Napoleon Hill reading his book 1937.

“Going solo” is a popular term that describes the decision to become an entrepreneur.

Striking out on one’s own has always been an attractive alternative for people who are dissatisfied with working for a large company.  In today’s economy, it has also become a survival strategy for people who are unemployed or for people who have a job but need extra income to cover the mortgage or pay the bills.

Everyone who goes solo wants success, but many people don’t have a clear vision of how to achieve it.

No one plans on failing when embarking on a solo career, and yet some do.  Besides luck and being in the right place at the right time, what are the factors that cause one person to succeed while another fails?

Knowledge is an important part of starting a business and passion is the fuel that keeps an entrepreneur going when times get tough.  But perhaps the most important component of success is daily attitude.  A positive and happy attitude will provide the inspiration, motivation and self-belief that are required to keep going when times are tough.  If you’d like to go solo or have recently made the leap, you need to remember that a positive attitude will allow you to rededicate yourself each day to your vision of success.

Reading about people who have succeeded is a great way to boost your attitude.

You can gain a better understanding of what success is and what it takes to achieve it by studying the lives of successful people.  This approach was first promoted by a journalist named Napoleon Hill.  Born in a one-room cabin in Virginia in 1883, Hill began his writing career when still a teenager as a reporter for a small town newspaper.

The turning point in Hill’s career came in 1908, when he was assigned to interview billionaire Andrew Carnegie, who was at that time was one of the richest and most powerful men in the world.  Carnegie explained to Hill a theory he had that success could be summed up by a simple formula that could be used by anyone.  The catch was that Carnegie couldn’t articulate this formula.  Instead, he suggested that Hill take on a project of interviewing 500 famous and successful men and women in an effort to define the formula for success that Carnegie believe existed.

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Luck may be around the next turn.

Do you have a dream that sometimes seems unattainable?

Do you feel discouraged because you haven’t succeeded in realizing your goals?

Do you ever consider giving up?

Being passionate about your goals isn’t the only determiner in whether they’ll come true.

Persevering in pursuit of a dream, no matter what the obstacles, can be just as important to success as passion and talent.  Without a dream and a plan to achieve it, even a person with great talent and intelligence can end up unfulfilled.  There are many stories of successful people who have had doors slammed in their face before things fell into place and their dreams were realized.

The 2008 documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil tells the story of a heavy metal band that never really made it.  Despite being known and admired by other musicians, including Slash of Guns N’ Roses, this Canadian metal band never broke through to the big time.  Formed by two high school friends in the early 1970s, the band released a dozen or so albums in the 1980s and 1990s but failed to realize significant commercial success.

Forced to take other jobs to survive, they continued to tour and take whatever gigs they could get.  The movie follows them on one particularly dismal European tour where they play in small pubs and have to fight to be paid.

The film is notable not so much for showing what great undiscovered talent the band has, but for focusing on their determination to keep on trying to make it to the big time.

Their love of rock n’ roll wins out over all the humiliation they face as they play to near-empty auditoriums.  Through the years, they’re motivated by a belief that their big break is still to come.  The optimism of the band’s lead singer, Steve “Lips” Kudlow, is exemplified in this statement, “If you go through life thinking tomorrow is going to be a better day, it will be.”

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Step out of fear and into confidence.

Learning how to build self confidence is both simple and complicated at the same time.

It’s simple because there are some very easy exercises you can do and changes you can make to see an improvement in how you feel about yourself.   In fact, this article will offer you a step-by-step approach to your day that will help you do just that.

It’s complicated, however, because we hold so tightly to preconceived notions about ourselves that it can be difficult to let go of previous behaviors, even though we really do want to see results.

In short, our subconscious mind often works to sabotage our success.

The good news is that by simply realizing you want to make improvements to your self confidence, you’ve already taken a crucial step in overcoming some of the preexisting obstacles in your way.

For many people, there is no realization that they need to make changes; or they just believe that self confidence is something you’re born with, and there’s no use in trying to build it now.

While it does seem like some people are simply born with the gift of self confidence, most of us actually do have to work to overcome self doubts and low self esteem at various times during our lives.  Whether you’ve hit a slump or feel like you’ve always been a little behind when it comes to this trait, the way to see real change is to break old patterns.

What follows is a daily schedule for building self confidence. 

Each item on the list takes only a few extra minutes a day, and by adding them all up over the course of a few days, you may just surprise yourself with the difference you see.

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