Chapter 8
 Self-Confidence Every Day

How would you like to put into practice what you’ve learned in Chapters 5, 6, and 7, so you can become self-confident nearly all the time and assertive whenever you need or want to be? Of course, no one is 100 percent self-confident around the clock, in every situation. We’re talking degrees here!

This chapter expands upon what you learned in the previous chapters and gives you a framework for being more self-confident in every aspect of your life.

Self-Confident People Are Not Paragons

Too many people erroneously believe they have to be some type of exalted being to be assertive because, after all, assertive people never blow their tops. Au contraire! Anybody can get angry, even the most highly self-confident, assertive people. However, the self-confident, assertive person expresses his anger in a constructive manner as opposed to a destructive way (such as by shouting, threatening, insulting, or otherwise abusing others).

When angry, the self-confident, assertive person resorts to first-person communication, highlighting how they feel and what they want instead of acting hostile to others. For example:

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 Word Power
A paragon is a model of perfection or excellence—having no equal. Hence, no one is a paragon of self-confidence or assertiveness.

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Likewise, the self-confident, assertive person handles other challenges in a similar manner. More specifically, they:

• Identify what’s needed.
  
• Express how they feel.
  
• Indicate what needs to be done.
  
• Refer to the bigger picture.
  
• Elicit agreement or cooperation.
  
• Close the discussion cordially.

There are people, and you may know some, who are self-confident most of the time. Sure, they face challenges that stymie them, and, like anybody, they can “lose it” on occasion. Generally, though, they approach each day and most situations with relative grace and ease. You can almost feel the calmness disseminating from the center of their being.

Paradoxically, self-confident people don’t strive to be self-confident. It’s almost as if they just allow themselves to “be.” They seem to tap into internal resources that have, perhaps, been there all along, or—and this is exciting—are within each of us.

Self-Confident People Know Who They Are

Self-confident people let vital qualities rise to the surface. They’re not at war with themselves. Think of it—how would it feel if you were so self-assured that no one could shake your view of yourself?

Certainly, self-confident people have doubts about themselves, their work, and their lives in general. However, rather than try to force themselves to think and see everything as positive, they allow their doubts to be part of the total mix of their experiences. They don’t allow their doubts to rule them. They maintain a level of honesty with themselves that draws on all of what they think and feel, sorts it out, and almost automatically redirects them toward the most appropriate thinking, behavior, and action.

A successful high school basketball coach was once asked by one of his mentors to join the college ranks as an assistant coach. This would mean an increase in salary and, perhaps, a chance to work as a head coach of a college team someday. The high school coach thought about it and said, “I’m flattered, but I have to decline. I know what I am; I’m a high school coach.”

Did he show a lack of ambition, or was he simply being true to himself?

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 Make It So
“This above all: to thy own self be true . . .”

—Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

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Some Well-Chosen Rules

Many people regard General Colin Powell, retired head of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a highly self-confident person. In his autobiography My American Journey, Powell remarks that people were always asking him about where society should be heading. Powell would respond that he didn’t have all of the answers, but he did have a few “rules that he tried to live by.” Following are a couple of his rules. What’s remarkable to me is how well entrenched and evident his sense of self-confidence is:

• It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
  
• Get mad; then get over it.
  
• Avoid placing your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego falls with it.
  
• It can be done!
  
• Don’t let adversity stand in the way of a good decision.
  
• You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.
  
• Share credit.
  
• Remain calm. Be kind.
  
• Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Is Optimism Necessary for Self-Confidence?

Powell’s inherent optimism leads to the question of whether or not optimism is necessary for self-confidence. After exploring the issue, I believe that it is not. Optimism certainly doesn’t hurt, however, and it well may help.

Surprisingly little research exists about what makes people optimistic. In his book Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman contends that optimists see tough situations as temporary, while pessimists see them as permanent. Optimists also tend to be specific: “Professor Sandler is tough”; whereas pessimists tend to generalize: “All professors are tough.”

Seligman believes that optimism is mandatory for those embarking on a career in sales, brokering, public relations, speaking, acting, or fund raising, as well as those involved in creative, highly competitive, or high-burnout jobs.

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 Just the Facts
Data from Optimists International reveal that optimists catch fewer infectious diseases than pessimists, have better health habits and better functioning immune systems, and generally live longer than pessimists. Optimists are also less likely to miss work, be tardy, or leave early because of sickness.

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Optimism doesn’t necessarily equate with high self-confidence. You can be pessimistic but self-confident. But if you are naturally optimistic, your ability to develop or maintain self-confidence is probably enhanced. If not, you still have a variety of everyday situations where you can “flex” your self-confidence muscle. Let’s look at some of these situations, starting with self-confidence at work.

