CVC Succcess Group coaches Jerry & Sheryl Isenhour
The Chimney and Fireplace Success Network is a weekly podcast brought to you by the CVC Success Group and hosted by industry expert, Jerry Isenhour. Each week you will find new presentations to assist business owners and managers in turning their business dreams into their business realities.
Transcript
Jerry Isenhour.: Often, a lack of confidence or self-confidence, it simply sets a course for failure. When you lack confidence, when you lack self-confidence, it makes your heart quiver. You feel butterflies in your belly. You can break out in a cold sweat, sweaty palms so many different things.
A lack of self confidence can lead you down a road of failure
And a lack of self-confidence can lead you down a road of failure, or failure to reach those significant dreams that you have for today and for your life. So, stay with me as we talk today about self-confidence, and how important this is for you to reach those elusive dreams that you have.
Today, we are talking about self-confidence. We’re talking about confidence, confidence in yourself. And I base the reason we’re doing this today, came off a trip I just came back from, from visiting with a client. Because during this trip, I was able to talk to several service technicians that were failing in their sales.
They were not reaching their goal
They just were not happening to the degree that they needed them to reach their goals. They weren’t reaching their goals. And as I went through this, it was evident. The problem here was confidence, self-confidence. The ability to form the words, to not get nervous. You see, I found out when I asked questions, often I was met with silence. Because what they were trying to do was build up the confidence to answer the question. They were groping for the answers, I noticed as this went on, they stuttered, they were stammering, they simply couldn’t get the words out.
So here’s the question to you, do you have people in your employment or possibly yourself, that has an issue with self-confidence? That simply can’t form the confidence to get the job done. You see, this is the problem. Whenever you do not have self-confidence, whenever you show a lack of confidence in yourself, your products, your services, this is going to result in because the consumer.
The end result is your customer does not buy
Your customer sharing that lack of confidence. And the end result is the customer doesn’t buy, why? Because they don’t have the trust. They never were able to grasp that relationship that it’s so important to build. Again, due to a lack of confidence. So you see one of the things that we have to look at is how do we build this confidence.
Where is your self-confidence at
Let me ask you a question, where is your self-confidence at? If a newspaper reporter came up or a television or radio report or any of these came up in front of you and put a microphone in your face, do you have the confidence to speak? Going into strange situations. Areas that you’re unfamiliar with. Do you go through this lack of confidence?
Do you ever go through times you got those butterflies, you got those flitters? You see for success in life, we’ve got to build confidence. We got to have confidence in ourselves, and we also have to have confidence in the products and the services that we offer and sell to others. One time, I can remember talking to a technician some years ago during an on-site analysis.
The customer was trying to buy, but the salesperson just could not close the sale
Because I had to listen to him make a sales presentation he had recorded. And in this sales presentation, the customer was trying to buy, but the salesperson just could not close the sale. It was practically the customer was handing him the money, handed him the credit card. He couldn’t close the sale. So later on I asked him, what was the problem?
And he said Jerry here’s the problem, I really don’t understand how that works. And since I don’t understand it, I really can’t sell it. I can’t sell it with confidence. So this lack of education, this lack of skill. What happened was it blew his confidence. And this was one of the reasons that this business had contracted with my services, to come in and see what the problem was that they could not sell certain types of products in their business.
You have got to work to build this confidence
What we each must do, and every person that works for you, if you are a manager of people is, you have got to work to build this confidence. And you’ve got to take an honest look, do your people have the skills to be competent, do they truly have those skills? But it goes more than that, it goes to the communication skills.
Do they have the skills to speak confidently? Do they have the skill to listen, not to reply, but to understand? And do they have the self-confidence to explain the need, to explain the outcome? Are they confident in that? Because you see if they are not properly educated, if they cannot speak it and they cannot listen to it, failure is going to be the result.
It all has to do with confidence
And it all has to do with confidence so often for success, not just in sales, but in relationships and every other thing that we do in our lives. So how do we build this confidence? Well, number one, we’ve got to train, and we’ve got to train in a way that mates well with the learning styles of the person that was training. We must assess them, what is their learning style?
