There is a particular discomfort that confident people provoke in the rest of us, and we have built an entire moral vocabulary to manage it. We call it arrogance. We demand that the gifted perform a little modesty as rent for their talent. He never paid, and we never forgave him for it.
The Difference Between Arrogance and Accuracy
Arrogance is a claim that outruns the evidence. His claims never did. When a man tells you what he is about to do and then does it, repeatedly, for two decades, the honest word is not arrogant. It is accurate. We simply prefer our greatness apologetic.
Confidence is only offensive to people who suspect they would not survive the comparison.
The author, with apologies to no one
What we mistook for self-regard was, more often, a kind of generosity — a willingness to carry the weight of a result so that less certain teammates did not have to. The swagger was load-bearing. Take it away and several of those teams collapse.
We are allowed to find confidence uncomfortable. What we are not allowed to do is rename it dishonestly and call that analysis.
