What Thirty-One Years of Watching Kids Walk Into a Room Has Taught Me

I still remember the back room at Studio Search, the talent agency I used to work at. It wasn't a blank slate start. I'd already taught at a dance school before that, I'd spent three years teaching at Studio Search itself, and I was most of the way through a BA in Drama, majoring in directing for stage and screen. So I walked in with a plan and plenty of experience behind me.

What I didn't walk in with was any idea that the plan would turn into a philosophy.

I was an anxiety sufferer myself, and what I wanted to build, more than anything, was a room where a young person could fall on their face and not feel small for trying. I didn't know it yet, but that instinct became the seed of what I now call the safety net philosophy. Thirty-one years and something like 100,000 students later, I still think it's the most important thing I've ever built, more important than any show we ever staged.

For a long time I thought confidence was something you were born with. Some kids walked into the room like they owned it. Others found the nearest wall and became part of it. I figured that was just temperament, fixed and unchangeable.

I don't believe that anymore. Confidence is built, not inherited. It isn't built by feeling ready. It's built by acting before you feel ready, over and over, until the fear stops being the main character in the story.

If you asked me what does the most damage to a young person's confidence, I wouldn't say failure, and I wouldn't say criticism either. I'd say comparison. The instant a kid starts weighing their worth against someone else's best moment, whether that's a sibling, a classmate, or a phone screen full of other people's highlight reels, something in them quietly deflates. We tell our students constantly that the only person worth measuring yourself against is who you were last week. It's a simple line, and it's also one of the truest things I know.

So what actually builds confidence, in my experience, watching thousands of kids over three decades? Three things, and none of them are what you'd put on a poster.

Being genuinely seen. Not praised, not marked, not assessed. Seen. There's a specific moment when a young person realises someone in the room has actually noticed who they are, and you can watch them grow an inch taller in real time.

Being stretched, not pushed. Just past the edge of what's comfortable, gently and often. That thin strip past comfort is where the real growth happens, and it's smaller than most people think.

Belonging. Feeling like part of something that would notice if they were gone. Confidence tends to follow that feeling on its own, without much else needed.

Here's the part that used to surprise me and doesn't anymore. Generic praise does more harm than good. Tell a kid they're amazing at everything and they stop trusting anything you say. Then the first real challenge arrives and they have nothing to hold onto. What actually lands is specific. Not "you were amazing" but "you forgot your line and kept going anyway, and that took real courage." That's the kind of feedback that becomes part of someone.

The most confident adults I've known were never the ones who avoided doubt. They were the ones who learned, usually the hard way, that doubt doesn't get the final say.

That's still what I think we're actually building at the Academy, all these years on from that back room. Not performers. Character.

What's the last thing you were scared to do, that you did anyway? I'd genuinely like to know.

About the Author

Brendan Glanville is the Founder and Artistic Director of the Australian Acting Academy. For over 30 years he has helped more than 100,000 young people build confidence, courage and authentic connection through acting, storytelling and creative risk-taking. He writes about parenting, resilience, creativity and what it means to raise brave humans in a complicated world. Learn more at actingacademy.com.au.