I’m approached about coaching a lot.
And more often than it’s “Gina, you’re so confident, I wanna be more like you.”
To which I have to respond “you mean you want to be more like YOU.”
Which brings me to confidence.
Life is hard. Being a salesperson is hard. And both of those things are even harder when you lack confidence.
I recently had the opportunity to talk about this on Women Your Mother Warned You About with none other than Susanna Gray-Jones. She asked “how did Gina become comfortable being Gina?”
I found myself humming ‘maybe she’s born with it”.
Which is only half true.
Sure I was the girl who had ‘talks too much’ scrawled on every report card since the first grade.
And I might’ve turned every supporting improv character I was given into a leading role.
Also, I had a dad who appreciated and nurtured my outgoing personality.
But I assure you there’s more to confidence than genetics.
So much of my confidence has been acquired through the wise words of friends and trial and error. Failure, a cruel mistress, is also an opportunity for an incredible comeback story. And in that, confidence bellows loud and proud.
Now you’re asking yourself ‘is there something I could do today that would make me more confident?’
Sure. There’s a couple things actually.
It’s None of Your Business What Other People Think About You
Yeah, read that again. What other people think of you is none of your business. A friend of mine told me this after I found myself brokenhearted over a typical backstabbing. It’s a tough one to marinate in but it’s an extension of ‘you can’t please all of the people, all of the time’ and ‘you’re not going to be everyone’s cup of tea.’ You could sit here and be upset about all the people in the world who don’t like you but that would be a colossal waste of time. So much of people’s opinions are outside your control. A man might not like me simply because he has an ex named Gina. The checker at my local grocery store might not like me because she had a nasty aunt who coincidentally had the same shade of red hair. So it’s best to focus on your people – the one’s that love, appreciate and respect you – and then see yourself as they see you.
Be Open to Positive Feedback
What exactly does taking a compliment have to do with building confidence? For whatever reason, as women we struggle to accept compliments – a fellow female says to you ‘you have great hair!’ Your response? ‘Oh my gosh, thank you but I haven’t washed it since Wednesday and usually it looks better than this and I’ve been using drugstore shampoo so I just know my stylist is going to kill me next time I see her and I just wish my curls were more defined and blah blah blah’ when all you had to say is ‘THANK YOU’ and relish in the fact that you have great hair. This goes for sale performance as well – think about the last time your supervisor or team lead gave you a compliment. What was your response? If it wasn’t a short and sweet ‘thank you,’ you need to work on receiving positive feedback. Positive feedback builds confidence.
Be Fearless
Failing isn’t the enemy. Never doing anything that might end in failure is the enemy. Every single wildly successful person has failed, and every single wildly successful person has learned from their failures and got back up to try again. And guess what, every time you dust yourself off and get back to business, that confidence you’re pining for increases tenfold.
There’s probably a million other things you could do to increase your confidence – like get botox, that did wonders for my self-esteem (come on, that was funny) – these are just my faves.
To all my followers rich in confidence – how did you get where you are? Let me know in the comments below or contact me!
