I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 100.  It is the last tweet in a series on becoming an outstanding performer.

Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.

The NFL begins play next week.  If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan.  I grew up in Pittsburgh.  My dad had Steelers season tickets for many years.  He gave them up only because he moved to Florida.  He learned to use the internet at age 70, so he could follow the Steelers on line.  He really cares about the Steelers.  I’m not that much of a fanatic, but there is no professional sports team more near and dear to my heart than the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Sunday February 1 2009, Steelers won the Super Bowl.  On Monday February 2 2009, Mike Tomlin, their coach noted that because the Steelers were in the NFL playoffs and Super Bowl, he was “a month behind getting ready for the 2009 season.  We’ve got to be thoughtful in how we prepare our football team.”

Some may say, “Chill Mike, savor what you’ve just accomplished.”  However, Mike Tomlin knows that outstanding performers don’t rest on their laurels.  They care about what they do, and they care about their life and career success.  High performers always set higher goals and look towards greater achievements.  The Optimist Creed urges us to “Press on to the greater achievements of the future.” 

That’s what Mike Tomlin was doing the day after he won the Super Bowl, and that’s what all outstanding performers do.  They care about their life and career success.  They set high goals and meet them.   Then they set higher goals and meet them too.  Pay attention here.  This is some important career advice.

Mike Tomlin was 36 years old when he won the Super Bowl.  He is the youngest coach to win a Super Bowl.  That’s pretty impressive.  But not to Tomlin.  Because he cares deeply about winning he says he expected that kind of success and expects more.  On the other hand, he is humble.  He realizes that football is a team game.  Coaches don’t win Super bowls on their own; neither do players.  They need one another…

“I’m an unrealistic dreamer sometimes.  I’m blessed, extremely blessed.  I’ve been around some great people – coaches, players, ownership – and I’m a product of that.  That’s my story.”

And a great story it is.  It shows the power of caring about what you do.

I care about helping people create the life and career success they want and deserve.  I care a lot.  That’s why I wrote Success Tweets and I give it away for free.  That’s why I am writing this series of blog posts explaining each of the 141 tweets in more detail.  I care so much about helpingyou achieve the life and career succes you deserve that I’ve committed to writing 700 or 800 words every day for 28 weeks.  I’ve also committed to doing a podcast on each of the tweets.  I do this because I care.  I care a lot about helping you.  And I know that this caring will pay off — for you and me.  The thinking and writing that goes into this work will help me become an even better career success coach – somebody who gives really great career advice.

When you care you do your very best.  This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of one of my favorite books To Kill a Mockingbird.  There is a passage in that book that has always stuck with me.  It’s in Chapter 11 and spoken by Atticus Finch, the father, played by Gregory Peck in the film.  He’s speaking to Scout, his daughter…

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.  You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

It takes courage to care. Because when you care, you put yourself out there.  You do your best.  And doing your best can be a scary thing.  When you care, when you consciously do your best and fail, it is heartbreaking.  But at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did your best.

I remember when I applied to graduate school at Harvard.  I decided that I was going to demonstrate to myself how much I cared by writing the very best application I could.  I wasn’t going to let myself off the hook if I didn’t get accepted by saying “I could have written a better application, but I just didn’t spend the time I should have.” 

When I put my application in the mailbox – we still did quaint things like that back in the old days – I was proud of what I had written.  I knew it was the very best I could do.  I was also frightened because I knew that my best might not be good enough.  After all, both of my other degrees were from state schools.  Who was I to think that those kind of credentials would get me accepted at Harvard?

I cared about the quality of my application, so I did the very best I could.  The story in this case has a happy ending.  I was accepted and got my degree.  Even if I had not been accepted, I would have been proud of myself because I cared enough to write the best application I could, and I dared enough to admit it to myself.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are proud of what they do.  They care.  They follow the career advice in  Tweet 100 in Success Tweets.  “Care about what you do.  If you care a little, you’ll be an OK performer.  If you care a lot, you’ll become an outstanding performer.”  Does your work show that you care?  Or does it reflect an “it’s good enough” attitude?  Take it from a career success coach, if you want to create the life and career success of which you are capable, make sure that how much you care shows in every single piece of work you do.

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 100.  What’s yours?  Please care enough to take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

I’m really enjoying writing this series of posts further explaining the ideas in my latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I hope you’re enjoying reading them.  I’m pleased to say that Success Tweets is now in its second printing.  You can pick up a copy at your local book store, or online at Amazon.com.  Better yet, you can download the eBook for free at http://www.successtweets.com.

