The king and the baker are having a conversation. They both listen. They both know their profession, and they both respect the other for who he is.
"Once upon a time, there was a self-assured man who knew how to listen."
The notion of self-assurance
Being self-assured: (too) confident in one’s good qualities, worth, abilities, position and so forth and thus having a calm, firm or arrogant appearance.
Self-assurance is cool. Self-assurance going over the top and turning into arrogance is not cool. The balance depends on your self-esteem and on mastering a certain field well enough that you do not need to hide behind a mask of superiority
Table of Content
Self-assurance promotes confidence when it is based on substance. When the self-assurance is justified. True self-assurance is built on insight, training and experience. That is also true in relation to Executive Presence. By going in, we can work things out. We need to get into the substance of the field we wish to learn about. To learn, we have to have the courage to make mistakes. We must be able to ask questions, including seemingly stupid questions, which may in fact not be so stupid – all with the purpose of learning. Become more self-assured. We must be able to reflect and ask questions of and about ourselves. Including ‘stupid’ questions, which may end up dismantling our foundations, including any lies we may have lived by.