Confidence – Dave Glardon

Confidence is So Under-Rated

January 5, 2024January 5, 2024 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

As we move into the new year and toward the goals we’ve set for ourselves, it’s important to identify what’s standing in the way. It’s not so much about avoiding obstacles, but kicking them in the shins and showing them who’s boss. Now, if you have any ideas for making winter more accommodating to an old guy who needs to get out and walk, I’m all ears.

Today is my oldest granddaughter’s 16th birthday. Yes, I’m that old. She was born when I was 12. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Like most her age, she’s struggling to plan her path in life. What I wouldn’t give to be that age and have all those choices again. Okay, I’d probably end up right where I am, but hopefully with a smaller waistline. Hey, a man can dream!

Watching her navigate this phase of life, the things that stand out most are her creativity, sense of adventure, acceptance of others, and ability to find amusement in the simplest things. All those things will carry her far in this life. She just needs to know that. Of all the assets we can impart to our kids (and one another), none is more important than self-confidence.

Okay, my oldest grandson sometimes takes that to an extreme. It’s hard to control my facial expressions when he’s talking about buying a $150,000 sports car and can’t even afford a bicycle. But I have to remind myself, that’s his dream, not mine. Besides, there may be a reason he wants a car I couldn’t possibly fit into. I wouldn’t want to ride with me. Not with this attitude.

I try as hard as I can to be supportive, and to remind myself that they don’t have to live my life – my job is to help them live their own. Do I think my grandson will own a “Lambo” in the next twenty years? Not for a second. But I don’t have to share that sentiment. His bank will handle that all on their own. Right after they stop charging him overdraft fees.

But you know, I made some of the same mistakes when I was his age. Or five years ago, take your pick. I’m sure my dad would have advised me against spending six figures on a motorhome at this age, but I didn’t ask. We made our own decision based on our own goals in life. I’m such a rebel. Next thing you know, I’ll be tying my own shoes.

I’ve accomplished a lot in life, and I’m happy to be where I am. This is all I want for my kids and their kids. And I did it because my parents gave me the most wonderful gift of all. They believed in me and, as a consequence, I believed in myself. I never heard the words, “You can’t.” The worst Mom ever said was, “Go ahead – I dare you!” But that’s for another day.

Everybody, from the youngest child to the oldest senior, needs to believe in themselves. It’s as important as oxygen. And we are the ones who can inspire that confidence in them. If a simple smile can make a homeless person feel important, imagine what we can do with a few words of encouragement to those we love most. Friends, we could literally change the world.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day and an even better weekend!

Bring Out Their Best With a Little White Lie

February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a nice start.

Three days ago, I attended an honors choir concert by the Ohio Heritage Conference. This was no ordinary event. It included students from 11 different schools, each nominated by their respective band and choir leaders, all thrown together for a single day of rehearsal and one amazing show. My granddaughter was among those selected.

Any time people start thinking the future is doomed, all they need to do is attend an event like this. A school play, an ice cream social, or maybe a regional competition. It was several dozen students who had never met one another before that day, all focused on one thing – sharing their very best in a flawless performance. I could easily see these kids performing in the White House.

There was also a band concert, along with an impressive display of arts and crafts. The talent in all those areas was incredible. But rest assured, they didn’t all start out that way. Have you ever sat through a school band concert? Both of my girls played in the band, and let’s just say there’s a reason I need hearing aids.

Especially at the elementary and middle school level, it’s a sound that sends cats running into traffic. Clarinets and violins are the worst – like nails on a chalkboard. And anybody who believes parents shouldn’t lie to their kids has never been to one of these things. “You guys sounded awesome!”

Yes, we have to walk that delicate line between encouraging our kids and stuffing our ears with concrete. My parents did it, yours did, we all do. Why? I mean, why not give them an honest critique so they can get better? One reason … the glow on their little faces as they finish a screeching rendition of Mary Had a Little Lamb.

But they don’t sound like that forever. The more they practice, the better they get. And those words of encouragement stack up along the way. None of us is born with the ability to do these things. All it takes is a basic level of God-given talent and the confidence and determination to excel. And when we combine those elements, the result is truly incredible.

Every one of us is a kid at heart. We all seek some level of validation, and we all have that inner desire to excel. If the people you’re hanging around with aren’t supporting your dreams, you need some new friends. Find some people who appreciate your abilities and your goals and will challenge you to be your best. Then keep working at it. You may just amaze yourself! That’s all for now. Give your kids & grandkids an extra hug and have an awesome day!

