You know that zone people like Michael Jordan and Anthony Robbins preach about? That elusive zone, that when you are in it you can do no wrong?
Yeah that zone.
Some believe techniques such as hypnosis or NLP can help you enter that zone and/or extend your periods of staying in that zone. But I'm just not concerned with it. At least not right now.
I'm interested in the main component necessary to get in and stay in that zone: Confidence.
Now don't get me wrong, If you have hung out with me you would know I don't suffer from lack of confidence at all. But I believe if I could take my confidence to another level the results could be immeasurably off-the-fuckin-charts professionally as well as socially. That's why it's become and interest of mine and it's why I want to deconstruct it.
Like Tucker Max has mentioned in his advice board, confidence poses a chicken and egg dilemma: Confidence comes from achievement but achievment comes from confidence. The key is getting into this progressive loop.
How can you be confident? That's like asking how you can be creative. There is no definitive answer. Confidence comes from within, comes from an understanding and acceptance of who you are and a belief in yourself and your abilities. If you have nothing good about yourself to believe in, then find something or do something that can give you that belief. Seriously--develop a skill or talent that you are proud of. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING flows from your inner self. It is the foundation that all game is built upon.
He really nails it here. People who just go about reverse engineering tactics of overly confident people completely miss the point and many times it comes back to bite them when they run out of material to emulate. This is clearly evident in the book The Game by Neil Strauss. The self-proclaimed pickup artists and wannabe alphas crashed and burned when there wasn't anything left in their tanks. I believe this 100%. Confidence truly comes from within.
Neil Strauss himself touches on this himself when discussing two of the "biggest mistakes" one can make in terms of seduction (altough I think it can be applied outside that field as well). These two mistakes are
Just be yourself
and
Be confident
In some dood named Thundercat's words:
He explained that you shouldn’t just “be yourself,” you should be your best self. He elaborated that who we are is often a poor representation of who we really are or who we want to be.
He also said that just “being confident” is impossible without success. Success breeds confidence, and he wants to teach how to have success so his students can gain REAL confidence.