In my opinion if you truly have confidence, chances are you will succeed in life (assuming you're not some delusional psycho). The world revolves around people

In my opinion if you truly have confidence, chances are you will succeed in life (assuming you're not some delusional psycho). The world revolves around people who take action and confident people tend to take more action. Doesn't matter if they're not smart enough to tackle the problem (who is, anyway?), they will figure out as long as they keep trying. Whereas people with low confidence in most cases don't even try. And even when they try they give up too early. I totally agree with you about the "optimism" junkies. I know a lot of people like that and they all tend to have read too many self help books without taking action. However, this "fake confidence" you're talking about never comes from parents praising their child. It comes from insecure people reading too much self-help porn.