The Power of Belief

The Power of Belief: An Essay on Confidence

Every individual has great innate worth. Confidence reveals it; respect keeps you mindful of it.

What Will Confidence do for you?

“The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.” (Benjamin Disraeli)

Hear ye, Hear ye, Hear ye. With confidence you do the things you always wished you could do. With confidence you do things you never thought you could do; they were unconceivable, unimaginable. However, without confidence you will always be the victim of your life and never the hero because without confidence you can’t control your emotions and you can’t deal with your feelings because you see confidence makes normally uncomfortable situations comfortable so they are easy to handle and confidence gives you the will, an irresistible desire, to go through uncomfortable situations freely. Confidence gives you energy so it’s easy to work hard; you leave no stone unturned. Long hours are nothing; a fast pace is accepted. With confidence, when you have a problem and don’t see a solution you feel that there’s an answer out there just waiting to be discovered. When you fail you feel like I could have succeed. You take risks because you feel like you will succeed, and if you don’t you feel you’re going to be alright; and that’s very important, taking risks that is, because if you don’t take risk in life you’re going to miss out. Listen. Listen up. Without confidence you can’t even think for yourself because you can’t deal with criticism, the pressure of criticism, I mean all your conclusions feel wrong; you can’t make a decision because you can’t deal with the uncertainty, but with faith you stand firm no matter if the whole world is against you because your have a good feeling about it or, or you got the will to deal with a bad feeling because you got a good feeling about going through it.  I believe firmly that encouragement, especially if it is lasting, is an invaluable service. That is why I wrote this essay; I care. I care. Without confidence you can’t be your own person, living by what you approve of or disapprove because you can’t deal with people disapproving of what you want to do; and that’s very important because to be a leader you got to be able to believe in yourself when no one else will.  Bullies will mistreat, convince you that it is right, and make you feel stupid, like an imbecile , so that you can’t even question them; so without confidence you fall victim to tyranny and bullying because you can’t stand the pressure of someone disagreeing with you, so you give in.Without confidence, the world will knock you into a pit of despair, a cesspool of shame and leave you there and say it is your fault, but now is time to come up.  Now is the time to get up and Its not by knowledge, because without confidence you can’t apply your knowledge, you can’t deal with the pressures of the application. And it’s not by opportunity because without confidence you won't take advantage of opportunities clearly in front of you. Lots of things makes sense, but few have been proven by experience; that’s why there is so much useless information in the world. That’s why a google search on confidence will only provide you with vague concepts, nothing concrete and definite as to what it is or how to build it in order to take action today, to transform how you feel this moment, this very moment. It’s a cold and competitive world, many hurtful things will befall you; many people will hate what you want, but what I am about to tell you about confidence can give you the will, the determination to be a stand up individual for whatever you may believe in or want.  That’s what is in this essay: power, spiritual power. There is power in these words. It’s money. You can take it to the bank and make a withdrawal, it’s going to work. However, to make a change you have to want something better, maybe you have to need something better; it all starts with a seed of ambition. Ambition, meaning you want what you can have more than what you do have.

What is Confidence?

So, what is confidence? Confidence is a good feeling on the inside about yourself or a situation. Confidence expects to succeed. You build confidence by sending positive messages to yourself and when those messages get strong enough things change. There are various was to send positive messages to yourself such as thinking positively, speaking positively, positive experience, and surrounding yourself with positive people, etc… And when how you feel changes then all the things you feel like you can't do, you start feeling like you can do when you feel a little bit better about them. And that's the power of belief right there, simple as that.

That’s a brief definition of confidence. However, there needs to be more said about such a complex thing as confidence if we are going to understand what it is. As stated confidence is a good feeling on the inside about yourself or a situation, but let me emphasize that confidence comes from how you think. Confidence comes from a positive attitude, thinking positively, but that is deeper than it sounds because there is your conscious attitude and there is your subconscious attitude; your subconscious attitude is how you feel without any conscious mental effort at all. A positive attitude comes from sending yourself positive messages such as from positive experience, your mindset, and your mood. Sometimes, in this essay I will say confidence is a good feeling on the inside and it comes from expecting something good to happen, let me emphasize when you expect something good to happen you have a positive attitude because you are focusing and thinking about something positive. Notably, in spite of evidence to the contrary or uncertainty, you expect, you focus, on something good to happen.

Self-confidence, feeling good about yourself, comes from how you think of yourself, your self-image, and so when a person has self-confidence those three things (experience, mindset, and mood) have formulated an attitude that thinks of yourself in a positive, empowered and valuable light. Now self-confidence can be dependent, meaning you feel good about yourself because of the active influence others (such as family or friends), or it can be independent, meaning you feel good about yourself because of the active influence of yourself alone. Ironically, if others instill beliefs within you, by instill I mean the beliefs continue to affect how you feel subconsciously without others continuing to have to influence you, then you can have self-confidence, you feel good about yourself, independently because of others. That may sound very complex, but it is simple. It is very simple. It simply means that you can be self-confident, you can feel good about yourself, and be independent, feel good about yourself without the active influence of anyone else, because of someone else because of someone else’s original influence; and, that is something that is not immediately obvious to many  in our society that says things like “just believe in yourself.”

Once you have confidence it builds will. Confidence builds your will because when you expect, when you feel, something good will come from doing something and that gives you a desire to go do it. With a strong will you can develop discipline. Discipline is doing what you hate do as if you love to do it; it is dealing with pressure no matter how bad it feels and no matter how long you have to deal with it. With discipline you can develop character and character is about reacting appropriately to pressure, to your feelings because feelings are natural but character is how you react to them.

What are some Important things to know before you begin to try to develop confidence?

Before I talk about how confidence is built there are some very important things you have to know about confidence. Number one, confidence is important because emotions drive actions. The emotion is the driver. A man can’t be what he has no drive to be.  When you don’t want to do something you procrastinate, you avoid, and you look for a way out, excuses not to do it. You can always tell when you are making an excuse when you still don’t want to do something even after you removed your excuse not to do it. When you want to do something there is a sense of urgency (you can’t wait to do it), you look to overcome possible excuses and you make up justifications to do it, maybe you even become obsessed with it; this is why you want to have an interest, a passion, a love for whatever you do because that makes it easier to do, doing it is almost like running downhill. The importance of thinking positively then is thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions; when you think positive about something you feel better about it and you want to go do it. Notably, when I say “want” I mean to feel strongly about doing something or more precisely to have a strong inclination; I don’t mean simply something you think you would like to do or something you “should” do.  They say humans are merely higher forms of animals and I don’t know about all of that, but you can think of a drive like an instinct. I will discuss fear, the survival instinct, a little further below. Perhaps the clearest example of emotion being the driver is in the case of psychological fatigue. When things go your way and you feel good you have energy and you want to do things; when things don’t go your way and you feel bad, when you’re discouraged, you feel tired and don’t want to do anything. Often in sports, and particularly in amateur sports, you’ll watch a game and a team is simply trudging along and they really look kind of tired. Then suddenly they make a big play and many big plays come after it and you just see this energy and you wonder where was this all along, why couldn’t they been have done this and the answer is psychological fatigue. People change, as far as their behavior, when how they feel changes deep within; when how a person feels changes they feel driven to behave differently, to make different choices, and you need drive to make choices. Confidence builds will, it builds a drive, but to build confidence you need patience.  You need patience and pressure and consistency. So, the number two thing you need to know about confidence is that to build confidence you need patience for feelings to change, because you're building a feeling, your building up a feeling. Think of someone boiling water or freezing ice; it takes time and consistent pressure. Think about cooking, if you rush it you ruin it. As far as having the patience to build confidence, the hardest thing for most people to accept is to see a person physically capable of doing something and then for them not to do it. You think the encouragement is not working. You think the person is being lazy and you may lash out and hurt the person, further sitting back the process of building confidence. You don’t stay committed and you don’t see results because you think they can just do it. You don’t think that an urge isn’t there, a drive isn’t there or that a drive is pushing them away from doing it or that they just feel too bad to do it.  However, I don’t think you can help anyone or yourself without patience. You can’t be critical (of others or yourself) to build confidence, it takes unconditional love. It takes unconditional love to build confidence. The number three thing you need to know about confidence is that it takes unconditional love to build confidence in that you have to keep being positive, although mistakes may be made, until things change. You don’t criticize and you don’t demand personal responsibility, because criticism can’t be taken or put to good use without confidence and responsibilities can’t be met without confidence. This may be hard for many to accept, but this means that it takes faith to build confidence because it takes faith to love unconditionally, faith that someone will improve if you stay positive (keep the positive pressure on), but to have this kind of faith really takes experience, knowing what to do and how long it takes because you have seen it work before; if you know it takes an hour to make a dish you really can’t be impatient you just have to wait. Now, the last and fourth thing I want you to know about confidence is that you have to be realistic and not idealistic. People have a lot ideals about emotions, like you choose to let things affect you and that you choose to get over things. That’s all bullcrap because you don’t have omnipotent control over your own mind.  You can influence how you feel to some extent, and others and situations can influence how you think to some extent; this is some humility in an essay on confidence. So, being hurt is not a choice and being haunted by that is not a choice either. No matter what people may say compliments feel good and insults hurt; everyone gets hurt but it is what you do when you’re hurt that makes the difference, its about how you react to it. It is a choice to encourage yourself, to persevere and to seek to be the captain of your life, but to make those choices it takes strength, and that comes from confidence (a drive). However, at some point, a point that isn’t really clear, you can’t even do that; at some point your inclinations can be stronger than your powers to do what you would like to do. I don’t know for sure, but you can only control your emotions to some extent and you can only deal with your emotions to some extent and that extent is unclear so that is why God should judge people and not men. People have such a hard time admitting this, such a hard time, and I think the reason is pride. Feeling a certain way, such as being confident, is as much of a choice as building a house is a choice. It takes time to be confident and you have to accept that reality if you’re going to build confidence. Rome wasn’t built in a day; if you think it was or you think it should be you will be very frustrated. Don’t be too demanding on yourself or others.  Don’t be too demanding because you can demand more than can be given, but with confidence, with encouragement, you have more to give. I can’t emphasize this point enough, through all walks of life people ask for and demand more than people (even themselves) have to give. Pushing yourself or someone else into a situation before you or they are emotionally developed enough to cope with it is going to lead to frustration, guilt and regression.  I can’t emphasize this enough! Take your time and get it right; don’t rush it and ruin it (I illustrate this when I compare King Saul to King David). Don’t blame yourself if you feel a certain way, don’t blame another person  if they feel a certain way. Don’t blame just build yourself up. Don’t blame just build up. Don’t blame, build! Build up! Build up!

How Experience shapes Confidence?

“They say life is about choices, it is more about habits and beliefs because those are what are driving choices.”

The most important ingredient to confidence or a lack thereof is experience. Our experiences form our expectations for the world. For example, you have experienced the sun rising every day and so now you just naturally expect it to occur. Notably, you expect this to occur without even consciously thinking about it. Experience has impressed upon you what goes up will come down and you feel apprehensive about dropping a fragile or valuable object. You have experienced your friends and family behave a certain way so now you expect them to behave a certain way and if they don’t behave the way we expect them to we say they acted out of character. In fact, maybe you expect people to behave a certain way even though their character has changed. A vivid example of how experience forms our expectations is that you feel more comfortable around some people and you feel uneasy around others given how they have treated us in the past, given our experiences.

As far as confidence is concerned, confidence arises when you expect something good to happen; confidence expects to succeed. Confidence expects to succeed. You see things happen a certain way and then you begin to think they will continue to happen a certain way and if these are good things you get a good feeling about what will happen without consciously having to think about anything; it is kind of just instinctive.   Generally, consistent positive experience produces confidence, or simply just trust, but it takes patience and time for confidence to build up this way.  Nevertheless, one particularly memorable accomplishment can impress upon you that you can do something and after that you recall a good feeling whenever you perform that activity and that gives you an expectation, and a good feeling, that you can accomplish much more (think of a significant professional, academic, athletic or even interpersonal accomplishment); I suppose it’s kind of like the opposite of a traumatic experience. However, it is better to have only consistent positive experience (as much as possible), rather than one memorable experience mixed with negative experiences because  that removes the possibility for any doubt; it is kind of like when you say someone who is undefeated does not know how to lose. They are supremely confident, meaning they expect to win; they expect to succeed. When you expect to succeed you think about success and you get a good feeling.

Furthermore, your experiences influence your attitude without you knowing it and your experiences can never been erased; in that way, because memories are never erased people never change although behavior changes. Your experiences make you an original. Things stay with you. Learning how to swim at an early age, getting bitten by a dog, or never getting on a rollercoaster even when your friends insisted all these things stay with you. Your character can’t be erased.  In sum, everyone is a conglomerate of their experiences. Like the picture of Dorian Grey, your experiences form a self-image and every experience is a part of that portrait with, I’m speaking in analogy now, the stronger colors (in your portrait) representing your stronger feelings and beliefs. Without a doubt, your experiences affect how you think of yourself. Your experiences shape your self-image. If you lose you not only begin to expect to lose, you think of yourself as a loser. If you make money you not only expect to make money, you think of yourself as wealthy. You may think of yourself as attractive, you may think of yourself as strong, and you may think of yourself as unintelligent.  Furthermore, you develop expectations on other things, about what you will have and what you deserve based on your self-image. If you think of yourself as strong you may pursue a career involving strenuous activity, if you think of yourself as intelligent you may be more likely to share your opinion, and if you think of yourself as a loser you may avoid people because you expect not to be accepted. Also, for example thinking of yourself as attractive or unattractive, your self-image, affects your emotional state and your emotional state influences your actions, but I will go into how your mood influences confidences a little more in the building confidence section of this essay. Another example, thinking of yourself as rich or poor can influence your emotional state. Confidence is such an odd thing. Some very successful people are very unconfident and someone that has not accomplished much may be the happiest person in the world. Often times successful people have unreasonable standards and are ashamed of themselves for the smallest mistake. With unreasonable standards, instead of feeling the satisfaction of exceeding expectations a person feels the constant shame of being inadequate. That feeling of satisfaction is very important; it motivates. Success begets success, and one of the reasons is success is satisfying and it motivates you to work for more success. It also gives you a good feeling that you project onto things and gives you the feeling that you can accomplish different things.  However, let’s say a man loses a championship competition, and maybe badly, and he is ashamed, he feels ashamed and others that have never accomplished nearly that much feel more secure. Someone that has accomplished nothing feels better than someone that has accomplished great things. That just doesn’t seem right for someone that has done so much to feel so bad. Look, don’t judge yourself too harshly. Believe you can do anything; you can do anything! However, if you fall short be proud of being all you can be. Shoot for the moon, and if you land amongst the stars be happy with that. Don’t judge yourself too harshly.

How fear differs from confidence?

Like confidence is a positive attitude, fear is a negative attitude; fear is a negative feeling about a situation. In contrast to confidence, fear arises when you expect something bad (dreadful) to happen (so you have an overly negative perspective of what will happen) or when you don’t know what to expect to happen (you get anxious because your imagination runs wild with possible negative outcomes).  Fear that arises from not knowing what to expect can be conquered simply through experience. For example, when you first drove a car you were nervous, but after to seeing what to expect, through repeated exposure you gain a comfort level driving a car. Often times people say they are shy at first, meaning when they first meet someone they are a little shy or afraid to speak; this is because that person does not know what to expect of the other person. Once you get to know the other person the shyness evaporates. To illustrate just how powerful fear can be, a lot of times when someone gets over this shyness they just can’t stop talking. A strong desire to socialize was there but their fear was paralyzing, crippling it. This also illustrates the importance of confidence because a lot of times people say if you want something you go get it, but these people underestimate the survival instinct (fear); it takes a truly tremendous amount of drive to face something that you are very afraid of.  I also want to say be patient because maybe you can look under your bed once and see no monster then you lose the fear that a monster is there, but maybe it takes a few times of going into the deep end to lose your fear of deep water. Remember you’re changing your subconscious attitude (how you feel without consciously thinking anything) and the repeated positive experience builds you up, builds up your confidence. The worst fears come from inexperience and the imagination because even if you expect something dreadful to occur you lose that wild nervousness.

When you expect something negative to occur it is because you have had negative experience. For example, you may shy away from a person because you know they always have something very negative to say about you. As far as when you expect something negative to occur, remember getting over your fears is changing your attitude, changing your subconscious attitude (how you feel without any conscious effort). When you expect something dreadful to occur you can overcome that with repeated positive experience or one very significant positive experience that changes your mindset. It is kind of like getting into a bike accident and being afraid of riding a bike, but then by riding your bike again and again and again you lose the fear; or, lets say you win this big race riding your bike and then you completely forget your fear and recall that good feeling when riding your bike. However, since the fear comes from experience the experience that the fear arose from, the memory can never be erased. Sometimes you won’t be able to get positive experience, but since the dread (Fear) is a negative attitude, you can just consciously think of the situation a different way, change your attitude to  overcome a fear. (I will talk about this a little bit more in the encouragement section. ) Many people think of making a mistake as falling off a cliff, but just to think it is not a big deal will change how you feel; or, to think aggressiveness makes up for mistake and you make mistakes when you’re aggressive may change how you feel. A lot of times people worry, but to think what will be will be(que sera sera) or Let Go and Let God will change how you feel. Essentially, if you change how you think you can change how you feel. You can replace your negative emotion with positive emotion. However, your conscious attitude often times is at odds with your subconscious attitude and overcoming your fear involves a battle with yourself.  That battle involves encouraging yourself consciously and then gaining positive experience if that is possible. If it is not possible to gain positive experience you have to build up your confidence with encouragement and you have to continue to build yourself up indefinitely. If someone does not like you or if you want to do something unpopular you will be hated on and you will be criticized; you can expect to walk through a buzz saw of criticism sometimes. People are always going to hate. They are always going to try to keep you down. It’s a competitive world. You just got to have the will to be sharp regardless. You just have to have a strong independent will regardless because anything that does not stand firm, that’s not done with determination, will be knocked down. You get that will by encouraging yourself.

