Lorraine Cohen is a friend of mine, and a very wise person.  The other day she sent me an email with 15 quotes about courage.  If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve you have to be courageous.  It takes courage to fight through your fears and become the career success you deserve to be.

Lorraine is offering a new program called “Awakening Your Courageous Heart.”  It begins on October 18 – tomorrow.  I urge you to go to http:www.yourcourageousheart.com and check it out.

Meanwhile, enjoy these quotes on courage…

“When we come to the edge of all the light we have and must take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe one of two things. Either we will find something solid to stand on or, we will be taught to fly.” – Patrick Overton

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” – Maya Angelou

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”- Ambrose Redmoon

“If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.”- John Maxwell

“Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now but it can’t rain forever.” – Hailee
“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious don’t live at all.” – Ashley L.

“Fear and courage are brothers.” – Proverb

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose the sight of the shore.” – Christopher Columbus

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong

“Courage is the knowing that something scares the hell out of you but you do it anyway because you know it will change your life forever.”– Unknown

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Christopher Robin to Pooh” & “Whatever fortune brings, don’t be afraid of doing things.”– A. A. Milne

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” – August Wilson

“It takes strength to be firm and it takes courage to be gentle.
It takes strength to conquer and it takes courage to surrender.
It takes strength to be certain and it takes courage to have doubt.
It takes strength to fit in and it takes courage to stand out.
It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain and it takes courage to feel your own pain.
It takes strength to endure abuse and it takes courage to stop it.
It takes strength to stand alone and it takes courage to lean on another.
It takes strength to love and it takes courage to be loved.
It takes strength to survive and it takes courage to live.” – Unknown

Courage will help you become more self confident – and the more confident you are the more likely you are to create the life and career success you want and deserve.  Tweet 45 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self confident people face their fears and act.  Look you fears in the eye and do something.”

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to confront your fear and do something about it.  Fear is normal.  Fear is common.  Fear is human.  However, fear is a career success killer.  We’re all afraid sometime.  Successful people face their fears and act.  I’ve learned a few things about fear over the years.

Fear breeds indifference.  Indifference breeds self doubt and worry.  Often, it’s easier to go with the flow and do nothing than attempt to do something of which you’re afraid.  When you say to yourself, “It’s OK, it doesn’t really matter anyway,” ask the next question – “What am I afraid of here?”  Identifying your fear is the first step in dealing with it.

Self-doubt is a form of negative self-talk.  Our words can become self-fulfilling prophecies.  Positive self-talk leads to success.  Negative self-talk leads to fear and failure.  If you catch yourself saying things like, “I can’t do this; I’ll never be successful; I’ll never get out of this mess,” then you never will.  If you say things like, “I can do this; I have what it takes to succeed; I can solve this problem,” then you will.

Worry and excessive caution will paralyze you.  Some people spend so much time worrying about the bad things that could or might happen that they never take action and actually do something to prove that good things happen too.  Worrying too much can bring you and your life and career success quest to a screeching halt.

A boat that never leaves the harbor is pretty safe.  However, it is not doing what it is meant to be doing.  The same is true for people.  If you never take a risk, you’ll never know what you are capable of accomplishing.

Here are my tips for doing battle with your fears.

1) Identify what you fear.  Figure out why you’re afraid. Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear of making the wrong decision?  Is it fear of a lost opportunity?  Are you afraid that you aren’t up to task?  Once you identify the reason behind your fear, you are well on the way to overcoming it.

2) Admit what you fear.  It’s OK to be afraid.  You wouldn’t be human if you were never afraid.  A common definition of courage is the ability to feel fear and still do what you need to do, regardless.  In 1988, I faced a very frightening decision.  Should I stay in a comfortable but ultimately unsatisfying job with a large corporation, or should I start my own business?  I was afraid of failing.  Failing meant that I would lose my savings and have to start over again, looking for a job in another corporation.  However, once I identified and admitted my fear, I was able to take the next step – acceptance.

3) Accept what you fear.  Accepting your fears is important, because it shows that you know you’re human.  Once I accepted that I was afraid of failing, I was able to start my business and succeed.  In fact, I embraced my fear of failure.  It made me work harder; it pushed me to work the long hours and learn the entrepreneurship lessons necessary to be successful as a self-employed career success coach, consultant and speaker.

