I have a question that’s going to rattle your brain a little bit. Is confidence a good thing? Hmm, something to think about.
Of course, I think confidence is a good thing because you’re showing up with the right energy and confidence. In sales, anytime people are buying a product or service, they’re actually buying you, they’re buying your energy, they’re buying your confidence. When you feel that you can get the job done and deliver the goods, they will buy. However, another question for you to ponder, is confidence inside or outside your comfort zone? I think the answer is, it’s inside our comfort zone. Think about it, now you may be confident because a lot of the things you’ve done along the way has made you to show up in this confident manner. Whatever product or service you’re delivering, whatever division you’re delivering from within an organization, or how you’re showing up in a company or as a leader. You have actually spent time practicing your skills to be confident in this area.
However, is confidence an area that you want to stay there all the time? If you want to grow, the answer is no. You want to go to the next level. And the next level is courage, having the courage to go outside your comfort zone to try something different and do something you’ve never done before. Now, once you master this new realm, that increases your confidence once again in this new area that you have just ventured into. There’s additional confidence in this courage.
Let’s look at it another way; think of a stairway, confidence is the bottom step. We’ve built a confidence over the years in a certain area, the way we show up, what we do, our service, whatever it may be. Then at some point in time, we have to go outside of our comfort zone to possess the courage to go try something new, of which then that courage builds to more confidence, of which now we’re confident in that new realm, in that area of our life or business. When we get good and confident at that, we have to go outside our comfort zone again and tap back into the courage to go to the next level, to hit another additional arena of confidence once again.
I met a business owner a few weeks back in the landscaping industry. As we sat down, it was pretty evident during our conversation, that his company had made many small acquisitions along the way. In addition, they just made an acquisition that close to doubled the size of the company. Now, he felt that he had to put a lot of things in place, however, he just simply couldn’t understand why he was struggling. What the owner did not get was his mindset. His level of confidence was at a much lower stage of where the company was, versus where the company is now with the new acquisition. Because those acquisitions have grown the size of the company and requirements, his mindset / confidence hasn’t stepped up to that new level yet, as he was still at a much lower level of mindset as a leader and an operator.
What he needs to do is to go outside his comfort zone to increase his courage to tap into that new realm of confidence, so he can grow into the person he needs to be to run that new size company versus the company he used to run. If you possess confidence, that’s great. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in what I do and what I deliver to my clients. However, most importantly, I always know I have to get comfortable being uncomfortable to tap into the courage, to go into a place I haven’t been before so I can continue to work that stair stepper of confidence to courage, to confidence, to courage, to confidence, in order to continue my own personal growth path.
So, I hope this has been valuable. Really think about that. Think about what you can do to go from confidence to courage, to step up to a next level of confidence. Because with that, you’ll show up differently and the right people will show up. And of course, your business will do better, your team will do better, and you’ll make more money, and then that’s not such a bad thing after all.
COACH MICHAEL DILL is an Award-Winning Certified Business Coach, global speaker, and published author. He is a proud Action Coach Franchise partner as well as the President of Power & Ice Wealth Creation a strategic leadership company that works with business owners, leaders, teams, and entrepreneurs to both develop a systematized and structured organization while accelerating their mindset, efficiencies, and effectiveness to grow both personally and professionally to achieve extraordinary results. He brings more than 40 years of business and entrepreneurial experience in his leadership, team training, and mentoring practice. Businesscoachmichaeldill.com