This is the third in a series of regular columns by Allen Ward. I've always wanted JSN readers to contribute regular articles and was thrilled that he of all people volunteered to publish them. If anyone else wishes to do the same, let me know and I'll be happy to include here.

Author: Allen Ward
See also: On Ventilation

Webster’s Dictionary states that confidence, “…stresses faith in oneself and one’s powers without any suggestion of conceit or arrogance…”. Sounds like pretty good stuff. For most of us, a confident person is someone you aspire to be, someone you want to be around, and certainly someone you want to work with.

But not everyone wants to be around a confident person. When we add morality to self-confidence, the mix becomes dangerous in precisely the place that we spend as much as a third of our lives.

Our jobs.

Our jobs can have a surreal quality at times. Such as when your boss arrogantly states, “The customer is always right!” (Been there, heard that.) Two things immediately come to mind. You have never have and will never meet a human being who is always right, even if your boss says so. But in addition, if your boss thinks that the customer is always right, just what does that make you? Are you “always wrong”, or just “always wrong if you disagree with the customer”? The real answer is this: In many American corporations, if you agree with the boss, you are right; if you disagree with the boss, you are wrong . In this situation, your boss does not value your insights, your intelligence, your drive, and certainly your confidence. This boss values your loyalty, your subservience, your conformity. And there, we have said it; your boss wants your loyalty, not your self-confidence. Enron was a great example of this. It’s own internal auditors confidently knew that something was very wrong with the books. They brought it to their superior’s attention, only to be hounded and persecuted for not being “yes men”. And despite bringing in paper shredders the size of city garbage trucks to eliminate the damning evidence, Enron imploded. A handful of C.P.A.’s escaped with their reputations intact, and not much else.

I bring this up to point out how we end up feeling “worn down” by our jobs. Few of us are blindly loyal anymore (those that are, end up in managerial positions, at least temporarily). So we hang on to our morality and the shreds of our self-confidence, and try and get through another work day. But our self-confidence is our best defense; the more we lose of it, the more the world wears us down. Conversely, the more self-confidence we have, the stronger we feel. And to be fair, American corporations do not have a monopoly on crushing self-confidence out of people, although they do have consultants for that. Unfortunately, sometimes it is our family life that does the job for them, before we even fill out a job application.

Then that is the great value in enhancing, building, and nurturing our self-confidence. We are giving ourselves what we need, irrespective of our environment. And we give ourselves the right to dream, to dream of what we want, to dream outside of the corporate box or family expectations, and dream of creating our own jobs, our own lives, our own wealth.

If your self-confidence is feeling a bit small and fragile, then you can nurture it into its rightful greatness. It is not difficult to do, even in difficult circumstances. People have done it, and you will too.

First of all, you have to want self-confidence. Know that it will change things. Embrace change.

Secondly, you must avoid being around negative people. If you live with them, that’s hard, but there may be others that you don’t live with, so start with them first. That could be people at work that you hang around, so start with the easy stuff. This includes anyone whose favorite words are “can’t” or “woulda/coulda/shoulda”, anyone who is a curmudgeon, and anyone who just dwells on the negative. That may give you enough breathing room to be able to “raise shields” when you are around the negative ones you live with.

Thirdly, if there is something in your life that always gets you down, give it a rest for a while. For many of us, this is the news. Be it print or electronic, it’s all generally the same, except now you can watch CNN Headline news and be receiving three news feeds simultaneously…and it’s all negative. Negative is what makes the news. There are six billion people on this planet, and at any given time only 5% are engaged in a war with each other. But you wouldn’t know that, watching TV. In the last thirty years, the violent crime rate in this country has plummeted. But when you turn on the TV, between “Law & Order”, “CSI” and the Evening News, it’s more like “The-USA-is-all-crime-all-the-time”.

My point is that this negative information overload just makes the viewer/listener feel overwhelmed and powerless. Lots of parents these days want the very best for their children, so they control what the kids watch on TV and the Internet. We can do the same for ourselves.

And lastly, take every day you can to self-improve. Do things that feed your soul. If you embark on a new endeavor, be kind enough to yourself to know that you won’t master it right away. Bless your mistakes, for they are the fertile compost of your own success. And know that there are people who want you to become a better, more self-confident person.

Look up Self-Improvement on Amazon.com or at a bookstore, and you will have a slew of titles to read or listen to. If you don’t feel it’s right to spend a years paycheck on every book or CD, (good for you!) many of these can be found at local library.

And know this: No matter how much any corporation, supervisor, parent, spouse, sibling, relative, so-called friend, co-worker, schoolteacher, clergyman, psychotherapist, guidance counselor, or complete stranger tries to tell you differently….

Confidence is your birthright.
And when you get that, you get it.