The college football season finally came to an end on Monday.  Alabama beat LSU for the national championship 21 – 0.  In the run up to the game, Sunday’s New York Times sports section had an interesting article by Pete Hamel, one of my favorite writers, on missed field goals in college football this season.

Pete noted that the first time Alabama and LSU met, there were no touchdowns in the game – only five field goals.  He pointed out that the Alabama kicker made only two of six kicks.   Alabama made five field goals on Monday night – and missed an extra point after a touchdown.

Pete also pointed out that Oklahoma State, Oregon and Boise State probably missed a chance to play in the national championship game because of missed field goals and that Stanford, Georgia and Virginia Tech lost their bowl games because of missed field goals.

These misses were not without consequences off the field.  Boise State kicker, Kyle Brotzman and Alabama kicker Cade Foster had to shut down their Facebook pages after receiving hate mail and death threats.  That’s way out there.  No football game is that important.  Interestingly, Cade Foster didn’t kick for Alabama on Monday.

There is some career success advice that comes from these missed field goals.  Jay Feely kicks in the NFL.  He once was the subject of a satirical skit on Saturday Night Live after he missed three kicks in one game when he was playing for the New York Giants.  He says, “I give myself until Monday afternoon to think about the previous day’s game, and then I move forward.”

Jordan Williamson of Stanford missed two field goals in their bowl game versus the Oklahoma State.  One would have won the game, the other would have sent it into another overtime period.  Jordan seems to be made of some pretty tough stuff.  Stanford Coach David Shaw said, “I’m not worried about this lingering for Jordan.  It’s going to make him tougher and stronger.”

And that’s the career advice to be found in this post about field goals.  Point 7 of The Optimist Creed says, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

Ann Landers has a great quote on the idea behind point seven in the Optimist Creed…

“If I were asked to give what I consider to be the single-most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye, and say ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me’.”

I like what Ann Landers has to say here because it is a bit of reality check. She’s right, trouble,  setbacks, failure – and missed field goals — are an inevitable part of life. Self confident people look trouble squarely in the eye and move forward. They are not cowed by their failures, rather they embrace them and use them to move towards their goals.

If you read this blog somewhat regularly, you probably know that I am a big tennis fan. The Australian Open, the first major tennis tournament of the year will start next week.  I’m looking forward to it.  In 2008, I watched two great matches at the Australian Open.

First, James Blake won a great five set match. He lost the first two sets to Sebastien Grosjean. Then he won the next three to win the best of five set match. He was down four games to one in the fourth set, but won in a tie break. He was gritty and refused to quit.

To put it in terms of The Optimist Creed, James Blake was able to “forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.” In this case, it was a very recent past — the first two sets of the match.

At that time, Roger Federer was one of the best players in the world. He still is.  He had a terrible match against Janko Tipsarevic in that tournament. He made 64 unforced errors and lost 16 of 21 break points. If you follow tennis, you know that this is a recipe for losing – just like missed field goals are a recipe for losing in football.

However, Federer won the match in five sets. Afterwards he said, “He (Tipsarevic) was just going for his shots and kept making them. In the end, I just tried to block out all the chances I missed.”

The Optimist Creed shows up again. By blocking out “all the chances I missed” –forgetting about the mistakes he made in the match, Mr. Federer was able to win.

I believe that James Blake and Roger Federer won those matches because of their self confidence, their optimism, and as Ann Landers says, their ability to “look it (trouble) squarely in the eye, and say ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me’.”

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful, self confident people – whether field goal kickers, professional tennis players or you and me — realize that mistakes are part of life. Learn from your mistakes.  Build on this knowledge.  Commit to Point 7 of The Optimist Creed, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievement of the future.” If you do this, you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  I have created a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your workspace.  If you want a copy, send me an email with the words “Optimist Creed” in the subject line.

That’s my career advice on lessons learned the hard way and The Optimist Creed.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

The college football season finally came to an end on Monday.  Alabama beat LSU for the national championship 21 – 0.  In the run up to the game, Sunday’s New York Times sports section had an interesting article by Pete Hamel, one of my favorite writers, on missed field goals in college football this season.

Pete noted that the first time Alabama and LSU met, there were no touchdowns in the game – only five field goals.  He pointed out that the Alabama kicker made only two of six kicks.   Alabama made five field goals on Monday night – and missed an extra point after a touchdown.

Pete also pointed out that Oklahoma State, Oregon and Boise State probably missed a chance to play in the national championship game because of missed field goals and that Stanford, Georgia and Virginia Tech lost their bowl games because of missed field goals.

These misses were not without consequences off the field.  Boise State kicker, Kyle Brotzman and Alabama kicker Cade Foster had to shut down their Facebook pages after receiving hate mail and death threats.  That’s way out there.  No football game is that important.  Interestingly, Cade Foster didn’t kick for Alabama on Monday.

There is some career success advice that comes from these missed field goals.  Jay Feely kicks in the NFL.  He once was the subject of a satirical skit on Saturday Night Live after he missed three kicks in one game when he was playing for the New York Giants.  He says, “I give myself until Monday afternoon to think about the previous day’s game, and then I move forward.”