Negative experience is not always a bad thing. Experiencing failure shows you that it is not the end of the world, so confidence does not just from success it also comes from failure and trials as you can see that you can get through it. You see that you can deal with it, so you feel that you can deal with it again. In graphic terms, Joe Frazier fought George Foreman twice and got knocked out both times;  Frazier was asked would he fight him again he said (paraphrasing) something like yes I was knocked out before and I got through it, I’ll get through it again. Just to know that you got through something before gives you confidence that you can get through it again. You can also get in the habit of facing things; I mean you have faced something negative so many times now you just feel an urge within to face it. However, sometimes fear is so strong that it stops you from getting any experience, you can’t face it at all. However, negative experience is not ideal. What you don’t want is to do is to keep failing. You learn how to deal with it. You accept it. It becomes natural but the negative feelings start affecting you, driving you to do things and driving you away from things. People get used to everything and that is part of toughness, getting used to things, but you have to want to use that toughness. I mean if you fail again and again and again you know you can deal with it, but do you want to deal with it? (I will talk about this more in-depthly in the building discipline section below) Negativity hurts your enthusiasm and your interest. Succeeding at anything requires interest and that interest comes from a good feeling about an activity, a love. Chances are you’re not going to love something that keeps hurting you, think about that. However, the irony is by loving something, really loving it, you can keep doing it no matter how bad its hurting you.

I’ve talked about fear and overcoming fear, but fear is not necessarily a bad thing. Fear is often a distracting, disruptive and inhibiting emotion. Fear is distracting because it diverts your attention from what’s going on in your environment. Fear is disruptive because it pushes you to do things that are not intelligent, and fear is inhibiting because it stops you from doing things that you can do. I think with the fact that fear is a distracting, disruptive and inhibiting emotion in mind that shows how confidence, replacing fear with confidence, can really transform your behavior. Nevertheless, fear is your friend because it is there to protect you from getting hurt. Fear is like fire as soon as you touch it you want to get away from it, but if you can control it you can use fear like fire. The classic book the Red Badge of Courage provides a graphic example of how fear can become your fire. Henry, the protagonist, is 18 years old and he is a soldier in the Union army during the Civil War. In his first battle, unprepared to deal with, green and not discipline enough for, the intensity of fear he feels he behaves like a coward and flees battle. No one knows about this so he is not disgraced, but after the battle he starts to desire a red badge of courage (a battle wound) so that he can never be thought of as a coward, but it is not just about what his peers think of him. He hates the idea, he dreads the idea of thinking of himself as a coward so much that he actually wants to be wounded. At the end of the book, with his regiment pinned down and outgunned he leads a charge with nothing but his arm raised. His fear has become his fire and he behaves like a hero.  And the opposing army, intimidated by the intensity of the charge, surrenders; at that moment, they can’t deal with their fear. You see, just like a fire fighter fights a fire, you have to fight your fear until it can be controlled.

Now it’s time for the main event of this essay, how to build confidence. With great satisfaction I share this with you because the sky is truly the limit for someone who  is happy, has a good feeling about working hard and facing anything. And confidence is that good feeling. Confidence is a good feeling and it arises from experience, mindset, and mood. Believe and forget the pain, feels so good that you forget all other feelings. Confidence builds will feel so strongly that you have to get through various ways to encourage this.

You can have supreme confidence when you know nothing is coming back at you. That’s the sweet science, hit and not get hit with angles, head movement, legs, smothering

How to build confidence?

What would I do if I could feel? (The Wiz)

You have to believe you can before you know you can. Believe it, to achieve it. Confidence expects to succeed, cockiness expects it to be easy.

The Roots of Confidence. The conscience is free. The past, your current situation, nor your mistakes determine how you feel. Confidence is not based on accomplishments, material possessions, appearance or things like that which is wonderful because your situation can be pure hell, quite depressing. Confidence is based on the what we know about the human spirit that God has given man: that you can do anything you set your mind to, that nothing is too good for you, that no one is better than you, and that no man can humble you[1]. Things that are said, things that are done are just reminders of the glory that is within. It like when you go to church, the rituals are to just assist to believe in the unseen and encouragement has to be an everyday thing because remember you are building up a feeling and that takes consistent pressure. Also, you are building habits, habits of behaving a certain way. Encouragement is kind of like the training wheels of character. You encourage yourself to do it then you just get in the habit of doing it and when you are in the habit of doing it you feel an urge within to do it. Also, you may think I have so much to do I don’t have time to encourage myself; remember psychological fatigue. If you feel better you can do more, you can take more. That’s the hope of compassion that if you feel better you can do more. If you’re stronger on the inside, wholer on the inside you can do more. What would you do if you could feel? What would you do if you could feel?! What would you do if you could feel better? Life is hard, you got to believe in yourself so intensely, your spirit has to be so strong that you can impose it upon reality. “For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground.  Is our world gone? We say Farewll. Is a New World Coming? Welcome and will bend it to the hopes of man.” (Lyndon B. Johnson)

Confidence comes from sending positive messages to yourself and when those messages get strong enough things begin to change, but you first need to accept you deserve to be confident.

Mindset. Thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions. An essential way to develop that good feeling on the inside is through your mindset. How you feel about a thing is relative to how you think of it.  As the word says “so as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” (Proverbs) Furthermore and therefore, you can be “transformed by the renewing of your mind.” You change the way you think you change the way you feel and then you feel driven to behave differently. Now this has to be tempered a little bit because you have to remember there is how you think consciously and how you think subconsciously (how you feel without any conscious thought at all); your experiences and their memories shape your subconscious and your memories can never be erased (unless you catch amnesia). However, a positive (conscious) attitude can go a very long way. The first thing about mindset you need know is you have to make the effort to think positively and you are free to do so, but the act of thinking positive is an act of discipline because you’re going to want to think negative when you feel negatively. That’s going to be your inclination, because the emotion is the driver and that means emotion also drives thoughts and you have to fight your natural inclination to think negatively in order to think positively. This reminds me of the book of Joshua at the beginning. Right before beginning the daunting and intimidating task of taking the promised land God tells his people in the book of Joshua, chapter 1 “Do not be afraid.” “Don’t be discouraged” These words are repeated several times. They say doing the same things again and again expecting a different result its insanity, but it is simply being stuck in your ways; it is being dominated by bad habits and that starts by being stuck in a habit of thinking a certain way.  In sense, you’re going to have to fight yourself and achieve a victory over yourself to break habits of thinking.

Think for yourself.  Think for yourself. Before you can build confidence or think positive you got to first think for yourself. To really make the most of your mind you have to think for yourself, but I don’t think it is generally understood what is meant by the phrase “think for yourself.” You know you got to be your own person, and that means you feel comfortable doing things and have a drive to do things independent of any other person, but it also means you decide what you think. Thinking for yourself means you decide what you think. You decide what you think is good and bad, valuable, the conclusions you draw, you’re perspective, how you label and define things, what you want, what you believe and simply what you think about; when I say draw your own conclusions I mean that given the facts some things must be true, somethings can’t be true, and some things could be true and when you draw your own conclusions you decide which things that could be true that you believe and that you don’t believe. That’s a lot but really only two things need to be accepted if you’re going to think for yourself. The first is that just about anything can be doubted and when something is doubtable it becomes a personal choice to believe in it. In geist, an opinion is something you think even though there is good reason not to, the other reasons just are not compelling to you. Given the facts you draw your own conclusion. Many use logical reasoning to make others think a certain way, but even the most imprenetrable logical chain of reasoning can be doubted and doubt demands personal judgment. “If two people agree on everything, one is doing the thinking” (Lyndon Johnson) because everyone has different experiences  and wants influencing them; what you like ain't what I like. This is why you can’t trust someone just because they have lots of experiences because people have bias. People value, like and believe different things just because of their general personal experience. The second thing you need to know is one man’s treasure is another man’s trash and one man’s trash is another man’s treasure depending on how you think. A very important thing to accept is everything can have a positive spin.  Everything, and it is your choice to do so, to look at the bright-side, or not.  Then more than just looking at the bright-side you need to know it is your choice to define something as good or bad, or the very least how good or how bad. Whether, in your own mind, things like profanity and grammatical errors are awful or not a big deal or actually a good thing are all a matter of perspective. Similarly, it is the same way with raunchy T.V. shows and violent movies. It is same thing with fast foods. Anything can be romanticized. Before World War I countries focused on the heroic and patriotic nature of war and people were very excited about going to war, after seeing the toll a war can take countries hated war. Similarly, you may be highly attracted to someone who is selfish, lazy, and many more negative qualities, but you are attracted to them because you “focus” on the appearance. Then what you focus on affects you emotionally. The important thing to realize that you can romanticize anything, and that some people are just romanticist. Some people will always be enthusiastic about militarism and some people will always be superficial, and they are free to think that’s right. You don’t even need a reason, you can just look at something a say its good or say its bad. Then sometimes you will be presented with reason to think different way, but as far as what you accept as true, you are “the decider.” A man can bench press 300 pounds, but cries over spilt milk. Is he strong? You are the decider. A lady does not fit the popular model of beauty, but is she beautiful? You are the decider. A person appears highly incompetent on t.v., but then profits millions from it. Are they stupid? You are the decider. The weather man offers a million reasons why it will snow, but do you believe them? Are they compelling You are the decider. Tom Brady doesn’t run fast and Mike Tyson has a short reach, is it a big deal? You are the decider.  It is not lying or a distortion of reality either because you decide what you value and you make your own judgments.

Focus—When you expect something negative to happen you get a negative feeling known as fear and when you expect something good you get a good feeling know as confidence. However, simply focusing on a positive (positive attitude) will create confidence and simply focusing on a negative (negative attitude) will create fear. A hater is someone that’s always focused on your mistakes, pointing out what they don’t like about you and drawing negative judgments about you, and I just showed you that’s all relative and personal choice. The way to get past negative people and negative surrounding is to focus on the positive. Lock in on it and it will make you feel so good you’ll forget the adversity, the storm. That’s how you get to the point where you can say I don’t care what people think, because when you don’t mind it don’t matter. You see, focusing on different facts imply different conclusions. If I say someone’s an actor you don’t think they are shy. If I say someone spent over 25 years in prison you don’t think of President Nelson Mandela. There are many different ways to see things, but the perspective that has been impressed upon you affects how you feel. (when something has been impressed upon you it affects you emotionally) If you focus on your strengths you will feel good about yourself. If you focus on your weaknesses you will feel bad about yourself.  Everything that is true need not be said and everything that is true need not be thought of. Sometimes the difference between feeling insecure or not is simply what you focus on. That point denies the legitimacy of saying something insulting simply because its true. It may be true, but its not a reality for you until you think about it. Like the saying goes no one hears a tree that falls in the woods with no one around. Anybody can point out a flaw, but helping someone is getting them to a place mentally where they couldn’t get to by themselves so that they can accomplish more. Everyone is equal but if you trash talk someone you will look down on them and if you brag about someone you will look up to them (I’’ll talk about psychological authority in the respect section). A lot of things are possible but you believe what is probable given your perspective.  The challenge, the problem is seeing beyond your perspective, beyond what you see as probable and believing in what’s possible. The challenge is seeing beyond your emotional state. I’ll talk about mood below, but its seeing beyond anger if you’re angry, seeing beyond sadness if you’re sad, and seeing beyond fear if you’re afraid. Its like having on sunshades and trying to see the light, its hard (with confidence you do things you never thought you could do because you start to feel like things are possible you never could imagine before, you see the light). However, knowing that there are many perspectives out there should give you faith to look for a better one and to focus on that. You got to have the faith that there is always something better out there, and that really comes from the belief that the sky is the limit and anything is possible. Muhammad Ali once said “the man with no imagination has no wings.” Both doubts and beliefs have assumptions. Both beliefs and doubts assume nothing else is true that will disprove them, but people only question their beliefs and not doubts. You got to make a practice of questioning your doubts and limitations by using your imagination, that’s how you get past them. What if this possibility or what if that possbility. Try it. Try it. Try it. Then the next thing you know you got an automobile, then the next thing you know you got an airplane, then the next thing you know you got a spaceship. This is one my favorite quotes of all time. Robert F. Kennedy often said “Some people see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never were and ask why not?”

Different Ways of thinking- There is the perfectionist and the opportunist. The perfectionist seeks to make no mistake, the opportunist seeks to take advantage (take more risk) of opportunities so that the good outweighs the bad. An opportunist often seems to not care about mistakes, but it is just that their focus is on taking advantage of opportunities and not on mistakes. You can become so worried, so afraid of making mistakes that you make mistakes. The perfect is the enemy of the good; often more good can be accomplished by being imperfect than trying to be perfect. People talk about being self-conscious and the way to get out of that is to be offensive minded. An offensive minded person thinks about what they are going to do and not what anyone else is going to do. A defensive minded person, feel self-conscious, because they worry about what other people are going to do. There’s the idealist that thinks of right and wrong, and there’s the realist that thinks of cause and effect and that if I don’t do anything nothing will change. The realist is really connected to the strategic thinker who looks for ways to get things done, realistic thinking looking at cause and effect, idealistic thinking what’s right and wrong. A confident thinker focuses on the positive not the negative, focuses on the strengths not the weakness, focuses on what can be done and not what can’t be done, and focuses on what could be and not what has been. A confident thinker focuses on overcoming. You got to know how to turn everything into an advantage, “all things working together for your good.” A confident thinker has a will to find a way.

Free your mind-Before I get to the really good stuff that builds confidence something you will have to throw in the trash can is the idea of having to earn the right to think a certain way. The conscience is free and that’s useful. There may be no evidence that you are brave, but if you feel afraid and you think to yourself I’m brave it’s going to make you feel better. If you’re trying to persevere and you tell yourself you’re tough it’s going to make you feel better. The idea of earning something is so relative. One man puts in 25% and he attains something and its said he earned it. Another man puts in 210% and he does not attain something and it’s said that he did not earn it. Everyone deserves to be proud of themselves because it’s a practical emotion.  Feeing unworthy does not get things done.  In Great Expectations, Dickens called shame the vanity of unworthiness.  It is a terrible feeling and a defeating emotion because it pushes you away from doing things and pushes you into doing things to get away from it. It breaks you down! Everyone deserves to be proud of themselves because that good feeling gives you energy and it makes you comfortable to live life your way! But have some perspective. Although its useful to be proud of yourself, it’s silly to be proud because everything you attain has so much to do with God and God given ability, your family, your finances, people around you, chance, and opportunities; all God’s children have potential some just never get a chance. Now the notion of giving someone credit they do not deserve is a legit concern, but I think this gets taken entirely too far because praising someone can make you feel bad and putting someone down can make you feel good. A lot of this is not giving people credit to make yourself feel good, and that’s really pride that has gotten out of its lane. You should be proud of yourself, but not proud of being better than other people. Yes recognition is earned based on the standard of those who judge, but its love for what you’re doing not a pat on the back that should encourage you to do something. You should feel like nothing is too good for you and that there is nothing you can’t have in this world. You have to feel like you can do something before you can do it, that’s how confidence works. You have to believe it to achieve it. Free your mind. You have to believe it to achieve it. You have to believe it to achieve it. Its better to feel like you can do something then chose to not do it than to feel like you can’t do something and be hindered by your doubts, fears, and shame. Its better to try and possibly fail than not try and certainly fail. Fall forward man. I listening to a Denzel Washington speech where he hammered on the point of taking risk to the point where you are willing to fall on your face, “fall forward” he said. You dive in, you commit yourself so much that you either fly or fall flat on your face. To get a knockout you got to swing with all your might, to hit a home run you got to swing for the fences, and to make a splash you got to dive in. You can’t take that type of risk feeling like you are unworthy. Confidence is not earned. You deserve to be confident, its your birth right you child of God!

“I said I was the greatest before I knew I was” (Muhammad Ali)

Now it’s time for the good stuff, the ways to encourage yourself in order to build confidence. You are going to really like this.

Ways to Encourage yourself:

Confidence thinks affirmatively. Although there is reason to doubt confidence thinks “it is” or “it will.” Confidence does not think “I don’t know,” “perhaps,” or “it’s possible.” Confidence think “It is” or “it will.” There will always be reasons to doubt what you think, always, but you make the choice to believe to, to make a leap of faith. It’s a risk!

Confidence expects to succeed. So, confidence thinks “I will succeed.” “Im going to be alright.” If you are afraid it is because you do not expect to succeed. Think you will succeed. Think you will succeed. Once again confidence expects to succeed, being as sure of success as the sun will rise and set in the evening.

Graphic Image- When you trying to think of something to encourage think of a graphic image that evokes a strong emotional reaction. Think of what it looks like to succeed.

I think therefore I am. Belief is an emotion and since emotions drive actions, beliefs drive actions. Think like Champ. Feel like a Champ. Behave like a champ. You think you are nice you behave like you are nice, what you think it means to be nice. You think you are tough you behave like a tough person.

Think positive!- thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions. When you think positively about something it makes you feel better about something and that encourages you to do it.

Brag Over the Boundary- Its even good to be cocky sometimes, because cockiness can be a form of mental toughness. When you feel like you can’t mental toughness says I can, but when you feel like you can’t cockiness says you can and it’s going to be easy. See it changes how you feel. The emotion is the driver, so when something is uncomfortable you naturally start thinking “I can’t do this” “This is to hard” “I want to quit” “Its impossible” and placing a limitation on yourself. When challenged remember you can always do more than you think you can. Brag over the boundary. “You can do this for forever!” Tell yourself that, “You can do this for forever!”

Stay in Touch with your potential. “Now the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him, “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!” (Judges 6:11-12) Gideon was behaving like a coward hiding from the Midianites and the Angel of the Lord called him a Mighty Warrior, speaking to his potential.  Muhammad Ali once said “I said I was the greatest before I knew I was.” The moniker he gave himself encouraged himself to accomplish what he accomplished. T.I. called himself the King of the South before he ever made a record. Think of yourself as a boss, think of yourself as a champ, think of yourself as rich, just speak to your potential.

Limitless Self-Belief. You can do anything you set your mind to. (Philippians 4:16) Floyd Mayweather once said, “Never let someone tell you something is not for you.”  The thing is this. You have value deep within that you cannot see and it is cultivated by hard work and dedication, but you have to believe it is there to work for it. Limitless self-belief will give you the confidence and that confidence will give you the will to produce it. Its blind faith. You believe without seeing.

Small thing to a giant- if you think of yourself as a giant then nothing is intimidating to you. Call yourself a beast, call yourself a lion, a tiger, a bear (oh my!).

Visualize- see yourself doing it then do it. See yourself succeeding.

Diminish the obstacle.  Call whatever you are doing easy work, childs play, a piece of cake ect…Furthermore, a big problem, challenge, may be intimidating, but the way to deal with any problem is one day at a time, “block by block, brick by brick, calloused by calloused hand.” (Barack Obama) Everyone starts somewhere! How do you climb a mountain? One step at a time.

