Confidence is Power

Call it what you will, Swagger, Cocky or Confidence, these traits exude Power.  My blog is based on the majestic alpha animal, the all powerful Lion.  In the animal kingdom, this powerful alpha beast shows its dominance by his movement, posture and voice.  In the real world, humans are no different.

You know the saying about the 10 second rule? You can walk into a room and size up a person within the first 10 seconds, that’s why they say make your first impressions last.  In corporate America, the most confident person can be spotted very easily by the way he carries himself, the way he moves and his posture when sitting or standing.  He/She let’s everyone knows they are there in the room and usually the non-confident person tries to make him/herself less noticeable.

So why should you care if you are confident or not?

Studies show confidence can reduce stress

In a recent study by Dana Carney, Amy Cuddy, and Andy Yap in the book “Power Posing”, reveals psychological and behavioral changes typically associated with powerful people.  Confident people felt more powerful, were more willing to take risks, and experienced significant increases in testosterone along with decreases in cortisol (the body’s chemical response to stress.)

Ever notice why the top sales people or the fast movers and shakers in corporate America move up and keep going up, confidence is definitely the key.  Besides, who doesn’t want more stress in life?

So below are 5 useful tips to jump-start your confidence into power transformation.

5 tips to gain confidence and power

1.  Posture – Don’t slouch, as simple as this may sound this is where people mess up the most.  When you walk or sit, keep the shoulders upright, show the world you are here and be noticed.  This simple fix will increase the perception that you are very confident.

Also just like the golden rule in interview techniques, always do a firm handshake even if it’s a female.  I remember one time I shook a female ceo’s hand very lightly and she blasted me because I should always shake everyone’s hand with the same firmness, never again did I shake another females hand very lightly.

Last but not least is eye contact, we all know it’s important to keep eye contact but the big mistake is when we stare like a robot.  Be firm with your eye contact, gaze deep in the eyes but always…always…make sure to make it seem natural by looking away at times or raising the eyebrows with emotions.  Staring like a mad man just to keep eye contact is a big no no.

2.  Tone – Don’t be soft spoken when you talk, a strong and firm tone can increase your confidence perception like night and day…it’s that dramatic!  Even if you don’t have a strong voice, always make sure even if you are unsure of the words coming out your mouth to be crisp and firm.  Raise the tone when you talk and you will see a difference.

3.  Movement – There is a reason why people say that a person has swag in their walk its because when they walk they reveal that they are confident.  Don’t walk with a slouch(posture) and don’t walk too fast to avoid people.  When walking around the office, make sure people notice you, walk in the middle of the walkway (if no one is in-front of you), walk openly and lastly walk with your chin up and head held high.  Royalty does this for a reason, its to show leadership and in order to achieve power through confidence, keep your head held high(its not just a saying folks).

4.  Mind – Do not over think things!  Just be yourself and don’t care what other people think, this is the biggest reason why some analytical people (nerds) gain a bad reputation…they are NOTORIOUS for over thinking…and that’s why the dumb jocks are NOTORIOUS for being confident, its because they don’t over-think as much…makes sense?

5.  Attitude – POSITIVE POSITIVE POSITIVE….leave out the insecurities and negativity, its poison.  Every time you think negative or become unsure of yourself, you are actually poisoning your brain to train it in making you feel like a loser when you are actually not!  Get out of the mindset and quicksand, you always want to reassure self with positive thoughts on a daily basis.

Fish for compliments, be humble and grateful and most importantly start beginning to love yourself again.  You can be stuck being a normal looking person or you can display confidence in everything you do and can actually be perceived as a powerful, good looking and charismatic human being…now which do you prefer?

5 Tips to Gain Confidence and Power is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions

(photo credit: Woodruff Photography)

Positive Reinforcement

On January 23rd 2010 I had the privilege in help organizing and speaking at a Social Media Event in Virginia Beach.  The event had many different specialty fields in marketing and a diverse audience that all came together for one main event.

It was a long journey from September 2009 to January 2010.  We had some new to speaking events and some were veterans but all in all the event was still a stressful journey, like most events.  We had lost a lot of potential speakers and had to change the line-up a few times but eventually it did work out in the end and what a bittersweet relief it was.  It was still an amazing feeling accomplishing a vision that you had portrayed a couple months back and manifesting it into a successful reality.

