If you are putting out a lot of effort and not reaching your goals, read this to the end.
September 16, 2008
An insurance broker was trying to earn $250K/year so he could feel he was supporting his family well. He spent his time fighting his way through his ‘to do’ lists, he asked for referrals, he delegated more to his assistant. Business was flat. What was he doing wrong?An advertising executive told me how she had a relationship breakup each of the past 2 years. She said she was very giving emotionally and financially, she was attractive, and she was a lot of fun. Why wasn’t it working?
If “Success is 80% psychology, 20% mechanics”, these clients were describing the efforts they put into their “mechanics” (e.g., the insurance agent made his # of calls each day; the advertising executive was giving and maintained her attractiveness).
A 30 minute discussion with the insurance revealed that he sometimes doubted whether he deserved a seat at the table with his high net worth referrals. Having come from more of a blue collar background, he doubted whether he had ‘what it takes’. He asked for the referrals (i.e., mechanics), but inside (his psychology) he did not feel equal (and somehow his prospects picked that up.)
A 30 minute discussion with the advertising executive revealed that deep down she felt that she wasn’t really loveable. Even though she could point to assets she brought to a relationship, in her mind she would often blame herself for being too needy or not enough for the other person to be in it for the long haul.
If you put a lot of effort into the mechanics but have a psychology in which you doubt yourself – it will create a headwind, keeping you pedaling hard but not arriving at what you really want. My clients and course participants aren’t aware at the beginning of our work that they have a doubt that creates their headwind.
Are you busy working on the mechanics, but your psychology is keeping you from what you really want? When you “clean up” your psychology, you still have to pedal fast, but you will no longer go into a headwind. All of your good efforts go into getting results – they come quickly and you can actually enjoy them!
When the insurance agent learned practical strategies to move past his doubts, he had confidence in the value he brought to his high net worth prospects. With the same tactics, he grew his business by 50% and he came home earlier each day.
When the advertising executive rooted her negative belief out at its source so she never felt that way again – she began to enjoy her own company more. She acted less needy in relationships. Then she got into a very healthy relationship.
How about you? Answer these questions:
1) What goal are you putting a lot of effort into achieving, but are not arriving at? What are the three most frequent “mechanics” you put your attention onto?
2) When you think about having the dream you want, what immediately comes to mind about why you can’t have it? – this will start to indicate what doubt you keep defaulting to.
3) The most effective thing you can focus on today is your “psychology” – if you remove the headwind you are creating for yourself with your doubts, you will get what you want easier and quicker. What steps can you commit to today to move past the ‘headwind’ you create from your psychology?
If you know that you are putting out a lot of effort on your ‘mechanics’, and still feel the stress of not having the success or happiness you want, take advantage of the opportunity to be in a different place within 8 weeks through my NY area Comfort Zone to Confidence Zone program.
Prior participants have said:
Not just dreaming of the person I want to be, having it be a fuzzy vision way off in the distance, and being stuck in the mud – rather I am already being that person everyday. The course was worth every penny, the return on investment is unbelievable.
Jeff Winick
You read a zillion books and take courses purporting to help you get out of your own way, very few really deliver, THIS ONE DOES!
Solo entrepreneur
“I can’t speak highly enough about this course, it was life-changing. You come to accept yourself and finally have the power to use who you are and what you have effectively. You know how to deal with things and get immediately back on track towards what you want. My sales performance increased noticeably and my relationships with my boss, as well as with family members, have dramatically improved.”
Sal Padula, Berkeley Global Ltd.
Don’t continue to struggle, Check it out for yourself. Early registration ends September 15th.
Non NY area readers may benefit from teleseminars I will offer on these skills within 2 months from now.
What to do when you have “too much to do”
June 11, 2008
You know that ‘having too much to do’ makes you feel overwhelmed and ‘stresses you out’. Here’s what goes on in your body when you are overwhelmed (I wanted to tell you because it might help you to find better solutions to your challenges.)
Your frontal lobe (the part of your brain that uses reason and has problem solving capacity) is only capable of operating on up to seven processes at a time. When you have more than that number of ‘to do’ items running through your head, your thoughts and attentional resources will be diverted away from your frontal lobe towards the parts of your brain that are more emotionally based.
These parts of your brain put you more in a state of alert – they set you up to take things personally, to obsess about situations that make you feel angry or upset; they narrow your ability to think of effective solutions and keep you trying hard at solutions that don’t work well.