Glory in tribulation- because the more you perservere through the sweeter it will be when you overcome. You should want to fight the person you are scared of because they will take everything from you.

Compliment yourself- say you doing good. You looking good. It’ll make you feel better and want to keep doing whatever you’re doing.

Imagine - the absolute worst things happening if you don’t do what needs to be done and best things possible happening if you do what needs to be done.

Hunger and pain- You have to have a hunger for pain if you want to grow because to get out of your comfort zone you have to get uncomfortable. Embrace discomfort as necessary for growth. Want the discomfort.  If you want to grow recall the worst fear you ever felt, because that’s how its going to feel to get out of your comfort zone and now imagine something that would motivate you to deal with the feeling because that’s what its going to take to get you out of your comfort zone. Hunger and Pain, that’s how you get out of your comfort zone. As in James 1:2-4, rejoice when tribulation comes your way because it is a chance to grow. It is uncomfortable because you either don’t know what to expect or you are not familiar with a feeling. You have to crawl before you walk. This can be something as simple as a new habit. When you have a habit of doing something its like running down hill, when you don’t it can be like climbing a mountain. Sacrifice. No Guts, No Glory. No Cross, No Crown. No Pain, No Gain. No Struggle, No Progress.

Change Surroundings and People- The people you are around and surroundings affect what you think about. As a preacher once said, “Stop letting people dump stuff in your mind!”

Bring a Memory- Think about something that was painful or really pleasant that actually happened to you. Use that to motivate you.

I want to do this. Fantasies-never let yourself think you don’t want to do what must be done. You want to be here. It will weaken your will to think otherwise.

Living in a Vision- see the things you want to happen happening everytime you do what needs to be done.

Believe it to achieve it. Set a loft goal; dream. Then believe it will happen; expect your dream will come true and this will give you a good feel you can use to make it come thru.

Passion comes from a Need. I want it so bad, I don’t care. Quoting the great Jack Dempsey, “When I was a young fellow I was knocked down plenty. I wanted to stay down, but I couldn’t. I needed to collect the two dollars for winning or go hungry. I had to get up. I was one of those hungry fighters. You could have hit me on the chin with a sledgehammer for five dollars. When you haven’t eaten for two days you’ll understand.”

Passions-think about the things you feel strongly about. Maybe its your family, a dream, or someone that disrespected you in the past and use what you feel strongly about to propel you to act.

Life or Death. I rather die than not do this.

Deserve Success. Never Settle for less.

Meditate and marinate. The more you think about something the more it builds up a feeling.

I think the power of mindset can be best conveyed by the story of Henry V and the St. Crispian’s Day speech. If the name doesn’t ring a bell it’s the “band of brothers” speech. It’s a very inspirational speech. Before a battle Henry V’s army is outnumbered 2 to 1 by the French and it’s a very intimidating situation and Henry V’s  army is panicking because they have so few men. Then guess what? Henry V tells his men the fewer the men the greater the share of honour, meaning the fewer men they fight with the more honorable there fight will be and if they win they will be household names, legends, because of how doubtful the odds were yet they overcame them. And the brilliance of the speech is that it does not lie or deceive or distort things, but finds a positive that replaces intimidation with inspiration. He focuses on a positive( “If it be a sin to covet honour I am the most offending creature alive”) And ofcource,  the English win this battle because of their spirit in that moment. Remember the more intimidating the odds the greater the honour if you overcome them.

Remember in spite of reasons to doubt confidence expects to succeed and asserts something is true. Despite the past confidence expects success. No matter what has happened in the past, confidence has a supremely confident, expect to succeed,  and limitless, anything is possible, outlook  no matter how bad the past has been. That’s what it means to turn your swag, it means to feel good and to feel confident no matter your past has been or how bad your situation is. When you are successful it is easy to believe in yourself, reasons to believe are right in front of you. Maybe this is just knowledge, not confidence. It is when you have nothing that you need to believe in yourself most for the will to work hard and to take risks. Also, dream big; set big goals and believe that they will come to fruition.  That’s going to give you the desire to do more than you could ever imagine. Believe and impose your believes on reality!

Pray- Remember God is in control. He has authority over everything. That’s always reassuring. Psalm 27, Romans 8, Phillipians 4:16

Mental Fortitude is having an answer for every damn doubt you might-  As far as an argument you doubt because you focus on the reasons to doubt, you focus on the assumptions. You need to have a reason that compensates for every doubt that you have.

Tenacity-  A tenacious mindset refuses to consider the negative.

Pre-Affirmations

“Tell me what your interests are. Who you be with?” (Biggie Smalls)

Everyone feels strongly about something. You can make use of this just by reflecting on how you feel.  What do you love, what do you hate, what do you fear, what makes you angry, what is valuable to you. You can use all these things to motivate you. Furthermore you can image situations that arouse this feeling more and more. For example, in the The Dark Knight Rises there is Batman and the city of Gotham. Bruce Wayne is critically depressed when this movie starts, but by seeing his city getting destroyed it brings a passion out of him that was resting beneath. Fear becomes his fire. Fear of losing his city motivates him to doing extraordinary things to save it. Most people that use disrespect as a motivator do it with the idea of using fear as fire; saying something disrespectful, the person hearing it hates it and that motivates them to do better. The thing about disrespect is this. It exacerbates insecurity. It can aggravate an insecurity until the pain of it drowns out all else. However, disrespect may arouse passion if it is something that you hate to hear but do not believe ala someone calls you stupid and it upsets you but you don’t really feel like you’re stupid. However, if you keep hearing that you are stupid chances are you might begin to feel like it’s true. That’s why trying to motivate someone with disrespect is dangerous.  I’m against it.

The Treatment- Former President Lyndon Johnson had a maxim that he got from his father that went “When you’re talking you ain’t learning.” Johnson would listen to people, talk to them and just listen to them. He would listen to their voice to feel what was important to them, what they hated, what they fear, what they loved etc…He would just let them talk. Then he would start the treatment. He would start talking sometime for hours, working those roots as Frederick Douglas would call it. He was using what he found out to be important to those people to persuade them.

Affirmation. “The repetition of affirmations leads to belief and when that belief becomes a deep conviction things begin to happen.” (Muhummad Ali). This quote points out how hearing something again and again builds up a feeling,  a belief. Then beliefs drive actions. Often times words get stuck in our subconscious and continue to affect us emotionally long after they have been said without us even knowing it. The power of words, the bible says the tongue has the power of life and death, is to change how we feel then how we feel changes how we act changes. Words -à Emotion -à Action.

Now an affirmation can change how you feel temporarily or it can be a word that is instilled in you that changes, but an affirmation is simply something that is said to change how you feel. An affirmation should be short, Graphic and said with intensity. By short I mean it should be about the length of a tagline or a bumper sticker slogan, such as “yes we can,” “a sure winner,” or “I will succeed.” The purpose of the affirmation being short is that it makes it more memorable and “brevity is the soul of wit” (Shakespeare); there is something about a short statement that makes it forceful. It sticks in your gut. Graphic as in you want to use words or images that invoke a strong emotional reaction. Words like “absolutely,” “definitely” or “totally.” Then just think of images of you accomplishing your most desired goals.  Intensity just means to say something with strong emotion, it does not mean to yell; you can whisper with passion and assurance. Something about hearing something that sounds confident makes you want to believe it. I guess we are just conditioned to think that when something is said with assurance then it is also true. Now with those three things in mind (shortness, graphic, and intensity) you should add repetition that will build up a belief and get you in the habit of thinking about something.

Affirmations are most effective when they are shocking and dramatic, but you need assistance to do this because it is kind of impossible to surprise yourself. Say something to someone that’s short, that’s graphic, that’s intense, but now also surprise them with it and dramatize it. You can dramatize it by adding a prop. You want someone to feel tough well tell them they are “tough as nail!” and then hand them a hammer and nails. If you want someone to feel attractive tell them they should be on a magazine then hand them a magazine. If you want someone to feel like winner well tell them “You are a winner” then put a medal on them. However, don’t forget to make things short and sweet, be graphic, speak with intensity and to repeat yourself. Think of Ali saying “I am the Greatest,” “I am the Greatest,” “I am the Greatest”…

Essentially, all the ways of thinking that I mentioned in the mindset sections can be turned into affirmations. So instead of just thinking positively, speak positively. Hearing something takes it to another level than just thinking.  Since beliefs drive actions statement of intent work well. By statement of Intent I mean saying again and again what you plan to do. Then once you come to believe this it will start to affect you subconsciously, driving you to do it. Since beliefs drive actions, affirmations are a great way to strengthen your resolve to do a specific thing. “always say yes maam or yes sir,” “cut the grass on Fridays” “don’t take disrespect.” Because beliefs drive actions, affirmations will cause you to start doing things without even consciously thinking about them; that’s the power of them. Also, affirmations will help you remember things; they keep you mindful. They get you in the habit of thinking about what to do. I might go to the gym and say “Perfect form, Perfect results” or “Give the muscle a reason to grow” or “Patience and Perseverance.” This will keep me mindful of what to do. Then after saying these enough times to myself they just start to direct my behavior.

The word has to be, in you not on you. That means you know something so well that it starts to affect you subconsciously, its apart of your spirit. When situations arise you just react accordingly. If it says “glory in tribulations” you don’t think about it, you don’t look the scripture up, you just react accordingly. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1) If there Word is in you, God is in you.

The emotion is the driver, so when something is uncomfortable you naturally start thinking “I can’t do this” “This is to hard” “I want to quit” “Its impossible” and placing a limitation on yourself. When challenged remember you can always do more than you think you can. Brag over the boundary. If you’re having trouble running 1 mile tell yourself you can do 3miles, 10miles, or 100 miles. Brag over the boundary. If you’re having trouble doing 25 push ups tell yourself you can do 50. When you feel like you can’t mental toughness says you can; when you feel like you can’t cockiness says you can and it’s going to be easy.  Self-talk, like this can be very useful

Experiences instill beliefs that stay with you in the form of memories and these beliefs drive behaviors. They can be ignited or extinguished. There are also habits, moral precedent for how to handle future events based on how you handled past events. Often times you can track the things you do today and feel to memorable experiences you had in the past or habits you have been practicing from long ago. You can plant new seeds, but the memories are always there to inspire or defeat you. So when using affirmations remember to try to use what is there and to be mindful of what’s there. What can help so much is to hear positive words about things that hurt or you feel sore about from your past. Since your experiences don’t leave you, sometimes you have to constantly encourage yourself, in a particular area, just so some insecurities can stay repressed. Think about faith for a second; you’re performing rituals, reading scriptures, singing songs, praying in order to cultivate your belief in the unseen. All these things you do work to build up your faith because there is an immediate reality that would make you doubt your faith. So the practice of religion must be constant and an every day thing.

Peers- You take on the beliefs of those around you. There emotions rub off on you and you start to think the actual thoughts that they think. If you reflect, often times you will notice you feel the same way about things as your family and friends.  Also, although you might not agree with something your family does  by being exposed to the way they handle a situation it forms an impression on you to handle that situation the same way in the future. It’s nice to listen to success people to see how they think, because how they think directs how they feel and feelings drive actions. Think like a champ, feel like a champ, and behave like a champ. Succeeding is spiritual. And the thing is this when you think like a person that person becomes a part of you. When their thoughts become your thoughts in fact their spirit is inside of you.  People that are dead and gone, if you think like them in a way they are still inside of you living on. People thousands of years ago you can have commune with them, spiritual communion by simply thinking like them.

Quotes- Because people have lived and probably have faced every situation you are facing before you can usually find a word of encourage for every situation under the sun. Whether that is going into battle, feeling like you want to quit (ex: “the goal is often nearer than it seems to a faint and faltering man” from the poem Don’t Quit), Failure (ex: you did your best, you’ll do better next time), Hard times, Unfair treatment (“Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”  Booker T. Washington) . People don’t like you and Everyone doubts you.  (“If it wasn’t positive I didn’t hear it” (George Foreman)). Someone that has dealt with a situation before and overcame, they had the spiritual strength to do so. They had a certain spirit.  Reading quotes gives you that spirit.

The Sound of Swagger-“ Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” so confidence has a certain sound: “it is,” “It will” and it’s positive.  There is a  language of power. Every command or order anyone gives is in fact a request because you don’t have to follow it.

Give yourself a Moniker that is confidence building- Most people have nicknames that are somewhat diminishing or just plain insulting. Examples: “The greatest.” “The King.” “tiger.” After hearing you are something again and again you start to behave like you are, you want to make it a reality.

Trash talk- Trash talk has several purposes. #1 The purpose of trash talk is to make you abandon your discipline. You make someone so afraid, so angry, etc… that they just cannot control themselves. #2 Bragging can build confidence and value by focusing on good things about yourself and it can also be intimidating to others. #3 Giving others insulting or mocking monikers can make someone that is intimidating seem like a joke. Muhammad Ali gave all his opponents nicknames. Floyd Patterson was the “rabbit,” Joe Frazier was the “gorilla,” and Sonny Liston was the “bear.” This may all seem silly, but it conveys the importance of respect and honour: if you focus on the strengths of someone you look up to them and are even intimidating by them and if you focus on the weaknesses of someone you are not afraid of them and you may look down on them. #4 Trash talk puts ideas in your head. For example, lets say someone tells you they are going to push you down during a race. They may have no intention of doing this, but by them telling you this you worry about. #5 Trash talk catches your attention and it can be funny. I always see Floyd Mayweather ridiculing his opponents viciously before matches and then lavishing praise on his opponents after the match. He has said time and time again “We all equal.” Trash talk serves a strategic purpose of psyching yourself up and psyching yourself out, but some people take what is said to heart.

Pressure reveals your truest convictions and brings things out. Like I said passion comes from a need. What do I mean by that? If you believe you need something (like oxygen, food, water, family) when it seems like you may lose it, because of pressure, it brings an intense desire out of you.  When pressed you do things you always intended to do under such pressure. If you can imagine now you can probably think of scenarios where you would work harder or take certain risks. Imagine those scenarios happening, mediate on them and speak on them to motivate you. However, maybe you don’t always think about everything when you’re under pressure. You don’t think about everything that is important to you and that can lead to regret.

Disrespect will bring out convictions. However, disrespect will destroy weak beliefs. And maybe that weak belief was a belief you should have had. Maybe that weak belief would have produced success if it was affirmed. Maybe that weak belief was a seed that would have produced fruit it would have just been watered instead being thrown amongst the weeds and under the sun. Maybe that weak belief would have produced success. Don’t tolerate disrespect.

Something that stopping people from affirming themselves is indecision. Logic. They just can’t make the leap to believe something. The greatest challenge to affirming yourself is that it is very hard for most people to tell themselves something is true when they feel like it’s not true. Additionally, it may hard to see how a word of encouragement or discouragement, a belief, can be driving his or her behavior. People make theories about the subconscious all day; some of them crazy and far-fetched. However, if there is a feeling or action that you are performing that is related to something you heard. There is a high chance that it came from what you heard.

Self-Image. There are specific ways simply to target thinking of yourself better. Your self-image is how you think of yourself. You can send yourself messages to improve yourself image.

1.)    Dressed for Success- dress nicely and you look like you should succeed, like you should expect to succeed. Do you look like you deserve to succeed? Are you sending yourself that message?

2.)    Cleanliness is next to Godliness- clean up your surroundings and you look like you’re good.

3.)    Working Out- A strong body will send yourself the message that you are powerful

4.)    Accomplishments-accomplishing things sends yourself the message that you have power

5.)    Doing New Things- this illustrates ability you did not know had.

*Often times people draw a great amount of self-image from money, appearance, status, power and accomplishments, but this limits their confidence by what they can perceive. Hopefully, by reading this essay you will understand that people have an innate worth that God has planted in them that they can draw confidence no matter your past or circumstance. “The Child of God is the touchstone of value” (RFK)

Mood

“The Joy of the Lord is your strength”  (Nehemiah 8:10)

The heart of confidence is feeling good about yourself.  Everything is easier to do and deal with when you’re in a good mood.  How you feel influences how you think and You project how you feel onto things. You project your emotional state unto reality  Joy. Just whether you are in a good mood or not means so much. When you are afraid everything feels wrong. When you are ashamed everything feels wrong. Just because you feel ashamed of yourself you start to doubt what you think. Then when you are insecure you seek reassure. Insecurity seeks reassurance. Insecurity is a bad feeling on the inside that you can’t deal with and so you want to get away from it. Just like a drowning man will cling to anything to stay afloat, an insecure person will latch onto anything to make them feel better. Insecurity makes you very impressionable.  Signs of insecurity can be talking too much, looking for help/sympathy/complaining, clinging to others etc… The thing about disrespect is that it makes you feel insecure and easy to manipulate. Yet another reason to hate disrespect.

The goal of getting in a good mood is to replace a negative emotion with a positive emotion.  Anger can do that, but you don’t want to get angry because anger is a hurtful and reckless emotion. Replace negative emotion with positive emotion. Fatigue, feeling bad makes you feel like you can’t do things when you can do (if you have the will)… however if you couldn’t physically you would just pass out. When you’re discouraged time slips away because you have no energy, you have no will.  Laughter is a great way to make an awkward situation comfortable. It replace the emotion. This is why people laugh when embarrassed or insecure.

The heart of confidence is feeling good about yourself.  When you feel good about yourself you have energy. Most importantly you project that good feeling onto things and that gives you a will to go do those things. Getting in a good mood is a way to artificially stimulate confidence. There are ways to do this.

a.      Regular exercise releases endorphins and that raises your mood.

b.      Dress to impress because when you look good you feel good

c.       Listening to music – “Music has charms to soothe the savage beast” (Congreve)

d.      Reading (scriptures or even the paper)

e.      Singing.

f.        Feng Shui- a change of scenery can really change how you feel. Especially if it isn’t reminding you of insults and past hurts.

g.      Doing things you are good at and doing things you are bad at. Is relative to that state but determines your emotional state.

h.      Love- Consistent pleasant stimulus eventually puts you in a good mood.  Then when you are expose to that stimulus enough you expect that stimulus to be pleasant and furthermore you just find yourself in a good mood around that stimulus.

i.        All things that get you in a good mood.

