When it comes to confidence, I think the best way to determine if someone has it is the way they talk. Do they know what they’re talking about? Some people don’t and are just really good at faking it. I’m thinking particularly about my husband with this question. There’s three things about how he talks that makes me think he’s pretty confident.
First, he’s good at his job. He has a leadership position where he works, one that often doesn’t end when he comes home. In fact, he has a separate phone just for work. This means that I am often with him when someone from work calls him. It’s usually because something has happened and they need to know the next steps to do or someone just needs information. He’s been at this job for 25 years. He knows what to do and when he talks to the people that call him, it’s obvious he is confident in what he is telling them.
Second, he’s just smart. He reads as much as I do, mostly non-fiction books. But he also looks stuff up on the internet to read. He told me one time that he reads Wikipedia on his lunch break. Not that that’s the most reliable resource, but that’s what he does. When we sit down on the couch at the end of the day and I scroll social media, he scrolls the internet too, but much less social media and more researching random topics. If we get into a conversation and I ask him a question, he can practically give a mini-Ted Talk as an answer simply based on what he knows from reading.
Finally, but not actually finally because I am sure there are other things about him that make me think he is confident, but keeping to the theme of what he says, it’s the way he talks to me about me. We’ve been together for a few months shy of 25 years. He knows me. He knows exactly what to say to me when I am, for lack of a better word, in my feelings. Work advice. Mental health advice. Relationship with my family advice. All of it. He just knows what to say. And it’s not that he’s saying whatever he thinks I want to hear. It’s good stuff. Because he knows me that well and knows how to communicate with me.
Honorable mention really should go to his cooking skills. The man is a foodie and makes food and presents it better than any of the chain restaurants where we live. Seriously, we don’t go out to eat to steak houses, for example, because he can make a better steak at home. He’s his own worst critic about what he cooks sometimes, but he is absolutely confident in his ability to prepare a good meal.
With all of that said, it is my wish that one day I have as much confidence as he does. When I was a teacher/principal, I may have looked like I was confident, but I didn’t always feel that way. And maybe he doesn’t either, but if that’s true, he fakes it really well!
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