The biggest piece of advice given in the PUA/self-improvement community to men is “be confident.” But what does it mean to be confident? It is a much more difficult question than it looks. I have wrestled with this question for years, and here is my stab at it.

Confidence is the KNOWLEDGE and the EMOTION that nobody is better than you. That’s it. The knowledge is the intellectual component – you just have to know that nobody is better than you. But the intellectual component is not enough because human beings are emotional creatures and our biology is constantly releasing hormones and chemicals to make us feel inferior. So not only do we have to KNOW that nobody is better than us, we also have to FEEL like nobody is better than us. The feeling takes time and it only comes with practice. It is like weightlifting; at first you will go out and be “confident” for like 10 minutes and then something will come and disrupt it (a snarky comment, a girl you think is too hot for you, etc…); then you go out again and you can hold it for an hour; and then eventually you can go toe to toe with any woman or douchebag dude trying to belittle you – and win.

The intellectual component of confidence is useless without the emotional component because no matter how much you “know” that you are confident, your body and emotions will betray you. Your body language, your demeanor, your choice of words, etc… It will eventually come out that you don’t feel confident. Similarly, the emotional component of confidence is meaningless without the intellectual component because there will always be some situation that you have never experienced before and your emotions are not ready for – you need the intellectual component to keep you on track.

Because a huge part of confidence is an emotion, it cannot be taught. It can only be practiced. Can you describe happiness to somebody who has never been happy? Can you describe love to somebody who has never felt love? No, well you can’t describe confidence to somebody who has never had it – they just have to work at it. Most confident people can’t explain what they are doing or why they are how they are because it is mostly subconscious.

Low self-esteem chumps are often told they need to improve themselves – go to the gym, pick up a hobby, basically improve their life so they can become more confident. That’s good advice, but its not enough. You see, improving your life improves your ACTUAL confidence but to impress women (and a lot of men) you have to have FAKE confidence too. Fake confidence is the knowledge/emotion that you will conquer any situation, no matter what it is. There are tons of people that are extremely confident in one part of their lives but fall apart in other parts of their lives. How many nerds do you know that are absolutely brilliant at math or know the entire Batman chronology but absolutely fall apart when talking to girls.

To succeed with women, you have to have an unbreakable, FAKE confidence. If you walk into a party full of NBA basketball players you have to feel like you are the tallest person there. If somebody has a heart attack you have to feel like you can rescue them. If Jay Z walked in you have to feel like you can walk up to him and have a conversation. Yes, I know its silly and delusional, but this is what separates “kind of” confident men from real confident men. You just have to make sure that you don’t do anything stupid like try to fight a guy that can kick your ass. Part of the reason girls are attracted to douchebags is because they have tons of fake confidence that can’t be backed up by anything, and occasionally girls get tricked into thinking its real.

Being insecure and self-critical is GOOD. It’s a good trait. Some of the most awesome dudes I know (in terms of accomplishments, work, personality, etc…) are the worst around girls because they can’t project that delusional fake confidence that women are attracted to. The reason for this delusional self confidence is that you need to feel like nobody is better than you – EVER, in any situation.