When you persistently have thoughts that create a state of alert, here’s just some of what will happen in your body: Surges of adrenaline will dampen the networks of cells sending out serotonin (making you feel more depressed and lethargic), throw off the insulin cycle that creates your feeling of energy; interfere with your ability to relax and have your cells regenerate, etc. Your blood will become more acidic than alkaline, setting you up to be less protected against bacteria and viruses, etc. The overall effect is to dampen your immune system - this is how stressful thoughts can begin to create stress related conditions in your body.*
If you are interested in taking control of your own well being, preventing stress related conditions, or managing an acute or chronic health condition, come learn tips from experts at the Your Power to Heal conference this Saturday in NYC. Click here to learn more.
What you can do:
- Write down everything that comes racing through your mind, so that you don’t have to hold it in short term memory in your frontal lobe. From your exhaustive list, make ‘buckets’ of A, B, C, etc priority items, then go back and rearrange your list into things that must be done now, later, etc. Put ‘ticklers’ into your schedule for when you will do things that are not priorities for today. Remember that once you exceed seven items to process you are no longer making use of your frontal lobe (meaning you will be acting out of emotion and setting in motion stress conditions)!
- Make a dedicated time to become clear about what your business model is or what will make you the most effective in your role. Once you are clear about your optimal use of time, make that the new filter through which you pass each new decision. Own the value of your time, push back respectfully on people who are asking for your time if it is not in the service of what you truly want and what will bring you real fulfillment. (see my blog entitled Clarity is your best time management tool for more details).
- Think about what experiences you most want to have each day (i.e., feel connected to others; feel at peace; feel accomplished, etc) This way, even if you have a lot of work to do, you can be present and turn the situation into one which helps you to experience more of what you want. i.e., How can you make more of a connection with colleagues/clients while doing the work? How can you enjoy more of a feeling of accomplishment from the contribution you are making? How can you use breathing techniques to help you feel centered and focused as you are getting the work done (I’ll write more about these techniques in future blogs, stay tuned). This way, you are getting things you want even as you are doing all you have to do.
(*My thanks to neuroscientist Sonia Sequiera, Ph.D. for helping me understand this important information)
How To Stop Being Your Own Harshest Critic
May 1, 2008
They said it couldn’t happen… but it did.
February 28, 2008
I had a ‘focus group’ dinner with some of my clients last night (wood oven roasted pizza, baked oysters, and rib eyed steak – what a feast!) I asked them the single biggest benefit they got from our work together. They started off by saying they got business results they wanted, i.e,. one grew business 40% in a year, another was promoted on the fast track, a third has ‘the big boss’ raving about him. Yet they all said the thing that meant the most to them from our coaching, was this:
(Can you guess?)
They said: “Confidence, but its more than that”…
Someone called it: “Faith in myself”
A woman called it: “Validating my value”
A guy called it “Self empowered, I know how to stand out from my peers”
One declared, it’s: “Freedom”
They agreed on the summation: “I am who I am, and I’m finally ok with that”
As we were talking they said our work together taught them the ability to tap into their hidden inner potential that they didn’t know how to do before. They now know how to get the most out of themselves, in their personal and professional lives. If they are having a bad day, they know how to let it go and move on.
For all the ways they used to look to other people to feel approved of, to know how they were doing; or for the ways they didn’t ‘put themselves out there’ to avoid others’ criticisms – my clients now have the tools to get what they need from within. They all agreed that they now bypass worrying about what other people think about them and put their energy into making the life they want. They make great connections with others, but rely on themselves.
If you are thinking to yourself “that’s great for them, but I could never feel that?” I’ll tell you they thought so too. Some of my clients are in business for themselves, others work in companies. Some are in a sales role, others in operational roles. It doesn’t matter what you do in your career or where you start from – once you are comfortable being who you are and make effective use of who you are – you have the foundation you need for success in both your professional and personal life.
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Do you have the ability to validate your own value, without seeking approval from other people?
If you need to look for other people to feel confident in your life, what effect does it have on your life?
What would be different in your life if you could rely on yourself rather than look to other people?
2) How do you get the best out of yourself now? If you do so by criticizing yourself or being fearful that you will make a fool out of yourself, does this feel like a sustainable strategy for the rest of your life?
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Does how you feel about yourself at the end of the day depend on whether you’ve made a good sale or whether you spent too much time surfing the net?
Or do you have the ability to accept yourself and move on, no matter what? How would your evenings be different if you had the ability to accept yourself no matter what happened at work that day?
