Belief In Yourself

When I first started speaking on the Power of The Ripple nearly five years ago, I had so many naysayers.

People don't need a new approach to networking.  

People are cynical and the Ripple isn't meaty enough to encourage people to use it.  

Corporations could never use such a fluffy concept.  

Who did I think I was to be out pontificating on such a subject?


People simply don't care about something so simple.

You could never make a living off this.

It would have been easy to have a total crisis in confidence and initially I did.  I could have easily joined their camp and agreed I was the last one qualified to tell anyone about anything?  I was a nobody after all.  What had I really done?  I didn't have a prestigious professional pedigree. Sure I had run two successful companies at that point but what did I really know about life?

I could have turned tail and run.  I could have packed it in and agreed with the detractors.  I could have let them win.  I could have let the little confidence I had shrink up completely and die.

But something happened.

I found my voice. 
I found my message. 
I found my passion. 
I found a way to turn off the naysayers, the haters and the loud mouth doubters.

So should you.

Here's the deal.  People love to bash that which they can not do themselves.  Naysayers love to look at all the reason as to why something can't be done.  Doubters will always question someone's skills and abilities because they themselves likely have doubts about their own.  The bashers love to put down that which seems impossible because they are either too scared or too incapable of doing the heavy lifting of work that is often required to get a concept, business idea or a movement off the ground themselves.

I could have thrown in the towel those first few times someone came up to me and criticized me after a speech.  I could have walked away in shame when someone complained about something I said in my BLOG.  I could had hid under a rock when someone said they found an error or misspelling in my book (no longer a problem in my second edition - available for purchase today by the way!).

But I didn't.

I let that flicker of flame called self belief remain untouched by the hot air of other people's criticisms.  I stayed vigilant and guarded it with care and compassion and pretty soon it grew beyond a flicker into a full on inferno.  Today it rumbles in the pit of my stomach and powers my drive and my passion and enables me to get up every single day inspiring me to evangelize the concept of Rippling to all who will listen.

The doubters, the haters, the naysayers still arise every once in a while though less often.  And when they do, I simply let the crackling of the smoking hot fire in the pit of my core simply drown out their words. 

Don't let anyone tell you you can't do something.  Find your flicker and protect it from those who would love to extinguish it.  Never give up, put in the work and never let someone else dictate the belief you have in yourself.  Take it from someone who almost didn't follow that advice.  The rewards for believing in yourself and pushing through are so worth it.

Ripple On My Friends.....Ripple On!!!