I’ve been at this work-from-home microbusiness thing for a few years now, chasing a dream of independence from way back.
When I started, my goal was to have my own business and keep pace with (and maybe exceed) what my parents earned at my age. I didn’t know how I was going to do all that, but I remember thinking (immodestly, but honestly):
“I’m smart, I’m tech-savvy, I’ve got a degree and a half. I have skills. People do far more with far less. How hard can it be?”
Colossally. Flawed. Thinking.
Being smart is so not a pre-requisite for accumulating wealth with a wee business. I bet we can all think of at least two dim bulbs who are up to their asses in cash.
Being tech-savvy is handy, but also not a requirement. All kinds of folks are eager to take care of your tech, and there are affordable tools besides.
My college education is (almost) useless. I learned a lot from my coursework, and I use some piece of it every day. But the papers in the frames are just paper now.
In the go-to-work world I could (and did) leverage my degrees for higher salary, better roles, and more interesting work. But out here in the wild, no one gives a shit.
Out here, results matter. Track records matter. Relationships matter. Follow-through, endurance, and bodaciousness matter.
So when I look at the tools and skills I stepped off the dock with, I see a whole lot of nothing. Diddle ÷ Squat.
Because when I look around at people I admire and their various flavors of success, they all have a lot of one thing that I have very little of.
Their common thread, their go-to tool in the toolbox (and maybe the only tool we actually need) is: Confidence.
And best that I can tell, it’s 50/50 on whether their confidence came from their achievements, or their success was the inevitable outcome of their confidence.
Me? I don’t have it. My education didn’t give it to me. Neither did my upbringing, my experiences, genetics, or even time. I’m 40 after all…I think if I could somehow age into confidence that I’d have it by now?
And it’s not like I can buy it or borrow or steal it. It’s not on special in Aisle 3, right?
So with brains, tech, and degrees in hand, I’ve essentially brought knives to a gun fight. Well, ok…I have guns…but I don’t have the confidence to draw ‘em when I need ‘em. And what are my gifts and skills worth if I can’t gather enough grit to bring them out and use them?
So here’s what I’ve come to: I don’t believe that I can build confidence for my dreamcatching. I think my dreamchasing is going to build my confidence.
At least I sure as hell hope so, because I’m moving forward with or without it.
In the meantime, I’ll just supplement my meager, fleeting confidence with genuine, Grade A, hard-headed cussedness. I’ve always had bottomless buckets of that.
.
Et tu? Which do you think comes first: confidence or success? Lemme know down below…
Its the chicken! No wait, the egg.
I have been asked this same question three times this week, “How did you know/trust that you could make a living outside the corporate world?” And my answer has been this: I didn’t know I could fail.
I had a book on business by Cherie Sohnen-Moe http://www.sohnen-moe.com/ which is a little outdated now but in 1993 it was hot stuff, yo. I grabbed my little book, trusted in divine guidance and have been cranking up the networth ladder ever since.
One trait we have in common ( and I am all excited to say this cause I think you rule) is an excellent sense of humor. So when everything is falling apart I start to laugh and start looking for the window, because this is my deal with the divine, “When you slam a door shut in my face, open a window.”
And she always does.
rowan
http://www.urbancurandera.com
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Crystal, I truly hope that confidence can follow from success, ’cause otherwise I’m screwed.
Honestly, though, I think you’re selling yourself short. It’s depressingly easy to feel like you’re not a confident person, especially when you surround yourself with people who appear to have the confidence you want. It’s also easy to forget past successes when you’re thinking of ways to boost your own confidence. But check these out:
I’ve been at this work-from-home microbusiness thing for a few years now
I’ve got a degree and a half
my dreamchasing – and keep in mind that this is something you’re already doing
These are all successes. You said “I’m going to do this” and then you did it. That bespeaks confidence in yourself that you probably don’t even know you have. A truly unconfident person would have said “oh, I can’t do that” and walked away. A truly unconfident person wouldn’t even be here to write this blog post!
What you also have, though, is a heaping helping of self-doubt. (To make matters, worse, you probably think of it as “being honest with myself”.) We tend to think of self-doubt and confidence being mutually exclusive, but they’re not; plenty of perfectly confident people also have loads of self-doubt, and it’s the doubt that prevents them from using their confidence. And, unortunately, past and future successes can only go so far toward erasing self-doubt; at some point you need to sit down and address it directly.
Now that my comment is probably nearly as long as your post, I should probably leave off (although this might be fodder for a post of my own!), but I’ll leave you with this concluding thought. Confidence breeds success, and success breeds confidence; it’s a classic positive feedback loop. With self-doubt at the edges trying to pull you out of the loop, though, it’s easy to fall out and never get up the motivation to come back in.
(whew!)
