positive people
Success Tweet 56
Jul 5th
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:
- Give yourself permission to be human – don’t beat up yourself about mistakes.
- Express gratitude often.
- 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.
- Identify it
- Admit it
- Accept it
- 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
Success Tweet 50
Jun 25th
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 a little less than 100 more blog posts to go to further explain each of the tweets in Success Tweets. 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. If you want to actual book, you can purchase a copy on Amazon.com and your local bookstore.
I’m enjoying writing this series of posts, diving deeper into the career advice in Success Tweets. I hope you are finding these posts interesting and useful. Today’s career success coach post is on Tweet 50…
Jettison the negative people in your life. They are energy black holes. They will suck you dry, but only if you let them.
Positive people are optimistic. Negative people tend to be pessimists. I was leading a workshop on career and life success the other day and I mentioned that that self confidence is the hinge on which life and career success swings, and that optimism is the most important ingredient in the self confidence mix. On the other hand, pessimism can cause the success hinge to rust and become difficult to swing. That’s why some of my best career advice is to hold tight to the positive people in your life and run – as fast as you can – from the negative ones.
For me, optimism begins with the ten points of The Optimist Creed. I have given away a couple thousand copies of The Optimist Creed. If you would like one, just go to http://budbilanich.com/optimist.
Let’s take a look at the difference between positive, optimistic people and negative, pessimistic people.
- Positive, optimistic people tend to see problems, failures and setbacks as temporary.
- Negative, pessimistic people tend to see problems failures and setbacks as permanent – almost their destiny.
- Positive, optimistic people see problems, failures and setbacks as isolated occurrences.
- Negative, pessimistic people see problems, failures and setbacks as omnipresent – things from which you can’t escape.
- Positive, optimistic people don’t take problems, failures and setbacks personally.
- Negative, pessimistic people personalize problems, failures and setbacks.
If you read this career success coach blog with any regularity, you know that I am an incurable optimist. I see problems, failures and setbacks not only as temporary, but as opportunities to learn and grow. I expect things to go well. When I run into problems, failures and setbacks I’m always a little surprised because I don’t expect them. I do however, plan for them. Finally, I never take a problem, failure or setback personally. I’m a human being. Sometimes I make great decisions. Sometimes I make poor ones. My self worth is not threatened by the occasional problem, failure or setback.
And, I choose to hang around with positive, not negative people.
I’m a big fan of Mark Twain. One of my favorite quotes of his gets at the heart of surrounding yourself with positive people and jettisoning the negative people in your life…
“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”
Negative people on the other hand, are a drag on your goals and your ambitions. They are quick to tell you what you can’t do, offer little encouragement, and hate to see you prove them wrong by succeeding. Hold these kinds of people are arm’s length. Don’t spend time with them. Instead, invest in friendships with positive, upbeat people; the kind of people who not only don’t belittle your ambitions, but do what they can to help you make them a reality. Reread that last sentence, it is important career advice.
Cynics are negative people. They are also dangerous, because they are seductive. Cynics always have something witty to say about others – usually others’ shortcomings. At first, they seem to be funny and amusing. But spend time with cynics, and you’ll find that they have little joy in life except in pointing out and reveling in others’ problems and failures.
Ambrose Bierce may well be the world’s biggest cynics. I often see quotes attributed to him on line. In the early 20th century, he published a book called The Devil’s Dictionary. Even I admit that some of his definitions are pretty funny. However, I get tired and frustrated after reading more than one or two. Here are a couple of quotes from The Devil’s Dictionary…
“Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong… It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.”
“Calamities: Two kinds — misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”
No wonder ole’ Ambrose was called “Bitter Bierce” by his contemporaries. First he bashes optimism, then he suggests that human beings see the good fortune of others as a personal calamity.
Here are a couple of other entries in The Devil’s Dictionary…
“Politeness: The most acceptable hypocrisy.”
“Perseverance: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.”
Do you know any people like Ambrose Bierce? If you do, my best career advice is to hold them at arm’s length. While you may find them to be witty and entertaining at first, they will drag you down in the long run. They will not help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.
Point 6 of The Optimist Creed says…
“Promise yourself to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are of your own.”
This is what positive people do and is 180 degrees from what Ambrose has to say. Successful, self confident people aren’t jealous or upset by the success of others. They are genuinely pleased when they see others succeed. They see the success of others as an inspiration. They use it to motivate themselves to achieve bigger and better successes. Negative people choose to see others’ successes as a personal affront. Take it from a career success coach, negative people will not help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.
The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t, a book by Robert Sutton of Stanford University, does a great job of defining negative people – or “assholes” as he calls them. The first chapter is called “What Assholes Do and Why You Know So Many.” On page 10, he lists “The Dirty Dozen: Common Everyday Actions That Assholes Use.” Check it out.
1. Personal insults.
2. Invading another’s personal territory.
3. Uninvited physical contact.
4. Verbal and non verbal threats and intimidation.
5. Sarcastic jokes and teasing used as insult delivery systems.
6. Withering e mail flames.
7. Status slaps intended to humiliate victims.
8. Public shaming or status degradation rituals.
9. Rude interruptions.
10. Two-faced attacks.
11. Dirty looks.
12. Treating people as if they are invisible.
If you’ve spent any time in a large organization, or even a small one, you’ve probably been on the receiving end of many of these asshole behaviors. Truth be told, you’ve probably been on the giving end of many of these asshole behaviors as well. I don’t like to admit it, but I have been both the victim and perpetrator of some of these behaviors.
Dr. Sutton explains why a no asshole rule helps create a healthy vibrant workplace…
“Allowing a few creeps to make themselves at home in your company is dangerous. The truth is that assholes breed like rabbits. Their poison quickly infects others. Even worse, if you let them make hiring decisions, they will start cloning themselves.”
He’s writing for leaders, encouraging them to create what he calls “asshole free workplaces.”
I suggest that you create an “asshole free life.” Don’t let negative people, assholes if you will, into your life. Hold them at arm’s length. In my career success coach talks, I amend his quote. I tell people…
“Allowing a few creeps to make themselves at home in your life is dangerous. Their poison will quickly infect you. Assholes try to clone themselves. Spend too much time with them and you run the risk of becoming one.”
The common sense career success coach point here is clear. Successful, self confident people don’t let negative people into their lives. They follow the career advice in Tweet 50 in Success Tweets. “Jettison the negative people in your life. They are energy black holes. They will suck you dry, but only if you let them.” Avoid cynics. They are jealous and petty; unhappy when others succeed. As Dr. Sutton of Stanford suggests, avoid assholes – people who are rude, insulting, sarcastic and two faced. They will only drag you down. Make a conscious choice to spend time with positive, optimistic people. Avoid negative, pessimistic ones.
That’s my take on the career advice in Tweet 50 in Success Tweets. What’s yours? Please take a few minutes to leave a comment sharing your thoughts with us. As always, you have my deepest thanks and gratitude for reading.
Bud
