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The Secret Psychology Of Confident People

by Sean Cooper8 Comments6 min read

Its funny how your brain tries to trick you.

Makes you believe things which arent true.

One of these tricks is confidence.

When someone is confident, most people automatically assume they have something to be confident
about.

You see someone being confident and think there must be something behind it.

As if they have something figured out that you dont.

And thats why they are confident.

But its simply not true.

The truth is

NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THEYRE DOING

Everyone is clueless and scared.

This includes all the presidents and politicians, great scientists and artists throughout history.

They were all faking it.

Putting up an impression of certainty and stability to impress the common man.

The rappers in their shiny cars. The person at your work or school everyone wants to be around at
lunchtime. The teachers, bosses and professors who have that calm steadiness in their voice.

All faking it.

Because most people are looking for leadership. Theyve grown up, but theyre still walking around
looking for somewhere to plug their umbilical cord into. Someone who can give them a feeling of
security.

Confidence Implies Security

Yet nobody is secure. You could die at any moment. So could I.

So its just an act. Nobody should really be confident.

One of my favourite authors, Osho, said:

The less one knows, the more stubbornly one knows it.
-Osho

And a more popular quote:

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and intelligent are full of doubt.

-Bertrand Russell

There is no centralized authority on the right way to live. Or the right food to eat. Or the right clothes
to wear.

Its a scattered group of 7 billion people who are all looking at each other. And everyone is looking to and
following the person who is most sure of themselves.

Its how fashion gets made. Its how religions are formed. Its how politicians get elected.

Because deep down were still cavemen. Scientists have studied the brain and found out our brains
evolved over tens of thousands of years in the times of cavemen. And our brains have not changed a
whole lot in the past couple thousand years of modern society. This means a lot of the wiring in your
brain is actually very primitive.

Some behaviors of modern humans reflect their evolutionary history. That is palpably uncontroversial,
since many of our behaviors are clearly a product of evolution, including eating, avoiding dangers, and
the pursuit of sex. And since our bodies reflect their evolutionary history, often in nonadaptive ways
(e.g., wisdom teeth, bad backs, the coat of hair we produce as a transitory feature in fetuses), why not
our brains, which are, after all, just bits of morphology whose structure affects our behaviors?

Jerry A. Coyne, Ph.D

Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago

This subject is too complicated to go into detail in this article, but heres why this is important

Our brains have developed to create tribes of people. And in these tribes theres always a leader. The
one who decides what is appropriate behaviour. The one who dictates the standards everyone else
should follow. The one who sets the rules of what is cool and not cool.

The Secret Language Of Cavemen Was Confidence

The confident caveman was the leader. The dominant one. In the past this was all about physical
dominance and strength, but now its about psychological dominance.

Ask yourself:

Which people do you have trouble making eye contact with?

Which people do you have trouble talking to?

Which people do you feel the most anxious and nervous around?

These are the people who are psychologically dominant to you.

You are anxious because you feel like youre inferior to them, and you dont want to mess with the
hierarchy. You dont want to have trouble with someone you think is higher status than you. And your
need for their acceptance make you anxious and shy in certain social situations.

This is the secret language that almost nobody sees. And its driving me crazy that almost nobody even
knows about this. The deeper dynamics that take place within almost every daily conversation.
When you feel anxious, its not you feeling anxious. Its a wired response in a part of your brain called
the amygdala. Your brain is generating fear to keep you on edge in case of danger. The fear and anxiety is
a survival strategy.

When you feel comfortable around people you know well, but not around strangers thats another
survival strategy. You cant express yourself confidently because you dont know whether these
unfamiliar cavemen are friendly or dangerous. But you already know your friends accept you, so you are
relaxed and open around them.

When you are unable to make eye contact with an authority figure, or someone you find attractive, or
someone popular or well-respected but can easily make eye contact with kids, elderly people or
unpopular people its yet another survival strategy. Eye contact is a very primal thing, and staring
someone down who was higher status than you was a sign of defiance back in the day. You could get into
a fight because of it, because youre messing with the hierarchy.

(This is why when two people are really angry at each other, they will often get close and stare each
other down. Its about trying to establish dominance.)

Shyness and social anxiety are not personality traits. They are survival instincts.

Its all a misguided effort to stay alive.

But it does nothing.

Because those old rules you have programmed into your brain from the caveman days dont apply
anymore. We live in a modern society now, not wild caveman tribes.

You wont die if people hate you. You wont get killed for acting more confident. You wont become a
total outcast if you make a fool of yourself.

(But this is exactly what your brain has been wired to believe over thousands of years.)

Now heres the key:

You CAN rise above your old ape-brain and become confident. These survival strategies in your brain
most people call shyness or social anxiety are, in fact, reprogrammable.

If you dont think Im crazy and may even be onto something, then make sure to checkout my ebook
here:

The Shyness and Social Anxiety System

Best,

Sean Cooper

P.S. Tried something different for this article. Hope you enjoyed it.