Recent blog post from Chris Anthony: A quick link
Oh dear. That dark grey styling on <strong> doesn’t look so great on the dark grey comment background.
I’ll keep that in mind in the future. 
Recent blog post from Chris Anthony: A quick link
@Chris Love your comments, hate the default color scheme of this theme…
I loved the pic of the chicken…shocking!
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I think you need confidence to start something and be successfull. But it is important to exactly know what you can and what not.
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I would say it’s confidence that breeds success
Not all successful people are confident, but all confident people are successful!
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This is an excellent, excellent post. I can’t think of a single freelance/entrepreneur co-conspirator who can’t identify with these things.
But I still don’t have the answer to your question.
I can totally relate to your article. For many years I was searching for ways to stay at home and work for me, without comuting every single orning to hateful work. Unlike you, I don’t have half of your great skills. So, it makes harder for novice. Recently I found niche socializer product by Andrew X, all about social website , even viral marketing. Sounds good to boost microbusinesses. Although they call it microniching- the idea is the same. It motivated me a lot, and started to show the horizon line of my daily job quitting, it is not the mirrage any more.
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The chicken
I think neither comes first. I started out working from home 3 years ago and I would not say I am an overly confidant person. In that 3 years though my confidence in what I do has grown and so has my business. Would I say I am confident now? Yes, but when working from home I do not think it matters too much as you can work at your own pace and in your own environment.
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@ Rowan – too true, matey! I think we have to persist in a “laugh or you’ll cry” mentality.
@Crystal – so glad to have found your very honest blog. I think the confidence fluctuates daily….and when I need it back and find it lacking, I ask myself: “would I rather be panicking out here in the real world or be climbing the walls of a cubicle?”
We all know the answer to that!
It really depend on the individual
What works for others might not work for someone else because some get the confidence naturally, while others might get it after they went through certain experience.
Sounds like you’re atleast on the way to building some sort of career online. In addition to this , your website seems to be pretty popular. And popular websites = source of income if monetized right.
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Great post. Running your own small business challenges every facet of who you are as a person. The biggest challenge for many is the discipline it takes to stay focused when there is no boss present or to stay on routine for operations. Fortunately discipline and confidence can be gained through self-actualization.
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I think confidence is chicken and success is egg……………..
Quiet interesting article. I really enjoyed reading this.I think chicken.
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I think confidence is important to making a decision to do things on your way, but confidence itself is not enough for making success. There are many other things such as , did you select a market/field which suits your interest/skill , and does it a profitable market? are you persistent enough? do you have the BUSINESS skill to turn the ideas in to hard cash? are you able to get all the necessary things such as connection, finance to make things run up to the end?
Working at home will work only if you able to delegate , outsource things which is beyond your skill or take much of your precious time as a complete business setup requires many things which you can not do all by your self, even if you can you might waste your precious time, talent.
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Nice post, However I have to say that there are many opportunities that a person has, but he doesn’t recognize.
For example although you may not use your college degree for having a full time job at a large company, but however you didnt spend all those years studying and ended up with nothing!!
I always say to use your degree and your background information to develop a solid business, where you can implement that on your blog, to create unique content and ideas, you dont have to work for any one or be depressed.
You can develop yourself by yourself.
You can do it!!
I’d have to say that confidence comes before success. Everyone has that little voice of insecurity but the challenge is to not let that voice take over. Being confident in yourself can make you successful, and even when your not confident just acting like you are can help you on the road to success. For example; I have spoken publically in various situations and every time my knees are knocking I’m so nervous. But I make a real effort to stay focused, have good posture, and show confidence in my voice and as a result people take me much more seriously. I believe everyone can learn to be confident in themselves but the task is seldom easy.
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We are the same…having my own business is a dream come true for me and doing it in the comfort of my home makes it more appealing. Although you’re right, its not easy but the thing is…Confidence should always be at the forefront. If you have one, nothing can beat you except yourself…
@machwan
right on! way to say creatively use the metaphor
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Lol! The chicken gives it all away. But seriously, confidence can both be the chicken and the egg. It slowly develops and asserts a sense of self consciousness and once it does, it produces a stream of possibilities and opportunities for everyone.
I definitely like the metaphor on this article.
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Well it might be home. I’ve started this home based business thing for 4 years now and after hard work and a lot of time I am starting to see some good results…
Warm wishes,
Joel
i think when you got the confidence, …
you can handle the rest !
The chicken of course
Yes confidence is nice but don’t forget we all have doubts. What is most important is setting goals and working your butt off to reach them. Once the success comes so will the confidence. The successful people have confidence because guess what, they are successful! That doesn’t mean they had 100% confidence from day 1.
I’d say you are confident already. After all, you wrote this story opening up to the world. That takes confidence.
On a different note, I highly recommend the move Confidence. It’s strong!
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