10 Characteristics Of Truly Confident People

I recently met with a woman who has a Ph.D. and works as a researcher at a national policy institute.  Nicole (name changed) is bright, funny and personable – and claims that she doesn’t feel “confident.”  She’s worried that she’ll disappoint clients, internal and external and that she won’t know her material well enough to make competent presentations.  She feels intimidated with colleagues who she deems know more than she.

Each week I’m approached by people who want to figure out this whole confidence “thing.”   More times than not, the folks coming to me are wonderfully competent at what they do and so I’m puzzled by their claims of not having “confidence.”

Go to Amazon and you’ll find more than seventeen thousand entries related to “confidence”!  At the risk of sounding arrogant, here are my Ten Characteristics Of A Confident Person. 

A confident person:

1.     Knows their stuff – maybe not inside and out, but they know what is required of them in any given circumstance and knows how to find the helpful answers when they don’t readily know an answer.

2.     Knows how to reassure the other person(s) that they are in good hands.  Confident people don’t waste other people’s time.

3.     Believes they have something worthwhile to give – whether it’s the key to the stock room or the solution to a program malfunction.  What they have to give may not be life changing, but it will make the other person’s life a bit easier.

4.     Knows they are “odd” – and in what way they’re odd.  Hey, we’re all a bit whacky and we can only be confident if we understand our own quirks.

5.     Has a sense of humor – they can laugh at themselves and even help the other person laugh at their own mistakes. 

6.     Is willing to risk making a mistake for the sake of doing or discovering something new, better or bigger.

7.     Doesn’t make their audience into something that they’re not.  They understand that the audience (no matter how intimate or public) shares much in common with them and that commonness gives them access to their audience.  But, they also understand the specifics of what makes their audience unique and do all they can to speak to that unique reality.

8.     Is not afraid of being nervous and recognizes that it’s a healthy feeling. 

9.     Can make adjustments on the spot.  Because they’re sure of their material and overall goal, they can tweak as they engage.

10.  Understands they can’t do everything within the allotted time they have with an audience.  And that allows them to not feel frustrated because their “gift” fits within the box created by the allotted time.

I think these ten traits can be condensed into just one:

A confident person has realistic expectations of their own self, the other and their relationship AND based on those expectations, a confident person is happy to give an audience whatever gift they’ve prepared for them, believing that good can come from the mutual experience.

What about you?  What does it mean for you to feel confident?