If you want the toolbox to tap your hidden inner potential, join my 8 week course in NYC starting Tuesdays in March. You, too, can be ‘free’ of your doubts and have that deep feeling of confidence in yourself…in 2 months. Here is more information and the link to sign up for the preview call.
You know what you should do…but you don’t do it
February 28, 2008
Why do you procrastinate when you know that you should just make the phone call?
Why do you not go to the gym when you know you should?
You probably think it’s because you are lazy, but that’s not why.
Why do you say yes to other people when you know you should focus on finishing your own client work?
Why do you let other people’s comments make you feel bad about yourself?
You probably think its because you are too nice or too thin skinned, but that’s not why.
Here’s why you do that.
If you are like most people, you tend to look at a single behavior and think that one behavior is what you do to ‘get in your own way’. For example, you think “my problem is that I procrastinate”. You know techniques to change that one behavior, BUT you don’t use them and life doesn’t change much.
That’s because its rarely a single behavior that is ‘getting in your way’. Generally your ‘single behavior’ is embedded in a whole approach that you have to your life. The reason that you don’t have the willpower to change that one behavior in the moment is that you have not yet built ‘who you need to be’ in order to do things differently. As long as you are still being who you are now, you need that behavior. It serves a purpose for you –it helps you feel confident and worthy in yourself.
If that sounds like a stretch, let me explain. Procrastination is not putting yourself out there in order to prevent other people from shooting you down or giving you feedback that would make you keep doubting yourself. Thus, the reason you procrastinate is because you have a doubt about yourself and therefore you must avoid putting yourself out there in a way that could erode your shaky confidence. Its not about being lazy. You don’t even necessarily have to work hard to change that procrastination habit. If you got your confidence from within, you wouldn’t have to hold yourself back in order to protect your shaky confidence from other’s opinions.
Here’s another example: If you say “yes” to other people when you mean to say “no”, its not just about scheduling your time differently or just learning to say ‘no’. You probably know how to say ‘no’ already, but you are not doing it. Why? Your ‘overgiving’ behavior serves the purpose of getting other people to think well of you. You get them to think well of you so that you can borrow your confidence from the way you’ve gotten them to think about you. If you had strong confidence in yourself, you would be able to choose what to do based on whether it fit in well with the results you want for your life. You wouldn’t need to do behaviors, such as say ‘yes’ when you mean to say ‘no’, in order to build your confidence through others’ eyes.
As long as you are trying to derive your confidence and worthiness from certain behaviors, it doesn’t matter that you “know” you should be doing it differently – you will repeatedly turn to the things that help you feel confident in yourself (even though they just help you manage other people’s perceptions of you but in the end just keep you unconfident). The only way forward is to build a rock solid sense of confidence from within.
Questions to ask yourself:
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What are two things you often know you should be doing but don’t do?
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How does it affect your view of yourself that you repeatedly don’t do the things you know you should?
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How is “not doing what you know you should” affecting the amount of money you earn each month and the amount of time you spend with your family each night?
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If you felt truly confident in yourself, how would you act differently?
If you are sick of floating through your days and getting down on yourself for knowing what you should do but not doing it, don’t end up kicking yourself for not having joined my course in NYC starting in 5 days. Now is your chance! The course guarantees that you will build unprecedented rock solid confidence in yourself within 2 months.
There are only 3 seats left and registration ends tomorrow. Act before the deadline and be the last to slip into this exclusive opportunity to be mentored by Sharon personally. This is the last time she will offer this course at this price this year.
The REAL Reason Why You Seek Approval
February 20, 2008
Many times when clients come to me wanting to grow their business or be on the fast track for promotion, they are not aware that a main block to their successes is wasting time and energy seeking other people’s approval. Usually within a handful of minutes we are able to come up with 5-10 ways that they didn’t even realize they were doing this. At the beginning, they don’t ‘get’ that the things they were doing to try to feel more confident were the very things that were keeping them unconfident.
At the end of our work together, my clients and workshop participants say they no longer waste time and energy worrying what other people think. They are amazed at how much more positive energy they have when they are able to get that feeling of acceptance from within. When they validate their own value and get their self acceptance from within, their businesses grow between 40 and 100% for the year, and they become shoe-ins for promotion.
Here are the REAL reasons why you seek approval:
As human beings we are motivated to feel secure and confident in ourselves – to feel ‘enough’. Human beings are psychologically and biologically wired to be in that emotional state as much as possible.