Your Limitations Are Somebody Else’s Strengths – Team Up!

December 3, 2020 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is starting off well.

It’s hard to believe December is finally here. This has been the longest year ever, I do believe, and not just because it had one extra day in February. That was just icing on the cake. I’ve always said that when you skip a Monday at work, you get four more to make up for it. I’m not sure if that explains 2020, but I’m willing to consider all possibilities.

Normally by now we’d be getting in the holiday spirit. Houses would be decorated, trees would be up, department stores would be bustling with shoppers, holiday music would dominate the airwaves, and in the parking lots people would be giving one another the finger as they battled for the last “good” parking spot. Okay, that’s pretty much all year.

My outdoor lights have been up for a month, but we just turned them on last week. That’s not as much about preparation as a fat guy who isn’t safe on the ladder anymore, a day of decent weather, and a grandson who needed money. You play the hand you’re dealt. Besides, he’s young and bounces easier than I do. If I hit the ground, things break. Like underground pipes.

I decided one day that I needed to inspect the seals on our RV’s roof. The book says that needs to be done twice a year, and I’m all about preventive maintenance. Yes, I’m really that old. Only problem is, inspecting the seals means getting up there where you can actually see them. On a rounded fiberglass roof. Twelve feet off the ground. With an asphalt safety net. No thank you.

I’ve always been able to fix just about anything. I learned these things out of necessity. When you can’t afford a mechanic, you figure it out. With each success, I became more confident. There were setbacks. Like that time I replaced my brakes and five miles down the road the pedal went to the floor … with a Cadillac stopped in front of me. That’ll get your attention.

But I learned something from each mistake. A fraction of the air it takes to stop a semi will mess up your whole day in a hydraulic brake system. Go figure. And we won’t even talk about the time I repacked the rear wheel bearings on my VW Beetle and later that night my left-rear tire went bouncing across A1A in Key West. Oops!

My greatest challenge was acknowledging my limitations. And there was really only one. I had no fear of tearing an engine apart, but I’ve never seen the inside of a transmission because transmissions are the automotive version of Mouse Trap. I have this vision of removing a single screw and twelve springs go flying across the room. “Transmission broken?” It is now.

But, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to recognize those limitations a little better. It’s not that I can’t do the job. I could climb under a car just as easily today as I did forty years ago. It’s getting back up that’s a problem. That, and this knuckle on my left hand that likes to lock up any time I bend my finger. So, I have to keep that finger perfectly straight. Don’t take it personally.

There are things we do really well, and for each of us, those things are different. Can I open a clogged drain line? Sure. Am I the best person to do it? Not in a million years. Tell me to wire a new switch, and I’m completely in my element. But when it came to brain surgery, I paid somebody else to do it. My wife pretty much insisted on that.

There’s no shame in admitting our shortcomings. Whether related to age, ability, agility, or just a general willingness to do the job, there will always be some things we do better than others. And for those things we can’t do quite as well as we’d like, there are others who can do the job with their eyes closed. At least that’s what my surgeon said.

It’s the same when it comes to our dreams. If we’re the expert on how to achieve those dreams, why are we still dreaming about it? Sometimes, we have to throw a question out there and listen to the responses. They don’t all have to make sense. They don’t even have to be something we wanted to hear. But all too often, the most insane answer is the best.

Have you ever found something you’d lost, and then proclaimed, “It was in the last place I looked!” Well, duh! But that’s pretty much true of all the things we seek. Learn where they can be found and how to get them, and it’s simply a matter of doing the work. You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t even have to hire one. All you have to do is open your mind and listen.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

You Can Only Achieve What You Believe

September 11, 2019September 11, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Hump Day! I hope your day is off to a great start.

I read a quote yesterday that struck a nerve and made me think a little. Actually, I think it was the title of a motivational CD. I have a few of those. Like a couple hundred. I just like the sound of somebody telling me I can achieve greater things in life. There are certainly enough people out there trying to convince me otherwise. The title of this CD was “You will see it when you believe it.”

That’s a bit of a reversal on something most of us have said over the years – “I’ll believe it when I see it!” And all it means is don’t give me empty promises, give me results. The advertising world is full of empty promises. Only Fifth Avenue could come up with the concept of a better sex life by using a certain brand of dandruff shampoo. Well, I tried it for several years. Let’s just leave it at that.

