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“How
to Develop Self-Confidence
In Speech and Manner” eBook Online Version
A prominent clergyman declares that many business men go to see him, broken down in the prime of life just when they should be in the best condition for real work. He attributes their trouble not to laziness but to strenuousness. They have been using one set of their powers too much, and other powers perhaps not at all. To this want of balance and harmony, he ascribes their premature downfall.
Health is too precious to be thus frittered away. Young men particularly should take warning from the object-lessons they have on all sides. Too many men are breaking down at thirty-five and forty, and “three-score-and-ten" is more and more becoming the exception.
When a nervous, diffident man asks: "Will the use of alcohol or tobacco impair my chances of becoming self-confident?" we invariably answer, "Yes, most emphatically." We have already said that a high degree of good health is essential to a high degree of self-confidence. Anything, then, that affects the one affects the other. Alcohol is an irritant. If indulged in it will tell against the bodily tissues sooner or later. A self-confident man should be a good speaker, but the use of tobacco directly affects the delicate lining of the throat, and a habitual smoker finds in time that his voice loses its clearness and brilliancy. Irritation of throat leads to more serious troubles, susceptibility to "sore throat" increases, and in time the speaker begins to lose his nerve. Exceptions to this, it is true, may be found, but in a general way both the drinking and the smoking habit are detrimental to the building of self-reliance.
Chapter VIII
FINDING YOURSELF
It is said that the lobster when washed high and dry makes no effort to get back into the water, but waits for the sea to come to him. If it does, well and good; if it does not, he simply dies. There are literally thousands of men who complain that no one helps them, and who frown upon the success of others as due wholly to good luck or the influence of friends. The time spent in bemoaning their lot, if applied to honest endeavor, would yield splendid results and give them their proper place in the world. Such men have not found themselves.
There is another class of persons who are fairly successful, but work with their left hand. That is to say, they are at constant disadvantage because they have not learned to do their work in the best way. For example, a man may perform the duties of the day as an automaton, and, like a machine, wear out. As the years go by he becomes less and less valuable, and finally goes down under the general classification of failure. Or a man limits himself by the belief that he must be on a fixed salary, that he can not risk branching out for himself. If reproached for his lack of ambition, his excuse is that all men cannot be principals, that some must fill the subordinate positions. This may be true, but he should not play "second fiddle" any longer than he must. There may be rare cases where a man has reached the limit of his lifting power, and there remains for him only the task of doing his particular work the best he can. But many others are conscious of not doing their best, not pressing forward to a higher place in the world, not using their powers as they should. These men have not yet found themselves.
There is still another class who live an artificial life, constantly striving to appear what they are not and never can be. The result is they do not find their real selves, and largely for lack of a little common sense. There is a false pride and a real pride. The right kind of pride is one of the greatest spurs to ambition. We see this illustrated in persons who are short in stature, or who are handicapped by some physical defect. In order to measure up to others, they will put forth Herculean efforts in other directions. If Napoleon had been an inch taller he probably would never have been a great commander, for, as a writer says: "It was the nickname of 'Little Corporal' that probably first pricked the sides of his ambition, and stung him into that terrible activity which made all Europe tremble." A man should give little thought to his weaknesses, but concentrate his time and energies upon the best that is in him. The way to conquer difficulties is to wear them out by hard work. Let a man subject himself to severe self-analysis. Let him determine to be severely honest in this examination. If he really has limitations he should recognize them and keep within them. If he has unused powers, let him develop them. If he has defects that are holding him back, let him eradicate them. If he feels he is capable of greater things, let him attempt them.
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