Generate Confidence   (Part 2)                            (back to Part 1)
--Give Relevance to Others

A teacher I will always remember was my Contracts professor from
law school.  She was a superhero with an unusual ability.  She
could take any student’s comments, however stupid or pointless,
and find a way to make them relevant to the class discussion.  Her
talent for doing this sometimes bordered on hilarious.  But people
raised their hands.  They spoke their minds.  And learned from
each other.  She was a conductor who did more than generate
confidence.  She generated excellence.  

All by itself, “confidence” comes across as a formidable word.  
Perhaps for that reason, it looks like a target just waiting to be
taken out.  Indeed, fewer words are so easily battered, shattered
and flattered.  No confidence vote.  Lack of confidence.  Overblown
confidence.  All these problems with confidence can be traced back
to Lesson 1--being calculating.  If I pay her a compliment, I'll never
hear the end of it.  If I say something nice, it'll just go to his head.  
This kind of calculating thinking creates headaches and bruised
egos.  

Power structures in society too often shroud the simple fact that
each and every one of us has the power to generate confidence
in others, regardless of where we are in the hierarchy.  Without
question, people in positions of authority wield great power to
generate confidence.  A teacher who puts a gold star on a student’s
homework will have a child smiling the rest of the day.  Conversely,
a teenage son who blows up at his mother can shake her
confidence to the core.  And when elderly parents are ignored and
told to go sit in the corner, it's no wonder they feel isolated and
irrelevant.  

I think that’s why golf as a sport really matters.  The members of
your playing group might be complete strangers and yet everyone
is ready to praise each other with a “nice shot" or "beautiful putt."  
Imagine someone in your group blustering: “You call that a drive?  I
just drove it 50 yards past you!”  And yet, don’t many of us fall victim
to this kind of speech, be it subtle or not so subtle?  We’ve got to
change out of this bad habit, and into behavior more becoming of
gentlemen and gentlewomen.  

People are relevant, from the day they are born to the day they die,
not just during that prime demographic window from 18 - 49.  
Otherwise no one would start studying until they went off to college
and we’d all retire before we turned fifty, which would make for a far
from perfect society to say the least.  Any group--classroom, club,
church, temple, mosque, company, nation--that inherently
divides its people into “relevant” and “irrelevant” groups is going
to find itself in a very dysfunctional state.  Be generous when it
comes to generating confidence.  It turns a light on in others.  In
effect, it shines the spotlight on you.  

Move on to
Lesson 4   Access Calm
Lesson 3   Generate Confidence
--Give Relevance to Others