Today’s career advice comes from Tweet 95…

Get into a high performance mindset.  Don’t question yourself.  Trust your skills and abilities.

If you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve you have to trust yourself.  Trusting yourself is one of the key components of self confidence.  Self confident people cultivate a high performance mindset, one in which they believe they will succeed at whatever they attempt.

If you read this blog, you know that I am a big fan of The Optimist Creed. 

Point 4 of the creed says,

“Promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.”

Point 7 says,

“Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

You have to trust yourself to put these two bits of common sense career advice into play.  Optimists trust themselves.  They trust themselves to do whatever is necessary to meet the goals they set for themselves.  They trust themselves to develop the skills they need to meet their goals.  They trust themselves to create the life and career success they want and deserve.

There is a lot of great career advice in The Optimist Creed.  I have prepared a .pdf of it that you can download, print and hang in your office – just like I have done.  If you would like a copy of The Optimist Creed, go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

Here’s a personal example about trusting yourself.  I have trained thousands of people in leadership skills, I’ve led hundreds of team building workshops, I’ve coached hundreds of people, helping them create the life and career success they want and deserve.  Recently, I decided that I wanted to reach a broader audience – not just the people who work for the Fortune 500 companies who have engaged my consulting and coaching services.

To do this, I needed to make my ideas more widely available via the internet.  Several years ago, I realized that I didn’t have a clue about how to prepare, present and market my ideas on the internet.  I trusted my knowledge and wisdom, but I didn’t know how to get it to a broader audience.  This might have stopped some folks dead in their tracks.  But I trust my ability to learn new skills.

First I learned how to blog, and then I committed to blogging five days a week.  I’ve kept that commitment for the past five years.  I blog every Monday through Friday with the exception of two weeks at the end of the year.  That’s 250 posts every year.  Then I learned about social media.  I spend about an hour a day on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook sharing my thoughts on life and career success.  Finally, I’m continuing to learn about internet marketing – affiliate programs, membership sites, etc.  When I started, I had no internet marketing skills.  Today, I am a bit of an expert.  I say this realizing that I need to keep learning and growing in this field.

I trusted myself.  I knew I had something of value to give, and I knew I could learn the skills necessary to reach large numbers of people.  By the end of this year, I will have launched several information products on the internet – all because I trusted my ability to learn and my motivation to do new things.

How about you?  Do you trust yourself?  Do you believe that what you have to offer is important and of high quality?  Do you believe that you can learn what you need to know to succeed?  I bet you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog post.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people believe in themselves.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 95 in Success Tweets.  “Develop a high performance mindset.  Don’t question yourself.  Trust your skills and abilities.”  Trusting your skills and abilities means knowing when you need to learn something new, and then doing whatever it takes to gain that knowledge.  Be a self confident optimist.  Trust yourself.  Know in your heart of hearts that you will succeed. 

That’s my take on the career advice in Success Tweet 95.  What’s yours?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  I appreciate and value every one of your comments.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

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 career success coach post is on Tweet 58…

Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.  Help all people recognize that they are special.

This tweet contains advice from two more points in The Optimist Creed.  Point 6 says, “Be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.”  Point 3 says, Make all your friends feel that there is something in them.”

Let’s talk about Point 6 first… 

All teachers know that the best way to really master a subject is to learn to teach it.  I learned this firsthand when I was teaching in the Business School at Northeastern University when I was completing my dissertation at Harvard.  To be an effective teacher, you have to have complete mastery of your subject.  You need to be able to present it in a number of different ways to that people with different ways of thinking will be able to grasp the ideas you are presenting.

I have found that this is true for self confidence as well.  The more you help others develop their self confidence, the more yours will grow.  This is true for me.  As I’ve worked with my career success coach clients, I have seen them grow, develop and flourish.  I am really happy when my clients put my career advice to use and succeed.  Seeing them grow and flourish makes me happy.  And my self confidence also grows.

In yesterday’s post I mentioned my bestselling book, Straight Talk for Success.  I got the confidence to write this book from watching my coaching clients succeed.  As I watched them put to work my career advice, I came to believe that I was really on to something and that I should share my thoughts with a broader audience.

In other words, by being “enthusiastic about the success of others”, I became more self confident and enthusiastic about the chances of success of my books – that’s why I wrote Success Tweets as a follow on to Straight Talk. 

