1. CONFIDENT YOU
Practical tips on improving your confidence

2. Prelude 3
Introduction 4
Understanding Confidence 5
Fads about Confidence 6
The Change 7
Key task 1 8
Key task 2 9
The important questions 11
About the author 13
TABLE OF CONTENTS

3. Prelude
There are groups that seems to be living their lives almost exclusively
through social media, becoming more and more narcissistic, with their
smartphones practically glued to their hands & faces. Constantly
worried about their social perception and about maintaining their
image, they lose contact with their true selves.
This increasingly popular phenomena shows that healthy self-esteem
& confidence are becoming a rare commodity .
Then we have another layer, these are people who often feel socially
anxious, people who are shy, insecure and doubtful about things, about
themselves, about their own way.
There are also people who live “normal lives” and appear to be “just
fine,” but due to their problems with confidence often stumble over
obstacles they should never be stumbling over.
The first thing many people say about themselves is that they are
insufficient. It’s a little bit more difficult for most to admit that they are
magnificent.

4. I’m not the one who dictates what is
wrong and the right way to go
through your own life. But since
you’ve probably been looking for
valuable knowledge about
confidence, ask yourself if
You can’t expect
your life to change at
all if you remain
passive. It’s about
facing reality. It’s
about being active.
| Do you like what you do?
| Do you like the way you look?
| Do you often feel judged?
| Do you feel socially comfortable?
| Do you feel safe about your job?
The way you live now is the way you want
to spend the rest of your life.
We have all heard our entire lives that we should be something else in order
to finally reach happiness—that we should study hard, go to this or that
college, that we should be different, that we should become a doctor,
engineer or lawyer, build a big house, get married, become a father or a
mother, that we are not suitable for this or that, that we should never say or
think certain things, and so on.

5. That’s how the term “self-confidence” came about.
It’s about being confident in your SELF.
Confidence is not about becoming someone else. They’re
not about changing who you are! Don’t change yourself.
| Change your bad habits,
| Change your thought-patterns,
| Change your environment,
| Change your friends if you have to,
| Change your detrimental behaviors
but stay who you are.
Be true to your real essence, your real soul.
Confidence means that you
feel good about yourself in
almost every situation. When
you are confident other
people’s words and opinions
can hardly affect the way you
feel.
It’s about knowing both
your strong and weak
sides, your attributes, if
you will, being aware
and consciously using
your uniqueness to
succeed

6. Self-confidence is not an
absolute absence of fear and
self-doubt. Confident people
simply know that they have to
act apart from that fear & know
how to do that.
Self-confidence IS NOT about
arrogance, exaltation, believing
“I am better than others,” acting
like a king or treating others
without kindness and empathy.
Such childish behaviors &
attitudes are often confused
with self-confidence
Self-confidence is:
1. The ability to act despite
the fear and doubts that
are inside you; the ability to
get out of your comfort
zone; the ability to cope
with the challenges of
everyday life.
2. Knowledge about how to
do something and the
certainty that you can
actually use that skill in a
practical situation.
3. The ability to stand up for
your own rights; the ability
to defend yourself.

7. Sooner or later, usually we come to the realization that
something’s wrong with us in terms of not having enough
confidence, and we finally start taking action.
People usually tend to run away from their fears,
instead of facing them. Paradoxically, once you
face your fears, you will usually feel excitement
and other good emotions—happiness, liberation,
joy and adventure—which will continue to appear
more frequently in your life afterwards.
Everybody’s afraid, confident people are just those who have
learned to act against their fear or even make friends with their
fear—this is the true art, as opposed to hiding beneath your fear
your entire life.
There are much better, easier and safer methods of developing
your self-confidence, and you can do it systematically, every
day—as opposed to in extreme sports and events. What’s that?
Every single time you are afraid of something—DO IT.
Very often, though, instead of taking small steps, we take big
hops and start doing things that might be considered
“adventures” by the majority of our society. Like bungee
jumping, para sailing, parachute jumping, but truth be told
confidence remains practically unchanged!

8. KEY TASK 1
If you want to make yourself
more aware of the things that are
really stopping you, take a sheet
of paper and write down
everything you are afraid of in
your life. No matter what
situations make you afraid, try to
write down EVERY SINGLE ONE.

