Most confident people you know were once the new kid who didn’t know where to sit.

Confidence looks like a starting condition from outside, because you only ever meet people after their awkward part is over. Nearly everyone who moves easily through a room has stood in a doorway holding a tray with nowhere obvious to go. The ease came from repetition, not from temperament. What you are watching is practice that happened where you could not see it.

Rather than compare your first day with somebody else’s hundredth, ask the most relaxed person in the room where they moved from. You will usually get a version of your own story back.