Date: November 21st 2015

Participants (from 14 countries):

Host and Moderator: Rick.

Teams

Panel PRO: Bubbly, Peter, Noorola

Panel CON: Faten, Imad, Usman, Seif, Ayisha, Amy, Djamila, Henz

Audience: Johny, Eliana, Masato, Finda, Djamila, Reneesh, Rojhano, Butterfly

Panel PRO:

Children show confidence at a very early age and as they grow up, they seem to lose self-confidence. You will often notice that they do not seem to have a fear of things i.e. walking for the first time, climbing stairs etc. This seems to indicate that they had it from the beginning.
People tend to lose confidence after a bad experience and as we grow, so does our bad experiences.
Children often times run face front into situations without apparent fear, and its only when they are stopped by parents or society that they change their attitude, as now they have been taught to fear things, which can lead to a decrease in their self-confidence.

Panel CON:

Although some psychologists and therapists say that there is some degree of self confidence in children that is proportional to the amount of encouragement or discouragement given by parents, teachers or some significant others; Self-confidence is something that we can learn how to develop.
People can build confidence in many ways and overcome their fears and there are several techniques that can be used to accomplish this.
Despite the fact that some people are born with it, we can always learn and develop it and we don’t have to worry whether we were born with or not because it self-confidence can be seen as a muscle which can be trained and exercised.
People strengthen their confidence after they become inspired by something or someone, or after having a talk with their friends, life partner or relatives.
People with low level of self-confidence can engage with mentors, or attend workshops/lectures, learn techniques on how to build their self confidence. This means that it can be reinforced or learnt.
There are things that one can do to build self-confidence such as being positive in negative situations; overcoming your fears also help to develop confidence and trying always to be prepared for possible outcomes. In this way, we can build our self-confidence when are lacking it.
Losing is an important part of the learning process: learning from our mistakes also helps us to build confidence.
The most common and strongest kind of self-confidence it the one that comes after moving forward from a failure, or after learning through different kind of experiences.
Building self confidence or as sense of self/self belief comes from personal growth, trial and error, failures and successes. In these things, as we go through life's ups and downs, we learn who we are, what we are capable of, and over time, we develop a stronger inner self. It is often only through the most difficult of times, that we truly understand our full potential and inner strength.

Audience summary:

Henz remained undecided
Johny remained undecided
Masato voted for the panel PRO (team A)
Djamila voted for the panel CON (team B)

It was a tie. There was a bonus chat after the debate and the topic was: “Name 3 thing that makes you smile.”

Thanks everyone for participating. To listen to this debate, click on the links below:

Listen online:

Download:

Self-confidence is something we are born with | November 21st 2015 | Recording file

Bonus Chat:

Download:

3 things that makes you smile | Bonus chat | Recording file

For people who did not join the live discussion, feel free to contribute the ideas in the comment blanks below.