Do people perceive you as being confident or being arrogant? I tell you, there’s one little trick that will help define for people that your confidence isn’t a sign of arrogance.

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Now, one of the things we know is that people naturally believe that people who are more confident are more competent. So, our confidence is important to our ability to influence other people. But, if your confidence becomes too much, it can also be seen as being arrogant. There’s one little trick to help other people see you in that more confident, less arrogant, stance. And, that is being curious. I’ve always said that you want to balance your confidence with your curiosity.

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There’s a little exercise I do in audiences where I ask people how they feel when they’re wrong. And, they’ll give me an answer, something like, “oh I feel disappointed in myself,” “I feel bad,” “I feel I let the team down,” and other answers like that. And, I point out to them that what they’re describing is when they know they’re wrong. When they’re wrong and they don’t know they’re wrong, they feel they are right.

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So, the way to get around that is to level your confidence with your curiosity. The more certain you are about something, the more curious you need to be about it, because that’s how you balance confidence so that it doesn’t turn into arrogance. You can go to the Spark Dental Network website (here) and there’s an exercise there having to do with confidence. Most of us believe that confidence is natural, that you either have it or you don’t have it. And, the reality is that it is adjustable. There are things you can do to help yourself build confidence and there’s an exercise on the website there that will help you with that. So, go to the Spark Dental Network website (here) and look for the confidence exercise.