Jordan Williamson of Stanford missed two field goals in their bowl game versus the Oklahoma State.  One would have won the game, the other would have sent it into another overtime period.  Jordan seems to be made of some pretty tough stuff.  Stanford Coach David Shaw said, “I’m not worried about this lingering for Jordan.  It’s going to make him tougher and stronger.”

And that’s the career advice to be found in this post about field goals.  Point 7 of The Optimist Creed says, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

Ann Landers has a great quote on the idea behind point seven in the Optimist Creed…

“If I were asked to give what I consider to be the single-most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye, and say ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me’.”

I like what Ann Landers has to say here because it is a bit of reality check. She’s right, trouble,  setbacks, failure – and missed field goals — are an inevitable part of life. Self confident people look trouble squarely in the eye and move forward. They are not cowed by their failures, rather they embrace them and use them to move towards their goals.

If you read this blog somewhat regularly, you probably know that I am a big tennis fan. The Australian Open, the first major tennis tournament of the year will start next week.  I’m looking forward to it.  In 2008, I watched two great matches at the Australian Open.

First, James Blake won a great five set match. He lost the first two sets to Sebastien Grosjean. Then he won the next three to win the best of five set match. He was down four games to one in the fourth set, but won in a tie break. He was gritty and refused to quit.

To put it in terms of The Optimist Creed, James Blake was able to “forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.” In this case, it was a very recent past — the first two sets of the match.

At that time, Roger Federer was one of the best players in the world. He still is.  He had a terrible match against Janko Tipsarevic in that tournament. He made 64 unforced errors and lost 16 of 21 break points. If you follow tennis, you know that this is a recipe for losing – just like missed field goals are a recipe for losing in football.

However, Federer won the match in five sets. Afterwards he said, “He (Tipsarevic) was just going for his shots and kept making them. In the end, I just tried to block out all the chances I missed.”

The Optimist Creed shows up again. By blocking out “all the chances I missed” –forgetting about the mistakes he made in the match, Mr. Federer was able to win.

I believe that James Blake and Roger Federer won those matches because of their self confidence, their optimism, and as Ann Landers says, their ability to “look it (trouble) squarely in the eye, and say ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me’.”

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful, self confident people – whether field goal kickers, professional tennis players or you and me — realize that mistakes are part of life. Learn from your mistakes.  Build on this knowledge.  Commit to Point 7 of The Optimist Creed, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievement of the future.” If you do this, you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  I have created a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your workspace.  If you want a copy, send me an email with the words “Optimist Creed” in the subject line.

That’s my career advice on lessons learned the hard way and The Optimist Creed.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site last September.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  You can find out about the membership site by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tuesday morning, I was sitting in the waiting room at Rose Hospital in Denver while Cathy was undergoing shoulder replacement surgery.  Nurses would come out to get patients who were scheduled for surgery.  When the nurse called one guy to go in for his pre op preparations, he said, “He’s not here.  He chickened out.”  Then he went into have his procedure done.  Good for him.  Surgery is scary.  I remember when I had my cancer surgery.  I had more than a little anxiety.

All of this stuff surrounding surgery reminded me of Tweet 47 in my career success book, Success Tweets.  “Act.  Feel the fear and do it anyway.  That’s the definition of courage, and a great way to build your self-confidence.”

Just like Cathy who had to be willing to act on her shoulder pain, and have joint replacement surgery, all of us will encounter scary moments on our road to life and career success.  We are better off when we approach these moments with confidence.  I felt very confident after meeting Cathy’s surgical team.  She did too.  That reduced a lot of our anxiety about the surgery.

Let’s talk about how confidence can help you deal with the scary moments you encounter on your road to career success.  I subscribe to Sharon Melnick’s online newsletter.  In a recent post, she made several interesting points about confidence.

• Confidence will help you be flexible.  You will consider all alternatives and options.
• Confidence will help you follow through on ideas that you might otherwise talk yourself out of.
• Confidence will help you be persistent – and hold on to your vision for your life.b

She’s right.  Confidence is the foundation of all life and career success.  Without it, you will have a difficult time succeeding.  To build your self-confidence, you have to be optimistic, face your fears and surround yourself with positive people.

Fear is a great confidence and success killer.  Elbert Hubbard, the author of “A Message to Garcia” (http://budbilanich.com/garcia), one of the best essays on personal responsibility ever written, has some great things to say about facing your fears…

“The greatest mistake you can make is continually fearing that you will make one.”

Read that again.  Those 14 words are powerful!  They are some fundamental career advice.

If you let your fear of making a mistake stop you from taking action, you will never take any action and your fear will ruin your life and any chance of creating the career success you want and deserve.

In 1988 I was ready to start my career success coach and speaking business.  I was afraid.  I was worried that I wouldn’t succeed.  I had always worked for large companies.  I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what to do to run a successful career success coach business.  Nevertheless, I looked my fear in the eye, quit my job and moved forward.  Twenty-four years later, I’m still at it.  My fears were unfounded – but they were real.  I’m glad I faced them and acted.

