- It's no secret that we spend a lot of time and effort trying to appear confident on the surface when we're around other people because we kind of have no choice. People are extremely judgmental whether they're aware of it or not. Sizing people up is an
evolutionary mechanism. When we appear confident and self-assured, people subconsciously place us higher on their social hierarchy. This is why it matters how you dress, the strength behind your voice and your posture when you enter a room. All of these things
contribute tremendously to how people end up treating you. But the weird thing is so many
of us feel a huge disconnect between the person that we're trying to
appear in the world as and who we actually are as a person because no matter how
meticulously we groom ourselves or how obsessively we keep
up with the latest trends, or how quip-y and clever
our manner of speech is, the whole thing ends up
feeling like a giant facade. Like we're just putting this show on, we're not actually confident. We're slapping makeup on a pig. And this is a problem because the more you strain
to act like a confident person in the real world, people
don't really buy it. They can tell that it's forced. Fake smiles are really easy to spot. I think the reason why so many of us don't feel confident and rock solid is because we're forgetting a concept that is fundamental to the
way our psychology works. And that is that while we
are indeed very efficient at judging other people
and sizing them up, our brain uses the exact same mechanism to judge ourselves. We are a fly on the wall of our own lives, constantly judging the things we say, the thoughts we entertain and the habits we indulge in. And this constant observation happen without our conscious knowledge because it's subconscious knowledge. And this subconscious of ours is always watching us, taking notes, comparing our lifestyle
to our value system. And the longer time goes on, the more evidence our subconscious gathers to form an opinion about ourselves, just like it would with other people. So the more and more time we live in contradiction to our value system, the lower our opinion
will be of ourselves. So if we happen to have a
very low opinion of ourselves, we'd have very low self-esteem,
low self-confidence, low self-efficacy, then
there's a very good chance that your subconscious has
observed you live your life in a way that is contradictory to your fundamental value system. And this is kind of what
affirmation culture gets wrong. You know, it sounds all well and good and helpful to look yourself in the mirror and say you are powerful
and you are strong. You are good looking, you attract wealth, you attract women, you attract men, you attract everyone. But the truth is your
subconscious is harder to fool. If you look yourself in the mirror and say one thing and then
behave the opposite way, your subconscious isn't fooled. It watched you do that. It'll say wow, this guy never does what he says he's gonna do. I'm gonna use this information to develop a self-doubt complex that will leak into every area of his life and his interactions with
others, especially women. And that's the insidious thing about our subconscious. It influences our mood, our mindset and our overall mental state far more than we probably realize and that's because our
subconscious accounts for over 90% of our
overall mental function. So how we conduct ourself in
its presence is everything. So needless to say, the key to confidence in life, the key to feeling self-assured
is not to double down and care more about what
other people think of you, it's to take more
seriously this relationship that you have with your own subconscious. And to realize that you
can form a partnership and a friendship with your subconscious. And I know that sounds super woo-woo and spiritual and you like what the (beep) is this guy talking about? But if you like the idea of
forming a better relationship with your own subconscious, then a great way to do that is to develop that relationship like you would any other relationship: by spending time to get
to know the other person. You need to spend time
to get to know yourself, to uncover what your
fundamental value system is so that you can better
live in accordance to that. So take some time to ask
yourself some key questions. Take out a pen and paper, and ask yourself what
kind of person do I want to be in this world? How can I live my life in a way that I would be proud of? What kind of habits
does my ideal self have? And if I was my ideal self, how would I interact with
the people around me? How would I spend my time
when nobody is around? Does my ideal self make
mistakes sometimes? If so, how does my ideal self respond to the mistakes I make? Would I learn from them and
encourage myself to do better? Your answers to these types of questions will help you uncover truths that you hold about yourself and the standards that you're
trying to uphold yourself to because whether you're aware of these ideals consciously or not, they're there in your subconscious, and your subconscious is
constantly comparing your behavior to these ideals. So it's super important to take some time to try to figure out
what constitutes a good and honorable person according to you. And chances are there's a lot of truth to these underlying beliefs. And sometimes these
beliefs are a little skewed and they need correcting, and you need to form healthier values and healthier expectations of yourself. So a great way to do this is to go through this whole process of writing this stuff down, and diving deep by yourself, and then taking that information to a friend or a third party, preferably a therapist or a
mental health professional and try to figure out whether
or not this value system is actually useful for you. Are you holding yourself
to unrealistic expectations or are these healthy
and good ideals to have? Because either way, there's
no getting around the fact that if you want to develop a
better opinion about yourself, your behaviors and your
values need to match. And in order for that to happen, either your behaviors need to change or your values need to change. As you go through this process, you'll probably realize that
you are on your own side more than you probably realize. And when your conscious mind and your subconscious
mind is on the same page, you'll find that there's
a certain uniformity to your character. You don't say one thing
and then do another. You don't act one way in public and then act another way in private. You'll be a more consistent human being with a more authentic identity. You'll feel like yourself. You'll feel like you're more you. And that's a really
intangible thing to try to relay to you but it is a very real feeling. And that feeling is what
confidence feels like. It's to be unapologetically you in the presence of others, while you're alone, it
just doesn't really matter. You're you no matter the circumstances. And I really hope that this
video gives you some ideas as to how you can get there in your life. I just wanna give a big thank you to Audible for sponsoring this video. The audiobook that I'm
currently listening to is "The Comfort Crisis" by Michael Easter. And holy smokes, this guy's legit. If you ever feel like you're super lazy and you're just like complacent in life, you're too comfortable, you're stuck in a rut, read this book. It'll kick you out of that rut. For those of you who don't know, Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment
and audiobooks, ranging from bestsellers
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it's probably on Audible. Every single month, they
send you one credit, which you can spend on any
audiobook of your choice, regardless of price, and you get to keep
that audiobook forever. And that's one of my
favorite things about Audible is that if you cancel your
subscription at any point for any reason, you still keep your entire
library of audiobooks, including the audiobooks that you got for free
using their credit system. So it's kind of a no-brainer. You can start listening right now with a free 30-day trial. Just click my link in
the description below. Head on over to audible.com/betterideas or text betterideas to 500-500. And the price for a
subscription is actually lower than usual right now, so now's the time to listen to "The Comfort Crisis" by Michael Easter, using my link in the description below or text betterideas to 500-500. If you liked this video, make sure that you actually
hit the Like button because when you hit the Like button, the algorithm blesses me and it shoves my bald head
into other people's home pages, helping them out, which also helps me out. So it's a win-win for everybody involved. And if you're lurking here and this is the 1,000th time that you've seen my face,
consider subscribing. Other than that though, check out the second channel. I just posted a video on there. We're gonna be posting weekly again, and it's just a good time over there. You can ask me question on the subreddit or in the comments below of that. Other than that, thank
you so much for watching, and we'll catch you in the next video. (soothing music)