So, with anything that’s even slightly beyond what we already know to be true, it’s natural to approach new things with a certain amount of skepticism. We want proof, or at least a decent level of confidence in the outcome, before we invest our time and effort into achieving the desired result. We want to see the result first. Only then will we believe it can actually happen.

Of course, it doesn’t quite work that way. You can get a glimpse of success by looking at the success of others, but that doesn’t really do trick. You can go to the RV dealership and take a test drive, but there’s still that nagging issue of having the money to drive it home. You can kick back in the boss’s chair after he goes home for the day, but tomorrow morning you’ll be back in your own cubicle.

Make no mistake, there’s something to be said for dream-building. If you never drove through a neighborhood of waterfront homes, it might be hard to feed the dream of owning one. And sitting in the driver’s seat of a new car can definitely fuel the urge to buy one. There’s a reason dealers are so eager to let you take a test drive. They understand the value of dream-building as well.

But unless you believe you can someday reach your goal, you’ll never put forth the effort to make it happen. If you knew you could never advance in your present job, how late would you work each day? But if you saw other people around you being promoted on the basis of competence and hard work, you’d probably be a lot more willing to put in those extra hours.

Armed with the belief that success could be within reach, you’ll work that much harder. And the harder you work, the greater your odds of success. But without that confidence, your efforts will be half-hearted and you’ll probably give up at the first sign of resistance. When we believe failure is the likely result, it’s not hard to find reasons to support that notion.

But when we believe we can succeed, we begin to find reasons to support that belief as well. We put in the extra effort and work through any obstacles that may come along. Before long, those obstacles don’t seem as prevalent. Things start going your way. You find yourself moving closer to your goal every day, and with each step closer your belief becomes that much stronger.

Success and defeat are not verbs. There’s no action involved other than the efforts we take to make them happen. They’re not even really destinations or outcomes. They’re nothing more than a frame of mind. And when we approach any new goal, the outcome depends almost completely on our frame of mind. Whatever outcome you believe is almost always the outcome you’ll achieve.

And we can believe just about anything if it’s what we want to believe. Religion teaches us to believe in something we can’t see. We go to work each day believing there will be a paycheck at the end. We raise our kids believing they will achieve even greater success than we have.

We could just as easily believe the opposite to be true. We could disavow any notion of spiritual guidance. We could work as if the company would cheat us out of our pay. And we could raise our kids with the expectation that they’d fail miserably in life. And the outcome would almost always be less than optimal.

Believe in success and you will see success. Maybe not at the level you’d imagined, and maybe not as quickly as you’d hoped. But you’ll always achieve a higher level of success than you would have by accepting defeat. Success and defeat are just a frame of mind that sets you on a path toward an inevitable outcome. You’ll see it when you believe it. So, believe in something you really want to see.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

As Long As There’s Hope, The Dream is Still Alive

August 9, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning, and happy Friday! I hope your day is off to a great start.

It’s hard to believe the weekend is here again. Or, depending on your perspective, it could seem like it took forever getting here. For myself, that feeling changes through the week, and sometimes even throughout the day. It just depends what kind of day I’m having. Can I get an amen?

We all have good days and we all have some pretty lousy days. Between the stress of work, bills to pay, errands to run, and chores stacking up, some days can try our very soul. Throw in kids testing our patience and the occasional (I hope) disagreement with our significant other, and sometimes it feels like we’ll never get back on top. Then along comes a good day to bring it all back into balance.

It would be nice if life worked that way but, for most of us, a good day here and there doesn’t really bring everything back into balance – it just makes it easier for us to endure those other days as we wait for another good one to come along. Or maybe even a few in a row. Wouldn’t that be something?

Hope is what gives us the strength to carry on through those tough days. Hope that we’ll get this project finished on time. Hope that we’ll mend our relationships. Hope that we’ll lose that extra weight or get through this current illness. If it weren’t for hope, there’d be no sense trying.

If you took a jar, filled it with fleas, and then put a glass cover on top, the fleas would try to escape. They’d jump up, bump into the glass, and fall back down. In time, they’d realize the cover was there and jump just short of it. At that point, you could remove the cover and the fleas would stay in the jar. They’d never jump out, because they’d never know they could. They’d just stay in that jar and die.

It’s the same with hope. If you thought you could never accomplish a goal, you wouldn’t even try. If you tried and failed enough times in a row, it would be easy to quit. And if you didn’t think all your effort would someday lead to a more enjoyable existence, you’d probably stop trying. Meanwhile, that glass cover may have been removed, allowing you to jump as high as you want. If only you knew.

