedom.
Just because you might have cut off all the controlling ties in your life, you might not necessarily be free from the slave and compliance mentality the world has forced on us. So, what creates the mentality of a free person? We create boundaries for ourselves. Henry Cloud, from the book Boundaries, defines the word boundary as something you create or something you allow. We’ll use that definition for this book as well. Having a strong sense of boundaries will preserve your own freedom. Imagine a fence around you. This fence prevents everyone from being able to get into your castle and destroy your property. But if you don’t have a very strong fence or very strong wall, people will get inside and they will steal, take and destroy things. Now, if you have a firm sense of boundaries, if you have the ability to say no, you are free to build your walls up as high as you like. Not only are you free to do whatever you please inside your castle, you are also free to allow people inside of your castle. What this means is that you can do other things for people, help them out, love them and care for them without having to feel a sense of obligation, or sense of requirement. This reduces bitterness, eliminates any chance of resentment and will generally improve your relationship with the people around you.
If you find you are someone who has a poor sense of boundaries then you are going to have to learn how to build them up so that you can be truly free. Learn to say no, make it your favorite word. Be strong enough to say no. If you’re in a situation where you can’t say no because of the control, then you really aren’t free. How can you be confident if you aren’t truly free? People do not respect someone who is beholden. People respect someone who is able to do things on his own terms, someone who is free.
You also won’t feel very strong or confident if you are doing things out of compulsion. It is far better to be inspired to do something than it is to be forced to do something. So, don’t fall into the trap of letting your mind become controlled by the forces around you. That will kill your confidence. Also, don’t think that you can become confident while you’re under this false system, because confidence stems from control. For example, imagine that you had $100,000 in your bank. That is enough to cover your expenses for eight months. Your boss comes into your office one day and says “you need to shape up or else I’m going to fire you.” How would you feel in that moment? Would you feel afraid, worried or confused? Most likely not. Why? Because you have the ability to be free of him at any time, so you don’t have to do what he tells you to do. The reason you’re at that company is because you like the work. So, you can respond to him and tell him what you really think. You don’t have to worry because you are free to find another job. You are not being held hostage.
Let’s imagine that same example except this time you have five dollars in your bank account. You have no savings; you have no other way of getting income than your job. Your boss comes and says “Guess what? You’re working late tonight, deal with it.” How would you feel? You might try to argue with him, you might try to fight with him but at the end of the day, you have to do what he tells you to. Even if you wanted to speak your mind and be honest with him, you might feel intense fear. That fear will undermine your confidence. Fear of environmental factors such as losing a job, losing a relationship, getting in trouble or losing validation will ultimately detract from your confidence.
There was once a man who decided he was going to ask a girl out as a joke. His friend was feeling depressed, so this man figured that he’d go up to a very attractive young lady, ask her out and be rejected in a hilarious manner. He wasn’t worried at all about the consequences because he was hoping for rejection. As he went up to this woman, he asked her out and they hit it off. Eventually they became married several years later. He wasn’t afraid because he was hoping for rejection. The worst possible thing wasn’t rejection so there was no fear in him and he had total control. This is the perfect picture of what it means to become confident and unafraid of the consequences. If there are things to be afraid of, we cannot be confident. If you are relying on other people for validation, then you cannot be confident when you speak your mind. If you are relying on your job to pay you money so you can survive, then you cannot be confident when you demand a raise. Confidence and freedom walk hand in hand together so you must make a concentrated effort to become free so that you may become confident. Anything else is simply posing.
Relaxation
If you want to be confident, you’re also going to need to be relaxed. A relaxed individual is someone who isn’t nervous and anxious about the world around him. He isn’t hyped up, afraid or constantly worrying. He’s not in a state of consistent agitation, rather he is in a state of calmness and stillness. He allows his calm mind to help him achieve the things that he wants to achieve. He feels relaxed when he talks to people that he doesn’t know. He is perfectly capable of having a conversation naturally. Why is he like this? Because he’s not concerned with what other people are thinking. The key to relaxation is not worrying so much. If you worry about what everyone else is thinking or what’s going on you will be tense. If you want to be relaxed, you
just have to make a couple of modifications to the way you think. A relaxed mind is someone who’s not focusing on what’s happening later, but is instead looking at the now. A relaxed mind is also a very grateful mind. He’s happy with what he has and is living in the moment.
