Most people who seem confident are performing it to some degree. The performance becomes more practiced, more convincing. Eventually it's indistinguishable from the real thing — except internally, where the gap between the performed confidence and the actual feeling is still very much present.

Real confidence — the kind that doesn't require performance — is rarer than the quantity of confident-seeming people suggests. The people who seem most sure of themselves are often the most practiced at concealing the doubt.

Anonymous thoughts about confidence posted here are from people who dropped the performance for a moment and said what was underneath it. This is what that sounds like.