When you have doubt(s) about yourself, it means there are moments when you can’t find that confidence and security within yourself. So you need to find a way to get into that state, and here is the solution you have found:
You put your efforts into getting other people to think well of you.
A few examples:
- Work tons of hours in hopes of getting acknowledgement from your boss
- Do for everybody else and not have time to do what you need
- Act overly complimentary, false,overly accommodating to get approval
- Contact lower tier clients because they are non-threatening and reassuring
- Report your successes hoping you will be validated for doing a good job
- Obsess over how you say/write things to people who evaluate you
Your behaviors aim to get others to tell you that you are good at what you do or show you appreciation.You get other people to think well of you so you can see yourself through their eyes. You say to yourself, “well I have a doubt about myself, but if they think that I’m a good person/smart, etc. then I must be valuable, worthy, competent, etc”. In effect, you ‘borrow’ your confidence from the way that you get them to think about you.The larger the pocket of doubt you have about yourself, the more you seek approval.
You might be thinking now: “But it makes me feel good if I get a compliment, what’s the problem?” Good question!
Here are 3 answers:
First, it’s not a reliable way to feel confident inside yourself because you can control how you act towards other people but you can’t control whether they will follow through on what you need from them. How many times have you put a lot of effort into doing something nice for someone, but they were in a bad mood or caught up in themselves and didn’t acknowledge you for it? You get mad at them because they didn’t participate in helping you to feel ‘good enough’ inside your own self. You handed your power over on a silver platter because you set yourself up to need the other person. You are beholden to them, not free to be yourself.
Second, it’s not sustainable. When your boss gives you a pat on the back, it’s such a high! It lasts for an hour, a day, maybe a week or more. But then…it fades. And you have to go out and seek their approval again in order to get filled up with that confidence again. It doesn’t regenerate from within. How exhausting!
Third, and most importantly, it doesn’t work. Because that feeling is always coming from the outside it never really ‘sticks’ within you. You don’t get the real benefit you were originally seeking: that genuine feeling from within that you are truly ‘enough’ and that you are a worthy, loveable person.
If you do an excellent job on an assignment and you get compliments, that’s great. If your partner shows you a lot of appreciation for your efforts, that’s terrific. Enjoy it! .
What I’m saying is that should be the cherry on top, not the ice cream sundae itself. You don’t want to make your ability to feel good inside of you dependent on how you can “get” other people to make you feel. That’s controlling, and it doesn’t work.
The answer is to get that feeling of acceptance from within. To get your confidence from putting your time and energy into building your own core competence so you can have the skills to make contributions that really make you proud of yourself. To get filled up by putting your efforts into activities and pursuits that excite you and make you feel happy with who you are and the career you’ve put together.
If you are sick of needing other people’s approval, you can be free of it within 2 months by joining my live course in
- What are three behaviors you do that are designed to seek others’ approval (i.e., designed for other people to think well of you in order to get them to validate you… so that you can borrow confidence from the way you got them to think about you?).
- Who do you notice is the person/people you look to the most for approval?
- Is it working to seek their approval, i.e., do you have rock solid confidence in yourself?
If you are ready to have your self acceptance come from within (and have the income boost that comes with that), join my course that begins in just 12 days. Act now! Since we opened registration last week, more than half the seats are taken. Sharon will provide a 30 minute complimentary consultation for anyone who registers within the next 24 hours, until 12 pm EST. Check out the added options for individual coaching with Sharon and extra program bonuses. Find out more and register here.
The best time management tool you’re not using…
February 11, 2008
What is the single best time management tool out there, probably one you are under-using?
That’s right: Clarity.
People who are clear about exactly what they want and about what is expected of them are able to ‘move the needle forward’ everyday. Their thoughts are focused so they can give clear directions to other people – tasks get done right the first time, not over and over again. People who are clear about exactly what they want are concise in the way they speak to other people, so meetings take shorter time. They put 100% of their energy into what they’ve defined they really want, instead of constantly wondering whether this is what they really want and having their attention wander. They can go home at the end of the day knowing that they accomplished exactly what they set out to do, instead of having unclear expectations of themselves and always feeling guilty about what they haven’t done.
They know exactly what to put their attention onto, and what not to put their attention onto. If they are requested to put their efforts into something else, they are able to keep their focus without feeling badly (Hint: read the Power of a Positive No by William Ury). When others pile on them (e.g., a boss), they are able to push back effectively.
