This week we are happy to have MaryAnn Rivers from Make A Difference Make A Living as a guest author! Before forming Make A Difference Make A Living MaryAnn worked in the sales and marketing industry for 25 years. Today she applies her knowledge as a business and health coach.
Would you like to be more confident? Hardly anyone says no to this question. In fact, confidence is one of the few things in life that we don’t necessarily want in moderation. Don’t confuse confidence with arrogance or an over-inflated sense of one’s self worth. Genuine confidence by definition is “the assurance you have in yourself or the abilities you possess”. When used with respect and with a service attitude toward others confidence is a true gift that attracts others. Versus arrogance that repels others.
I’ve learned personally that to become more confident you must be willing to challenge yourself beyond your comfort zone. You must be willing to make mistakes. Failure is essential for building confidence even though it seems counterintuitive. Through failure we learn the lessons that teach us how to eventually succeed. The best anecdote for fear is action. So, I’d like to challenge you this week to take action, one step at a time.
Here is a simple 5 step systemfor training yourself to become more confident. Follow this formula and commit to doing all the steps regularly and daily and you will definitely experience an increase in your confidence. The best part is once you start to feel your confidence build it multiplies. Get going in the right direction and you will see yourself doing things you never imagined possible.
Step 1: Determine WHY you want to be more confident? What will more confidence give you? With every goal in life whether it is being financially secure, becoming healthier, or getting that next promotion you must always make sure you are asking yourself why you want to attain the goal. Confidence is simply a means to the end. What’s the end? When you hit times that you don’t want to work at building your confidence muscle you must go back to your purpose or “why.” If your why is compelling enough than it will pull you forward to the win at the end. If you aren’t able to articulate exactly why you want to be more confident ask yourself what the downside in the past has been due to a lack of confidence. What opportunities have you missed? What disappointments did you experience?
Action STEP – WRITE OUT YOUR “WHY”. I want to be more confident so I can__________.
Step 2: Visualize yourself as more confident. Modern science continues to prove the power of visualization. Visualization can cure cancer, create architectural wonders, and help professional athletes reach the pinnacle of their career. How would you look if you displayed more confidence? Close your eyes and picture yourself doing something confidently. What does your posture look like? What does the tone in your voice sound like? How do you feel about yourself when you are showing up in the world as confident? Get as clear a picture in your mind of yourself practicing something difficult or something you want to master confidently. Visualize this as often as possible (at least daily). Then when you are ready to actually do what you are visualizing your mind will already know what to do and more importantly HOW to do it confidently.
ACTION STEP – Sit for 5 minutes today and visualize a more confident you.
Step 3: Focus on your strengths. Focusing on your strengths by using them in life is the #1 secret to confidence. Are you a gifted listener who always remembers what is important to others? Were you selling used golf balls to your neighbors before you were ready to start kindergarten? Can you get to the heart of a matter in seconds and simplify even the most confusing conversation with a group? All of these skills are clues to your uniqueness. If you are not in a situation that allows you to use your gifts then you will most likely continue to battle a lack of confidence. If you are not certain what your true strengths are then I highly recommend you research the many assessment tools that will help you determine them. DiSC is one example.
Action Step: Write out your strengths. Then think about how you will use them more in your life.
Step 4: Guard, control and feed your mind. Have you heard the expression “Where the mind goes the man (or woman) follows?” Everything mentioned above is important and necessary for taking steps forward in confidence. However, if you do not believe first that you have the power inside you to become more confident it will never happen. You must first believe in your heart and your MIND that you can be more confident. These 3 skills practiced daily will reset your negative thinking patterns into positive messages that are the foundation for confidence.
A) Guard: Stay away from “negatives”. Particularly people. Be very careful who you spend time with. Avoid people who bring you down regularly. Surround yourself with positive, successful people who are self starters and are continuously improving. These people will be your role models for your self-study program. They may also encourage you as you grow.
B) Control: Identify the things that you say to yourself that drags you down into a pit of self pity and zaps your confidence. Take the next few days to write down the negative self talk that you hear – catch yourself saying it and keep track. Then once you know what your 2-3 “zappers” are, start talking back to them and replacing the negative thoughts with positives. As you practice this you will gradually pull out the negative “weeds” and plant seeds of positive that will grow over time.
C) Feed: Replace negative thinking in your head with positives. These are often called affirmations. Write or audio tape these positive statements of encouragement and “truth” affirmations. Display them visually if that works best for you. Or say them or listen to them if you are an auditory learner. Just like you feed your body healthy food if you want to be physically healthy you must feed yourself positive mental food to improve your outlook and gain confidence.
ACTION STEPS –
Think of a positive, confident person you can spend more time with and contact them.
Identify your 3 common “zappers” and develop a few affirmations to replace them.
Step 5: Start Your Confidence Training Program. Confident people have something in common. They take risks and they never view mistakes as failure. They view mistakes as opportunities to learn and get one step closer to success. If you want to build confidence there is only one true way to do it. Practice doing things that stretch you and even scare you and watch your confidence soar.
