Tag Archives: confidence

How Do We Build Confidence?

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This is no simple question.

Our confidence is greatly affected by our memories, values, previous decisions and environment. I always tell people that competence is the flip-side of confidence. When you get good at (doing) something, your confidence rises. And likewise when you get more confident at something, you perform better, which raises your competence at that task. So it is like the old riddle – “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” The answer is it doesn’t matter, as long as you have both a chicken and an egg, as they are interlinked and there could not be one without the other.  So it is with confidence and competence.

Lesson for today: build your competence in your targeted task, job or hobby in small steps to gain more self-trust and positive feedback from others, so that your confidence rises up a few notches. That will in turn show on your face and in your voice and body language, starting off a very positive ripple-effect. After a while of small successes you can look back at your journey and see the great accomplishments, and feel the stronger confidence gained from your personal goal-achievements.

Now go climb a small mountain! (figuratively, of course!)

Control Your Attitude to Improve Your Communications

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Hello everyone,

Tis the season to be holly, jolly and happy, but unfortunately a few people out there have not received the message.

Yesterday I saw two guys almost get in a fist fight on the subway platform, until an undercover cop broke them up. The day before, during a big snow storm, I heard one driver yell to another to “watch out, or I will push you into the ditch!”  Even though I was not directly involved in either of these cases, I was still struck with a reaction. Actually my reaction was immediately to shake my head and wonder why people would risk hurting themselves or innocent by-standers over something as trivial as their own ego and misplaced sense of competitiveness.

Let me expand my thought process to you on this.

Do I have a healthy ego and strong sense of self? Yes, for sure. I am reasonably confident and assume I can hold my own in any situation. Do I get annoyed or offended if someone does some kind of perceived injustice to me? Yeah, sort of, but not really.

“What kind of strange answer is that?” I hear you scream. It is my reaction to competitive behaviour when I am not involved in a game or sport.

Winter storm driving is not a sport. Shopping is not a sport. Getting in line or queue for the subway train is not a sport. I think you get my point. Competition is for sports and games with rules to follow, to determine a winner. None of the above activities should apply.

I have built up a ‘filter’ so that when something happens to me or around me 99% of the time I do not over-react with emotion and ego, or with a competitive spirit. I do not see it as a contest of wills, of right and wrong, of winning and losing. I instead try my best to empathize with the other person or people, and I give them permission to be a flawed human, just like me. Through empathy I try to connect with them and calmly work at resolving the issue, one way or another.

Empathy is the key to communication. We must try to listen, read body language and see the issue from the other person’s perspective. We do not need to fight, or run away, or apologize, or get riled up with defensiveness. We instead should practice self-control and empathy first.

I know some of you understand exactly what I am saying, and I also know some of you are wondering what happy-pill I just took. 🙂   The truth is (to me anyway) that attitude, self-confidence, self-control, conflict management skills and empathy are huge parts of better communication, and that is why we need to incorporate them. When we get emotional and defensive in attitude, we cannot think as clearly as when we maintain our composure, relate to the key emotions first, then problem solve the situation to a satisfactory resolution.

On a personal note I would like to share something with you. Over 20 years of study and practice in martial arts here in Canada and abroad in Asia have taught me two important things. One: I assume I can fight, and I will always hope to be able to hold my own.  Two: I hate to fight, and will do everything I can to avoid it.

Just because I can do something, does not mean that I should do that thing.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you, wherever you are. Enjoy your family time and control your positive attitude, no matter what happens to you or around you.

That will serve you as a gift that keeps on giving, throughout your life, and also for the others around you.

All the best,

Ric

Don’t Hold Onto Anger

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Recently a friend of mine told me this story. She came home from work and saw 2 young teenage girls chatting at the front of the building, one holding the building door open as she chatted. My friend simply walked through the open door and proceeded to the elevator. One of the ‘young ladies’ called her the dreaded ‘B’ word and even gave her the finger as the elevator doors closed, much to the surprise and confusion of my friend.

This stuff happens all the time. We could blame poor communication skills, poor upbringing of the young offender, mis-communication etc. The fact is we do not know why the girl said what she said and gestured rudely. For all we know in her head she was justified. Maybe she thought it was rude for someone to briskly walk through her conversation. Maybe there was an accidental touch of a bag or purse, unbeknownst to my friend. Or maybe she was just having a bad day and over-reacted. We may never know. So guess what I told my friend? LET IT GO.

Let it go. Be the adult. We cannot control other people’s actions, right? All we can do is control our own actions, and in this case, REACTIONS. Why would you let someone ruin your day?

We all would feel shocked and betrayed at that sudden flip-off, for sure. But what can we do now? Shall we confront the villain? Ok, get in an argument or fight. Who wins? No one wins a fight (unless it is a sport-fight). You exchange words, shouts, curses, even blows. What if there are injuries? A broken cell phone? A ripped favourite shirt? A cut that leaves a scar? Or worse! And what do you tell the police when they show up? That you were angry at someone’s word and gesture so you started a fight? Hmm….

I do believe in standing up for yourself and your loved ones. My message today is to simply choose your battles, and don’t waste your time on idiot behaviour – yours or theirs. Do not let someone else’s negativity ruin your day. Chin up, walk proud and LET IT GO. A confident person has no need to defend his/her ego over something like this.

Confidence is Competence!

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They are twins. They are the flip side of a coin. As you build up your belief in yourself to do something you gain the nerve to do it. Once you do it or attempt to do it you start to notice what you are doing right, that it wasn’t as bad as you had imagined it, and that maybe next time will be even better.

As you feel more competent at the activity you start to believe more in your ability to improve and maybe even get good at it. This gives you more confidence, even if it is mostly visualization at the beginning. So I could go on with this email but I think you can see my point. The confidence leads to taking more chances and doing things better, so that increases competence, and the increased competence increases your confidence. It will radiate out of you.

Dale Carnegie said it best: Do the thing that you are afraid of. That is the one sure way of conquering your fear! (He was talking about public speaking, but it can be related to many things).

Until next time!

Follow Your Passion

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This post is not mainstream communication but rather closer to my life-coaching and entrepreneurial roots. To make a long story short my cousins whom I grew up with watching horror flicks have entered the world of self-employment and have registered a small business. I have had many talks with these two good guys on the ins and outs of small business, and on staying motivated to be true to yourself and your passion. Well they have something to be proud of for sure!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce to you The Brothers Gore (AKA my cousins, Jason and Jeff DeRushie), and their greatest accomplishments to date as horror movie special effects experts.

Website:  http://www.thebrothersgorefx.com/

Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Brothers-Gore-FX/340069349436587

I am so proud of them for following their passion and dream. They work so well together and are only going to improve. They are a perfect example of why we need to be in tune with ourselves and why we need to listen to the ‘self-talk’ that tries to guide us in the right direction, but often we ignore it because we think it is a crazy idea, or financially irresponsible. I too went through that phase of self-doubt and had to learn a new way of listening to myself, in an empowering way.

When I teach others to communicate with confidence, it also means teaching them to communicate to themselves in a positive way. Otherwise can you truly build confidence? I don’t think so.  That’s why I offer confidence coaching and ebooks – because we all need a little more confidence and belief in ourselves, right?  🙂

Good job guys – keep up the gory work!  🙂