Self-Confidence on the Job

Of all the people who will accompany you through each job, no boss, co-worker, peer, spouse, parent, relative, or friend will be with you every step of your career journey; you’re it! Similarly, you’re the only one who can significantly increase the self-confidence you experience and convey to others. Once you accept that, you’re practically halfway there. The seven factors that follow, in combination with what you’ve learned in the previous three chapters, will take you the rest of the way.

1. Work with a Coach

I was fortunate early in my career to recognize the need to retain a career coach. A career coach is not another term for mentor. This is a person you pay to help you.

In a nutshell, a career coach can:

• Help diagnose and sort out your situation and opportunities.
  
• Offer new strategies for coping with office politics and competition from other firms.
  
• Show you vital stress management skills.
  
• Help you discover or capitalize on new opportunities.

A good coach provides new tools for improving communication and helps chart your goals and career path. Your career coach can also be your personal, behind-the-scenes confidant, consultant, and resource. For more on career coaching, visit http://www.coachu.com on the Internet where you’ll find information about career coaching as a profession, discussion topics, what career coaching can provide you, and contact information for individuals who can answer your questions.

If you have a lack of self-confidence or if you’re faced with any of the following, then it’s likely you need a career coach:

• Organizational changes within your company, especially if they have a direct impact on you
  
• Acquisitions or mergers
  
• Expansion into new markets
  
• Diversification into new products or services
  
• Increased competition to your firm from other firms trying to take over your market share
  
• Increased management or supervisory responsibility
  
• Increased leadership opportunities
  
• A recent or soon-to-be available promotion
  
• A new boss or a leadership shake-up above you
  
• Changes in your role or assignments within your company
  
• In-company competition and power plays, corporate intrigue, jockeying for position, or turf protection
  
• Blockades of your progress by internal feuds or informal political processes
  
• Increased media exposure or public-speaking requirements
  
• Increased production or sales quotas
  
• A new project you must lead or participate in developing
  
• Being a woman, a member of an ethnic or racial minority, or someone with disabilities

For several years I used the career-coaching service of Penny Garner in Alexandria, Virginia. We met only once quarterly for two hours, but I would leave supercharged!

2. Work with an Employment Contract!

An employment contract is a document that spells out your relationship with your employer and your compensation, benefits, job responsibilities, length of employment, and special incentives. The concept of generating an employment contract has been around for at least three decades. Unfortunately, most career professionals have no idea what it is, how to draw one up, or how to ensure that they only work with a contract.

Penny (my career coach) advised me on the importance of establishing a contract. When I first heard this, I was amazed. “You mean that I, a 28-year-old neophyte, am supposed to march into my boss’s office and suggest that we develop a contract that defines both the company’s and my responsibilities over the next 12 months?” Yes! Exactly!

Why address the notion of an employment contract in the middle of a chapter on everyday self-confidence in a book about assertiveness? Having an employment contract is a great confidence booster. Essentially, it defines your working conditions for the length of a specified term. It establishes your compensation rate. It practically secures your employment.

The kicker is, the contract enhances your confidence while you’re writing it and gives you practice in acting assertively, both when you first broach the subject with your prospective or current employer, and when you actually conduct the session to consummate the contract negotiation.

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 Just the Facts
In all industries, the most valuable people work with a contract. This is true in Fortune 500 companies; Major League Baseball; the highest levels of government; philanthropic organizations; and civic, social, and charitable organizations. The top talent works with employment contracts. In fact, the inability of management and an agent, representing some top performer, to agree on contract terms is often front page news.

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3. Become Indispensable on the Job

In my earlier book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Managing Stress (Macmillan Publishing, 1997), I discuss at length how you can distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack at work by becoming indispensable. Here’s a summary of the many strategies you can employ to become the kind of employee your company can’t live without:

• Take the job no one else wants.
  
• Go the extra mile.
  
• Work harder when the cat’s away.
  
• Get credit for your group.
  
• Make your boss look good.
  
• Become a mentor (ad hoc advisor or counselor) to junior or new members of your company.
  
• Figure out what’s needed, not what’s expected.

4. Know Your Product or Service Line Cold

In state legislatures, the senator who knows the most about the specifics of the legislation that has passed, is pending, or is about to be signed has an advantage over his peers. The sales professional who knows his product or service line cold is more confident in front of prospective buyers and customers and with peers, bosses, and top company management. The health care professional who learns about the latest equipment, diagnostic procedures, and patient care techniques automatically becomes a more valuable and more confident employee.

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 Make It So
I suggest that you engage in such intensive learning that you become the organizational authority on the products or services that your organization provides. You’ll know you’ve achieved this when people who outrank you in the organization come to you for answers.

