Have you ever watched young children do pretty much anything? It doesn’t matter if they’re in a group or by themselves. In general, they seem to have no fear whatsoever! Take my grandson Calvin for instance. Calvin is seven. He’s autistic. But he has absolutely no fear. If he wants to ask someone something, he asks! My wife and I recently took Calvin and his younger brother Bennett to church with us. As we were walking into church, I introduced Calvin to an elderly gentleman. I said to Calvin, “This is Brother Ross.” To which Calvin said, “Hi Brother Ross! How old are you?”
Wait. What did he just ask Brother Ross??? Well, Brother Ross took it in stride and replied, “I’m 86.” Are you ready for the kicker? Calvin then asked, “When will you be 87???” 🙂 To which Brother Ross said to Calvin, “I’ll be in 87 in August. When’s your birthday?” Calvin then said, “October 17th!” Brother Ross then asked him, “How old will you be then?” Calvin replied, “I’ll be eight!”
My point in telling you this story is simply to illustrate that most of the time, children have confidence that’s off the charts! So, what happens to us when we become adults? Where does that confidence go? If you’ll stick with me through the rest of this blog post, I’ll tell you what happened to my confidence and what I’m doing to get it back.
Just so you know, I haven’t always felt confident in my online business. In fact, when I started my current business, I was anything but confident. I had to work on my confidence early on. I’m still working on it. But we go too much further, I want you to know that this post isn’t about magic bullets—it’s about the real, small steps I’m taking now.
Why Confidence Didn’t Come Naturally to Me
There are a lot of reasons why confidence didn’t come naturally to me. My early years were quite happy. Unfortunately, my birth mother died a week before my seventh birthday. My dad felt like two little boys should have a mom. So he remarried less than six months later. Without getting into too much detail, things went off the rails after that. Let’s just say that it was quite unpleasant for my brother and me. I left home at 18 to join the U.S. Navy to escape the unpleasantness. I never went back except for occasional visits.
I stayed in the Navy for 10 years and four months. For the first five years, I was unmarried. During that time, I played the life of the single sailor. I didn’t think much about my previous home life but looking back, I now realize the reason for that was because I was self-medicating in various ways through substances and other activities.
But that didn’t mean the self-doubt stopped. It was still there. It was just buried deep below the surface. That self-doubt didn’t resurface until many years later. By this time, I was married with four boys. I’d already built one small business reselling computer systems. I did OK with that business. It wasn’t big money but it was good enough for that time. I got good with old school closing techniques like the “Ben Franklin close” and the “puppy dog close.”
Then a co-worker talked me into leaving my day-job as well shutting down my business reselling computer systems and starting a business with him providing custom software solutions. That turned out to be a mistake because we eventually wound up closing that business for various reasons. That set the stage for numerous other business attempts. I made attempts with various networking marketing companies. I quit every one of them. It wasn’t because their programs didn’t work. It was because the confidence I had during my computer reselling days had gone the way of the dodo.
I took a job with a company in Ohio. The job was fine until I got laid off. Ding! Another hit to the self-esteem. Someone convinced me I should sell cars because, as he put it, “You’re good with people.” I’ll admit it. I do like most people.As for the car sales? I sold 10 cars but was able to deliver only five. Why? Was it the purchasers’ bad credit? Or the economy?
Sure. It was those things but that was only a small part of it. I now know it was me. I was in victim mode. So once again, I quit. Yet another hit to my self-confidence. I attempted to sell life and health insurance. Made one sale. So I quit that. We eventually moved to Utah after a took a day job here. I attempted to sell life insurance again.
I made no sales this time. So I quit again. Are you seeing a pattern here? Every time I attempted to do something in business that I thought might be the “holy grail,” I wound up quitting. But like I said before, it had nothing whatever to do with the business opportunity. It was me. I know that now. And I now know that I was carrying an old belief, buried beneath years of pain and hurt.
The belief was, “I’ll never be good enough.” No matter what I do, I’ll never be good enough. But this wasn’t obvious to me at first. This belief surfaced as resistance, procrastination, and avoidance. These symptoms continue to occur even after I started my current online business. So…is there a fix for this? Is this something I can overcome? Absolutely!
The Turning Point: Naming and Facing the Real Belief
Let me tell you why I say absolutely. My friend and mentor, Connie Ragen Green, is one of the most positive people I know. I’ve been in her mentoring program for a couple of years. One of the people Connie recommends is Dr. Joe Vitale. Joe appeared in the movie “The Secret.” I’ve known of Joe for many years. I even own some of this books but I’d never really done much with his work. I discovered that I had access to Joe’s book “The Attractor Factor” on Audible. Coincidence? Maybe. But I don’t think so. Anyway, I decided to not only listen to it, but to do something with it. You see, that’s been another one of my downfalls over the years.
