Brian Tracy on building unshakable confidence as a leader. Live by your values to raise self-esteem, use the law of reversibility (actions shape feelings), get better at assessing risk, and face fears one step at a time. Stay humble enough to be wrong.
Leadership is more who you are than what you do. Hello, I'm Brian Tracyan. Today I want to talk to you about maintaining your self confidence as a leader in unsure or even defensive situations. One of my students recently asked me if how can a leader build and keep self confidence in uncertain situations? Does it come from your personality or can it be learned? My simple answer to that is yes, having certain personality traits can help your self confidence, but self confidence is a habit that can be learned and developed over time. The truth is, unsure, uncomfortable or defensive situations don't have to be difficult. You just have to know how to go about them the right way by practicing the right habits. To ensure you maintain an unshakable self confidence in any situation, you have to have great self esteem. The best definition of self esteem is how much you like yourself. When you like and respect yourself, you always perform and behave better than if you did not. The more you like yourself, the more confidence you have, and the more you like yourself, the more efficient and effective you are in each area of your life. Self esteem is the key to handling yourself the very best way possible as both an individual and as a leader. Living your life consistent with your deepest values is the essential for you to enjoy high self esteem. People who are clear about what they believe in and value, and who refuse to compromise their values like and respect themselves far more than people who are unclear about what is really important to them. The law of reversibility says that feelings and actions interact on each other. If you feel a certain way, you will act in a manner consistent with what you are feeling. However, the reverse is also true. If you act in a certain way, your actions will generate within you the feelings that are consistent with them. This means that when you act as if your time was extremely valuable, this action causes you to feel like a more valuable and important person. Another way to build self confidence is for handling any situation is to continually practice courageous leadership. All of life is a risk of some kind. Whenever you engage in any action where the outcome is uncertain for any reason, you are taking a risk. You take a small risk. When you drive to work or walk across the street, you take a larger risk. When you start a business or invest a sum of money, you take a risk. Whenever you venture into the unknown where your possibilities and probabilities cannot be determined to an exact degree. The issue then is not whether or not you take risks. The issue is how skillful you are and therefore how confident and courageous you are in taking the right risks for the right reason. In pursuit of the right goals and objectives. The better you become at analyzing and assessing risk and then avoiding as much as the risk is possible, the more competent and more capable you will become at maintaining your self confidence in uncertain situations. One of the very best ways to develop your ability to take intelligent risks is to consciously and deliberately do the things you fear one step at a time. You don't have to leap out of an airplane without a parachute. Simply practice resisting your natural tendency to slip into a comfort zone of complacency and low performance. Take any fear that you may be experiencing and treat it as a challenge and as an opportunity to grow and become a better person. Face the fear, control the fear, master the fear and continue to move forward regardless of the fear. This is the mark of a confident and fearless leader. Lastly, being a self confident leader doesn't mean that you're always right or even have to be right at the end. Leaders need to be courageous, but they also need to be open to the idea that they could be wrong. There are many leaders who eventually fail because they refuse to question their own assumptions or conclusions. So don't get caught up in your ego. It makes you a much more courageous and confident person when you admit to your shortcomings. If you made a mistake or a bad decision, you be honest with yourself and with others to admit your wrongdoings. There's a difference between being confident and blind. Maybe you are not wrong, but just opening yourself up to the possibility that you may be wrong is going to make you a much more confident leader because it will open your mind to new ideas or new thinking or new solutions to the uncertain situation. Before we wrap up, I'd like to leave you with a thought and to share it with your friends and followers. Leadership is more who you are than what you do. Now I'd like to hear from you. So my question today is what is the one habit you will start doing to build your leadership skills? Leave a comment below and I'll be sure to follow up with you. Thanks for watching. And remember, if you want to change your behavior, take action and take action now. If you enjoyed this video and feel it was valuable in helping you to become a more confident leader, subscribe to my channel like this video and share this video with your friends and click the button on the screen for a free gift. Thanks again for watching.