Think back to a time when you did something that boosted your confidence. Was it something easy or challenging? When we overcome the things we fear the most we make the greatest leaps forward with our confidence. Commit today to doing something that you would not normally do but you know you should do to be more confident. Can you speak up in a meeting you normally wouldn’t? Can you attempt a new skill that requires going out on a limb? The bottom line advice here is practice, practice,practice… to become more confident.
ACTION STEP: Commit to one thing you will do this week that will build confidence. Set a goal. Then DO IT before 5 p.m. on Friday!
Taking these 5 simple steps will set you on a deliberate and exciting journey toward a more confident and authentic you. If you start building your confidence muscle this week by taking these simple steps imagine how great you will feel by the weekend?
As they say, life is not a dress rehearsal. Live confidently and live it to your fullest potential.
If you’d like to learn more about confidence I’d like to invite you to listen to my free audio replay of
Are you the kind of manager people would choose to work for again? Imagine if the circumstances were before you where your team could select who would lead the group. If they had it to do all over again, would your team put you in charge?
We all would like to think our team members would gladly want us as their manager again. Does it surprise you that in a recent Hogan survey, the average respondent would be willing to work for fewer than half of their former bosses again? Ouch! Who’s in the outcast boss group?
Here is what the survey went on to uncover about bad bosses. The research does not call this the 4-headed monster, but in thinking about these 4 management mishaps, the title seems appropriate. Here is the list of the characteristics of Bad Managers:
Bad managers don’t manage their emotional and social behavior.
Bad managers lack integrity, avoid personal accountability, and their behavior is inconsistent with organizational values.
Bad managers don’t make their expectations clear and don’t hold staff accountable for performance.
Bad managers make minimal efforts to develop or grow their staff.
Here are some questions you consider and utilize to be sure you are on the list of people who would be chosen to lead again and again. *Warning*: The following questions require high levels of self-awareness and ability to be take some time to seek feedback, while reflecting on what you do, hear and see. They are not for someone who wants a quick-fix or easy answer. However, use them wisely, honestly and with the intention of improving your leadership and you will be impressed with the results.
Manage your emotional and social behavior. Seek to increase your emotional intelligence. To begin to improve in this area, you must first understand yourself; how you tend to behave in situations; what motivates and excites you and what drains your energy. Consider the impact of your behavior on others, along with their style and preferences. Are there areas where your behavior may be perceived differently than what you are intending? Do you expect certain behavior and reactions from others based on your own preferences? Is this a realistic expectation?
Act with integrity and personal accountability in a way that is consistent with the organization’s values. Integrity: People say “either you have it or you don’t”. Ask yourself, how do people perceive your integrity? What are the values of the organization you work for? How do you demonstrate those values? Do you take credit when things go right, but pass blame or make excuses when things go wrong? How you can ensure your team sees you leading by example with integrity? Maybe this means you make your life harder in the short-term, to achieve an outcome consistent with your values or the values of the organization in the long-run.
Ensure expectations are clear and hold your team accountable. Do you ensure your team has clear goals? Do the goals follow the SMART format? Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time-based. Are the goals written down and then throw by the way-side or do you revisit these goals, discuss progress and barriers to achieving them? How do you hold people accountable for the outcomes you agree to?
Develop your others on your team. What are the short-term and long-term career goals of the people are your team? Do you know what gets them excited or interested at work? What skills, talents and experiences will they need to accomplish their career aspirations? What role do you take in helping them obtain new skills and experiences? Do you avoid developing your team members because it may result in them moving on from your team (a major inconvenience or setback to your work)? Although it may seem intuitive to make your best efforts to ensure your team stays operating as they are today; are you ignoring the inevitable? What is the trade-off for someone leaving your team because they do not get any development versus someone growing into a job the stretches and utilizes their skills. Which offers you more allegiance and pro-activity in the long-haul on your team?
We have all probably heard the phrase, “people don’t leave companies, they leave bosses”. What specifically will you do to be sure your team members not only stay with your team, but would come back again if given the chance? Be the boss everyone wants to work for and see the positive impact on loyalty, teamwork and results.
How many thousands of books, speakers, videos, seminars and programs do you think exist for increasing sales? Google the words sales development program and you will receive 258,000,000 results! But do you want to know a secret? The best salespeople actually don’t ever sell anything. It’s true. There are a lot of very successful salespeople who are going to be really unhappy when this gets out.
Think of the best salespeople you know. They seem to possess the hybrid qualities of genius & genie, magically producing month after month, year after year. How do they do it? What is their secret? They likely don’t sell anything. Instead they approach meetings with prospective customers as consultations:
They talk with their customers – these giants don’t have a “pitch”, rather elevate conversation beyond a simple sales call, to a business discussion
They listen to what the customer needs, understand & identify where they need help, without regard to what products/services they have to offer
They provide their customer with a solution, not a product
In order to join the ranks of the sales elite, they must be talking about and offering something that the customer not only needs – but that they value. Value is in the eye of the beholder so be sure your sales team is encouraged to know what value looks like to each customer before talking about what your organization has to offer them. Once they’ve determined what the customer needs & how they value it, your salesperson can build the solution message upon it, & throughout the “story” reinforce it by continually tying back to that foundation. There will be no need to sell. The conversation will naturally become about how to proceed, rather than whether to proceed.