Fear is persistent.  It doesn’t go away.  It will wait for one of your weak moments and then it will strike.  If you let it get the best of you, you’ll never move forward.

Fear most often manifests itself in procrastination.  When I find myself procrastinating, I always ask myself, “What are you afraid of here, Bud?”  Identifying what I fear always help me defeat it.  Once I identify what I am afraid of, I can take positive steps to move forward through my fear and on to success.

Make a list of your doubts and fears.  Decide what you can do to overcome them.  Then act.  Take at least one positive action – no matter how small – every day to overcome your doubts and fears.  Even if these actions don’t work out as well as you hope, you will be on the road to overcoming your fears and creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

Remember, procrastination feeds fear, and action cures it.  The choice is up to you.  I choose action.  My best career advice says you should, too.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people don’t let their fears get in the way of their success.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 47 in Success Tweets.  “Act.  Feel the fear and do it anyway.  That’s the definition of courage, and a great way to build your self-confidence.”  Identify your fears, and then do what you need to do to move past them.  Action is the great antidote to fear.  It puts inertia on your side.  Once you are moving forward, you are likely to continue moving forward.  It’s the first step that is the hardest – and scariest.  If you want to beat your fears, you need to take the first step – act, and then keep on going.

That’s the career advice prompted by my time in the waiting room during Cathy’s surgery.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Tuesday morning, I was sitting in the waiting room at Rose Hospital in Denver while Cathy was undergoing shoulder replacement surgery.  Nurses would come out to get patients who were scheduled for surgery.  When the nurse called one guy to go in for his pre op preparations, he said, “He’s not here.  He chickened out.”  Then he went into have his procedure done.  Good for him.  Surgery is scary.  I remember when I had my cancer surgery.  I had more than a little anxiety.

All of this stuff surrounding surgery reminded me of Tweet 47 in my career success book, Success Tweets.  “Act.  Feel the fear and do it anyway.  That’s the definition of courage, and a great way to build your self-confidence.”

Just like Cathy who had to be willing to act on her shoulder pain, and have joint replacement surgery, all of us will encounter scary moments on our road to life and career success.  We are better off when we approach these moments with confidence.  I felt very confident after meeting Cathy’s surgical team.  She did too.  That reduced a lot of our anxiety about the surgery.

Let’s talk about how confidence can help you deal with the scary moments you encounter on your road to career success.  I subscribe to Sharon Melnick’s online newsletter.  In a recent post, she made several interesting points about confidence.

• Confidence will help you be flexible.  You will consider all alternatives and options.
• Confidence will help you follow through on ideas that you might otherwise talk yourself out of.
• Confidence will help you be persistent – and hold on to your vision for your life.b

She’s right.  Confidence is the foundation of all life and career success.  Without it, you will have a difficult time succeeding.  To build your self-confidence, you have to be optimistic, face your fears and surround yourself with positive people.

Fear is a great confidence and success killer.  Elbert Hubbard, the author of “A Message to Garcia” (http://budbilanich.com/garcia), one of the best essays on personal responsibility ever written, has some great things to say about facing your fears…

“The greatest mistake you can make is continually fearing that you will make one.”

Read that again.  Those 14 words are powerful!  They are some fundamental career advice.

If you let your fear of making a mistake stop you from taking action, you will never take any action and your fear will ruin your life and any chance of creating the career success you want and deserve.

In 1988 I was ready to start my career success coach and speaking business.  I was afraid.  I was worried that I wouldn’t succeed.  I had always worked for large companies.  I wasn’t sure I knew exactly what to do to run a successful career success coach business.  Nevertheless, I looked my fear in the eye, quit my job and moved forward.  Twenty-four years later, I’m still at it.  My fears were unfounded – but they were real.  I’m glad I faced them and acted.

Fear is persistent.  It doesn’t go away.  It will wait for one of your weak moments and then it will strike.  If you let it get the best of you, you’ll never move forward.

Fear most often manifests itself in procrastination.  When I find myself procrastinating, I always ask myself, “What are you afraid of here, Bud?”  Identifying what I fear always help me defeat it.  Once I identify what I am afraid of, I can take positive steps to move forward through my fear and on to success.

Make a list of your doubts and fears.  Decide what you can do to overcome them.  Then act.  Take at least one positive action – no matter how small – every day to overcome your doubts and fears.  Even if these actions don’t work out as well as you hope, you will be on the road to overcoming your fears and creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

Remember, procrastination feeds fear, and action cures it.  The choice is up to you.  I choose action.  My best career advice says you should, too.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people don’t let their fears get in the way of their success.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 47 in Success Tweets.  “Act.  Feel the fear and do it anyway.  That’s the definition of courage, and a great way to build your self-confidence.”  Identify your fears, and then do what you need to do to move past them.  Action is the great antidote to fear.  It puts inertia on your side.  Once you are moving forward, you are likely to continue moving forward.  It’s the first step that is the hardest – and scariest.  If you want to beat your fears, you need to take the first step – act, and then keep on going.

