Everyone wants more confidence. They think it would be nice to have, a cherry on top of an otherwise good personality.

The truth is, you need confidence.

You need confidence like you need air, food, and shelter, and you should need it like you need success.

Life is incredibly short, a realization we only truly come to after it’s too late.

While we’re here on earth we’re tasked with the challenge to do this life thing as best we possibly can, that’s why we’re here.

We’re here to realize our potential, to put our absolutely best self out into the world.

That simply means being at your very best. Being at your best in the face of challenges, on good days and bad days.

Being at your best with your habits, doing the right things and not doing the wrong things, but also with the scope of what you pursue.

What if you’re a great car salesman but you could have been a great innovator in the auto space?

Or, to put it simply, what if you’re a millionaire but you could have been a billionaire judging by your potential.

The scope of who you think you’re here to be, this truest and best expression of your existence, is determined simply by confidence.

Have you ever watched the show Ballers on HBO?

There’s a scene in the 3rd season I think it is, where the Rock is sitting in a vehicle with his co-star, and they’re deciding what they should go after.

Should they stick with the safety of what they already have or break the glass ceiling and aim so much higher than anyone else they know would aim.

The Rock tells a story about his dad - his fictional father in the show.

He says his dad worked at a plant for 30 years, and then one day he finally got to meet the head honcho, the guy who was in charge of it all.

What did the guy say?

Nothing special.

That’s when his dad realized that there wasn’t anything special about his boss, nothing that set him apart other than what he believed.

The line from the show...

“We’re all just a bunch of guys, Joe. Some of us believe we can do anything. Others don’t.”

The only thing that separates a good life from a great one, is belief, confidence.

If you’re truly confident you move forward in life with force. You act on your dreams, your ambitions, in spite of fear or the possibility of failure. You make bold plays knowing that even if you fail, you’ll pick up the pieces and win in the long run.

If you don’t believe in yourself, you won’t chase down your biggest dreams, you’ll minimize them.

You’ll die not with pride as to how you lived but with shame and regret.

You won’t get the achievements, the happiness, the meaning, the success, the love, the joy that would be yours if you had that belief.

And that’s all the separates us…

The great believe they can achieve greatness.

The mediocre believe they’re destined for mediocrity, for only what they see in front of them.

And the useless believe that life, God, the universe, they’re all conspiring against them to make their lives horrible.

This is why this will be one of the most important videos you watch.

We’re not going to just talk about how important belief is…

You’re finally going to get a process by which you can increase the belief you have in yourself, to finally become the confident man who claims his rightful place in society, in life.

Now… 

If you don’t believe in yourself how can you expect others to?

Confidence helps you move forward with force and aggression in life, facing fears, conquering obstacles, and not being held back by fear or worry or uncertainty.

For a man, confidence is a must.

If you don’t have it your hog-tied and handcuffed, unable to realize why you were put on this earth when and where you were born.

You’re unable to reach your potential because you’ll be too afraid to even march toward it.

Without confidence you’re not showing the world who you were designed to be, you’re holding back, you’re meek and timid and in the end you won’t get what you want in life…

...Whether it’s women, money, achievement, family, wealth, power, happiness, or adventure, without confidence you’re not going to get it.

 

Confidence and Humility

Oddly enough, to be truly confident you have to be humble as well.

The issue is that most guys think about humility in the wrong way.

True humility is loving what you don’t know more than what you do know.

It’s not being timid or meek, it’s being bold and courageous even in the face of the unknown.

Humility is knowing that you don’t have all of the answers but the courage to go out and find them.

Thinking you know it all is stupid, but so is believing that you won’t be able to achieve something.

Now, if you really want to become more confident, you’re also going to have to look at confidence in a different light.

Sure, confidence is belief in yourself, but just trying to believe in yourself more won’t actually move the needle.

You can’t talk your way into more confidence, but you can prove your way to more confidence.

How?

Confidence is the reputation you have with yourself.

And great men do as they planned. That’s it.

If they set out to do something, they did it, from a bit of work they’d planned to do to an adventure or a task that they’d schedule to get done.

