Purple Confidence – A Universal Definition

At PurpleSpace, we support organisations to build the confidence of every employee with a disability.


The best definition of confidence that we have found, through the research we have done and in talking to many thousands of employees who experience mental health conditions and / or disabilities, is the following:


  • Confidence is a strong expectation of a positive and satisfactory outcome. That may be a task or a conversation or an ask.
  • Confidence is more than a ‘feeling.’ It is not a personality trait. Confidence is not a simple ‘fact’ i.e., you don’t just ‘have it’ or ‘not have it’. And while we have all experienced situations where we have felt the need to mask what is going on for us or put on an ‘act’ we do not believe that amounts to ‘confidence.’
  • Confidence is a personal assessment of a situation that activates our motivation to do something successfully.

The ‘Confident Conversations’ series is one part of the Purple Confidence Foundation Learning tools that help employees build inner confidence and personal resilience.


We are on a mission to cascade a universal definition of confidence as ‘a strong expectation of a positive outcome’ and these guides have been developed after years of PurpleSpace research and know-how from our multiple interactions with millions of employees with disabilities.


This series contains 10 resources that disability ERG/Network leaders can cascade within their organisations to put directly into the hands of disabled colleagues.


Our Confident Conversations will help you to:


  • Understand what ‘confidence’ is, and how you can nurture the right mind set to enter purposeful conversations with your colleagues
  • Examine the six fundamentals when initiating a confident conversation
  • Understand the six hurdles and the things you can do to avoid them
  • Ask colleagues to do things a little differently so they work more effectively with you
  • Rehearse what you want to say, how to say it and manage conversations at a pace that suits you

Only PurpleSpace members that have paid their annual membership fee can use, store, and upload our content or use extracts within their communications. Members who have not paid their annual membership fees must remove materials and any reference to the materials, from their intranet sites and devices.


Revised editions and add on tools are being developed. Only current members will have access to this content, and we will not be held accountable for out-of-date material stored by members.


The series has been developed, thanks to our Futurist members including HSBC, GSK, Anglo American, Coca Cola, London Stock Exchange Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Warner Bros. Discovery and Google.