There is a significant difference between self-esteem and self-respect.
Self-respect comes from within ourselves, and Self-esteem comes from others.
Self-respect is the practiced skill in accurately conveying logical, social, and emotional acumen to characterize the confidence others should have in what is personally conveyed. We intentionally indicate what we know are gaps, so others can potentially help fill those gaps.
Self-esteem is the Sum of all other people’s logical, social, and emotional acumen conveyed related to usefulness of personal contributions. Self-esteem provides us with awareness that a level of risk is not being managed.
Self-respect is conveyed to others.
Self-esteem is built by conveyances from others.
Emotional acumen is usually conveyed by how the voice is used, body language, written style, social behavior, and logical inconsistencies.
Respect is the conveyance of trust.
No one ever gives trust, Respect must be earned.
Part of Professional Acumen is to be open to the possibility for someone to be able to earn trust, in specific circumstances.
An auto mechanic designing rockets is questionable. But almost equally questionable is an engineer fixing my car. Practiced experience is to be considered.
Part of common sense is the willingness to take action in learning new skills and knowledge useful to a particular group.
This is why small-talk is different from one group to another. Not knowing useful small talk that a group can identify with, earns an element of distrust. When nothing else is available to judge, small talk qualities are often used for initial assessments.
Disdain is the conveyance of distrust.
Disdain is often given based on association with factors previously resulting in distrust.
Body language speaks loudly when we see distrust is present, and our self-esteem suffers.
Empathy provides feedback that others are receptive to our efforts.
Empathy can detect intuitive body language, to indicate a level of risk. Reputation is part of risk assessment; part of likelihood to fail, and likelihood to waste resources. Being denied access to an opportunity, is based on risk assessments.
Resume, references, how one dresses, hair cut style, how one talks, vocabulary, body language, any contradictions… risks are broadly considered by those with resources or opportunities.
Choose who you want to associate with carefully. We all have diverse interests and weaknesses. But some people are so socially dysfunctional, that they are unable to convey trust in any form. Very often because they themselves are untrustworthy.
To build self-esteem, do not hang out with psychic vampires. Drama is the act of emotionally charging a situation with no useful outcome. A psychic vampire wants to seem to be in control, by harming other people emotionally. They promote the opposite of common sense; tearing down useful communications.
Arrogance is the Loathing of Others.
People often confuse Arrogance with Confidence. An Arrogant person may control resources and opportunities, but usually they have no interest in anything that does not benefit them personally. They tend to destroy rather than build. They tend to kill passion, and destroy self-esteem related to anything they can allocate. Arrogant people usually position themselves within an administrative Mafia. Stratified ethical membership, where self-esteem suffers increasingly from the top down. In an administrative Mafia, loyalty to individuals part of the Mafia, is far more important to advancement than loyalty to the organizations mission.
Understanding how administrative Mafia function, better prepare a person in how to build self-esteem.
Small talk related to members of an administrative Mafia is extraordinarily important. This is how they develop mutual trust, not in their professional performance. Though there are limits. You cannot make your Mafia look bad, so falsification of documents often occurs.
To build self-esteem in any group, learn about the small talk they commonly engage in. Then research related topics to be able to discuss things with consistence and without obvious gaps.
Build skills and make network connections that are meaningful to them, without becoming a threat.