4) Take action.  Action cures fear.  It is the most important of these four steps.  Do something!  The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll find it was the wrong thing to do – and you will have eliminated at least one thing from your list of possible actions.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people don’t let fear paralyze them into inaction.  They follow these four steps for dealing with the fear that can sabotage their career success: identify it, admit it, accept it, do something about it.”  Action is the antidote to fear.  In most cases, you’ll make good decisions 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.

That’s my career advice inspired by Lorraine Cohen’s quotes on courage.  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 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.

Lorraine Cohen is a friend of mine, and a very wise person.  The other day she sent me an email with 15 quotes about courage.  If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve you have to be courageous.  It takes courage to fight through your fears and become the career success you deserve to be.

Lorraine is offering a new program called “Awakening Your Courageous Heart.”  It begins on October 18 – tomorrow.  I urge you to go to http:www.yourcourageousheart.com and check it out.

Meanwhile, enjoy these quotes on courage…

“When we come to the edge of all the light we have and must take the step into the darkness of the unknown, we must believe one of two things. Either we will find something solid to stand on or, we will be taught to fly.” – Patrick Overton

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can’t practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage.” – Maya Angelou

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.” – Maya Angelou

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”- Ambrose Redmoon

“If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.”- John Maxwell

“Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now but it can’t rain forever.” – Hailee
“The brave may not live forever, but the cautious don’t live at all.” – Ashley L.

“Fear and courage are brothers.” – Proverb

“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose the sight of the shore.” – Christopher Columbus

“Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.” – Lance Armstrong

“Courage is the knowing that something scares the hell out of you but you do it anyway because you know it will change your life forever.”– Unknown

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.” – John C. Maxwell

“Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Christopher Robin to Pooh” & “Whatever fortune brings, don’t be afraid of doing things.”– A. A. Milne

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.” – August Wilson

“It takes strength to be firm and it takes courage to be gentle.
It takes strength to conquer and it takes courage to surrender.
It takes strength to be certain and it takes courage to have doubt.
It takes strength to fit in and it takes courage to stand out.
It takes strength to feel a friend’s pain and it takes courage to feel your own pain.
It takes strength to endure abuse and it takes courage to stop it.
It takes strength to stand alone and it takes courage to lean on another.
It takes strength to love and it takes courage to be loved.
It takes strength to survive and it takes courage to live.” – Unknown

Courage will help you become more self confident – and the more confident you are the more likely you are to create the life and career success you want and deserve.  Tweet 45 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Everyone is afraid sometime.  Self confident people face their fears and act.  Look you fears in the eye and do something.”

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to confront your fear and do something about it.  Fear is normal.  Fear is common.  Fear is human.  However, fear is a career success killer.  We’re all afraid sometime.  Successful people face their fears and act.  I’ve learned a few things about fear over the years.

Fear breeds indifference.  Indifference breeds self doubt and worry.  Often, it’s easier to go with the flow and do nothing than attempt to do something of which you’re afraid.  When you say to yourself, “It’s OK, it doesn’t really matter anyway,” ask the next question – “What am I afraid of here?”  Identifying your fear is the first step in dealing with it.

Self-doubt is a form of negative self-talk.  Our words can become self-fulfilling prophecies.  Positive self-talk leads to success.  Negative self-talk leads to fear and failure.  If you catch yourself saying things like, “I can’t do this; I’ll never be successful; I’ll never get out of this mess,” then you never will.  If you say things like, “I can do this; I have what it takes to succeed; I can solve this problem,” then you will.

Worry and excessive caution will paralyze you.  Some people spend so much time worrying about the bad things that could or might happen that they never take action and actually do something to prove that good things happen too.  Worrying too much can bring you and your life and career success quest to a screeching halt.

A boat that never leaves the harbor is pretty safe.  However, it is not doing what it is meant to be doing.  The same is true for people.  If you never take a risk, you’ll never know what you are capable of accomplishing.

Here are my tips for doing battle with your fears.

1) Identify what you fear.  Figure out why you’re afraid. Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear of making the wrong decision?  Is it fear of a lost opportunity?  Are you afraid that you aren’t up to task?  Once you identify the reason behind your fear, you are well on the way to overcoming it.

2) Admit what you fear.  It’s OK to be afraid.  You wouldn’t be human if you were never afraid.  A common definition of courage is the ability to feel fear and still do what you need to do, regardless.  In 1988, I faced a very frightening decision.  Should I stay in a comfortable but ultimately unsatisfying job with a large corporation, or should I start my own business?  I was afraid of failing.  Failing meant that I would lose my savings and have to start over again, looking for a job in another corporation.  However, once I identified and admitted my fear, I was able to take the next step – acceptance.

