Queen of Confidence: Storm watcher

I’ve left the bedroom window open a bit, with a towel on the sill. It’s chilly in there now. The rain soaked air smells like black truffles and the storm shrouded Bay that I can now barely see through the balcony doors off the great room. Soggy dogs, their fur still slightly scented from the striped kitties they danced with one night last week, sleep damply on the floor nearby.

The last of the homemade chicken and rice soup is warming my belly. Got the Blues playing in the background and a peach on a plate near my keyboard.

What has any of this to do with confidence, or life purpose, you might well ask, and rightly so. But lemme splain. At times like this, I get contemplative. Some folks do that when it rains. It’s a good thing.

There is a line in a very famous book that says, “To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven”. It goes on in poetic and profound depth, explaining the different seasons of life itself. I shall not endeavor to improve on prior perfection; I just have something of my own to add.

Confidence and life purpose are not always best expressed outwardly. Indeed, those things always start as an inside job.

On dark and dreary seeming days, in stormy times of the soul, it is good to take some time to slow down, go within, and see what’s there. Be your own storm watcher. Get the lay of the interior landscape. Become aware of the mind clutter, and release it. Let it be washed away in the restorative rain, swept away in flooding torrents of debris no longer useful.

Do not resist Nature. Let your storm seasons wash you clean. What remains is fresher and revitalized. From that flash flooded place, confidence born of purpose naturally blooms like the desert after the rain, colorful and vibrant.

Ask yourself this question: What part of my life could use a cleansing storm?

One confidence tip of the day from the Queen of Confidence

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”- George Eliot

It’s never too late to live a purpose driven life. Really. Start now. Continue ‘til you die.  Confidence ensues naturally in this purpose driven way, and can continue unabated for as long as you live.

After all:

• Georgia O’Keefe was an old lady painter, happy and successful.
• Michelangelo designed St. Peter’s Cupola when he was 83.
• Benjamin Franklin was past 80 when he helped draft the constitution.
• Artist Pablo Picasso as well as cellist Pablo Casals were both active into their 90′s.

Don’t you want the rest of your life to make a difference, be rich and fulfilling, and contribute to the betterment of the world somehow?  How about starting that now?  Now is a great time to start living the parts of your life that you’ve deferred. There’s nothing better you could do with your one precious life than to live it with gusto, after all. And now you’ve got the wisdom and perspective necessary to avoid oh so many mistakes that you’d have made when you were younger.  Cool, huh? These advantages alone should boost your confidence!

Sure, taking action in service of your dreams can seem a bit scary, but think of the satisfaction to be gained. Think of the truly stellar example you’re setting to those younger people all around you. Don’t THEY deserve to live a fulfilling life? Of course they do. Living a purpose driven life gives your children, students, friends and colleagues the example they need to go out and live their own version of a purpose driven life. They’ll know it’s possible to live a purposeful life themselves because they see you living your own wildly satisfying, fulfilling life.

Your life experience is tremendously valuable and useful. Claiming, owning the wisdom that age brings confers greater and greater confidence to those willing to claim the lessons of their history. No matter how old you –think- you are, how over-the-hill you’ve deluded yourself into believing that you are,  the kind of immediate energy shift that taking meaningful action provides can immediately propel you forward into a better, more satisfying life if you’re not doing that these days.

You can demonstrate every day by your own actions that a purpose driven life is the only kind of life that’s really worth living…

Affirmations: “All my dues are paid in full.” “I have everything I need to move forward.” “I serve best by living my truth”

Don’t you need to really LIVE for the rest of your life?

Molly Burke, CPCC MSU
Queen of Confidence
http://mollyburkeonpurpose.wordpress.com
“I’ve bottled confidence, and it’s for sale!”

3 truly terrible ways to appear more confident PART 2 (Queen of Confidence series)

Talk the Talk Too Too Much: Big Talkers

“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.” –Ernest Hemmingway

Listening skills and the lack thereof is the topic today.

Hoo Boy! Here’s a lollapalooza of a blunder. You’ve met these misguided souls. They have no listening skills. They talk the talk and talk the walk and then continue to talk and talk. They talk over you, they hog every conversation and make it a monologue all about themselves. They’re pushy and overbearing and sadly unaware of the impact of their actions. They mistake self talk for self confidence.

I assume that they’d have to be clueless, because no one would deliberately shoot themselves in the foot like this, would they?

They’re the people for whom this joke was coined, “But enough about me. What do you think about me?” I call these people Big Talkers.

Big Talkers think they’re educating, informing, selling well by overtalking. They think that if they can just say enough, barrage you with enough facts and information and sales pitches, you’ll be convinced that they’re an expert, that you want to buy what they’re selling, or somesuch. They think that more yammer means more confidence. Oh, so wrong.

