How to stop yourself from getting nervous-when everyone else is “better looking” than you!

I got the call yesterday.

They wanted to see me again to do a few different shots.

So I went to the address near Selfridges (in London) for another casting for some shoot I had forgotten the product name of…

When I entered the studio (a dance studio called Dance works with very friendly receptionists) I was sent downstairs ….I entered the busy studio.. lined up along the wall were about 25 pretty gorgeous models..guys and girls.. There was a photographer on the right working whoever was just casting.. and a few people hanging around the table in the middle..There was the familiar whiff of selfconsciousness in the air usually noticeable when models get together for castings..As nobody approached me i went and sat down at the table and filled in my hundredth form in the last 12 months…and wondered how long it would take to get seen…

By this time a few more people had joined the queue…

When I went back to the end of the queue it hit me all of a sudden:

A SUDDEN JOLT OF INSECURITY!

The guys were all taller than me…mostly “better looking” than me… would the photographer turn around and say “Oops.. sorry.. we are looking for MODELS!” or was anyone going to turn around and say”Hey mate..I am not sure this is the right casting for you!”?

For a moment the humiliations of my early casting years flashed before my eyes….

And then I thought:

Here i am… the guy that has developed all these “mindsets” and methods and techniques to manage my state and stay confident and who is helping people in business or life to deal with situations like these…the guy that will happily stand in front of 500 people with nothing but a radio mike… and I had these completely irrational fears coming up about a casting that I wasn’t even that keen on!…

I must have had a smile on my face by then because i thought…”Stephan…there you go. There is your cockiness gone in a flash!”

And I smiled and had a bit of a realisation:

This whole thing of life and who we are and develop into and how we are managing our state is a process…and there will always be situations when you and me will feel insecure and irrational…situations that will throw me off balance..(how else am I going to grow)…but what we will do after having been thrown off balance will be the crucial thing!

So I thought: lets see how I can get into a great state again..

Noticing what was happening was a great start.

But to be honest  I didn’t have to do much more because I had already intuitively got into what I call the “Smiling deeply” mindset. So I just focused on that for another minute or two…and I was back to my relaxed confident self!

(did a good casting too by the way…)

So what is the “smiling deeply” Mindset?

Well..I noticed that

one of the quickest and most intuitive ways of letting go of stress or nervousness is to smile + breathe deeply…i.e. smile deeply!

Yeah… so you hear this a lot in kind of dating advice or confidence advice: “just smile at people.. …it will make you confident!“

And that is true to a degree.

But to be honest …for me that didn’t explain it enough. I didn’t get this until I realised that  there were vital ingredients missing!

The key is this:

Smile an “inner smile” at yourself and the situation, and the people in it (including you) and keep breathing deeply at the same time…allowing the rest of yourself to catch on to your state change…

It’s like thinking ‘Isn’t this funny? Isn’t this fascinating?” And if you smile “on the inside” and you are smiling at yourself in the situation as well as at the situation and everyone in it you take a step back out of the situation… Then you can allow yourself to let whatever thoughts seem appropriate to your smile come in…

You are instinctively acquiring a new perspective on the situation…a little bit like taking a bird’s view on yourself in the situation…you are becoming the “amused observer” …..which leads you to feeling relaxed quickly and when you breathe deeply you allow your body to be flooded by this relaxation too.

“YOU feel resourceful again because you have stopped identifying with your unresourceful thoughts!”

Come to think of it…the reason this works so well is probably that when we get stressed about something we temporarily have the illusion that “we are our thoughts” or that “we are our mind” when in fact we “have a mind”...and by smiling at ourselves and the situation we remind ourselves of this…

Mmhh.. heavy stuff!

Not really… but honestly.. this isn’t some sort of feel good fuzzy way of doing something nice!

It just works!

When will you use it?

Let me know..keep sharing your ideas, thoughts, comments!

Stephan

CONFIDENCE, BLACKHEADS AND OBSESSIONS..

Hi, it’s me Stephan.

Let me ask you a truly challenging coaching question upfront:

Have you ever had blackheads? And have you ever noticed that once you look in the bathroom mirror and one annoys you and you start to “squeeze it” trying to get it out and it hurts and all..that almost 5 minutes can pass while you in a strange kind of hypnotised daze search your whole nose and face for other blackheads or spots or impurities of any kind?

The point is:

When we have a strong goal (getting that blackhead out!) and we really focus on it we can turn into full blown blackhead hunters for a while. And there is nothing else that matters.

The real point is:

That’s what I have been like  with confidence over the last few years.

Why?

Because I had to get it sorted!

I am an actor, voice over artist, trainer, nlp’ler, budding coach and writer… and on top of it a foreigner!

You need confidence for all this stuff!

You see..for all the things I love doing that thing people call “confidence” is required ingredient nr1.

And when I came out of puberty I didn’t have it. So first I faked it. (well.. let me be plain: for years I faked it!) I thought that was the way to do it!

(do you know what I am talking about here?)

But the longer the more I didn’t want to pretend anymore. When I played being confident I knew I wasn’t authentic. So I had to learn how to REALLY HAVE IT.

REALLY BE CONFIDENT.

Inside and out.

So I asked myself “How can I BE CONFIDENT and have that authentic feeling and knowledge that i am ok and enough in ANY SITUATION…NO MATTER HOW “SCARY”?

Honestly speaking… it became a full blown obsession.

