Confidence: The surprising truth about how much you need and how to get it
Preview — Confidence by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. We're told that the key to success in life and business is confidence: But building confidence can be a challenging task. And, as leading psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic argues confidence can actually get in the way of achievement - self-esteem is nothing without the competence, the core skills, to back it up. Confide We're told that the key to success in life and business is confidence: Confidence is feeling capable. Competence is being capable. None of the figures whose success is put down to supreme self-belief - Barack Obama, Madonna, Muhammad Ali - could have achieved their goals without the hard-won skills and years of training behind the confidence mask.
Successful people are confident because of their success, and not the other way around. Whether you want to improve your social skills, get a promotion or that all-important first job, this game-changing exploration of how to build success, in the mould of Robert Cialdini's Influence, Susan Cain's Quiet and Steven Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, will change the way you think about achievement.
Published May 27th by Not Avail first published January 1st To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Confidence , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Feb 15, Nora rated it did not like it Shelves: This book has one idea in it: People who have high confidence are deluded, because they are not as competent as they think they are, and people who have low confidence will become more competent because they will work at it.
It would have been great as a blog post or a TED talk. As a book it's highly repetitive and not fun to read.
Confidence: The Surprising Truth about How Much You Need - And How to Get It
Which is a shame. Oct 23, Melissa rated it really liked it. Not what I expected, but an interesting perspective. I like that I leave this book with tools to apply to my daily life. Feb 14, Gary Knapton rated it it was amazing. I read this not so much as a self-help guide. It was recommended by a friend in the gym from an intellectual angle.
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It has provided me with great insight into an 3, word article I was writing at the time, on confidence. Yet what a terrific read. And help me it has. Upbeat, down to earth, heretical, well cited. This is fresh, useful and makes you smile. A clever yet humble argument. Aug 28, Mark rated it it was ok. This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here. A highly theoretical book, with nowhere near enough to say to justify the length of the book. Now, how can those lacking in confidence band together to make sure that those who overflow with confidence, bordering on narcissism, don't end up running the show, and making catastrophic mistakes, because their confidence way outweighs their competence? May 12, Levon rated it it was amazing.
Data and content heavy. Style and editing not so much This Jim Jefferies' clip is very similar to the books ideas http: Confidence alone did not propel Barack Obama to become the first black president of the US, win Roger Federer numerous tennis tournaments or make Richard Branson a billionaire entrepreneur.
Book review: ‘Confidence’, by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic | Financial Times
In fact, the reason for their success is much more boring, he asserts in Confidence. It takes an extraordinary amount of talent — and even more hard work — to attain such levels of competence. This sets them apart from the majority of superconfident people, who are just not very competent. The cult of confidence can be damaging he writes, in this compelling and zippy book.
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Misplaced confidence, he points out, can cause harm. The crisis may have never happened if it was not for inflated confidence in the products financial institutions were selling and buying. Many of the homeowners who defaulted on mortgages may not have borrowed so much money if they had felt less confident about their ability to make the mortgage payments. With Facebook , we can curate the image we portray of ourselves. And more often than not, it is a positive image we are showing off. Instead of striving to become more confident, we should, he suggests, embrace our low confidence.
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People who are overconfident do little to improve their performance or skills. Why would they if they are satisfied with themselves?
He tells a personal anecdote to prove his point. Early on in his career he was asked to speak to retailers and designers on the psychology of shoe purchases, a subject he knew nothing about. Coaxed by his realisation that he could fall flat on his face in front of his audience, he decided to prepare. Consequently he delivered a well-received speech.
If you are really satisfied with your performance you will tend to ignore negative feedback, distorting reality in your favour. By the same token, lower confidence can be a blessing if it helps you pinpoint your weaknesses and motivates you to improve. This sounds logical and pleasing to those of us who do not labour under the huge weight of overconfidence. However, there are some less substantiated points. The key one being that people like working with people who are nice rather than arrogant.
This is hard to quantify in an era of faux-modesty and humble-bragging.