How is your confidence today? 

Dictionary.com defines CONFIDENCE as: “Full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.”

 The media, the polls, and the politicians all tell us that we have lost our confidence.  But I don’t think that’s a completely accurate statement.  Like so much else we’ve been forced to listen to in this political season, you can’t always believe what you hear.

 Perhaps it is true that we have lost some confidence in the government or the stock market.  But is that all there is?  I think not.  It is time for us to take a step back and away from all the voices that are trying to tell us what we should believe and feel, and look within.  Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived through many challenging times in America, said “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” 

Let’s take that thought into some practical realms by asking a few questions?   

·         Has your own ability to work hard and innovate been affected in any way by government lethargy?

·         Has your product or service fundamentally changed because of unreliable media reporting?

·         Do your customers think less of your product as a result of negative political campaigns?

·         Has your desire to know and meet customer needs been knocked off track by out-of-touch pundits?

·         Has your company’s value proposition eroded because of the decline in the stock market? 

I’d suggest that very little has changed with regard to any of these things.  These are the internal foundational assets of your enterprise and these foundational assets have remained steady despite the external winds that attempt to assail them.  It is critical that you keep this fact firmly in mind during challenging times. 

Please do not think that I am ignoring the headlines of our daily newspapers and Business Journals – I am not.  Yet the vast majority of the information we find there is beyond our direct control.  We must respond to it, but in large part we cannot change it.  Therefore we must focus our creative energies on those things that we can change – the stuff within us and within our own organizations. 

On a practical level I’d suggest that you look at responding to these external winds with confidence.  Not the fleeting confidence in ever-changing external factors, but the genuine confidence in the things that do not change and things you can control.

Character – continue on a path of integrity despite the temptations to the contrary

Objectivity – know that life (and markets) are cyclical

Navigation – be aware that old directions may not work in new times

Fellowship – remember, it’s all about quality relationships both in life and in work

Innovation – every problem has a solution and those who find it are rewarded

Debt – has never been your friend

Equip – yourself and others with new skills necessary for new challenges

Never – never, never, never give up

Community – don’t cut people loose – share the fruit of prosperity and leanness together

Enjoy – the blessings you experience every day – take nothing for granted 

Though our confidence may have been misplaced in the recent past, let us all resolve, not to lose heart, but to redirect our confidence toward that which never changes and toward those things that we can control. 

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.  ~David Brinkley

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