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The Confidence Journey - 017 : Confidence and Money


Here again, we have to explore another trio - Self beliefs, our attitudes and behaviours. ( we call them trios because they are interconnected and needs to explored together when we are researching on the subject).

These trios influence our success interms of money. Our self belief show our self esteem, it simply means how you see yourself, where you see yourself. It is a self evaluation of how you rate or trust your self worth, capabilities and your identity.

These self beliefs that we are forming are not formed overnight but a result of our whole life, we can say a summation of our whole life and life experiences, the criticisms we have received, the situations we had to go through and self reflection.

Self beliefs can be positive or negative based on our evalutions. Those with positive self evaluation will have higher/better self esteem and those with a negative self belief can lead to lower self esteem.So, those with lower self esteem will have alot of self doubt and they can be self criticisers also.

Our attitudes are also a reflection of our self esteem, it can stem from our response system with the outside world this can be emotional as well. Imagine after passing out of college with great enthusiasm and optimism you start giving out interviews , you have given 10-20 interviews and yet you are placed nowhere.

Again you give out another 10 more interviews and slowly through each rejection your power drains, now the enthusiastic person can be replaced with a person confused in his/ her own abilities, this is a reaction to the outcomes of our situations. Hence, attitude is highly influenced by the judgements, criticisms and our emotional responses to that.

The same interview scenario can also have a great impact on our self esteem/ beliefs, it's a vice versa situation. The Attitude of a person is shaped by their thoughts and belief systems in the light of emotional and behavioural patterns. Attitudes stem from our personal experiences,cultural and social interactions. We behave differently with different people.

We don't behave the same way with our friends , siblings , parents or colleagues. With each person our attitude and behaviour changes, and that again depends on their interactions with us as well. It's the level of emotional,physical comfort and security we feel from them, the level of their judgement and the type of criticisms we receive from them.

Our behaviour is shown through our responses,actions and choices and it is situation based. For some people we might look more calm and composed than others. How we behave within different environments are different. Social norms tend to put a certain level of constraint on us and people can react differently to constraints. When we take the case of peer pressure,

when we are forced into a situation to be included/ to be felt included/ to feel that you belong in some group or among a certain people, it can slowly affect our behavioural patterns.

A summary of what we have discussed, Self beliefs influence our attitudes and attitudes interns shape our behavioural changes. Behaviours can again influence our attitudes and behaviours can shape our self beliefs. Now, we have to get a basic understanding of the link between our confidence and finance.

Before that let me share a quote below:

“Money is something we choose to trade our life energy for.”

― Vicki Robin

We give out energies which are situational and also interpersonal, depending on the level of our energy, the outcomes can vary. We will have a better positive outcome when we are filled with positivity which is a byproduct of the trio in balance.

Now, when we are down or filled with negativity, then the outcomes can be negative. A person is said to be productive when he is of use. A person can only be of use when he is ready to trade such a level of energy which is of great value to be encashed.

The level of your confidence decides what heights you will reach in life, but only if we are able to maintain our internal and external balance throughout then we will see an upward graph or a descent graph of possibilities where you will be financially thriving.

We are all learners and with the course of life, we learn the tricks to survive. We learn all the better ways to manifest what we want by putting ourselves out with clarity and confidence. That's why the relationship between money and confidence is multifaceted,

because it is dependent on various factors. Now, let us analyse this quote below:

“The secret to wealth is simple: Find a way to do more for others than anyone else does. Become more valuable. Do more. Give more. Be more. Serve more.”

― Tony Robbins

Lets breakdown this quote, if you focus on the first line, then you can interpret from it that, it is when you are serviceable to thers/ of great use then you have a chance of earning something.

If you have a set of skills that is marketable to receive a job, then you will be monetarily successful and for that your skills have to be sharpened at every stage of your life. We need to upskill, do more,

find more ways to be useful. We should not remain in a bubble, we should never shrink our world of capabilities but it should be ever expanding because we are all learners. We have to bring value to us, we need to

market ourselves and our abilities with our attitude, behaviour and self belief, hence we have covered the second sentence of the quote. Now the final couple of sentences just urges us to focus on expanding our horizon,

our knowledge space by putting an effort " Give more, do more, serve more". We are in a world of easy information access, we need to utilise it. Not all of us can have mentors in everything we are aiming to.

but today's technology does not allow us to limit ourselves just because we do not have a proper mentor. Be your mentor, be open to learning. The process won't be easy but the outcome is worth it. Start from within yourself,

give yourself the courage to pursue the things of great interest to you, try to be positive and pleasant in your attitude and behaviour, make it as your first assignment. First work with yourself, before you work on your skills.

Secondly, know which all skills of yours can be utilised or sharpened for financial growth; work on your skills. Join courses, watch various videos and access various study materials. Create a syllabus plan for yourself, divide it clearly,

give a timeline and pace your learning accordingly.


Now, let us analyse this quote below:


A big part of financial freedom is having your heart and mind free from worry about the what-ifs of life.”

— Suze Orman

We are often worried about reaching somewhere, about becoming something, about being of use. Hence, the balance of the trio is lost, a shaken self belief, a negative attitude and a nervous behaviour is going to increase the intensity of your struggle.

Instead learn to calm yourself, find an anchor and rebuild yourself starting from within. We all need to recharge ourselves from time to time. Money is of great value, but what is more valuable is your internal balance. When your confidence level is down

you won't feel competitive enough to be worthy of the wealth you want to acquire. The target should always be to start from boosting your self confidence.


Financial freedom is freedom from fear.”

— Robert Kiyosaki


We all have some or the other fears in life, it need not have to be career oriented. But we should not always let fear take the upper hand in our lives. Fear is a part of you that you are working on.

It should not interact with / shatter your core. Putting yourself out there can be stressful and build fear. But what we need to weigh in here is that there can only be two outcomes, either you pass or you learn.

It can be successful or it can be a try-again situation. And as the saying goes "Try try till you succeed. How much ever we emphasis on confidence also, or building yourself, you might face alot of challenges on the road,

you will have a lot of doubts and queries. You will not even know how to monetize yourself properly, there are no proper manuals for it. But where there is a will, there is a way. Break down your goals and work on them.

It is not going to be easy, but it is not hard to achieve also. Finance will always remain the outcome, the driving force is confidence. And with the increase of the value of money, so did the demand for selecting talents among a huge pool of people.

You can have a firsthand experience when you go for interviews, I once went for an interview. The company wanted 3 professionals to take up prestigious roles in their company but 250 people were present for the interview when I went for it.

And interacting with them in such a short time I came to know that they are from different experience and educational levels. some are beginners, some are pg and phd holders, some are of 1-5 year experience range. And this made me think,

when we are competing with people on different levels of experience and intellectual levels, it can induce some kind of stress an anxiety on us too, thus tampering our confidence.And so, it is very important to build up a confidence that won't be shattered in any kind of situations we are put in.

We need to work on ourselves before presenting ourselves to challenges. We need to know that whatever the outcome be, you will always be kind to yourself, and grow into a person of self empathy and purpose. To become successful you have to be patient.

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