Confidence is something a person can have and own. Like something to pack in a suitcase to take with them. Although it feels less like an object than a set of instructions, much lighter in your hand luggage. A comprehensive manual on processing all kinds of inputs shone in from the outside world, and kneading them back into self-assured outputs. Actions and gestures and languages. A kind of secret recipe for making delicious assertive brain waves. But a secret recipe has a secret ingredient, something a little heavier to pack. A special flavour that without, confidence is going to shrink into merely show-of-confidence. And everyone that tastes it will see through its subtle blandness. They won’t know quite how. No dimension of it will seem missing enough on its own to arouse suspicion, but the collage of slight, below-radar imperfections will accumulate under their senses into an eerie feeling that something is somehow off. But, nothing will say why. You need the secret ingredient that works as both a flourish and a foundation, for any of your assurance to land. Because, the best part of confidence is feeling it truly strapped to your bones, and you won’t convince anyone of something you don’t believe. And to be clear, believing isn’t even enough. Rallying raw belief without your ingredient is just trying to fool yourself first so you can fool everyone else later. True confidence (as far as I can see, as someone often lacking) comes from having all the instructions, the inputs, and crucially that one thing that primes you, that oxygenates your environment to a state where you can set yourself on fire.