9. KEY TASK 2
Once you have your list ready, take a few moments to
understand or reflect on what is it that you are really afraid of.
For example, you might have written down that you are afraid
of giving a presentation—but you can’t really be afraid of giving
a presentation as such, can you? It’s not a battle field; nobody
will start shooting at you; you are perfectly safe, and you know
that.
What you can be afraid of, though, is, for instance, being
criticized, failing (not being able to finish your speech), other
people judging you, laughing at you, etc.
Most importantly, you could spend countless hours working on
your fear, and know your presentation perfectly well, but the
stage fright will appear anyway, because the real, main fear—
for example, the fear of rejection or being laughed at—wasn’t
worked through.

10. The fear that appeared to be the “main” fear—giving
presentation—might be, and usually is, just a surface problem,
underneath which other fears are hiding—fear that harsh
criticism will be too crushing to cope with, or that you will never
be given the chance to give a presentation again, etc.
The same goes for the fear of meeting new people, a new job,
starting your own business, or even relationships.
Running away from the fear of rejection, at the same time not
noticing that by not approaching they induce bad emotions in
themselves and, in a sense, reject themselves, making it
GUARANTEED that they will never succeed. In short, they make
their emotions even worse by their own thought processes.
Once you have all your fears written down, take a few moments
to think what might be hidden underneath them, what your core
fear is in all this. Once you’re done doing that, you can ask
yourself 2 very useful questions.

11. Important question #1:
What’s the worst possible thing that can happen if I mess up?”
Example During my speech everyone will start laughing at me if I
forget what I have to say, ask yourself if this has ever happened to
you in the past, and if this is possible at all.
This emotion is very useful and
interesting when combined with
fear, creating a new emotion, some
combination of intrigue and
excitement, which is rather
stimulating and helps us take action
and move forward.
It’s very good to ask yourself these questions, as the vast majority
of our fears are illusory and once they are disassembled into parts
and explored enough, most of them just disappear and we can
approach each issue with peace of mind.
Important question #2:
“What will happen if I do that?” Just by asking yourself this
question, you redirect your fear into curiosity.

12. Once you have asked yourself these questions and thought
about the answers, the best advice I can give you is to finally
START DOING THE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU. You can’t count
on your fear disappearing in a matter of seconds or maybe
even hours, but every single time you do the thing that scares
you, the fear will be diminished.
Remember, once you have started your journey towards
change, the only things that separate those who succeed and
those who do not are perseverance and determination. DO NOT
QUIT. Be patient, for it is a journey, but never, ever give up. You
may fall, but you must stand back up every time, brush yourself
off, learn a lesson, take notes and keep going—it is the only way
to win!
The same applies to meeting men and women, making new
friends, traveling on your own, partying, starting businesses, etc.
You have to notice and disassemble your fear, and then act
apart from the fact you can still feel the fear.

13. Learning Consultant
Entrepreneur
Soft Skills Trainer
Prime Areas: Leadership & Management, Cross Cultural communication, Presentation,
Team building, Campus to Corporate, time management. Customer Service,
He brings with him 12+ years of experience
from Infosys, where he was employed as
operations manager. He possesses an
energetic personality and is quite popular
amongst participants.
Proven track record in achieving results and
positively impacting business issues via
people skills and partnership with executive
levels.
 Post graduate in CRM
 BSc Graduate
 Diploma in Software Engineering
 Six Sigma Green Belt Certified
 Mortgage certification, USA
 Insurance certification, USA
Ability to quickly connect &
build rapport with participants
across all ages.
Leveraging internationally proven
methodologies to design, develop &
deliver successful programs
Average rating of 4.75 on all
workshops/trainings
delivered.
Interactive, fun & engaging activities,
role plays, group discussion to
improve learning & retention.
During his corporate stint he embarked on
different assignments including Operations,
training, recruitment, quality, automation,
Call center & MIS.
 Founder – Digital Vantage
 Co-founder - d’Code
 Operations Manager - Infosys
Qualifications/Certifications
Work Experience
Ismail is a passionate change agent with more than 14+ years of global experience
in training & organizational development arenas. He has delivered several
programs at top MNC across India. He has handled training assignments across
the spectrum of key industries from lower level to managerial level.
Recent assignments were for
 Foremost German based bank
 Key analytics company
 ITES Company
 Prominent online fashion store
 MNC FMCG Company
Ismail Chalil