Don’t Try to Be Good at Everything! But be the BEST at something…
While many people dream of being good at everything, it makes more sense to focus on becoming outstanding at one thing instead.
On the surface, it may seem appealing to have well-rounded talents. But true success occurs when you focus your energy on becoming the best you can be in a specific area or at one particular type of skill. When you do something you are naturally good at and enjoy doing, you increase self-confidence, boost efficiency and earn a reputation as a go-to person for your particular talents.
It is easy to feel empowered and realize more happiness in life when you do things you’re good at and that interest you. With that in mind, here are a few tips to help you focus on honing your own talents and skills:
Identify your strengths. Learn to recognize your talents for what they are, and strive to develop skills that will enhance your strengths and add value to what you do.
Take note of what others say. Sometimes coworkers or friend are a great resource to identify strengths, especially if you are constantly getting complimented on a talent you’ve yet to recognize.
Never talk yourself out of doing something because of a skill or expertise you don’t have. Rather, focus on what you can do.
Let go and accept your limitations. Don’t waste energy striving to improve your weaknesses. Instead, perfect your talents and press on.
Practice makes perfect. Remember, there I always room for improvement for everyone, regardless of the skill level. The harder you work at something, the better you’ll become.
When we do something we are good at, we are naturally more engaged and fulfilled. While it’s true that strengths and weaknesses make us complete, it’s our strengths that make us successful.
Leadership Tip: Once you find your strengths … surround yourself with other talented people who shine in the areas that compliment your strengths! The key to a strong team is having team members that excel in each of the skills that are needed to serve your customers.
What is the strangest, most funny or weirdest question you have ever been asked during a job interview? Some of my personal favorites:
If you were a vegetable, what kind would you be?
Why is a manhole round?
What was your favorite book as a child?
Everyone seems to have a formula or approach they like to use. Perhaps some interview questions that were passed down to you from a former boss or mentor are part of your approach. Sometimes we get asked a question during an interview that challenges us, so we add it to our own personal list. There are several different types of interview questions leaders relay on, several fall into some serious interview pitfalls, here are the top three mistakes I have witnessed leaders make when it comes to using interview questions:
Questions that are not likely to lead to a truthful answer. An example of this type of question would be, “What are your weaknesses?” Think about it. Candidates know the ideal response to this one has something to do with being a perfectionist or having work standards that are just too high. Nobody ever offers up information like being lazy or abusive to their teammates as a response. Keep in mind we are also assuming the person is self-aware and knows their own areas of development.
Questions that measure experience, not success. “Have you ever given instructions to a team?” or “Have you done any programming in Java?” Consider this; in both cases the answer could be “yes”. Yet, the candidate may have instructed to team to failure or never got a program to actually run in Java. It may seem simple, but the formula is experience does not equal success. You simply need to know more.
Questions that measure a candidate’s ability to interview, not their ability on the job. Questions like “Why should I hire you”, or “Why are you the best person for this job” are a dream for a savvy interviewee. The problem is some people who get lots of interview experience, do so because they are not reliable on the job. Sometime referred to as “professional interviewees”, these folks have read all the books and have a canned response for questions like this. Contrast that with folks who may be a bit shy or timid, yet would be valuable contributors to your team. These type of questions play to someone’s ability to make a positive first impression. If you are not careful, your interview will not get past the first impression stage into the predicting job performance stage.
What is the answer to avoid these common pitfalls? I am a huge supporter of behavioral interviewing. This is the idea that past behavior is the strongest predictor or future behavior. The questions ask the candidate to refer to a past experience and demonstrate what they did. This approach is nothing new, in fact over 70% of companies in North America use some form of behavioral interviewing. Plenty of models and certifications exist in this method.
Here’s the thing, you have to do better than just asking about behavior…it has to be the right behavior. The behaviors that make a difference on the job. The difference between success and failure. The more specific you can get about defining what success looks like and measuring it, the more likely you are to find it. This approach increases the accuracy of hiring for success, reduces the likelihood of a legal challenge in hiring practices and frankly attracts a more successful candidate. Consider your interview approach. Are you falling into some pitfalls? Or taking the time on the front-end to clearly define success; to ensure you will know when you find it; and have the confidence to walk away when you do not?
Step 2: Visualize yourself as more confident. Modern science continues to prove the power of visualization. Visualization can cure cancer, create architectural wonders, and help professional athletes reach the pinnacle of their career. How would you look if you displayed more confidence? Close your eyes and picture yourself doing something confidently. What does your posture look like? What does the tone in your voice sound like? How do you feel about yourself when you are showing up in the world as confident? Get as clear a picture in your mind of yourself practicing something difficult or something you want to master confidently. Visualize this as often as possible (at least daily). Then when you are ready to actually do what you are visualizing your mind will already know what to do and more importantly HOW to do it confidently.
