Confidence is a crucial element in many parts of our life, including public speaking. Working on building our own self-confidence and self-esteem can be a hard and long process as we have to understand, realize many factors that influence our self-confidence and take actions to improve it. Anthony Ejiogu, member or ExxonMobil Toastmasters, has been working on this topic for many years. In this interview he shared what confidence is, and how he keeps improving himself.

NG: Can you tell us a bit about yourself? 

AE: My name is Anthony Ejiogu, currently living and working in Budapest as an IT professional at ExxonMobil. I am also member of a Toastmasters Club, Blogger, Speaker and Creator of thesuccesselite.com. This is a platform where future leaders get inspired, motivated, learn, grow and achieve their goals.

NG: When did you start your TM journey?

AE: I started as a passive member early 2017 when I was an intern. Soon after my internship, I was hired as a full-time employee. Then I became an active member.

NG: Do you have any position in the Executive Committee?

AE: At the moment I am not holding any position in the Executive Committee. However, I was the Vice President Public Relation in 2018/2019.

NG: How did you end up holding a workshop at TLI?

AE: It all started when I asked for the opportunity to present my workshop at my club under the title ‘Confidence Demystified’. Previously I had delivered the workshop at an event hosted by InspiralClub. It felt like something that would be beneficial to the TM members in my club. When I presented the idea to the VP Education, she gave me the opportunity to deliver the workshop. At the end of the session, everyone found it was worth sharing with others. I was given another opportunity to present it at the TLI. 

NG: What was your workshop about?

AE: The workshop was titled ‘Confidence Demystified’. The idea was based around how you can improve your self-confidence by influencing the factors that affect your self-confidence and self-esteem. In short, it is how to influence the factors that affect your confidence.

The first part is the demystification, unravel the myths behind confidence and get a clear understanding of what confidence is and isn’t. What it means to you personally.

Secondly, we needed to identify what factors affect our self-confidence and determine those within our control or influence. This leads to the third part, which is about figuring out the actions we can take to influence those factors that affect our confidence.

This approach focuses on identifying and influencing the factors that in turn boost your self- confidence.

NG: Can you give an example for those factors?

AE: Sure. There are so many factors that affect your self-confidence. During the workshop the audience identified factors that had the most influence in their lives. These are relationships, working environment, childhood experiences, fear, mindset, self-image/appearance among others. These factors contribute both positively and negatively to ones’ self-confidence.

NG: How do these factors influence confidence?

AE: Let’s look at a situation where a child had a terrible childhood experience where she is constantly being told she’s not good enough, is criticized, judged and hardly appreciated. That child grows up with a very low self-confidence and self-esteem. The factor here that played a huge part in affecting her confidence level is her childhood experience.

NG: If we take the example of the inferiority complex, how can someone overcome this?

AE: I can share from my own experience because I’ve had a similar challenge growing up. The thought that I was inferior to every other person kept me in the shadow for too long. However, I approached this by first identifying the key things that influenced my thinking that in turn affected my actions.

During my bachelor degree, I wanted to run for the position of the Secretary General of my department. It was something I had never attempted before. In my mind everyone who was interested in the position was better than me. I felt I couldn’t ask people to vote for me as the Secretary General of the Student Department.

While I couldn’t change my past experiences that had some degree of influence in me feeling inferior to others, I realized I could change my way of thinking and perception about myself. I gradually learnt about positive affirmations and started applying them.

Instead of saying “I can’t do it”, “others are better than me”, I replaced it with words like “I can”, “No one is better than me, “ No one can be a better me than me”. The second part which was the most difficult part was believing that I could. Overtime, these words reaffirmed themselves in my mind, and reshaped my thinking about myself to the point that I began to believe. That’s when I learnt about the power of spoken words and how they can shape our life.

I realized that people like Muhammad Ali, the boxer were already practicing this when he constantly said “I’m the greatest”. Reporters asked him why he kept telling himself that. He replied “I’m the greatest. I said that before I knew that I was.” With this he never succumbed to the thought that he was inferior to his opponent , as such thoughts would have been already a defeat.

NG: When did you start to work with confidence on a deeper level?

AE: It’s been all my life until now. It has taken me more than 20 years to figure out the issues relating to my low self-confidence, and then several years to improve it. All through my childhood, I didn’t even know what it really meant to be confident. Until I started my bachelor degree studies and went out of my comfort to do something I had never done before. That is when I realized how low my self-confidence was. I was a very shy person and I didn’t really understand why. Working with confidence started around this period in school, when I started to take note of the little things that influenced my self-confidence and self-esteem. 

About two years ago I began to dive deep into the topic as I learned how much impact it had on my life and I heard the same from friends as well.

NG: What did TM help you to realize?

AE: I have always wanted to speak, share stories and inspire people. TM helped me discover what my speaking style was, I became creative with structuring my message and connecting with the audience. TM also helped me realize the key things in delivering my message in such a way that it is inspiring, educating and entertaining.

NG: In 2,5 years, how has TM impacted you?

AE: It had a lot of contribution in my public speaking, structuring my message and being a competent communicator. Having an environment that offered constructive feedback was crucial  in learning and improving in public speaking. My presentation skills improved in both non-professional and professional settings.

However, I must not leave out the personal factor, which is dependent upon the individual choosing to go out of their way to improve like I have. This way the impact was greater.

NG: How did you develop in leadership?

AE: I have held several positions in school organizations that contributed to developing my leadership skills.  In 2018/2019 when I was a Vice President PR at my club. The role gave me an opportunity to serve the members of the club in the capacity of Vice President PR. I learnt to lead by serving, taking responsibility and seeking ways to add value to the club.

NG: What is your future plan with TM?

AE: At the moment, I do not have any interest in Executive roles.  However, I look forward to opportunities where I can continue to contribute with my experience while adding value.

NG: Did you start The Success Elite because of that reason?

AE: No I didn’t. I started THE SUCCESS ELITE in 2017 before I became a TM  member. And the reason behind it is to make a positive impact in the life of the Future Leaders through motivational speeches, shared experiences and stories. However, TM helped me grow in public speaking, in crafting my message, in receiving feedback and incorporating it into my speeches.

NG: What defines you as Anthony?

AE: It’s hard to put into simple words what defines me. The person I have become, one who is relentless, loves to learn regardless of the challenge, connect with people, care, share, fail, improve, grow and many more defines me. It has taken a great deal of hard work and a lot of time to become this person that I am today.

To sum it up, I am a Life-long learner.

NG: What is confidence in 2 words to you?

AE: Trust yourself.

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