The Confidence Factor Cosmic Gooses Lay Golden Eggs Dr. Judith Briles

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Chapter 1 - What's Your Confidence Quotient? The year 2000 is etched in just about everyone's mind. Whether it was getting ready for it with the threats of Y2K assault, watching the media hype the first Presidential election or even licking your wounds from the decline in your technology stock portfolio, the year 2000 will stand out. Confidence. . .your ability to confront, deal with and grow through events that you sometimes don't create or control, comes into play. In 1990, I shepherded my first national survey on confidence. Thousands of men and women generously gave their time and allowed me to probe a variety of areas that related to confidence. Back then, when I asked, "Where does confidence come from?" men were more inclined to say "upbringing" (46%), where women were more inclined to say "experience" (43%). The New Survey Says. . . Today, with 1337 women and men responding to a new survey by our cut off date, "experience" jumps to the forefront with 52% of women respondents and 54% of men stating so. Upbringing now trails at #2 with 26% of women reporting so; more men than women stated that upbringing was key at 35%, a reversal of the two since the beginning of the nineties. Maturity ranked #3 with 16% for women and 9% for men and crisis at #4 with 5% of the women and 2% of the men reporting such. Genes. . .a tiny hiccup at 1% for women and 0% for men.  So, what does this mean? A turnabout, to say the least. Ten years have passed, the workplace is a different workplace; the stock market ended the decade with a roar; the Internet promises a whole new way of doing business; a new way of working emerged where the Baby Boomers had previously coined the phrase workaholic, Generation Y, the Millenniums or the Nexters (whichever term you choose) said, "Not me. I want a life." Other Factors In the original survey, other factors were noted. Primarily, relationships (being in one was more important to men than women); listening (having another who listens was more important to women than to men); and appearance (looking good was more important to women than to men). The most recent survey shows no change with the relationship and listening factors. Men reported that their confidence levels were high when they were in a relationship with another. In fact, many reported that they were able to earn more money when in a relationship. Women have consistently reported that having someone to listen to their issues, concerns and dreams was an important factor in enhancing their self-esteem.  In the past appearance was more important to women than men. Today, the appearance factor ranked high with both. Women were more inclined to feel appearance stress in work interviews than men did. According to Procter & Gamble Research, July 2000, consumers believe clothing that is wrinkled says that the wearer is sloppy, unprofessional and reflects an attitude of not caring.  Appearance becomes a communicator-if you look good, you'll feed good. Golf superstar Tiger Woods would agree. He said in an interview in Golf Digest, September 2000, "Success thrusts you onto the world stage, and you have to be mindful of your appearance-and just as important, your image. I enjoy dressing nicely and doing my own laundry, including ironing my clothes. I still haven't quite mastered the perfect crease, though." So, I suspect Tiger doesn't go in for the wrinkled look! Today, we are older, hopefully wiser. Since my first book on confidence was published in 1990, I have spoken to cumulative audiences of 200,000 plus women and men. Times have changed. It's a different workplace. It's a different workforce. And it's a different attitude than the previous decades. Although men and women say that confidence comes primarily from experience, which includes the good, the bad and the ugly, their responses indicate that their confidence levels are not higher than they were ten years ago. Men are more inclined to say that there is no major difference in confidence levels of men and women (55%); women say there is (67%). The Confidence Quiz Where are you in the scheme of things when it comes to confidence-highly confident, scraping the barrel or in between? The Confidence Quiz below will take you only a few minutes to complete. Use it as an assessment to help you in understanding where you are and where you need to build yourself up. As you read each question, write the number in the blank that best reflects how you are thinking and feeling today . . .not last week or how you speculate things may be next week. It's for now and will become part of your guide through the confidence maze of life. Rarely or Never 1 Not Very Often 2 Occasionally 3 Frequently 4 Yes! Most or All of the Time 5 ______ Do you enjoy and thrive in the work you do? ______ Are you your own best friend when you make a mistake? ______ Do you acknowledge and take credit for your own accomplishments? ______ Do you seek out and enjoy learning new things? ______ Are you physically and mentally healthy? ______ Are you comfortable with the way you look--with and without              clothes on? ______ Do you limit (or eliminate) your time spent with negative people? ______ Do you surround yourself with people you admire? ______ Do you have a trusted friend or colleague with whom you can let your               hair down with? ______ Do others routinely seek you out for advice and support? ______ Do others enjoy being around you? ______ Are you able to ask for something when you need or want it? ______ Are you comfortable seeking assistance when you need it? ______ When someone criticizes or rejects you, do you assess it, then move on? ______ When you have failed at something, do you maintain your visibility and stay               around others? ______ When you run into problems, do you routinely handle them (or attempt to)? ______ Can you laugh at yourself? ______ Do you forgive yourself for mistakes that you make? ______ Do you spend time with people who are positive on an ongoing basis? ______ Are you