What’s your own learning style? What’s your speaking style? What’s your listening style? We must learn to test people necessarily for their skills. We’ve also got to do role-playing. Think for a minute when you fly, there’s a pilot upfront. Before that pilot was ever released to fly that airplane, he went through an enormous amount of simulation training. Because if there’s failure in a flight, that pilot must approach that failure without panic.
Both of his engines failed
Just think for a minute, Captain Sullenberger, miracle on the Hudson. Both of his engines failed, he couldn’t make it to an airport. He had to land a plane in the Hudson River, and he did it without a single loss of life, everyone survived. Now he had things going for him, the Hudson River was smooth, it wasn’t like landing in the ocean where you had 15 foot high swells. But at the same time, Captain Sullenberger had to keep his mind about him. He could not panic.
He had to react within seconds. If you’ve ever watched the movie about this, you can see how he actually had to prove that he reacted in a remarkable amount of time to what was going on. Because he could not make it to any airport. They even had to factor in the human reaction time to this. He approached this failure of this plane where birds flew into the engine, knocked out both engines, and landed a plane safely on the Hudson River in New York without a single loss of life.
When people all around him are panicking
Think what that was like, think about the self-confidence that the captain of that airplane had to exhibit. When people all around him are panicking, he’s the person that had to retain that self-confidence. And that’s where self-confidence comes to us as leaders because the same thing goes on when panic strikes in your business. You’re the leader, you’ve got to examine self-confidence. You can’t let your passions take over. The leader must remain calm. If the leader gets panicky, then everyone else will follow the leader’s path. And the same thing is true as we approach our lives, but let me warn you, there’s a difference in confidence and what we’ll call cockiness.
You know that guy or that girl, they’re just so cocky. You do not even want to listen to them, you do not want to hear them, you do not want to see their Facebook post because they are so cocky, they just turn people off. Because cockiness presents an attitude above and beyond that of self-confidence. Cockiness says I do not really care about you, I do not care about your concerns, I do not care about your opinions and I do not concern myself with your worries.
Because a person who has cockiness cannot show empathy
Because a person who has cockiness cannot show empathy, it is impossible. So one of the secrets of success, one of the secrets to take you to your goals, to take you where you want to go in life is going to be self-confidence. Confident in yourself, confident in your products. Confidence in your services, confidence in the company that you work for.
All these are the confidence side of life. So what do you need to build your self-confidence? What is it that wrecks your self-confidence? Is it unfamiliarity? Is it a failure to practice? Is it the failure to try to be better? What is it? Because here’s one thing that’s for certain. As you build your confidence, as you step up to the play to life and it is your turn at bat, confidence is going to be the skill, that so often is going to carry you forward.
You are going to be hitting home runs
And instead of striking out, you are going to be hitting home runs. And with that, I’m going to turn the microphone over to Sheryl, it’s time for her to share with you what she thinks this week. I have no idea what she’ll be talking about, but it’s always what I classify as Sheryl’s tidbits of wisdom. So stick around with us, she’ll be right with you in just a minute.
Shery lsenhour: I work with people daily who are battling with self-confidence. Jerry spoke of confidence with your product, with your business. With the other things that you deal with on a daily basis. But I believe the first confidence you must have is in yourself, your self-confidence. Self-confidence is an attitude about your skills and your abilities, it means you accept and trust yourself.
You have a sense of control in your life
And that you have a sense of control in your life. You know your strengths, and you know your weakness as well. And you have a positive view of yourself. You set realistic expectations and goals. You communicate assertively, and you can handle criticism. On the other hand, low self-confidence, it might make you feel full of self-doubt.
It’ll make you be passive or submissive, or have difficulty trusting others. You may actually feel inferior, unloved, or be really sensitive to criticism. Feeling confident in yourself might depend on the situation. For instance, you can feel very confident in some areas such as academics, but you can lack confidence in others like your relationships.
