What I learned from Thomas Shelby
Thomas Michael Shelby is a fictional character born in 1890 in Birmingham, England, and the main protagonist in the British period crime drama Peaky Blinders. played by Cillian Murphy.
Thomas Shelby is one of those badass characters that we all wish to be. Even if Peaky Blinders is a scripted show and not much related to practical modern life, the psychology used in forming Thomas is practical and can be used in modern life. The majority of us need to learn Mr. Shelby’s genuine, deep confidence. In all parts of the series, I have closely observed Thomas Shelby, and I came up with a total of 8 habits that make him look so powerful and dominant.
Thomas Shelby taught me eight habits for looking dominant and confident.
Habit 1: Slow and relaxed movements
If you closely observe Thomas Shelby’s movements, you will notice that they are slow and relaxed until and unless he is physically fighting someone. Moving slowly means you are not in a hurry, or in other words, you are not scared of anyone. Moreover, moving slowly portrays a deep sense of confidence; remember not to fake it but to establish a genuine, deep sense of confidence.
Slow and relaxed movements don’t mean that you have to look lazy, but you have to put your energy down; you don’t need it to be up or too high. Have you ever encountered people who are too energetic? They often look too childish, and they take many wrong decisions because, because of their high energy, they don’t have the right patience to make a decision.
Habit 2: Hold eye contact during intense moments.
When there is a movement of conflict, we try to eliminate our eye contact, but on the other hand, Selby holds eye contact throughout the movement of conflict. Holding eye contact defines the fearlessness and deep confidence that are inside you, where you are genuinely confident about your decision and your power. Or, in other words, you can say that Mr. Shelby knows that he is not in actual danger. Either he has a backup plan in his head, he knows the fears or desires of the other person, and he can use fear or desire to manipulate the person, or he uses his backup plan.
In most cases, deep inside Thomas, he knows that he is not in danger or that the person in front of him is not capable of harming him. If the person even has the ability to harm him in any possible way, he will think twice before doing it because of his confidence. Holding eye contact is difficult, and if you want to break eye contact (it is better that you don’t), try to break it by just moving your eye towards the side rather than down or up. If you break it to any side (left or right), this indicates confidence.
Habit 3: Being non-reactive during victim movements
Try to remember the last time when you entered into a victim movement when you knew that you were not going to get trapped in it no matter what you did. What did you do? How did you react?
Remember the time you forgot about a college or school assignment, realized you only had one hour to complete it, and knew you couldn’t do it in that time? How did you deal with that? How did you react?
When Thomas enters victim mode, he becomes non-reactive; in other words, he doesn’t give a fuck about the situation and is just behaving normally (not acting). Being non-reactive in a situation of panic portrays profound self-confidence. There is no benefit to acting non-reactive; if you don’t have that deep self-confidence, then build it; it will take time, but it is worth it. If you are non-reactive during victim moments, you get to think about the solution rather than the problem, and you will come up with a much better solution to your problem. Usually, when strong people get into a big problem, they stop doing other things and take a short break just to think and learn about potential solutions.
Simply responding to the situation, you can speak with your teacher or professor and ask for more time in a diplomatic manner.
Habit 4: Be as big as your audience.
When you see Thomas, you will definitely notice his confidence, tone, word pace, and body language changing as his audience increases or decreases. If his audience is large, he will use his hands to cover more space and his voice tone will be more dominant. His voice pace is somewhat similar but with fewer pauses between sentences.
When he is speaking to one or a few people, his voice becomes deeper, the pauses between sentences lengthen, and his body language (with his cigar) becomes more closed. Being as big as your audience will allow you to look more confident when your audience is larger, but if you are talking to a smaller group, it will not be a huge change. If you look big while talking to a group of people, you will notice that people will feel that you are more dominant and trustworthy.
Habit 5: Uses words with conviction.
You will see the conviction in his word choice; just for reference, if he talks about his plans, he will never use “I hope to” or “I want to”; he will always use “I will.” His word choices show the amount of confidence and conviction he has in his decision and his actions. The amount of confidence he holds in his decisions makes people trust him, and people accept him as a leader.
Here I would like to insert a check: he doesn’t tell his future plans to everyone; he is very selective with people; he doesn’t trust every person around him, and he tells his future plans to very selective people.
People are very selective when it comes to their rulers. No one likes it if anyone rules them, but when you make everyone believe in you using your conviction, then people will accept you as a ruler. Remember, you have to show people that you are different but that you are among them; then they will trust you as a ruler. If you are normal and average, people will not like you, and if you are too outstanding, people will see you as out of their reach and understanding, so you have to use your conviction in a way that people trust and believe in you.
Habit 6: Show conviction in tone.
He also uses his tone to show people his conviction. For example, he ends sentences in a downward inflection, representing that he is sure about himself and his plans. Many people do the opposite; they end their sentences with an upward inflection, making the sentence sound like a question, implying that they are unaware of themselves or their plans.
This greatly assists him in projecting confidence to others, and with his deep and genuine confidence, others begin to believe in him and his plans.
Habit 7: Slow speaking pace and pauses
Whenever he speaks, he takes constant pauses at a slow pace. Speaking at a slow pace shows confidence and a relaxed mindset, which denotes that no one controls you; you are your boss.
Now Mr Shelby doesn’t have to raise his voice; he is speaking in the same tone and pace, and no one dares to speak in between because he knows what the person desperately fears and can prevent it, or what the person desperately wants and can provide it. In a nutshell, his quiet words carry massive weight. Now, what if someone speaks in between your sentences? Then you have to keep going with your sentence without a pause. And Thomas will pause when he knows that the words or lines he is going to say are the ones you want to hear the most.
Habit 8: Use carrot-stick motivation
Surely you can’t use carrot-stick motivation like Peaky Blinders (you don’t need to kidnap kids). But there are many ways to do that.
For example, you want a pay raise in your appraisal, so you go to your boss and say, “Hey boss, I have been working here for a long time, and I would like a raise.”
There is a lot of I in the sentence, which means the sentence is more focused on you than the firm.
You should say, “Hey boss, I think I can generate more value for the organization; what would you need to see from me in the following months?” Make a list with your boss and work on it while applying for more jobs, and then show them all the value you have generated for their company (the carrot), and if they back off, tell them you have your needs and show them the offers you received from other companies, and tell them you want to work with them but you are unable to do what you want, so you need a pay raise (the stick).
