It’s something that President Barack Obama has. Call it swagger. Samuel Jackson oozes it. Call it Idris Elbaness because he has tons of confidence. It’s more than a walk. Bradley Cooper has it. It comes through in just his smile. You may think that Denzel Washington’s confidence comes from his good looks but you don’t have to look good to have it. Steve Harvey is an average looking person but his has so much confidence its borderline conceit.
Confidence is not only a male thing, it makes women attractive also. Kerry Washington is beautiful but what makes her attractive is her confidence. Some people mistake it for self-esteem but confidence is more than having a strong self-esteem. Taraji P Henson talks about how she didn’t always believe in herself but once she started to other people did and she started to succeed. That’s not only having a good self-esteem confidence is a look. Confidence is also an attitude. A good example is the men in the TV show Mad Men but it’s not exclusive to men. A confident attitude works for women too. Oprah Winfrey has it. Wendy Williams talks about how her breast gave her confidence because it made her like herself more. Sure a lot of women get their confidence from their physical appearance. This is because of the high value society places on appearance.
However, appearance alone is not the same as confidence. Some women believe they look good but they don’t have confidence. These women wear make-up when they don’t need it. They try too hard to look good. In reality everybody doesn’t look attractive. Most people look average. We can work out in the gym forever and we will only look but so good. Confidence is different. A good example of a confident attitude is Rosario Dawson. She has a confident attitude in just about every movie she is in. In the movie Rundown she plays a South America jungle mining worker. She wears dirty clothes which are far from sexy but her confident attitude makes her very attractive. Confidence is the difference between a pretty women with class like news anchor Melissa Harris Perry and a voluptuous street walking prostitute. It’s what separates Sarah Jessica Parker’s Sex in the City character Samantha Jones from the pretty girl Marnie, Allison Williams plays in the HBO show Girls.
Anyone can have confidence. It’s something that speakers like Tony Robbins have it. Comedians need confidence to go on stage and share their thoughts with audiences. In fact almost all performers have confidence. Some performers like Jamie Foxx and Kanye West have so much stage confidence it spills into their off stage lives. Not only do stage performers have confidence many successful people have it. Take the advertising executive and television personality Donny Deutsch it’s easy to tell his confidence comes from his success. He’s always mentioning his position as a CEO like it separates him from regular people. Contrary to popular belief confidence does not only come from success and attractiveness but it can also come from other places.
Confidence is important for good daters to have. Confident people are happy people. Happy people smile and share of themselves easily because they are proud of themselves. People smile when they are happy and smiling is the most attractive physical quality a person can have. When people build up their confidence smiling will come natural.

Here are my tips on how to build confidence.

1. Be prepared to talk about a subject you have knowledge about and something other people will enjoy talking about.
2. Master yourself. Be an expert on YOU.
3. Know what you know better than the average person.
4. Go to places where what you know is valued.
5. Learn something or achieve something new.

 Be proud of yourself and your accomplishments. Nobody knows everything and everybody knows something. Remember the more you like yourself the more other people will to.

Once you are confident, then you need to appear confident by acting confident.

• Be decisive. Make decisions when you need to.
• Be fresh and clean. Having bad breath or body odor can take away the most confident person’s confidence.
• Be ready to meet someone every day. This will change your behavior permanently.
• Be ready to talk to someone anytime. This way you won’t get caught off guard.
• Make meeting people a habit. This will help you become a natural. Meeting people should not be something that always has to be forced. Sure it is in the beginning but it will become easy over time.
• Make meeting people an activity you enjoy. Have fun and don’t put pressure on yourself to get a phone number from every person you meet. Appreciate the information you learn from the people you talk to. Learn to like people and enjoy their company.
• Try to meet people everywhere so you can approach new places with excitement and not discomfort.
• Speak authoritatively but not condescending. Don’t talk like Donald Trump or a computer geek.
• Smile. Smile as often as you can but do smile all of the time. Practice your smiling in the mirror. Take a picture of yourself when you are naturally happy and confident so you know what you look like.
• Move with certainty. Bosses and supervisors have confident walks. Barack Obama and Denzel Washington have very confident walks practice walking like them. Young girls learn to walk in middle school so don’t be ashamed to have to learn this skill.

Here are two exercises you can do to give your confidence an extra boost.
1. Try to sell somebody something. Salesmen have to be very confident.
2. Practice talking to large groups this will improve your social confidence.

You might also want to pick up a book or take a public speaking class.

Once you get your confidence levels up you will feel like a Jedi doing a mind trick on people. As with all blessings be humble. Don’t use the attention you get to abuse people.

Your comments and road stories are always welcome. coachyojeff@gmail.com