The Confidence Code

The Confidence Code empowers women to become more courageous by explaining their natural tendencies toward timidity and how to break them even in a world dominated by men.

Do you ever look back at your life and wish you would have done something or said something when you had the opportunity? Many of us do. This is a sign that something was within our power, but we lacked the confidence to actually go for it.

When we lack confidence, we decide to stay inactive. Women seem to be especially prone to this kind of inaction. Because you aren’t totally confident that your efforts will be successful, you are scared to even try.

One example of how women fall prey to this mindset more than men is an experiment done by professor Zach Estes. It involved solving complicated puzzles, and at first, it seemed men performed better than women on the test. But when he looked further, he discovered that women often left many questions unanswered.

So Estes asked them to do the test again, but this time, answer every single question whether they were sure of the answer or not. He found that when they did this, women performed just as well as men.

We can all agree men and women should be treated equally. But it’s hard to argue that there aren’t innate differences between the two genders. Both have different levels of hormones as well as a slightly different brain structure.

So it makes sense that men and women tend to display confidence differently, which is particularly prominent in the workplace. One of the reasons for men being more likely to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company is that they tend to be more aggressive in the way they display confidence. Men are quicker to voice opinions, while women collaborate more and are more humble.

What makes the problem worse is that because the workplace is usually male-dominated, aggression is usually a valued trait. A male-dominated workplace also makes a woman less likely to speak up, even if she has a good idea, hindering her progress.

However, it’s important to understand that women can act on their softer side and still be confident. You can stand behind your opinions without being aggressive. Active listening, which is typically a more feminine approach, is also a show of strength.

With the advancements in genetic research today, we know that character traits such as aggression and confidence are written in our genes. Scientists have found that our genes determine up to 50 percent of our confidence. So if half of our confidence comes from genes, what about the other half? Our environment can explain the other half. This is…