Attitude and self-assurance dictates the risk we are willing to take to act on our ideas for business development and has so much to do with success in business and relationships.

I liked the message I read in this article http://tinyurl.com/cqlhvf from Jean-René Houde, the CEO of the Business Development Bank of Canada from an address he made to entrepreneurs.

I know that the biggest ingredient of success for entrepreneurs is a combination of self-confidence, self-esteem and the ability to influence people to listen to you and act on your ideas.

At the core of this is an understanding of yourself and others because how can you be effective with people if you don’t understand them?

The key element that holds each one of us back from fully using our natural qualities and strengths is fear. When we can identify what drives fear in us and what negative tendencies it causes, we can find ways to resolve those causes and free ourselves to realize our goals.

In an economic crisis our fears become even more heightened and we need to really build our inner resources to protect ourselves from becoming stuck with inaction, which can only worsen things.

On the bright size retail sales in Canada were up in January by 1.9% http://tinyurl.com/dzzv82. I observed this first hand when I went shopping for a gift at the mall on Monday at lunch time and could not believe the shopping activity there.

So think big, positive and take action.

Stephen