It’s karmic.  I’ve put out some positive energy – both my career advice and my enthusiasm for other peoples’ success.  And I’ve seen my career success coach clients benefit from this energy.  As a result, I have benefited by being able to gather my thoughts, publish them and help more people create the life and career success they want and desereve.

Now lets’ talk about Point 3 of The Optimist Creed…

Everybody likes to feel special.  Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics said it really well.  “Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, ‘Make me feel important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.”  She’s right.  That’s the main message here. 

I’d like to take the advice in The Optimist Creed one step further.  I suggest that you promise yourself to make all the people you meet – not just your friends — feel that there is something special in them.  When you do this, two things will happen.  1) You’ll make their day.  2) You’ll feel better about yourself.  And, feeling good about yourself is an important part of self confidence.

Let me tell you a story.  A couple of years ago, I was in New York to facilitate a meeting at a client’s office.  The meeting was scheduled to begin at 7:30.  I always like to turn up early for meetings I am facilitating. 

I arrived at the client’s office about 6:50.  Since 9/11, they have a security card system.  Because I do a lot of work for them, I have a contractor security card.  When I swiped the card that day, I was denied access.  The Security Guard on duty looked at my card and told me that I have limited access — 7:00 am to 7:00 pm — to the building and that I would have to wait 10 minutes.

I didn’t know this.  I’m usually not there that early.  It was winter. I was cold.  I was tired.  I had arrived at my hotel at 12:30 am the previous night.  I tried to convince the guard to let me in to the building.  He was unyielding (as he should have been).  I expressed my frustration at this “silly rule”, and went to the coffee shop next door to wait until 7:00.

When I came back at 7:02, I apologized to the Security Guard.  He was genuinely surprised.  He said that similar situations happen a couple of times a week, and a lot of people get really angry at being made to wait.  He told me that I was actually quite pleasant for someone who was being denied access to the building.

And that’s the common sense point here.  I apologized to the guard and told him that he was not only “just doing his job”, but that he was doing a good job.  He was firm in upholding the company’s policy, but he did it in a professional, non confrontational manner.  This was some positive feedback for someone who is in a role where positive feedback isn’t all that common. 

I could tell that he appreciated my comments.  He felt a little better about himself because he did the right thing – and that someone who was frustrated by him doing the right thing recognized and appreciated the value of what he did.  Both he and I began our days with a smile. 

I felt better about myself because I chose to apologize for the little bit of grief I gave him, and I did something small to make his day just a little bit brighter.

Self confident, optimistic people feel good enough about themselves to help others feel good about themselves.  This is a powerful way to build relationships with others and to become a life and career success.  Try it.  Look for ways to help everybody you meet to feel as if there is something special in them.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Self confident, successful people aren’t threatened by, or envious of, the success of others.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 58 in Success Tweets.  “Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.  Help all people recognize that they are special.”  I am reminded of a quote from Jackie Robinson, the man who broke the color barrier in major league baseball, here.  “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me…all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”  Being enthusiastic about others’ successes and helping others recognize that they are special are two great ways to respect them as human beings.  No one of us can succeed on our own.  We need the help and support of others.  The best way to gain the help and support of others is to help and support others.  Being enthusiastic – not envious – of others’ success is a good way to start.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 58 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

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 career success coach post is on Tweet 57…

Think only of the best, work only for the best and expect only the best.  Forget the mistakes of the past.  Press on to better things.

This tweet is a combination of two points of The Optimist Creed.  The first part comes from point 5 of the Creed: Think only of the best, work only for the best and expect only the best. 

This is an important point.  Too many people settle for mediocrity.  They take an “it’s good enough” attitude.  Good enough is certainly not the best.  In my opinion, it is not even good enough.

In 2001, Jim Collins published a great book, Good to Great.  The very first words in Chapter 1 are “Good is the enemy of great.”  Later, on the first page, he says, “Few people attain great lives, in great part because it is just too easy to settle for a good life.” 

And that’s what the fifth point of The Optimist Creed is all about.  Don’t just be good, be great.  Why not?  All it takes is a little more effort.

Here’s a personal example.  I have found that blogging is a great way to write a book.  I blog every day, so I have a lot of material.  A couple of years ago, I took many of the posts from this blog and tied them together into a book.  I was all set to publish it, when one of the people I had asked to read it said, “This is good, but it could be great.  It reads too much like a series of blog posts.  Your voice doesn’t come through well enough.” 

