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Black Box Dating
It's time for... real confidence, deeper connections, really hot sex! Join dating and relationship coach, Dallas Bluth as he explores a wide range of topics that apply to men and their romantic endeavours with women. Catch live talks from weekly coaching program sessions. Meet guests from a wide range of fields that offer advice on money, fitness, confidence, communication and attractiveness as it applies to today's dating world. Subscribe today and start upping your game with women!
Black Box Dating
#10 - Why Is Everyone Confident But Me?
Ever found yourself scanning a room and wondering why everyone else seems to have it all together while you're drowning in self-doubt? That nagging question—"Why is everyone confident but me?"—isn't just common; it's based on a powerful psychological illusion that affects us all.
This deep dive explores the three critical misperceptions that fuel our confidence insecurity. First, we discover how confidence naturally commands attention, causing us to notice only the most outwardly assured people while overlooking the quiet majority who might feel exactly as uncertain as we do. Through personal examples—from speaking Spanish in a moment of need to feeling completely lost in discussions about entertainment culture—we unpack how confidence shifts dramatically across different domains of life. The person commanding attention in one context might be shrinking into the background in another.
Most importantly, we confront the fundamental error in comparing our complete internal experience against someone else's carefully curated external presentation. That confident person you admire? You're seeing a Polaroid snapshot of their public self, not the complete picture with all its complexities, insecurities, and struggles. When we recognize that everyone presents an incomplete version of themselves to the world, we can finally break free from the false belief that others possess something we fundamentally lack.
Ready to transform this insight into action? Take on the growth challenge: approach three confident-appearing people this week and simply ask them for "the real story" behind their confident exterior. Not only will their answers surprise you, but the very act of initiating these conversations builds your own authentic confidence. Share your experiences or questions—I'd love to hear how this perspective shift changes your relationship with confidence.
All right, guys, thank you so much for coming. This morning we are talking about the weird scenario that we run into where we ask the question inside our heads why is everyone confident but me? And it's a weird trick that we play in our minds. You know, we have these double standards throughout life one standard for ourselves and then one standard for the rest of the world. And, generally speaking, this is a question that can come up so so easily for people is why is everyone confident but me? I'm just going to just going to answer the you know the 500 pound gorilla in the room and say obviously they're not. So, really, the question isn't why is everyone confident but me? The question is why does everyone seem confident and I don't feel confident? That's the real question that's going on under the surface. So this is kind of the feeling that when we let this question overwhelm ourselves, we start to implode. We're like, oh my gosh, everyone is having a great time, everyone's laughing, everyone knows someone else, everyone knows what's going on, everyone is, you know, in tune with the topic. One of the topics that I am terrible at uh is entertainment culture. I love going to the movies, I love watching movies, but when people start talking about actors, when people start talking about movie producers, when people start talking about entertainment, culture, geez, and if you get into talking about, like, concerts and musicians, I know the songs, I can sing along with them, but I don't know the names of anything, and so I'll end up in a scenario, you know, like this in a group, and somebody will ask oh well, you know what's your, you know what kind of music do you like? Dallas, like you know who your favorite bands like. This is me, because I have zero confidence in that particular topic. I don't know how to talk about it, but on the music, I'll start moving my body and I'll feel confident. But you ask me to talk about it. I can't. All of us have certain scenarios in which we feel like this and when everyone else seems to be confident, having fun, connected, and we don't, this question creeps in and it erodes our confidence. Why is everyone else confident but me? So, again, this is not about this being a fact. This is actually all about dispelling the mirage, dispelling the illusion that everyone is competent and we're not.
Speaker 1:So, uh, the first thing that we need to realize is that we don't look at everyone in the room equal. We don't look at everybody in the room and and see exactly the same level of them being noticeable. Certain Certain people stand out more than others. Certain people command more presence than others when a certain topic comes up, like entertainment, culture or politics. Some people jump right out and have a lot to say, and other people we don't really even notice notice. They kind of recede to the background and they become a little more quiet.
Speaker 1:Um, there's not a steady level between everyone in the room having the same level of presence and confidence outwardly, and what it is is when we're scanning the room, when we're paying attention to the energy that's going on, there are always going to be people that are confident in a particular moment and we are all going to gravitate towards them. We're all going to notice them. In a sense, confidence gets attention. Confidence is what causes all of us to shift our eyes, shift our ears onto those people, and no matter what the situation is. Well, in a lot of situations, some people are going to bubble up to the top as being more confident in a particular topic, being more confident in a particular moment, being more confident with a particular group of people, and those people that bubble up there. We're going to notice them and we're not paying attention to all the other people who actually might be feeling just as unconfident as we are, or maybe even less confident than we are. So why is everyone confident but me? Realize that we're actually selecting out certain people because confidence tends to grab our attention for some reason. We like to apply it as everyone has it, but that's the truth is, only to some people. I get that. Um, that's the first uh. The first thing about, uh, dispelling the myth that everyone is confident is that confidence gets attention and we don't notice the other 70, 80, even 90% of the room. It's actually kind of a quiet audience uh to what's going on, the way that we are. So that is the first thing to realize is it's only a few people and there's a lot of other silent parties going on in that situation. The second thing is that we are context switching constantly in life. And if you guys could, just to make sure you guys are here with me, if you could drop into the chat one topic, one situation that you feel really confident, one domain that you feel that when it comes up at a party, when people are talking together, that just really makes you sing.
