The School of Life Shop

On Confidence

On Confidence - Main image
On Confidence - View 2On Confidence - View 3On Confidence - View 4On Confidence - View 5On Confidence - View 6
$8.24 $10.99 In stock

Category: Book

Meditations on the skill of self-belief

The difference between success and failure often hangs on a concept that our standard education system never touches: confidence. This book walks us around the key issues that stop us from making more of our potential.

We hear about the impostor syndrome, the wisdom of imagining the great in their bathrooms, and what Nietzsche and Montaigne (among others) have to tell us about resilience and courage.

We often stay stuck with the level of confidence we have because we regard being confident as a matter of good luck. In fact, the opposite is true: confidence is a skill based on ideas about our place in the world, and its secrets can be learnt.

Chapters include:

  • Idiocy and Confidence
  • Impostor Syndrome
  • Trust in the System
  • History is Now
  • Experience
  • Death
  • Self-Sabotage
  • Confidence in Confidence

Hardback book | 95 pages | 187mm x 115mm

Also available in the digital formats below - click to explore

Audiobook Ebook

Customer Reviews (5.0 / 5 · 5 reviews)

Ryan A. ★★★★★

I picked this up expecting another dry self-help slog, but it reads more like a series of short meditations you can dip into on a commute. The section on how confidence is a skill you build rather than a trait you're born with genuinely shifted how I think about approaching new projects.

Lucy W. ★★★★★

The way it circles back to the same idea from different angles really made it click for me, like revisiting a thought until it finally settles in your bones. I found myself nodding along on nearly every page, and it’s the kind of read that leaves you quietly different by the end.

Abigail ★★★★★

Finished it in two sittings and kept pausing to reread paragraphs out loud, especially the part about how education ignores self-belief entirely. The ideas on confidence as a skill you practice rather than a trait you're born with really hit home for me.

Related Products