I didn’t want to hear that.  I wanted to get the book published.  My first thought was, “This is good enough, I don’t want to do a lot of rewriting.”  My second thought was, “I can write a great book, why settle for a good one?”  So I rewrote the book.  The first one wasn’t a total loss.  I published it is an e book called Star Power: Common Sense Ideas for Career and Life Success.  You can get a copy by going to http://budbilanich.com/starpower.

I rewrote Star Power, and changed the title to Straight Talk for Success.  This book came out in both hard cover and paperback editions in February 2008.  It became an Amazon.com bestseller.  Straight Talk for Success is better than Star Power.  It’s better than Star Power because I took the time to rewrite, to make my voice come through.  I thought only of the best, worked for the best, and expected only the best of myself.” 

When Straight Talk for Success went to the printer, I was really proud of what I had written.  I think it is great.  It is the best I could do.  In my heart of hearts, I knew that Star Power was good, but that I could do better.  Someone challenged me to go from good to great, and I did – in my opinion at least. 

I am proud of what I have accomplished in Straight Talk.  I feel as if I have been true to myself by not settling for something that is merely good when I had the chance to be great by putting in a little more time and effort.

The second part of the tweet comes from Point 7 of The Optimist Creed: “To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”

What happens to you, or the mistakes you’ve made aren’t important.  How you react to it is.  Don’t dwell on negative stuff or your mistakes, use them as a springboard to action and creativity.

Successful people develop the habit of focusing on the positive and putting the negative out of their minds.  Positive habits like this are an important key to career success.  Habits are like muscles.  The more you use them, the stronger they get.  Dan Robey is the King of Positive Habits.  His eBook, The Power of Positive Habits, is one of my go to books when I need to give myself a little boost.  You can get a copy at www.ThePowerOfPositiveHabits.com.  I discussed Dan’s ideas in detail in the post on Success Tweet 37.  Check it out if you missed it.

In her book, Forget Your Troubles: Enjoy Your Life Today, Evelyn Brooks suggests that you get S.M.A.R.T. about putting past mistakes behind you.

• S     Smash the negative.
• M    Maximize the positive.
• A    Act.
• R    Relax.
• T    Target your next action.

One of my favorite piece of career success coach advice is…

“Stuff happens as you go through life; positive stuff, negative stuff, happy stuff, sad stuff, frustrating stuff.  The important thing is not what happens, but how you react to it.  In other words, smash your negative thoughts; replace them with positive ones.  Don’t dwell on the negative, use it as a springboard to action and creativity.  This will help you maximize the positive in your life.” 

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people follow the advice in Tweet 57 in Success Tweets.  “Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best.  Forget the mistakes of the past.  Press on to better things.”  This advice comes from The Optimist Creed.  The first part is point 5: “Think only of the best, work only for the best and expect only the best.”  I think the first few words in Jim Collins book, From Good to Great, sum it up well – “Good is the enemy of great.”  If you never allow yourself to settle for “good enough” you will be expecting only the best from yourself.  The second part of the career advice in this tweet comes from point 7 in The Optimist Creed: “Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.”  If you want a free .pdf of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your workplace, go to http://BudBilanich.com/optimist.  Remember, it’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it.  Don’t dwell on the negative or past mistakes, use them as a springboard to action and creativity.  Smash the negatives in your life and create positive thoughts, habits and routines.  Use the negatives that come your way as learning experiences that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.  The idea of creating positive habits – like not settling for good enough — is a powerful piece of career advice and that help your become the life and career success you deserve to be.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 57 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us – and your triumphs over past mistakes – with us.  As always, thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it.

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

I’m still writing about the ideas in my new career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less.  I have about 100 more blog posts to go.  When I’m finished, you’ll have an in depth discussion on each of the 141 tweets in Success Tweets.  You can get a free copy of the eBook at www.SuccessTweets.com.  Hard copies of the book are available on Amazon.com and your local bookstore.

Today’s career success coach post in on Tweet 44…

Be an optimist.  Believe that things will turn out well.  When they don’t, don’t sulk.  Learn what you can, use it next time.

There are two important pieces of career advice about optimism and life and career success in this tweet.  First, optimists believe things will turn out well.  Second, optimists see failure and defeat as temporary.  They treat them as learning opportunities.

