Confidence is the opposite of embarrassment. Confident people feel that they understand who they are and what they are capable of. As a consequence, they can enter into social situations boldly, without having to second guess themselves.
Confident people don’t hesitate, because they feel that they know exactly what they’re getting themselves into.
Of course, sometimes the confident person is wrong in their self-estimation. If the people around them are observant, the discrepancy between image and reality may be seen, and their assurance will be exposed as false confidence. Embarrassment results.
Confidence is simultaneously appealing and suspect. The confidence man is a criminal who’s known to hurt people by deceiving them, and yet there’s a charisma to the role. We know that we shouldn’t have confidence in confidence, but we can’t help ourselves.
In professional contexts, confidence tends to be mistaken for capability, but it often masks impotence. Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos is an infamous example. She charmed investors with a bold presentation of dramatic technical capability from her service, an automated digital blood testing business. Holmes exploited the investors’ eagerness to make quick and easy money with technology that seemed exciting, though few were familiar with it. The whole thing turned out to be a scam. Theranos simply sent blood samples to be tested by humans in old fashioned medical labs, and never actually had a working automated blood testing technology.
Elizabeth Holmes delivered her pitches with a straight face, all the while knowing that she was telling lies. Her case is a striking reminder of the distinction between external appearances and what’s actually going on in a person’s mind.
