Aristocratic Confidence

“Let your integrity itself be your own standard of rectitude, and be more indebted to the severity of your own judgement of yourself than to all external precepts.” - Baltasar Gracian

Self Identity

We are both blessed and hindered by our capacity to extend our lives across the spectrum of time.

If we let our previous experiences dictate our thoughts too much, we run the risk of being ruled by the outdated versions of ourselves, thus remaining stagnant.

But if we float too far into the future, we spend too much time planning and not enough time acting.

And a goal without action is just a dream.

Therefore, we have the responsibility to straddle the present. We must meditate on the past, plan for the future, but live and act now.

Beginning today, in this present moment, we have the ability to become anything we desire. We determine our fate. No one else.

In our rise to nobility, we must understand that the price on our heads is determined by our self identity.

It all begins internally, but our self worth is essentially worn on our sleeves for all to see.

This is nothing new. Observe how homeless people carry themselves. They stroll along with their heads buried in the ground.

They tend to be soft spoken, unsure of themselves, always playing the victim, letting their environment determine their fate.

Compare this vision to that of an athlete who just defeated an opponent after years of disciplined training. They walk tall, chests puffed out, success radiating from their pores.

What we often forget is that this body language is controlled by chemical reactions in our mind.

Of course, external events help trigger these neurological mechanisms, but we can very well learn how to control them consciously.

We do not need to be successful athletes to portray this level of confidence. We can program our subconscious to put off this energy at all times.

But it seeds from our self image.

And our self image is NOT determined by our past experiences. Read that line again.

Every day you have an opportunity to recreate yourself.

In fact, you should die and be reborn as frequently as possible.

Keep solidifying your future image.

Act like the person you want to be. And that alone will take you to a level you never thought possible.

You determine your worth

Everyone knows the story of Christopher Columbus.

The brave adventurer who sailed the seas in search of a route to the east before discovering the new world.

Officially given the title “Grand Admiral of the Oceanic Sea,” Columbus carried himself with the confidence of an Italian Aristocrat, even though he was actually the son of a modest cheese salesman.

So how did Columbus rise from the enthusiastic son of a humble merchant to one of the most well known names in history at a time when class systems were so predominant?

It started as a seed in his mind.

From a young age, Columbus had the feeling that he would accomplish great feats. That he belonged in the royal circles.

And this deep underlying confidence allowed him to demand this type of respect from everyone he interacted with.

When Columbus relocated to Lisbon in 1476, he fabricated a story of his noble background.

Call it lying; call it acting; call it storytelling if you will, but you truly become your thoughts, and this was something he was well aware of.

Columbus reinforced this story to himself enough times that it became his truth. So much so that he leveraged this identity to get himself married to Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, who was a noble woman with family ties to the Portuguese throne.

After some time dancing in the upper circles of Portuguese society, Columbus eventually arranged himself a meeting with the king.

It was here that Columbus had a major reality shift.

For someone with no previous experience in navigation, leadership, and sailing, Columbus delivered King Joao II quite the grandiose pitch.

He asked the king to finance an expedition to find a shorter route to Asia.

Any new land along the way would be claimed by the King, and in return, Columbus demanded an astounding set of terms:

1. He would be officially recognized as Grand Admiral of the Oceanic Sea.

2. He would rule over any new territory he claimed.

3. He would personally get 10% of future profits from any of these new territories.

The king respectfully declined Columbus’ offer for the time being, but noted that it wasn’t 100% off the table down the road.

But this was actually a small success disguised as a loss, and it would prove to be a pivotal moment in his journey.

Although he didn’t get the answer he wanted, the king listened to his pitch and recognized it as a legitimate opportunity.

He did not ask about his previous experiences in navigation, he did not laugh at the outrageous terms, and he didn’t even ask for any well thought out plan (which there was none).

In fact, the king was impressed with the confidence in which Columbus carried himself and the courage behind his demands.

Something he could not have achieved in the first place if he didn’t craft his own identity a few years back.

Several years later, Columbus used his Portuguese connections to establish himself within the Spanish court. After dazzling Queen Isabella enough, she eventually agreed to fund Columbus’ mission.

The only term that wasn’t met was the 10% profit on any future territory discovered under the Spanish crown. Had this gone though, he would’ve became the wealthiest man on the planet.

Columbus’s self assurance gave him the confidence to influence the aristocrats that he strategically surrounded himself with.

His unwavering belief in himself and the expectation of greatness that he adopted at a young age created his reality.

He did not let his family ties determine his fate. He went all in on himself and as a result he is one of the most well known names in history.

Everyday you have a chance to rewrite your story.

You don’t have to craft some grand myth of how you were born into nobility. But you can start treating yourself like you were.

You are not the same person that you were yesterday.

You can start fresh.

Act like the person you want to be.

