Walk tall and carry a big stick.

—Theodore Roosevelt

There’s a blog I tried to like. It’s geared toward men and is about general business success as well as physical fitness. In other words, the exact things that interest me.

However, I have one big problem with it; it includes the word bold in the title.

This completely discredits the entire blog for me, because as a Sales Badass I know the difference between boldness—that is, fake confidence—and real self-confidence.

Here’s an example: Two people are going skydiving. Of the two, one jumper is bold while the other is confident.

The bold jumper yells, “Hell yeah, man, this is going to be awesome, I so totally can’t wait do to this! WOOHOO!”

The confident jumper gets up, gets ready to go, and simply says, “Let’s do this.”

See the difference?

Show Me, Don’t Tell Me

Being bold in the example is clearly nothing other than a big macho show. By putting on a highly animated show, yelling about how pumped up he is and is so excited, what that bold jumper is really doing is subcommunicating fear. After all, why else would he need to psych himself up if he weren’t afraid to jump? Answer: He wouldn’t.

That’s the problem with boldness. It’s “all bark and no bite.” Or as Texans say, “all hat and no cattle.”

The confident jumper didn’t do that. By remaining calm and collected—cool if you will—that individual demonstrated real confidence without having to say a word about it.

Remember my example of the calmness and coolness of celebrities when meeting a fan, whereas the fan is doing the exact opposite and showing an unusual amount of excitement? That’s a display of high value on the part of the celebrity, and a display of low value by the fan.

And that sums up boldness. It’s nothing more than a display of low value. If you want to display high value and make yourself irresistible to prospects, forget the boldness and be cool and confident.

Picture the stereotypical salesperson shown on television shows. It’s almost always a loud, boisterous, back-slapping type of person. That, to me, is not professional, nor is it confident. It’s a display of boldness, and you now know that boldness is the polar opposite of confidence.

It reminds me of some people I’ve encountered in the world of entrepreneurs and business.

For example, I’ve had to listen to one who couldn’t talk about anything other than, “Look at my Rolls-Royce! I have a private jet! Check out the pictures! Look at my new beach house!”

Needless to say, I couldn’t get away from him quickly enough, and felt like I needed a shower after.

Similarly, I know someone else who got the vanity license plate “Bow Down” for his Lamborghini. In reality he’s an extremely kind, friendly, and generous man, someone I consider a friend, but a Lambo screams “douchebag” as it is, let alone without “Bow Down” on the license plate! (No offense intended against Lamborghini owners!)

What these people don’t understand is that by acting the way that they do, people instantly and automatically apply the label “asshole” in their minds.

People make assumptions about the things they see. A lot of assumptions. For example, I live in Dallas proper, not a suburb, and as a result I’m only a couple of miles from where those like Mark Cuban, Ross Perot, George W. Bush, and many other wealthy people live. In fact I even see them out and about quite a bit, right down to having had conversations with Ross Perot in the barbershop. (When I asked him about Trump, he was neutral politically and simply said he respects his business accomplishments. Fair enough.)

I make it a habit of driving through those neighborhoods on a regular basis, at least twice a week, for inspiration. Seeing those monster mansions and huge properties makes me irresistibly want one, and desire is the seed of all achievement!

And when I say monster properties, I mean there are more than a few that dwarf Mark Cuban’s house, just to put things in perspective. And that dude is a billionaire.

When I would drive through there in the $150,000 Mercedes-Benz, I felt like I belonged and people would recognize that and assume I was one of them.

Indeed, it didn’t work out that way.

What actually happened what that people would ignore me when I smiled and waved (in Texas we all smile and wave at each other), or worse yet, even snarl at me!

Then I downgraded to the Audi I’m driving now. (Which wasn’t all that much of a downgrade,to be honest.) I felt self-conscious not being in a Bentley-expensive vehicle and thought I would be typecast as another wannabe gawking at all the big $40 million properties.

However, that’s not what happened. Indeed, now they smile and wave back at me, and even do it to me before I do it to them! And the only difference is I’m driving a sub-$100K car versus a $150K car. Then again, the number-one selling vehicle to US millionaires is the Ford F-150, so maybe they’re onto something after all.

It goes to show that even the very wealthy and successful, with tons of life experience, make false assumptions about things they see. It’s clear that people assumed I must be an asshole driving that pricey car. (And now that I have the Audi, when I see the occasional picture of the top-end Benz, it really does look obnoxious to me now that it’s been gone a while.)

Worse yet, I made the wrong assumptions about those people. When they didn’t wave back I assumed they must be assholes. As it turns out, that wasn’t the case at all, and in fact very wealthy people I know happen to be the kindest and most generous people I know.

Let me tell you another story:

Growing up, I was always an introvert. I know this is hard for my current group of friends to believe since I’ve become so outgoing, and my wife, who I met over 14 years ago at the time of this writing, still doesn’t believe that I was ever an introvert!

But the plain truth is that I was, and I hated it. I didn’t have the self-confidence to interact with new people. As a kid, when relatives would come over to visit, I’d go hide in my bedroom upstairs. Seriously!

Then, moving forward into my sales career, in my early 20s, I was still like that to a significant degree after I’d started in sales, and even after I became a star producer.

I was visiting family one time and my grandfather kept shaking his head, wondering how on earth I could be great at sales when I was so quiet.

He said to me, “To be good as a salesman you need to be able to talk and be pushy and be a showman and bullshit people and all that.”

Well, as you know, that’s not what a true sales professional does, and certainly not a Sales Badass. We sure as hell don’t bullshit people. Sales Badasses are straight arrows.

There’s an old saying that you have two ears and one mouth for a reason: So you can listen twice as much as you talk. Personally I think you should listen even more than that. I know I do.

And that’s what made my introverted old self do so well in sales. I listened far more than I talked. In fact I didn’t even realize I was techniquing prospects by keeping my mouth shut, since it caused an uncomfortable silence and the prospect would go right on talking again to fill the gap.

Keeping the prospect talking while keeping my mouth shut did something very important, something essential to Sales Badassery: The prospect inadvertently told me every reason why he wanted and needed the product!

Now if I had kept my mouth running, or stood up to give a boring presentation, or went through the “steps of a sale,” there’s no way in hell I’d have achieved the same level of success.

That’s why the television stereotype of a salesperson is dead wrong, and worse yet, it fools salespeople who watch into believing they should be behaving the same way! Then when they do it, it comes across as very off-putting to prospects and kills deals dead in their tracks. The reason is twofold: First, the salesperson didn’t get the prospect talking endlessly, and therefore never found out what the prospect wanted or why. Second, it is simply obnoxious. Talking and barreling over someone who has a need that you’re obligated to fill isn’t just rude, it’s unprofessional, and it’s a failure to do your job properly.

But that’s fine. When you see what acting like that does to your sales numbers and your employment status—or business status if you’re self-employed—you’ll stop that in a hurry!