The Courage of Your Talent Series

Episode II

The Abundance Mindset

You have to free yourself of inherent restraints in order to realize the courage of your talent.

Ironically, we create of own restraints, our own self-limiting beliefs. Although the sources are often external (parents, siblings, teachers, friends, bosses, et alia) the damage occurs when we docilely accept the limitations.

Remember that “confidence” is the honest belief that you can meet someone’s objectives irrespective of whether you’ve done what’s needed prior. That means that you can’t allow self-doubts to enter your analysis (and emotions).

Authority figures create doubts, often through their own needs to always be seen as correct. “Do as I say, not as I do,” my father used to say. That didn’t exactly convince me of the wisdom or effectiveness of his advice. I’ve experienced teachers and professors at every level—from grammar school through graduate degrees—who sometimes were in error. The outstanding ones admitted it, the inferior ones did not. I’ve lost count of the times my bosses in assorted positions were wrong, many of them more times than they were right.

There is nothing at all wrong with being honest about our talents, joyful in pursuit of pleasure, gleeful in seeking happiness. Yet we are too often inculcated with the damage from those who would have us believe that humility is more important than achievement, that poverty is somehow noble, that denial is the express lane into heaven.

And they there are those who “project” their own imperfections and failures onto us. “If I couldn’t ski the blue hills when I began the sport, you won’t be able to, either.”

Well, I have news for you, I could, because I didn’t listen to you.

© Alan Weiss 2026