Upgrade Your Life to First Class!

Chapter 2

From Coach – to First Class

Confidence! Yes CONFIDENCE! Seriously that is all it takes to elevate your life to tremendous heights.  From the way that you walk, talk, dress, and even love, confidence is key.  We find ourselves attracted to individuals that have this certain something about them, the thing that we cannot quite put our finger on.

We have always admired confidence in our culture; however it has been given different names throughout history: cool, fortitude, spunk, balls, and the more recent… “Swagger”.  It is truly one of the building blocks of success; it is the key to looking within and liking what you see.  Someone once said that the world is a stage and we are just actors in it.  Well honey, I’m not just an understudy I am the main character – just like Effie White said in Dreamgirls, “I don’t do oohs and ahhs”.

Not everyone is born with confidence; some of us have to work hard to obtain it.  I always say think of yourself as the biggest baddest bitch on the playground.  Even when I walk into work I walk with my head held high, even in my unflattering uniform I know that I own it.  When I was younger I didn’t have much confidence in myself, I hated the way I walked, talked, looked… honey you name it, and I hated it.  So one day I woke up and I decided to be that actor on the stage, but I just didn’t want to stop there.  I decided if I’m going to do it then I will be the producer, director, writer, and even the cleanup crew.  I found an inner strength that each and every one of us possesses.  Sometimes you have to be willing to put yourself out there.  You cannot catch a fish without first taking a chance at throwing your line out in the waters.  Remember that old saying – seek and you shall find – knock and the door shall be open unto you.

If there is one thing I cannot stand – one thing that I hate is when someone asks me to hook them up with someone else.  The answer is no – I am not Match.com nor am I a Madam.  Just as I said in chapter 1 – we are afraid of rejection so we would rather let someone else do the work thinking that it will hurt less if we are told “no” through a third party.  Well the answer is no.   It still hurts pretty badly, sometimes even worse, but rejection helps build character believe it or not.  If you like someone tell them, ask them out, and if they say no well then move on.  Take this as a chance to self-reflect and ask is it me or are they just bitches.  I have been rejected many, many, many times either I am too gay, not gay enough or just because I wasn’t their type.  Use this sense of defeat and turn it in to strength, grow from that moment.  Don’t let someone else dictate or determine your confidence level.  If you let them dictate your confidence level then they have owned you.  We are so quick to give up on ourselves when we never truly tried in the first place.

There is no denying that many people are just mean spirited.  Their insides are nasty and dark.  Some people just do not care.  Guess what, that is fine because the world is not perfect and neither is man.  Now we cannot ignore the fact that these mean spirited people can hurt us emotionally.  As I mentioned before we all have things that we wish that we could change about ourselves, not everyone is completely 100% happy with the way they look.  It could be as simple as the direction of hair growth.  I have been blessed with a gaped tooth – right smack dab in the front of my mouth.  For many years I was teased horribly for this space in between my teeth.  I think the moments that hurt the most were when it was family that was doing most of the hurtful dishing of insults.  Even at the age of 25 I was teased by a much older adult about this.  It did sting when they told me this and I found myself questioning am I beautiful enough all the while hating myself in that moment.

What I realized when I made it home is that I had let someone dictate my confidence level.  I had let someone break me down.  Even though I thought of myself to be strong, in all actuality, I wasn’t.  No one is perfect, none of us have completely 100% developed some type of magical shield that blocks hurtful things.  The key is how we deal with these insults, how strong are we to turn it around and transform it into strength.  That’s really the key to overcoming hurt but we will discuss that in another chapter.

The truth is some of us lack that get up and go, grab life by the balls type of attitude.  Believe it or not the lack of any type of drive places you at the bottom of many lists.  Employers are less likely to hire individuals who come into an interview looking defeated (oh yes honey that is what the lack of confidence translates to in an interview).  Also it shows others that you really do not care and the lack of caring is never a good trait to portray, it never translates as laid back but as lazy.  A good tip to remember is if you come in defeated you will leave defeated and the only person to blame is yourself.  No one can motivate you.  Someone can set the norm, but you should have the drive to want to not only reach but surpass that standard. Never settle for little or for “that’s just the way it is”.  This is why having confidence is so important, and I challenge you to walk with your head held high.

Now I must point something out.  Confidence and pride are two different things.  Some of us confuse confidence with pride and it never translates well.  This is because pride and vanity goes hand and hand.  It is always good to be proud of yourself, but pride sometimes can ruin great jobs, relationships, and friendships.

Growing in yourself brings clarity of whom you are.  Being “grown” is not something you earn by living alone, having a baby, paying your own bills, or by aging.  Being “grown” is how well you deal with the challenges of life.  How you overcome trials and tribulations – do you shutter, run and hide or do you deal with those challenges head on.  I am a firm believer in if you are not growing you are truly dying.  We are the most advanced species on planet Earth, and we never stop growing physically, mentally, or spiritually.  Taking each day as a way to learn something new about yourself, someone else, or about life will bring you enlightenment in so many areas of your life.  Self-reflection of who we are, who we want to become will help guide us in being the best Beings that we can be.  Now this all goes back to validation – we all want to know that we matter, that someone loves us, and has our backs.  However what we need to first know is do we love ourselves? Clarity of whom you are.  A simple statement, but it contains so much strength and power.  We sometimes get lost in other people’s perceptions of who we are – we see ourselves as others do and our vision then becomes clouded.  It’s funny, you can look in the mirror all you want, but if you subconsciously choose not to see yourself, you won’t be able to.  Think about that for a second…   Honesty from others who care for you is sometimes so scary because it at times points out the pieces of ourselves that we choose (again the word choose) not to acknowledge.  Everyone says that they want others to be honest with them; however if you are unable to be honest with yourself first, then you cannot accept honesty from anyone else.  Clarity of whom you are.  So the goal for the remainder of this year and the new one is acknowledging that you are worthy of growing in yourself so you are able have a clear image of yourself.