*Important* A crutch is something you use to avoid facing reality, to avoid dealing with reality.  At some point a crutch allows you to walk when you can’t walk on your own. Then you have to stand on your own two feet and risk falling and deal with the readjustment. However, sometimes if we don’t have to walk on our own two feet we never do. There is a great seen in the movie Cat On a Hot Tin Roof where the main character Brick who has a broken leg breaks his crutch and now is forced to make it without. He had been drinking heavily because he could not face reality. The seen is sort of symbolic of his need to break his dependency on alcohol.  Sometimes it’s the crutch that’s holding you back. Insecurity is a bad feeling on the inside that you can’t deal with and so you want to get away from it. You try to get away from it by looking for sympathy, complaining, throwing a pity party, laughing, seeking attention, lashing out in anger, partying. People do so many things simply because they cannot deal with a feeling. Raising your mood, this is not doing stuff to escape or to get away…binge eating, pornography, drugs. Raising your mood is about raising your mood to actually help you get through something it not about escaping.

Perfect love casts out fear. Perfect Love Casts Out Fear. Oh, So what does that mean? Simple, love replaces a positive emotion with a negative emotion. So where there is fear, shame or hurt there is now a good feeling that, that, that...liberates you. Also having someone excited about what you want to do, or doing, excites you and makes you want to do it. You don’t mind it don’t matter. That’s what love does.  It makes you forget pain, insults, insecurities. Loves fills insecurities. Love relieves pressure. Love compensates for not being solid mentally. You feel so good that you forget about all the things you’re unsure about and everything that hurts because someone loves you kid! The harm is this can spoil you from being developed because It can stop you from facing things and cementing yourself. However, if you don’t have compassion you don’t have much. The importance of compassion is reassurance.

You see everyone needs things to be a certain way in order to be successful, because you were raised a certain way. And we all have needs sometimes. Sometimes we all need a little help. If a man is too proud to acknowledge his feelings he will be doomed to be controlled or defeated by them because the pressure is going to keep building whether you acknowledge it or not. The words of Lean on Me….

“Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow

Lean on me, when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
'Til I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on

Please swallow your pride
If I have things you need to borrow
For no one can fill those of your needs
That you won't let show”

Again, If a man is too proud to acknowledge his feelings he is doomed to be controlled and defeated by them. Everyone needs things to be a certain way to be at his/her best. Robert Caro writes in his biography of Lyndon Johnson, the former president that often had the appearance of assurance, that “He wrote his mother several times a week, and she wrote him almost every day—letters of effusive encouragement and endearment (“My dearest love”; “My splendid sweet son”); there had begun a torrent of mail from his mother that would not end until [his mother’s] death thirty years later” (147, the Path of Power). If there is a void the void must be filled. People can be ashamed to admit this. You would say this is pride (fearing the loss of status), but this is really just a feeling that it s wrong to say you have emotional needs.  People always say if you don’t believe in yourself, who will believe in you? Well, I said it one time and I remember an interesting answer I got. “If you don’t believe in yourself, who will believe in you?”. . .”your mom.” Your mother believes in you, often times more than anyone else. This is important, very important if your mother sends you “messages,” confidence wise, that other people and your surroundings are not sending you. If your mother is telling you that you are awesome and nothing else in your life, no one else in your life, is sending you that message if you remove your mother from the equation there will be a huge void, a drastic void. The master politician LBJ realized this; he knew people.

Experience. If encouragement were the building blocks of confidence experience is the cement that holds them in place. Encouragement builds up confidence and experience cements it. Accomplishments cement confidence and give you hope for accomplishing so much more. Seeing is believing, the intensity of experience often just carries more weight than anything else as far as building confidence. Every experience is a message that either chips away at or builds your self-image.

Getting Out of your comfort Zone will build confidence if you are uncomfortable because you have no experience with something. When you have no experience with something you feel anxious because you don’t know what to expect. Then once you gain experience you know what to expect and the anxiety subsides. Getting out of your comfort zone should be done step by step, because you’re slowly facing a certain amount of fear that you can cope with at that moment. It’s crucial that you encourage yourself to face that fear. Get into a good mood because you will project mood onto whatever you’re doing and that’ll give you a desire to do it or not to do it. Use your mindset to motivate you. Visualize, your vision of you succeeding is the light that will carry through the darkness; meaning your vision has to be strong enough to drive you through overcoming your fear. Maybe sometimes you have to fail a few times, but slowly the feelings start to change. However, it is crucial that you get out of your comfort zone because IF YOU WANT SOMETHING YOU NEVER HAD BEFORE YOU MUST BE WILLING TO DO SOMETHING YOU HAVE NEVER DONE BEFORE. THAT MEANS YOU GOT TO GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE. THAT MEANS YOU GOT TO WANT TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE.

Many look the part but can you play the part? Playing the part, that depends on your heart and that depends on your experience. Comparing Saul and David, both become king at age 30 but Saul passes no tests to become King. David Passes many trials and tribulations, overcomes them in order to become King (See 1 Samuel). The people of Israel rushed Saul because they wanted a King and Saul got the job but he wasn’t ready. He had not gotten over his fears. He was afraid of criticism before he became King and this character flaw would haunt him as King and ruin his Kingship. Just like your eyes may be too big for your stomach, your ambition may be too big for your character. Patience. Its better to wait and know you can do something before you do it than to rush and hope you can do it. When you really want something its easy to fall into victim to wishful thinking.

Patience was why David was King and doing too much too soon was why Saul was a reject, rejected by God. I am convinced he would have been a good King if he wasn’t rushed by the people of Israel. Success Occurs When Opportunity Meets Preparation.  In Saul you can find the classic signs of insecurity, looking for help by his clinging to Samuel. Saul looks for a way out and he submits to pressure. In 1 Samuel 14 Saul submits to criticism and gets rebuked for it. Then in 1 Samual 15 Saul steps back up in weight, back up in class but he has not done nothing in the interim to overcome his fear of the people and what’s done in the dark comes to the light so he fails again. See you overcome character flaws by building yourself up to restest yourself in a similar situation, retesting yourself and then passing that test. Taking a loss can hurt, but they say a true champ can come back…from anything. Win or lose, succeed or fail your self-image should not change. There is an obvious confidence problem in Saul, fear of people and clinginess. Saul is so insecure he tries to raise Samuel from the dead for reassurance near the end of his Kingship. 1 Samuel 28. “Men honour titles, titles don’t honour men.” (Machiavelli)

See, patience is not overprotection. Babying is protecting someone from facing things. Neglect is facing things to soon and not teaching how to overcome; sink or swim essentially. Babying can also be not allowing someone to encourage themselves, however you do need to be encouraged to face things sometimes. So babying is more protecting someone from facing things instead of encouraging someone

David is grounded in something that makes him strong, God. He relies on God. He encourages himself. David is quoted in saying that “Even his mother and father can forsake him,” the Lord will be with him (Psalm 27). True spiritual independence; he’s not clinging to anyone. Also, he is progresses at a measured pace. He watches his fathers sheep and fights tigers and bears before he ever fought Goliath.  There are many trials and tribulations he goes through before becoming King (1 Samuel 16-30).  Then when David sins…( Bathsheba, Census, etc…). A true champ comes back.

After being hurt, after taking a loss how do you come back?

1.)    Know how you feel- People change without even knowing that they have changed. You know there is a difference between knowing how someone feels and how that's affecting them and working with that versus having assumptions about how someone should feel, how you want them to feel, and holding them accountable for something that's really just a delusion, an unrealistic standard.

2.)    Working with your feelings realistically, that means knowing how you feel is affecting you. Taking steps to heal yourself and build yourself back up. You want experiences to slowly build your confidence back up. Do not rush.

3.)    Know why you got hurt. Know why you took a loss. This gives you reassurance that it won’t happen again and to improve your performance next time.

4.)    The sky is the limit. You can do anything you set your mind to. As Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “Triumph and Disaster” are two imposters. If you succeed remember you could have failed. If you fail remember you could have succeeded. Failure can often convince you that you just can’t, but that is just a lie.

What a person you would be if you could be confident without the scars of experience!

Note of Caution: Experience may not always build confidence.  Sometimes experience may just reinforced preexisting insecurities. You may not process a situation in a confidence building way. Your interpretation keeps you insecure. Example: Girls talk to you because they are friendly not because they are feeling you. Striking out in a baseball game is awful even though you have done it a million times and have been okay. You passed a test because you were lucky not because you were smart, or because it was easy. Sometimes you need to change the way you think about things in order to start to reinforce confidence. I mean you have to change the way you process things and that is done with affirmations.  “It is not awful” It its not awful” “It is not awful.”

Independence/Self-Reliance

“Not that we want to have dominion over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, because it is by your own faith that you stand firm.” (2 Corinthians 1:24)

“What I want you to be - I don't mean physically, but morally; you are very well physically - is, a firm fellow. A fine firm fellow, with a will of your own. With resolution,' said my aunt, shaking her cap at me, and clenching her hand. 'With determination. With character, with strength of character that is not to be influenced, except on good reason, by anybody, or by anything. That's what I want you to be.” (David Copperfield)  

The two parts of being emotionally independent are 1.) habit of encouraging yourself and 2.) Experience with facing things. When you are dependent people face things for you and give you lots of psychological support. The

Love. With love and support you can accomplish more than by being independent. You can do more. More. So independence may not be important at all. It depends on what you want man. It depends on what you're trying to get out of life. Perfect Love Cast Out Fear, with affection and positivity you feel better about things that might have been intimidating or uncomfortable so now you can do them. Or You feel so strongly about something, you fall in love with it that you can't help but do it. (Genesis 29:20). "How bold one gets when one is sure of being loved." (Sigmund Freud). Love is the Consummator of Dreams because it gives you that drive to put that work in man, to make your dreams a reality! You know, to go above and beyond what is customary, you got to have a love for what you're doing, because if you’re doing something out of necessity you are also looking for a way out of doing it.

Most people hate babying but you got to crawl before you can walk. Patience, if you are stressed out and overwhelmed all the time. You can’t develop you can only  survive. To develop good habits you need patience.

Why self-reliance is important? Don’t mistake kindness for weakness. How does someone mistake kindness for weakness? Well when someone is mean you fear being outgoing because you don’t want to be criticized or hurt for it. When someone is nice you feel comfortable being yourself, so comfortable that you might start pushing boundaries and boundaries that you would not have pushed if you were less comfortable. Another thing about nice people is this, they can make you feel like they have your best interest in mind when they do not. This can be quite a rude awakening that someone can make you feel like family when they are exploiting the hell out of you. Furthermore, when someone is nice to you feel guilty about standing up to them when you need to. Even further, if you are dependent upon someone you maybe you can’t stand up to them when you need to.

Competitiveness: It is hard to develop confidence because people are not positive and affectionate or patient with one another. Often times we don't want others to feel good about themselves and what they're doing. It might be because of pride. I think it is because it makes you feel bad about yourself, that you are less, to see other feel good.

Independence/Self-reliance. Part of what it means to be a man is that you can rely on yourself, you know your heart won't fail you. Someone insecure is like someone drowning, they'll cling to anything. The truest signs of being overprotected are looking for sympathy because you're not in the habit of encouraging yourself or "sucking it up," looking for help because you're not in the habit of facing... things on your own, only thinking ideally and never how reality works because someone has been dealing with reality for you, and being too trustful because you're in the habit of thinking others don't have your best interest in mind. Notably, developing independence does not come from a sink or swim mentality, it comes from progressive development by experience and repitition. A classic example of someone who failed because they were not progressively developed is King Saul and a classic example of someone who succeeded is King David. One was prepared for the moment and the other was not.

Furthermore, everyone wants something; I mean they have their own interest, beliefs and experience. I hate to sound cynical but quite frankly, you really can’t trust people until you know them until they have been tested. You have to be your own person, you have to be your own man, and want to be respected more than you want to be accepted if you’re going to have self-respect. “None, but ourselves can free our minds.”

How do you help someone to become independent?

You instill beliefs in them. You encourage them to face their fears. You teach them how to encourage themselves. You teach them skills that empower them (I do, we do, you do). You build habits by doing things again and again and again until its like you been doing it your whole life; out of habit and repetition people do what they have been trained to do. This sounds simple, but the value of this can’t be overstated. When someone has been hopelessly trapped in their ways, but then they get out that is a profound thing. It can’t be forgotten.

Knowledge- Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation. Knowing what to do can give you great confidence. Knowing what you’re trying to accomplish when under pressure is very helpful. You got to have a plan, so you don’t drift. You got to have a plan so you actually go where you want to go when you are pressed. Without knowing what direction you want to go, a person can very much be like a ship in the ocean tossed and thrown of course in a storm. “Every manoeuvre must be the development of a scheme; it must aim at a goal.” (Ferdinand Foch)

“There are very few new things in this world, very few. That’s why people that are young, if they’re smart, try to profit from the experience of an older guy so they won’t have to go through all the pain and suffering. But a certain amount of pain and suffer is good, because it makes a person think they’ve learned.” (Cus D’Amato)

This essay is pulled from so many sources. Men and women that have lived and learned. And I am just taking their lessons. You got to be your own man, but you can learn a lot from others. That quote is from Cus d’amato that had the two youngest heavyweight champions: Floyd Patterson at 21 (The Youngest Undisputed Heavyweight Champion) and Mike Tyson at 20 (Youngest Heavyweight Champion). That is quite an accomplishment when you consider how much boxing is about discipline and strategy ( such as angles, head movement, in-fighting & smothering punches. It’s really an art to hitting and not getting hit)

Everyone needs a role model. Something that really builds confidence is too see someone like you, that came from the same type of situations as you, overcome or accomplish things. It’s a great inspiration. It’s a road map to guide your path. People really need guidance, because without guidance you are cursed to learn the hard way, by trial and error. Society has consistently progressed, making technological, strategic, and other advances that make our lives easier to take. We have the sacrifices of those from the past to thank. However, because life is easier people are not as discipline, not as solid mentally. In the course of succeeding at anything one has to deal with pressures and exercise discipline. Your role model succeed because he or she dealt with those pressure and because thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions your role model thinks in a certain way that is necessary to overcome pressure. With that being said, if you just listen and take on some on their thought to overcome pressure. Not so much as to control them but to help them to get what they want out of life. You can learn discipline from a role model and you can learn knowledge. A very good question to ask an older person what do you know now that you wish you knew?

That do you want and how can I help. If you want people to just take you as an authority well you have someone desperate for advice. Desperate for hope. Otherwise you have to have patience. Advice should be given slowly, sensibly and repetitively. By sensibly, I mean there must be a rationale behind advice so a person can choose whether that’s something they are looking to apply. Also, that’s how you avoid insulting someone’s intelligence. Then there is patience for feelings to change, to develop discipline, and to learn (small amounts of info).  Too often people push to fast too soon and destroy people’s interest.

At the end of  the day it  is not what you know but how you apply it –strategy.

A very useful strategy in  any type of competition is the element of surprise. It is a great way to create a strategic disadvantage. You catch a person off guard then they have to figure out what they want to do, what is going on when you may have an entire plan mapped out (Surprise plus overwhelming aggression is a very effective strategy in military history). So the other person is not strategically prepared. Also, the other person is not prepared mentally so they may not be prepared to deal with it. Furthermore, a surprise is stunning it can very much suddenly take your will. That’s the test of character to persist when caught off guard. Weather the storm until you can get your feet back under you. However, to surprise you most have stealth.  When I think of strategy I think of the Artful Dodger from Oliver Twist who had all  the characteristics of a man but was not even 5 feet talk. His cleverness, his outthinking others and perceptiveness made him strong. If you ever look into anything about prison you see very resourceful things used to survive. You’ll be surprised what you can do when you need to find away, one’s ingenuity can become astonishing!

Habit of Encouraging yourself:

 You want to do things daily to encourage yourself and that creates the habit of encouraging yourself. That builds confidence then you want to use that confidence to behave a certain way and keep behaving that way until you from a habit of behaving that way. Once you have a habit of behaving a certain way you feel the urge within to behave that way. If you are in the habit of encouraging yourself you feel the urge to build confidence and that confidence fortifies your habit of behaving a certain way. It is important to know how to encourage yourself because if you find yourself in a toxic environment and you look to your environment for encouragement then your spirit will die. Since people can encourage themselves you may think you never have to help anyone. This not so simple. It is very hard to overcome your fears and bad habits by yourself, perhaps impossible sometimes. Also, encouraging words offered by others that are instilled become self-confidence. So, yes you can be confident in yourself because of the opinion of others.

Daily Mood Raising:

It all starts with mood, getting in a good mood by thinking positively, speaking positively, and other activities to raise your spirit. When you’re discouraged you have psychological fatigue and feel like you can’t do the simplest things.  Once you’re in a good mood focus on the things you want to do. Then focus on all the awesome or awful things that will come from not doing them.

Artifically you get yourself in a good mood. Then Get in the habit thinking about things that are positive subconsciously and you will naturally find yourself in a good mood!

If you are in a bad mood your mood will suppress/depress everything you want to do. It will stand in your way. When people are hurt enough they don’t even want to eat sometimes. Think for a second, many people will think being happy makes you comfortable and not want things. Its not being happy that makes you comfortable per se it’s a lack of drive.

Recap

Confidence is a good feeling on the inside that comes from expecting something good to happen or focusing on the something good. Furthermore confidence expects something to happen or says something is true inspite of reasons to doubt. Thoughts influence emotion so it is important to think positively in order to build confidence. Repitition of affirmations leads to belief and belief drive actions so you can build your confidence by what you say and what the people around you say. You’re mood influence your thoughts so you can manufacture confidence simply by getting in a good mood. Experience cements the confidence you build up.

Respect, Humility, and Ego

“Kindness is a language the deaf can hear and the blind can see”

“I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.” (Great Expectations)

“Firmness, I may observe, was the grand quality on which both Mr. and Miss Murdstone took their stand. However I might have expressed my comprehension of it at that time, if I had been called upon, I nevertheless did clearly comprehend in my own way, that it was another name for tyranny; and for a certain gloomy, arrogant, devil's humour, that was in them both. The creed, as I should state it now, was this. Mr. Murdstone was firm; nobody in his world was to be so firm as Mr. Murdstone; nobody else in his world was to be firm at all, for everybody was to be bent to his firmness.” (David Copperfield, “I Fall Into Disgrace”)

What is respect?