Those verbal steamrollers have no idea that what they’re REALLY doing is profoundly alienating their audience. They’ve no clue that their potential customers/friends/connections end up walking away, tossing aside the business card or phone number or resume and remembering only that they felt uncomfortable at the very least, and pissed off at the worst.  The Big Talkers fail to establish rapport through the simple act of listening. Listening MATTERS.

As my wise grannie said more than once, “You’ve got two ears and one mouth, because you should listen twice as much as you talk.”

“If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.” -Goethe

When you listen, you demonstrate interest and engagement. You encourage rapport. You make a dialogue possible, and that is the place from which real possibilities spring. And you never, ever act like a Big Talker, because you know that Big Talkers are big losers.

The skill of listening is one of the hallmarks of the truly confident. Truly confident people know that there is nothing at all that someone else can say that will diminish them. Therefore they never fear dialogue, indeed, they welcome it for the connections it enhances and the rapport it facilitates.

Confident people listen.

Are you listening?

Molly Burke, CPCC MSU
Queen of Confidence
www.lifepurposeworks.com
I’ve bottled confidence, and it’s for sale!

One confidence tip of the day from the Queen of Confidence

During my long reign as Queen of Confidence I have witnessed many triumphs and tragedies of confidence played out before my humble yet royal eyes. Periodically I shall be sharing what I hope shall be pithy insights which are intended to act as cautionary tales and inspirational anecdotes as well as practical tools for improving one’s own sense of confidence.   You’ll also find powerful questions, confidence tasks and useful affirmations included from time to time, meant to enhance your own sense of confidence. These tips will be shared sporadically, as the inspiration moves me. Keep coming back, because you never know what I’ll say. So there. Neener.

Your Confidence Tip of the Day:

Confidence gives you strength. Decide that you are already confident. Use your strength in service of others.  Act in the world with nobility of spirit, goodwill and good humor. Go out of your way in small ways, often, for strangers. Be kind. “I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.”- Leo Rosten

Affirmation: “I am confident enough to be genuine and kind.”

Confidence task: Go out of your way to be kind to a stranger. This can be as easy as a door held open with a smile, letting that guy into your lane on the freeway, feeding an almost empty parking meter, pay the toll of the car behind you.

How can you increase your confidence through kindness today?

Molly Burke, CPCC MSU

Queen of Confidence

I’ve bottled confidence, and it’s for sale.

3 truly terrible ways to appear more confident

In my lengthy reign as the Queen of Confidence, I’ve noticed a great many mistakes that good folks have made in vain attempts to appear more confident. Since these errors tend to be costly, I’ve decided to talk about just three of them in these next three blog posts, in the hope that I can save some poor soul some serious embarrassment. No doubt more of them will be discussed at time goes on, but three is a nice start.

The first big boo boo that people make when trying to appear more confident is that they choose to appear flawless and do not readily admit their mistakes. They think that admitting that they were wrong makes them look bad, imperfect, WRONG. Oh, the horror! A public chink in the shiny armor that will surely ruin their precious appearance of infallibility!

We all know they’re sadly mistaken, don’t we?

There’s nothing quite as insufferable as someone who doesn’t admit they’re wrong. Even when it’s painfully obvious, they bluster and try to avoid taking responsibility, they pass the buck or try to outright intimidate their observers into backing off. Then they refuse take action to mitigate the negative effects of their errors, compounding the problem.  Now the mess is huge, and like the elephant in the middle of the living room, is impossible to ignore, let alone move beyond. They look like jerks.

In contrast, the truly confident person readily admits their mistakes. Unlike the desperate types who haven’t real grounded confidence born of life purpose awareness, the honestly confident person admits their mistake as soon as they can. Further, they take timely action to make it right, and they humbly apologize.

This is a powerful, true measure of real confidence.  The supremely confident person realizes that they are human, and to be human is to make mistakes.  They know that it is what you do in relation to those inevitable mistakes that makes the critical difference between jerk and hero.

The truly confident person knows that their credibility is immeasurably enhanced by the humble admission of error combined with honest action to repair any damage. They know that their clients, friend and family will be better able to relate to them and trust them in the future to do what it takes to do the right thing. They know that their professional reputation is enhanced by honest efforts and candid admissions of any and all mistakes. More businesses and relationships are strengthened by the compassion and connections that result from a well handled mistake than were ever made possible by attempting unachievable perfection.

Do you readily admit your mistakes?

Molly Burke, Queen of Confidence

www.lifepurposeworks.com

I’ve bottled confidence, and it’s for sale…