QUOTE: "People say they are attracted to confidence, but how often do you meet a confident person who doesn't tend to act like a jerk? It's all too common for mere confidence to cross the threshold into arrogance. But that's what people want."
This is where you fall into the trap that the average powerless person does. You assume that people who act like jerks are powerful. They are just as powerless as you, they just express it in a different way. Both tigers and mice are powerless. People play victim and victimizer for the same reason. Confident (confidence is based on power) people do neither. Quite literally, for no other reason than they don't have to. Going from a not confident to a confident person involves only one thing... cultivating power. Do all of those things likely to bring you power. Work out until you are strong. Mind your business until you are rich. Eliminate useless behaviours. Build your kingdom of people and resources until it is unassailable. Be competent in everything you do. Those are the things that bring confidence. Nothing else does.
QUOTE: "Whether we like to admit it or not, we are all the products of our own little environments. We have been moulded and shaped by those people who have been a part of our lives. Our mothers created our physical bodies, but our peers created who we really are. It was our peers who taught us how to behave, because it is our peers that we want so much to be with. We want their acceptance, we want to belong, and the only way we can belong is if we become like them."
People are most definitely not the product of their environment. We are the products of the choices we make, every single moment of every day. Change happens the very moment you decide I'm going to be different, today, right now, for this specific thing. Do enough of those little specific changes and the change generalizes. Almost nothing else except a person’s free will and choice has the power to determine a person’s behavior. Once you understand and know how to use this, everything else falls into place.
Part of the process is when a person understands that there is a tendency to seek approval and acceptance from others. However, that tendency isn't normal. It's neurotic. Once you know this, you can make huge gains in your life by examining it for behaviours that are approval seeking... and stopping them. People (especially women) manipulate you through your approval seeking behaviours. If you eliminate them, they have nothing to grab hold of. Also, eliminating these will make you feel much, much better about yourself. Approval seeking, even if you get the approval, makes you feel bad. But, like smoking, even though it is bad for you, it's addictive. You need to be ever vigilant for backsliding with this. But the effort is well worth it.
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Related:
Bonecrcker #72 – The Truth Is Harsh
Pook #7 – Lesson Four: Patience is the Refined Sense of Confidence
Philalethes #25 – You Can Have As Much Power As You Are Willing To Be Responsible For, But No More