Looking back, I seem to of taken this event by the reins and took on a leadership role within the group.  I had noticed that it was very difficult to sometimes keep people focused on the task at hand and keep them motivated as it was almost a 6 month process with a lot of Holidays in between.  I have found that staying positive and giving my group positive reinforcement and excitement has helped tremendously both before and after the event.

It is the little things that can have an impact on people’s lives and I believed in my group which contributed to more success.  Sometimes people just need someone in their corner to encourage them it’s going to be ok and to make them dig up the courage and believe in themselves it will be a successful event.

Again there were a lot of obstacles that could of spelled disaster for the event but I chose the high road and focused on strengths and not weaknesses.  Without the push in the right direction and motivation of doing a great job with the event, some members of the group could of easily drifted away or crumble.  As a leader, we must show positive reinforcement within our group as a testament of believing in them for without it then why should they believe in you.

Positive Reinforcement As A Leader is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions

(photo credit)

“A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader, a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves”

Break The Mold

Don’t wait around for change to happen, step it up and make things happen.  Create an atmosphere of positive confidence that shines forth not only within your self but by others.

Remember that positivity is contagious and don’t just focus on becoming more self confident, break the mold and become a leader too.  A leader leads by example and inspires others from the actions they bring forth.  Start by building your positive strongholds by surrounding yourself with like energy driven peers.

Break the mold in accepting that you must not sway from either going too over the top or just enough to keep you under the radar.  Throw that mindset away and believe in yourself that the actions you do are powerful, even when you think no one is looking.  That is what being a Justifed Lion is all about, noble & confident in the actions you do to improve your life.

• Yes, you are capable of being a leader
• Yes, you can achieve greatness
• Yes, you can inspire others

Believe in your actions, become infectious and showcase your noble & positive behaviors.

• Teach a friend one tip every day
• Go out and help the needy
• Recommend inspirational books to read
• Change your habits for the better

Whatever you decide to do, don’t look back in second guessing yourself and becoming shy.  These are great things you will be achieving and wear it with pride.

Become a Justified Lion…Become a Leader!

Leadership is highly valued in the workplace, which is why a master of engineering management, MBA, and other business degree programs put a strong focus on leadership in the curriculum.

Inspire Others To Have Confidence By Becoming A Leader is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions

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The Power of Smiling

A recent study written by the New York Times researched Predictive Smiles.  The study researched smiles from a college yearbook rating smiles by by coding muscle movements around the mouth and the eyes.  The recent study showcased that the less people smiled, the more likely they were to later divorce.

This may sound astonishing at first but in reality a Smile is a powerful emotional affect.  A Smile is contagious and infectious.

Have you ever noticed how you pronounce the word “Smile” that you form a smile right after, interesting huh?  The same token can apply with grin or grouch, it’s like these words were mean to take shape of the meaning of the word.

A Smile is a positive emotional energy that majority of people tend to attract to when seen.  The simplest form of the Law of Attraction can be expressed with a simple smile.  A great example is children and babies, you can’t help yourself whenever a child or baby smiles it seems like 2nd nature that you must smile back.

People feed off of each other’s energy every day and all day long, even if you don’t realize it, you are.  Surrounding yourself with negative behavior all the time can dampen your morale and attitude however surrounding yourself with upbeat and positive people in your will greatly improve your outlook in life.

Reverse the Poison

Let’s face it Negativity and Bad Moods are a poison in your life.  Nobody wants to be around a Negative Nancy or a Debbie Downer.  The same way Smiling can be infectious, so can Negativity.

Your best arsenal you have for fighting against Negativity is a simple smile, whether you are talking with someone or alone.  A Quick fix smile can boost an amazing positive vibe that will help you battle negativity.

• If you start out in a bad mood or something just irritated you, flash a quick smile to start clearing away the bad mojo

• If a person is just plain being mean and rude to you, as much as you want to retaliate and become mean back.  Step back, take a breather and calmly smile while engaging.  Ever heard the saying:

You catch more flies with Honey than Vinegar

So go ahead and reverse the poison!  Don’t let negativity and bad moods ruin your day, start by practicing to smile more often.