I’d come across great information but then I wouldn’t do anything with it. So I took some of what I learned from “The Attractor Factor” and began to dig deeper. To be honest, I was a bit skeptical about some of what Joe teaches. I wasn’t sure if his teachings would mesh with my religious beliefs as a member of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” As it turned out, much of Joe’s teachings were very much in line with what I believe.
So I decided to use ChatGPT to see if I could work on what Joe Vitale calls “clearing” my limiting beliefs. Yes. I decided to work with AI to see if I could clear up deep seated issues that I’ve wrestled with since I was child. Did it work? I’ll just say this. I was skeptical that it would work. It worked way better than I expected!
In fact, working with ChatGPT, I was able to get down to the limiting belief that I believe is the root cause of my issues of pain, resistance, procrastination, avoidance, and other similar issues. I told you early that I discovered that this limiting belief was that I’d never be good enough no matter what I did. Once ChatGPT and I got to that root belief. I had to sit with it for awhile. I had to feel the emotion, the pain, the anger, the hurt and everything else that I’d felt over the years because of this untrue belief. And it hurt like crazy!
Once I got to that point, I thought I’d be ready to begin the clearing process immediately. I wasn’t I had to process this. I had to go for a walk to begin to work through this. I also realized that I had to forgive those in my life who had anything to do with this. I thought I’d already done that but I did it again.
Getting to this root belief and discovering this belief was never true was a major breakthrough for me! While this moment didn’t fix everything, it certainly shifted the weight. As part of the process, ChatGPT and I agreed that my new belief would be “I’m learning to see myself the way the people who love me see me.”
I realize this a process I’ll likely have to work on for the rest of my life. But here’s the beauty of it. I now have a new belief. And ChatGPT have begun to build out this process. I’m taking it one real step at a time.
What “One Real Step at a Time” Looks Like for Me
One of the things ChatGPT suggested as one of the clearing techniques was to write a blog post. But there’s a little more backstory to this. My mentor Connie asked me to write a blog post about how I’m building confidence in my online business. Here’s the interesting part. I never told Connie I was working with ChatGPT on these issues and that it had suggested I write a blog post on this topic! Further, ChatGPT didn’t know that Connie had asked me to write the blog post, either!
Coincidence? I don’t think so! While neither of them knew anything about the other, God (Joe Vitale calls it “the Divine”), the Universe, or whatever higher power you believe in did know about both Connie and ChatGPT suggesting the blog post and He knew exactly what I needed to begin working through these issues.
The blog post that you’re reading right now is the outcome of all of these factors aligning. Here’s the second real step I’m taking. I have on my phone an app on which I can play on repeat any audio I want. I use it for playing affirmations over and over. It’s a great tool – when I use it! You see, I’d gotten out of the habit of using it replay my affirmations every morning. So I agreed with ChatGPT to add this new belief to my affirmations and begin playing them again on repeat every day.
Here’s one more real step that I’ll begin taking. I’ll begin sending emails and showing up even when it’s uncomfortable. The last real step that I plan to take is to continue to work with ChatGPT to come up with more tools to use when the old belief comes back up. I want to emphasize that none of these steps are big. They’re not earth shattering – but they’re real and the build momentum.
So how might you might apply what I’m learning to your own life and business?
What I’m Learning (and What I’d Say to You)
Confidence isn’t a feeling you wait for—it’s something you build by taking aligned action. It’s a process. You may have to go at it like I’m doing – one real step at a time. But remember that it’s OK if it takes time. And it doesn’t matter if your process looks like mine or not.
And keep in mind that it might hurt while you’re going through the process. Also, I’m not suggesting in any way that you use any AI tool to work through whatever issues you might have. That’s for you to decide.
AI is a tool that’s available for you to use if you choose to use it. Let me leave you with this this. About a year ago, I put together a course called “How to Gain Rock Solid Confidence as a New Entrepreneur.” But it doesn’t matter if you’re a new entrepreneur or not. Maybe you just want a “shot in the arm” for your confidence. I’d like to offer this course to you as my gift to you for sticking with me and reading this blog post to the end. If you’d like to get this course to improve your confidence, you’re welcome to do that by clicking right here!
I’m online entrepreneur Richard Rawlings (Rick) Smith. Who else wants to join me in creating an online business that allows them to enjoy the lifestyle they want and deserve?