Speaker 1:I was in a situation just yesterday actually at the movie theater, and I saw there was a patron that only spoke Spanish, no English at all, and the guy behind the counter only spoke English. He threw out a couple words in Spanish but there was a total miscommunication. And I came up and I said you know, I don't speak Spanish fluently but maybe I can help. And I ended up translating and helping the scenario and suddenly I seemed like the confident person in that situation. That was because I happen to like languages. I am not fluent in Spanish but I can. I can get by a little bit. I was at a networking event this week and there was somebody there from France and I got to just drop into my French and speak with him.
Speaker 1:Really, really, that makes me appear and seem really confident when I'm doing it. It's because it's something that I know, it's something that I like, it's something that I'm naturally drawn to. That means that some of the time my confidence gets to come out. Other situations, like we were talking about earlier never been to a yoga class, but if I was in one I would feel very not confident. And then in the conversation earlier we got around to really specific karaoke, singing into a microphone to a group of people, my confidence just shrinks in that area. And so the same person, the same guy, is going to be really confident in some areas and not in others.
Speaker 1:And again, when we look at the fact that people that are being confident getting attention, we have to realize that this is only in the particular context that we're in right now. And that person, the situation, all of us, we're only in one domain at a time. We walk into a conference that well, we walk into a situation, say, and we're doing door one domain at a time. We walk into a conference that it well, we walk into a situation, say, and we're doing door to door sales. Some people are going to be extremely confident in that area, probably because they've done it a bunch, and other people are going to shy away like crazy. Turn around and you go into a construction site and you're building a house. The guy that was really shy because he's not used to doing sales is now the guy that knows exactly where to go and what to do and suddenly the guy that was comfortable with sales doesn't even know which saw or where to start in building something.
Speaker 1:We're only in one domain at a time, and the fact that someone appears confident in one scenario, in one domain, does not mean that they are a confident person through and through, throughout their entire life, throughout all the different situations that happen in the day. So when we're in that context and we're asking the question, why is everyone confident but me? Realize we're only in this one domain right now. And this is the particular dynamic. Switch that dynamic around For me, put me in the situation where I happen to be the one person that knows a little bit of Spanish and I seem like a rock star, even though I was butchering the Spanish like horribly Doesn't matter. I was the one that got got to, I got to reap the benefits of being confident. That's that one domain. Switch that domain around to another one and suddenly we've we've sort of, we've sort of reset the game board and everything has changed. So it's a it's a tough thing to do, but when we have that, that, that self-doubt, creeping in and we're asking why is everyone confident but me? Realize that's only in this one domain. So, all right, I want to know that everyone's still awake. Can everyone just shoot me a? Hey, dallas? Yes, everyone. Drop a number two in the comments so that you know okay, we've got a question. Go ahead and drop the question in the chat. Yeah, or maybe that was the, maybe that was the two Thank you, because we're on point two at this point. Still here, Awesome, thank you. Everybody's there. All right, cool, just like to make sure everyone's still engaged. Awesome, so confidence gets attention. We notice the people that are there. It's going to shift based on the domain.
Speaker 1:The other thing that I want to talk about here is that we're getting a very public presentation of a person when I'm in public. You know the people that saw me at the movie theater. They saw me dressed one particular way. They saw me with one particular date. They saw me in you know one instance behaving a certain way, and from that tiny window that they have on Dallas, they have what is to them, a complete picture of who Dallas is. They don't know what I do for work. They don't know. They don't know what my financial situation is. They don't know what my family dynamics are. They don't know if you know if I'm family dynamics are. They don't know if you know if I'm, you know, just bought a new house or if I just got evicted. Nobody knows, from that tiny little window looking at them, looking at the person. There's no way to know what is what is really going on. All they get is a tiny little snapshot, like a like a Polaroaroid photo. And that polaroid photo didn't come from my bedroom. It didn't come from me hanging out in my socks and underwear watching tv and like eating pizza, like like one in the morning, like they saw cleaned up dallas, dressed out in public, looking presentable.
