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Why Confidence Often Beats Competence — And What It Means for the Rest of Us
Why do some people find it so hard to talk about themselves and others far too easy?
I once worked with a man whose only talent was to make the act of lifting a paperclip appear as monumental as winning World’s Strongest Man. Every small action he took in the office was written up on the NHS intranet as if he’d singlehandedly saved us all from imminent catastrophe.
However, what would happen if he behaved this way at home? Did his partner burst into spontaneous rounds of applause every time he took the bins out or cleared the cat litter tray? The gap between the self and self-image can be astounding in some cases.
If you want to know who these people are, they’re generally the people who make speeches that are 20 minutes too long at weddings, are incredibly confident in their crypto investments and loudly reclassify their opinions as facts.
It gets waring very quickly when you’re exposed to someone like this, but it does make you look more carefully at the people around you. Why are some people are feted as geniuses whereas others who do the exact same jobs are treated like secretaries?
It seems that some people have too much confidence in their abilities and others too little. One of the most telling studies in…
