Getting Others to Believe in You (the Elvis Way)

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen and thanks for tuning into Graceland Ontario. This week’s update regards being taken seriously (and you already know how important that is for your career and life). We’re going to talk about assertiveness.

Now, don’t get scared on me because of the big word. Primarily, we’re talking about how you say things. Namely, how confidently you say things. Do you remember when you were a kid and you liked the pop songs that came out? And some of those songs had ‘sexy’ lyrics that sounded good on the radio but when you read them aloud, you always felt embarrassed. You know, words like ‘baby’ (the type over three years old) or lines like ‘I love you’. There was something about them that, for whatever reason, when you went to say them, your tone changed and you never sounded as convincing as the people singing on the radio. You felt awkward saying them, you weren’t assertive, and this made you less convincing.

So, it boils down to whether you’re convincing or not. I mean, if you’re doing a presentation and you have ‘baby’ syndrome − you feel awkward saying what you’re saying − then it kills the passion you’re speaking with. It kills your assertiveness. And people won’t believe you, not really. And man, that sucks when you’re trying to sell a vacuum cleaner.

The same problem comes up anytime when you’re presenting or performing. Take dancing. A lot of people get awkward when others ask them to dance. Even if they’re really good, they tend only to waddle side to side. They do this because they don’t want to embarrass themselves by pulling an all out Fred Astaire and really going for it. But, ironically, by not being assertive and not going for it, they make themselves look like a real idiot.

The key is to know what to do and when do it. Really do it, like your life depends on it. And when you go with that passion and let all the stops out, people will believe in what you’re doing. They’ll believe because you believe. And once you’ve convinced yourself, you become much more assertive and it becomes much easier to persuade others that you’re right, or good, or whatever.

Take Elvis as an example; Elvis is renowned for both dancing and, especially, singing. Take a look at anytime when he did either, even when he’s messing about with the boys in the rehearsals for That’s the Way it Is. He gives it his all. You believe he’s a good singer because he sings with all his heart. You believe he’s a good dancer because he dances with all his soul. And, man, you can’t look bad when you’re putting all your power behind what you’re doing.

Now, compare this with a high school kid (it could have been anyone) who might look great, sing great, dance great in rehearsal, but stick him in front of people and what happens? He flunks. Why? He didn’t believe in what he was doing. He felt wrong for some reason and had ‘baby’ syndrome. That made him awkward and unassertive and people didn’t appreciate his act.

In short: when you’re doing something right, with assertiveness, people think it’s good or right. If you still do something right but without assertiveness, people aren’t sure whether it’s good or right and it doesn’t work out as well.

Elvis’s Lessons:

Of course, know your stuff but make sure you present/perform it with assertiveness. What is assertiveness? Believing in what you’re doing and showing to others you believe in what you’re doing. Once you believe and give it your all (when you become assertive), it becomes much easier to come off well and persuade others that you’re right when even you didn’t believe you were. And, seriously, you want others to think you’re right!

P.S. I'd be glad to hear your feedback on my writing and the topics I cover, either through the comment box below or through my email at alexghilson@gmail.com It's OK, I won't bite.

P.P.S. If you'd like to see assertiveness in action, here's a Youtube clip of Elvis singing "I Was the One" from the Elvis: That's the Way it Is. Notice the conviction and assertiveness Elvis puts into the song even though he's forgetting the words (and notice how people love it all the same).

Accept it How It Is

Most people, as you’re showing by reading this post, are interested in becoming widely successful individuals with great business, personal and spiritual lives, or at least something close to that. We want to be the best and get to the very top.

But like it or not, when you’re going to the top, you find yourself a long way from the ground so when you fall, you fall far.

Elvis is one of the most successful men in history; he broke records that stand over thirty years after his death, let alone when he set them. And he had a legion of adoring fans. At one time, he even had a perfect (seemingly anyways) family.

But when you’re at the top, you can fall a long way. His marriage broke up, his physical shape deteriorated. It must have distracted him because even his musical success was not what it had been.

What hurt Elvis more was not the event of, say, his marriage breaking up but how he reacted to that event and how that event then ate into other places in his life.

Man that sounds terrible! But it’s unavoidable, right?

Yes and no; The bad stuff will happen, but you don’t have to give up on life because of it. A way of staying positive when this happens in your own life is accepting an event how it is.

Robert Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, put it wonderfully in one of his books about positive thinking. He said that if you look at life as an experiment, there can’t be bad or good. There can only be feedback. And the nice thing about feedback is you can learn from it for more successful trials in the future.

When something bad happens to me, I have a little breathing technique I do to get over it.

You want to know what it is?

Alright, let’s do it together… Take a deep breath and… let it go. Let it all go. All the pain, the suffering. Everything that happened yesterday that still haunts you today, even when it logically is past.

What?

Let it go. It sucks and we hate it and if we could change it, we would. But for now, it’s over. That’s the nice bit about the past; we can learn from it and use it to guide our present to a better future, but it’s done.

We either catch the next ball and forget the shot we missed or we throw the whole damn game away because of one stupid play.

Elvis went into a decline over his marriage with Priscilla that only death stopped. We can learn from the pain he endured by realizing that the only way to get out of a really sucky past situation is to learn from your mistakes, take a deep breath and keep going.

I hope this article will help you keep going, no matter your past.

Elvis’s Lessons:

• When something bad happens to you and keeps on holding you back, even when it’s far in your past, take a deep breath and keep going. You can learn from the past, but you can’t live in it. Living is for the present, and the present shapes the future, not the past. Skip the suffering Elvis had over his broken marriage and learn to accept the situation how it is, and keep going as best you can.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing Elvis from those good years before he accepted the desperation of his broken marriage, here’s a clip of “Patch it Up” from the 1970 documentary, Elvis: That’s the Way it Is.