Speaker 1:That's not the whole story. That's not the whole story. That's not the whole version of who I am, but because that's all they can see, we know intellectually that there's more to a person, but our emotions, which is the self-doubt part, isn't thinking that that's thinking. Thinking, oh my gosh, who is this guy? You know they can, they can just like, you know, like, rattle off some spanish or whatever. Gosh, it sounds like I'm being super conceited right now. I'm not. I'm just trying to trying to give a scenario. This person is all they're seeing is this one package and they don't see the rest of it. And when we see someone that is in a position of confidence, they're in their particular domain and they're getting loss of attention. We have to remember that.
Speaker 1:The truth is we don't know the whole story. That person could be faking it To everybody else in the scenario that didn't speak Spanish. They didn't know how bad my Spanish was. I knew how bad it was. I was a little nervous. I was actually, you know, fumbled over some words and I thought about it later. I was like, oh, I should have said this way, but the fact that they don't speak any Spanish means that I looked like I was, you know, doing a great job rattling it off.
Speaker 1:They don't know the whole story about. You know, I'm one, if I'm talking out of my ass and what I'm saying, they, they really don't know that. They also don't know what's going on in all those different things Financially, with my family, with my living situation, with my work, with with my health. Nobody knows the whole story that's going on behind. Again, all we see is a tiny little window, and if we knew the entire story, that would give us a very different perception of who this person really is. I need just a quick drink of water here.
Speaker 1:So so when that question comes in and it kind of like piles on top of us is, why is everyone confident but me, and particularly this? This actually applies in couples. Well is, you don't know the whole story. You just don't. And we're we're projecting onto it an oversimplified version of that person and their situation and it's always going to be more complex, it's always going to be more messy, it's never going to be the neat and tidy public image that we see in one brief moment of that person of question creeps in. Why is everyone confident but me? And we have that caving in feeling inside of us.
Speaker 1:The first thing to remember is confidence gets attention. That means we're not paying attention to everyone else in the room that might be feeling very similar to the way that we are. Also, we're only in one domain at a time. The people that are confident and getting attention, those will shift, those will readjust depending on what the topic is, depending on the scenario, depending on the activity. That confidence is going to shift and change in different domains and we're only seeing it in one place. The only thing I'm going to say is a lot of times we might not even notice and give ourselves credit, for when we're in the domain and we have the confidence and we're actually getting the attention right, and when we're doing that, it probably just feels normal to us, that's because you're in your zone, you're in your wheelhouse, where you naturally feel confident. Notice that and give yourself credit for it and going oh, actually I'm the one getting the attention.
Speaker 1:And the third thing why is everyone feeling confident from me? It's because you don't know the whole story. You don't know what's really going on. When you see that you know amazing couple and you're like, god damn, I'd love to be with a woman like that, uh-huh, yeah, okay, she looks like that because she's with a dude, she's in a relationship, and you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, you don't know the whole story. So, again, why is everyone confident about me? They're not. It's an illusion that other people are living this life of nice, beautiful presentation and that we are somehow still working on the inside. Everybody's still working on it.
Speaker 1:These points are hooks to help get ourselves out of the rut of asking ourselves this self-diminishing question and to take us into a place that's actually more confident. Because, again, I mean, I don't. I would say that a million times, but confidence is one of the top three traits and usually the top top trait that that women look for in men. So, um, normally I'll leave you guys with a question to kind of think and reflect on and everything, and instead, um, with a little feedback from you, from y'all, um, we've decided to go in a slightly different route here. Instead, we're going to have a growth challenge for this week.
Speaker 1:So, based on this topic, your challenge this week is to approach three confident people and to ask them what the real story is. So you're going to be out in public, you're going to see somebody they're going to at a networking event, at a sales thing, out at a bar, and they seem to be very social and you see this confidence there. They're getting the attention, they're in their element, they're in their domain and you remember that you don't have the whole story. So approach three confident people this week, just walk up to them and go hey, man, I noticed, you seem to really have it together. Can I ask you for the real story? Do you always feel like this? Is this always what it is? And what it is is one you're practicing confidence by approaching someone like that. It can be a man or a woman, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Two, you are stepping into and breaking the illusion that is causing this self-doubt, where we think they're confident and we're not. Number three, most important. Well, okay, sorry, there's going to be four. Third one is you are being confident and being vulnerable by asking that person you are initiating. This is great, great, great practice. The fourth thing is you will get to hear somebody else's story and I can guarantee you it is not going to be the pretty complete picture, right that it appears to be on the surface. There is going to be more to it and that is going to help really dispel this. So that's your growth challenge for this week.
Speaker 1:Please feel free to shoot me emails, text messages. Let me know how it's going for you throughout the week. Dallas, I got my second one. It was this woman and it was amazing and she told me about all this stuff and everything, and now I have a number of having a drink with her. Like would love to hear these stories. Please send me emails and text messages about it. We are now going to continue this conversation. Take everyone off mute in the office hours and talk about what it would be like. See you over there, gentlemen.