Total Self Confidence

July 21, 2008 | Leave a Comment

I have a younger cousin who wants to become an actress. I know, who doesn’t. Anyway, one of the things that I noticed about actors is that the more talented ones have greater control of their voices. So, if she is serious about her chosen career, she’s going to have to learn how to use her voice better. To help her out, I went searching for an expert in this area. Eventually I came across this voice coach, Roger Love, who has worked with stars such as Reese Witherspoon John Mayer and a lot of other big name celebs. After reading a little more about him, I decided to go out and buy his instructional cds.

Here’s were the story becomes a bit more useful for you and me.

Before I gave her the cds, I decided to listen to them myself to see how they could help me. On one of the lessons he starts reminiscing about the time he was talking to the guy who was the lyrics writer for Elton John’s songs, Bernie Taupin. For those who know me, know that I’m not an Elton John fan (R&B, hip-hop, jazz, and a little classical is more my style, but I do enjoy a number of rockers out there), but I can still appreciate that he is a great artist.

Anyway, back to his song writer. During their talk Love asked Bernie Taupin how long does it take for him to come up with lyrics for songs. Taupin said what do you mean? Love repeated the question and added how long does it take him to finish writing a song from beginning to end. Taupin replied I just put pencil to paper and don’t stop writing until I’m done. Love asked him did he ever rewrite. Taupin said that he never rewrote anything.

Needles to say the Love, like myself was surprised and impressed. It’s not too many people out there who are so sure of themselves that they don’t do any second guessing.

Love went on to make the point that many of us, when we attempt to do something, make use of both our rational and “let’s just do it side.” The rational side is the one that judges and repeatedly asks: “Is that okay?” “Will others like it?” “Maybe I should do this instead.” The let’s just do it side however, doesn’t do any second guessing or judging. It just goes about it’s business totally secure and confident in whatever it does and in the outcome resulting from it’s action.

When you think about the second guessing and judging many of us do, it’s not that surprising. Most of us tend to let the rational side of us dominate when we perform an important task. One of the first things we learn from our parents is no, don’t do that. From that point onward, doubt starts to become a part of our thinking process. And from the time we start school up until the day we finished we are constantly being tested. This of course means that we must be able to decide between the right and the wrong answer. If you’re not sure about an answer, then that uncertainty just furthers conditions us to doubt ourselves.

What about the let’s just do it side? Accept for the occasional brainstorming sessions, we rarely if ever are encouraged to just go with our first thoughts and let that suffice. For any of us to do that, this type of behavior would require a total self-confidence that many of us of still striving to achieve.

To put this new found insight to the test, I wrote this post from beginning to end without stopping. I wish I could say that you are reading the finished product of what I wrote the first time, but I did have to go back through it and edit it. However, I am happy to report that even though I had to do some rewriting, the time it took to write this article was significantly less than prior posts. And given the small amount of time I have to write, every second that I save is priceless.

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Total Self Confidence

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