That’s the career advice prompted by my time in the waiting room during Cathy’s surgery.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

I was speaking with Tony Maddaluna the other day.  Tony is the President of Pfizer Global Supply.  He has over 40,000 people worldwide reporting to him.  He leads an organization that supplies $ 70 billion in product every year.

Tony is the best leader I know.  He is thoughtful, forward thinking and values driven.  I always pick up some interesting life and career success advice when I speak with him.  The last time we spoke he shared with me a quote on change that he used in a recent presentation to the Pfizer Board of Directors.  Check it out…

“Change has a considerable psychological impact on the human mind.
• To the fearful, it is threatening because change means that things may get worse.
• To the hopeful change is encouraging because things may get better.
• To the confident, it is inspiring because the challenge exists to make things get better.”
King Whitney Jr.

I like this quote.  I particularly like what is says about confidence.  Confident people see change – or any opportunity for that matter – as a challenge to make things better.  They are not afraid of what might happen.  They don’t hope for something good to happen. They make things happen by taking personal responsibility for their life and career success.

Tweet 41 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Focus on what you are becoming.  This helps you believe in yourself and build your confidence.”  I love the idea of “becoming.”  It’s really a positive concept.  And it’s similar to the ideas in the quote above and a couple of the ideas in The Optimist Creed.  The sixth point of The Optimist Creed says, “Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”  The ninth point says, “Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.”

Tweet 41 in Success Tweets, King Whitney’s thoughts on change and points six and nine in The Optimist Creed reinforce a very important career success coach points – success is a journey, not a destination.  Keep moving forward in your life and career and you’ll succeed.

I’m was 60 in 2010, and I keep learning, growing and moving forward.  To celebrate my 60th birthday, I released three new books and a home study course on life and career success.  I am becoming a better career success coach because of my writing and my blogging.  But I’m nothing compared to Peter Drucker.  He wrote 39 books in his long and distinguished life and career – two thirds of them were written after he was 65 years old.

“Becoming” is not a function of age.  It’s a function of your willingness to look ahead and see the opportunities life brings your way – and then to have the confidence to take advantage of those opportunities.  Take it from a career success coach.  When you focus on what you are becoming, you will be building the life and career success you want and deserve.  Keep becoming and you will succeed.  I guarantee it.

I like the idea of “becoming” so much because it gets at the idea that all of us can always become something more, no matter our age, or our previous successes or failures.  There is always more to do, more to accomplish, a way to become more remarkable.

Becoming and thinking go hand in hand.  Your thoughts determine what you will become.  It’s true –you become what you think about most.  That means that the quantity and quality of the life and career success you will achieve will be in direct proportion to the size of your thoughts.  If you allow your mind to be dominated by trivial matters, your achievements are likely to be unimportant.

If you discipline yourself to think about things important to your life and career success, you will achieve great things.  Take my career advice..

• Keep up with what’s new in your field and with what’s going on in the world.
• Create a list of good ideas that you can use anytime you are searching for a creative solution to a problem.
• Remember, people with small minds think and talk about other people.  People with medium-sized minds think and talk about things.  People with great minds think and talk about ideas.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Build your life and career success by focusing on what you are becoming.  Be confident that you will succeed.  Look forward to meeting the challenges you will face.  Career success is a journey, not a destination.  Treat it that way.  Use the career advice in Tweet 41 in Success Tweets.  “Focus on what you are becoming.  This helps you believe in yourself and builds your confidence.”  Commit to taking personal responsibility for your life and career.  Set high goals; then do whatever it takes to meet or exceed them.  React positively to the setbacks, problems and negative people and events in your life.  Keep at it.  Don’t let a day when you come back empty handed in your quest for building a remarkable life and career get you down.  Get up the next day with optimism in your heart, focused on what you are becoming and keep working.

That’s my take on the career advice that Tony Maddaluna shared with me.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.  And, if you would like a copy of The Optimist Creed to frame and hang in your office, go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist and enter your name and email address.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first gives you 140 bits of career success advice tweet style — in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday.  The world is better for him having been in it, and little worse off now that he is no longer with us.

When I think of Steve Jobs, I am always reminded of my favorite quote from my favorite playwright, George Bernard Shaw…

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Steve Jobs personified this quote.   He was a force of nature, and sadly, he seemed to be pretty worn out at the end.  He saw things in a different way from most people.  An iPod is nothing but a hard drive and set of headphones, but it revolutionized the way we listen to music.  The iStore revolutionized the way we buy music.

This isn’t an ad for Apple products.  They speak for themselves.

But Steve Jobs’ life has some great career success lessons for all of us.

Steve Jobs was confidence personified.  And self confidence is an important key to your life and career success.  Tweet 56 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Self confidence must come from within.  Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.”  Steve Jobs did just that.

“I’m not confident, what do I need to do to become more confident?”  I get asked this question a lot.  Here is how I respond…

Self-confidence is an inside job.  Self-confident people are optimistic.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Self-confident people surround themselves with positive people.  If you want to build your self-confidence, focus on becoming an optimist, facing your fears and surrounding yourself with positive people.  Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Optimism

Max Moore says optimism is “the fuel of heroes, the enemy of despair, the creator of the future”.  Optimism is the opposite of pessimism, which Denis Boyle says is “as magnetic as any black hole, swallowing one good day after another until there are no good days left”.  Read that sentence again.  It’s great career advice for becoming more self-confident – avoid the black hole of pessimism.

