10 Traits of Highly Confident Men

How to be more confident

Why do some men seem more confident than others? Are they born with it? Or is it something they have to work on? Although one’s confidence can be somewhat innate, the majority of us (myself included) need to constantly work on it. That’s why I’m sharing these 10 tips today to help you become a more confident man.

Confident Men Take Action

Please indulge me by letting me start off with a story about a comment that I got on the YouTube channel recently. This particular comment came in from someone named Lucas, who wrote: “you probably are living on your parents’ money, that’s why you are saying that expensive things are better.”

Hold on a second, Lucas! Because, number one, I’ve been serving active duty in the United States Army for 18 and a half years. And, number two, I’ve been running a successful business on the side for nine years. But thank you for making such an inane assumption about me.

Now, you might be wondering why I’m calling this dude out. Well, the reason is, is because it’s a story that leads me to talk about trait number one, which is that confident men take action. They do things. They get stuff done.

And I’m not talking about the fact that I confronted this guy and responded to his comment–which, by the way, has since been removed–what I’m talking about is the fact that I started a business, I did it even though some people thought–no joke–that it was the stupidest idea in the world, and I haven’t been afraid to experiment and try different things as the business has grown.

Confident Men Have a Vision

Now, you might wonder how did I even do this? “This” being He Spoke Style, the website you’re reading right now. How did I start it? How did I get it off the ground? How do I keep it going? Those are great questions, but I’m going to tell you–those are the wrong questions to ask.

I know I’m using myself as an example, but what I’m talking about applies to you. Because you don’t get anything done like that–like a big dream that you have–without possessing trait number two, which is having a vision.

A vision goes beyond what you’re going to do and how you’re going to do it. Having a vision means understanding why you are doing something. If you don’t understand that, you can only take whatever it is you’re going to do so far.

What you should know about this though is that for most of us, this doesn’t come easy. It’s a muscle that you have to learn to exercise. And for those of you who are looking to exercise that muscle, the book that I always recommend to get you started on that journey is Start With Why by Simon Sinek.

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

Simon Sinek

Aren’t Afraid To Fail

When you see someone that’s successful, you kind of automatically think like they’ve got it all figured out, right? They have that vision. They’re doing it. They’re getting it done. They’re successful. And from the outside looking in, it’s easy to think that it’s effortless, like it’s some kind of magic, like this person has the magic touch, and whatever they do is a success.

It’s freaking annoying, right? Because you’ve had some great ideas but for whatever reason, it just hasn’t worked out for you yet.

However, the thing is is that successful people have been in that situation. They have failed. And probably more than once. But one of the traits of successful and confident guys possess is that they’re not afraid to fail.

Your first idea and your first execution of something–I’m sorry–will probably not work. I wish I could say that He Spoke Style was my first idea that I ever had, but that is not true.

I used to run a website called Bags In Trees, which was basically just a blog that had pictures of plastic bags caught in trees and celebrated the beauty of that phenomenon. It was completely a parody and social commentary website and I just basically stopped it because I got tired of getting angry emails from environmentalists not getting the joke and telling me what a piece of $%!# I was.

And I also ran for a while, a site called the Cerealist, which was basically The Onion of classical music, started on the premise that classical music needed to loosen up a little bit and learn to laugh at itself if it wanted to reach more people and not be a dying artform. That site lasted for two weeks and we took it down after getting some cease and desist letters from big opera star publicists. Which basically just proved our initial hypothesis that classical musicians take themselves way too seriously.

I could keep going down the list of failures I’ve had here, but I think, you get the point.

Take Care of Themselves

Do you know what else confident men do? They respect themselves, which means they take care of themselves. They exercise and maintain their bodies. They eat well and are conscious of how they fuel themselves. They take care of their grooming to make sure that their appearance shows that they take care of themselves.

Confident Men Push Themselves

Okay, so the next trait of confident men is another sort of mindset. So, let’s say that you reach a milestone of some sort or that after working really hard at something or towards something, that you finally meet that goal. It could be anything. Like setting a personal record for running or cycling or lifting weights or getting some type of professional certification.

What do you do when you reach that goal?

Some guys will be like, I did that, I win. Done. But highly confident men will be like, okay, but how can I go even further?

Because confident men push themselves. They constantly want to be even better than they just were. And that is as soon as the goal is achieved, the mind is already thinking about what it’s going to take to get to the next level.

Thinking Positively

And that sort of thinking requires another kind of thinking, which is that confident men think positively. If you’re not believing that you can do something and thinking positively even if you fail, then you will not appear as confident. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Open To Learning

Let me tell you something else about confident men. Confident men know that they don’t know everything. Which means that they have trait number seven–that they are open to learning…

Confident Men Ask Questions

…which also means that they possess trait number eight, that they are not afraid to ask questions. Think about it. If you don’t know how to do something, are you going to pretend that you know how to do it? Because if you’re, pretending you’re not going to feel very confident.

Don’t Need To Be Heard

You know when you’re at a party or with a big group of people and there’s that one guy who’s like: “Hey, everyone pay attention to me,” and “I’m talking the loudest so I’m important!” And also, “Ha, ha, ha, I’m going to make fun of you and make everyone laugh.”

Do you really think that guy is confident?

He may appear confident, but underneath all of that, that guy is super insecure. However, the confident guy displays trait number nine, which is that he doesn’t need to be heard.

Guys that are constantly talking loudly and trying to get you to listen to them almost has the opposite effect. Like, you’ve got all this stuff coming at you that you kind of don’t hear anything at all, you just start to tune it out, because nothing means anything. But when the confident guy who doesn’t really say much finally says something . . . you listen.

Confident Men Don’t Please Everyone

Let me just pose a hypothetical situation here…

So let’s say there’s this guy who, like, nine years ago started a men’s style blog. And over time that became successful. There’s an Instagram account. There’s even a YouTube channel. And there are lots of people who like what he does, they like him.

But then there are some people who freaking hate him. Like, despise. Even to the point of giving every new video a thumbs down within 10 seconds of it being posted. But you know what? That guy with this website and Instagram and YouTube channel? Well, he doesn’t care, because he knows that he cannot please everyone.

If you’re trying to please everyone, you’re watering down your message and what you stand for. Successful brands. Successful and confident guys have haters. The pagans make you stronger.

So don’t try to please everyone. You’ll be more confident, more powerful, and more successful once you realize that not everyone’s going to love you.

Bottom Line

I know that I’ve used myself as an example for a few of these 10 traits that we’ve been talking about. And you might think that because of that, that I am a supremely confident person all of the time. But what I want you to know is that that is not the case. And thinking about these things is something that I do over and over again to work on my own confidence.

The point is, that confidence and learning to be more confident is something that you can develop. Nobody has all of these traits without working on them and putting in some effort. And knowing myself I would say that if I can do it, I definitely know that you can too.

Thanks, as always, for reading.