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Confidence

We don’t often hear people talk about the “care and feeding” of our dreams, but this is a very important component of bringing our dreams to fruition.

Do you recall ever hearing about an assignment that has been used in high schools where students are asked to carry a raw egg around for 24 hours and pretend that egg is a baby?   This exercise gives people the opportunity to experience what it’s like to have a very fragile being with them.   Our nascent dreams are as fragile as that raw egg— or perhaps even more fragile.   To me, a dream is akin to a soap bubble.   Remember when we were little children and we blew bubbles with a wand and that bubble stood precariously on the end of that wand? That soap bubble is really a better metaphor for what our dreams are like.  

Imagine you are walking through the world with that bubble.   You can’t protect it because if you touch it, it breaks.   You can’t cover it.   There is nothing you can do to protect that bubble except carry it with a steady hand.   I want you to imagine that bubble is your dream.   What you have to do is protect yourself via the company you keep.   That’s one of the surest ways to protect your dream.   You want to surround yourself with success thinkers.   Make sure that you only share your dream with somebody who can hold it in their heart as carefully as you hold it in yours.  

There are social agreements in the world whereby governments send delegates and decide to take action to protect the welfare of the entire planet.   Sadly, there is very little social agreement for protecting individual dreams.   You can see this manifested when you talk to people about your dreams.   For instance, someone might say, “Oh, well, that’s nice but that’s not possible.   You might not have enough money.   You might not have enough education.   You don’t know what you’re doing.”   Those individuals, while they mean well, are really dream stealer's.   You want to make sure that you are not in the company of dream stealer's, but in the company of dream keepers.  

It is also crucial to develop patterns of success.   In The Magic of Thinking Big, Dr. David Schwartz outlines several success practices; for example, “Be a front seater.”   It’s often said that the front seat is the million dollar seat if you’re in school or at a lecture.   By making a practice of taking a front seat, it shows you’re not afraid to go to where the action is.  

Another pattern related to success is making eye contact with people when you speak with them.  I would challenge you today to go out in the world and watch how people speak to each other; most of the time you will see that people’s eyes are wandering when they are having a conversation.   This indicates a lack of confidence, so you want to train yourself to look right in the eye of anyone you’re speaking to.  

Another success practice is walking 25% faster than you normally do because this gives you an air of confidence.   And, once you have an air of confidence, anything can happen.   It also changes your physiology when you walk a little bit faster than you normally do.   The same is true about speaking up when you are talking.   You want to speak forcefully and gently, but do speak up.  

Another key behavior you can adopt is smiling more.   When you smile, you change the chemistry in your body.   You’re happier and it’s easier for people to like you.   And being likable is 90% of getting anything accomplished.   There is a 9 to 1 factor between likability and technical skills.   So if you’re in competition for anything—a job, a part in a play, anything you can think of—likeability is 90% of it.   If you don’t like yourself, no one else will.   So it’s vitally important to work on liking ourselves.  

I encourage you to keep your dreams alive and to surround yourself with people that support you.   Protect your dreams by incorporating physical success practices that project an air of confidence.