Confidence – Equally Happy

Suit Up! It’s Not Just For Neal Patrick Harris

February 20, 2012 By Gal Leave a Comment

I hate suits. They make me feel miserable. I feel like the tie is choking me to death while the jacket and dress shirt combo makes me sweat like I’m running a marathon. Plus the shirt collar always makes the back of my neck feel funny. In fact, I hate all formal wear and try to avoid it as much as possible.

I picked my job in high tech because it required a minimum of dressing up and I avoid going to social occasions if they say “formal wear”. Heck, If Barney Stinson himself stopped by my house and told me to “suit up!” I would put on a pair of jeans and a comfy t-shirt. So yah, I dislike formal wear. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Respect, Sex Tagged With: Barney Stinson, Formal Wear, Looking Good, Suits

Let Me Tell You About The Time I Almost Died…

August 29, 2011 By Gal 3 Comments

I found this document hidden away on my computer the other day. It had been written to a professor in graduate school who asked me to tell “the story of me”. This was only a few months after my divorce.

Here goes:

One month ago I stood on the fifth floor of a parking structure in San Jose and considered how easy it would be to just step forward into the air. It seemed so inviting, so perfect; an end to the pain and the suffering, a release from the pressure and the stress. Eventually I decided to turn back, to go downstairs and meet the person I was scheduled to have dinner with. I didn’t do it because I changed my mind, but because five stories seemed too low and I couldn’t live with the fear of living the rest of my life with the consequences of a failed attempt. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Coping With Failure, Goals, Happiness, Introspection Tagged With: Coping, Divorce, Failure, Fear, Marriage, Suicide

This Is Fantastic!

August 1, 2011 By Gal 1 Comment

One of the other things I do in my copious spare time is run a little fitness blog called 60 in 3. I do that for the same reason I run Equally Happy, because I love hearing myself talk! Well, plus I like sharing what I’ve learned with the world in the hopes that other people can learn from my copious mistakes

One of the most common things I try to get across on 60 in 3 is that being healthy is actually pretty easy. Eat less, eat healthier and exercise more. People always try to focus on the little things, the things that they think will give them an easy solution. They focus on eating slow carbs or eating less fat or doing some kind of insane cabbage only colon cleanse. However, the truth is that it’s not really that complicated. Eat less crap, eat less in general and move your ass a bit more than you are now. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Achieving Success, Confidence, Drive, Happiness, Losing Weight Tagged With: Diet, Motivation, Stress, Success, Weight loss

Confidence Building 101

July 14, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick little thing you can do to build up some confidence.

Go buy a lottery ticket
Before you check if you won, pause for a moment and imagine all the wonderful things you’ll do with that money. Imagine the vacations, the dream home, the paid off debts, the kids’ college tuition, your new car, whatever! Think hard, make it real, feel the joy of all that new stuff.
Now check if you won.

Statistically, you’re now looking at a losing lottery ticket and you feel horrible. All those dreams, all those wonderful images, washed down the drain of disappointment. So why the heck did I just have you do this? Well, besides the fact that I’m a mean bastard, I want you to get a taste of failure and see that it’s really not that bad. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Risk Assessment Tagged With: Confidence, Failure, Lesson, Risk Taking, Self Confidence, Self Improvement

What Is Confidence?

July 11, 2011 By Gal 1 Comment

Confidence, you either have it or you don’t. If you have it, you’re king (or queen) of the world. People do what you want them to do, your attraction and sex appeal level go way up, your friends look up to you as a leader and people want to be more like you. If you don’t have it, you’re at the bottom of the social pile. No one cares about your opinion (not even your mother!), no one listens to what you have to say and people find you “cute, but not that hot”. In fact, we all know that people with confidence kick all sorts of ass and get all the cool stuff. However, no one I asked could ever really define to me what confidence was.

So I’ve been thinking, if I want to confidence to be one of the primary aspects of my cult members, I better figure out what the heck it is, and quick! Which led me to thinking, what is it that makes confident people special? Why do we look up to them? Why do we follow them? What I ended up realizing is the true meaning of confidence, and also the false meaning, the one most people seem to believe in. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Coping With Failure, Risk Assessment Tagged With: Arrogance, Confidence, Failure, Risk Taking, Self Confidence

What Is A Dating Coach?

June 13, 2011 By Gal 2 Comments

A few days ago I talked about my “cult” and the kind of people I would like in it. Well, last week I met my first acolyte! Yes, I’m joking, I’m not really recruiting acolytes folks, please stop sending me your applications (except you Ruth, you keep sending!) but I will say that I’ve been very interested in the whole dating coach idea over the years and the chance to talk to Greg in person was priceless. The following are notes from our conversation along with some additional thoughts by me. If you’re interested in learning more about Greg, feel free to check out his site “GK Shares Game” [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Confidence, Drive, Networking, Relationships, Sex Tagged With: Coaching, Dating, Men, Relationships, Sex, Women

Let’s Start A Cult!

June 4, 2011 By Gal 7 Comments

No, no, hear me out a second. I’m not suggesting some cult where we all wear robes, chant a lot and eventually kill ourselves. I’m talking about the kind of cult where we meet people like ourselves, enjoy hanging out with one another, help each other out and find ways to improve ourselves and the world around us. I guess this would be more of a secret society, but since this is a public blog post, it can’t be very secret.

