An inspiring curated selection of 40 photographs and artworks with accompanying essays examining the skill of confidence.

The difference between success and failure often comes down to an ingredient that we are seldom directly taught about and may forget to focus on: confidence. What makes one life cheerful, purposeful and energetic and another less so may have nothing to do with intelligence or qualifications; it may simply be bound up with that buoyancy of the heart and mind we call confidence, the quality that gives us the courage to give things a go, to believe in ourselves and to resist the pull of conformity, fear and despair.

Here is a supreme guide to a fatefully neglected quality - made up of a series of short essays that encourage us into a new and more fruitful state of mind. The images that accompany the text are there to ensure that we aren't merely intellectually stirred to change our lives but are also given the best kind of visual assistance.

We hear why we should dare to try, why the past doesn't have to dictate the future, why we can alter the way we speak to ourselves and why there are so many reasons to keep faith with our most ambitious aspirations. Within its modest size, this book succeeds at a mighty feat: unlocking our latent powers and edging us on with kindness and creativity to become the best version of ourselves.