Oxytocin

Hi Dien,

Great info from ''TED'' and Company once again... Thanks! ...

The New Science Behind Your Spending Addiction and The Science of Applying this into Making $$$$ Money...

New Science unveils how your Brain is Hard-wired when it comes to Spending—and How you can reboot it...

Or Not... If you Might be interesting in Applying this into Making $$$$ Money...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newswee...addiction.html

Phil

Look. I've failed a gazillion times in my life, and I've also had a few successes. But I never had any success until I got self-confidence ... which came way, way, WAY after adolescence. Maybe my story will help someone here.

It's the ultimate Catch-22, isn't it, especially for an analytical, introverted personality? To have confidence, you must KNOW you will be successful. But to be successful, you MUST be confident. If you're filled with self-doubt, then just the tone of your voice sabotages you whenever you talk to someone. For most of my life, it seemed there was no way to get to "confident" from where I was.

I was in my early 40s and had been driving a bus on Miami Beach for a dozen years. My son had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, and I was desperate to have time to spend with him and the money to take him to see places that he only had a limited time to see. I failed at more businesses than I could count. I couldn't sell a lick. I didn't believe in myself at all, and I didn't believe my future would be any better than my past. I was a friggin' mess.

But then, within a few months' time, I developed complete confidence ... and success followed shortly. And my confidence has never wavered since, even through other failures.

What changed?

Well ... one day I was swapping stories with another bus driver. And as I told him the gory details of my latest failure, it all began to seem kind of funny. You know, the IRONY ... all I wanted was success, and all I got was failure. By the end of the story, we were both laughing at what a klutz I was.

But an idea started to form. I realized that this one failure was a pretty darned good story, and I could tell it really well, since I had lived it. I could polish it a little (make myself look even dumber), and it might get more laughs and would probably connect with other people, too.

I soon found that to be true. And a plan started to form ... maybe I could build relationships with people by making them laugh about MY failures. That would be terrific, because I had 80 tons of failures to choose from.

So ... I wrote down a few other failures. Then I got really serious ... I created a timeline of my life, listing all the people, events, places, schools, jobs, loves, coaches, teachers, sports teams, etc., that I could remember. Then I organized them by year.

(As I said, I'm ANALytical.)

Over time, I developed dozens and dozens of failure stories ... and (surprisingly to me), a few success stories back there, too.

And here was the key: I had 100% confidence when I told someone one of my stories, because I had lived the event. I had total belief that I was a klutz who could botch any opportunity. No self-doubt whatsoever. The sound of my voice had changed, and people actually loved to hear my stories.

For me, when that "confidence" spigot turned on, my life changed forever. And what tickled me no end, of course, was that I had used my failure stories to achieve confidence.

ANYONE can do the same thing ... unless you've never had any failure in your life. It's a great emotional outlet for people to laugh about YOUR ridiculous, ironic failures ... so they can say to themselves, "God! That's guy's even worse than I am" And the more you make people laugh, the more confident you will become.

Good grief, life is weird.

Richard Dennis

For me, when that "confidence" spigot turned on, my life changed forever.

Me too. I was the quiet guy that never spoke unless spoken to. Who wants to hear what I have to say, was my guide.

I used to care what people thought of me, and like Richard says, that will show up in your voice and your whole demeanor. That's especially true in any kind of sales presentation.

Then I realized that not only do people not care about you, they won't remember what you said to them for more than a few seconds. That was liberating for me, and meant that I could blurt out just about anything and nobody would care.

Most people are hungry for conversation, which means that you can approach anybody and ask them anything, and then stand there and listen to them prattle on as long as you can stand it. "Oh really?", "How did you handle that?" and keep shining the spotlight on them, and they'll think you're the greatest person they ever met. When it's over, you'll know all about how their last three cats died, and they'll know absolutely nothing about you except that you're the nicest guy they ever met and a wonderful conversationalist.

A really good salesperson doesn't sell. He allows the customer to buy when he's ready, from a person he likes and trusts.

My advice is to stop caring about the outcome of any encounter. Buy if you want, leave if you don't, I don't care. Meanwhile, I'll keep you talking about yourself.

Being confident in every situation is the most fun I've ever had.

[MMacGillivray]

Many, many years ago I read Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends....." and this thread has developed into something reminiscent of the book. Which brings me to this link I found on the BBC website -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15642578

about living the Carnegie way. Apparently the book has been updated for the digital age ....

M

Hi guys. Man Dennis that was quite a spin on being able to take failures and turn them into making relationships and building confidence. You stumbled on to something worthwhile there. It's sort of how comedians create hit gimmick by making fun of themselves or things related to them. Self-confidence arrive in different ways for different people. At one time I too was very quiet which most people now never believed, but one day I actually discovered I had the gift of gab when I was just called on in an impromptu moment to give a welcome and introduction speech in church. I just got up for the first time started speaking and never stopped. But that was my catalyst, just being thrown on the spot cold turkey. Now it serves me well in the success of my small business and giving business advice to others.