Just a brief thought today on the importance of self-confidence. This is particularly aimed at those who are going through a rough time, say unemployment, a painful professional or personal transition...I know I've blogged a great deal about the crucial part of seeking employment, for example, is to demonstrate your value. But I also know that when you're unemployed, particularly if it's a long-term situation, the immediate effect is to make you lose all sense of self-worth. Which is a very dangerous, self-defeating prophecy. How can you muster the self-confidence, the necessary arrogance to convince an employer that you're hawt sh*t, if you're feeling like a loser, right?
Take a deep breath, and remember that you are more than just a job. Remember all of the other things you have achieved, the lives you have changed. The people who love you, love you no matter what...if they don't, I need you to tell them to suck it, asap! You must re-assign yourself  value immediately. If not, I promise: it's just going to get worse. Your mind starts playing tricks with you...and those tricks can be very destructive.
I know of what I speak. When I first graduated law school, I felt pretty beat up. (BTW: this has nothing to do with IUB and everything to do with me. IUB deserves a lot of praise and cash for putting up with my crap for 3 years.) I was pretty toxic with misery, and fear. It really did feel like all my best years were behind me. (Melodramatic...but true.) Then, out of the blue, I got an email, from a former agent, asking if I would agree to put my first play on tour of Brazil. I won't go into details here, but the idea that I had had, previous to law school, written something that years later was still thought to have the power to influence a national dialogue...that notion saved my life. It gave me the self-confidence and belief I needed to stop kvetching and to be grateful for all I had learned and done along the way.
(Ugh: I've become one of those people who are "grateful for the journey"...oy. On the other hand, I've also become someone who can always find a relevant "South Park" quote so...tomato, tomato?)
So when I say to people who are going through a rough time and feeling in a dark place, that you must focus on all you have achieved, and all you WILL achieve...I'm not some idiot politician telling you to keep a stiff upper lip, as I slash your social services and give myself a pay raise. (Grrr...) I'm someone who s-l-o-w-l-y, step-by-step, started turning things around by being true to myself..and re-assigning myself value. And you can too...
(Thank you, IUB! How could I have anything but mad love for a place where you can get hammered for twenty dollars?? Come on!)

I'm (probably way too) real...

I had a blast last night speaking about 10 quickie ways to jump start yourself  on the transformative process of reinvention at the NewLife Expo…especially given that it was one of my first big speaking engagements, and that for about 5 heart-pounding minutes it looked like nobody would show (sad trumpet noise here)..but then, it happened: the room got filled, people were excited, my endorphins took off and I ended with a cheering squad. [That makes it seem like some bad 1980s film…but no. I was not wearing an inside-out sweatshirt.]

Anyway, afterwards, one of the participants asked me if I was a motivational speaker and I sort of cringed, since to me “motivational speaker” reminds me in the worst way of a politician: sanctimonious, arrogant and prone to dispensing unrealistic judgments about how you should your life, while they’re safe on the federal tit. Like, for example, that disgusting hypocrite, former Idaho Sen. Larry E. Craig, who had the gall, the almost unimaginable lack of conscience, to consistently  vote down pro-gay rights items, condemning gays for their “lifestyle choices”… all the while he was  soliciting men in public bathrooms. Pathetic. [Yes, I know there are good politicians…or at least, people who have done good  & important things while in office so simma down.  You don’t want to sue me.  All of my worldly assets at the point are the cats, several thousand books, several million partially broken cat toys,  my cleavage and a lot of law school debt…l’chaim! ]

But I'm not here to judge you. Not me, son. I’m not damning you for doing something I wouldn’t have the balls to do myself. I’m “simply” asking you to not cheat yourself.  To be true to all your great reserves of potential and talent. To not hide from yourself.  J. Ho needed 6 people to help her write “Jenny From The Block” [one of those bits of trivia that will stay in my brain till I die. First year of law school has , mercifully, almost completely evaporated, but the fact that it took 7 damn people to write lyrics like I’m still/I’m still/Jenny from the block will remain in my frontal lobes forever!], but I’m completely real all by myself.  And if I do my job right, and help you to “get it” about your potential, talent and opportunities…you will be too.