able to say "no" to someone or something that you feel uncomfortable              with or negative about? ______ Are you self-reliant, asking, doing and getting things for yourself? ______ Do you spend time on events, activities and people you enjoy and like? ______ Do you routinely spend time to nourish your spiritual side? ______ Do you routinely take time off for you to re-energize? ______ Are you money smart, learning/knowing where to get advice for your present              and future money needs and how to implement what to do? ______ Do you feel that your life is in sync-balanced with work and play? ______ Are you upbeat and positive-is life basically a joy for you? ______ Do you like who you are? ______ Do you feel that you are "on track" for you? ______ When you feel strongly (or not so strongly) about an issue or matter, can,               and do you express it? Scoring: The maximum score you can have is 150, which means you scored a 5 on everything, which is unlikely. One of the great secrets that highly confident women and men share is that there are times that they don't feel highly confident. In fact, there are times that they feel that confidence totally eludes them. Surprised? You shouldn't be. 140-150 Extremely Confident--You are an A Confident Woman or Man. You've learned how to get, keep and grow your confidence. Bravo! 120-139 Frequently Confident--You have a great deal of confidence and can gain more with just a tad of fine-tuning. More than likely, you are a leader where you work and definitely have the key ingredients to move to the top. 90-119 So-So Confident--You're average, which yields you an average or so-so return in what you do. Why not stretch yourself and learn something new? Review your past accomplishments. It's time for you to get a few accolades, even if you are the only one applauding. 61-89 Not So Confident--Your confidence is shaky. It's time for you to step back and do some probing. Ask again, "Are you 'on track' for you?" and "Are you self-reliant, asking and getting things for yourself?" Most likely, you scored 1 or 2 when you initially answered these questions in the quiz above. It's probable that others control you, with your permission. You need to trust yourself and follow your passions, not others. Below 61 Rarely Confident-Yikes. . .surgery is in order! You need to surround yourself with some pluses. . .at work and at home. If friends and family are dragging you down, tell them you need some positive support, not negative criticism. Treat yourself to something new. Read a great book; attend a stimulating lecture; see a fun movie. Make a conscious effort to reach out. Aspire higher! On individual questions, if you scored less than 3 on any one, this doesn't mean that you should reject yourself. It's merely where you are today and what's impacted you in the past. Where you choose to go tomorrow is up to you. You orchestrate what steps you set in motion.  Self-esteem and confidence go hand-in-hand. Self-esteem is the regard, the appreciation, and the caring that you have for yourself. Confidence takes it further. Confidence is the POWER to create that respect and appreciation and regard you have for yourself. Song Sung Blue As adults, we say that when a child is born, each has the right to feel secure and safe. And that security and safety come from housing, from shelter, from feeding, from caring, and from nurturing. But, realistically, we all know that not all children get such housing, shelter, feeding, caring, and nurturing. In fact, some of you reading this may have been among those deprived. As adults, it is quite common to want to do better for your own children than what you had yourself. I am always amazed about the ability of some to remember events as young children, as very young children, even at the toddler stage. Most of those early years are really blanks for me. My mother had multiple pregnancies, multiple miscarriages, with three brothers surviving, and I, as the lone girl. Some people might think that as the only girl in what seemed a sea of boys, I might have been spoiled; treated as princess. Not so---the males were the preferred model. My life until my eighth birthday is basically a blank. I have only a few memories; nine to be exact. The great earthquake in Los Angeles in the early fifties; the time my younger brother was playing with fireworks and set our garage on fire and burned it and the neighbor's avocado tree down; the time I was five and tried to get on the school bus with a popsicle and the bus driver wouldn't let me; the time we got our first television set and my brothers and I were watching The Lone Ranger on a very big box with a small screen--black and white, of course; the time our housekeeper, Lottie, was jumping up and down at a horse race on the TV; the time Lottie took me with her to see some of her friends and family--I had never seen so many black people at one time; the time my brothers threw me in a pool to see if I could float-I learned to swim at the age of three; the time my oldest brother threw rocks at me as I ran across a field; and the time my father held me as my head was shaved waiting for the stitches required from my brother 's handiwork. That's it, not a lot of excitement in a young girl's life! As Dorothy was surrounded by the gray bleakness of her life and Harry was stuck in the closet under the stairs, my first few years were parallel. That is, until my family moved to the beach in Southern California and I met Diane Wilkinson. Diane took me home that afternoon to meet her family--three sisters and a mom and dad. When Dorothy stepped out of the house that brought her from Kansas to a Mecca of green leaves and lushness, I stepped in a door and found what I was to later call my first heart family. The Wilkinson tribe had four daughters, no sons. Mr. Wilkinson, who immediately became Uncle Dave, had given up long ago and bought the girls train sets. Mrs. Wilkinson became Aunt Nina. Aunt Nina taught me how to sew, what a family was, and what caring was all about. Every waking moment that I could possibly spare was spent in the Wilkinson