Every night, my dog wants to get in bed with me. He doesn’t really want to sleep there – he just wants to snuggle for a few minutes. And before any of you “no dogs in the bed!” types get your feathers ruffled, it’s my dog and my bed. He gets a bath, and he’s never had a single flea. Besides, he’s not a pet – he’s a member of the family.

Anyway, every night he stands at the end of the bed and whines as he makes anywhere from three to ten false starts at the single jump that’ll put him where he wants to be. It’s like he’s looking up at that mattress, wondering how we keep raising it higher every night, and his little brain is saying, “I think I can, I think I can!” Finally, he works up the nerve and makes the jump. He does this every single night.

It’s cute, but it illustrates an important point. The goal is right where it was from the beginning. It hasn’t moved and it’s not like we’ve surrounded it with a moat and stone towers. It’s just as accessible every night as it was the night before. All that’s changed is an eight-year-old dog’s confidence in his ability to reach the top.

We’re not so different. We see a goal and decide it’s something we want. We reach out and it’s not quite close enough. So, we take a step or two and we’re still not there. Then something gets in our way and we have to deal with that. Then something else comes along, and something else after that. After a while, we don’t reach out quite as far, because we’re not quite sure we’ll ever get there.

But here’s the thing – the goal hasn’t moved. It’s still right there where it was. And, unless we’ve taken a step backward, we’re no further away than we were before. What stops us from reaching that goal isn’t the obstacles that pop up along the way – it’s simply our perception of those obstacles and the power we think they wield. It’s a lack of hope.

No matter what kind of day you’re having, your goals are still out there waiting to be achieved. They say it’s always darkest before the dawn. And when the sun finally comes up, you often find yourself even closer to your goal than you’d imagined. As long as you stay focused and never lose hope, you’ll get there. And just think how much better it’ll feel when you do!

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

Swing Like You Mean It!

June 4, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

My office at work is right across the street from a minor-league baseball stadium. You can always tell when the team is in town for a home game, because of all the fanfare in and around the stadium. And the home team has as many die-hard fans as any major-league team. They just don’t have to pay quite as much to watch a good game.

As a young boy, I loved playing baseball. That is to say, I loved putting on the uniform, biting off a big chunk of bubble gum, and standing out there in right-field pretending somebody would actually hit a ball in my general direction. Let’s just say I spent a lot of time kicking daisies off their stems.

And when it was my turn at bat, there was little doubt I’d be heading back to the dugout empty-handed. The only way I got on base was if the pitcher couldn’t throw three balls in the strike zone. I’d swing – sometimes. But even when I did, it was a half-hearted swing because I had accepted defeat before I ever stepped up to the plate.

I always thought failure is probably one of the worst feelings in the world. Years ago, my wife and I owned a NASCAR souvenir shop. We built it from nothing – a few ball caps, some tee shirts, and a display of coffee mugs in the local flea market. We grew that into a fully-stocked weekend store, then opened a kiosk in the local shopping mall, and finally went into a real retail storefront.

I’ll never forget those last two days after the “Closed” sign was placed in the window for the last time. There were boxes to pack, full of items nobody wanted. There were shelves and racks and display cases waiting for somebody to haul them away for half what we paid. Finally, our name was removed from the front window, and it was official – we had failed. Life was pretty bleak.

But as bad as it feels to fail, it’s even worse stepping up to the plate expecting failure, knowing that no matter how hard you try, it’s the inevitable result. In baseball I didn’t swing as hard. I’d look at a perfect pitch and hope the umpire went temporarily blind. In my store, I’d sit behind the sales counter watching cars go by instead of making phone calls. The shelves were dusty. I just quit trying.

I’m sure every one of you has been there. Nothing seems to go right, and each thing that goes wrong becomes just one more example in a litany of excuses for why it was never going to work. After a while, you become your own worst enemy. You hang your head and look for new excuses. And when none present themselves without any effort, you make things go wrong. You’ve long since given up on the idea of success – all you want right now is validation for failure.

Missing a goal feels pretty bad. Do it a bunch of times in a row, and it can really start to wear you down. After a while, you look around at other people who aren’t even trying and begin to think maybe they know something you don’t. You’re over here beating your head against a brick wall and they’re lounging around in the back yard with frozen cocktails. It’s not hard to envy that life.

And then your subconscious mind kicks in and regurgitates every negative thought in its arsenal. “What made you think you could do this? You had to know you’d fail. If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. How much time have you wasted when you could have been enjoying life? You wouldn’t be feeling this way if you’d never set a goal in the first place. Just give up!”