3) Accept what you fear.  Accepting your fears is important, because it shows that you know you’re human.  Once I accepted that I was afraid of failing, I was able to start my business and succeed.  In fact, I embraced my fear of failure.  It made me work harder; it pushed me to work the long hours and learn the entrepreneurship lessons necessary to be successful as a self-employed career success coach, consultant and speaker.

4) Take action.  Action cures fear.  It is the most important of these four steps.  Do something!  The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll find it was the wrong thing to do – and you will have eliminated at least one thing from your list of possible actions.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  Successful people don’t let fear paralyze them into inaction.  They follow these four steps for dealing with the fear that can sabotage their career success: identify it, admit it, accept it, do something about it.”  Action is the antidote to fear.  In most cases, you’ll make good decisions 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.

That’s my career advice inspired by Lorraine Cohen’s quotes on courage.  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 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.

For me, the Memorial Day weekend is more than a US holiday and the unofficial start of summer.  Memorial Day weekend is always the middle weekend of the French Open — one of the four tennis majors.   If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I often find career advice in sporting events.  This year’s French Open presents another opportunity to connect career success with sports.

One of the biggest upsets so far this year was Kim Clijsters loss in the second round to Arantxa Rus, the 114th ranked player in the world.  Kim Clijsters was seeded second in this year’s French Open.  She won the two previous tennis majors, the 2011 Australian Open and 2010 US Open.  If I were a betting man, I would have bet heavily on her to beat Arantxa Rus.

Last week Kim Clijsters lost two match points and 11 of the last 12 games to Arantxa Rus.  After the match she said..

“I starting doubting a little bit.  When you start doubting yourself on any surface – but for me definitely on clay – it’s the wrong attitude to have.” 

In other words, Kim Clijsters was eliminated from this year’s French Open because she lost her confidence.   Arantxa Rus, on the hand gained confidence as the match went on.  Kim Clijsters said, “She obviously starting building up more confidence, started playing a lot better, and was really putting me on my back foot all the time.”

Confidence is important in sports.  It’s also important if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve. 

There are five keys to building the self confidence that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve…

First, you have to become an optimist.  Optimism is the key to self confidence.  If you aren’t optimistic about your chances of creating your career success, you will never do it.  Optimism is a choice.  Optimistic people believe that today will be better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better yet.  Choose optimism and you’ll be on your way to being more self confident and creating your life and career success.

Second, you have to face your fears and act.  We’re all afraid sometime.  If you want to become a career success, you have to overcome your fear of failure and move forward.  I find that procrastination is the physical manifestation of fear.  The next time you find yourself procrastinating ask yourself a simple question, “What am I afraid of here?”  Once you identify your fear, do something.  Take action.  The worst thing that will happen is that you’ll learn what not do in similar situations in the future.

Third, surround yourself with positive people.  Positive people will help you become more self confident and help you on your way to career success.  Avoid negative people.  As Tweet 50 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Jettison the negative people in your life.  They are energy black holes.  They will suck you dry; but only if you let them.”  Cynics are negative people.  They may seem to be good company at first because they are witty.  However, in the long run, you’ll find that they humor usually comes at the expense of others.  They are negative people in disguise and will drag you down if you spend too much time with them.

Fourth, find a mentor to help you on your way to life and career success.  Mentors are positive people by definition.  They are willing to give of themselves to help others create their life and career success.  You can learn a lot from your mentors.  But I think the best thing you can learn is how to deal with setbacks and disappointments and keep moving forward in a self confident manner.

Fifth, become a mentor.  It’s never too early to become a mentor.  There is always somebody who needs to learn what you already know.  You never learn something as well when you teach it to others.  Becoming a mentor will help you cystalize the career success lessons in your experiences.  This will help you build your self confidence.  Also, as you watch the people you help grow and move toward their career success, your self esteem – and self confidence – will grow.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, you need to be self confident.  There are five keys to building your self confidence: 1) choose optimism; 2) face your fears and act; 3) surround yourself with positive people; 4) work with a mentor; and 5) mentor others.  If all else fails, follow the career advice in Tweet 52 in Success Tweets.  “Identify the self confident people you know.  Pay attention to how they act and carry themselves.  Watch what they do.  Act like them.”

That’s my career advice on self confidence.  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, 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.

For me, the Memorial Day weekend is more than a US holiday and the unofficial start of summer.  Memorial Day weekend is always the middle weekend of the French Open — one of the four tennis majors.   If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I often find career advice in sporting events.  This year’s French Open presents another opportunity to connect career success with sports.