Have you seen the movie Remember the Titans?  It’s a sports movie about an improbable situation based on a true story.  Denzel Washington stars as the coach of the T. C. Williams High School Titans.  Williams was a newly integrated high school in Alexandria Virginia in 1971.  Denzel’s character, Coach Herman Boone was a black man chosen to be the head coach over a very popular coach who had been the head coach at the high school prior to it being integrated. 

The team had a lot of good athletes.  They were undefeated as they entered the State Championship game.  Things didn’t go well in the first half.  In the locker room at half time, Denzel makes a speech in which he congratulated the team on coming so far in such a short period of time.  He tells them that win or lose he is proud of them.  It seems as if he has given up.  It sounds like a speech losing coaches give to teams after a game – not at half time.

One of the players speaks up.  He challenges the coach.  He says something like, “We were perfect when this game started.  We’re still perfect until it’s over.  I, for one, want to finish this game like we started it – perfect.”  This impassioned speech rallies the team, and they win the game.  It’s a feel good movie about a group of young men who learned how to pull together regardless of their differences.

And it makes the first point about optimists.  Even when the coach seemed ready to give up, one player wouldn’t.  He was an optimist.  He believed they would win.  His optimism was contagious.  The team rallied and won.  I don’t know if things went down exactly that way in that locker room, but that scene reinforces the power of believing things will turn out well. 

If you don’t believe you can win, if you don’t believe you can create a successful life and career, you won’t.  If you do believe, if you’re an optimist, you’re on the right path to winning and life and career success.

But believing is not enough.  It will set you up for success, but you will still find times when you fail.  That’s where the second piece of career advice in Tweet 44 in Success Tweets comes in.  Don’t sulk when you fail or lose.  Treat every failure and loss as a learning experience.  Use failures and losses as a stepping stone to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

I was frustrated early in my career.  I saw other people getting promotions for which I thought I was better qualified.  My first job in business was in the training department of a large Oil Company.  I worked hard, did a good job – and kept getting passed over for promotion.  The reasons were vague – “you’ve only been here a little while,” “the hiring manager thought the other person was a better fit,”  “you need to polish up some of those rough edges.”

So I found another job; this time with a Chemical Company.  I worked hard, did a good job, got good performance reviews – and no promotions.  I was frustrated.  In my heart of hearts, I knew I was as good or better than people who were moving ahead while I was standing still.

I decided that maybe more school would be the answer.  I quit my job, and enrolled in a PhD program in Adult Education and Organizational Behavior at Harvard.  Once I got there, I realized that the same thing happens in academia as happens in business.  The hardest workers and best performers don’t always get rewarded and promoted.

I decided that I had an opportunity to use my situation — and my frustration — as a lab.  I didn’t sulk.  I chose to learn from my frustrations and failures.  After all, I was at Harvard.  I was surrounded by high performers – people who had achieved a lot at an early age, and seemed destined to achieve even more.  I decided that maybe I should pay some attention to these folks.

I got one of those marble covered notebooks and made a list of all the people I admired at Harvard.  Then I made a list of all the people in the companies where I had worked who got the promotions I didn’t.  I made another list of the people I knew who I considered to be positive role models.  I didn’t stop there.  I started reading biographies of successful people. I created a page for each person.  I wrote down the characteristics that I observed in these people.  When I was finished, I had a notebook full of the characteristics I observed in successful people.

It was a long list.  So I did kind of a human regression analysis on it.  I started looking for patterns and groups of behaviors.  When it was all said and done, I found four distinct characteristics that the successful people I had studied had in common.

They all:

• Had a clearly defined purpose and direction for their lives.
• Were committed to succeeding.  They faced obstacles and overcame them.
• Were self confident.  They knew they were going to succeed and continue to succeed as they went through life.
• Shared some basic competencies.  They knew how present themselves in a favorable light.  Other people were attracted to them and wanted to be around them. They were high performers. They were great communicators. They were good at building relationships.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably figured out that these are the ideas I cover in Success Tweets and what I’ve been blogging about for the past two months.

Once I finished my degree, I took a job with a very large pharmaceutical company in New York.  I started applying the lessons I learned from observing successful people — and I began getting promotions and good assignments.  I became the confidant of several senior executives and I began coaching up and comers in the company – teaching them the basic principles I had discovered by writing my observations in that marble covered notebook. 

I also kept refining my ideas – making them easier for others to understand and apply.  You never learn something as well as when you teach it.  I became the most sought after internal coach in that company. 

