Who is the Picture of Confidence? - episode 184
Who is someone we would all know that is the picture of confidence? Our guest this week, Shaun Conde, answered Brad Pitt. His reasons? For being effortlessly confident but not braggadocious, for being down to earth, comfortable with himself, and for being someone who doesn’t need to prove anything, to anyone. Of course we don’t actually know Mr. Pitt yet he does exude these qualities.
And is there a difference between being confident and feeling confident? There are opposing thoughts that say one comes first, and the other follows. For our purposes Shaun felt if you summoned up courage, you could rise to the occasion and do a hard thing scared. Why not? You don’t know how it will go. No one does. Most people want you to succeed. The ones that don’t don’t matter in the big picture of your life anyway.
Shaun has been on the podcast before in A Thanksgiving Treat, A Christmas Treat, Endurance has Taught Me, The Pinch Hitter Man, Treat Every Day Like Christmas, Celebrating UY’s 100th, The Celebration Continues with Amanda and Priscilla, Time to Pivot, A Chronic Health Challenge, Trivia and Gratitude, and Christmas Movies with Shaun.
As you get older you get more comfortable with yourself.
— Shaun Conde
The Feeling is Real
Thoughts from Who is the Picture of Confidence?
So, Brad Pitt at Arby’s? When Shaun was talking about famous people, that they are “just people in a place,” he mentioned Brad Pitt, that if he ran into him at say Arby’s…and that is hysterical. First because really, Brad Pitt at Arby’s? Next, because fast food? Lastly, Shaun doesn’t eat fast food and no offense to Arby’s, but that would be one of the last places he would be, much less a place we would imagine Brad Pitt might dine. It’s funny how our mind comes up with things on the spur of the moment.
Speaking of famous people, why do we feel like we know them when we watch their shows, and go to their movies? I thought I would do a bit of research and see what answers may be out there to quench my curiosity. There is one theory that calls this familiarity, a parasocial relationship. It’s when you form a one-sided psychological attachment even though you don’t know the person. Celebrities can feel like an extension of ourselves so that when something good happens to them, we feel good, and when something bad happens we feel bad. People out there are actually studying this.
It was first identified in 1956 by social scientists, Horton and Wohl, and it continues to be studied today by people like Shira Gabriel. Gabriel has a great quote about it, “When we form a parasocial bond with someone, we feel like we really know them,” Gabriel said. “We know logically that we don’t, but our primitive brain doesn’t realize that so the feeling is real.”
To illustrate the connection we feel, I remember when Marvin Gaye died. He was shot twice by his father and was pronounced DOA at the hospital. Apparently he had tried to intervene between his parents who were fighting. Well, I remember I took the news very hard. I had recently seen him in concert and was deeply moved by his performance. Maybe that fact added to what I was feeling. I remember crying, and the grief stayed with me for longer than I would have imagined. It was a senseless death yes, yet I did not know the man so why did I feel like I had? It’s just like Gabriel said, the feeling is real. The empath in me says, I don’t think I’d have it any other way.
You know we've got to find a way, To bring some lovin' here today - yeah…
I want to experience my emotions; some are bliss, some are pain. How can I feel them fully if there aren’t both kinds?
— RCN