Many people feel deep inside that they are not ‘enough’. In the absence of a clear written description of exactly you mean by being ‘enough’, no matter how successful you are you may assess yourself as falling short of an abstract ideal. You will not have a clear set of target goals that when you reach you can finally tell yourself ‘I’m enough’.
Here’s how you might know if you are not as clear as you could be.
1) Do you put out a lot of effort but your efforts aren’t accumulating into the results you want for your career/life?
2) Have you noticed that many of your 60.000 thoughts are not in the service of the results you want to create?
3) Have you ever been given feedback that your communication is not concise?
4) You may know you want to earn a certain amount of money at the end of the year, but are you clear about the business model you need to get there?
5) Do you find yourself daydreaming about a career/life scenario that you’d be more passionate about?
6) How much time you are losing each day because you are not clear. What would you rather be doing with that time?
Usually when you are not as clear as you need to be to have the success you want, it is because you have thoughts and behaviors that are interfering with your clarity. To become clear about exactly what you want in your career and personal life within 2 months, join my upcoming course in NYC. Learn more here.
To give you a taste of the power of this workshop, listen to the replay of the Preview call (the recording is at the bottom of the page).
The 7 mistakes business owners make every day that keep you from finally getting what you want.
The REAL Reason Why You Procrastinate
February 6, 2008
Have you been putting off doing one of the ‘big rocks’ in your life?
For example, have you been procrastinating on
- making a career change
- going for the next level in your business
- asking for a raise
- leaving a relationship that’s not right for you
Here are the REAL reason why…
In contrast to most advice columns, I think procrastination has less to do with fear, and more to do with hope.
When you procrastinate on doing the ‘big rocks’ in your life you do so to preserve hope: As long as you don’t ‘put yourself out there’, then in your mind you can continue to live in the possibility that someday you will live up to your ideal of yourself and earn the respect of people important to you.
Here’s what’s going on inside your mind. Even though you have objective accomplishments you can point to, you still have a doubt about whether you are ‘enough’ or have what it takes to succeed in your next step. You are worried about 2 things: 1) that your bold next step might not go well, but more importantly, 2) you will make it a confirmation that you will never be able to live up to the dream you have for yourself (or at least not without an insurmountable amount of effort). Meaning, any rockiness you experience along the way to making your next step work you will interpret as a confirmation of your worst fear: that you really are ‘not enough’ or ‘don’t have what it takes’. That would lead to hopelessness.
Your procrastination behaviors are an effort to prevent the bursting of that bubble. By not testing your capability in the real world, you can hold onto the hope in your mind you are still capable of achieving dreams you’ve long had for yourself. You get to live in hope so you can still go on with your life and feel ok about yourself because “someday” you’re going to make the life you want and be the person you want to be. This allows you to accept the way you feel ‘not good enough’ now.
The problem is that when you don’t put yourself out there, you also don’t grow from experiences. You don’t move your life forward. You don’t get what you want or become who you want to be. And other people pass you by, and it makes you feel progressively insecure about yourself.
People who procrastinate seek relief. They get rewards by living in hope. Successful people seek real results. They get rewards by making real contributions in the world and learning from their mistakes.
P.S. I’ve started my next step…I’ll be done writing my book by the end of the month. Are you starting yours?
1) What are you putting off because you are trying not to confirm your worst fear about yourself?
2) If things don’t go well for you, do you say to yourself “see, things don’t go my way”, or “see, this proves they don’t think I’m good enough”. Instead, think of how successful people respond; they have an attitude of “whoever makes the most mistakes wins”.
3) Do you set yourself up to procrastinate by running “what if” scenarios? Instead, try focusing only on the next small step you’ll need to take.
If you know you are procrastinating on your work or putting off taking an important next step in your life, join my upcoming 8 week program in which you are guaranteed to move beyond your old ways and become the focussed, confident person you’ve always imagined you would be.
Have you improved the way you deal with that difficult person?
January 28, 2008
Question 2: Have you dealt effectively with a person in your life who used to “get to you”, i.e., made you feel very frustrated or deflated?
Today a client told me she used the techniques we discussed last week to deal with a boss who was nice one minute and lashed out the next, and who made last minute demands all the time. She said: “Twice she did those things that drive me crazy, and I did just what you said. And this time she didn’t bother me at all, I was ‘detached’. Those behaviors of getting sucked in and taking it personally - I hadn’t been able to shake those since childhood, and this time I just didn’t do them. I’m free!”
