Confidence

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Intro

This contains a couple of personal stories. You may want to change them for ones more personal to you / more generic ones.

Confidence

Some people are incredibly confident. I know a guy who works in broadcast and he’s good at everything and confident with it. He went to a business person’s lunch – first time he’d been invited – and they were doing sports in the morning. First up was archery. He’d never done it before and yet he won. Then he did paintballing, never done before and guess what, he won. Then they did another competition and he won that too. He was never invited back! Another time, he was out on his scrambling motorbike and riding against a couple guys who ride for England. He beat them and they described him as being a nutter. He’s just very confident! But he’s not arrogant at all, he never boasts or disrespects people.

The Bible says do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.

One of the messages that we often ask is in our heads is: am I good enough? The answer often comes back that we aren’t good enough. This buzzes around and messes with our minds and is reflected in what we do. I usually listen to music in my room and so my speakers are on. For some reason, they pick up all kinds of signals. So one day, I put some ferrite bead on my leads. The ferrite works to stop high frequencies getting through. This tuned out the bad signals and helped me listen to my tunes. 

The bad signal in our minds about not being good enough is a message that we have to tune out, and tune into another way of thinking. Did you know that a doctor researched how your brain works.. It does 400 billion calculations every second. More than that, when we think negative thoughts, toxic things are released into our brains (see pic below, click for larger image). 

brain

When we think positively and have belief or faith in something, good chemicals are released and our brain changes. You can actually train your mind to think differently and more positively, in just 4 days, according to a book by Dr Caroline Lee.

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The Bible also tells us that, as a man thinks, so is he.

You can’t do the impossible just because you think something. But, we should be confident because you are unique and are good at lots of things that other people aren’t. Your fingerprint, your eye and you are an absolute one-off. So, don’t throw away your confidence. Instead, concentrate on what you’re good at and get better. 

Some people often ask me how I got good at rap, or beatboxing, or other things. Truth is, I just work on things over and over and keep on and keep on learning. But it’s not always easy. I once rapped in Wilmington in Delaware and it was hard work – the kids there loved it but the teenangers laughed at me as it wasn’t great! A couple days later, one of the teens told my friend that actually it wasn’t too bad and they were laughing at me mainly because I was white and English. But it was hard and a learning experience!

I also play in bands with professional musicians who are much better than me and who have played with international bands. But I don’t let it get me down. Instead it makes me practice more, determine to improve and has helped me get much better.

I played in a band with a guy who has played for Amy Winehouse. He is seriously good. What did it do? Made me more confident and more determined to get better. 

Video Clip – School of Rock clip, chapter 7

This is about Jack Black’s song and his confidence in music, the band and in his own song.

The timing is 0:31:51 – 0:36:50.

It starts when Dewey Finn or ‘Mr Schneebly’ enters the room. It ends when Summer says, “I like it Mr Schneebly, I think it’s catchy” and he replies to her saying “Thank you”. 

Conclusion

Remember not to lose your confidence. Even if you don’t feel confident, try to do things and keep growing and learning. Then, as the Bible says, let your light shine!