Seriously though, aren’t you sick and tired of people who don’t get you? Aren’t you frustrated with having political or economic discussions with folks who don’t understand the issues and may not even care about them? This drives me insane by the way.

We have a huge and complex world around us, one with problems and issues that have a direct impact on us, but most people could care less about anything beyond their little world. Their attitude seems to be “as long as I get what I think is owed me, I don’t care about anything else.”

This bothers me because I want to help. I want this world to be a better place for me, my loved ones, my friends and for everyone else around me. So I get frustrated when I meet people who just don’t seem to care about anything other than themselves. They don’t understand that they are a part of this world, a part of this society, and that the best way to help themselves is to help the world around them.

That’s what I want to change. I want to create a network of people who help eachother. Call it a cult, call it a secret society or call it the grand conspiracy if you will. All I want is like minded people who care about themselves and the world around them. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Drive, Empathy, Family, Friends, Honesty, Networking, Respect, Responsibility Tagged With: Charity, Drive, Giving, My Cult, Relationships, Self Confidence

Come To Jesus Moment

May 4, 2011 By Gal 2 Comments

Ever had a come to jesus moment? I just did.

First, A Definition

A come to jesus moment is that moment when an individual is compelled by the weight of evidence and looming penalty to admit wrong doing.

Yep, I’ve done wrong. I’ve lied to you which is bad enough, but worst than that, I’ve lied to myself. Here I am telling myself that I know it all and I’ve done it all, that my life is perfect and that I have what I want. I almost managed to convince myself of that, until tonight. Tonight I had dinner with several executives from the Silicon Valley tech industry, a CEO from Singapore and a VC or two. I was sitting at one of the best steakhouses in the country with people who run multi billion (that’s with a B) organizations and I was thinking to myself, “what have I accomplished?” I looked around me and I saw men who are leaders, men who were not given what they have but won it through hard work, intelligence and a relentless drive to succeed. These men excelled at everything they put their minds to. They weren’t just great executives, they were also wonderful parents who cared deeply about their children and devoted hobbyists of various sorts. Some ran marathons, some did iron mans but all of them shared a common trait. In all cases, no matter what they did, from parenting and surfing to running companies and marathons, these men threw themselves into the task with 110% of their strength. They held nothing back and never shied from the task in front of them.

Now you may not want to be a silicon valley executive, and that’s fine and dandy, but you still want to be something, don’t you? You still want to accomplish your goals, don’t you? What is it that you dreamed about when you were a child? What was it that you saw in your dreams when you lay down to sleep? Those are the goals you had, the things that drove you forward, the things you wanted to devote yourself to 110%, as these men did to their dreams. And yes, sometimes they failed, sometimes they tried and no matter what, they could not succeed. One of the men was divorced, another had a failed start up a few years back, but they never gave up. No matter what happened, they picked themselves up and rededicated themselves to their goals. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence, Drive, Procrastination, Starting Out, Step 4 - The First Step Tagged With: Drive, Goals, Motivation, Success

How Do I Love Myself? 5 Quick Ways To Increase Self Confidence

April 15, 2011 By Gal 8 Comments

Self confidence is the key to success. Without it you’re nothing. With it, you’re the king of the world. Without it, you’ll never dare. With it, you can’t lose. Self confidence will open doors and tear down obstacles but if you don’t have it, you’re going to find yourself stuck with no forward progress.

Yah, I’m speaking to you, the guy at the bar afraid of making the move. The woman in the cube afraid of asking her boss for a raise. The man at home, afraid of telling his mother he needs her to stop hounding him. Even the girl at school, afraid of the way other people look at her and judge her appearance. I understand you and your fear but I have to tell you, you need to overcome and learn to love yourselves or else you’ll be stuck as that little mouse all your life. You’ll be the nervous little deer, always looking out for someone about to eat you, instead of the confident predator, at ease and in charge.

The hard part about self love is starting out. It’s difficult to convince yourself that you’re worth loving when you know for a fact that you don’t. That fact though isn’t quite as factual as you think, and the following five techniques will help you get a good start on the road to self confidence. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Confidence Tagged With: Self Confidence, Success

Maybe The Reason You’re Failing Is…. YOU!

March 29, 2011 By Gal Leave a Comment

I have an acquaintance, we’ll call her “Sam”. Sam has been trying to get a job for three years now, ever since she was laid off from her accounting job at the start of this recession. Sam keeps complaining to me about why she can’t find a job. Sometimes she complains that the job postings companies put out there are not real. Sometimes she complains about how the only people who get the jobs are the ones who are friends of the hiring manager. Last week she complained to me about how all the good jobs are going overseas. At this point I offered to sit with her and go over what she was doing and see if there was room for improvement. She sent me her resume as a starting point and I spent about 30 seconds looking at this document before determining that Sam’s biggest problem was Sam.

Sam’s resume looked like something out of a resume nightmare. It was poorly formatted, full of spelling errors, filled with massive run on sentences and overflowing with useless information. It was 5 pages of utter nonsense which would make any would be hiring manager toss it into the garbage can as soon as they saw it. When I further asked Sam about her job search, I found out she had done no networking and no research into the various companies she was trying to get hired at. Think about that for a second. Here’s a woman who had been looking for a job for THREE YEARS and she was utterly clueless. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Communication, Confidence, Coping With Failure, Decision Making, Getting Hired, Networking, Relationships Tagged With: Advice, Dating, Decision Making, Failure, G, Getting Hired, Mentors, Muses, Relationships