In a very interesting article in the March/April 2007 edition of AARP, The Magazine (yes, I’m old enough to be a member), Mr. Boyle makes some great points about optimism and pessimism:

“The essential truth about optimism: the opportunities for it are everywhere.  They just get ignored… Pessimism though, is the default state of our psyche, and the easy way out.  We tell ourselves there is nothing we can do because life sucks, black holes abound, Murphy’s Law rules.  Meanwhile, optimism takes effort.  Despites tons of information provided by zealous pessimists, optimists believe everything will turn out fine.  They are able to do something no pessimist can: they do their part to make sure tomorrow will be better than today.  To subscribe to optimism means that you have a role in shaping your own future.  Why is this important?  Because it’s how stuff gets done.  No successful individual could conduct business with a set of pessimistic assumptions… Work, progress, great ideas, all are fueled by optimism.”

I agree.  I am an optimist.  I admit that in these days of economic uncertainty and crazy partisan politics it can be difficult being optimistic, but I choose to be relentlessly optimistic.  I believe every day is going to be a good day – and set about making it so.  I believe I will succeed in every project I undertake.  This optimism fuels my self-confidence, and my self-confidence drives my performance and my career success.  I never met him, but I bet Steve Jobs was a bigger optimist than me.

Tal Ben-Shahar teaches a course in Positive Psychology at Harvard.  He had 800 students in his course last year.  He offers the following three tips for becoming more optimistic:

1. Give yourself permission to be human – don’t beat up yourself about mistakes.
2. Express gratitude often.
3. Engage in activities that give your life pleasure as well as meaning.

Fear

Fear is the enemy of self-confidence and career success.  It’s also very normal.  We’re all afraid sometimes.  Usually it’s a fear of failure.  Fear can be debilitating, paralyzing us into inaction.  Over the years, I’ve found how to face up to my fears and to conquer them.  Indecision, procrastination and inaction feed fear.  Action cures it.

Here are my four easy steps for dealing with fear…

1. Identify what you fear.
2. Admit that you fear it.
3. Accept that you fear it.
4. Take action to deal with what you fear.

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive people – people who are both positive by nature, and positive about their life and career success. Positive people are optimistic – and as I’ve discussed above, optimism is the first step in building self-confidence.

Positive people help you feel good about yourself, because they feel good about themselves and life in general.  Positive people are there when you begin to doubt yourself.  They help you build your self-esteem because they have a strong sense of self-esteem.  People with a strong sense of self-esteem are not threatened by others.  They realize that self-esteem is not a fixed pie.  There is an unlimited amount of it to go around.  Therefore, you can build your self-confidence just by being around upbeat, positive people.

Identifying and building relationships with mentors is another way to build your self confidence.  Wikipedia defines a mentor as “a trusted friend, advisor, counselor or teacher; usually a more experienced person… Today mentors provide their expertise to less experienced individuals in order to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks.”

Mentors are positive people by definition.  You cannot be willing to lend your wisdom and expertise to another person without being hopeful about that person and his or her future.

I have had several mentors over my career: Bert Phillips, Maggie Watson, Dick Pelton, Bill Rankin, Howard Sohn, were all trusted friends and advisors at one time or another in my career.  I believe that mentoring is so powerful that, as I turn 61, I am working with a great mentor, 20 years my junior. JT O’Donnell is helping me turn the intellectual property that I have developed over the past 35 years into products that can be sold on line.

Mentors challenge you to do better.  That’s why they are so important in building self-confidence.  As they challenge you, they are also telling you that “you can do it”.  Having someone who believes in you – like a mentor – is one of the best ways I know to build self-confidence and your life and career success.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  We all lost a good friend this week, Steve Jobs.  I began this post with a quote from George Bernard Shaw that applies to Steve Jobs.  I’d like to finish with another one.  “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”  Steve Jobs was an unreasonable man – that’s why he is iconic, and the world is a better place for him having been in it.  He believed in himself and his ideas.   He was incredibly self confident.  All successful people are self-confident.  They understand and apply the career advice in Tweet 56 in Success Tweets.  “Self-confidence must come from within.  Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.”  You can build your self-confidence by becoming an optimist, facing your fears and acting and surrounding yourself with positive people.  Self-confidence is an inside job.  You have to create it yourself.  But once you do, you’ll find that it’s an upward spiral.  Your confidence will inspire you to take on challenges.  Your success in dealing with these challenges will help you become more confident – which in turn, will allow you to take on and meet even greater challenges.  Just look at Steve Jobs and what he created at Apple.

That’s the career advice I found in the sad news about Steve Jobs’ passing.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you.  I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first contains 140 bits of career success advice, all in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday.  The world is better for him having been in it, and little worse off now that he is no longer with us.

