Yesterday I sat with Sina King, #22 most influential burlesque dancer in the world.
We landed on the topic of developing confidence – it’s certainly critical in her work and it’s also really powerful for anyone trying to create change in their work or business.
Whether someone is walking onto a stage to dance, or to pitch an idea, as humans we are incredibly good at picking up their vibe within the first few milliseconds.
As an audience, this of course can change our perception and therefore the course of the whole thing.
So, Sina teaches me that there can be a process to developing the confidence. As part of this she runs through a series of physical “checkpoints” that we can notice – our breath, shoulder position, our posture… noticing position or tensions.
Sina explained that as we learn to relax each of these areas, we also start to feel more confident. And as we feel more confident, we also notice that others sense that we are confident – and this leads to further confidence in that it’s working, and here we find a positive ratchet.
Confidence, like many things then, turns out to be something that comes through practice and action, rather than before the action takes place.