The way that you carry yourself portrays your self image to the world.

And your self image determines the way the external world responds to you.

Lessons from the Grand Admiral

You determine your value.

You must learn to hold yourself to the highest standards possible.

All the greats understood this. You need to have an overwhelming confidence in yourself to accomplish the life that you desire.

It begins in the mind. If you cannot convince yourself of your worth, then no one else will pay their respects.

This is the importance of understanding the differences between arrogance and self assurance.

One of them is a cover up for insecurity; a mask to compensate for a lack of certainty.

The other is a calm trust in your own character.

Not everyone has this automatic assurance in themselves. But this is a muscle like any other.

The more you flex your confidence in yourself, the more deeply you reinforce your self identity.

But this takes more than just telling yourself how great you are.

You must take action everyday to solidify the person you want to become.

1. Decide who you want to be, then reverse engineer the steps to get there

If you are on your self development journey, a great way to level up is to build a list of mentors, or successful people that you can use to emulate.

People before you have already created models for success in different areas of life.

You can piggyback off of other people's’ accomplishments by studying their lives and taking lessons from their growth.

Use role models. Decide on the type of character you want to be, and then break down the traits that you need to improve on to make this personality shift.

Set long term goals, and then supplement these with shorter term goals and the habits that will be the vehicle to get you there.

Habits are the daily structure that will lead to long term improvement. Everyday that you reinforce a powerful habit, you fortify your self image.

If you decide that you want to be the type of person who takes education very seriously, you must first understand the behavior that leads to this type of avatar.

Let’s use reading for example.

If you have a goal to read more, you don’t go from reading one book a year to one book a week overnight.

You start by building a small habit, such as reading for 15 minutes every morning. Understand that your disciplines are contracts with yourself.

If you read for 15 minutes a day for a whole month, you create brain patterns that shift your view of yourself.

Now instead of being a person that reads one book a year, you are the type of person that reads everyday.

Every time you take a step towards your goal, you are slowly compounding your self assurance.

2. Discipline your mind

Your mind has the ability to be extremely flexible, but most people never get out of their normal brain patterns.

Think of your brain like a computer.

If you input your computer with bad code and mediocre programming, the output will most certainly be negative.

Alternatively, if you’re constantly programming your head with positive information, success stories, and constructive tools, you will process and spit out valuable data to the world.

Understand that your brain is highly malleable. It is a simple formula. Create an environment of success by endlessly consuming positive information.

By default you will harvest the character of someone that is on the path to greatness.

Knowing that you’ve propagated the mind of a champion, you will have no issues developing the confidence of an aristocrat.

Did you know that many successful people talk to themselves? Which seems strange since this has always been portrayed in a negative light.

But self talk is one of the most impactful methods to developing an elite level of self confidence.

Get in the habit of talking to yourself, but remember the key here is positive reinforcement.

A useful tactic is to write down all your positive affirmations and review these every morning.

If your goal is to get in shape, start with a list of affirmations that will reinforce your self image.

For example: I am a healthy person. I enjoy eating nutritious food. I love to exercise. I am the type of person who has very disciplined habits. I love my body. etc.

In doing this, your self image becomes solidified. You remind your brain who you are every single morning, rather than just waking up and jumping into autopilot.

As your self image changes and develops into the person you want to be, you can expand on your affirmations to force yourself to grow.

Another method that will help you develop a strong sense of self belief is visualization practice.

For 10 minutes a day, try to sit, undistracted and think in great detail about your future self.

Think about your goals.

How will you feel when you are progressing towards them? How will you feel once you finally reach your goal? Imagine your future self. Think about how you will look. How confident you will feel once you’ve taken steps in this direction.

The more detail you use here, the more effective.

This is the same strategy that athletes use to perfect their craft.

They think about how they would react in different game-like situations.

They run through every available option and always think about the best case scenario.

They visualize their victories in such great detail, that their brains know exactly what to do once they see this situation in the real world. Visualization can be just as effective as actual practice.

If some of the most successful people in the world use visualization practice, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be using it as well.

When you get better at disciplining your mental habits, you will begin to level up every day.

Your thoughts and habits compound and your neurological patterns begin to physically change who you are.

When this happens, you must recognize that you are not the same person you were several months back. You’ve been reborn.

This is the point where you must begin to set bold demands for yourself.

You have already recreated who you are. There is no going backwards. Set your standards higher than ever. Don’t settle for anything less than what you know you’re capable of.

And if anyone questions you for upgrading your life, then it's time to cut them off.

On your quest to success, you must understand that there will be people who don’t want to see you better yourself.

This might not necessarily be a conscious malicious plot against you. But not everyone wants the same goals as you.

If your goal is to get in shape, but your friends want you to party with them 3 nights a week, then you will need to set the expectation.

You can still be friends, but your goals don’t align. And this is perfectly fine.