When I think of Steve Jobs, I am always reminded of my favorite quote from my favorite playwright, George Bernard Shaw…

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

Steve Jobs personified this quote.   He was a force of nature, and sadly, he seemed to be pretty worn out at the end.  He saw things in a different way from most people.  An iPod is nothing but a hard drive and set of headphones, but it revolutionized the way we listen to music.  The iStore revolutionized the way we buy music.

This isn’t an ad for Apple products.  They speak for themselves.

But Steve Jobs’ life has some great career success lessons for all of us.

Steve Jobs was confidence personified.  And self confidence is an important key to your life and career success.  Tweet 56 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Self confidence must come from within.  Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.”  Steve Jobs did just that.

“I’m not confident, what do I need to do to become more confident?”  I get asked this question a lot.  Here is how I respond…

Self-confidence is an inside job.  Self-confident people are optimistic.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Self-confident people surround themselves with positive people.  If you want to build your self-confidence, focus on becoming an optimist, facing your fears and surrounding yourself with positive people.  Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Optimism

Max Moore says optimism is “the fuel of heroes, the enemy of despair, the creator of the future”.  Optimism is the opposite of pessimism, which Denis Boyle says is “as magnetic as any black hole, swallowing one good day after another until there are no good days left”.  Read that sentence again.  It’s great career advice for becoming more self-confident – avoid the black hole of pessimism.

In a very interesting article in the March/April 2007 edition of AARP, The Magazine (yes, I’m old enough to be a member), Mr. Boyle makes some great points about optimism and pessimism:

“The essential truth about optimism: the opportunities for it are everywhere.  They just get ignored… Pessimism though, is the default state of our psyche, and the easy way out.  We tell ourselves there is nothing we can do because life sucks, black holes abound, Murphy’s Law rules.  Meanwhile, optimism takes effort.  Despites tons of information provided by zealous pessimists, optimists believe everything will turn out fine.  They are able to do something no pessimist can: they do their part to make sure tomorrow will be better than today.  To subscribe to optimism means that you have a role in shaping your own future.  Why is this important?  Because it’s how stuff gets done.  No successful individual could conduct business with a set of pessimistic assumptions… Work, progress, great ideas, all are fueled by optimism.”

I agree.  I am an optimist.  I admit that in these days of economic uncertainty and crazy partisan politics it can be difficult being optimistic, but I choose to be relentlessly optimistic.  I believe every day is going to be a good day – and set about making it so.  I believe I will succeed in every project I undertake.  This optimism fuels my self-confidence, and my self-confidence drives my performance and my career success.  I never met him, but I bet Steve Jobs was a bigger optimist than me.

Tal Ben-Shahar teaches a course in Positive Psychology at Harvard.  He had 800 students in his course last year.  He offers the following three tips for becoming more optimistic:

1. Give yourself permission to be human – don’t beat up yourself about mistakes.
2. Express gratitude often.
3. Engage in activities that give your life pleasure as well as meaning.

Fear

Fear is the enemy of self-confidence and career success.  It’s also very normal.  We’re all afraid sometimes.  Usually it’s a fear of failure.  Fear can be debilitating, paralyzing us into inaction.  Over the years, I’ve found how to face up to my fears and to conquer them.  Indecision, procrastination and inaction feed fear.  Action cures it.

Here are my four easy steps for dealing with fear…

1. Identify what you fear.
2. Admit that you fear it.
3. Accept that you fear it.
4. Take action to deal with what you fear.

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive people – people who are both positive by nature, and positive about their life and career success. Positive people are optimistic – and as I’ve discussed above, optimism is the first step in building self-confidence.

Positive people help you feel good about yourself, because they feel good about themselves and life in general.  Positive people are there when you begin to doubt yourself.  They help you build your self-esteem because they have a strong sense of self-esteem.  People with a strong sense of self-esteem are not threatened by others.  They realize that self-esteem is not a fixed pie.  There is an unlimited amount of it to go around.  Therefore, you can build your self-confidence just by being around upbeat, positive people.

Identifying and building relationships with mentors is another way to build your self confidence.  Wikipedia defines a mentor as “a trusted friend, advisor, counselor or teacher; usually a more experienced person… Today mentors provide their expertise to less experienced individuals in order to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks.”

Mentors are positive people by definition.  You cannot be willing to lend your wisdom and expertise to another person without being hopeful about that person and his or her future.

I have had several mentors over my career: Bert Phillips, Maggie Watson, Dick Pelton, Bill Rankin, Howard Sohn, were all trusted friends and advisors at one time or another in my career.  I believe that mentoring is so powerful that, as I turn 61, I am working with a great mentor, 20 years my junior. JT O’Donnell is helping me turn the intellectual property that I have developed over the past 35 years into products that can be sold on line.