By being relaxed and present, you are capable of being more confident because you’re in the moment. One of the greatest things that can cause lack of confidence is trying to predict the future. A relaxed individual isn’t trying to predict the future because he’s thinking about the now. He isn’t a nervous or worried individual trying to think about what happens in the next 10 minutes, the next day or the next month. These worrywart’s minds begin to spiral and soon they find themselves following an endless trail of concerns and nerves that always seems to just cause more worry.
You cannot predict the future, no one can, so why bother worrying about it? There is nothing wrong with planning for the future but if you keep fretting away each moment of every day, too caught up in your own fear and anxiety to be relaxed, you will just wreck your health. Remember, fear is the opposite of confidence. It is the enemy of our ability to speak calmly. He who looks relaxed and at ease will be much more confident than someone who is constantly shifting around and acting jittery.
Self-esteem
The last ingredient in learning to be confident is learning how to be okay with yourself. One of the problems with our current society today is that you don’t really get to be yourself, you instead have to be what other people want you to be. Your boss wants you to be an opinion-less, hard-working individual who will agree to whatever he says. Toxic friends want you to be just like them, worthless and needy. Even a moderately healthy relationship poses the danger of trying to shape you into something that you are not.
We live in a world in which everyone is constantly striving to become something else because they feel that they are inadequate on the inside. They feel like there’s something inside them that just isn’t up to snuff and it impacts them greatly. The constant need and craving for validation is a major source of our lack of self-confidence. We feel empty and as a result we will do anything that we can to fulfill that emptiness.
So, what happens? Well, we try to fit in. We join a group, a club or a group of like-minded individuals who will tell us how great we really are. This doesn’t create self-esteem; however, this just creates ego. This is extremely important for you to know; you should never ever put yourself in the position to where you depend on others for validation.
You are a unique being who is intrinsically valuable regardless of who you are. Self-esteem is not about acting a certain way to be accepted; self-esteem is about realizing your own value. Do you find your value in the eyes of other people? You can only realize your own value by looking inward and seeing the things that are worth loving. If you want to change because other people are putting pressure on you, then you are trying to become less of yourself. What you are also saying to yourself at that exact time is that you aren’t very valuable. This damages your self-esteem and as such damages your confidence. If you want to be more confident in your life, then you need to learn how to be okay with yourself just the way you are.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to change. There’s nothing wrong with growing and there’s certainly nothing wrong with wanting to improve on your own. There is something very wrong, however, with changing ourselves just because other people demand us to. The problem is that people will always demand that you change. The cycle of appeasement will never end because when you change to be like one group, another group will demand that you look like them instead.
The ruthless man is the man who rejects the crowd telling him what he needs to do. He finds his value to be evident in his own self. He looks at his own self-worth and says “I am beautiful. I am useful. I am wonderful just the way I am.” He isn’t dependent on the world around him to validate him, he isn’t dependent on other people telling him what to do. He is confident because no one can take away his source of value. On the other hand, if all of your value comes from other people, as soon as they start to take that value away, your confidence will be shaken. So, when it comes to learning how to speak your mind, if you don’t have a sense of self-worth, you will have trouble talking to them honestly because you are too worried about your own value being threatened.
So, you’ve got to be willing to stand up for your own sake and start to develop a sense of self-worth. You’ve got to eschew all of the things around you that you are consistently using to fulfill yourself. What are some of things that we use fulfill ourselves? Alcohol, drugs, sex, validation, overwork, and even complements. All of these things might have a place, but our society has put too much emphasis on those things as the only way to be happy. The truth is that the pursuit of those things will only lead to continuous slavery. If you want to be free, then you’re going to have to make the choice to walk away from all of those things as a source of validation. The ruthless man doesn’t need any of those things to get by. Instead all he needs to do is look within himself and see that he is strong, capable and powerful on his own.
