I believe that you can do better in life if you have the self-confidence to move forward positively into challenges. This is the story of how my career advanced compared to my friend Ben. It is about the importance of saying Yes to opportunities and not over-thinking things – Ben was much more cautious and this meant he had a harder time being promoted in the military.
Here is the story. The officers brought the pair of us into a room and showed us an exam paper. They said, look at this exam paper, do you think you could pass this?
I looked at it and thought ‘Hmm yes I could probably squeeze through, about 60%.’
So I said confidently: ‘Yeah I can pass that no problem sir.’
Ben looked at this and umm’d and ah’d and he thought ‘I could probably only get about 60 or 70% – so I better say no.’
So Ben says No.
So the officers said to me, ‘Okay now prepare for this exam on selection theory exams in two weeks time.
Then they said to Ben – ‘Okay you better get your nose to the grindstone as you will have to take this exam next year.’
Over that year they made the exam about twice as hard!! Boom boom!
And then Ben then came through a year later, and he then said the wrong thing to someone (I always say the wrong thing to people, but I get away with it normally) and they threw him off the blooming course!
And that’s why a couple of years later, Ben was working for me as a sergeant and I was a senior staff sergeant. Ben was still a sergeant when I moved up to warrant officer. I was a Major before Ben finally got his first warrant officer position.
Ben was so clever that when he left the army and went to an electronics company, his career did really well. He was a brilliant guy – but I was a lucky guy! Luck and confidence made my career a success.
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