Mentors challenge you to do better.  That’s why they are so important in building self-confidence.  As they challenge you, they are also telling you that “you can do it”.  Having someone who believes in you – like a mentor – is one of the best ways I know to build self-confidence and your life and career success.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  We all lost a good friend this week, Steve Jobs.  I began this post with a quote from George Bernard Shaw that applies to Steve Jobs.  I’d like to finish with another one.  “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”  Steve Jobs was an unreasonable man – that’s why he is iconic, and the world is a better place for him having been in it.  He believed in himself and his ideas.   He was incredibly self confident.  All successful people are self-confident.  They understand and apply the career advice in Tweet 56 in Success Tweets.  “Self-confidence must come from within.  Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.”  You can build your self-confidence by becoming an optimist, facing your fears and acting and surrounding yourself with positive people.  Self-confidence is an inside job.  You have to create it yourself.  But once you do, you’ll find that it’s an upward spiral.  Your confidence will inspire you to take on challenges.  Your success in dealing with these challenges will help you become more confident – which in turn, will allow you to take on and meet even greater challenges.  Just look at Steve Jobs and what he created at Apple.

That’s the career advice I found in the sad news about Steve Jobs’ passing.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you.  I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, please download a free copy of my popular career advice book Success Tweets and its companion piece Success Tweets Explained.  The first contains 140 bits of career success advice, all in 140 characters or less.  The second is a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened a membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new career advice book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb.  You can find out about the membership site and get the career advice in I Want YOU… for free by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.

Today’s career advice comes from Shakespeare.  In Measure for Measure he says, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing to attempt.”  I always tell my career success coach clients that fear is a career success killer – you have to look your fears in the eye and do something.

Tweet 45 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Look your fears in the eye and do something.”

Fear is the enemy of self-confidence.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Procrastination is the manifestation of fear.  When I find myself procrastinating, I stop and ask myself “What are you afraid of here, Bud?”

Usually, the answer is on the 12 most common fears on the list below.  Which of these stop you from moving forward toward your career success?  What are you doing about them?

1. Fear of failure – This type of fear has its roots in the misconception that everything you do has to be 100% successful.
2. Fear of success – This type of fear is based on the idea that success is likely to mean more responsibility and attention, coupled with pressure to continue to perform at a high level.
3. Fear of being judged – This type of fear comes from the need for approval that most people develop in childhood.
4. Fear of emotional pain – This type of fear is rooted in wanting to avoid potential negative consequences of your actions.
5. Fear of embarrassment – This type of fear is a result of empowering others to judge you when you demonstrate that you’re only human by making mistakes and having lapses of judgment.
6. Fear of being abandoned or being alone – This type of fear is related to rejection and low self-esteem.
7. Fear of rejection – This type of fear comes from personalizing what others do and say.
8. Fear of expressing your true feelings – This type of fear holds you back from engaging in open, honest dialogue with the people in your life.
9. Fear of intimacy – This type of fear manifests itself by an unwillingness to let others get too close, lest they discover the “real you.”
10. Fear of the unknown – This type of fear manifests itself as needless worry about all of the bad things that could happen if you decide to make a change in your life.
11. Fear of loss – This type of fear is related to the potential pain associated with no longer having something or someone of emotional significance to you.
12. Fear of death – The ultimate fear of the unknown.  What will happen once our spirits leave our bodies?

By identifying your fear, you are more than half way to conquering it and creating the life and  career success you deserve.  Action is the antidote to fear. In most cases, you’ll choose wisely and your fears won’t be realized.  In the cases when you choose poorly, you’ll find that failure isn’t as catastrophic as you imagined.  Successful people learn from their failures.

By taking action on your fears, you win on both counts.  You win if you make a good decision and things work out.  You even win if you make a bad decision and things go poorly, because you have an opportunity to learn from your decision and the subsequent problems you faced.

As Paul Simon says, “A good day ain’t got no rain.  A bad day’s when I think of things that might have been.”  Don’t let fear rob you of the career success that might have been.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 45 in Success Tweets.  “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Look your fears in the eye and do something.”  Procrastination is the physical manifestation of fear.  When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out what scares you about the situation.  Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear of success? Is it fear of rejection?  Is it fear of being embarrassed?  Is it fear of the unknown?  Once you’ve figured out why you are afraid, do three things: admit your fear to yourself; embrace your fear; take action.  Action is the antidote to fear and an important career success key.

That’s my career advice on fear and career success.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you, and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened my new membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb. You can find out about the membership site and get your free copy of I Want YOU by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Shakespeare.  In Measure for Measure he says, “Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we might win, by fearing to attempt.”  I always tell my career success coach clients that fear is a career success killer – you have to look your fears in the eye and do something.

Tweet 45 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Look your fears in the eye and do something.”

Fear is the enemy of self-confidence.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Procrastination is the manifestation of fear.  When I find myself procrastinating, I stop and ask myself “What are you afraid of here, Bud?”

Usually, the answer is on the 12 most common fears on the list below.  Which of these stop you from moving forward toward your career success?  What are you doing about them?

