Thinking before you speak
I met someone yesterday who I would describe to be incredibly confident. I always find this interesting … I always end up asking myself why? … Why would I describe this person as confident? She wasn’t particularly good looking, she wasn’t famous, she was just a normal person – but she had something about her. She seemed to be able to deal confidently with questions she wasn’t expecting.
Watching her carefully, the penny started to drop. When asked a question, she never jumped in or said something without thinking about it (even when it appeared that she knew the answer straight away). She seemed to have the self-discipline to create time for herself before she spoke. As a result, whenever she said something, she’d thought about it beforehand; not for hours, just for a few seconds. She seemed happy with that silence, you might even say she used the silence.
Confident people have the self-control to think about what they’re going to say before they say it. There’s pretty well always some time available to do this. Confident people create it and use it effectively.
It reminded me of one of the myths I expel in the book Brilliant Confidence (to be published in August – go to https://www.think-confidence.com/books.html) - Confident people don’t have an in-built natural ability to deal with situations off the cuff. They think and prepare before they act. If time doesn’t appear to be available, the make it available. They control the situation, they don’t let the situation control them.
Date: June 22, 2010
Categories: Confidence