1. Samples
Content writer: Entrepreneur Blog
Why Your Confidence is Killing Your Business
Have you ever envied a person?
The head cheerleader with the cute dimples? The star quarterback with the blonde
curly locks? The business tycoon with the pressed Versace suit and the million-
dollar smile?
While you may have envied these people you might also have secretly hated them. If
you did, don’t feel bad. Most of us secretly hated them too.
Confidence is attractive. Over confidence, not so much. When it comes to your
business, too much confidence could be killing it.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that interactions with overly
confident individuals can be uncomfortable and that this effect
is amplified when these individuals occupy positions of
authority in organizations (Johnson, Silverman, Shymsunder,
Swee, Rodopman, Bauer, & Chao, 2010).
Maybe you were the valedictorian of your class at Harvard business school, married
the perfect partner, retired at thirty and now spend your days on a yacht in the
South Pacific?
Congratulations. Your life sounds swell. Keep it to yourself.
Over confidence translates as arrogance. Arrogant people make other people feel
bad about themselves.
Confidence is simply a factual and reality-driven belief about
ability or standing, whereas arrogance is inflation of an
individual’s self-importance intended to make others feel
inferior. (Johnson et al., 2010)
Humans are complicated creatures. Each of us comes with our own psychology. Or
simply, there are reasons we react to things the ways we do.

2. Your Aunt Susie got sick after eating too much broccoli and now gets queasy every
time she sees the color green. Your neighbor doesn’t make eye contact because the
last day of school in the fourth grade three bullies beat him up for staring at them
too long. And the guy with the thick mustache at the deli gets teary eyed every time
you order a pound of chipped ham because that’s what his grandmother used on
sandwiches when he was a kid.
Every experience we have in the present gets mentally linked to some other
experience we’ve had before.
If you come off as arrogant, you are no longer an innovative entrepreneur.
You become the guy from high school that gave your client a wedgie or the mean girl
who wouldn’t give him the time of day because he was in the math club and wore a
pocket protector.
So while a little confidence can you help you to make it to the top, too much of it is
going to keep you from success. It is a balancing act.
You want your clients to have confidence in you. You want your clients to think of
you as the only person for the job. You need to convey that you have the skills to
handle anything. You need your clients to believe in you.
A healthy amount of confidence will support you in your ultimate goal.
But your clients also need to like you in order to believe in you.
How do you come off as likable? Not your average run-of-the mill likable. What is
really going to get your clients to like you, trust you, and let you lead them?
Humility.
According to research from the University of Washington
Foster School of Business, humble people are more likely to be
high performers in individual and team settings and they also
tend to make the most effective leaders (Smith, 2013).
This same study defined humility as having an appreciation of yours and others
strengths. Your clients want you to be the expert but they also want to feel
appreciated and important.
In the same way that arrogance makes a person feel inferior and reminds him of all
the other times in his life he’s felt that way. Humility can make a person feel like
they matter and remind them of other moments when they were happy.

3. In the real real world, as the Foster study demonstrates,
genuine humility is, ironically enough, the best way to get
ahead (Smith, 2013)
Like I said before, we are all complicated. But we’re also kind of simple.
We all just want to feel good about ourselves. We’re naturally attracted to people
who help us to feel good.
Look at one of the most successful people in the world: Oprah Winfrey. She is rich
and powerful and universally loved.
People love her because she always comes across as humble.
Well, almost always.
Even Oprah can let her confidence go to her head. (Did anyone else see the last issue
of O Magazine with her face next to a lion on the cover?)
The reason I bring this up is because none of us are perfect.
We’re all human.
Sometimes complicated. Sometimes simple. Always flawed.
As you practice the balancing act between confidence and arrogance, chances are
you’ll lean a little too much to the left on some days and way more to the right on
others.
The point is that you try.
And when you mess up, let people know.
Chances are, they’ll like you for it.
Johnson, R. E., Silverman, S. B., Shymsunder, A., Swee, H., Rodopman, O. B., Bauer, J.,
& Chao, E. (2010). Acting superior but actually inferior?: Correlates and
consequences of workplace arrogance. Human Performance, 23, 403–427.
Smith, M. (2013, November 21) Humble Leadership: The Research Shows it’s a
Competitive Advantage. (Blog post) Retrieved from:
http://www.tlnt.com/2013/11/21/humble-leadership-believe-it-or-not-its-a-real-
competitive-advantage/