1. Fear of failure – This type of fear has its roots in the misconception that everything you do has to be 100% successful.
2. Fear of success – This type of fear is based on the idea that success is likely to mean more responsibility and attention, coupled with pressure to continue to perform at a high level.
3. Fear of being judged – This type of fear comes from the need for approval that most people develop in childhood.
4. Fear of emotional pain – This type of fear is rooted in wanting to avoid potential negative consequences of your actions.
5. Fear of embarrassment – This type of fear is a result of empowering others to judge you when you demonstrate that you’re only human by making mistakes and having lapses of judgment.
6. Fear of being abandoned or being alone – This type of fear is related to rejection and low self-esteem.
7. Fear of rejection – This type of fear comes from personalizing what others do and say.
8. Fear of expressing your true feelings – This type of fear holds you back from engaging in open, honest dialogue with the people in your life.
9. Fear of intimacy – This type of fear manifests itself by an unwillingness to let others get too close, lest they discover the “real you.”
10. Fear of the unknown – This type of fear manifests itself as needless worry about all of the bad things that could happen if you decide to make a change in your life.
11. Fear of loss – This type of fear is related to the potential pain associated with no longer having something or someone of emotional significance to you.
12. Fear of death – The ultimate fear of the unknown.  What will happen once our spirits leave our bodies?

By identifying your fear, you are more than half way to conquering it and creating the life and  career success you deserve.  Action is the antidote to fear. In most cases, you’ll choose wisely and your fears won’t be realized.  In the cases when you choose poorly, you’ll find that failure isn’t as catastrophic as you imagined.  Successful people learn from their failures.

By taking action on your fears, you win on both counts.  You win if you make a good decision and things work out.  You even win if you make a bad decision and things go poorly, because you have an opportunity to learn from your decision and the subsequent problems you faced.

As Paul Simon says, “A good day ain’t got no rain.  A bad day’s when I think of things that might have been.”  Don’t let fear rob you of the career success that might have been.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people are self-confident.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 45 in Success Tweets.  “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self-confident people face their fears and act.  Look your fears in the eye and do something.”  Procrastination is the physical manifestation of fear.  When you find yourself procrastinating, figure out what scares you about the situation.  Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear of success? Is it fear of rejection?  Is it fear of being embarrassed?  Is it fear of the unknown?  Once you’ve figured out why you are afraid, do three things: admit your fear to yourself; embrace your fear; take action.  Action is the antidote to fear and an important career success key.

That’s my career advice on fear and career success.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily musings on life and career success.  I value you, and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.

PPS: I opened my new membership site on September 1.  It’s called My Corporate Climb and is devoted to helping people create career success inside large corporations.  To celebrate the grand opening, I’m giving away a new book I’ve written called I Want YOU…To Succeed in Your Corporate Climb. You can find out about the membership site and get your free copy of I Want YOU by going to http://www.mycorporateclimb.com.

Self confidence is an important key to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  I always tell my career success coach clients that there are three keys to becoming self confident: 1) Choose to be optimistic, 2) Face your fears and act, and 3)Surround yourself with positive people.

Tweets 49 and 50 in my career advice book Success Tweets say, “Surround yourself with positive people.  Hold them close.  They will give you energy and help you create the career success you deserve.” (49)  “Jettison the negative people in your life.  They are energy black holes.  They will suck you dry; but only if you let them.”  (50)

“Good career advice,” you might say, “but how do I figure out exactly who are the positive and negative people in my life?”

Robin Harpe my friend and a career coach in Florida has provided a great resource to help you answer that question.  Below, you’ll find 20 questions you can ask yourself about anybody you know.  You might be surprised by how well some of the people you consider to be positive and supportive fare under this type of scrutiny.

Here are Robin’s 20 questions for determining exactly who are the positive and negative people in your life…

1. Do they return your phone calls, emails?
2. Do they honor their commitment to you?
3. Do they do what they say they will do?
4. Do they send you information, give you things that will help you without you asking?
5. Do you get things from them without continually have to ask over and over for then?
6. Do they ask questions that show they have been actively listening?
7. Do they only talk about themselves?
8. Do they always ask for favors, and then disappear when you have a need?
9. Do they demand things of you, giving off the impression they are better than you?
10. Do they apologize when they are wrong?
11. Do they blame everyone else, never accepting responsibility for their part?
12. Do they talk a good game but no follow through?
13. Do they accept total responsibility for everything?
14. Do they speak about themselves in third person?
15. Do they constantly say, “I could never do that”?
16. Do they constantly say, “I wish _____”?
17. Do they tell the same stories, over and over and over – nothing new?
18. Do those stories come from the glory days of their life?
19. Do they talk positively or negatively?
20. Do they subscribe to WOW customer service by giving you more value, and going out of their way and way above what you expected?

I like these questions.  My thanks to Robin for blogging about them.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  You have to be self confident to create the life and career success you want and deserve.  Surrounding yourself with positive people is an important confidence booster.  Positive people will lift you.  Negative people will drag you down.  Use the 20 questions above to help you figure out exactly who the positive and negative people in your life are.  Choose to hang around with positive, upbeat people and you’ll be on your way to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice on identifying the positive people in your life.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success.  I value you and I appreciate you.

Bud

PS: If you haven’t already done so, you can download a free copy of my latest career success book Success Tweets Explained.  It’s a whopping 390 + pages of career advice explaining each of the common sense tweets in Success Tweets in detail.  Go to http://budurl.com/STExp to claim your free copy.  You’ll also start receiving my daily life and career success quotes.