Respect comes from thinking of someone in a positive, empowered and valuable light then you treat them accordingly. How people treat you has an affect on you; they can change the way you think and feel. For instance, disrespect hurts your self-image, can instill self-defeating feelings and makes you think that it is okay to be disrespected;  vindication,  holding people accountable for disrespect makes you feel it is wrong to accept disrespect and it removes an insult, a negative feeling and replace it with honor, a good feeling. Most importantly, the certainty of accountability deters disrespect. The people you surround yourself with can really make you feel unsure of yourself and ashamed of yourself. However, if disrespect does not humiliate you and diminish your confidence it can make you indignant and motivate you. Since how people treat you has an influence on you, to build and maintain confidence it is important to surround yourself around people that respect you and love you because Perfect love casts out fear.   It replaces apprehensions with good thoughts, but most importantly it replaces hurt with a good feeling. How much bolder we are when are sure being love. Love makes us bolder because it gives us a good feeling that we can project onto the things that we do and that encourages us to do those things. Confidence builds will.

What are the ramifications of disrespect?

1.)    Feeling bad about yourself and the things you want to do; you feel so bad about yourself that you become depressed. You can feel so bad about yourself that you totally lose interest, and the inclination, to do things you would hope.

2.)    Since the emotion is the driver and you feel bad you start psyching yourself out. Your start thinking  “I can’t,” “I ain’t good enough,” “I’m unworhty” and you become convinced you that you cannot do things. Somethings are not  even a possibility for you, you don’t even think about them!

3.)    You are easily manipulated. When you feel bad, unsure, you do almost anything to feel better.

4.)    You don’t stand up for yourself because you feel like you don’t deserve to stand up for yourself and that you can’t stand up for yourself.

5.)    You do not trust your judgment. Your beliefs, values, and wants all seem wrong; all wrong!

6.)    Broken spirit, broken will. Traumatized. You are tormented by words and memories.

7.)    You develop an inferiority complex, thinking something is wrong with you when there is not. Something is wrong with the way I talk, the way I think, and what I want etc…There are plethora of psychological diagnoses to support just feeling insecure and inferior. What is thought to be a learning disability or personality disorder can really just be you not liking yourself. This can fortify insecurity for a lifetime

8.)    Low self-esteem and false limitations. You put with things you don’t have to and don’t do things you can do

9.)    Self-loathing. You begin to dislike yourself and want to be other people.

10.)                        No Boundaries. You lose all sense of boundaries and are fine with people walking all over you.

11.)                        Permissive of disrespect. You start wanting to take crap because you have got in the habit of taking crap. You are okay with getting disrespected because its something you have accepted..

12.)                        Poor bearing You start talking negatively about yourself and therefore inviting people to feel negatively about and therefore inviting more disrespect.

13.)                        Ruin your reputation and Quality of life- people don’t want to associate with you and doubt you all because someone else dissed respected you.

Why you deserve respect?

Some people say well you don’t respect yourself so you don’t deserve respect. Everyone deserves respect. Some people don't respect themselves but by hearing you deserve better and you can do better people do better. By other people treating like you deserve respect you come to believe that you deserve respect and you act like it. you know you learn to respect yourself by other people respecting you.

What’s the Importance of respect?

God has planted a seed of innate worth in you and respect, dignity, keeps you mindful of that.

 1.) Self-confidence and Self-esteem, being around people that are positive and value actually builds your confidence

 2.) Maintain your own values- One man’s trash is a another man’s treasure, one man’s style is another man’s insecurity. Some people like movies and some people like books. Some people would pay everything to go to a baseball game and place no value on soccer. Some people like SUVs and others hate them. Some people like quiet people, some people like outgoing people. Some people like laughter and others like seriousness. People like different things. If someone directs their disapproval towards you they can impose their values on you or in the least make you feel ashamed of what you value.

3.) Personal Autonomy- Feeling free to live life your way, well its important not to feel peer pressure.

 4.) Independent Judgment- confidence is important in the way you think. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but you shouldn’t going around making people feel like their opinion is wrong.

5.) Boundaries.

6.) Happiness

Dealing with disrespect?

With all that being said dealing with disrespect is an act of discipline. If anyone saw a person playing in a game and that person walked off the field because a fan booed them we would all call that weak. However, you should never put up with disrespect if you can stop it. Whether you expose yourself to disrespect or not should all be conditioned upon whether you are prepared to deal with the dis respect or not; is your development prepared to cope with it. You can persist through disrespect if your will is strong, but it still have lasting effects on your thinking and feelings. While getting through disrespect , disrespect can also have the effect of lowering your self-esteem, self-confidence, and destroying your interest in a subject. People are broken by disrespect because they have not cemented themselves and that often comes from contradictory messages. They believe they are worthy, but they also have things, probably experiences, telling them that they are not worthy. It is humiliating experiences that bring out insecurities and even cements them.  The memories of disrespect stay with you forever; they are always there to gnaw upon your spirit when you get challenged. Do not play with disrespect because with enough time and pressure any man can be broken.

With time disrespect builds self-defeating beliefs to a point where you may no longer be able to bear it.

There are really four ways to deal with disrespect

1.) Avoid it (Artful Dodger). If you can’t deal with the pressure then find a way around it in order to accomplish your goals. Cut all those negative people out of your life. I would recommend this method if you can because disrespect ultimately has an erosive effect even if you are solid mentally in the area you are being disrespected in.

 2.) Ignore it (“block out all them haters”). You don’t mind it, don’t matter. You hear people talking junk then you immediately tune them out.

3.) Be secure, solid mentally, that it rolls off your back. Its kind of like a joke.  When I think of this style there’s a picture of a solider getting yelled at by two drill sargents and he is kind of just smirking

4.) Persevere through it. This is probably the worst method, because the disrespect is affecting you emotionally and changing you even though you are getting through it. Then once you are changed emotionally you are never quite the same.

Conclusion

Character is a composite of your subconscious feelings, drives and instincts, and habits (mental and emotional).  You don’t want to get disrespected because it instills defeating feelings and beliefs in you.  Also, you don’t want disrespect to go unchecked because it gets you in the habit of taking crap. Every time you take it, its one more precedent building up a snowball.  They’ll come a time to stand up for yourself or another and you won’t because of those precedents.  Because you were permissive of disrespect (or you were disrespected when you did not have the strength to stand up to it) a part of you wants to get disrespected because you are in the habit of allowing disrespect. Furthermore, because it becomes your character you might find yourself talking about yourself in a disrespectful, inviting people to disrespect you. This is problematic because when some people see weakness they exploit it or they see a boundary can be pushed they push it.

If you don’t realize how disrespect changes how you feel and what you do you are naïve. Disrespect will make feel just wrong, like it’s wrong to think for yourself, wrong to stand up for yourself and to do what you want. Disrespect will hurt so bad until you ultimately are broken and you’re trapped by your feelings. You can’t confront challenges, you settle for less. You’re so hurt that you don’t care about pride or dignity at all. Its truly a pit of despair.  Its kind of like a pimp, its kind of like a caste system, its kind of like slavery. Since disrespect takes your ability to stand up for yourself and makes actually ok with disrespect: if you accept disrespect you are accepting being a loser.

Self-respect.

 Self-respect is many things, but most importantly to be treated as I am: Your equal.

Don’t let people bad mouth you or put you down, don’t let people push your boundaries and charge for real estate if they do, don’t let people laugh at you because you should be taken seriously, don’t treat people like they are better than you, demand that people are considerate of your feelings,  and most importantly don’t let people insult your judgment and opinions. Even if you know your value if you get in the habit of taking crap, if you begin to BELIEVE it is ok to take crap it’s going to be an uphill battle against yourself to get over that. “I cannot conceive of a greater loss than the loss of one's self-respect.” (Gandhi)

It is very naïve to think someone that’s disrespecting will value you, this is the fallacy of sacrificing dignity to be liked. If you don’t love yourself who is going love you.

Seeking validation/reassurance- validation makes you feel better when you feel bad.  Sometimes people need validation, but people often look in all the wrong places for validation. Respecting yourself means not putting yourself in the position to be disrespected. If you know someone does not like you or is mean you don’t open yourself up to that person. Don’t put yourself in compromising situations where you need people that might take advantage of you.

You decide what you approve of and what you disapprove of then live according to that and demand respect for that. You don’t seek no one else’s approval. When you don’t have confidence you can’t be your own person because you seek approval so as to not feel bad. Earning respect is a popular idea, and you value you the things you earn a lot, but working too hard for something of too little value can be an insult.

A preacher once told me others will impose their insecurities on you so you have to know how to walk alone.

Self-esteem Carry yourself like you are worth something and you got something to give. If you don’t think you are entitled to anything, you can be treated any kind of way

“People, especially if they come up in a rough area, have to go through a number of experiences in life that are intimidating and embarrassing. These experiences form layer upon layer over their capabilities and talents. So your job as a teacher is to peel off these layers." (Cus D’amato)

Disrespect and mistreatment leaves you with a negative feeling about yourself and diminishes yourself image so you start thinking you can’t do things you can do.

Self-esteem determines your reality.

How to build Self-esteem

1.)    Know Your Value- John 3:16

2.)    Love thyself- See yourself and everything you do in a positive light.

3.)    Focus on your Strengths, what you can do not what you can’t do

4.)    Set Boundaries and Standards

5.)    Send the Positive Confidence Building Messages to yourself in order to build self-esteem.  If you don’t have drive to hold standards or boundaries there is no use having them. Don’t be afraid of not being accepted because of standards

6.)    No Limits, visualize who is highly respected and valued. Example: The Legendary Louisiana Governor Huey P. Long authored the book My First Days in the White House where he wrote himself as president and FDR in his cabinet. Imagine that being the boss of his superiors, imagine that. Could you ever imagine being ahead of people that are ahead of you?

The things keeping you from self-esteem is negative thinking and fear, fear that you won’t be accepted if you have boundaries and standards.

In World War II, face a bleak situation where at one point Britain was the only country fighting Germany. It seemed that Hitler might conquer Europe, but Churchill told Britain “Deserve Victory. “ Do not settle for less. Because this is what you are entitled to you cannot stand anything less so you demand it with hard work. You work hard because you feel entitled to it. In times of challenge, your attitude must be “I will overcome,” firm and stout. You can’t think I am okay with what I have and you can’t think “I can’t.”  You must think you are capable and you must want to overcome; deserving victory fosters both.

Self-esteem determines what you will tolerate. With low self-esteem you put up with things you don’t have to and you do unnecessary things. You are bigger than that son. If you accept disrespect you accept being a loser. Your self-esteem determines what you will settle for and so it determines your reality. Self-esteem will motivate you to do better. The more you fail the more accepting of failure you become.

Victimization

Negative events are prejudicial, leading to believe you can’t do things you can do and demoralizing.

Victim of impression. Someone gets a bad feeling about you so now they draw negative conclusions about you, put negative labels on you, and ignore the good about you.

Victim of assumptions- someone starts thinking you’d other things based on something else you have done.  Let’s say someone sees you speeding they may think you are reckless when you simply may have misread the speed limit sign. Let’s say you are  shy and don’t talk to people maybe others think you are snobby.

Impression is something that you focus on and it affects you emotionally and may continue to affect you emotionally on a subconscious level.

Reputation-Never show weakness unless you want to be thought of as weak. You shouldn’t badmouth yourself even to family or friends. Respect is subconscious and will continue to feel and think of you in a certain way depending upon events that have happened way in the past

Bearing- This is a way to project strength and dignity through your body language. Examples include: projecting your voice, eye contact, firm hand shake, upright posture, speaking of yourself in a positive light. You should never show weakness because this put you at the mercy of others, whether or not they will exploit your weakness. People naturally make assumptions about you based upon what they perceive.

When people put you down you put yourself right back up that’s how that work, reach for something even more glorious to compensate for the insult. To change an impression you have to do something shockingly impressive.

Trust instincts because you’re not always prepared to articulate what you believe. Just because you can’t articulate yourself effectively does not make you wrong.

Standing Up For Yourself: Confrontation is better than Domination

“If you let a bully come in your front yard, he'll be on your porch the next day and the day after that he'll rape your wife in your own bed” (Lyndon B. Johnson)

“If your brother sins against you rebuke him and if he repents forgive him” (Luke 17:3)

Accept reality. A bully will rape your wife in your bed if you can’t stop him. A bully will take your soul, completely changing how you feel and behave as a person. There is no limit to what he or her may do unless you do something about it. Do nothing and nothing will change.

Believing in Yourself, Deserve Respect-To Stand up to disrespect you have to know you deserve better and you have to feel like you can have better. However, disrespect makes you feel like you don’t deserve better and that you can’t have better. You have to encourage yourself.

Understand how your intelligence can be insulted- A bully will make you feel like something is wrong with the way you think, that what you believe is all in your head. They will make you think something is wrong with your logic when there are assumptions in everything. They will make you feel like your priorities are totally off. In fact, a bully will get mad at you for not letting them bully you. They will make you feel guilty about it. So you really can’t reason with them. They will always put you down and make you feel guilty. I know Satan and his ways. If someone says something to make you unsure of yourself you should be highly offended, highly.

You have the need for Independence-Just like Mr. Murdstone in David Copperfield bullies will mistreat and convince you that it is right by making you feel stupid, like an imbecile (“I Fall Into Disgrace,” David Copperfield).  This breaks your will to resist. Then people will just say it is your fault for not standing up for yourself because they can’t understand you can’t deal with the pressure your under by no fault of your own.These people do not change, because the impulse that caused them to act this way will always be within them. You fall victim to them because you look to others for reassurance; you don’t have self-confidence in your own mind. Lord knows this is one of the most important reasons why I wrote this essay. You fall victim to Tyranny and Bullying because you can’t stand the pressure of someone disagreeing with you, so you give in. (I make a practice when I argue to tell people the reasons why I think I am right not why I think they are so that they believe me because they actually believed me and not because they feel guilty) “You have a sound mind and five senses. You don’t need no one to tell you shit!”

Be Firm-YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOU BELIEVE, AND VALUE AND BE STOUT AND RESOLUTE. You have to know you are right without a shadow or a doubt. A bully will always victimize you then tell you they are right…because obviously they wouldn’t victimize you if the felt strongly about what you felt about. So you if you’re going to stand up for yourself, you’re going to have to believe in yourself. You can’t reason with a bully, you have to bully a bully. There is no other way.

Be the Boss- When you go into a fight or an argument you  have to know you deserve to win, you have to believe you can win and you must seek to impose your will on the other man.

When Arguing-Points in your favor. Know what you want. Know what you believe. Encourage yourself. Know the difference between feeling bad and feeling convinced. Trust Your Judgment-trust your instincts always because that’s coming from experience. To win an argument and to even have your position respected you have to have points. Points. You must always make points when saying what you think. Look for decisive factors, something that completely will decide a matter for you. When talking to someone to someone that is insulting your intelligence you have to talk to them in a decisive way, you have to tell them like it is. Also, “yes or no” questions are quite useful.

Paternalism-A lot of people will say they are helping you, but they will also want you to surrender your Dignity. Humiliate you, push you to hard, judge you too harsh. Too demanding placing demands on people  that they can’t meet then blaming them for it. If someone has experience, leads them to exert more knowledge that they have and ignore their self-interest, bias, opinions. In fact, the can look at you with scorn if you disagree with them. You got common sense to believe when you know and don’t know. You know when you need help and when you don’t.

The Depth of B.S.-People use all kinds of bull shit to keep you down, to stop you from standing up for yourself such as “you’re being selfish” or “You’re just weak/sensitive” (basically it’s your fault). They will use their interpretation of scripture, remember slavery was justified with the Bible. They will use logic and assumptions that they personally like. Critically, they will focus on what is important to them and not what is important to you. You must have confidence, because “None but ourselves can free our minds.” (Marcus Garvey). Everyone reasons according to their interest. People always have reasons to do what they want to do. People are not fair and they think I can have what I want but you can’t have what you want. If you don’t stand up for yourself no one else will.

Have Foresight-You have to see disrespect before it happens. Then check it immediately, give and inch and person will go a mile.  You should also always monitor the emotional state of those around you. Study tendencies. Bad mouthing others, bad mouthing you. Bad mouthing is a hurtful behavior…how far would it go. Sin starts in the heart. People rarely can find the strength to change their habits or tendencies. Also, someone’s beliefs tells you a lot about how they may act in the future.

Charge for Real Estate-You may not be strong enough to beat a bully but standing up to a bully deters him/her because they realize a cost must be paid for messing with you. When people push your boundaries you push back. Nice guy finish last because they don’t have boundaries and people walk all over them.

Victim Mindset-  There are some mentalities that will encourage you to be vicitmized. Psychology is usually I would rather suffer than hurt the bully. Turn the other cheek…

Be Forceful- When you confront someone you have to have bad intentions. Your words and actions have to be so forceful that they can actually repulse that person. However, its hard to hurt people you like or you love. So the people  you like can get over on you the most.

Being Aggressive: “Always take the offensive, the defensive ain’t worth a damn” (Huey P. Long)

“When the defenses go up they will go down because your opponent attacks more. It is by throwing punches that you keep your man off you. You have to take the offensive, so you can put the pressure on them so that you can give them something to deal with. If you are on the defensive all the pressure is on you.”

“Refuse to Understand”

“If they could only lose their heads at the right time and refuse to play it safe” (Huey P. Long)

“When you get your chance hit your man until he is down”

“Hurt or Be Hurt”

My centre is giving way, my right is retreating, situation excellent, I am attacking (Ferdinand Foch)

The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.(Ferdinand Foch)

There is but one means to extenuate the effects of enemy fire: it is to develop a more violent fire oneself. (Ferdinand Foch)

Disrespect can make you feel ashamed and unsure of everything. So that’s the importance of remembering you can do anything you set your mind to, nothing is too good for you, no one is better than you etc…these things stop your mind from being broken.  Never let someone tell you something is not for you. “A battle won is a battle in which one will not confess himself beaten.” (Ferdinand Foch)

Life Never Forgives Weakness

Vindication- restores respect/honour. It replaces disrespect with respect. The mistreatment sends a strong message that you are not worthy. Vindication rewrites that message. Sometimes vindication is an accomplishment that proves someone wrong and sometimes it’s a consequence.

Vindication sends a message to yourself. Vindication sends a powerful message. Douglass whipped his master. When David’s aunt, in David Copperfield, chews out Murdstone this is an example of vindication. The most vivid example of the power of vindication is in the case of Frederick Douglas when he whipped his master. I’ll let him tell his story.

“If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked in all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, hail, or snow, too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days were too short for him, and the shortest nights too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there, but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!

Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition.

