How I Raised Myself from Weakness to Strength

I had my presentation all planned. The room was booked, the visuals done, the electronic equipment tested and ready to go, the marketing done and the special guest speaker had arrived early and we had dinner before the show.

All was as it should have been, until…

I walked in the room and saw the 300 people there waiting for the show to start, and my heart literally stopped.

All of a sudden, I doubted myself and wondered if I had bitten off more than I could chew… way more.

The event was the first one of its kind that I had ever produced and the special speaker was David Chilton (The Wealthy Barber, Dragon’s Den) who was so incredibly gracious and real. I think he knew that I was in over my head, but he never said a word about it.

The way things were slated to work was I’d get up and give a 30-minute presentation about personal development to warm up the audience, and then David would be on for an hour to close the event.

As I look back in my mind’s eye to that night, I don’t know how I managed to even walk to the stage, let alone speak for the amount of time that I did. Because I was sharing the stage with a celebrity from the business world, I became nervous, and when I became nervous I doubted myself and that there, my friends, is a recipe for disaster, because nervousness makes you weak: physically and emotionally.

But weakness is just a conversation you have with yourself in your own mind.

How you feel about yourself is based on the stories you have told yourself and the ones you have listened to from other people who don’t wish the best for you. The great thing about this is that you can change your story and find strength even in the pits of doubt.

I’m speaking from experience here, but I can also give you countless examples from the people I have coached over the past 30 years. In that time, I have discovered that there are three important mindsets that you can adopt that will give you a position of power when you are feeling overwhelmed.

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?1.?Fake It Until You Make It

Amy was a bright, gifted student with a great career opening up for her until she had an accident and suffered brain trauma. From then on she had to work extra hard for everything she was going to get. Her doctors told her that she was not likely to get better and suggested that she change her direction and she was taken out of college. She felt that her identity was taken from her and she felt powerless. Because of who she is, she kept trying to get back in and when she did, she had to work much harder than anyone else, but she finally graduated and went on to work at Princeton. This is when the doubts started to plague her and she questioned why she was even there. Once when she had a 20-minute talk to do, she talked to her advisor and told her that she couldn’t do it and that she was quitting.

But her advisor knew that she was better than that.

She told her to “Fake it till you make it.” She told Amy to face everything she was afraid of and to do it and do it and do it until she had a record of successes.

Now Amy Cuddy has her PhD and has the 2nd most watched Ted Talk with over 25 million views.

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?2.?Tell Yourself A Better Story

To conquer your fears requires you to tell yourself a better story than the one currently paralyzing you. The words you say and the images you hold about yourself are the winds that blow you forward or keep you stalled on a glassy ocean of doubt.

When you are faced with the challenge of doing something you have never done before, you must open your success toolbox and look for a time and place when you were in jeopardy and you did something to shut the doors of doubt. You may even look at a time when you failed, but found a road back to success. You cannot allow yourself to let any doubt creep in and focus on what you really want and keep moving toward it.

You have to see yourself as a powerful person if you want to be a powerful person.

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?3.?Body Language Shapes Outcomes

When I was in my late teens, I was a hockey referee on my way to someday working in the NHL. (Or so I was told) I was quite a small guy then weighing in at 140 lbs. and standing 5’10”. Most of the games I officiated had players much bigger than me who would tower over me as I made my calls.

My coach and mentor at the time was Wayne Mercer, a fellow referee and also my Geography teacher in High school. It was after a game that he and I did that cemented in me the knowledge that body language shapes outcomes.

The game was a playoff game in the senior league and everything was down to this very last game. At the end of the first period, I made a questionable call on a guy who went in the corner with his elbows up and benched him for 2 minutes. Well, the other team scored and then all hell broke loose. They came at me with voices raised, threatening me with bodily harm and I started to lose any confidence that I went in with. That's when I heard Wayne behind me say “If you back down, they’ll never let you go. Straighten up, look them in the eye and claim your space. And make a decision and stick to it”.

Wow.

I stood tall, took a confident pose, looked them in the eye and gave my ruling. Where a few minutes ago I was almost cowering, I was now enjoying this feeling of power… Just by firming up my body language.

And you can too.

If you see yourself as a very powerful person, and you do the actions that a powerful person would do, and keep on doing them, you will become it.

All the experts agree on this.

So, if you sometimes find that you are in a position of weakness, try these three ideas to raise your power: 1. Fake it until you make it 2. Tell yourself a better story and 3. Adopt a powerful body language.

Do these three things, and you, too, will raise yourself from a weak position to one of power.

Make an impact!

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