The Confidence Code - A Book Review

The Confidence Code – A Book Review

The Confidence Code is something all women should know about, particularly if they want to get to grips with their confidence and find out why some people seem to have it more than others.

Written by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. The Confidence Code, “The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know.,

I was doing some research on the subject of confidence and came across this book, almost by accident. Once I began reading it I couldn’t stop. Its full of interesting stuff that breaks down the subject of confidence and all the factors that surround it.

Katty Kay and Claire Shipman did a huge amount of research for the book, interviewing top psychologists and other women. Here is how the book is described on Amazon and why it grabbed my attention:

“Provides an informative and practical guide to understanding the importance of confidence—and learning how to achieve it—for women of all ages and at all stages of their career. Working women today are better educated and more well qualified than ever before. Yet men still predominate in the corporate world. In The Confidence Code, Claire Shipman and Katty Kay argue that the key reason is confidence.”

If you are a woman reading this post, and you want to understand the importance of confidence then the book is for you.

Cracking The Confidence Code.

The first chapters in the book are investigating or delving into what confidence actually means and why some people have more than others. The authors were amazed at times how seemingly successful women lacked confidence in certain areas of their life. It also emerged how women hold themselves back more than men and often don’t “speak up”.

After many interviews and research, they break down confidence and what it means using what they call “confidence cousins”.

Confidence cousins –

Self-Esteem, Optimism, Self-Compassion, Self Efficacy.

The authors describe that there are critical differences between confidence and the confidence cousins. They also added that in an ideal world we would all have an abundance of the lot of them.

Reading the book and really delving into this subject helped me understand the concept of confidence much more and informed my thinking. When providing coaching for women this information will be invaluable.

A Few Interesting Points Raised In The Book (Taken from passages in the book)

Self Esteem –

An attitude…. “I love myself” or “I like myself” or “I hate myself”.

Self esteem is what allows us to believe that we are loveable that we have value as human beings.

Its not related to wealth. The richest CEO in the country can have low self worth. OR you can be a supermarket check out girl and have plenty of self esteem.

Self esteem is essential for emotional well being but it is distinct from confidence because confidence is typically tied to feelings about what we can achieve.
If you have an overall good feeling about your position in the world, chances are you’ll have that for life and it will colour much of what you do.

A person with high self esteem will tend to have confidence and vice versa, especially if high self esteem is based on talents and abilities. – The Confidence Code.

Optimism –

A good quote from Winston Churchill sums this up nicely:-

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”

Optimism is again, an attitude. Its you viewing the world positively. Its a sense you can work things out and you can make it work.

Self Compassion

Most of us, as the book suggests, are kinder to other people than we are to ourselves and we view failure as abnormal and we are hard on ourselves when we fail. How many times have you criticised yourself and compared yourself to others all the time?

Self Efficacy

What this can mean is “getting it done” and a belief that you can do something and succeed at it. Self efficacy helps you to conquer things and you recover more quickly from set backs.

The book goes into a great more detail and I love the way the authors give solid examples and use credited research to back up they views.

Its All In Your Head

According to the Confidence Code, confidence means “getting OUT of your head”, and not using the term, its all in your head. As they quoted:

“Confidence is linked to doing – action taking, a belief you can succeed at things or make them happen. Not letting your doubts consume you. Getting out of your comfort zone and do hard things.
Having resilience and not giving up.”

The confidence cousins support that goal.

Have I Whetted Your Appetite?

I hope the snippets and information I have shared persuade you to read this book. The chapters I have shared are only a glimpse of the whole content to come. For instance there is a lot more information about how women hold themselves back more than men. There is also coverage of the debate about genetics too and do we inherit some aspects of confidence.

The Confidence Code, “The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know.m (click the text)

In summary

Ultimately, they argue:-

“While confidence is partly influenced by genetics, it is not a fixed psychological state. That’s the good news. You won’t discover it by thinking positive thoughts or by telling yourself (or your children) that you are perfect as you are. You also won’t find it by simply squaring your shoulders and faking it. But it does require a choice: less people pleasing and perfectionism and more action, risk taking, and fast failure.” – The Confidence Code.

If you want to purchase the book, The Confidence Code – CLICK HERE

I hope you got some value from todays book review , please feel free to leave a comment below.