How to build your confidence -- and spark it in others | Brittany Packnett Cunningham | TED

Key Wellness / Self-Care / Productivity Strategies (Centered on Building Confidence)

• Reframe confidence as a “must-have” (not a nice-to-have)

  • Treat confidence as the spark that enables action—turning inspiration into getting started and staying with tasks until they’re completed.
  • View confidence as resilience: it helps you keep going after failure.

• Use confidence to break stuckness

  • Confidence helps prevent the paralysis of “can’ts,” “won’ts,” and “impossibles.”
  • When you’re stuck, you can’t even start—confidence is presented as the engine that moves you from hesitation into performance.

• Calibrate your goals based on confidence level

  • If you lack confidence: readjust the goal (it may be misaligned or unrealistic for where you are now).
  • If you have too much confidence: ground yourself in something real (ensure you’re rooted, not delusional or unsupported).

• Design environments that build confidence through practice

  • In teaching, she emphasizes creating a classroom culture where students can develop confidence as a “muscle.”
  • Academic skill isn’t enough without confidence to apply those skills to real-world change.

• Respond with “championing,” not control

  • A correction can occur while still supporting someone’s identity and confidence.
  • She illustrates the harm of control: snapping at a distracted student extinguished joy and damaged morale for the rest of the day.

• Individualize support using negotiation and autonomy

  • For one student (Jamal), she negotiated: if he could do focused work, he could choose where to work (rug, behind the desk, locker).
  • This approach shifts compliance into empowerment and helps confidence show up.

• Create moments that let people demonstrate their confidence publicly

  • Jamal’s confidence surged when given a research-and-speech assignment where he could succeed and be seen.
  • The takeaway: build opportunities where people can show their competence and be validated.

• Build confidence with a 3-part method: Permission + Community + Curiosity

  • Permission: confidence exists when someone (or an environment) allows you to show up as capable.
  • Community: having people who restore hope and certainty when you doubt yourself.
  • Curiosity: approach mistakes as learning instead of self-attack; ask “What was your intention?” to recover and iterate.

Presenters / Sources

• Presenter: Brittany Packnett Cunningham
• Referenced historical figures / sources:
  • Septima Clark
  • I Dream A World (book)
  • Rev. Packnett (her father, referenced)
  • Purity (Team Lioness, Kenya)
  • Jamal and Regina (students; names changed)
  • John McCain, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton (mentioned for the classroom election assignment)