One of the biggest upsets so far this year was Kim Clijsters loss in the second round to Arantxa Rus, the 114th ranked player in the world.  Kim Clijsters was seeded second in this year’s French Open.  She won the two previous tennis majors, the 2011 Australian Open and 2010 US Open.  If I were a betting man, I would have bet heavily on her to beat Arantxa Rus.

Last week Kim Clijsters lost two match points and 11 of the last 12 games to Arantxa Rus.  After the match she said..

“I starting doubting a little bit.  When you start doubting yourself on any surface – but for me definitely on clay – it’s the wrong attitude to have.” 

In other words, Kim Clijsters was eliminated from this year’s French Open because she lost her confidence.   Arantxa Rus, on the hand gained confidence as the match went on.  Kim Clijsters said, “She obviously starting building up more confidence, started playing a lot better, and was really putting me on my back foot all the time.”

Confidence is important in sports.  It’s also important if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve. 

There are five keys to building the self confidence that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve…

First, you have to become an optimist.  Optimism is the key to self confidence.  If you aren’t optimistic about your chances of creating your career success, you will never do it.  Optimism is a choice.  Optimistic people believe that today will be better than yesterday and tomorrow will be better yet.  Choose optimism and you’ll be on your way to being more self confident and creating your life and career success.

Second, you have to face your fears and act.  We’re all afraid sometime.  If you want to become a career success, you have to overcome your fear of failure and move forward.  I find that procrastination is the physical manifestation of fear.  The next time you find yourself procrastinating ask yourself a simple question, “What am I afraid of here?”  Once you identify your fear, do something.  Take action.  The worst thing that will happen is that you’ll learn what not do in similar situations in the future.

Third, surround yourself with positive people.  Positive people will help you become more self confident and help you on your way to career success.  Avoid negative people.  As Tweet 50 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Jettison the negative people in your life.  They are energy black holes.  They will suck you dry; but only if you let them.”  Cynics are negative people.  They may seem to be good company at first because they are witty.  However, in the long run, you’ll find that they humor usually comes at the expense of others.  They are negative people in disguise and will drag you down if you spend too much time with them.

Fourth, find a mentor to help you on your way to life and career success.  Mentors are positive people by definition.  They are willing to give of themselves to help others create their life and career success.  You can learn a lot from your mentors.  But I think the best thing you can learn is how to deal with setbacks and disappointments and keep moving forward in a self confident manner.

Fifth, become a mentor.  It’s never too early to become a mentor.  There is always somebody who needs to learn what you already know.  You never learn something as well when you teach it to others.  Becoming a mentor will help you cystalize the career success lessons in your experiences.  This will help you build your self confidence.  Also, as you watch the people you help grow and move toward their career success, your self esteem – and self confidence – will grow.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense.  If you want to create the life and career success you deserve, you need to be self confident.  There are five keys to building your self confidence: 1) choose optimism; 2) face your fears and act; 3) surround yourself with positive people; 4) work with a mentor; and 5) mentor others.  If all else fails, follow the career advice in Tweet 52 in Success Tweets.  “Identify the self confident people you know.  Pay attention to how they act and carry themselves.  Watch what they do.  Act like them.”

That’s my career advice on self confidence.  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, 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.

As usual, the January 2011 issue of SUCCESS Magazine has some great life and career success advice.  Are you a subscriber?  If not, I suggest you subscribe to this great print mag as soon as you finish reading this post.

In an article entitled “The 6 Deadly Fears of Entrepreneurship” Beth Douglass Silcox lists six fears common to entrepreneurs.  I think these six fears apply to everyone – not just entrepreneurs.  Take a look…

• Fear of Failure
• Fear of Inadequacy
• Fear of Risks
• Fear of Financial Insecurity
• Fear of What Others Will Think
• Fear of Growth

Before we go on, let me say some things about fear.  Fear is normal.  Fear is common.  Fear is human.  And fear is a career success killer. 

We’re all afraid sometime.  Successful people face their fears and act.  I’ve learned a few things about fear over the years.  Fear breeds indifference.  Indifference breeds self doubt and worry. Often, it’s easier to go with the flow and do nothing than attempt to do something of which you’re afraid.  When you say to yourself “It’s OK, it doesn’t really matter anyway,” ask the next question – “What am I afraid of here?”  Identifying your fear is the first step in dealing with it.