In 1988, I was faced with a decision.  Accept a big promotion to Vice President, or strike out on my own.  I decided that I have an entrepreneurial bent and chose the latter.  I opened up a small career success coaching and speaking business.  The idea was to reach even more people with what I knew about creating a successful life and career.

I tell this story not to pat myself on the back, but to illustrate the second point in today’s tweet: When things don’t turn out as you hope, don’t sulk.  Learn what you can, use it next time.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident and optimistic.  Optimism means believing that things will turn out well, and more important, when they don’t, using the experience to learn and grow and do better next time.  Follow the career advice in Tweet 44 in Success Tweets.  “Be an optimist.  Believe that things will turn out well.  When they don’t, don’t sulk.  Learn what you can, use it next time.”  I’m big on optimism.  My optimism has helped me create the career and life success I wanted.  Your optimism can do the same for you.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 44 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  I’d really like to hear stories where you used the lessons you learned from setbacks and failures to build your career success.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

My latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.  I am in the process of blogging about each of the tweets in it. You can get a free copy of Success Tweets at www.SuccessTweets.com.  If you like it, I’d appreciate a positive review on Amazon.com.

Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 43…

Optimism is contagious.  Become a positive, optimistic person.  Surround yourself with positive people.  They will build your confidence.

The FIFA Soccer World Cup is being contested in South Africa as I write this.  But in this post, I’d like to focus on another World Cup, the 1995 Rugby World Cup, also played in South Africa.  This was the first time the South Africa Springboks were allowed to compete in the Rugby World Cup.  They had been banned from competing in previous Rugby World Cups because of the racist policies of the apartheid government. 

But 1995 was different.  Nelson Mandela, a black man was the President of South Africa.  The apartheid era was over.  And the Springboks were invited not only play in the World Cup, but to host it.  The 2009 movie, Invictus chronicled that story

I’m a retired rugby player.  I played my first game in 1968 at Penn State and my last in 2001 for the Colorado Ole’ Pokes.  I’m active in youth rugby and olde boys rugby here in Colorado.  I love the game, so I couldn’t wait to see the movie Invictus. 

Invictus is the story of the South African victory in the 1995 Rugby World Cup.  That victory is credited for healing many of the wounds caused by the apartheid years.  Nelson Mandela consciously chose to support the Springboks – long seen as a symbol of white oppression in South Africa and hated by most of the country’s black population – as a rallying cry for national unity and putting aside the hate of the dehumanizing apartheid policy of the white South African government.  The team did not disappoint.  They won the World Cup in a memorable match against New Zealand, then the best rugby side in the world.

Morgan Freeman plays Mandela in the film.  Matt Damon plays Springbok Captain, Francois Pienaar.  I loved the movie – it was right up my alley – about two things I love to discuss: politics and sports.  It was a bonus that it was about my favorite sport, rugby football.  I actually saw that famous 1995 match on video two days after it happened.  As I watched it, I commented that Pienaar was a mad man on the pitch that day. He willed the South African team to victory. 

Cathy made my Christmas by giving me a copy of the book Invictus – originally published as Playing the Enemy.  Until I saw the movie and read the book, I had no idea that Mandela befriended Pienaar and convinced him that the 1995 Rugby World Cup was more than a game; it was a chance to help unify a deeply divided country.  Mandela was an optimist.  So was Pienaar.  South Africa was not the rugby power they had been prior to being shunned because of apartheid.   However, this unlikely pair fed on each other’s optimism, resulting in a huge sporting upset.

Nelson Mandela was supremely self confident and an optimist.  He believed that he could heal the wounds of oppression and unite a country through tolerance.  He also believed that sport – especially rugby — could play a big part in helping him achieve his goal.

There is an interesting quote on pages 252 and 253 of Invictus…

“His (Mandela’s) secret weapon was that he assumed not only that he would like the people he met; he assumed also that they would like him.  That vast self confidence of his coupled with that frank confidence he had in others made for a combination that was as irresistible as it was disarming. 

“It was a weapon so powerful that it brought about a new kind of revolution…Conceiving of his revolution not primarily as the destruction of apartheid but, more enduringly, as the unification and reconciliation of all South Africans, Mandela broke the mold.”

It took a supremely self confident man to believe that he could erase years of hatred by embracing, rather than destroying, his enemy.  It took a supremely self confident group of South African rugby players to believe that they could beat the best rugby side in the world.  Both Nelson Mandela and the Springboks proved the value of self confidence that day in 1995.  While unifying the country and winning the Rugby World Cup took a lot of hard work, both were accomplished by building on the foundation of self confidence and optimism.

