How to Find the Right Confidence Course
Before you invest in a confidence course, ask these four questions. Learn how to identify programs that teach empathetic presence and address your nervous system—and avoid courses that promise quick fixes through performed confidence.
You've decided to work on your confidence. You're tired of second-guessing yourself in meetings. Tired of avoiding opportunities because you're not sure you can handle them. Tired of watching people with half your expertise get ahead because they project confidence better.
So you're looking at confidence courses. And there are a lot of options—online programs, in-person workshops, group coaching, private training.
How do you know which confidence course will actually help?
Here are four questions to ask before you invest your time and money.
Question 1: Does This Course Teach Empathetic Presence or Executive Presence?
This is the most important distinction.
Executive presence training teaches you to perform dominance, to be commanding and authoritative. To project confidence through body language, voice modulation, and strategic communication tactics.
Empathetic presence training teaches you to access the confidence you already have—to be present, grounded, and influential without performing.
Most empathetic leaders need empathetic presence, not executive presence. Make sure the confidence course you choose understands this difference.
What Executive Presence Looks Like
Executive presence courses typically teach you to:
Speak with a lower, more commanding voice
Take up more physical space
Project certainty even when you're uncertain
Show less emotion
Use fewer qualifiers and hedges
Perform confidence you don't feel
For some people, this works. But if you're an empathetic leader—someone who leads through connection, thoughtful analysis, and genuine engagement—executive presence training often makes everything worse.
What Empathetic Presence Looks Like
Empathetic presence courses teach you to:
Get out of your head (where anxiety lives) and into your body (where confidence lives)
Use your empathy as intelligence, not treat it like a liability
Be clear without performing certainty
Read rooms accurately without absorbing everyone's anxiety
Influence without losing yourself
Lead from your natural strengths instead of adopting someone else's style
You're confident when you're comfortable. The challenge isn't building confidence from scratch—it's accessing the confidence you already have when status anxiety shows up.
How to Tell the Difference
Look at the course language. Does it emphasize:
How you come across vs. where your attention is
Projection vs. presence
Performance vs. authenticity
Executive authority vs. empathetic leadership
If the course focuses heavily on "commanding the room" and "projecting authority," that's executive presence training.
If it focuses on "staying grounded," "regulating your nervous system," and "leveraging your empathy," that's empathetic presence training.
Question 2: Does This Course Address Your Nervous System?
Confidence lives in your body. When your heart is racing, your breath is shallow, and your mind goes blank, positive thinking doesn't help.
Your confidence disappears because your nervous system goes into a stress response. Your body perceives a threat—being judged by authority figures, being visible in high-stakes situations—and reacts accordingly.
What to Look For
The right confidence course should give you tools for nervous system regulation. Not to eliminate anxiety, but to stay present with it.
Look for courses that teach:
Grounding practices to help you anchor your attention in the present moment
Breathwork that helps you stay present when anxiety spikes
Physical anchoring techniques you can use anywhere
Ways to get out of your head and into your body in real-time
These tools help you be functional even when your nervous system is activated. That's what builds real confidence—not performing calm, but being present with discomfort.
Red Flags
If the course is all cognitive—affirmations, mindset shifts, reframing—without addressing your body, it won't work when you need it most.
If they don't mention:
Nervous system regulation
Breathwork or grounding practices
Physical sensations of anxiety
Body-based tools
...then they can't help with the physiological reality of low confidence.
Question 3: Does This Course Give You Frameworks or Just Motivation?
Motivation fades. You might leave a confidence workshop feeling inspired and empowered. But two weeks later, when you're in an actual high-stakes meeting, that feeling is gone and you're back to your old patterns.
Frameworks vs. Motivation
Motivation-based confidence courses create a temporary boost. You feel good in the moment, but you don't have practical tools to use when challenges arise.
Framework-based confidence courses give you repeatable structures you can access in different situations. Not scripts—those fall apart when something unexpected happens. But flexible frameworks you can use again and again.
Questions to Ask
What specific, practical tools will I walk away with?
How will I practice using these tools?
What will I be able to do differently after this course?
If they talk a lot about mindset and empowerment but can't articulate concrete frameworks, it's probably more motivational than practical.
Question 4: Will You Get to Practice in Supported Environments?
You can't build confidence without actually doing the things that make you anxious. Reading about confidence or hearing others talk about it doesn't create lasting change.
Confidence is a muscle. You build it through repeated practice in situations where the stakes are manageable enough that you can survive imperfection.