Reverse Negative Poison by Smiling More Often is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions

Cocky vs Confidence

More often than not, people mistake being “Cocky” in place of “Confidence”.  Cockiness in people’s eyes is a self indulgent snob who can care less about the people around them.

However, the dictionary labels Cockiness as:

“very self-confident or self-assertive”

We often jump to conclusions and mindlessly self-judge people without notice.  Majority of times, people who seem Cocky to us makes us feel inferior in someway through jealousy or  judging too quickly.  Unless that person is a total jerk to people around them, I encourage you next time to stop and open your minds for a second to look at a different point of view of that person.

Lil Wayne Theory

Rap artist Lil Wayne calls himself the greatest rapper alive.  Now most people may disagree and some people may actually agree on that statement, we may never know if he’s the greatest rapper alive but he is already achieved that status without even proving it.  Read his exact quote below:

“I don’t think I’m better than anybody personally. I don’t think I’m better than anybody spiritually. I don’t think I’m better than anybody in any way or form or fashion. But as far as this rap thing, I think I am better than everybody. I’m a competitor and I hope everybody feels the same way about their craft.“

Lil Wayne has just shown that his state of mind is that already he is the best and in order to be the best you have to first think that you are the best before you do anything else.

The first step is getting your head in the game, getting in that mental state to prepare you for your end line goal and status.  Going back to proverb 23:7 What a man thinketh, so is he just signifies that whatever you believe, you become.  Think like a winner, you are a winner.  Think like you might fail, then you will fail.

Confidence

It’s okay to be Confident.  It’s okay to show that you are assertive and you know your stuff.  People will always judge and critique on the sidelines, it’s up to you to be the forefront and stand out from the rest.  Be Bold, Be a Leader, Show that whatever you do you do it with a Rockstar confidence.  Own your strengths and don’t focus on your weakness, everyone has them but focus more on improving your strengths.

The people who don’t succeed spends majority of their time blending in and judging everyone while they sit back and watch everyone surpass them in life.  Do you want to be that person who just feeds into negative energy? Sure call me Cocky but it’s my confidence in my ability to do whatever in life is what’s going to make me successful, how about you?

It’s Not Being Cocky, It’s Showing Confidence is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions

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Have you ever witnessed some people who live in a poor environment and with extreme obstacles laid before them and wonder how on earth do they manage to still be happy in their life?

It’s like talking to people who are handicapped in life but are the most driven people you will ever meet.

How about reading stories on how the Rich and Famous are statistics of the un-happiest people on earth? It’s not about just the saying of Money doesn’t bring happiness its actually a little more simple than that.

Gratitude – a feeling of thankfulness and appreciation

Gratitude is such a powerful and positive emotion that is often untapped for its potential.  We may express gratitude on some Holidays like during Thanksgiving or Christmas but what about a daily affirmation and habit.

The secret behind Gratitude in relationship with being Happy is that expressing Gratitude allows yourself to feel blessed on the things you have right now in your life.  You feel thankful for the things that are often taken for granted or just thankful for anything in your life in general.  One thing you could always be grateful for is being alive if you can’t think of anything at the very moment.

Let’s choose to become more grateful.

Complaints

Once you force yourself to look at your life in a different perspective and become happy and content with what you have in life right now is the first step in realizing that the less complaints you have in your life, the more happy you are.

Complaining and venting is a natural emotion that we experience daily, however let’s try to reduce the complaints about life and start focusing on the positives in life.  Let’s start looking at things with a Gratitude perspective by first realizing why we should be happy and the more we realize that we don’t need to complain the more Happier we will be.

If  you stop and think about what I just wrote, it’s simple.  If you don’t complain and be grateful for what you have, you will always be happy.  It’s that simple!

Now I realize that this will not be an overnight habit change and that it’s virtually impossible not to complain but try focusing on the major complaints and stop yourself and ask is it really worth the complaint? Because all it’s doing is hindering your happiness and after all our goal in life is to lead healthy and happy lives, so let’s stop the complaining and start focusing on becoming more happy!

Gratitude is a choice for Happiness is a post from: Self Confidence | Positive Thinking | Personal Development - Justified Lions