You Call That Advice?

Just be confident.

Intuition vs abstraction. He never had to do his homework, or worse he did and then forgot. He's either A: skilled at the discipline and a bad teacher, or B: So ignorant w/respect to the discipline that he's actually an obliviously poor actor. Confidence comes with skill, but association gets it all back-fronted in people's heads.

It's possibly good advice for a con man, but even then the bulk his confidence comes from understanding how to find and exploit marks.

Solution: Use repetition, exposure, and knowledge to increase capability, which will be followed by confidence.


Related: Just be yourself
Same problem. "Yourself" is constantly changing to adapt socially. "Yourself" as a teenager did not meet the standards that you and everyone else expect, that's why we change/mature with age. Regardless of age, "yourself" could be a serial butt-slapper. Don't be that.

When someone says to just be yourself that means his ego has retro-established that he was always as functional as he is now. It's great for him, but useless for you.

Solution: focus more on the people around you than yourself. Be receptive, but maintain boundaries and assertiveness where appropriate.


Bonus: while the confidence line is oft applied to most subjects, it's definitely best to stop listening if someone tells you to just be yourself when behind the wheel.