Sometimes we really find out what we’re made of in times of adversity, and hopefully, we’ll come out a much stronger person. But we cannot make it, unless we climb that wall and keep on believing in ourselves!

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth”

and

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.”

A great mix of theory, and bringing that theory home to a solid grounding, which is a tough balance for talking about this topic.

I’m going to sound like a jackass here, but I’ve found Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html) to be a great book around this. He really brings home the idea of focusing on what you can effect, and putting the rest out of mind.

It’s comforting because it means that most of what’s going on in today’s world is still fairly positive. It’s disturbing because the sensationalist news media make it look like we should be terrified all the time. Fear is a powerful motivator!

In my opinion there are three other ingredients that will help you weather this economic storm: competence and confidence (I’ll get to number three in a minute). The article above is entirely devoted to self-confidence, because I noticed that this crisis has left too many competent people without a lot of faith in their own abilities.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve probably noticed that I devoted past articles to freelancers who appear to be confident, but who haven’t reached a certain level of competence yet. My advice: if business is slow, use the extra time to learn as much as you can about your craft and hone your skills. That way you’ll be ready as soon as the economy picks up again. Believe me: it will!

You will agree with me that one cannot build a solid career simply based on one’s uniqueness. But in order to stand a better chance , I encourage people to explore what sets them apart from the rest of the pack, and use that to their advantage. This is by no means a revolutionary concept, but it bears repeating because I see so many people who are merely copying well-known names. If only they were confident enough to realize that they could be themselves and be successful… Talent shows on TV aren’t looking for more of the same, are they?

Lastly (and here’s the third ingredient), I have seen quite a few competent and confident folks fail because they didn’t know the first thing about running a business. It’s the tragedy of starving talent. Doing what you love and loving what you do doesn’t cut it anymore these days. You have to know how to market yourself and be on top of your finances (among other things). Of course having a positive outlook on life doesn’t hurt either!

One of my ‘heroes’ is Dr. Martin Seligman. He is the director of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center (http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx) He has studied the ‘glass half full and half empty’ mindset extensively.

He writes in his landmark book “Learned Optimism”:

“I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize.”

Here’s my challenge to you: Find your voice and share your songs with the world! Whether we realize it or not, all of us have music inside, just waiting to come out. Remember Beethoven? Even though he was profoundly deaf, he kept on writing and writing!