People achieve to the degree they believe in themselves

“This is the worst day of my life. I must have been nuts to think I could do this.”

Those were the words of my chief of staff, Greg Bailey, one summer as he climbed Mount of the Holy Cross in the Vail area, one of Colorado’s famous 14,000-foot peaks commonly referred to as the “Fourteeners.” He took his two boys on a mountain climbing expedition as part of an extended family father/son bonding in what he thought sounded like a fun hike or adventure.

Once he got down from more than eight hours on the mountain and recovered, he had a completely different perspective. He wanted to climb another “Fourteener” … of course, at a later date. He told me climbing that mountain was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. He had never pushed himself to this level before.

Why do people push themselves to another level? What makes them accomplish or even attempt things that others think are not attainable or are even crazy to try? Is it the excitement, adventure, stimulation, or just plain challenge?

Remember the four-minute mile? People had been trying to achieve it since the days of the ancient Greeks. In fact, folklore has it that the Greeks had lions chase the runners, thinking that would make them run faster. They also tried tiger’s milk—not the stuff you get down at the health-food store, but the real thing.

Nothing worked. So they decided it was impossible. And for over a thousand years everyone believed it was physiologically impossible for a human being to run a mile in four minutes. Our bone structure was all wrong. Wind resistance was too great. Human lung power was inadequate. There were a million reasons.

Then one man, one single human being, proved that the doctors, the trainers, the athletes, and the millions before him who tried and failed, were all wrong. And miracle of miracles, the year after Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile, 37 other runners broke the four-minute mile, and the year after that 300 runners broke the four-minute mile.

So what makes people successful? Is it sheer determination? The thrill of accomplishment? The desire to achieve? The will to persevere?

I learned long ago that there are three kinds of people in the world: the wills, the won’ts, and the can’ts. The first accomplish everything. The second oppose everything. The third fail in everything.

Greg’s mountain climbing story reminded me of another involving two tribes who were at war with one another. One of the tribes lived in the lowlands and the other lived high in the mountains.

One day the mountain people conducted a raid on the lowlanders and plundered a village. During the raid, they kidnapped a baby of one of the lowlander families and took the infant with them back up into the mountains.

Enraged at the loss, the lowlanders resolved to recover the kidnapped baby no matter what the cost. But they didn’t know how to climb the mountain. They didn’t know any of the trails that the mountain people used, and they didn’t know where to find the mountain people or how to track them in the steep terrain. Even so, the lowlanders sent out a rescue party of their best fighting men to climb the mountain and bring the baby home.

The men tried one method of climbing first and then another, all to no avail. After several days of effort, they had succeeded in climbing only several hundred feet up the mountain. Thoroughly discouraged, the lowlander men decided that the cause was lost, and they reluctantly prepared to return to their village below.

But, as they were packing their gear for the descent, they suddenly saw the baby’s mother walking toward them. They stood silent gazing at her in the realization that she was coming down the mountain they had totally failed to climb.

Then they saw that she had the kidnapped baby strapped to her back. They all stared in amazement. How was that possible?

The first man to greet her said, “We couldn’t climb this mountain. How did you do so when we, the strongest and most able men in the village, couldn’t do it?”

She shrugged her shoulders and replied, “It wasn’t your baby.”

Give your self-confidence the boost you need

Walt Disney used to talk about the four Cs to success in life: curiosity, confidence, courage, and consistency. He believed that if you applied these four Cs to your life, you could accomplish practically anything. But there was one C that Walt said was the greatest of all: confidence. He said, “When you believe a thing, believe it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably.”

When people think of Walt Disney—the man—they think of success and the empire he created. But that wasn’t the case for Walt early on. He was anything but successful. He had several business failures and was told by an editor at the Kansas City Star newspaper that he “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

Maybe that’s why confidence was so important to him. He certainly was no quitter.

Self-confidence is extremely important in almost every aspect of our lives, yet many people don’t believe in themselves as they should, and they find it difficult to become successful.

Would you buy a product from someone who is nervous, fumbling, or overly apologetic? No. You would be suspicious of their product, their trustworthiness, and their ability to provide follow-up service. You would prefer someone who is confident and speaks clearly and knows their stuff.

Confidence enables you to perform to the best of your abilities, without the fear of failure holding you back. It starts with believing in yourself.

As one of my favorite motivational authors, Norman Vincent Peale, said, “Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” One word in particular in that quote stands out: humble. Confidence does not mean arrogance, in fact, quite the opposite. Humility is a quality that must accompany confidence in order to instill trust.