…I found Sandy an old adviser. He told me, with great solemnity, I must go back to Covey; but that before I went, I must go with him into another part of the woods, where there was a certain root, which, if I would take some of it with me, carrying it always on my right side, would render it impossible for Mr. Covey, or any other white man, to whip me. He said he had carried it for years; and since he had done so, he had never received a blow, and never expected to while he carried it. I at first rejected the idea, that the simple carrying of a root in my pocket would have any such effect as he had said, and was not disposed to take it; but Sandy impressed the necessity with much earnestness, telling me it could do no harm, if it did no good. To please him, I at length took the root, and, according to his direction, carried it upon my right side. This was Sunday morning. I immediately started for home; and upon entering the yard gate, out came Mr. Covey on his way to meeting. He spoke to me very kindly, bade me drive the pigs from a lot near by, and passed on towards the church. Now, this singular conduct of Mr. Covey really made me begin to think that there was something in the root which Sandy had given me; and had it been on any other day than Sunday, I could have attributed the conduct to no other cause than the influence of that root; and as it was, I was half inclined to think the root to be something more than I at first had taken it to be. All went well till Monday morning. On the morning, the virtue of the rootroot was fully tested. Long before daylight, I was called to go and rub, curry, and feed, the horses. I obeyed, and was glad to obey. But whilst thus engaged, whilst in the act of throwing down some blades from the loft, Mr. Covey entered the stable with a long rope; and just as I was half out of the loft, he caught hold of my legs, and was about tying me. As soon as I found what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring, and as I did so, he holding to my legs, I was brought sprawling on the stable floor. Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he pleased; but at this moment -- from whence came the spirit I don't know -- I resolved to fight; and, suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose. He held on to me, and I to him. My resistance was so entirely unexpected that Covey seemed taken all aback. He trembled like a leaf. This gave me assurance, and I held him uneasy, causing the blood to run where I touched him with the ends of my fingers. Mr. Covey soon called out to Hughes for help. Hughes came, and, while Covey held me, attempted to tie my right hand. While he was in the act of doing so, I watched my chance, and gave him a heavy kick close under the ribs. This kick fairly sickened Hughes, so that he left me in the hands of Mr. Covey. This kick had the effect of not only weakening Hughes, but Covey also. When he saw Hughes bending over with pain, his courage quailed. He asked me if I meant to persist in my resistance. I told him I did, come what might; that he had used me like a brute for six months, and that I was determined to be used so no longer. With that, he strove to drag me to a stick that was lying just out of the stable door. He meant to knock me down. But just as he was leaning over to get the stick, I seized him with both hands by his collar, and brought him by a sudden snatch to the ground. By this time, Bill came. Covey called upon him for assistance. Bill wanted to know what he could do. Covey said, "Take hold of him, take hold of him!" Bill said his master hired him out to work, and not to help to whip me; so he left Covey and myself to fight our own battle out. We were at it for nearly two hours. Covey at length let me go, puffing and blowing at a great rate, saying that if I had not resisted, he would not have whipped me half so much. The truth was, that he had not whipped me at all. I considered him as getting entirely the worst end of the bargain; for he had drawn no blood from me, but I had from him. The whole six months afterwards, that I spent with Mr. Covey, he never laid the weight of his finger upon me in anger. He would occasionally say, he didn't want to get hold of me again. "No," thought I, "you need not; for you will come off worse than you did before."

This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself. He only can understand the deep satisfaction which I experienced, who has himself repelled by force the bloody arm of slavery. I felt as I never felt before. It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom. My long-crushed spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me. From this time I was never again what might be called fairly whipped, though I remained a slave four years afterwards. I had several fights, but was never whipped. ”

Vindication and validation are similar, but are not quite the same. Validation is when you feel inadequate and you want to feel better. You can have both validation and vindication. However, vindication can simply soothe the fear of thinking of yourself as inadequate.  This is kind of like a chip on your shoulder, fear of thinking of yourself a certain way. Fear of thinking of yourself in a certain way creates fear as fire. This fear often comes from receiving some form of message that indicates that you may be inadequate and then you are determined to do things to remove that thought from your mind. The protagonist got this feeling after fleeing from battle, Great Gatsby got this feeling after being rejected. A chip on your shoulder is a powerful motivator but its dangerous because if you believe the doubts that put the chip on your shoulder you will be defeated. Be mindful of this. Challenging someone’s pride can be a powerful motivator because person is afraid, dreads, thinking of themselves a certain way. This can really set someone on fire. However, this is too risky of a form of motivation. You can light a fire under someone just as well as you can break someone, Humiliate them so much that you take their pride, that they actually believe they are weak or inferior.

Psychological authority is feeling ashamed or scared around someone because they have hurt you in the past. While as if you have dominate some before you secure because you know you can control that person. Vindication casts down this false authority, trash talk can as well.

No matter how insulted you may have been there is an accomplishment out there great enough to restore honour!!!!

From Gladiator, I think this scene where the following quote is utter illustrates another example of vindication,

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North,General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius.”

Accountability

“It is the certainty of punishment that leads to deterrence”

Accountability- Is the expectation of consequences, the expectation of a cost for a choice or behavior. Accountability is an excellent way to deter someone and to change or break habits. It is also a good way to keep someone mindful of something to do. It is best when accountability is simply a consequence that you don’t want to happen but doesn’t hurt too much (ex: no t.v., no desert, no phone). Accountability must be consistent just like when you throw something up it falls down to the ground. Consistent pressure leads to the change of feelings and habits. You start to expect a consequence to occur, it forms your mind, everytime it consistently occurs and this discourages you from wanting to behave a certain way. Accountability slowly influences what you expect and what you want if done slowly and responsibly. Also, light accountability keeps you mindful.

However, harsh accountability can be ruinous. It can really hurt your spirit (confidence, self-esteem, happiness), setting back years of spiritual building. Accountability will stop a person from behaving a certain, but sometimes to break a habit you would have to break the person as well; How you going to stop a fish from swimming? (sometimes you have to accept this)  Furthermore, inconsistency is the father of insecurity. If you’re inconsistent and you’re hurtful it’s like breaking your dog’s leg for peeing on the carpet. The animal is scarred and also still undiscipline because the animal does know to expect consequences for its action. It just knows it got hurt randomly. It’s mind is undiscipline. Most people that do not have patience lash out with accountability. They use accountability because they are frustrated or just in a bad mood.  Accountability is supposed to be consistent so it can form what you expect, like what goes up will come down. Frederick Douglass talks about his once master’s style of inconsistent accountability worked to intimidate. “He had the faculty of making us feel that he was ever present with us. This he did by surprising us.” (About Covey) This type of inconsistenty terrifies you and leads you to be intimidated and to shy away from choices that are even desirable. It is chaotic and it causes anxiety. If sometimes you get criticized for what you do and sometimes you don’t you may just stop doing what you do altogether. Harsh and inconsistent accountability intimidates you from making desirable choices. If you hold someone accountable just when you’re angry, as most people do, it is going to make someone anxious and unsure because they don’t know what to expect. Accountability is supposed to be used consistently as the certainty of punishment leads to deterance. 

Accountability is not emotional manipulation, it is not pressuring you to do something. Doing anything because you are afraid instead of because it is a good choice is just weak and it sets an awful character precedent because it is encouraging you to give in to pressure. Intimidation may cause obedience, but obedience and discipline are not the same. Discipline can face what is intimidating if need be.

Accountability is best as a deterrent, but accountability is often used as a motivator: as in do this or you will pay this. This can cause quite some motivation if you threaten to take away something important to someone. However, accountability as a motivator can make you forget development altogether. It takes time to overcome your fears, your fears that oppose your will. The problem with accountability as a motivator is you push someone to do something before they have a drive to do it and its often demoralizing. You push people to do things before their development is prepared to cope with a situation. This causes people to suffer because there must be a drive to act and the presence of consequences don’t mean that there’s a drive. It ignores the fact that you may be more afraid of what has to be faced than the accountability orwhat you are trying to face is to stressful.

Accountability often just pushes people into situation which their development is not prepared to cope with. This can cause much anger and frustration. Anger because you have to suffer a consequence and frustration because you are not able to face what needs to be face although you are punished for it. Also, accountability works by the logic if I hurt you it will motivate, but being hurt demotivates and demoralizes you. Being hurt suppresses your will. You can get to the point where you are more hurt than hungry. People that are obsessed with accountability usually are impatient (don’t want to take the time to build will) or manipulative. Impatience causes great suffering.

When pushed to do something you do just enough to get by, but with an inspired effort you take things above and beyond.

Accountability reestablishes boundaries and restores honour. Accountability Reestablishes boundaries because it illustrates a cost will be paid for, you will charge for real estate, if someone pushes your boundaries. It restores honour by illustrates you have value since a cost is paid for disrespecting you. Pointing out someone’s faults that looks down on you, or your positives, is a way to restore honour that you are equals. Everyone is equal. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses but you look down on people or look up to people depending upon what you focus on, depending upon what has been impressed upon you. But, I’ll never convince you of this reality.

Style

Style- One man’s style is another man’s insecurity. There is more than one way to skin a fish, but people may look down on certain ways of doing things. They ridicule it and disrespect it, although it works, and that disrespect can greatly discourage you. Adopting a particular style should be not out of love of a style, but to maximize your potential. It should be goal oriented. If you are stuck on a particular style you may limit what can be accomplished.

A man's style most be consistent with his character. A man cannot be what he has no drive to be. Every person is unique because each person has unique experiences and wants, beliefs, and values that arise from them. You can build around this foundation (such as building confidence, self-esteem, will) and use this foundation (like using fear as fire), but this foundation is always there. Psychologically some styles will work for some people better than others. That's the importance of Respect, everyone is not the same. And I believe people spend there lives trying to be what other people think is valuable; they don't be themselves. They don't be themselves and try to persuade others there ways are valuable. In the final analysis, you can't fall in love with a style you have to be goal driven and different styles get things done, but every style is not respected.

If you don’t succeed people point out everything they think you did wrong even if one slight change would have changed the outcome. You might be told to run the ball more if you like to pass instead just becoming slightly more accurate. In other words people completely doubt your style. Also, you may get ridiculed even if it does not relate to your purpose or goal. For instance, rules have different purposes and seek to accomplish different things. If you can accomplish that thing a different way or if that rule does not serve its purpose in a specific situation then maybe it is best to be broken. You don’t need an umbrella, if you have a poncho. However, if you are stuck on style and a stickler for the rules you limit yourself from using your IMAGINATION to invent new ways to do things. An artist is not bound by rules.

Success Validates your style. David used a sling shot to defeat Goliath and at the time it was not supported by his peers. If your going to have ingenuity you’re going to have be aware of the ridicule that come from trying something.

If you can accomplish a goal without them, rules are irrelevant.

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.” (JFK) 

Humility

Humility-means being grounded in what makes you strong, like the roots of an oak tree. It means to use what is reliable, to stick with the steak and potatoes. It means you love hard work. You don’t think you have to work hard then you don’t work hard. You always have to work hard. You always have to work hard. You always have to work hard. A prime purpose of Limitless Self-belief is to help you work harder, to make you feel better working harder. That’s the purpose of it that you’ll be comfortable doing anything.

What humility is not is feeling bad about yourself and putting limits on yourself. Feeling bad about yourself only weakens your will and saps your energy. Humility is not humiliation. Its not okay to put people down. Its not okay to hurt people’s feelings. Schadenfreude, joy in the suffering of another, is not okay. It’s wrong. Wrong. Often, it’s the one’s that we care about that hurt us the most because we open ourselves up to them, make ourselves vulnerable, and are hesistant to stand up to them because we don’t want to hurt them. Friends take your side, friends reassure you, and friends don’t hurt you. I know when people start talking about pridefulness and unselfishness I am hearing a bunch of bullcrap because you can’t get rid of pride and you can’t get rid of self-interest (No one is completely unselfish, everyone wants something and pursues it or pushes it; You can’t totally not think of yourself but you can want the right things and value principle). Especially, if they start talking about humbling someone. When you say you want to humble someone you are saying “ I want to humble you so that you are what I want you to be, not what you want to be.” If you want to humble someone you want to control them, you want them to be what you want them to be and not what they want to be. If you want to humble someone you’re a control freak. How is it different than wanting respect? I can have a say about how you treat me, but you’re the boss of your life.

People love humbling (hurting) others that its just crazy, just crazy. You can ruin someone’s self-confidence, ruin their self-esteem, ruin their love for something and just leave them straight depressed and make them feel good about it. It’s just straight crazy. You should not be doing things because you’re unsure of yourself, that’s the wrong reasons. You do things because you can make choices because you have discipline and can deal with pressure. In my view humbling someone is empowering them.

Limitless-Think you are the best, always and that’s not arrogant because you give everyone the freedom to do so. I know many may not be able to tolerate someone thinking they are better than they appear to be, but the true test of arrogance and humility is how someone makes you feel when you’re around them. Someone who makes you feel like sh*t is arrogant; someone who thinks they are the Sh*t and make you feel like the Sh*t is humble. It’s all about respect. There is nothing more arrogant than to tell someone how to live their life.

Modesty s a social value that allows you to interact gracefully. However, if you are modest and unfair or cruel or uncompassionate you are not humble. You are conceited.

Why do we get knocked down? To get back up stronger. (Antaeus)

Ego[2]

Ego is your self-image that is not based upon reality; ironically, it is very similar to blind faith and innate worth. However, most people have ego because of money, status, appearance, power or accomplishments and those material things leads people to believe things about themselves or feel entitled to things that are not based in reality. This can be fairly obnoxious, but no emotion is bad in itself. Emotions are just instincts. God gave you them to assist you without having to make too much thought. Since innate worth[3], great value that is not immediately obvious, and ego, self-image that is not based upon reality, are very similar although they are not the same (ego is usually based on some type of material thing, while as innate worth is based on what we know about our spirit) I will refer to them interchangeably now. Know there is a difference between having an ego because of material things and not because of material things. The ego is particularly useful for dreaming big and accomplishing great things. Muhammad Ali said he was “the greatest before he knew he was.” The ego makes you think you can do anything you set your mind to. You may think why would anyone need such an inflated belief?  This is particularly useful if you don’t come from success or you are in a bad situation or have lots of flaws. The faith that moves mountains comes from the darkest places.

People have an innate worth that is not obvious. Outside of your family there will usually be few people that stroke your ego without any form of material possession or accomplishment. If you have experienced success because your confidence comes from a belief in your innate worth there will be a void if you are separated from your family. Most people want evidence to believe in you and most people will feel insulted, rubbed the wrong way, by your ego. . . your ego can be a good thing because you impose your self-image on reality. A great belief in yourself can give you great energy and great security to work hard, take risk, and deal with pressure etc. . .those are great strategic purposes.

The problem occurs that people have egos but no discipline, meaning they don’t use their Ego effectively. An ego may encourage you to be a bully, to be haughty (to treat others unfairly), to be lazy, to feel an undue sense of entitlement, etc…but thoes are really all just bad choices that your confidence allows you to make. However, it is better to feel comfortable doing anything then not do it by choice than to feel unsure and not do things because you feel insecure. The conscience is free. What matters is not how you feel, but what you do. Feeling sure of yourself allows you to do so much, feeling unsure of yourself limits quite a deal. That’s why tearing people down is just stupid.

You need to appreciate consequences but not be intimidated or limited by consequences. Cause and effect, should determine your choices, but your ego influences how you feel. Logic would recognize a mountain. The ego would say climbing it is easy work, childs play.  Or logic might recognize defeat and the ego would say small thing to a giant. The Infamous Mobb Deep has a song talking about coming out the projects, which has many things to feel ashamed and inadequate about, but feeling like the ILLEST. In Scarface, while washing dishes the character Tony Montana looks across the street at a club with guys partying it up with nice cars and people fawning over them and he says “what do they have that I don’t have?” The example of scrappy doo illustrates how the ego can be good thing. Scrappy doo wants to fight any and everyone and says “lemme at em! I’ll splat em!” Now with this attitude he might bite off more than he can chew especially since most of things he wants to fight are bigger than him. However, what if he had to fight someone bigger? Well, he wouldn’t be scared and so his ego becomes useful. Maybe because of his ego he bites off more than he can chew or he becomes all he can be; think about it.

Because ego rubs people the wrong way and because it permits bad behavior many hate ego. Their reaction is to put someone down and ridicule them whenever they see ego. When they see ego they want to destroy ego with humiliation. This really makes no sense because this leaves you feeling unsure of yourself and unhappy. In fact, it makes you feel unsure of things you obviously can do. It saps your energy. Humiliation permanently scars your self-esteem and confidence. Humiliating someone to correct them is like smashing their sports car to stop them from speeding.

Essentially, if you are fine with humbling someone  you are fine with emotional manipulation. However, humbling is embraced for generally three reasons. People get offended, and often feel badly about themselves, when hearing someone else think highly of themselves; their pride feels threatened by the pride of others. The second reason is that when you humble someone you hurt them and make them feel unsure, insecure, and someone who is insecure is like someone who is drowning they will grab onto anything to reassure themselves so it’s easier to control them, to impose your will and opinions on them. So when you hurt someone they listen to you in order to feel better instead of actually believing what you’re saying. The third reasons is that you just think it’s the right thing to do to humble people. There is nothing crazier than thinking you can help someone by hurting their feelings. Thinking like that opens a pandora's box of garbage. Furthermore, it encourages people to have the vanity of unworthiness. Great Expectations, “And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?” IF you’re living you might as well be happy and proud of yourself. Feeling bad is a waste of time.

A lot of the problems blamed on the ego are just insecurity. People may blame the ego for being in the denial or not wanting to take criticism, but the cause of this really is to not be hurt emotionally. Hearing negative things or admitting negative things hurts your feelings. Everyone has an ego, but everyone does not have a secure ego.  When your ego is secure your pride is not easily wounded.  Disrespect may not hurt at all. However, continuing to take disrespect can make you insecure. Humility means to be grounded in what makes you strong so naturally if your humble you are secure, grounded like the roots of an oaktree. Since confidence is a good feeling on the inside if you don’t think well of yourself you won’t be confident so it is important to have a positive self-image to be confidence.

People that say don’t have an ego are often the most biggity and unfair because they refuse to see their self-interest, how self-interest can make them unfair, and how self-interest gives them an ego. Schadenfreude is easy because you’re not taking the punishment. When people say you’re egotistical they are either saying you have a fragile ego or that you think about yourself too much. The problem is if you never think about yourself you will be a victim and if you never give a fragile ego attention it will never be cemented, secured. Putdowns make you feel so bad that you don’t want to think about yourself, but its destroying your self-image. Also, it can hurt so much you can’t think about anything else. You can’t help someone by hurting their feelings.