But if they try to pressure you into sacrificing your mission for an easy dopamine hit, then you need to separate yourself.

Think about rocket ships.

They could not get into orbit without the help of their boosters.

But once the rocket reaches a certain altitude and the pressure becomes too great, they release the boosters to fall back to Earth.

Not everyone can handle the sacrifices that you can to reach your goals. Recognize when it’s time to detach.

3. Act the part

Reprogramming your mind is an ongoing practice.

You will never earn respect from the outside world if you don’t conquer yourself first.

As you go through this mental shift, you must begin to demand more reverence from your external environment.

There are many outward strategies that you can use to reinforce your level of self esteem.

The first goal is to learn to carry yourself with confidence.

Body language is one of the most effective tools that we use to portray our self image.

Think about the first time you meet someone. Within the first 2-5 seconds, you already have a basic understanding of what type of person this is.

Humans are very good at categorizing.

This is why you can look at someone you’ve never even met, and your gut already tells you what this type of person is like.

Everyone knows the old line “don’t judge a book by its cover.” That’s a great lesson to teach kids, but it couldn’t be further from our human psychology.

Our brains were developed to make split second decisions that could be the difference between life and death.

Imagine a caveman walking through the woods that stumbled across another caveman.

In a fraction of a second, the brain asks and answers hundreds of different questions… Do I know this caveman? Are they friendly? Do I need to run/fight/mate? Are there others around? Is this place safe? Should I return the way I came? Should I press forward?

Without this innate ability, humans would have all perished a long time ago. It's natural to judge people based on their appearance.

We use our instincts first, and then reinforce them with logic.

When you meet someone new, you have about 5 seconds before they make their initial decision on how they perceive you as a person.

The good news is that there are many ways to ensure that you are identified as a powerful and confident person based on how you carry yourself.

It begins with your own self image.

Dr. Jordan Peterson, one of the most renowned clinical psychologists uses the hierarchy of lobsters to portray the importance of body language in his book 12 Rules For Life.

Lobsters are extremely in tune with their hierarchies.

In fact, their level on the societal ladder is quite literally ingrained into their brains, and their defense mechanisms are built into their nervous system.

When a lobster sees a rival lobster that looks threatening, it immediately goes into battle mode.

They start by engaging in a dance that displays their physical attributes to their competitor.

Dancing around, claws raised, the lobsters begin to feel each other out. They excrete a liquid from their eyes that tells the opponent its size, health, and mood. Sometimes this chemical information alone can be enough to defuse the tension.

However, if they engage in a physical altercation, the risk can be catastrophic for the loser. Even if they live.

For example, if a once dominant lobster is defeated by a lobster that was lower on the totem pole, it’s brain essentially dissolves to form a new identity more appropriate to its new level in the hierarchy.

Following the battle, the winning lobster’s brain chemistry shifts to increase the level of serotonin, and lessen the level of octopamine, and vice versa.

As you can imagine, the effects of these neurological triggers are visually noticeable. Serotonin is known to encourage postural flexion.

Meaning winning lobsters stretch out their limbs making them appear bigger and more dangerous.

On the other hand, the loser shrivels up, its tail muscles become more reflexive and is quick to escape at the first signs of aggression.

The winners go on to enjoy the best real estate in the territory and the majority of mating rights.

There’s an important lesson to be learned from these ancient creatures.

Body language is a key contributor to how the external world receives you. Regardless of how you fell, always keep your posture in mind.

Walk tall with your chest up and your shoulders back. This simple habit will bring more good than you can imagine.

Even after a loss to a rival competitor, exercise powerful body language and positive self talk. Don’t kick yourself for falling short.

The best lessons come from failures.

And the only real failure is to stop trying.

4. Be mindful of the company you keep

If you truly want to upgrade your life, you must be extremely cautious of the people you surround yourself with.

Find people who are striving to accomplish similar goals.

Hold each other accountable, and feed off of the energy and passion that you both bring to the table.

We live in a time where our relationships are not just restricted to the people within a 60 mile radius of us.

We can pick up our phones and instantly talk to someone on the other side of the world.

Don’t settle for mediocrity just because that’s the norm.

The resources are there.

Use this to connect with hungry people like yourself.

Set the tone

Don’t wait for validation.

You are the only person that can determine your worth.

Confidence is one of the best attributes you can propagate.

And you don’t have to be born with glowing poise to develop this aura.

Begin implementing the outward and inward tactics mentioned in this article and you will instantly notice a difference in way the world perceives you.

If you ask for anything less than the price you assign to yourself, you will get exactly that.

The world is yours to conquer, but just like the lobsters, it all begins with your brain chemistry. Recognize that you have the ability to influence this.

Develop an ambience of aristocratic confidence and watch how the world opens up at your fingertips.