For a good period of my life, I struggled with the American notion of "confidence". It wasn't until I started to develop a very personal concept of what it is and what it means that I started to find something I could aspire towards.
I'm hoping some others struggling with confidence can benefit. This article is most targeted towards people who find the idea confusing (ex: understanding exactly what distinguishes confidence from arrogance or conceit).
Japanese Values
As a brief personal history, I spent my childhood originally in Japan.
I went to a private school with a somewhat militaristic regime. Every morning we would march in formation and do exercises. The teachers would push each of us to try harder until our muscles were screaming. I remember one of them sitting on my back one time (though not with his full weight) to make my push-ups tougher since I was having an easy time with them. I was 5-years old at the time. We studied from early morning until around dusk, 6 days out of a week.
I was taught Japanese values including discipline, hard work, teamwork, competition, humility, obedience, conformity, and finding our place in society. We were encouraged to work on our weaknesses and excel through our strengths.
Parenting was a lot stricter in ways that might shock some American people. When one of my close friends fell down, he scraped his knee and began crying. His mother told him something along the lines of this:
If you're going to cry over a scraped knee, what are you going to do when your arm is cut off during a war?
I always thought she was such an excellent mother. My mother was American and pampered me a lot in comparison unlike the mothers of the friends I had.
American Values
My parents divorced as I turned 7-years old and I went initially with my mother to the United States.
I was to experience complete culture shock. Being a child in an America was a much less strict and happy and optimistic place. I became exposed to the most foreign and seemingly bizarre ideas like:
Everyone is a winner if they try their best!
Everyone is special no matter what!
A+ for effort!
You can achieve anything if you set your mind to it!
Never fight back! Run away and tell a teacher.
I was also horrified by the behavior of the kids around me. When a teacher told us to form a simple line, I ran as fast as I could to get in formation at the front, standing firm and upright. Obedience and discipline: these were the values I applied from my Japanese upbringing. In Japan, had I failed to get in formation quickly enough, there would be strict disciplinary action.
The children laughed at me for moving so quickly. Meanwhile the teacher had to raise her voice to get the rest of the kids in line. It took several minutes just to form a straight line and there was laughing and misbehavior on the way. I thought the kids were so strange and so bad at the time, but I simultaneously realized I must be so strange in this culture as well. I was very confused.
It became clear to me that this was a land of dream and opportunities and, most of all, confident people. I even had a classmate who said he wanted to become an astronaut in spite of having no prerequisite knowledge on the subject. There was another very overweight boy in my class who didn't excel at any sports yet called himself an "athlete".
The values I deciphered from the American side included ambition, independence, hope, optimism, effort over results, and most importantly, confidence.
Humility
One of the biggest cultural clashes of values occurred one time at the end of a semester. My school teacher held out big bags filled with American candy to reward the students in her class. I became excited as a kid and especially since I was just developing a taste for American sweets. Each bag contained a wide assortment of candy.
She then went around the class, holding these bags of candy. For each student, she asked, "Did you try your best this year?" Each student said, "yes," enthusiastically, at which point she handed the child the bag of candy.
I was one of the last kids to be approached by the teacher. She then asked me, "Did you try your best this year?" I then relied on the Japanese values of humility and honesty. I replied, "No, there were times I could have tried harder."
She frowned and said, "I'm disappointed in you." She then moved to the next child without giving me any candy. The other kids then laughed at me and started eating their candy in front of me to mock me.
I became really upset and didn't understand what I did wrong. Was she punishing me for humility and honesty? Did every other child genuinely try their absolute hardest to the breaking point of their bodies and mind? I started to hate Americans (I don't now) and missed my home in Japan so much.
What I came to understand over the years was that she punished me for a lack of confidence.
Confidence v.1
I looked up the dictionary definitions of confidence which often mentioned that it came from a high sense of self-worth. I somewhat understood the definitions, but I didn't understand the concept as a whole. It didn't seem to match the encouraged behavior. As I began to observe what was considered confident behavior among Americans, I started to define it like this:
Confidence: self-deception, over-ambition, excessive pride over even mediocre achievements, and lack of accountability.
At the time this seemed to be the most pinpoint-accurate definition I could personally muster up. I observed this type of "confidence" in the kids all around me.
Yet I couldn't understand how on earth this could be considered a good thing.
Confidence v.2
I really thought I had formed a very accurate definition of confidence and where it comes from, yet I repeatedly came across the saying that "arrogance is bad, confidence is good".
