HOW TO BE CONFIDENT WITHOUT BEING ARROGANT (COURTESY OF SPIDER-MAN)

Discover the secret to being confident without being arrogant from the best mentor of them all – Peter B. Parker.

First published: December 29, 2018
By: Andy Xiong

It was the holidays, one of the few periods of the year where the gym is empty.

Aside from all the squat racks being free during the holidays, friends are too.

And as 2018 came to a close, I decided to catch up with a couple of friends whom I haven’t seen in over a year.

We decided on watching a movie – Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, to be exact.

I’m not really a movie person. I’ve probably watched a total of 2 movies in its entirety over the past 6 years.

But WOW.

This movie was unexpectedly good. No... it was spectacular (heh).

Everything about the movie was done extraordinarily well. The story was amazing; the characters had depth; and the animation was stellar.

But as great as the delivery was, the message was even better.

But to understand the message, you have to have a basic understanding of the plot.

Miles, the main protagonist who was bitten by a radioactive spider, had major shoes to fill: He was taking over the role of Spider-Man.

He didn’t know how though.

He didn’t have it in him.

Or so he thought.

And as much as Miles wanted Peter Parker, the original Spider-Man, to train him... Peter couldn’t.

“It’s all it is, Miles. A leap of faith,” Peter told him.

A leap of faith.

Apparently, that’s all there is to being Spider-Man: Overcome your fears and take a leap of faith.

And it worked.

Once Miles was willing to take the leap of faith, he became as brilliant as any other Spider-Man.

However, taking a leap of faith is for far more than being Spider-Man – being able to take a leap of faith is the first step in being a more confident version of you.

But like Miles, whenever we have to face something new and unfamiliar we tend to freeze up.

Whatever it is, freezing up is a sign that we are out of our comfort zone.

And when we are out of our comfort zone, it is near impossible to be confident.

So what do we do? Oftentimes we start learning. We gather information and try to understand the situation before trying anything else.

But sometimes there is no time to learn. Other times it can even be the wrong solution.

So what do we do?

We fake confidence.

If successful people are confident, then confident people are successful right? Not really. In fact, when we fake our confidence it often comes off as arrogance. And no one wants to come off as arrogant.

Confidence is not about being high value either.

Many people tend to think that having lots of money, being well-dressed or being attractive can lead to high levels of confidence... But this is not the case.

Dressing well can help, but it is not the secret to confidence. In fact, you can be confident while dressing like a bum.

Being attractive, though, is actually very similar to being confident. But that depends on how you define attractiveness.

If you define attractiveness as being born perfect and having God-tier genetics then no, they have nothing in common.

But if you define attractiveness as an obtainable or learnable trait, then attractiveness and confidence are very similar indeed.

You see, confidence is developed.

Confidence is a skill.

It comes from competence.

It is a by-product of success.

To be confident, you must be good at what you do.

And although learning what to do and how to do it can build confidence, confidence is mostly about succeeding over and over again.

So stop faking confidence or chasing status.

And stop hoarding tons and tons of information before even setting foot in the water.

Take a leap of faith.

And take another leap if you fail.

Keep jumping and eventually you’ll succeed one time.

Then twice.

Then three times.

And so on and so forth.

The more you succeed, the more confident you will be in your abilities.

But don’t make the mistake of trying to learn everything before the initial leap.

The dancer doesn't dance at the club like how she would at a studio, after all. But you wouldn't know that unless you set foot in the club first.