You never reach a point in your life where you stop trying to get “better,” but I hate to use the word better because better is relative to your perspective and also it conveys the idea of inadequacy. Is a business owner better than a cashier? Is a stock broker better than a bank teller? If you keep hearing things about being inadequate you are going to feel inadequate and that will destroy your confidence. It’s better(ironically J ) to be goal oriented, meaning you set lofty goals and continuing working towards making them a reality. This gets you thinking about simply accomplishing what you want instead of ranking yourself and things. You should focus on being all you can be, making your self-image a reality.

Muhammad Ali said he was the greatest while still trying to achieve greatness. Floyd mayweather has brilliant performances and brags a lot, but always says his performances could be better, and Michael Jordan has this commercial where he says “I will be what I know I am.” Focus on making your self-image a reality. The ego should be used to deal with reality and create new realities, it should not be used to hide from things that should be faced. Every instinct and feeling God has given you has a purpose, a practical purpose. If you feel bad about yourself its going to be hard to face anything.

It is critical that if you are ambitious. If you have an ambition you must feel that you are bigger than the situation you are in. The people around you may label by your current situation, but your self-image must be larger than that. If you are a private and you want to be a general you must fill like you are a general in your heart. IF you are an employee and you want to be a boss, you must feel like you are a boss in your heart.

You must believe it to achieve it. You must be realistic, meaning you must be self-aware. Being self-aware means for you to reflect upon where you are and where your goal is.  Not being self-aware is like trying to drive somewhere without a map. A person may not want to admit they are going the wrong way because it hurts your feelings to admit you are wrong  that why you should correct someone without making them feel bad; it removes the resistance. Furthermore, the inability to deal with negativity is not a problem caused by ego but by a fragile ego. If the ego was secure the negativity would roll off it like a water on a ducks back. Also, embarking on a journey without knowing how to get there, how hard it will be, or how long it will does not come from the ego. It comes from not being a thorough and logistical individual. You must face reality, but you must believe you can impose your dreams on reality.

Goal –Oriented: Meeting the Mark

This means that you set lofty goals and you focus on accomplishing them. You’re not thinking about you’re not good enough yet or that you are currently inadequate. You feel you are good enough and you focus on making your goal/dream a reality. You may not meet the goal but you take pride in what you have accomplished along the way.

If you are obsessed with standards, or obsessed with personal responsibility (that everything is simply a choice), this may encourage you to feel like it’s okay to look down on people and to put them down and to be insensitive. In fact you may think it’s right to kick people when they are down; you think that it’s their fault that they are down and you think that they deserve it. Personal Responsibility is a good thing, but many fail to realize that you mature into being responsible. You develop it. You don’t just snap your fingers one day and say I’m supposed to be responsible now.  You can’t say standards are a bad thing without sounding somewhat ludicrous. However, the thing about standards are that they may be grossly unfair, may not indicate all that you can accomplish because they limit you to doing things a certain way, and not value those who may have accomplished much more than those who meet the standards. If you complain about standards that won’t get you want you want. If you make excuses, and some excuses are wholly legitimate, that may make you feel better, but that won’t get you what you want either. As I’ve heard Floyd Mayweather say “Never Cry. Never complain. Just Work.”

Excuses and the ability to Overcome: There is always an excuse to not face a fear, but you can tell you are making an excuse by asking yourself would I still not want to do this if I remove the excuse. People will always want to have an excuse not to do something hard, that’s natural. There is always an excuse to do something you have a desire to do and you can tell if you are making an excuse if you still want to do something even after removing your reason to do it. Also, people always have an excuse for why they are not inadequate (at that moment) because no one wants to feel embarassed. No one wants to feel like they are not good enough, like they do not measure up. Sometimes standards are unfair and wrong. Sometimes they are wrong, but if you rest on an excuse you get nothing. If you don’t overcome you get nothing. Even if you have a good excuse, a legit reason, if you don’t overcome and do what is necessary you get nothing. “Sometimes it is not enough to do your best. You have to do what is required.” (Winston Churchill). Neverthless, people should be judged realistically based upon their state of emotional development. However, you are developing towards a goal.  Not being able to do something because you are not emotionally prepared, developed, is a legit reason. We all need a little push sometimes; training wheels can hold us back sometimes because if we don’t have to do somethings we don’t do somethings. Although we all need a little push sometimes, if you push someone into a situation before their emotional development is prepared to cope with a situation you’re going to get frustration for both parties; failure, regression and maybe even ruin. With all that said, you are progressing towards a goal and if you do not reach that goal you will not get what you want. If you rest on an excuse you get nothing and you might limit yourself, psyche yourself out, from doing something you can do. So tell yourself you can, but be mindful of emotional development.

Just stay confident and goal-oriented though. Don’t think about being inadequate. Think about getting to where you need to get to. If you think feel you aren’t good enough, aren’t capable, you’ll never get there. “My commitment demands of me... my pride. Everybody sets his own limitations on himself. I set no limitations on myself, except to do the job that I commit myself to do." (Cus D’amato)

Dreams are such fragile things, you really have to nurse them. When you share your dreams with others you have to be careful. That person might be short-sided and think you can’t do it, that person might not want to see you do it, or they might just point out the obvious reality and that just discourage you.

Caution:  Just like your eyes may be too big for your stomach, your ambition may be too big for your character. Patience. Its better to wait and know you can do something before you do it than to rush and hope you can do it. When you really want something its easy to fall victim to wishful thinking.

Realism:

The ego can stop you from facing reality or it can help you face reality. Lack of self-awareness is not caused by the ego. It is caused by not wanting to face things that make you feel bad. The ego can make you so comfortable that nothing bothers you At the end of the day your ego can stop you from being self-aware, but it also can be a refuge from very harsh and terribly hurtful realities.

Failure:

The ego can stop you from doing something out of fear of failure. Failing might hurt, but giving your all there is pride in that. We all set goals, lofty one’s and maybe it is not about reaching them, maybe its about being all you can be. Even if you don’t reach your aim, you can be proud of your progress.

Conclusions about the Ego:

The ability to face the negative is not caused by ego but by a fragile ego, a more affirmed ego faces negatives easily. The negativity rolls off it like water on a ducks back. The ego makes you comfortable making choices. The ego is especially useful for taking risk because it believes it will succeed when evidence is not definitive. The ego protects you from being affected emotionally by things that don’t matter. You might have a scar on your leg, but what does that have to do with a being a dancer? You’re short, but does that have to stop you from being an athlete. Too often people are insecure about things that don’t matter and people You might  Lastly, the ego pushes you to be all you can be, striving for greater and greater mountains to climb.

Personal Responsibility:

Personal Responsibility is one thing, but the Will to meet those responsibilities is another thing, more important thing. Having the Will to do something is as much of a choice as building a house is. Although the logic of accountability as a motivator is sensible, using fear to motivate someone, what accountability is doing it is hurting you to motivate you. Accountability can break your will to the point that you can meet any responsibilities. You can be so hurt that you don’t have a drive to do anything, not even eat. Insults and harsh consequences to make someone responsible are worthless. However, I do think accountability to keep someone mindful or to expect consequences is useful; embarassment is not.

Although it is useful, I do not have an affinity for personal responsibility because 1.) It punishes weakness and that is just cruelty. 2.) It encourages you to look down on people and put them down. 3.) It allows you to be a hypocrite to look down on someone who has been through more than you, who is dealing with more than you or who is dealing with something you have never dealt with.

Personal Responsibility is often just an excuse to treat people unfairly and cruelly.

However, the development of personal responsibility is a good character trait to have.

You have to be emotionally developed to be responsible.  Most of the time when people are irresponsible it is when they are forced to face pressures their development is not prepared to cope with.

Criticism-  

Revision Sharpens, but one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. What I like ain’t what you like; I can absolutely love what you absolutely hate.

Correction should be exciting because it’s the pathway to accomplishing your goals. It is empowering you. However, criticism is often given in dreadfully negative language.   Also, sometimes people criticize things that are wholely irrelevant. This is problematic as something only has a reality if you think about it. It does not affect you emotionally if you’re not thinking about it. So often, critics are unnecessarily negative. If something need not be said it is a problem if you said it.

It’s important to listen to advice because you can learn something from everyone. However, it’s also important not to get judged, not to have a negative valuation placed upon you while receiving advice because that’s going to do nothing but hurt you and demoralize you. This can hurt so much that you lose interest in doing something or confidence that you can do it.

Since a negative can always be turned into a positive, you should always be able to utter criticism in a positive way. Also, you should be able to reassure someone, leave them in a good mood after criticism. If criticism destroys confidence the cure is now worse than the disease.

I think therefore it is- affirmations influences belief. So if you call something good, you think something is good well then you will begin to feel that it is good. You have the choice to call something good and then you will feel that its good. People get so caught up in brutal honesty that they forget they have a choice in what they think is good or bad. They have a choice in his or her reality.

Since criticism hurts your feelings and that hurts your commitment to things don’t tell people things if they are going to disapprove of you if it is not necessary. It’s just going to demoralizing you. When you open yourself up to criticism you allow people to speak into your life and change how you feel, what you believe, then because beliefs drive actions your actions change. You might not even realize how your feelings and behavior has changed. It is critical to not allow people to speak negativity into your life. It’s important to take in information and advice, but it is crucial not to be effected emotionally by it. I think people are hurt more by the criticism following an event than the event itself because criticism forces you to interpret the event in a negative lens.

Listen. This is important. People will point out what they don’t like about you and make you feel insecure about it and they’ll try to change you when you’re perfectly fine the way you are. You can be completely convinced something is wrong with you. It’s almost scary that this goes on in the world. People will impose their doubts and insecurities on you, their values on you and feel good about it. You won’t do things you want to do. You’ll abandon things you like.

As far as objectivity, I don’t like to use the word better. I would prefer it if people used want or don’t want. Better conveys there is something wrong with something. This could be better or that could be better or I can do better than that. Often times things are perfectly fine the way they are, but when someone wants something different they say they want better. You’re not going to be able to please everyone.

Every liberal knows experts can assert authority over matters of personal opinion, taste and preference and wants.

The biggest danger to independent judgment is ridicule, not because the criticism is compelling or correct, but because it is uncomfortable to deal with so you abandon what you think. I rarely ever tell someone they are wrong. “You are wrong.” Especially if they believe something even if they can’t articulate themselves because their experiences form beliefs, intuition, instincts. And you rarely know who is right or wrong and that person usually has something informative to say. I prefer to tell them the reason why I think I am right and if they chose to believe they can or not.

Being blunt is crude, while tact is actually a skill. You don’t have to mean to be firm; you can be gentle and firm. If you run into a wall you can’t pass. However, there’s a difference between running into a wall with barb wire and a wall with padding. If you hurt someone you oughta reassure them and it’s a choice not to; if someone can give you a hard truth well then they oughta be able to make you feel good about facing it to. If people were hurt themselves by the rude comments they made they would be more considerate. I think people get ego satisfaction out of being unnecessarily negative. There is a certain Schadenfreude, joy in another suffering, involved in criticism often.

There is also a lot of bias that can be involved in criticism. Criticism is often just a way to project negative feelings onto someone. If you don’t like someone you look for reasons not to like them. You look for things that are bad about them no matter how far fetched or slanderous they may be. You naturally draw adverse conclusions.  As President Lyndon Johnson wrote about his critics, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim.” That’s what haters do. Block them haters out.

Ultimately, criticism will not hurt someone if it is directed at an area they are solid mentally in, unless its something particularly traumatic. It is your job to examine whether you are solid mentally in an area or insecure in an area before you open yourself up for criticism and to be hated in that area.

Criticism should never be given capriciously. It should be given as a servant, what do you want? And How can I Help?

Character

“The best way out is always through” (Robert Frost)

“Sage advice given to a young man, you should always do what you are afraid to do” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You build confidence to build will. You build will to build discipline. Discipline is your ability to deal with pressure. You need discipline, the ability to deal with pressure, to make choices. Your choices form your habits, your habits form your character, and character is reacting to pressure appropriately.

Discipline

Discipline is doing what you hate to do as if you love to do it. It’s swimming upstream, climbing up hill to get to where you need to be. It’s dealing with pressure no matter how bad it feels and no matter how long you have to deal with it. It is in fact accepting pressure and discipline is important because you can’t get rare things or get to rare places by going with the flow.

A disciplined person sets out a plan then sticks to it. They can commit themselves and do not drift into doing things they did not plan to do. Building discipline require two things, will and familiarity. You always have to have the will to deal with pressure because it will always be uncomfortable. However, once you become familiar with pressure you accept it and it’s not so bad. You become numb to it, desensitized. Also, once you’re in the habit of dealing with pressure it’s not so bad because you feel an urge to deal with it within. If you are not familiar with a pressure it is overwhelming and you get panicky and want to quit.  If the pressure is too much you look for a way to get away from it and ultimately succumb to it.

Significantly, discipline and obedience are not the same thing. Obedience is your tendency to obey instructions. Discipline is your ability to deal with pressure. If you don’t have the discipline to disobey you’re really not disciplined.

Under pressure, without discipline, you are nothing.

Never trust a man until he’s been tested.

Building will to build discipline:

1.)    “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it.” (Habakkuk 2:2) Set a goal. Know where you want to go. This will direct you. This will carry you. This will motivate you through the pains of growth if you focus on it. However, when under adversity, pressure, temptation etc its easy to lose sight of what you want. You’re in despair and you’re thinking about how you feel instead of whether you are going to have what you want. The stress darkens your vision, but the light shines in the darkness. You should think about the vision. Talk about the vision like it will come just like Monday comes after Sunday.

2.)     Make a commitment. Joshua 24:15, “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Make your mind up. Commit to what you are going to do. Know what you intend to do and think that, believe that. If you believe it then it will drive you to do it. Making a commitment stops you from finding a way out. Never let yourself even think you might not do it or it will weaken your resolve. “I will ____” “I will____” “I will _____”

3.)    Expect to succeed. Faith, hope and love. When you have faith you expect what you hope for to come true, and if what you hope for is a great thing you will love walking in faith in order to make your faith a reality. You should always think your goal will come true. You should always think about all the good things that will happen when your goal comes true. Do not let yourself ever think it will not happen.

4.)    Being interested in applying your confidence-Enthusiasm

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

You gain enthusiasm by reading and thinking about how awesome whatever you’re going to do is. Also, you gain enthusiasm by the people around you being excited for what you’re going to do. This is one reason why family can propel you to success; their enthusiasm. Also, once you experience success working towards your goal it gives you satisfaction and that satisfaction encourages you to keep working.

You have to be interested in applying confidence. Like a car with a full tank of gas you have to be interested in going somewhere.

5.)    Reflect on what you feel strongly about and use that to motivate you. No matter what it is. Use it. It might be for a family member. It might be because of someone that did not treat you right in the past.  It might be a great dream. Use that and it will rejuvenate you.

6.)    Need to succeed. Older generations were more solid mentally. They had an urgency to be all they can be as soon as they could be. They faced pressure because they had to, there was no alternative. Rise and grind or sleep and starve. A hungry man is willing to take risks, always. They needed to succeed. Also, because they went through more their confidence was greater. Need to succeed. If you’re going to overcome you’re attitude has to be I will overcome. Your attitude can’t be I am okay with what I got, I am okay with what I’ve done.

Your attitude should always be I need to be all I can be as soon  as I can be because taking things forgranted is a sure way to be disappointed at anything in life.

7.)    Excuses, even if it is a good excuse, will leave you empty handed. If you rest on an excuse you’re left with nothing. Also, excuses will psyche you out of doing things you can do.

8.)    Stay Grounded.  “His soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith.” (Habakukk 2:4)

Everyday you should have a routine that encourages you. The routine should get you into a good mood. The routine should cause you to expect to succeed. And the routine should remind you to use fear as fire in order to give you an urgency to succeed. You stay focused. Keep your eye on the prize. Pray every night. Stay connected to your family who strengthen you!

The story of Antaeus and Hercules. Antaeus as long as he was attached to the Earth, because his mother was the god of the Earth, was invincible.  Him and Hercules wrestled and Hercules could not defeat him as long as Antaeus was attached to the Earth. Hercules had to “lift him up,” disconnect him from his power source to defeat him.

While building discipline you must stay connected to everything that makes you strong.

9.)    Mental Discipline- make the act to always be positive. It’s going to be hard when you feel discourage to be positive but remember you can always turn a positive into a negative. This will stop you from getting discourage.

Things to know before building discipline

Analogy of training character: You weren’t born that way- Under similar pressures people behave similarly. When you’re hungry you want to eat. When you’re thirsty you want to drink. When you’re sleepy you want to raised. However, depending on how you were raised you react to these feelings differently. Eat, drink, and sleep differently. Fear is a feeling just like thirst is a feeling. When you’re thirsty you don’t panic you get something to drink. When you’re afraid you ought not panic, you ought to do what needs to be done. Fear never really goes away. You just get to the point where you can deal with or you forget about it.

Developing discipline is progressive; it takes times. Although, we seek not to make excuses at times you will be emotionally incapable. Most people can’t accept someone physically capable but emotionally incapable of doing something. You have to realize this is just a reality of life; discipline is developing you to be mentally capable to do things. However, when you’re weak people will say it is your fault you’re weak and you’re stronger than you currently are.

Building discipline is building a drive to do something. What you have to understand is the difference between wanting to do something  and having a drive to do something . There is wanting to eat and having growling stomach. There is wanting to take a nap and passing out because you are so tired. There is a difference between wanting and having a drive. A drive is a strong urge to do something. Wanting is just a conceptual thought.

Struggling to make progress, Courage is better than Confidence. If you have courage you know you can deal with pressure. However, if you have confidence you might not be able to. Your confidence might not be able to deal with the pressure. Someone struggling may be stronger than someone that has it easier, has an easy time with things, because the one that has it easier doesn’t know how to struggle to make progress. I think of the movie Gattaca, where one brother has perfect genes and the other brother has awful genes. Everything comes easy to the brother with good genes, while the other brother must always struggle to make progress. Sometimes the two race, they swim until one decides to quit and the brother with the bad genes always wins because the other brother quits when it gets intimidating, when it gets hard. One has accepted the pressure, can struggle to make progress, but the other has not. (Gatacca)

How will discipline help you?

