3 Ways To Build Self Confidence

It is a fact that confident people get hassled less, get more promotions, earn more money, get to date the people they want to date and in general, have richer more fulfilling lives.

Here are 3 ways to boost and build your own self confidence.

1) Positives self-talk. If you catch yourself saying, I’m only a… or I’m not sure I can… or Thank you, but I didn’t do that much. You are your own worst enemy. Confident people always programme their mental software with positive statements like, I am positive I can accomplish this by the deadline. I am sure you will be happy with my…Thank you! I worked hard to achieve this result for you.

2) Know what you are good at and make sure you use those traits and skills as much as possible. If you are not good at written communication, give the report orally or develop someone else to help you with the parts you are weak at. Moses had a speech impediment. He spoke to his people through his brother Arun. My teachers told me, Michael, with your spelling and penmanship, you will never amount to ANYTHING! So I bought a computer with spell-check and a laser printer to compensate, giving me confidence.

3) Learn the skills you fear. I was shy and lacked confidence so I took karate to gain confidence and self esteem. I almost drowned as a kid so I took drown-proofing and swimming lessons and can swim over an hour in open water. I trouble expressing myself so I committed 4 years to Toastmasters and learned to polish off my speaking flaws. Think of the 3 areas of knowledge you lack for advancement, study them hard every night after work for an hour and a year, you will be so confident, you will BEAM with enthusiasm.

The point is, confidence is a learned skill. It starts within but requires actions to develop. You can be more confident know you are finally doing something about your confidence. Be more confident today as you grow in confidence for tomorrow.

Got comments or questions about building self confidence? Just leave your comments here.

Mike Podolinsky TakeOut Comedy Club Singapore Open Mic 280709

What do you think about my first Stand Up Comedy Open Mic in Singapore?

Here is the second one.  Have Fun!

In Vegas and most comedy clubs that are NOT filming for TV, the lights are up more. If you have a diva singing, you want it dark so the audience is silent and focuses on the diva. For comedy, they turn the house lights up. Why? So people can see faces. It’s hard to laugh if you can’t see other people’s faces. The laugh gets ‘stuck’ at the lips.

If the lights are dim at a comedy club, it’s to make people drinking feel more relaxed and drink more. NOT for the benefit of the comic.

When the shoot a TV show like The Tonight Show and Leno or Connan are doing their stand-up, the lights are full on. When someone is singing, the lighting drops and is more ‘dramatic.

3 Lessons Learned in Shanghai, China

4 days in Shanghai is not enough to `know` the city, but I did pick up some lessons I thought might help you, particularly those of you who have not been there yet.

Lesson #1: Size matters. 16 million people living on 6000 Square Meters means they go vertical. Unlike New York, Singapore or any major cities which have a `downtown` or `CBD` area where you have a dozen or two really big buildings, Shanghai has 10 times the skyscrapers of New York and square kilometre after square kilometre of high rise apartments.

Because China is building cities and infrastructure to house a city population to grow by over 350 million people in the next 8 years, the enormity of their big picture problems might be one reason they overlook the individual`s problems.

I am not saying individual rights are not important. They just seems dwarfed by the size and scope of everything else. Rather than judge, viewing the size helps me put China`s position into perspective.

For your own life, when things seem a little overwhelming, do not feel depressed for feel bad if you get a little worked up. Put it all into perspective and relax a bit.

Lesson #2:  Build it beautiful and then you do not have to decorate it. The buildings and skyscrapers in Shanghai are so unique and architecturally attractive. As such, they have little need for any extra `decoration.`

I compare that to many of the apartment blocks I see in Singapore and elsewhere that are just, well, apartments. Because they have no inherent beauty, they get odd and `creative` paint jobs.

Question: Are you building something at work now that is so beautiful that it sells itself, be it your career, your project or your life?

Lesson #3: Technology and planning. The city I came from, Minneapolis, Minnesota, after 30+ years of heel dragging, finally installed a `revolutionary` trolley to ferry people from the airport to the downtown last year. It runs on railroad tracks and moves up to 30 miles per hour but not for more than a few seconds at a time.

Shanghai has a magnetic elevated monorail that runs between the international airport and the main part of the city, connecting to the national railroad. It travels at 200+ kilometres per hour. Maybe Minneapolis should try to catch up to China?

Technology in the brain is useless. Application with appropriate planning is everything. What `technology` have you heard about you should be applying to your job, your family or your life?

Shanghai is amazing and helped me think through my assumptions about China and more importantly, the way I approach my own life.  Got comments or questions? Just leave your comments here.