household and, if at all possible, I tried to wangle an invitation to spend the night. I would go home to change my clothes. Otherwise, the Wilkinson household became the Land of Oz to me. The difference was that Dorothy wanted to go back home--I didn't. For the first time, I felt secure as a child. They became my parent/family substitute. For a child, feeling secure means much more than being physically protected. Feeling secure is feeling warmth, caring, nurturing, the sense that someone is glad that you are part of their life. At the time I found my Land of Oz, the only warmth and security that I had was the thumb that I sucked until I was almost eight years of age, and my cats, who were my best friends. Their purrs put me to sleep every night. Prior to that, I felt unprotected and helpless and certainly of no value-after all, I wasn't a boy! A Child's Needs A child strives to feel worthy, to feel love, and until this happens, it is really quite difficult for her to pursue other dreams and goals, to grow and expand outside of childhood activities. That worthiness--or worthlessness--is from parents or parent substitutes. In my case, I ended up with substitutes. Until that time I had no inkling of who I was, what I could do, what power I had, whether I even had the right to have other friends. Certainly, no one ever came home with me. It never dawned on me to bring anyone home. Ideally, kids need to know that they are accepted by parents and family. That's when acceptance of self blossoms. For me, that acceptance didn't start until my birth family moved and I found my first heart family. There is a big difference between the emotional life of an adult and a child. As adults, we can make decisions about feeling good about ourselves, about feeling secure about ourselves. The child has to pull those feelings from the outside; after all, where else are they going to get the modeling? As an adult, we can measure our worth in self. For children, it is going to be a reflection. Their own value will be a reflection of the recognition they receive from those immediately around them. Life's Little Black Books As children leave their childhood, journeying through adolescence and finally adulthood, they carry around a variety of baggage--emotional and learned. Part of my baggage was a "mental" little black book. In that little black book, I listed a series of events and items that I promised myself I would never do to my daughters if I had any. Note that I said "daughters." Today, I am well into my fifties. As best as I can determine, my brothers had it basically okay growing up. They were brought up under the norm of those times, they were the preferred sex, they were encouraged to take the risks, to go to school, to have careers, things that they all did. I was supposed to be a mom, I was supposed to marry, to have children, and if I was going to work, it should be something like nursing or teaching. As I hit adolescence, my birth family moved again, separating me from the Wilkinsons. I was lost, afraid, alone, feeling that I had no friends except my two cats, that no one loved me. The following year, I became friends with Linda Briles--she was the initial link to my second heart family. Her mother, Joyce, became my second Heart Mom-an incredible woman who cares with no strings attached. From there the lessons were completed. Everything I learned about relationships, risking and stretching and empathy were shaped with Joyce's guidance. I finally tuned in to my growing strength that I was an intelligent person--the strength that would eventually allow me to do just about anything I wanted to, if I set my mind to it. As esteem grows in adolescence, there is far less need for protection from parents. After all, haven't we all been surrounded by teens at one time or another who feel that they know best, that they know how to change the world? The term "peer pressure" enters into this phase of development. Teens are not necessarily interested in their parents' approval and recognition. Rather, the approval of their peers is sought--that's what matters. Finally, we come to the full adult stage of the mature person. Ideally, we feel secure and worthwhile and don't need the approval and validation of others. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Lack of support during the early years may cause many adults to feel insecure, not worthy, and to seek constant approval and recognition from other sources. Today, my two daughters and I laugh about my "little black book" of items that I would do if I had daughters. That mental black book that was formed over 45 years ago is still as clear today as it was then. If I hadn't found--or, perhaps, I should say, they found me-the Wilkinson family as a young girl and later Joyce Briles as an emerging teen--I cannot imagine where I would be today. The sense of security, of worthiness, of appreciation and regard for myself that they seeded allowed a lonely, unwanted little girl to blossom into a caring, supporting, and nurturing adult. I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Throughout The Confidence Factor-Cosmic Gooses Lay Golden Eggs, I will reference Keepers, the "ahas" that I've picked from my own and others' cosmic gooses. The 10 Steps to Building Confidence in the following pages has been created from the input of thousands of men and women. Many of them have preceded you in your footsteps, some are following. They have willingly shared some of their potholes-cosmic gooses--that later turned into golden eggs.  JB's Keeper #1 Becoming a more confident you is in your hands . . .not someone else's! Pretty powerful stuff, and yet, fairly simple in concept-- let's continue with the first step in creating confidence. # # #   © 2002-2003 The Briles Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dr. Judith Briles is an author, speaker, consultant and coach. For speaker availability or for information CONTACT US or call us now at 800-594-0800. [ Articles Main Page ] You may reproduce this article with the following printed on it-- (C) All Rights Reserved by Dr. Judith Briles. www.Briles.com