You don’t acquire confidence overnight. You can’t wake up one day and think you are good. You have to work at it. You have to practice the right concepts, get the best coaching you can, and develop mental toughness. You have to think like a winner.

Coaches and managers can tell their players and employees to be more confident, but if they don’t prepare and work hard enough, confidence will always be lacking. It’s easy to fire people up, but they also have to be willing to prepare and pay the price to achieve a high level of confidence.

My friend, the late Jack Kemp, told me the story of how his coach motivated him when he played quarterback at Occidental College.

Before the football season started, the coach called Kemp into his office for a private meeting. He said, “Jack, you are my guy. You are the leader on this team. You are the one I can count on. Every year I pick just one player, and you are that player. If you live up to your potential, you have what it takes to achieve greatness. But it’s important that you don’t tell anyone else.”

Jack told me that when he left that room he was ready to run through a brick wall for that guy. What he didn’t know until after the season was that his coach said the same thing to 11 other players.

Kemp went on to play pro football for 13 years, served nine terms in Congress representing western New York, and was Republican nominee Bob Dole’s vice presidential running mate in the 1996 presidential election.

A wonderful accompaniment to confidence is a sense of humor, as the following story illustrates. Being able to laugh at yourself is the ultimate demonstration of confidence.

A New Yorker fresh from a business trip to Texas was telling his associates about his experiences. One of them asked, “What impressed you most about the people there?”

“Their confidence.” The man thought for a moment. “Here’s an example. We went duck hunting on Saturday. We sat in a blind all day long and never saw a thing. Then, right about sundown, this one duck flew over our heads. One of the guys stood up with his shotgun and fired. And the duck kept right on flying.

“Nobody said a word for a moment. Then the shooter shook his head and said to me, ‘You’re seeing a miracle! There flies a dead duck.’”

Humility, success make good business partners

As Will Rogers used to say, get someone else to blow your horn and the sound will carry twice as far.

Humility is becoming a lost art—in an era of self-promotion and making sure you get all the credit you deserve, it’s refreshing indeed to come across coworkers, bosses, or even customers who have enough self-confidence to let their work speak for their abilities and achievements.

And even after all the boasting and bluster, most folks have already figured out who will get the job done … and who won’t drive them crazy in the process.

A very thin line separates confidence and conceit. People who are confident in their abilities are described as “capable,” “intelligent,” “efficient,” and “dependable.” Anyone would be pleased to have those adjectives associated with their reputation. Conceited people, on the other hand, earn titles like “phony,” “arrogant,” “obnoxious,” and “unpleasant.”

I learned my lesson from none other than my wife when I invited her to join me at a speaking engagement. I did all my usual homework and preparation, gave the speech, and was thrilled to receive a standing ovation from the audience.

Feeling rather smug in the car on the way home, I turned to her and asked: “Sweetheart, how many great speakers do you think there are in the world today?”

She smiled and said, “One fewer than you think, dear.”

Touché.

It was at that point that I realized the human body is designed so that we can neither pat our own backs nor kick ourselves in the backsides too easily.

Humility is not difficult to practice. It doesn’t involve downplaying your achievements. It doesn’t mean that you won’t be recognized for your contributions. It does mean that you realize that others have been involved in your success, and you are prepared to be involved in theirs.

You start by giving credit where it is due. The coworkers who participated in the early stages of a project surely deserve some recognition, and the folks who mopped the floors and kept the lights on so you could work late are team players too.

Have you ever noticed how long the credits take at the end of a movie? They identify everyone from the stars to the caterers to the pyrotechnical wizards. The project couldn’t be completed without all of those people.

If you want a real lesson in humility, volunteer. Jobs go begging every day, so you surely won’t have any problem finding something to do. Putting yourself in a position where your performance will not result in a raise, promotion, or fancier job title has a way of refreshing your perspective.

Here’s a story that perfectly illustrates the point:

A couple hundred years ago, a rider on horseback came across a squad of soldiers who were trying to move a heavy piece of timber. A well-dressed corporal stood by, giving urgent commands to “heave.” But try as they might, the squad couldn’t budge the timber.

The rider was curious, and asked the corporal why he didn’t help his men.

“Me? Why, can’t you see I’m a corporal?” he replied.

The rider dismounted and offered to help. He took his place among the soldiers, smiled, and said, “Now all together, men, heave!” The big timber slid into place. He silently mounted his horse and turned to the corporal.

“The next time you have a piece of timber for your men to handle, corporal, send for the commander-in-chief.” With that, George Washington rode off, much to the amazement of the soldiers, and I suppose, the dismay of a very embarrassed corporal.