The Appearance of Confidence

For those who do not know me I have had a quite a mixed off life. My early years were spent as the big kid on the block who pretty much got what he wanted. Always one of the tallest up until about high school, I was also at least 20 pounds heavier then everyone thanks to baseball. Now this is not to say that I was a bully but no one EVER picked on me. Well eventually my parents reined me in and and I was forced to start taking school seriously. Getting disciplined for bringing home B's has a nasty way of turning your perspectives around. In no time flat I was becoming super-geek.

Stepping into high school in 93 I was busy trying to figure out who was the real me, while all the time trying to listen to anything and everyone that was giving me advice. One of those was one of the greatest TV shows of all times: Star Trek Next Generations. Why? Well it's a show that would make brothers Grimm smile from the beyond. Nearly every show attempted to provide you with a moral to ponder. It was like school, except interesting. Now I can't possibly tell you everything I managed to garner but there is one particular scene in one of the shows that has stuck to me to this day.

Back in Nov of 93 there aired episode 7x08 or "Attached". Overall there is not much that needs to be said other then the plot revolves around the captain and the doctor being captured and then later escaping. The twist here is the two of them are also connected by some kind telepathic links that gives them the ability to pretty much read each others thoughts. At some point near the end of their escape Beverly asks Picard which direction they need to go to find the ship and we get the following lines:

P: "This way."
B: "You don't really know, do you ?"
P: "What ?"
B: "I mean, you are acting like you know exactly which way to go, but you are only guessing. Do you do this all the time ?"
P: "No, but there are times when it is necessary for a captain to give the appearance of confidence."

Whoa, that smacked me in the face. I know Picard is just an actor but I also realized that all leaders are actor as well. They are playing the part of someone in command and followers have a certain expectation of confidence in the one's they follow. Then some fuzzy logic popped in my head and came up with the reverse hypothesis that people will simply follow those they perceive to act like leaders, without realizing they're being shepherded.

Since then I spent years getting it down but eventually I got to the point where no matter what I said I would say it with absolute confidence. What was the effect? No matter what people took it as the absolutely truth, even to the point of doubting themselves or the reference book in front of them. Damn. It was frightening the amount of power I seem to have gained overnight. We're no just talking about giving the answers to questions but also asking people to do things for me. Even complete strangers would stop what they were doing and help me, especially if I was nice and sort of smiled about it.

Conclusions? Obvious part is people liked to be led by confident people. Sneaky part is the longer you pretend to be something you like the more likely you are to become that person. After over a decade of practice I have long since worn confidence on my shoulders without thinking, to the point where I have to purposely add in doubt in order to express to someone I have no idea what they are talking about. It is simply unnatural for me to appear less then absolutely sure about myself and my actions. Oh well, guess I have to live with that.