What Practice Should Include
The right confidence course should include opportunities to:
Speak in front of a supportive group
Get real-time feedback on your communication
Try things imperfectly and recover
Experience nervousness in a setting where failure isn't catastrophic
Practice the frameworks in real-time, not just learn about them
This is especially important if your confidence challenges show up in social or performance situations. You need exposure—practicing the thing that makes you anxious, in gradually increasing doses, with support.
Different Formats Work for Different People
Self-paced courses with practice prompts can work if you're disciplined about actually doing the exercises. But many people skip the practice and just consume the content.
Live group programs give you structure and accountability. You have to show up and practice. The shared experience also helps you realize you're not alone.
Private coaching offers intensive, personalized practice. Everything is tailored to your specific challenges.
Hybrid models combine self-paced learning with live practice sessions. This can be especially effective—you learn on your own time, then practice with feedback.
Questions to Ask
Will I get to practice the skills, or is this mostly informational?
What does practice look like in this course?
Will I get feedback on my practice?
How does the course create a safe environment for imperfect practice?
If the course is all lectures and self-study with no live practice component, it's missing a crucial piece.
Other Factors to Consider
Beyond these four essential questions, consider:
Course length and format: Do you need an intensive program or something you can integrate over time? Do you learn better with self-paced material or structured sessions?
Instructor experience: Do they work with people at your level, in your industry, facing your specific challenges? Generic life coaching is different from confidence coaching for empathetic leaders.
Investment: What would it be worth to stop shrinking in high-stakes situations? What opportunities are you missing because confidence challenges hold you back?
Results: Can they show evidence of effectiveness? Look for specific outcomes in testimonials, not just vague praise. For example: "94.3% of participants report improved confidence" is more meaningful than "life-changing experience."
Red Flags to Watch For
Some confidence courses promise things that aren't realistic:
"Eliminate anxiety completely" — Anxiety is information. The goal is to work with it, not eliminate it.
"Transform in one weekend" — Real confidence builds through practice over time, not in a single intensive.
"Fake it till you make it" — Performed confidence is exhausting and inauthentic.
Heavy focus on "executive presence" or performing confidence — This usually means you'll learn to act confident, not be confident.
No acknowledgment of systemic or situational factors — If they treat confidence as purely personal, they're missing the bigger picture. You're not broken. The rooms are broken.
No mention of nervous system work — If they don't address the body-based experience of low confidence, they can't help when anxiety shows up.
Trust Your Gut
You know yourself better than any course description. If something feels off—if the approach doesn't resonate, if the promises sound too good to be true, if the instructor's style doesn't match yours—listen to that.
The right confidence course should feel like it's meeting you where you are. Acknowledging your actual challenges, not telling you those challenges are all in your head. Giving you practical tools, not just inspiration. Creating space for you to practice imperfectly.
What You're Really Looking For
Here's what a good confidence course does: It helps you understand that you're not globally lacking in confidence. You're confident when you're comfortable.
The challenge is accessing that confidence in situations where status anxiety, power dynamics, or high stakes make you shrink.
The right course gives you tools to stay present in those situations. To trust your expertise even when your nervous system is activated. To communicate clearly even when you're nervous.
It doesn't ask you to become someone else. It helps you be more of yourself—even in situations designed to make your voice feel small.
That's what separates effective confidence courses from ones that leave you inspired but unchanged. The effective ones:
Teach empathetic presence, not executive presence
Address your nervous system with grounding and breathwork tools
Give you practical frameworks like the Grounded Bubble and the Golden Nugget
Let you practice in supported settings where imperfection is safe
Those four questions will help you identify which courses offer that kind of transformation and which ones are just selling temporary motivation.
Because you're not looking for a confidence course because something is wrong with you. You're looking because you know your lack of confidence in specific situations is holding you back from opportunities you're ready for.
And that's worth finding the right support for.
This work isn't about perfecting your confidence. It's about liberating it.
Practice, not perfection. Presence, not performance.
Ready to Stop Performing and Start Speaking?
If you're tired of over-preparing, second-guessing yourself, and losing your voice when it matters most—there's a better way.
I've spent over a decade helping empathetic leaders develop what I call Empathetic Presence: the ability to access your natural confidence even when status anxiety shows up.
It's built on three pillars:
EMBODY Your Confidence → Get out of your head and into your body
LEVERAGE Your Empathy → Use empathy as a focusing tool, not a distraction
OWN Your Expertise → Articulate your unique perspective clearly
This isn't about perfecting your voice. It's about liberating it.
Because the work isn't about becoming someone else. It's about being more fully yourself.
Practice, not perfection. Presence, not performance.
