Stephen Covey talks about comparison as an emotional cancer. We shouldn’t do it. But it’s what we do a lot of times when we think about our own stories.

What is your free prize? What do I get from you that I can't get from anyone else? How can you find your special?

Don't suppress the past, celebrate it. That's what makes you who you are. How do you tell your story?

Storytelling goes all the way back to hieroglyphics. We've been telling stories our entire lives, and so most of us have never done the heavy lifting though to really figure out what our story is. And because of that now we have limiting beliefs.

So I want to help you guys celebrate the past. What is your timeline? What are defining moments that you have? I want you to humble brag on yourselves. You're all Million Dollar Round Table members, so of course you're really good at what you do. It's your duty to fight to earn the business. You can't be afraid to humble brag. It's social proof. So once you know what your free prize is, and you know what your story is, and you know why you do what you do, and you are really good at what you do, you've got to fight to earn the business.

Let's break down confidence and why confidence is so important to your individual special. Confidence is the memory of success. It's internally knowing that you can go out there and manifest whatever you want to manifest. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when you're going to have success. That's the mindset I'm in every single day.

Have you ever done the DISC profile? Most of you are high D's, high I's. A high D means you're a driven, dominant personality. You wanted success, and you wanted it five years ago, not tomorrow. And so what happens as you start getting closer to that success, to that benchmark? You keep raising it and raising it and raising it.

Most of you live in the frustration gap between “this is where I am” and “this is where I want to be.” My mindset is, I'm one conversation away today from a breakthrough. I'm one event away from a breakthrough. I'm one meeting away from a breakthrough. And if you could consistently wake up with that mindset and have the confidence as memory of success, then I'm guaranteeing something good in the future will happen with you. We have to leverage our success, no matter how small, into future opportunities.

We've all heard that people do business with those they know, like, and trust. I'm going to help you think a little bit differently. A Harvard Business Review study shows that people actually do business with those they know, like, trust — and respect.

What does respect mean? It means you've been battle tested. It means you've been resilient, you've been through something. And now because of that, you have confidence. I coach a lot of younger advisors and I have to help them become battle tested. I have to help them because they're competing against people who have been doing it for 20 years.

How do you become battle tested? You have to get in the game! I'm a former college athlete. I would much rather make mistakes by getting in the game and figuring out what my special is, then sitting on the sidelines and hoping good things happen.

It's the same thing for you. Are you battle tested? Because if you're battle tested, now I respect you. And if I respect you, now I'm going to do business with you and there's an affinity towards you.

Confidence is the one thing that affects everything. It's the great exaggerator or it's the great disabler. When we have confidence on our side, we think we're the best thing ever. When we don't have it, we're like, “Am I going to ever get another deal?” We see this all the time in sports, don't we? These teams that go on these big runs, they win their first three games and they lose their next three games.

Sales is a roller coaster. At the end of the day, you are your greatest asset. So how do we start to build confidence? To start to build your confidence, you have to recommit to your bigger future. You have to put that plan in place. We have to commit that we want to go do it. I can coach all day, but if you don't want to go to that level, it's not going to matter. It's got to be internal. It has to be yours.

Put the plan in place, have clarity about how you want to go do it and why you want to go do it. Be in control of your future. Then talk about your special again. Are you working in an occupation or a vocation? Are you working in an occupation, which is something that occupies your time and you receive compensation for? Or are you working in a vocation? “Vocation” is Latin for “voice in life.” That's the mindset that I'm in. If I can spend 80% of my time working in a vocation, I get to help other people implement a plan.

Bruce Lund, Ph.D., has trained thousands of professionals as a business professor, career author/speaker, and now as a sales trainer. He spent more than five years in higher education including service in the Texas A&M system as professor and program director before age 30. He transitioned back into corporate America, helping grow a million-dollar coaching business as vice president and director of sales.