If any of that sounds familiar, welcome to the human race. It happens to all of us. And the more it happens, the more we begin to believe it. Negative thoughts can be pretty convincing, especially in the absence of success. And with every failure, those negative thoughts just get stronger. It’s like pouring gas on a fire except, after a while, the fire begins to pour gas on itself.

It’s only when we put those negative thoughts behind us and replace them with a newfound confidence that we can turn those failures into successes. Approach a goal with the expectation of success and your odds increase exponentially. With every swing, expect a hit and be ready to run to first base when it happens.

Step up to the plate. Swing confidence and conviction and keep doing it no matter how many times you miss. That perfect pitch is coming, so be ready when it happens. This is your time to shine.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!

Advice Can Change Dreams In An Instant

April 2, 2019 by Dave Glardon, posted in Uncategorized

Good morning! I hope your day is off to a great start.

Have you ever decided there was something you were going to do, a goal you wanted to accomplish, but you didn’t want to tell anybody else? Making the commitment to do something positive should be one of the happiest moments of our life (aside from actually accomplishing it), but all too often we hold it in because we don’t want to deal with the inevitable responses.

You see, when you share a dream with somebody, rarely do they just say, “That’s awesome!” There’s always a more in-depth response, usually focused in one of three directions. Quite often, they’ll try to talk you out of it, explaining all the reasons it’ll never happen. You know, “for your own good.”

Others will tell you what a great idea it is, and how much they hope you succeed, because they want to be in your inner circle in case you actually succeed. But all too often, those same people are having a laugh at your expense around the water cooler. “Did you hear what Jim’s trying to do? And he thinks he can pull it off! I think he’s got a screw loose.”

And then, there’s that very small group who gives your plans a little thought, and then says, “You know what? That’s awesome! And I know you can do this. How can I help?” Okay, it’s not usually a group, even a small one. If you could find one or two people who respond in that manner, you’re among the truly blessed. Hang onto friends like that. They’re pretty rare.

But consider this – when somebody shares their dreams with you, how do you react? Do you look at the possibilities instead of the challenges? Do you focus on the qualities of that person that makes them most likely to succeed? Do you point out those attributes? Do you build their confidence? Do you offer to help?

More often than not, the reason we don’t share our dreams with others is because we know how we’d respond if they shared the same dream with us. We mean well. But nobody wants to see a friend bang their head against the wall trying to accomplish something the whole civilized world knows is impossible. Right?

So, instead of offering help and encouragement, we offer advice … well-intended, but very often, badly misinformed. Because, unless you’ve already done what they’re trying to do, you really don’t know what it takes to be successful. You may have read stories or heard people talk of their own failures. But that’s all second-hand knowledge. In a court of law, it would be inadmissible.

And, in all honesty, it’s inadmissible in the mind of the person receiving your advice. They don’t want to hear it. They’ve already decided to do something grand, and the last thing they want to hear is a litany of reasons they can’t succeed. So, all that insight you shared so freely goes in one ear and out the other. You may as well have saved your breath.

It would be great if that’s how the story ends. But it’s not. Because when you share your thoughts with another person, they don’t just go in one ear and out the other. A little bit sticks somewhere in the middle, whether the recipient wants it or not. It falls onto the subconscious, a place in the brain where every thought is truth, and every opinion is fact.

You may not have talked your friend out of their dream, but you have planted the seeds of doubt in their mind. They begin to question something that, before you came along, seemed certain. Let a few other people share similar thoughts, and before long failure becomes the expected result. They can’t shake that nagging thought – “Why are you even trying this? You know it’ll never work!”

When you see somebody who’s about to make a huge mistake, it’s natural to speak up. But there’s a fine line between keeping somebody safe and holding them back. And here’s the question – is it a huge mistake in your mind, or in theirs? What is the real cost? A little time? Some money? The ridicule of people who don’t share their vision? Maybe that’s a risk they’re willing to take.

Before you offer that advice, consider the potential impact against your expertise and motives. As a friend often says, there are a lot of thousandaires offering advice on becoming a millionaire. And there are a lot of entry-level workers with opinions on what it takes to become an executive.

Keep that in mind, as you offer advice to others and as you receive it from them. Every thought that enters our brain, verbally or otherwise, finds a resting place where it can have a profound effect on our ability to succeed. Make sure the thoughts you share and receive are worthy of that power.

That’s all for now. Have an awesome day!