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Right now, I challenge you to learn everything about the products or services that your organization provides.

When you know as much or more about your products and services than anyone in the organization:

• Your self-confidence automatically increases.
  
• Co-workers and staff members naturally turn to you.
  
• Bosses and those higher up consider you a valuable resource.
  
• You’re more confident in front of clients, customers, constituents, and other business contacts.
  
• Your oral and written communication abilities naturally grow stronger.

Now, if you’re an attentive reader, you may remember that in Chapter 2 I told you that there’s more information produced in every profession than anyone can possibly keep pace with. I advised you not to whip yourself into a frenzy, attempting to keep up with every shred of knowledge concerning your profession. Am I contradicting myself? No.

You don’t need to know everything. Rather, you want to identify the critical information that will keep you at the forefront of your profession. This requires far less time and energy than you would think. Watch one less television show per day, for example, and you will probably have more than enough time to do this.

5. Increase Your Professionalism at Work

It would be easy for you to compose a list of all that’s wrong at your place of work. Perhaps you can write an article about it, or even a full-length book! Rather than travel that road, increase your level of professionalism a notch or two.

Straighten up your desk and office. Rearrange the pictures, posters, and plaques on the wall. Acquire the support items that will make you more productive. Consolidate material in files, on shelves, and in supply cabinets. Consolidate reminder notes, pads, and slips of paper, so your office is no longer covered with them.

Beyond improving the overall organization and appearance of your office, how about creating a more professional you? Do you need to get your hair trimmed or have your fingernails manicured? Do you need to dry-clean some of your suits? What can you do to improve your overall appearance?

I’d like you to take a personal image inventory. Review the following list and for each item, ask yourself how you currently rate. In what areas do you need improvement?

Most importantly, how is your professional attitude? Are you a smoldering fire or a beacon of light? Adopt the attitude of focusing on your own job and helping others where and when you can.

When your office and appearance improve and you consciously choose to approach each day with a higher level of professionalism, your self-confidence automatically gets a boost. Others notice. You begin accruing the psychological strokes that propel you further. Once again, you benefit from the victorious circle.

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 Make It So
If morale is currently low where you work, take it upon yourself to be the one person, or the one among a few, who remains cheerful and positive in the face of tough challenges.

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6. Act with Greater Decisiveness

As you saw in previous chapters, effective executives tend to make decisions more quickly, and they don’t retreat from them. This doesn’t mean that they’re bold and impetuous, but rather, they have learned to trust their instincts. Instinctive decisions aren’t made out of the blue, but are based on a complex set of decision-making guidelines that have been developing inside of you for years.

General Colin Powell said that one of the reasons he was able to make effective decisions in his military career was that he would wait until he had about 60 percent of the data that he could amass for a decision and then make his choice, rather than wait for all the information. More data is not always the answer, and too much data can lead to too many answers, which clearly gets in the way of acting decisively.

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 Make It So
When your gut and your head come up with the same decision, it’s a lock. That is, when your intuitive or internal feeling along with any rational decision-making process that you’ve undergone are in agreement, don’t have any qualms regarding making the decision. When your gut and your head disagree, go with the gut.

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7. Volunteer at Work

Volunteering to take on new challenges at work is a way of engaging yourself at a higher level. One of my mentors once told me that “leading men and women take leading parts.”

It’s okay to be a bit player for awhile. However, if you stay in the bit player role too long, it will become a habit that’s tough to break. Miraculously, the mere act of stepping forward—volunteering—often summons within you that which is necessary to be successful. In other words, on some deep level, you volunteer only for those things in which you know you have a good chance of succeeding.

Volunteer to head up a task force, committee or subcommittee, team, or work group, where you normally would not have volunteered. You’ll gain greater visibility, respect, and perhaps an enhanced understanding of how your organization works.

Volunteer to help someone rehearse a presentation. Serve as an audience, sounding board, and/or a critic. Volunteer to review someone’s report, key letter, or strategy paper.

Volunteer to assume some responsibility for a task your boss is currently trying to juggle. Let her know that you’re willing to relieve some of the pressure she feels. Naturally, in all cases, you don’t want to volunteer to do something that commits too much of your time and energy. Volunteer only for that which seems within your pool of physical and mental resources.

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 Handle with Care
If you worry that people will start coming to you for all kinds of things, take heart. They will. As a result, their confidence in you, your self-confidence, and your promotability will all rise.

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As you’re asked to take on new challenges, some of your other responsibilities may be reassigned or reallocated. After all, as your perceived value in your organization grows, the wisest within your organization will find others to handle the lower-level projects. They don’t want the star player carrying the water cooler!

