How Confidence Works

This neuroscience-backed guide reveals how confidence fundamentally rewires your brain for better performance, acting as both a cognitive enhancer and emotional stabilizer. Robertson presents confidence not as an innate trait but as a learnable skill—a set of behaviors that initially feel artificial but become authentic through consistent practice. The book explores confidence's contagious nature while examining its darker aspects, including gender differences in overconfidence expression and the catastrophic consequences when self-assurance becomes delusion. Grounded in psychological research, it demonstrates how confidence serves as anxiety's most powerful antidote while functioning as a natural mood elevator.

What sets this work apart is its practical approach to building genuine self-assurance without tipping into dangerous overconfidence. Robertson provides actionable strategies for developing sustainable confidence habits while maintaining crucial self-awareness about when confidence becomes counterproductive. Readers navigating high-pressure environments—from students facing exams to professionals tackling career challenges—will find particularly valuable insights about leveraging confidence for peak performance. The book's greatest strength lies in transforming an abstract concept into a tangible tool for personal and professional growth, offering a science-based roadmap to building the kind of confidence that elevates without blinding.