John Eliot

Stick with your own perception of yourself—living in your own world—and letting your reality, not the reality presented by other people or particular situations, control your performance.

Anyone who strays too far from the majority view or the conventional wisdom is bound to be labeled “arrogant,” “a maverick,” “a Wildman,” “weird,” or even “crazy.”

If you really want to break from the pack, you have to risk being perceived to be as eccentric as these people. You have to think exception-ally—a LOT! 

To be a top performer you have to be passionately committed to what you’re doing and insanely confident about your ability to pull it off.

We tend to view confidence as a product of accomplishment rather than part of the process that leads there. But supremely confident people were confident long before they achieved anything.

Confidence is not a guarantee of success, but a pattern of thinking that will improve your likelihood of success, a tenacious search for ways to make things work.

Confidence is consistency of thinking about what is possible and how to make it possible.

Superstars think like superstars long before the fans or the press anoint them.

Confidence is a resolute state of mind by which you believe nothing is impossible.

Elevated levels of confidence are omnipresent among history’s greatest overachievers. Benjamin Franklin, one of the most famous men in the world even before he signed the Declaration of Independence once lamented about humility, “I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue.”

Genuine confidence is a way of thinking about yourself and your abilities. Confidence is your perception of your own potential; it’s a kind of long-term thinking that powers you through the obstacles and tough times, helping you solve problems and putting you in the way of success. Your confidence is quite a separate matter from your social skills.