Mandela and Pienaar were the embodiment of Helen Keller’s famous quote on optimism and self confidence, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

If you like sports and/or politics rent Invictus.  If you’re really interested in the subject matter, pick up a copy of the book and read it.  Trust me, you will be inspired – not only by the story, but by how optimism is contagious,  and surrounding yourself with optimistic, confident will build your self confidence and help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people follow the career advice in Tweet 43 in Success Tweets.  “Optimism is contagious.  Become a positive, optimistic person.  Surround yourself with positive people.  They will build your confidence.”  Successful people are self confident and optimistic.  They face their fears and act.  They surround themselves with positive people.  The story told in the movie and book Invictus demonstrates the power of self confidence and optimism.  Nelson Mandela’s supreme self confidence allowed him to unify a nation when most thought that it was headed for a bloody civil war.  Francois Pienaar and the Springbok rugby side believed that they could defeat the best team in the world and win the Rugby World Cup for South Africa.  They did, when all of the experts predicted they would lose in a big way.  What’s your big hairy audacious goal for your life and career?  Do you have the confidence that you will achieve it?  If you do, you are well on your way to success.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 43 in Success Tweets and on optimism, self confidence, success and Invictus.  What’s yours?  Please leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us.  I’d like to hear from my rugby friends on this one.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud

My latest career success coach book, Success Tweets: 140 Bits of Common Sense Career Success Advice, All in 140 Characters or Less is now available on Amazon.com and in bookstores.  I am in the process of blogging about each of the tweets in it. You can get a free copy of Success Tweets at www.SuccessTweets.com.  If you like it, I’d appreciate a positive review on Amazon.com.

We’re on to the self confidence tweets, 41 — 60.  This career success coach post is on Tweet 42…

Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.

I’m a big believer in the power of optimism.  I think it is the foundation of all self confidence and career success.  You can’t be self confident if you’re not optimistic.  And, optimism is a choice.  I get up every day believing that good things will happen – and then I go about making them happen.

When I was a kid, I participated in the local Optimist International chapter’s oratory contest.  I won my section, and finished third in the state.  The topic that year was “Optimism, Youth’s Greatest Asset.”  That’s hard enough for a ninth grader to say (think Joe Pesci in “My Cousin Vinnie”) let alone write and deliver a ten minute talk.

Optimist International is a great service organization.  They help kids build self confidence and become more optimistic.  The Optimist Creed defines them.  It’s powerful stuff.  Take a look…

The Optimist Creed

Promise Yourself:

• To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
• To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
• To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
• To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
• To think only of the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
• To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
• To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
• To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
• To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

I love The Optimist Creed.  I have it framed and hanging in my office, just above my desk.  I have made a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that is suitable for framing.  If you want a copy, just go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.

One thing that you’ll notice about The Optimist Creed is that it is proactive.  It asks you to promise yourself to do ten things that will help you create the life and career success that you want and deserve. 

It suggests that optimism is related to action – action you can take to become more optimistic and to build your career success.  I think it is some of the best career advice I’ve come across.  I do my best to live the 10 points in The Optimist Creed every day.  You should too.

I especially like the fourth point – promise yourself to look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.  This point goes directly to the idea of committing to taking personal responsibility for your life and career success.  I know it’s difficult to look at the sunny side of things when you’re mired in a problem or are dealing with a failure.  However, if you look for what you can learn from problems and failures, you’ll be looking at the sunny side.  More important, you’ll be on your way to making your optimism come true. 

Christopher Reeve is no longer with us, but he exemplified the idea of looking at the sunny side of things.  Even though he was paralyzed from the neck down after a riding accident, he devoted himself to finding a cure for spinal cord injuries.  I loved the way his optimism comes across in this quote…

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.”

Christopher Reeve looked at the sunny side of his injury and did what he could to make his optimism come true.  His foundation carries on the work he started.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are self confident.  Self confident people are optimists.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 42 in Success Tweets.  “Choose optimism.  It builds your confidence.  Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.”  The Optimist Creed is a great guide to becoming more optimistic and self confident.  Its proactive approach to life is a great guide to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.  Remember the old saying, “Whether you’re an optimist, or a pessimist you’ll be proven right.”  I choose optimism, and suggest you do too.

That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 42 in Success Tweets.  What’s yours?  Please share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  As always, thanks for reading.

Bud