I want to welcome all my new subscribers; it's great to have you onboard.  I hope that you get as much out of reading this newsletter as I get out of writing it.

I'm now a Book Yourself Solid Certified Coach

In my last newsletter, I mentioned that I was going to Philadelphia to become a Certified Book Yourself Solid Coach.  Well, I did, and I am.  I had a great time with an incredible group of other coaches and learned the BYS system at the feet of the master, Michael Port.  What an amazing trainer and lovely man he is!

Starting on Wednesday, June 3, at 12:00 EST, I will be offering a weekly teleseminar called Build Your Business the Book Yourself Solid Way.  The programs will alternate between an aspect of the Book Yourself Solid approach to marketing your business and another topic of interest to people who are building service-based businesses.  Each week, I will be interviewing an expert on that week's topic for approximately 30 minutes, with another 30 minutes devoted to questions.  Each call will be recorded and posted on my Web site.  Please join me.  Email me at Coachted@Getbookedsolidnow.com to register.

The topic for June 3 is:  "An Overview of the Book Yourself Solid Marketing System" with Thomas Magnum.  Thomas has been helping business owners and professional service providers get booked solid and beyond since 2004. 

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Article: Self-Confidence Is the Key to Personal and Professional Success

It's often said that there are only two reasons for any business problem:

1. You don't know what to do
2. You know what to do but you're not doing it

While this statement may be an oversimplification of business problems, I think that 90% of all business problems stem from reason number two. When I say business problems I mean... why we don't achieve what we say we want to achieve... or why we don't do what we say we want to do.

So, of course, the next question you might ask is "why don't we do what we know how to do?" And the answer often is.... we haven't built up the self-confidence needed for the goal at hand.

Look... learning is easy... accumulating knowledge is easy. There are lots of people who know what you need to know and are willing to share the information with you. So, again... why aren't you doing what you say you want to do? Again, I say not enough self-confidence.

We are born with high levels of confidence in certain areas and not in others. And it's different for all of us. But we'll need different levels of confidence depending on what we want to do with our life. It takes one level of confidence to give a speech in front of 5 people and another level of confidence to give a speech in front of 500 and again, another level of confidence to speak in front of 5000. So, if you're not working on developing your confidence and thinking bigger about who you are and what you offer the world, you very well may not put yourself in situations where you'd have an opportunity to present in front of 5000 people.

There are two very simple things I recommend to solve this profoundly important problem

1. Learn in action
2. Develop a self-confidence plan

First, learn in action. Learning in action is the key to success when venturing into uncharted territory. You can't wait to have all the answers. You certainly don't want to go out in the world half-baked but you don't need a doctorate in marketing to create awareness for the solutions that you provide.

This is a big problem for many people - waiting until they are sure that they have all the info they could possibly have about how to do something before they'll try it. It's just not effective and stems from a lack of self-confidence.

And second, develop a self-confidence plan. There are many ways to increase your self-confidence.  One is to do affirmations every day. Read Napoleon Hill's inspirational classic "Think and Grow Rich" for a plethora of affirmations that will help you build your self-confidence.

Another way is to work on any negative self-talk.  Start becoming aware of your thoughts as you go through your day and develop ways of counteracting any negative thinking that you notice on a regular basis.  I use "Taming Your Gremlin" by Richard Carson with all of my clients.

I feel that if you do nothing else as a personal and business building strategy, work on building up your self confidence... so you'll be able to do everything that you say you want to do.

And in closing... don't forget to have a mad passionate love affair with yourself. Love, embrace and believe in yourself. I know how realistic it is to become wildly successful. You can totally create an abundant, joyful and prosperous business life - if you're willing to do the work.

(NOTE:  I am working on an e-book on building self-confidence.  It should be available soon.)

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