March 26, 2009

Boost your confidence with a little Know-How

We need to boost our sense of total confidence.  

Over the last few speaking engagements, I've been focusing on this issue.  I believe that the reason people get selfish is because they lose their total confidence:  themselves, the groups they are a part of and the greater community.  Layoffs, cutbacks and scare-stories have infiltrated corporate cultures to the point of freezing them in the headlights of the coming change-train.  Practical is now paranoid. 

People hoard great ideas, because they fear they'll never have a good one again.  If you had several good ideas and confidence you'd come up with more -- you'd likely give them away. 

The last year or so has shattered business confidence and personal confidence at the same time.  Many of us wonder if we'll ever make the same money as we made in 2004, 2005 or 2006.  Many of us wonder if we'll ever get our spare time back.  Many of us have 'survivor's guilt', believing that we are partly to blame for our company's recent hardships. 

This lack of confidence, manifested in scarcity thinking, is bad for you and bad for the groups you belong to.  To help reverse this, I suggest you shift your information diet from negative news to constructive information.  Instead of wasting valuable time reading, thinking or talking about the economy, spend the time aggregating some know-how. 

Learn more about how things work, especially things that can improve your personal resume.  Spend an hour at the bookstore, poring over business books that offer a peek into the future or useful tools for you to boost performance on the job.  The more you do this, the more confident you'll get in life and at work.  I credit this practice to my personal success during the last recession in '01-'03.  I read my way out of the funk and rose up inside my company like a Phoenix when the market came back. 

Check out my book recommendations 

You can also negotiate to take on a mentor that can give you relevant know-how.  These days, everyone is taxed for time.  Find a mentor that you think would supercharge your knowledge base. Offer to trade time for advice.  Be willing to do a 'dirty-work' task for your mentor.  When you get one, as I did in '01, you'll find that your confidence will soar. 

Confident people believe in abundance: There's enough to go around.  There's enough to share.   
Posted at 12:17 PM in Business Effectiveness  |  Permalink  |  Comments (3)  |  TrackBack (0)

Comments

Commentor

The down turn is an oportunity to go about business differentley, those companies that stay generouse, stay customer focused, and stay freindly, will not only stay in business but prosper. There are many competitors pulling back, and its making the rest of us look even better. I had a client complain that other consultants were holidng them to contract even when the oportunity they were investigating turned our early on to be a looser, we terminated the contract and gave the customer the remaining money back, i'll let you guess who is getting all the work from that client.

Damien Bové (www.damienbove.com)

Posted by: Damien Bove  |  April 01, 2009 at 12:44 AM

Commentor

Tim, confidence and courage come from facing our difficulties despite the fears we may have. Mastering and taming those fears requires discipline and optimism. Fear is a healthy emotion that keeps us out of or away from trouble. Instead of avoiding our fears, we must overcome them and use them to motivate us.

Posted by: Mike Levy  |  March 31, 2009 at 07:36 AM

Commentor

Hi Tim,

Back in the early 70' we went through a what was termed a "severe recession". The dooms-day prophets of that time even predicted that we may be heading for another Great Depression.

I was working my way through college at the time and was broke, broke, broke so the recession had no effect on me whatsoever.

I've survived through all of the economic ups and downs that the U.S. and the world have experienced in low, these 30= years. The sky didn't fall, I'm still here and I'm still smilin'. Doomsday prophets come and go, but confidence built over time, based on a healthy mental and emotional diet is just like the Energizer Bunny, it just goes on and on and on...

Posted by: C. A. Hurst  |  March 26, 2009 at 03:33 PM

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