Self doubt is a form of negative self talk. Our words can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Positive self talk leads to success.  Negative self talk leads to fear and failure.

If you catch yourself saying things like “I can’t do this; I’ll never be successful; I’ll never get out of this mess,” then you never will. 

If you say things like “I can do this; I have what it takes to succeed; I can solve this problem,” then you will.

Worry and excessive caution will paralyze you and stop your quest for career success dead in its tracks. Some people spend so much time worrying about the bad things that could or might happen that they never take action and actually do something to prove that good things happen too. Worrying too much can bring you and your life to a screeching halt.

A boat that never leaves the harbor is pretty safe. However, it is not doing what it is meant to be doing. The same is true for people. If you never take a risk, you’ll never know what you are capable of accomplishing.

Fear is a confidence and career success killer.  Tweet 46 in Success Tweets, my latest career advice book lists four steps for dealing with the fears that can sabotage your life and career success:

1. Identify it.
2. Admit it.
3. Accept it.
4. Do something about it.

Let’s look at how you can use these four steps to beat the fear that is holding you back from achieving the life and career success you want and deserve.

1. Identify what you fear.  Figure out why you’re afraid. Is it fear of failure?  Is it fear of inadequacy?  Is it fear of risks?  Is it fear of financial insecurity?  Is it fear of what others will think?  Is it fear of growth? Is it fear of making the wrong decision?  Is it fear of a lost opportunity?  Are you afraid that you aren’t up to task?  Once you identify the reason behind your fear, you are well on the way to overcoming it.
2. Admit what you fear.  It’s OK to be afraid. You wouldn’t be human if you were never afraid. A common definition of courage is the ability to feel fear and still do what you need to do regardless. In 1988, I faced a very frightening decision. Should I stay in a comfortable but ultimately unsatisfying job with a large corporation, or should I start my own business?  I was afraid of failing.  Failing would mean that I would lose my savings and have to start over again, looking for a job in another corporation.  However, once I identified and admitted my fear, I was able to take the next step – acceptance.
3. Accept what you fear.  Accepting your fear is important, because it shows that you know you’re human.  Once I accepted that I was afraid of failing, I was able to start my business and succeed.  In fact, I embraced my fear of failure. It made me work harder; it pushed me to work the long hours and learn the entrepreneurship lessons necessary to be successful as a self employed career success coach, consultant and speaker.
4. Take action.  Action cures fear.  It is the most important of these four steps. Do something! The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll find it was the wrong thing to do – and you will have eliminated at least one thing from your list of possible actions.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people don’t let fear sabotage their self confidence and career success.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 46 in Success Tweets.  “Four steps for dealing with fear that can sabotage your success: identify it, admit it, accept it, do something about it.” 

Action is the antidote to fear. In most cases, you’ll make good decisions 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.

That’s my career advice on dealing with the fears that can sabotage your career success.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading – and don’t forget these four steps the next time you find fear interfering with your life and career success.

Bud

Happy Independence Day to my readers in the USA.  I hope you are enjoying the long weekend.  Cathy and I did a lot of biking and saw a couple of mivies and some great live fireworks on Saturday and enjoyed the Washington DC, New York and Boston ones on TV yesterday. 

I’m still enjoying writing this series of posts on the career advice in my latest book Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you are enjoying reading them.  You can purchase a copy of Success Tweets at Amazon.com or your local bookstore – or you can get a free copy of the eBook at www.SuccessTweets.com.

Today’s post is on Tweet 56…

Self confidence must come from within.  Outside reinforcement and strokes can help, but you have to build your own confidence.

“I am 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 defines optimism as “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 with this career advice.  I am an optimist.  I admit that in these days of high unemployment and oil spills 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.

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.  It’s also very normal.  We’re all afraid sometimes.  Usually it’s 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.

I offer my career sucess coach clients four easy steps for dealing with fear. 

1. Identify it
2. Admit it
3. Accept it
4. Take action to deal with it

In the post on Success Tweet 46, I discussed these four steps for dealing with fear in detail.  Check it out if you missed it.

Positive People

Surround yourself with positive people – people who are both positive by nature, and positive about their success in their life and career.  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.

Self confident people take the time to identify and build relationships with mentors. 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 60, I am working with three mentors.  Russell Brunson, Stephanie Frank and Nancy Marmolejo are 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 a one of the best ways I know to build self confidence and life and career success.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident.  They understand 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.  A pretty good message on Independence Day weekend if I do say so myself.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 56 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.

Bud