I was watching the Godfather the other day and I had an interesting thought. All of Vito Corleone’s children are spoiled except Michael. Sonny can’t control his temper and that leads to his demise. Fredo can’t face his fear and that leads to his demise. Connie can’t control who she loves and she suffers for it. Vito Corleone tolerated these weaknesses in his children instead of encouraging them to get over them. Michael Corleone has self-discipline, probably because he was in the military but he is unhappy because he has no compassion because he has not suffered like his father; he does not know what it means to be in need and weak so he can’t not tolerate weakness in others. The old man had discipline because reality forced it upon him and he also had compassion because he knows how it feels to be weak.[i][4]

Discipline will help you:

a.      face and overcome your fears

b.      control your affectionate feelings. You can’t love everybody

c.       Control your temper, there is a time to lose your head and a time not to.

d.      deal with doubt and uncertainty, so you become more decisive because discipline allow you to deal with uncertainty.

e.      Passive aggression because discipline allows you to deal with fear in order to confront people and resolve problems instead of complaining

f.        Procrastination, you’ll know how to start work you don’t want to do

g.      Withstand peer pressure.

h.      Dealing with failure or mistakes and the negative feelings that come with that~a perfectionist is so afraid of making mistakes that you make a mistake.

i.        Working hard

j.        Dealing with criticism, That’s part of not caring what people think.

k.        Ultimately, you learn how to deal with feeling overwhelmed.

l.        Waking up early. No one wants to be cause its hard.

m.    Resisting temptation, if you can’t control your sex drive you are not discipline (in that area).

n.      Dieting, not eating is an act of sacrifice so if the body has gone soft perhaps the mind has gone soft.

o.      Dealing with disrespect- There comes a point in everyone’s life where you will be hated, disdained, and you will feel that awful feeling and your will have to be strong enough to get through it to get what you want.

p.      A strong body is a strong mind. Exercise is an act of discipline because it is uncomfortable.

q.      Personal responsibility, the ability to deal with the pressures involved with being responsible.

r.       Devotion to principle, being a stand up guy….having integrity means that you have the drive to sacrifice for a principal.

s.       Staying calm. Under pressure you must stay calm so you can think and not just have nervous reaction.

When you do not have the discipline to face things you look for a way out, you look for a shortcut, you hide, look for reassurance and you submit. Complaining is often something people do when they want some help. Look how bad my situation is, help me. People do all sorts of ridiculous things because they can’t deal with a feeling.

How to build discipline: “You need deep waters to learn how to swim in them. You need rapids to know how to maneuver in them.”

            To build discipline you must become familiar with pressure so that it is not overwhelming, so that you can deal with it. Then once you can deal with it you want to work on how long you can deal with it and staying calm while you deal with it so you can make choices instead of just having nervous/excited reactions.  Also, you want to always build the will to deal with it. Affirm yourself verbally. Encourage yourself mentally with the confidence building tricks in the mindset section and stay grounded. Then once you can deal with the pressure and deal with it for a long time then you want to move more urgently yet responsibly through it. Then once you get in the habit of dealing with pressure again and again at an urgent yet responsible pace you develop habits and your habits push you to get through it, kind of like just riding a bike. Remember, It won’t get easier, you’ll just get better!

Example 1: Running

Running. When you’re running you are dealing with fatigue.  How long can you deal with it? Maybe you can’t run 1 mile, well you work your way through it until you can run 1. Then maybe you can’t run 2, well you work your way through it until you can do 2. Then you get to 5, then you get to 10. Then you go on and on and on forever until your body gives out because your spirit is strong. Maybe you have never fainted before. Maybe you have never vomited before and you are afraid of that well you vomit its overwhelming you can’t deal with it that day, but since you got through it you know you can deal with it the next day.  That’s important to discipline right there, that thought “I got through it before, I can get through it again.”

Example 2: Boxing

Boxing is the best sport for developing discipline you have to face your fears, break bad habits, deal with your fatigue,  take risks while you responsibly protect yourself, and stay calm in a chaotic situation so that you can outsmart your opponent.

You might start off doing calisthenics so that you get used to dealing with muscle fatigue. You deal with it longer and longer and longer. This allows you to get used to dealing with fatigue in the ring. Fatigue is just a feeling and how long you can deal with it is always mental. Then you might get into the ring and just do body work,  with someone who is a light puncher so you can just get used to taking punches. Then you might do that many times until you feel comfortable in the ring. Then you might start jabing and then work up to the real thing. Then you work to go more and more rounds. All the while you are trying to stay calm and not be excited. Practice your punches before you get in there many and many times so you can just throw them the right way instinctively. Then you want to have a plan about how to react and handle situations and repeat that to yourself many times so you don’t forget it. Maybe you look for sympathy when you get hurt so you might tell yourself “hurt or be hurt” many times. Or maybe you don’t have a killer instinct in the ring so you might tell yourself “when you get your chance, hit your man until he is down” many times. You see you are working to deal with the pressure, but also to build character to react appropriately and stay mentally consistent. By mentally consistent I mean move at a consistent pace and think about the right things all the time you are under the pressure.  Training to be a boxer builds character. You empower yourself with a skillset, you build confidence to grow comfortable and calm in a stressful situation, you develop discipline to deal with pressure, you overcome your fears and break bad habits in order to rely on yourself in the ring

Example 3: Public Speaking

They say this is the greatest fear. First you want to build the will to just face the fear. Then you want to go over what you want to say and how you want to gesture many times until its just automatic. Then you want to give a speech in front of a crowd. It will be terribly nerve racking, but if you expose yourself to a crowd many times you are sending a message to yourself that it is not that bad and you start to calm down. Then you work on your skills  like delivery, tone, and content of your speech. Then when you get good and start having very successful speeches you will love public speaking because you will expect to succeed (strive off victory!). That’s how you go from fear to love, and build a certain character while doing so.

How long you want to deal with something is always mental. Inspired effort~With the proper motivation the body will always willing give out before the spirit and that’s the victory over yourself, the triumph of the spirit. If you couldn’t deal with it you would pass out. I need to get up man. I need to get up. I got to get up.  I have to get up and with that mindset you’ll overcome excuses. You have no idea how persistent, consistent, and debilitating an excuse can be. Many things are possible with a weak mind. Mental toughness bridges the gap between where it hurts to do and can’t do anymore. Confidence is fundamental ingredient to mental toughness because with confidence that good feeling on the inside you believe and forget the pain.

Familiarity is very important to gain confidence and discipline . To accept pressure you must be expose to it frequently. To gain confidence in an intimidating situation you must be exposed to it many times while being remaining safe; that’s how you start to feel like a fish in the water so to say.

As far as overcoming a fear or breaking a bad habit: No struggle, no progress. No Cross, No crown.

Most people can’t work on their character because they won’t admit they have a weakness. You’re so supposed to be proud of yourself, but you can’t let pride stop you from doing what needs to be done. However, more particularly people feel ashamed, get a negative reaction from admitting a fault. If admitting a fault made them feel good this problem wouldn’t exist.

To make things change you have to get out of your comfort zone, but you have to want to get uncomfortable if you’re going to get out of your comfort zone.

How to overcome Fear:

Its always a struggle overcoming a fear. Never underestimate the persistence of fear or how crippling fear can be. You have to understand the difference between a want and a drive; you may want to go to sleep, but your not going to fall asleep if you are not tired. You may want to eat, but its going to be a struggle if you’re not hungry. Similarly you may want to face something but you will not be able to if you have no drive to. But lets not focus on excuses or limitations, lets focus on how to overcome them.

Number 1, decide what you want to do. Number 2, think about the situation and recall, reflect on how it feels to be afraid in that situation. Number 3, use the confidence building strategies. Take the time to encourage yourself when you are not under the pressure of fear because if you are dealing with fear then that may be the only thing you can think about at that moment. Also, get people out of your life that may be disrespecting you. Number 4, have a plan and know it well. Number 5, practice and practice and practice until what you plan to do feels automatic. When you feel afraid you’ll just react into doing what you have practiced if you have practiced it enough. Number 6, keep facing the fear and a.) you’ll get in the habit of facing it and you’ll feel the urge to face it. b.) you become more comfortable as you see you’re not going to fall off a cliff when you face your fear. c.) you gain confidence as you become successful.

It is very useful to use fear as fire when overcoming a fear. Since you are afraid anyway use that fear to direct you to face what you are afraid of. If you are afraid of giving a speech think about all the positions you will be limited from if you don’t become a good public speaker, if you are afraid of talking to a girl you like think about her being in love with and marrying another man, and if you are afraid of confronting someone think about hurting you, “Hurt or be hurt.”

Men hate to admit they are afraid, but fear is great for giving you a sense of urgency and can make you much more aggressive if you can control it.

Laughter is a great way to make an awkward situation comfortable and deal with fear

Also, motion relieves tension.

How to break a bad habit

You can’t keep doing the same things expecting different results but that’s what people do when they are stuck in their ways. If you are going to change your ways you have to think differently. When you think differently you will feel differently and feel driven to behave differently. So it is important to have affirmations.

If you not used to doing something, not even something major, such as cooking, cleaning, or laundry it is going to be a struggle to do so.  But, once you get in the habit of doing its going to feel like you been doing it all your life. So slowly progress into doing it more and more.

The most important thing is to be patient and to be motivated to and to be consistent to break one habit and to start a new habit. No routine, no habit. People are very interesting. Most people have routines by accident. You find a person doing something at one time during the day they are probably do it at that time again. People rarely can break habits.

If you are trying to encourage someone to break a bad habit well consistent consequences will curve a habit. You keep apply punishment for lets say losing your temper well then that person becomes mindful of that and over time the habit is curved and broken. However, you have to stay on them. If you care about someone hurting them is not the way to do it, that’s the way to break a habit only if you’re trying to protect yourself. Also, if you care about someone you have to be consistent you can’t just do things when you’re in a bad mood or because you are irritated. Imagine if a car could smash into your car at any moment while driving, you would be terrified and insecure. That’s what inconsistency does it leaves you insecure, but you know if you obey the rules of the road you can expect to be generally safe. We pray.

How to build Independence (Revisited)

When someone is dependent they rely on you. When someone is independent you can rely on them. If you’re trying to help someone to be independent you want their knowledge to be independent and you want them to be emotionally independent.  You teach someone to be independent by showing them want to do then you get them to do it several times and then they have learned it. As far as emotional development, because fear can be so intimidating if people are not encouraged to develop certain areas then they will not develop them on their own. And it’s the same with bad habits, bad habits can be so strong that people will just give up on them themselves.

Patience:

Its not clear how long it takes to build confidence, discipline, and strong habits. This is something that comes from experience, knowing how long something takes. It takes a carpenter to build a barn, maybe with the midus touch, but a jack ass can tear it down. The Story of Teddy Atlas developing Mane Moore in From the Streets to the ring (From the chapter entitled “Smokers”)  illustrates fully how powerful patience can be. This kid was scared to face a bully and struggled to develop. In the Documentary “Watch Me Now.” He is calm, confident and skilled in the ring. It’s powerful to see. Inspiring.

“1986, knocking out Trevor Berbick is the finished product. But you have to see it [Me] at its beginning stages. I’m intimidated. I’m quitting in the ring a lot. I saying I don’t want to fight anymore after 2 or 3 rounds. I’m going though all these infantile moments that every fighter goes through and people don’t see that, but Cus worked me through that.” (Mike Tyson)

Getting Too Comfortable:

Although laziness and being discourage look the same comforts can make you weaker. If you don’t have to do something often times you don’t.  Jack Dempsey once said, “Its hard to find the motivation to get out of bed at dawn and run in the snow when you’re wearing silk underwear.” It is not being happy that makes you comfortable its just the absence of a drive. Or it is that you become successful and you lose focus. With success comes distractions.

Accountability can act as an encouragement, but it also can simply add insult to injury. It can push you to do something you’re not ready to do then hurt even more when you can do it. Fear is fire, but being hurt is depressing. Depressed as if your drives are pressed down, smothered. Being hurt is not a motivator.

However, to be reminded of the frailty of life and the possibility of losing everything at one moment should encourage you to never take anything forgranted.

Pushed before development is prepared to cope

Getting hurt:

When learning there is a chance of getting hurt, a high chance if you’re doing too much too soon. Especially if your attitude is sink or swim. If you get hurt it can delay, stunt or ruin the development process.

You never want to take on too much pressure to soon because that leads to bad habits. When overwhelmed you react and start to get in the habit of handling things the wrong way. Also you never want to take on too much pressure too soon because that ruins enthusiasm and that can traumatize you and that can delay, stunt or even ruin the learning process. Also, continuing to be exposed to pressure without the proper motivation can lead to burnout. When a person cannot deal with pressure anymore they usually find some corner to hide from the challenges of day to day life. Stressed out, broke down, burnout that’s not the real you, only the residue. People change without even realizing they have changed.When you overcome adversity you gain confidence but adversity can also burnout your will. A lot  of people are in prison today, solid mentally. I mean hard as concrete. However, they have no self-confidence or self-esteem and are depressed. Dealing with pressure is one thing. Being happy, feeling worthy and like you can accomplish things issomething else.

IF you get hurt you want to take some time to rest and recuperate; to heal. Then you want to go back to the well, go back to the source of your strength. Then think about why you failed or got hurt. Then work your way back.

Regaining the spirit you had:

You made the right choices, were successful when you felt a certain way. Since, you felt a certain way so you thought a certain way. You don’t feel that way now, but if you think the way you used to think you will feel the way you used to feel since thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions.

Don’t Quit:

You can run from, avoid, a situation but you’ll have to face it tomorrow. You can’t run from your character. You’ll find yourself reacting the same way to a similar situation.

One of my favorite athletes of all time is  two-time heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson because of his progress and perserverance. He was knocked out by his older the first time he sparred in the ring. However, this is him recalling winning an Olympic gold medal

“I was only one bout away from an Olympic gold medal as I climbed into the ring for my final fight against Vasile Tita, a Rumanian. It was over so fast it was hard to realize it. I was warned twice by the referee, a Pole named Neuding. Right off I missed with a left hook, but I moved right back in after him. I hit him with a right hand uppercut directly on the point of the chin. His head snapped back. He went down and out. It was over in 20 seconds. How do you describe the feeling somebody like myself can have at a time like that? I'd come up out of the cellars and the subway dungeons, and here I was standing on the platform above Tita and the boxer who finished in third place as the winning representative of the U.S. The band was playing The Star-Spangled Banner, and a gold medal was placed around my neck on a ribbon. The crowd was cheering. I don't think I ever bowed before. I did this time.” (Out of the Night, Sports Illustrated May 28, 1962)

He went on to be the youngest undisputed heavyweight champ and still is to this day. He lost his title after being knocked down 7 times, but won it back with a stunning knockout. He would lose his title again and should have been awarded a decision against Jimmy Ellis to be the first three time heavyweight champion. This is his quote

“They say I was the fighter that got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most”

Stay confident. Stay strong. Stay believing the sky is the limit because the possibilities are limitless if you can banish grief and shame from your heart.

Epilogue.

“Its not to late to seek a newer world” (Tennyson)

“I know that I know nothing.” (Socrates) I say trust your judgment but you’re always learning. This essay is pulled from a wealth of sources and I’m still learning; you’re always learning. I learn something everyday by asking someone what they think because others have a wealth of experience I don’t have. You have to keep that in mind. Most important thing said nothing weird, but things knowable by your own experience. They say a lot of people are good people when those people have not had to make choices, hard choices: To fight or not, dilemmas, compromises, sacrifices and suffering. While as others that had to are bad. Once again I try not to judge anyone;  I’m just like to learn.

Although the world we live in is about results, helping someone or helping yourself is measured by progress. It is measured by how far you have come. I think there really is no greater satisfaction than seeing character development, seeing you help someone get to a point they couldn’t to by themselves. It is quite a feeling. I just hope that anyone that does anything after me would have an easier time and not have to go through the things I’ve went through. That’s why I wrote this essay, I care. If you’ve messed up remember that the conscience is free and you can think of yourself anyway you want. I think of Andy Dufrene, in Shawshank Redemption, who crawled 500 yards out of sewage to get out of prison then started a new lease on life.  Put the past behind you and start living and living happily, victoriously and with empowerment. It may be hard at first but no struggle, no progress. If you keep working you keep making progress. You climb a mountain one step at a time. Woever is reading this if you feel great about yourself and are focused, interested, in applying your confidence in a productive direction you can be one of the best of the best at anything you decide. I love you and God Bless!

Maxims

1.)    Confidence Expects To Succeed

2.)    Thoughts influence emotions and emotions drive actions.

3.)    No Struggle, No Progress as far as overcoming a fear or breaking a bad habit.

4.)    Success Occurs When Opportunity Meets Preparation

5.)    Discipline is Doing What You Hate to Do As If You Love to Do it

6.)    Accepting Disrespect is Accepting Being A Loser

7.)    Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

8.)    Everything is easier when you are in a good mood

9.)    All things you feel like you can’t do, you feel like you can do when you feel a little better about them

10.)                        If you don’t take risks you’re going to miss out.

11.)                        If you keep working you keep making progress

12.)                        The emotion is the driver.

13.)                        One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

14.)                        Experiences form our expectations for the world

15.)                        Fire as fire

16.)                        Fear is your friend

17.)                        The Sky is the limit

18.)                        Resting on an excuse leaves you empty handed.

19.)                        Need to succeed, take nothing forgranted.

Sources

1.      Holy Bible

2.      Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

3.      “Watch Me Now” (Cus D’Amato Documentary)

4.      From the Streets to the Ring: A Son’s Struggle to Become a Man by: Teddy Atlas

5.      Robert Caro’s Biography of Lyndon B. Johnson

6.      Robert F. Kennedy’s Day of Affirmation Address in South Africa

7.      David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

8.      Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

9.      Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

10.  A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas an American Slave by: Frederick Douglas

11.  Everyman a King by Huey P. Long

12.  The Sweet Science

13.  The Red Badge of Courage

14.  The Dark Knight Rises

15.  Platoon

16.  Godfather

17.  Percepts and Judgments by Ferdinand Foch

18.  Victory Over Myself by: Floyd Patterson

19.  Pumping Iron (1977 Docudrama)

Not unto us, o Lord, not unto us, but to Your name give glory, Psalm 115:1

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[1] Innate Worth, Dignity.

[2] Blind confidence can be very useful, however giving too much weight to material things is not.

[3] Essentially, dignity and ego are not the same, but they are beliefs about oneself that are independent of reality.

[4]  If you’re a momma’s boy 1.) You probably don’t face things (overprotected). 2.) You probably don’t encourage yourself. 3.)Probably have her attitude in some ways. 4.) Your’s moms expectations of you and of other men are differently.

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