It is based on your perceptions
Having high or low self-confidence is rarely related to your actual abilities, and mostly based on your perceptions. Perceptions are the way you think about yourself, and these thoughts can be flawed. Low self-confidence might stem from being afraid of failure. People with low self-confidence often have errors in their thinking, you can be wrong about yourself.
Aren’t we all just supposed to fake it until we make it? Isn’t that the key to success? How we should build our self-confidence? Millions of books that I’ve read proclaimed that every year, that’s what you need to do. We’re told to smile, dress to impress, and give ourselves positive pep talks in the mirror each morning. Building self-confidence is not a written formula, it is an individual process, it is your process.
It has to be comfortable
And it must feel right, and it must be comfortable. It should actually fit like sweatpants, not those skinny jeans that some of these girls wear. This means that if we want to improve ourselves, we have to know and we have to accept ourselves. Here are several tips that you need to build self-confidence and self-acceptance, both go in hand in hand.
Let’s get you started on this journey. If you want to build self-confidence, then you need to own who you are and learn to stand up tall in your shoes. After all, confidence is not about being the most beautiful, it’s about being comfortable in your own skin. Take a moment to learn about your strengths, and also your weaknesses. And be at peace with where you’re at, even if it’s not where you want to be. Most of us are not where we want to be, but we need to accept where we are now.
Self-confidence starts with accepting yourself
Self-confidence starts with accepting yourself, and yes, I said yourself. Your strengths, weaknesses, and even your screwy quirks. In essence, it’s giving the world your whole self and asking for nothing in return. Except that you may be terrified, and it’s okay to be terrified. Self-confidence isn’t a cure for fear. In many ways, fear is the only way to experience self-confidence, let’s think about it a minute.
You have to face the fear
If you want to get a promotion, you must face the fear. If there was nothing to face, no barriers to climb, then you would never experience the joy of success. Now next thing, you need to make peace with your past. Take a moment to stand still and look backward, where you are now in is not where you were, and that’s a powerful thing.
For better or worse, you can’t escape our journey when trying to reach your goals. If you want to build self-confidence, you need to be willing to accept your past. Even the part that you don’t want to forget, or even the part that you do want to forget. You might want to burn the past and forge ahead. But to move forward, you must find peace with your past.
You must find peace with your present
And you must find peace with your present. Self-confidence is not pretending or performing, it’s making peace with who you were, who you are, and who you will become. It’s accepting your past experiences, taking responsibility for the mistakes you made, and figure out how to move forward. Don’t live in your past. One way to build self-competence is to celebrate someone else, and take the pressure off yourself. Join them in their excitement, be happy, not jealous.
Also, it’s impossible to hand out honest kudos when you can’t accept the person that you’re staring back at in the mirror every morning. Now, you have to be willing to put it to work, you can’t build self-esteem through someone else’s achievements. You must work on your own achievements and your goals, and you must accept that you did them well.
Self-confidence isn’t easy
Here is the deal, self-confidence is not easy, it takes work. It does not come in a pill, it does not come in a shake, it comes through pure sweat. Building self-confidence requires you to work, building self-confidence is not about beating the competition. It’s about accepting who you are, improving yourself, and basically learning to trust in your knowledge and your capabilities. Next, don’t let your childhood scars write your story.
All of us have childhood scars, but we don’t have to carry them with us as we go into adulthood. Even if you had a perfect childhood, your self-confidence was influenced by your personal experiences. Our childhood experiences have influenced our psychic, our self-perception, and our ability to build self-confidence. It is important to understand your journey as much as your goals.
Go back in your past and assess your scars
If you are willing to go back in your past and address your scars, you will be able to have a greater understanding of yourself and not be rocked by the compliments or criticisms that you receive. When you’re grounded in who you are, you’ll be able to experience life without fear. And ultimately, build on your self-confidence. If you want to build self-confidence, remember it’s a process. Don’t hurry to the finish line, you don’t need to get to the end of the race, it’s a journey.
