Confidence is something everyone has; however, it varies in strength. Some people are confident in their mathematic abilities, reading, writing or even social skills, but when it comes down to it, people aren’t confident enough in themselves. Granted we aren’t good at everything and good leaders know that they need to strengthen their weaknesses as much as possible. For example, writing is one of my weakest abilities, but by having self-confidence I took up writing articles about entrepreneurship so here I am (bare with me)!
Throughout my life people have told me I am overly confident and I attribute that to my life experiences.
When people tell me that, I usually try to explain why but in the end they don’t really understand. As entrepreneurs we live “the struggle”, we ride and die with our companies. They are our babies and are what we know and love.
But, as much as we love them things don’t always go so smoothly. What happens when it’s time for you to pitch your first product to investors or you need to walk up to your first potential customer at a trade show? Or even more importantly, what happens when you approach that person and they give you a big fat NO?
When I talk to most people they are scared to approach others and this is something I find to be a key difference in entrepreneurs compared to others who aren’t. Most entrepreneurs are outgoing, friendly, helpful and most importantly self-confident. This inner self-confidence is something I believe is accumulated over time. If you are just starting off and jumping into the life of saying yes to entrepreneurship, you most likely feel comfortable in your skin enough to express your own ideas. When they get rejected you grow. It’s a learning curve.
Just because one person said no to your idea who said the 100th guy in line won’t say yes?
Many people know the story of Colonel Sanders and his chicken recipe. If you lacked self-confidence how would you feel after 1009 rejections? You would be in self-denial! We entrepreneurs understand that even if the answer is no, that is only a result or an outcome of the situation and that we must change our approach. While others may take it personal, feel rejected, and go into self-denial we use our self-confidence and our strong hope to push forward and keep trying.
For me the founding of my own brand Physix Surf Co. has been an experience and a half.
Each day I fail hundreds of times by not getting the results I am looking for.
However, this failure doesn’t lower my self-confidence it just helps me understand that I need to take a different approach to the situation to acquire a different result. Everything is just an outcome or a product of our actions and we must understand that. If you tried walking up to someone and yelling at them saying, “BUY MY PRODUCT,” you most likely will not get a response you were looking for. However, if you walk up to the customer with a smile on your face and speak with passion the response will most definitely be much more positive. It’s one of those things where you try once and if you fail you must try again, but smarter.
Now how do I try again? Why try again? I failed.
These all might be going through your head and they most definitely have gone through mine. I can tell you that I have walked in the same surf shop over 25 times with products trying to get them to just buy something, a shirt, a surfboard, just anything, and they have yet to budge. But instead of putting my head down I walk out of there every time with my head high on my shoulders knowing that what I have is good, but it can be better. They are challenging me to become better and I love that.
If it weren’t for this one shop I guarantee you my products wouldn’t be half of what they are today. Use those who reject you as your mom always badgering you to get that “A” or to study harder. Use it as motivation to prove them wrong; to show them your products are good enough to be in their shop. Now after all of that, this isn’t something you can just do, you need to believe in what you are doing, you need to believe in your products, and most importantly you need to believe in your passion. If you don’t believe then nothing will come of what you are doing. Please!!! Be self-confident or else you won’t act on your intuition. Even if you get rejected, sit back down, and give it more thought and another chance.
Remember that: All good things come from nothing, and things that come from nothing take time to become great. It’s almost YOUR TIME, so believe.
If you take nothing else away from this remember these:
- Be self-confident; you are just as good as anyone else in this world.
- If you get rejected, try again. If you get rejected again. Then try again.
- If you lack self-confidence than you are in the wrong business. As Winston Churchill said “Success consist of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” You need to believe in yourself and your ideas and you will be successful.
- All good things come from nothing, and things that come from nothing take time to become great. It’s almost your time, so believe.
Chris is a motivated entrepreneur and the owner the Physix Surf Company (http://www.physixsurf.com/). He currently is at the University of Pittsburgh and is studying computer science. Twitter: https://twitter.com/ofcoorsi, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ofcoorsi
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