You know.. obsession as in when a goal really goes into your body and drives your actions daily. I guess you could almost say that my acting work became a means to learn to be truly confident ( I tell you more about that later), going into a studio for a voice over job became a chance to practise a new method I had just discovered for how to be confident…and so on.

The great thing was this: All my work required and requires more than average confidence. So I thought: “Brilliant. Unlimited challenges-my own daily research laboratory..and I was the guinea pig and mad scientist at the same time!

Underlying everything I have been doing, looking for and focussing on has been the desire to find the tools, the laws, the rules, the methods to feel truly deeply confident no matter what the circumstance. (and here is a secret: I am not there yet-but soooh much closer!)

In this blog I want to share some of the answers I got and I want you to test them and judge them and add your own answers and questions…So leave your comments, it makes it worth it.

If you have ever asked yourself:

• How can I be more powerful in front of people?
• And how can I truly feel confident when I really need it?
• Is there a process that I could repeat so that I can be confident at will?
• What would I do if I knew I couldn’t fail?
• How do Hollywood actors manage to be so bloody compelling?

then stick around because those are the questions we will address here!

One other thing: You know why it has taken me so long to start this?

I am quite put off by some of the “tips” that people put out online to make others more confident! I didn’t want to patronise anyone. I didn’t want to add to the mountain of “coaches” that turn out these rehashed bits of advice they stole from other writers. I didn’t want to be one of those “coaches” that unconsciously undermine their “clients” by presupposing that there was something wrong with their readers because they “had no confidence”…

Nobody has no confidence! It’s nonsense! (Honestly this does piss me off!)

While that is “true” it is also “true” that almost everyone has areas in their lives where they would like to feel more of their confidence and also project it to other people around them.  Both to actually do whatever it is they would like to do but haven’t go around to yet but also to do it in a way that is satisfying for themselves. (Disagree with me if you want to right now by leaving a comment…or just admit right now that you know what I am talking about…;-))

So here is the deal:

Some of the things I am thinking of sharing will be controversial. (Like my “Give a f**k Mindset”)
Some of the things I am thinking of  sharing will be tricks. (imagine it like an aspirin)
Some of the things I am going to share will be “deep”…i.e. things that have absolutely changed my life.

BUT

One thing: I will do all I can to invite as many people to this blog as possible. But you know.. writing it and sharing my ideas or methods takes time of course. So I would like to know that you are there. Otherwise it feels like talking into an empty room.. not very rewarding….and I may want to spend time on other things…

SO PLEASE….

Comment as much as you can. If you are a seeker like me then share your own ideas with others. Ask me questions! Share situations that you find thought provoking or challenging in terms of feeling good and confident! Tell me what you want from the blog! Tell me what to do! What you want to hear about!
Share your stuff! Thats what blogs are there for I figure!

Speak to you soon
Stephan

PS: If you want a method explained that has been used by some of the world’s biggest achievers to get things done read my first ever blog post. There is only one previous  so it’s easy to find!
It also has an important aspect related to confidence:
Here it is:

“When you consistently do what really matters to you first and not the things that don’t matter…one interesting side effect is that you will notice a stronger sense of purpose, importance and with that …you guessed it…CONFIDENCE!

Also check out the comment from James Lavers (Marketing Guru Extraordinaire ) He knows what he is talking about! (You can also see how quickly I have listened to his advice!)

How to get stuff done-a deceptively simple, crushingly efficient method!

Hi… so here I was making it my NR1 Priority of the day to figure out how to write a blog on wordpress…anticipating many confusing journeys and obstacles to overcome..and then …after going through saved pages from my last after seminar goldrush induced hyperactivity..(which involved getting a website set up quickly using wordpress..what was his name..forgotten.. Australian guy….and so on.. now lives in Thailand I think…anyway…)ok ok…. the long story short…I realised I had a blog here already.. only forgot that I had set it up already!

And is that not a sign of the times?

You see. .. I had sorted all out and set up and wanted to start writing…and then I must have forgotten all about it focussing on all the other things I could learn about or start doing and it had gone completely from my radar….all buried under my desire to do all ….and sometimes to end up with a 6 month delay..

And am I the only one that is having this challenge?

Since you have read this far…(my first humble blog ever) you could go a step further couldn’t you and let me know whether you are experiencing similar challenges

…and how you deal with them..

oh.. and if you could tell me the 5 most unspeakable sins I have committed within my first blog ever (because there will undoubtedly be some) in terms of wordpress blogging etiquette…please mention those to me in passing too please…

Enjoy 2009!

Stephan

btw: things have got better for me since I came across my new method of prioritisation.

This is how you I do it:

1.The night before the next day I take a blank paper and write down a header “task brainstorm”..

2.I write all things I feel I need to do the next day!

3. New piece of paper. I write down a header “Prioritised Task List”

4. I decide which of my tasks from my “brainstorm” is most important, the second most important..and so on…and I write down listed 1.-6. the tasks that I identify as the most important for me to do on that day!

5. Next morning…I start straightaway on the first one….and don’t stop until I have finished it! (which is the revolutionary bit for me)

6. When I have completed the first task I go on to my second most important and so on..

and it just works…

…much better than before but who knows how far we can get…..

So do you like this system?

PS.The funny thing is once I started doing things like this I never thought “Should I work or take a break” anymore… I started thinking much more “Which of these two is more important?” – so somehow I forgot about procrastination…;-)

Please leave a comment and add something to the debate!