I know I’ve already touched on this a bit with the whole “you become the five people you hang out with most” topic, but it bears repeating here. Years ago my sister had graduated from cosmetology school and was unsure where to go from there. She liked the idea of working in the beauty industry in some capacity, but she wasn’t confident about building up a client roster in this new industry—a must for any hairstylist. She tried several different assistant jobs at salons, and while she liked interacting with the people, she was still struggling to find her footing.
As fate would have it, an acquaintance of mine sent out an email with a job description she was looking to fill. The acquaintance owned a spa, and they needed a manager. They’d tried several different people in the role, but nobody seemed to be a good fit. I read through the description, and with every passing line item I got more and more excited. I immediately forwarded it to Mel.
“You should totally apply for this job!” I scream-texted her.
She still wasn’t sold on the job she was then working in the salon, so she went ahead and pursued—and subsequently landed—this role as a spa manager.
She was so nervous that first week about how it would all work out. She was new to LA and still learning to navigate the traffic and fast pace, and like most LA newbies she was a bit intimidated that she wouldn’t dress right or speak correctly in this fancy spa near Beverly Hills.
A few weeks into her time there, I received an email from my acquaintance thanking me profusely for sending Melody her way. She could not stop singing her praises as an exceptional employee. This didn’t surprise me at all. I knew that my sister was smart and gracious, and I knew she was an incredibly hard worker. What was surprising is what happened about six months later.
Melody became a totally different woman.
She was calm and poised and totally confident in herself and her skills. She wasn’t anxious anymore about her new city or her new role or what she would do next. She wasn’t afraid to give her opinion, and she didn’t worry about what people thought.
I remember saying to Dave, “Have you noticed how great Mel is doing? I wonder what caused such a big shift?”
A few weeks later I went to the spa she worked at to get a facial, and it hit me. Melody went from being at a school filled with young people who were unsure about where they were going or how they’d make a career to working for a successful business filled with—wait for it—confident women. All day long she interacted with coworkers who were at the height of their professions—they had to be to work at a place like this. All day long she helped clients who were successful in life and in business—they had to be to afford a place like this. Without even trying to or being aware of it, she’d absorbed their confidence like osmosis.
You want to be more confident? Hang out with people who are.
I know that confidence isn’t often described as a learned behavior, but I truly believe it’s a skill you can learn like any other. Be mindful of the people you hang out with, the words you use, and the way you present yourself to the world around you. Pay attention to the times or the circumstances that make you feel the most self-assured, and then work to cultivate more opportunities like those. This shift in perception, particularly for any of you who are in business, can truly be life changing.
SKILL 3:
PERSISTENCE
I’ve heard a lot of people say things like “a goal is a dream with a deadline.” Or “you’ve got to give yourself a timeline.” I struggle with that idea because none of the success I’ve experienced in my personal life has been quick. If I had given myself a timeline of a year or even two, I would have given up a long time ago. It took me two years to grow enough of a social media following that a literary agent would take me seriously enough to consider my book proposal. It took another six months after that to submit the proposal to publishing houses to see if an editor would take a chance on a cookbook deal. It was eighteen more months before that book hit the market. So much work was necessary just to get to that place.
I posted a couple of pictures on Instagram recently. The first picture was from my very first TV segment for the local morning news. I had pitched for months and finally gotten booked for a segment on National Junk Food Day, wherein the KTLA morning news team and I tried out the weirdest junk food on the market at that point. Think deep-fried Oreos and pickles brined in cherry Kool-Aid. Peabody material it was not. The second picture I shared was from my very first time on the Today Show. In it I’m the filling in a Hoda and Kathie Lee sandwich, and I’m smiling so big and brightly that my face is about to crack in half. I was ecstatic that day because I had always, always wanted to be booked for a segment on the Today Show. What I need to point out—besides the fact that my hair looked so much better after I started going to a real colorist instead of using dye from a box—is that the first picture is from 2010 and the second photo is from 2018.
Eight years, you guys. It took me eight years to achieve that goal, and the road was long and hard. It started with that first junk-food segment, and after that I begged, borrowed, and stole to land more opportunities. I would snag a Fourth of July BBQ segment here or a Thanksgiving Day segment there. At the time I was flying solo at work, which meant that every single time I convinced someone to have me on their show, I had to find a way to make it work with no money and no help. I could only “buy” props that I could easily hide the price tag for so I could return them after the show. I would buy, haul, design, set, straighten, and clean up all by myself. I changed from set-up clothes to on-air clothes in gross bathroom stalls or in the back seat of my car (local news shows don’t tend to have the nicest accommodations). Usually by that point I would have sweat off all my makeup and my hair would be a frizzy mess. I wasn’t cute, but my table was, and I was always prepared to give the funniest, most informative segment they’d ever seen on everything from Saint Patrick’s to Arbor Day.
Going after that kind of press all by myself sucked, but I didn’t have the money for a publicist or a designer or even an assistant to help me set it up. What I did know was my goal, and I understood that hard work was the only leverage I had. When I got my first chance to do a national show, I jumped at it, even though it was on a topic I didn’t know and had to research long and hard just to be able to talk about it intelligently for six minutes. For years I built relationships with TV producers. I pitched hundreds of segments that got rejected for every one that got accepted. I became known as a pinch hitter; I was the person who would jump on a plane last minute and cover if someone else got sick. If you needed an “expert” to show up and talk about literally anything, I was your girl. I worked my butt off—and it still took eight years.