Successful, self confident people – whether field goal kickers, professional tennis players or you and me — realize that mistakes are part of life. Learn from your mistakes. Build on this knowledge. Commit to Point 7 of The Optimist Creed, “Promise yourself to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievement of the future.” If you do this, you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s my career advice on lessons learned the hard way and The Optimist Creed. What do you think? Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment. As always thanks for reading my daily thoughts on life and career success. I value you and I appreciate you. I have created a .pdf of The Optimist Creed that you can frame and hang in your workspace. If you want a copy, send me an email with the words “Optimist Creed” in the subject line.

Successful people are self-confident. Self-confident people are optimists. They follow the career advice in Tweet 42 in Success Tweets. “Choose optimism. It builds your confidence. Believe that today will be better than yesterday, and that tomorrow will be better yet.” The Optimist Creed is a great guide to becoming more optimistic and self-confident. Its proactive approach to life is a great guide to creating the life and career success you want and deserve. Remember the old saying, “Whether you’re an optimist, or a pessimist you’ll be proven right.” I choose optimism, and suggest you do too.

If you want to build your self-confidence and create the career success you deserve, work on improving yourself and achieving your goals. Don’t worry about what others are doing, or comparing yourself to them. Be too busy with your own growth to worry about anyone else. Follow the advice in Tweet 59 in Success Tweets. “Give so much time building our self-confidence and improving yourself that you have not time to criticize others.” This is great career advice. Criticizing others is a waste of your precious time. It robs you of the ability to set and achieve your goals and create the life and career success you want and deserve. Besides that, you’re probably not in the position to be casting stones anyway – I know I’m not.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Successful people are self-confident and optimistic. As Bill Clinton points out – they don’t use pessimism as an excuse for not trying. Optimists are not afraid to try. They believe that things will turn out well, and more important, when they don’t, they use their experiences to learn and grow and do better next time. Follow the career advice in Tweet 44 in Success Tweets. “Be an optimist. Believe that things will turn out well. Don’t sulk when they don’t. Learn what you can, use it next time.” I’m big on optimism. My optimism has helped me create the life and career success I wanted. Your optimism can do the same for you.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. Optimism coupled with hard work can help you make your life and career success dreams come true. But avoid becoming a confused optimist. Become a practical optimist instead. Pay attention to point four in The Optimist Creed. Look at the sunny side of things. Count your blessings. See the glass as half full. Then, take personal responsibility for doing the work necessary to make your optimism and career success dreams come true. Optimism is a great career success catalyst, but it alone will not guarantee your life and career success. You have to do the work – no two ways about it.

The career success coach point here is simple common sense. As James Malinchak points out, there is more than money to being rich. You’re R.I.C.H. when you: realize that Relationships are everything; Inspire others with your actions; Contribute and serve others; and Have a happy mindset. James calls this his R.I.C.H. philosophy. I like it because it comes from a positive, optimistic mindset. In this post, I’ve tried to illustrate the parallels between the R.I.C.H. philosophy and one of my favorites – The Optimist Creed. When you adopt the R.I.C.H. philosophy and/or live your life in accordance with The Optimist Creed you’ll be on your way to creating the life and career success you want and deserve. This career advice blog is one way I demonstrate my commitment to the R.I.C.H. philosophy and The Optimist Creed. I hope that commitment– and my common sense — shows through in my posts.

It’s July 5 – back to work in the USA after the Independence Day holiday weekend. I hope you enjoyed your long weekend as much as I did mine. I spent some time on my bicycle, enjoying the beautiful Denver weather. Here is my first post Independence Day bit of career advice.
Novak Djokovic won the men’s title at Wimbledon on Sunday. He has been incredibly dominant this year. He has lost one match – the French Open semifinal to Roger Federer – while winning 48 matches and eight titles. …

Today is the Fourth of July; Independence Day in the USA.  I hope you have a safe and happy holiday.
If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that I’m a big believer in the power of optimism.  The Fourth of July always makes me reflect on those folks who signed the Declaration of Independence way back in 1776.  As a group, they had to be among the most optimistic people ever.
I think it optimism is the foundation of all self-confidence – an important key to creating the life and career success you want …

The cover story of the June 6, 2011 issue of TIME Magazine was called “The Science of Optimism.”  I’m an eternal optimist.  I think that optimism is a key ingredient of self confidence.  If you read this career advice blog with any regularity, you know that self confidence is one of the seven keys to life and career success I have identified in my research of career success.
Tali Sharot, the author of the optimism story in TIME has some interesting things to say…
“The belief that the future will be much better than the past and …

Did you see the Dallas – Miami basketball game last night?  If you’re not a basketball fan, Dallas and Miami are playing for the NBA Championship.  It was quite a game and one in which I found some career success advice. 
The game was played in Miami, in front of a loud home town crowd.  Miami was winning  88 – 73 with about seven minutes to play.  Dallas won 95 – 93.  They scored 22 points to Miami’s five in the last seven minutes of the game.  They even survived a monumental defensive lapse that let …