If you take the time to accept yourself, fail forward, embrace the journey that you’re on, and give yourself grace along the way. You’ll have everything you need to be more self-confident. Take today and figure out who you are, and who you want to be. And don’t lose your identity in the process. If you do this, you will not have to fake it till you make it, you can make it without losing yourself along the way.
Never let anyone tell you that you are not good enough
Never let anyone tell you that you are not good enough. If you respect yourself and have the self-confidence to believe it, no one can stop you. Stand tall, hold your shoulders back, exude self-confidence, and be glad that you did it and never had to say I wish I had. With that, let me turn it back over to Jerry to have his final words about your self-confidence.
Jerry Isenhour: Well, I hope you learned something from Sheryl’s tidbits this week. What I call her tidbits of wisdom, because she is a very wise person, and offers great tips to people. And how to get to their goals in life. As she was talking, and it made me think how many people are held back because of something that was said in their past, some type of cutting remark, some discouragement was handed to them.
What we must do is learn
Maybe by a teacher, maybe by a co-worker, maybe by an employer, maybe by a parent, things that have stuck with us in life. But what we’ve got to do is learn, we’d learn from these things and we apply ourselves. And we decide that we’re going to get better. The first book I ever altered on my own was chaos to reinvention, and as we look through our lives, how much chaos do we all go through?
And that’s many times what it requires, it requires an individual, reinvention of ourselves. We have to decide where we want to go, and what are we willing to give up to go there. What are we willing to give up? You know so often we are held back by our surroundings, and I also see people that are held back by the people that they hang around with all the time.
Are you hanging out with negative people
Are you hanging around with people that have the desires in life that you do not? Are you hanging out with positive people, that have a positive outlook on where they are going? Are you listening too much to the naysayers? To maybe the noise of the news media, are the people that are telling you how you’re supposed to feel. You see in order to develop self-confidence, what you’ve got to develop is what’s called a POV, that’s a point of view.
And you’ve got to develop your own personal point of view on life and yourself. And from that point forward, once you have this point of view, then everything that you do forward from that day, it follows your point of view. As I speak and I teach, my point of view deals with pain and reinvention, and how you have got to make this decision of moving forward by going through the pain of change.
Do you prefer staying in the present pain you are in
Or do you prefer staying in the present pain you are in? You see because there are so many people they just can’t reach to the altitude that they want to get in life, but the reason they don’t is because of their attitude. You see, that’s one of the things that the immortal Zig Ziglar shared with us. To get where you want to go, to the altitude you want to get to, it’s going to depend a lot about the attitude that you have.
One of my mentors is Jeffrey Gitomer, and some of the teachings of Jeffrey are that you have got to develop more than a negative attitude, and even step above a positive attitude, and develop what Jeffrey is trademarked as the yes attitude. Yes, I can do this. And that’s part of the self-confidence of being able to look in the mirror and face the challenges that you face, and say you know, I can do this, I can do this. So, as you are in a sales presentation, as you are in a conversation, no matter what it is.
Maintain your self confidence
Maintain your self-confidence, build your confidence in yourself. Because by building the confidence in yourself, the self-confidence says yes, you can do this. It’s going to be amazing the things that you can accomplish in your life. But it’s going to fall down to one person, and that one person is you. You’re going to have to train, you’re going to have to study.
You’re going to you need to read, and you need to read the thought leaders of the world. And what’s the wisdom they’re expelling to you? What are the analogies they use? And how do you compare this to your life, what you’re going through each and every day? And with that, we’re going to end this week’s episode of the chimney and fireplace success network.
We appreciate you joining us. It’s an honor, it’s a privilege and it’s a pleasure each and every week to be able to share our thoughts with you, and hope that they will take you to the level that you aspire to go. My name is Jerry Isenhour, along with the rest of my subject matter experts here at the CVC success group, reach out to us. Let us know how we can help you turn those dreams you have, into your business and life realities. Talk to you next time, appreciate you being with us today.