How is arrogance and confidence any different? At the time I observed some outwardly arrogant behavior from individuals who boasted a lot and then had a eureka moment. I then came up with this definition:
Confidence: self-deception, over-ambition, excessive pride over even mediocre achievements, and lack of accountability. These traits are required for achieving any possible dream.
However, individuals must keep these thoughts largely to themselves. They should not boast about how great they are, even though they think they are amazing.
Confidence v.3
While I finally thought I understood what confidence was about, my notions were challenged in a course on writing resumes. In that course, the teacher showed us many exemplary resumes.
Nevertheless, still insisting on the virtues of honesty, accountability, and humility, I wrote a very different kind of resume which included both my negative and positive traits.
The teacher looked at it and told me not to include the negative traits in there. I wanted to stubbornly refuse. I knew that wasn't how everyone else wrote their resumes, but I wanted to be the only humble, honest, and accountable employee at the company.
Still, I caved in and eliminated all the negative traits. At this point it felt like pure boasting and arrogance. I realized I needed to tweak my definition of confidence:
Confidence: self-deception, over-ambition, excessive pride over even mediocre achievements, and lack of accountability. These traits are required for achieving any possible dream.
However, individuals must keep these thoughts largely to themselves unless they are specifically asked about themselves. They should not voluntarily boast about how great they are, even though they think they are amazing. They must only boast when asked.
Aha! Finally I thought I had a definition of confidence which perfectly described the type of confident behavior I was encouraged to exhibit. I still stubbornly refused to do so since I continued to despise the concept.
Revelation
For many years, I held onto this idea of what "confidence" really meant. I wanted to rebel against it. I wanted to be the least confident person around. I didn't want a "high" sense of self-worth. I wanted a "realistic" and "accurate" sense of self-worth. I wanted to avoid boasting no matter what. I started to view "confidence" as a derogatory term. The last thing I wanted was to be described as a "confident" person.
Over the years I got into partying and socializing a lot. I started getting my share of dates and started learning how to charm women. It boiled down to getting over some of my shyness, fears, insecurities. I became uninhibited and comfortable talking to women as well as people in general. I finally came back to my home in Japan not long after I graduated university.
One night while I was visiting the U.S., my friends invited me to a karaoke bar. I ended up singing Whitney Houston in front of a very large audience. I started off introducing myself as being from Japan and stating that I liked every pair of beautiful American breasts in the bar. Then I proceeded to sing.
At this point I had done karaoke often in front of close friends (karaoke box), but not in front of a large audience. I knew I was a horrible singer but I didn't care anymore. I was there to have fun and entertain myself, so I sang like I was a super star even though I'm not. I didn't care about what other people would think. I had no fear of being hated for my shoddy performance or being booed off the stage. I was used to being made fun of by Americans from my earlier years.
So I sang like I was a rock star and after the performance, a pretty young girl approached me and said I'm the most "confident guy she ever met". I was really taken aback by this.
I told her, "But I know I'm a horrible singer. I just don't care what other people think!" She then replied along the lines of, "Yes, you're not Whitney Houston but you're absolutely fearless. You had me laughing so hard the entire time!"
She was so impressed by that performance which she perceived as so confident, or "fearless", that she invited me back to her place for margaritas. We ended up dancing together and then sleeping together. I never had it so easy, especially with an American girl I found so attractive.
Confidence v.4 (Final)
I later had a revelation of what confidence meant to me. I came up with the final definition:
Confidence: the state of being uninhibited, comfortable with oneself, genuine, fearless.
This wasn't necessarily an accurate definition. It didn't reflect what my school teacher punished me over when she withheld candy for my humble and honest answer. Yet it made perfect sense to me. I no longer cared about accuracy at this point.
I could wholeheartedly subscribe to this definition, and it wasn't incompatible with a realistic and accurate perception of oneself. It didn't require boasting under any circumstance. It didn't require thinking of ourselves as amazing even if we're not. It had nothing to do with self-worth. It had everything to do with fear and inhibition.
This definition allows a humble and honest person with self-awareness, realistic ideas of oneself, and no excessive pride to still be perceived as "supremely confident". It's also completely detached from arrogance.
Whether or not this definition accurately represents what confident behavior is, I believe it accurately represents what confident behavior should be like. It also accurately seems to represent what attracts many women in general. Embracing this definition allowed me to more easily attract the opposite sex than ever before as I became increasingly uninhibited and shed the very last of my social fears and insecurities.
For those who ever struggled with the concept as I did, I recommend embracing this final definition. Accurate or not, it establishes a real virtue to strive towards that will almost always have a positive social effect, cannot possibly be confused with arrogance or excessive pride, and can really help with the opposite sex.
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