It might feel weird at first, making the choice to step away from all those things that continuously make you feel good, but over time you start to realize that it was just an addictive cycle. You put way too much energy and effort into one thing, then you receive a large amount of validation but over time eventually those feelings of validation would vanish. So, what do you do? You move onto something that feels more effective. Think of the man who’s constantly running from girl to girl, looking for that emotional high. Think of a guy who can never stop working no matter what, who’s always refusing himself rest and time with his family because he just needs to please his boss. These things do not make for a confident man, but they provide a cheap source of validation. On the other hand, a man who is confident doesn’t need any of those things to keep him feeling confident.
So how does one develop a better sense of self-esteem? Well, one great way is to take up meditation, and before you roll your eyes you might want to consider that meditation has been linked to a greater sense of wellness, self-esteem, emotional regulation and ability to think. If you’re someone who is a pragmatist, you should also look at meditation. There are significant studies that show meditation increases your intelligence, your ability to think, your emotional processing and cognitive strength. So, as a pragmatist it would be in your best interest to take up meditation. Those who meditate are found to be 10% happier than those who don’t, and you don’t need junk food, affirmation, money or alcohol to enjoy the benefits of meditation.
If you’re wanting to increase your self-esteem, then you might want to learn how to increase your gratitude. Believe it or not, but a lot of people are just unthankful about who they are. This unthankfulness causes them to feel dissatisfied with their life and corporate America preys upon that dissatisfaction. Advertising companies love to throw things at the dissatisfied individual and tell him that they have the product that is going to make them whole. For example, are you feeling sad and lonely? Corporate America might tell you to get a brand-new car that will make you feel better about your masculinity. The constant pressure to buy products in order to feel better about yourself is one of the most common forms of marketing.
Gratitude actually combats the materialist attitude as a whole. Because gratitude is a sense of being thankful for the things that you have, you don’t necessarily feel the pressure of needing to buy worthless junk. In addition to simply being thankful for the things that you have; you can also be thankful for who you are.
By changing your mind and learning to be happy with who you are, you’re going to discover a greater sense of well-being. You won’t need other people to express gratitude to you, because you are becoming grateful for yourself. It’s that internal sense of strength and fortitude that will protect you from everyone else around you. Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that you need to become someone else in order to be happy. Your self-esteem takes
a beating every time you wish you were someone else. On the other hand, each time you’re grateful for who you are and grateful for your own self, your self-esteem becomes greater.
So, we’ve talked a lot about the three elements that make up confidence and hopefully you’re starting to see how confidence can be cultivated. It does not happen overnight. And you cannot fake being confident, instead you learn to be confident over time, focusing on growing in each of those three areas.
Now then, let’s talk about boldness. Boldness is confidence applied. So now that we’ve learned confidence, let’s consider what it means to become bolder. Boldness is confidence with action, so if you intend to become bold then you are going to need to learn how to act. Here are some tips to increase your boldness in life.
Boldness tip one: Urgency
The bold individual is the one who realizes that time is of the absolute essence. Someone who is bold doesn’t wait around, instead they focus on getting things done quickly and without hesitation. Think about the people in your life that you see as being bold. Most likely one of the overarching factors is that they are willing to kick down the door and get the thing done. They don’t seem to wait much and seem to have little patience when it comes to waiting. This is a great quality to have because time is money. Time is a precious commodity and you don’t have a lot of it, so if you want to achieve important things with your life then you’re going to have to act with urgency.
If you make the decision in your life to be bolder then you have to actually work on getting stuff done quickly and effectively. This means having a timeline, this means actually doing what you talk about doing. There’s not a lot of respect for people out there who just talk about things and then don’t actually do it. A bold person is someone who lets the pressure of time propel them forward. They get things done at a rapid pace and they don’t slow down for even a second.
The Art of Being Ruthless Page 5