The confidence Player
Many years ago, when I was working as an HR Manager, my annual appraisal came around. As we discussed my performance, my manager – our Finance Director – described me as a “confidence player.” We’re both big football fans, so sporting analogies were never far away.
At the time, I nodded politely and moved on. It wasn’t until years later that I realised just how accurate his description had been.
In sport, a confidence player is someone whose performance depends heavily on their emotional state. When they’re feeling good, they’re exceptional. Everything seems effortless. Decisions come naturally, skills flow, and they perform at the very top of their game.
But one mistake, one setback, or one knock to their confidence can send them into a downward spiral. Suddenly, things that normally feel easy become difficult. Doubt creeps in, hesitation appears, and performance suffers.
Looking back, that was me.
When I felt confident, I was capable of achieving almost anything I set my mind to. But when my confidence dipped, it affected everything. I questioned myself. I overthought situations. I became cautious. I held back.
That realisation sparked what has become a keen interest in confidence ever since.
I started paying attention to the people around me who appeared genuinely confident. They seemed to move through life differently. They weren’t necessarily the most intelligent or talented people in the room, but they were willing to contribute, take opportunities, recover from setbacks and trust themselves.
I wanted to understand what made the difference.
In my late twenties, I decided to invest in coaching.
There was one particular issue that had been holding me back for years: I had a crippling fear of speaking in front of groups. The symptoms were overwhelming. I would sweat. My face would turn bright red. My mind would go completely blank.
If I had to speak, I would stumble over my words, lose my train of thought or simply avoid contributing altogether.
The problem was that my career was beginning to demand exactly those skills.
I wanted to progress, but progressing meant speaking in meetings, answering difficult questions, presenting to large audiences and delivering training sessions.
At the time, those things felt completely impossible.
Then something remarkable happened.
Working with a coach gradually changed the way I thought about myself and what I was capable of.
Without taking you through every conversation and exercise, the transformation was extraordinary. Only a few weeks after struggling to speak in front of half a dozen people, I stood in front of around sixty students at my local university and delivered a lecture.
If someone had told me a few months earlier that I would do that, I simply wouldn’t have believed them.
Today, I still experience nerves before speaking publicly. The difference is that those nerves no longer control me.
Over the years I’ve developed practical strategies to manage them. Through my coaching and hypnotherapy training I’ve also learned powerful approaches—including techniques from neurolinguistic programming (NLP)—that help people build confidence in lasting ways rather than simply “faking it.”
One of the biggest myths about confidence is that some people naturally have it and others don’t. In my experience, that’s rarely true. Confidence isn’t a personality trait. It’s a skill.
And like any skill, it can be developed.
When people become genuinely more confident, the changes reach far beyond the original problem they came to solve.
They often become calmer. They overthink less. They recover from setbacks more quickly. They communicate more clearly. They set healthier boundaries. They become more willing to pursue opportunities they would previously have avoided. They begin trusting themselves again.
Professionally, they often step forward into leadership, ask for promotions, perform better in interviews and become more comfortable influencing others.
Personally, relationships improve because they’re no longer driven by fear of rejection or a need to please everyone around them.
The ripple effect can be enormous.
Helping people build confidence is one of my favourite parts of coaching. Not because I give people confidence. I don’t. They already have everything they need. My role is simply to help uncover it.
One of the most rewarding moments is seeing the change after just a few sessions. People often walk differently. They speak differently. They make eye contact more naturally. Their posture changes. Their energy changes.
It’s difficult to describe until you witness it, but it’s unmistakable.
The confidence was always there. Sometimes it simply became buried beneath years of self-doubt, negative experiences or limiting beliefs.
Helping people rediscover that confidence—and watching the positive impact it has on every area of their lives—is one of the reasons I love what I do.
Because once people begin believing in themselves again, everything else starts to become possible.
