Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident

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And nobody needs to know you are doing these things. They can be done anytime, even in the middle of a job interview. They can even help you recover a meeting that seems “lost”. At any moment, you can take a deep breath, reset and give yourself a new start. Take your focus off ‘me, me, me’ And in case you missed the picture of Margaret Atwood giving her blessing to the first manuscript copy of Happy High Status, here it is. She had a tip about using written notes or prompt cards. If you’re going to have anything written – or printed – on a piece of paper in front of you, then only use the top third of the paper. If you have to speak in front of others, you could choose, for example, to be clear, concise and succinct. If you have to approach someone who intimidates you, you could be decisive, steadfast or (not for the faint of heart) optimistic. Ask if this is ‘internal’ or ‘external’ for you A speaker who takes their time can appear more confident that one who speaks at a mile a minute.’ Photograph: Getty Images 1. Listen more, talk less and rethink your attitude towards silence

The “externals” are what others see: how you present to the world, how you stand or sit, how you enter a room, what you’re wearing.

She tells Viv how important it was for her to share insecurities with a mentor about facing confident male colleagues from the established western markets. Everyone wants to feel at home and at ease with themselves. We all want to be able to face any situation, both in life and at work, without feeling daunted, intimidated or stressed. But no-one wants to be labelled over-confident, arrogant or smarmy, or to get caught up in their own hype. So how can you feel authentically, properly confident - without the cringe, and without pretending to be something you're not?

When I interviewed Michelle Obama’s speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz about confidence in public speaking, she had some advice which made my jaw drop because it was so obvious – and yet so brilliant. This course has now passed, but you can be the first to know about the next one - and other workshops like this - by signing up to our newsletter here. Don’t we all wish there were more of those around? We can all start by being one ourselves. May Oprah bless all our efforts. Growing up in Communist Romania she says she learnt about gender and social equality, while ideas of self-expression or personal ambition weren’t present. Happy high status is a new way of thinking about confidence and how you relate to yourself. It's how actors and comedians enhance their presence on stage and screen. And in this inspirational guide, Viv Groskop explains how we can access it at any time to lend strength and energy to our interactions, big and small.It can help to ask whether there is another quality – or combination of qualities – you could bring to this situation that are more specific and easily applied. So if you’re going to a party, instead of trying to be confident, you could decide to be helpful to the host, open-minded or companionable. This feeling is usually only fleeting, but in her signature style, Viv Groskop shows there is a way of commanding it on demand. She combines the latest analysis and research, observations from psychology and neuroscience, and broad examples from the worlds of film, comedy and politics, to help anybody harness this everyday superpower to give them strength and energy, whatever they’re faced with.” Can you be both insecure and confident at the same time? In this first of a series of Happy High Status takeover episodes, Viv talks to award-winning comedian Tom Allen, star of The Apprentice: You’re Fired and Bake-Off: Extra Slice, about his life on and off stage and what he has learned about managing nerves, coping with the reactions of audiences and critics and, most of all, living with self-criticism. Tom tells Viv that it’s a mistake to assume that comedians perform from a place of self-assurance: instead he has learned that his version of happy high status comes from being “confidently insecure." (Happy high status is a term from acting and comedy that is a sort of shorthand for “your best self.”) He shares tips on dressing for confidence (like Fred Astaire, please), how to avoid being apologetic around people when you really should be taking charge and how to feel entitled to speak. How do you “make space for yourself” in a hostile environment? How do you recover your confidence when it’s at a low ebb? In drama and comedy, performers split their attention into two parts: “internals” and “externals”. Your “internals” are about how you’re feeling inside: your emotions, your intention, your attitude. Only you really know the truth about your internals. Lucy Oates, senior commissioning editor, bought world English language rights to Happy High Status: How to Be Effortlessly Confident at auction from Cathryn Summerhayes at Curtis Brown. It will be published by Torva in June 2023.

It sounds counterintuitive but the biggest pitfall with confidence is thinking that it’s about presenting the best version of yourself and letting everyone see how amazing you are. Transworld has acquired an “authoritative and compassionate” book on confidence by award-winning stand-up comedian, broadcaster and coach Viv Groskop.If you can make people laugh at work then you are doing OK. Photograph: Getty Images 5. Make people (and yourself) laugh Angela learnt that her voice mattered, her perspective mattered and finding strength in her own self while enabling others have proved to be key to her success.