Self-Confidence in Social Situations

For every opportunity you have at work to stretch yourself and increase your self-confidence, at least three exist in the rest of the world. Happily, the measures you take away from work to increase your self-confidence greatly add to what your peers see back in the workplace.

I’m going to set a quota for you that you can easily achieve. I’d like you to engage in a minimum of one confidence-building activity a day away from the workplace. Here’s a list of ideas to get you started, some of which may be right for you right now, and some of which you may want to try another time:

• Smile as you pass someone in a hallway or on the street. Make sure this is someone you don’t know and to whom you’re not necessarily attracted. In other words, you’re randomly smiling at someone who does not seek or expect it. You’re smiling at another human being just because you choose to.
  
• Focus intently on what another person is saying. This could be the teller at your bank, the clerk at the fast-food counter (although I hope you’re not still eating fast food), the attendant at your health club, or your racquetball partner. For at least a few minutes, give this person your complete and undivided attention. Indeed, make listening to them your reason for being.
  
• Put yourself in a position where you’re likely to get rejected. Make a legitimate request of someone for something that has a low probability of engendering a favorable response. For example, ask a friend or spouse to attend some function, when you know in advance that he or she is not likely to say yes. If you receive a favorable response, wonderful. If you don’t, your goal is then to accept the response graciously.
  
• Volunteer for something away from work. It could be helping out someplace on a temporary basis. Perhaps you could stand by a door and collect tickets to an event or greet people as they enter. Maybe a little old lady, or a little old man for that matter, does need help crossing the street.

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   Make It So
  The more you’re able to graciously accept rejection and see it for what it is—usually a rejection of your offer, not of you—the more you’ll be able to confidently ask for something.

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• Make a minor request of someone whom you barely know or have recently met. For example, if you’re at a party, ask someone to help you straighten your tie, hand you a plate at the buffet table, or get some other minor item for you. Make a sincere and, of course, friendly request. The more easily you’re able to make minor requests of strangers, the more naturally you’ll begin to make more significant requests of anyone, when the situation merits it.
  
• In conversation with another person, when appropriate, tell him:

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m not the right party to ask.”

  “I wish I could say.”

  “I don’t have much information about that.”

  “Sorry, I can’t help you there.”

  Legitimately pleading ignorance helps free you from any potential feelings of always needing to have informative responses. Self-confident people have little trouble saying, “I don’t know,” when that is so.

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   Just the Facts
  When handling question-and-answer sessions, speakers are often advised to respond truthfully with “I don’t know,” and then add, “But I’ll be happy to find the answer to that for you.” This assures the audience that you’re fully able to admit when you don’t know the answer to something, and at the same time have the professionalism to seek out the answer.

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• Strike up a conversation with a complete stranger over a common activity. For example, if you’re heading out of the movie theater, briefly ask someone you don’t know, “Did you like that?” Similarly, at the supermarket checkout counter, ask the clerk, “Have you ever tried this?”

  Self-confident people feel free to engage in conversation with others. Their conversation powers are not limited. They live in a bigger and more often brighter world because they can reach out to others.

  
  
• Make a difficult phone call—you know, the one you’ve been avoiding. The call could be to someone who owes you money or to whom you owe money. You could call a relative you haven’t talked to in a while or someone who’s been avoiding you. The call could be to air a grievance or to purchase something you’ve been postponing.

Automatic Self-Confidence

Like many things in life, developing self-confidence is a habit, similar to generating wealth or staying in shape. If you keep working at it, one fine morning you’ll wake up and, whether you notice it or not, you’ll be among the ranks of the self-confident.

On that bright morning, you still may not be a master at dealing with others, able to give a virtuoso performance when making a presentation to a group, be the perfect parent, or be a totally wonderful spouse. You will, however, more completely accept who and what you are in life, and recognize where you’re highly capable and not so capable.

While no one is ever free from self-doubt, you’ll be able to more accurately assess it, almost with curious self-detachment, without allowing it to immobilize you. You’ll be thankful for the confidence that you feel in your profession and life—not arrogant, elitist, or smug. You’ll face less resistance to embracing appropriate change because you’ll be less attached to much of what doesn’t matter.

From Self-Confidence to Assertiveness

When you’re self-confident, you’re naturally assertive. You speak up for yourself when the situation merits it. You’re able to express yourself to others in various ways so that they understand and accept your message.

Being self-confident doesn’t automatically qualify you for the assertiveness hall of fame. A variety of situations, techniques, and approaches still require discussion, and we’ve got the whole rest of this book to do that. If you were to do nothing else, however, but work on increasing your self-confidence, your assertiveness would predictably increase as a result.