Chad Schapiro: Develop Self-Confidence

In my opinion, there is nothing more important than your belief in your own potential for success and happiness, regardless of your age, gender, ethnicity, looks, education or background. The truth is, every day "You only sell you." You don't sell websites or a business concept. You sell the value of the person offering the websites and services. The decision of the buyer is based on the value of the seller. Just as products are described as "good", "expensive", "incredible", "worth-it" so, too, are individuals branded by others as "winners" or "losers."

Who you are shouts so loudly, that people either can't hear, don't want to hear, or listen carefully to what you are saying. Everybody loves a winner, and we all want to work with winners who pass their own value on to us.

Self-confidence isn't something you were born with. It's something you develop. Many of us were cultivated like weeds as children. We played inferior roles to the adults around us, who frequently reminded us of our faults and shortcomings more than our successes and abilities.If you had that type of childhood, as I did, you face a special challenge in building up your self-confidence as an adult. Here are some basic points to remember about yourself:

1. Realize that the most important opinion about you is the one that you hold. Long-term, nobody else is responsible for your life but you. Nobody else is accountable for your actions but you. Therefore, nobody’s opinion about you is more important than yours.

2. Don't demand perfection of yourself. An A is usually awarded to the person who scores 90 percent or better, and sometimes the score doesn't need to be that high. Professional basketball players only make half their shots. Professional quarterback complete only half their passes, and professional baseball players reach first base less than 40 percent of the time, and that includes walks. And we all know what our averages are in picking stocks to invest in that are always going up. That would be never! Give your best effort every day and keep going forward. Perfection is not only totally unrealistic to expect and virtually impossible to achieve, but it greatly takes you away from your ability to move forward. The person who is constantly looking over his or her shoulder at what might have been done better, can't possibly be focused on the future. Drive with your eyes ahead; don't drive by concentrating on the rearview mirror.

3. Develop a strong system of values. Take those values like striving for freedom, being the best you can be, persistence, showing love, serving others, or whatever and feed those values. Learn about them, immerse yourself in them so they grow and choke out the weeds around you. Your values will greatly affect how you relate to others. The stronger your values are, the greater the impact. If you are lacking in values, you will tend to draw from and even use other people to try to mimic their behaviors, if only superficially. Instead, seek to become a model, one who can help and give strength to others.

4. Don't reinforce your failures. Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street. Failure is a temporary setback, not a residence. Failure is a learning experience, not a person. Like success, failure is a growth process, not a status. Don't wallow in your mistakes. Correct them and move forward. Failure is necessary to move forward like bending a knee to step up higher. Congrats for your recent failures!!

5. Recognize that the most important conversations are the ones you have with yourself. Whether or not you are aware of it, you have a running conversation with yourself from the time you get up to the time you go to sleep. Your thoughts and ideas are "you talking to you." Have daily conversations with yourself that are supportive and reinforcing. We know the value of talking to people who praise us, reward us, recognize us, are happy to see us, and let us know they genuinely enjoy talking with us. Talk to yourself with those same qualities – silently as well as out loud.

6. Give each job or task your best effort. Countless individuals say, when confronted with a chore, "I'm too good to be doing this." They have negativity for their current lifestyle and the work that must be done, and get discouraged easily. Success is an accumulation of what you do in the minutes of each day. No task is too unworthy to do well. There are no small parts – only small actors.

7. To develop confidence, you must see yourself ultimately as a unique part of creation. You must recognize, with pleasure, that nobody else is just like you. No one else has exactly your personality, history or experiences. No one else has your footprints, your finger prints, your voice print or your genetic code. No one else has precisely your set of talents, capabilities and skills. You are one of a kind. The value is there. It just needs to be dusted off and polished.