4. Content Writer: ConversationED
The Last Check
Yesterday, with a black ballpoint pen, I wrote my last graduate student loan check to
Sallie Mae.
I made an extra large loop on the hook of the “J” when I signed so the accountant at
Sallie Mae would recognize this particular check’s importance.
I didn't pay a dime for the Bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts I earned from the
prestigious Florida State University. (It’s prestige more football than academic.) I
hardly even had to work while I had earned it. Although I did wait tables a few
nights a week at Sonny’s Real Pit Barbeque. Which is a big deal in Tallahassee, FL
where the locals considered sliced pork slathered in burgundy colored barbeque
sauce a delicacy.
I used the largest portion of my tips on silver cans of Natural Light and the rest on
brunches the next morning where I used fried eggs as medication for my hangovers.
Otherwise, my parent’s paid the whole thing. So understandably, when I realized
that the professional world cared very little for my college degree in acting and that
I would need a master’s degree to be taken seriously, my father said I’d have to fund
this one on my own.
So I did. I borrowed $75, 000 from Sallie Mae to get a Master’s Degree in Counseling
Psychology. I became a therapist and immersed myself into the highly lucrative
world of community mental health. A profession that pays, on average, $45,000 a
year.
I reside in San Francisco, CA. An annual salary of 45K guarantees that I will have
roommates (oh yes, more than one) well into my adult years when the whole notion
seems a lot less fun than it did in the days when I sported a braided goatee and
managed to wear only flip flops for weeks at a time.
Five years after I completed graduate school I had worked in methadone clinics,
rehab facilities, and tiny windowless rooms with mothers on welfare all over San
Francisco. I was steps away from being licensed. I was also, and more importantly,
broke.
Financially. Spiritually. Emotionally.
I knew that if I spent one more fifty-minute hour locked in a room listening to
another’s person’s “stuff” I might actually lose it. I had chosen an unsustainable
career.

5. So I quit. I freed myself. I would never again have to be a therapist. I would though,
have to pay for my master’s degree for the rest of my life.
Not that I want a free ride. Or think I deserve one. (God knows I didn’t appreciate it
when my parent’s footed my undergraduate bill.) I am disheartened that after
having paid $400/month for the last five years I actually owe more money than I
borrowed.
Yesterday I wrote my last check to Sallie Mae. I hadn’t won the lottery. I hadn’t
inherited a fortune from some dead relative who had struck it rich with oil. I hadn’t
fallen in love with a real estate mogul who forced me to quit my job so that I could
spend my days by the pool sipping on iced tea.
Nothing had changed in regards to my finances. The score between Sallie Mae and I
is not settled. I just will never write another check to her again.
Yesterday, I signed up for automatic withdrawal. Moving forward, on the fifteenth
of each month, when I get my first of two monthly pay checks, my checking account
will wire $488 to Sallie Mae for my student loan payment.
I could no longer bare the ritual of writing the check out myself. To pay for
something that I don’t want to use because it had diminished the quality of my
life…well, it sucks.
And sometimes accepting things like this is part of being an adult. Sometimes things
suck.
But if I learned one thing as a child who intently watched those adults in my life,
another part of being an adult is ignoring the truth so that I can feel better and sleep
easier.
So if the money is just taken away from my account before I see it, it’s as if it were
never there in the first place. As if I hadn’t spent almost two times my annual salary
as a therapist on a degree I no longer needed or wanted. As if I’ve made nothing but
good choices since I packed my suitcase and left my parents house to become a
financially stable and successful man.
More iced tea, please.

6. Creative Copywriter: Filosophy Jewelry Online (Jewelry
Descriptions)
The Athena
Like the goddess Athena, this necklace will invoke your own wisdom and creativity.
It’s inspired aesthetic is perfect for an elegant evening at the opera or to dazzle up a
casual night with girlfriends. Fresh water pearls the color of autumn trees are hung
on silver strands of silk at varied lengths to create a dramatic and layered neckline.
Any woman who wears The Athena will boom with confidence and intrigue.
Camilla
This necklace will awaken the artist inside of you. The Camilla is for the woman
who lives out loud. Playfully influenced by the bohemian culture; turquoise, coin
pearls, and aquamarine are strung on gold silk to liven up open necklines or offer
pizzazz to a plain blouse. Camilla reminds the modern woman that she can be taken
seriously and still have fun.
Euro Brio Cinq
This necklace will make you beam. Perfect for evening galas for confidence or
intimate dinners over candlelight to show your more mysterious side; this necklace
is the piece that will move your look from ordinary to extraordinary. Briolette
crystals sparkle on golden silk and catch the eyes of the women who want it for
themselves and the men who want to know the woman wearing it. Not in the mood
for a fancy night out on the town? The Euro Brio Cinq also invigorates under the
sun’s golden rays for lunch dates or window-shopping.