Acting confident becomes confidence

I've had this ongoing conversation with "E" about her boldness and confidence. It was my first email to her. I said that she was bold. And she responded with questions about why I said so. She told me she wasn't.

The other evening at coffee I think we came to a mutual conclusion on the truth of both of our observations. At the root of her she may not feel "bold" per se, but becomes bold as she leans into who she wants to be. She is acting her way into boldness and confidence.

This is also a topic my friend "Em" would talk about a lot. That you can act your way into the "who" you want to be. Em would not always feel confident on a stage, but she was an actor. So the more she acted confidently, the more confident she became.

It seems that the conversation of whether being follows doing, or doing follows being, has been talked about ad nauseum by philosophers and psychologists. But when it comes down to it I would stand confidently and say acting one's way into confidence works. :) And as a side note it's also damnably attractive.