Is there someone who plays an important role in your world who is difficult to deal with? Does this person make you experience a lot of negative energy?
-Maybe it’s a boss who is mean and erratic, or one who makes last minute demands you don’t feel you can turn down. Or a boss who doesn’t take the actions to get the resources you need to accomplish their demands.
-Maybe it is an assistant or employee you’ve nagged yet still doesn’t perform up to the standard your business needs to succeed.
-Maybe it’s a person in senior management who singles you out in meetings, and makes you feel intimidated.
-Maybe it’s a business partner or a difficult client that doesn’t play trustworthy yet you don’t feel you can let go of.
-Maybe its even your spouse with whom you try to be reasonable yet you end up feeling criticized.
They don’t listen, you don’t feel heard. You try and try but don’t know how to make them act different. You spend a lot of time feeling frustrated and a lot of time wishing they would be more agreeable or more high performing. You are worried you don’t have control over some key things that will determine your income and future. You try not to but you can feel that you take it home with you at the end of the day, it makes you moody.
If you are putting up this kind of situation without dealing effectively with it, it’s a sure sign that you are interfering with your own success.
Here’s a hint about what you need to ‘get’ about these situations. Other people will keep doing things the same way because its YOUR problem they are acting this way, its not their problem. Nothing will change as long as you are the one who is facing the consequences of their behavior, not them.
- Where in your life do you face such a person who brings this kind of negative energy?
- How can you shift the situation so that the person who disempowers you experiences their behavior as a problem too, not just you?
- If you had confidence that you would land on your feet in a next career step or with another employee, how would you act differently than you are now?
- What information would you need to have in order to determine that the situation is never going to change and therefore you need to get out?
If you have not dealt effectively with someone who bring negative energy to your life, you are blocking yourself from monetizing your talents. You can learn the tools to move past such a situation within two months by joining my course “From Comfort Zone to Confidence Zone” in NYC starting in March. Learn more here…
To give you a taste of the power of this workshop, I will be holding a free preview teleseminar on February 12. Go to sharonmelnick.com/preview
(*FYI, in the next few months I will do a teleseminar on this topic, in which I’ll spill the beans with the exact secrets I give my clients to turn these situations around on a dime. Keep checking the blog for the details…)
Do You Have It Or Don’t You?
January 19, 2008
(Over the next several days I will write out some questions you can ask yourself to determine whether you have been blocking yourself from being as effective as you can be– and thus preventing yourself from having the financial success and the sense of satisfaction your want for your life.)
Question 1: When you walk into the room with a prospect, client, or person in a senior management position, do you have confidence you are “enough” and that you will say smart things?
If you do, you will be able to take your business to the next level! If you don’t, you are preventing yourself from increasing your monthly earnings and expediting your next level promotion.
If you don’t feel a strong confidence when you meet with high level clients, you are detracting from coming across as smart as you can be. The soundtrack running in the back of your mind wonders whether the client thinks you are ‘smart enough’ or ‘good enough’ to do business with. It siphons away the attention you need to put on helping them to articulate their needs and how you can provide solutions to them. You may feel you need to keep the discussion on certain topics and deflected away from others – your client probably ‘picks this up’ from you on some intuitive level.
When you are in meetings with people in senior positions, you will probably hold back from speaking your good ideas because you will be concerned about “what they think” about you. You will want to earn their respect by making sure to only say comments that are ‘perfect’ (and just as important - making sure not to erode it by saying something you deem ‘dumb’). Note that you are more concerned with managing their perceptions than you are on making a substantive contribution to the meeting. Note the criteria you will use about whether to speak up with your comments or not has more to do with managing how other people think about you than about how much you are contributing to the bottom line results of the organization. (Oh, and of course, don’t forget how mad you get when someone else says what you had on your mind, and people thought it was a reasonable comment when they said it!)
Here are questions to ask yourself:
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What specifically is the doubt(s) I have about myself?
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Is this something to accept and workaround, or can I make a plan to overcome this perceived gap?
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What one change can I make in my approach that will most significantly increase my confidence when I walk into the room with a client that could take me to the ‘next level’?
If you do not feel rock solid in your confidence when you walk into the room with senior management or with clients who you assess are “at the next level” for your business – you are blocking yourself from monetizing your talents. You can move past this lack of confidence in two months by joining my course “From Comfort Zone to Confidence Zone” in NYC starting in early March.