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Insecurity
Install a Security System

If you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.

—Henry Ford

It all starts with attitude, which is the foundation for Psychological Swagger. There are countless quotes and motivational stories related to the importance of attitude. Quite simply, it is the differentiator between those who complain and those who train. Everyone faces challenges in their pursuit of success, but few have the grit to stay the course and maintain their focus. A core aspect of attitude is belief, your belief in yourself as well as your belief in how the world works. The lens through which you see things takes you either toward your success or away from it.

We all have insecurities. Those of us who use them can lose them. Insecurities can limit our progress in life. An example of this is letting a thought about the past predict your future. For me, a major insecurity was my lack of “traditional intelligence.” I always struggled with standardized tests and getting good grades. Earlier in life, this was what I focused on because it’s what most people valued and where emphasis was placed. With time, I made my insecurity my greatest strength.

A story I heard years ago illustrates this point rather well. A husband and a wife were driving along the highway and the husband was complaining about the windshield being dirty. He pulled off to a rest stop and asked a gas station attendant to clean the windshield. After the windshield was cleaned, the man started complaining about the incompetence in the world and how the windshield was still dirty and all he could see was dirt and blurriness. When the husband was done with his rant, his wife leaned over and took off her husband’s glasses and asked, “How do you see things now?” To the man’s surprise, everything was crystal clear. It wasn’t the windshield that was dirty, it was his glasses. This little story is a great illustration of how the lens through which we see things impacts our experience.

A successful person I’d like to introduce you to is Roland Trombley, Senior Vice President and General Manager at Comcast Spotlight. I knew Roland was an illustration of how attitude leads to success within the first moments of speaking to him. The following is the simple success strategy that Roland recommends.

Roland Trombley is the inspiration behind “Power Seller” at Comcast Spotlight. “Power Seller” is an innovative sales strategy that tailors roles to talent. This strategy frees “all stars” up from administrative tasks and allows people to leverage their natural skill sets that drive revenue. Roland has been a true transformational leader. Many people have visions for cultural change and increasing organizational effectiveness, but very few are successful. Roland was successful by leveraging his simple strategy of building confidence within people.

His philosophy is that the biggest success comes from people who believe in their ability. When people are willing to travel outside their comfort zone, they push themselves and others to learn and grow. The initiation of a strategy at the top is irrelevant if the middle managers aren’t equipped and confident to execute.

Roland explains that it’s all about motivating people through confidence. A key to creating that confidence is as simple as communication. However, one-to-one communication alone is not sufficient. It is about creating a culture and system of communication. He believes in creating plans for communication on a weekly basis throughout the year. The discipline of being upfront and transparent builds credibility and respect. This motivates people and creates alignment.

Insecurity can be fuel for confidence. Many executives lead without paying attention to what people need in order to feel more confident and comfortable. This is especially critical in times of change when pressure arises and people fold back into their comfort zones. Confidence is what makes comfort zones larger and helps people to make decisions and act intentionally rather than reactively.

A quote that stands out from the conversation with Roland is, “The reason I am successful is because I worked for a horrible boss!” During this experience, Roland learned how a leader could be a detractor of performance rather than an enhancer of talent.

Roland’s advice is to find opportunities to build your confidence and grow confidence in others and “own it.” There are many ways to build confidence within yourself. One is to identify a skill that you want to master. Commit to that skill by reading about it, watching videos, and finding people you trust to provide honest feedback. Building confidence in others is a combination of caring and challenging. This means demonstrating support for the person and continuing to challenge them to grow by giving them stretch assignments. If it’s in a professional setting, or even if it’s outside a professional setting, it’s about encouraging the person to grow by doing things outside their comfort zone.

We’ll all face insecurity with our careers. The way to counteract insecurity is to have a foundation of confidence, and the best way to do that is to install a security system.

Simple Success Strategy: Install a Security System

Early on in my career, I let my insecurity of not being “smart” fuel my passion and desire. I began to learn about other types of smart. I researched the impact of emotional intelligence and developing people smarts. This is not to say that traditional intelligence doesn’t matter. It does, but I have found that other aspects of life lead to a much more productive and successful career and life. I shifted my focus to what I can do, rather than what I didn’t believe I could do.

I saw the author of Blink (2007), Malcolm Gladwell, speak about the differences between cultures and how when American children are confronted with a difficult math problem, they say to themselves, “I don’t know how to do this.” However, when children in areas of Asia are faced with the same situation, they say to themselves, “I haven’t found the solution yet.” This connected to me because it is the difference between how I used to live my life and how I live it now. When I was a kid in school, anytime I saw that little asterisk that told you the homework question was more difficult, I immediately shut down and thought to myself that I wasn’t going to be able to solve the problem.

With time, I reframed the situation and used it to leverage my strength, connecting to people and building relationships. I began asking for help from those who naturally were able to solve those difficult problems. The result changed my life. People were willing to help and I developed deeper connections by using my vulnerability as a strength.

As years passed, I replaced my insecurity of not being smart with the confidence that I can find a way to learn. I realized that I learned best through conversations and interactions with people. It has been a driving force for me and has paid tremendous dividends. It has become a differentiating strength in that when I teach someone something, it is in simple terms; because if I understand it, most people will. I am not shy about talking about where I struggle. In fact, I offer that without hesitation.

We can all do this. We can find what insecurities limit us and develop confidence to break through these limitations. This has a positive snowball impact. We all have insecurities that surface, most of which we are not even aware. The shift from insecurity to security and confidence has a ripple effect.

What insecurity has been a part of your life? How can you shift this to a security and become confident? Our minds work like computers; they operate according to how we program them. The more we can develop positive programs, the more you will get positive outcomes. A very practical and effective way to counteract insecurity is to build yourself a foundation of security. This security system serves two purposes: 1) it consistently builds your confidence and 2) it buffers the impact of experiences that may test your confidence.

The way the security system is built is through positive self-statements and building your confidence corral. These statements are strong and positive about yourself. The following are examples of these statements. Take five minutes to create five more.

Self-statements:

1. I am confident.

2. I believe in myself.

3. I bounce back from adversity.

4. I am strong.

5. I focus on what I can control.

There are a few guidelines in order for the self-statements to work:

1. All statements must be positive and about you.

2. You have to believe 100 percent in the statement.

3. Say the statement like you mean it, with feeling.

To start, say these statements to yourself every night for one month. Then you can shift to three times a week. My clients have taught me that it is helpful to have them on an index card or have a Post-it reminder on their bathroom mirror.

The more you tell yourself that you believe in yourself, the more it will become the norm that you will take on challenges. Personally, I went from being fearful of what I wasn’t able to do, to passionate about learning and excelling. With time, I built up what I call my confidence corral. My confidence corral is all of the things that bring out my confidence. It can be things I say to myself, what I wear, who I talk with, the way I stand, what I eat, or the questions I ask myself. It’s just like a pre-shot routine that an elite athlete goes through. The more I make confidence a norm, the less chance insecurity gets to create a storm.