Over time the act of doing what you planned compounds, these little tasks and habits add up, and you begin to trust that no matter what’s in front of you, you’ll get it done, you’ll handle it, you’ll see it through.

That, my friend, is confidence.

It’s NOT the ignorant belief that you’re entitled to whatever you want. Confidence isn’t arrogance or entitlement. It’s trust. Self-trust.

If you’re constantly NOT doing what you set out to do or planned to do, you’re not going to be confident.

If you’re always doing the wrong thing and not doing the right thing, you won’t have confidence.

You can’t just ‘become more confident’ by looking at yourself differently.

That’s empty.

You need evidence to create real confidence, and that evidence is completely on you to create.

Naval Ravikant recently had a great tweet:

“Don’t do things that you know are morally wrong. Not because someone is watching, but because you are. Self-esteem is just the reputation that you have with yourself. You’ll always know.”

The reputation we have with ourselves is the most important relationship in our lives.

How you view yourself is based on evidence.

Our actions are important, there’s nothing you can hide from yourself.

Doing the right things, good deeds, the work when you don’t feel like working, affirm your reputation in YOUR eyes…

Which gives you confidence.

When you’re proud of who you are because you consistently do the right thing…

…You get the confidence that helps you face fears, aim at higher goals, make more money, do better with women, and overall just live a much better life than you would with a lack of confidence.

The myth about confidence, however, is that it’s gained through financial success or changing your internal talk.

It’s not, in either case.

Confidence is how you see yourself.

When you constantly make the right choice you begin to trust yourself to follow through on what you set out to do, even if what you set out to do is chase your dreams.

‘Goodness’ is something we’re taught is about helping others, but it’s really about helping ourselves.

How can you be at your best if you’re ashamed of who you are?

Think about that…

Doing something that you feel is morally wrong – even if you don’t really want to feel that way about it – brings shame, whether you’re aware of it or not.

You can’t have confidence and shame.

So, how do you become more confident?

I’ll give you some tactics you can use starting today in a sec.

But the essence of confidence is doing as you planned.

Humans accomplish great things incrementally by making small, seemingly insignificant correct decisions over a ‘long’ period of time.

It’s… always working out when you’d rather not.

…Reading instead of watching TV.

…Working when you really don’t feel like it and even when you don’t have to.

When that choice comes, understand the scope of the impact this tiny decision can have on you, your psyche, and your life.

…And then do the right thing, make the right decision…

It simplifies life. There is a good life and a bad life, and it’s created in this very moment, and then the next, when you’re faced with these tiny decisions.

What’s best is that making the right decision is no more difficult than making the wrong decision.

If you plan to do something, do it.

So, write down what you plan to do.

First, think about your potential, who you can become, the ‘you’ you would like to be in 10 years.

Think about how he’d live.

Whenever you feel shame or get down on yourself it’s because this future ideal is calling you to be better. When you fall short or don’t follow through, you go against this potential.

One thing I’ve done is identify the daily habits that I see as excellence personified.

Excellence isn’t some great singular act, it’s who you are everyday when no one is watching.

So, on a little weekly calendar with a margin, I write down 9 things that I have to check off every day.

These tasks are:

• Weights
• Cardio
• Read 1 hour
• Stretch 2x
• Meditate
• No phone 1st hour
• Pray
• 8 hours of sleep
• Gratitude

When I do the task I mark it off with an X, visibly seeing progress and following through on the plans I’ve made.

These are baseline tasks that I do everyday.

These types of tasks build your foundation, the foundation within that you do what you set out to do and you can actually see that you’ve done it.

Of course, this applies to more than just daily tasks, but whatever future plans you hope to create because of confidence is dependent on these small battles.

The more of them you win, the more confident and better you become.

So, becoming more confident doesn’t mean chanting affirmations in your brain.

It doesn’t mean trying to trick yourself into thinking a different way.

Confidence is WON by doing as you planned, by making the right choice followed by the correct action.

If you truly want to become more confident, prove yourself to yourself and develop a better reputation with the only person that really matters in this life.

You.