Q5:Similar to the above question, tell us why you have confidence in yourself?
Ah my successes. Well they didn't come until later, well into my 20s.
Although I did have successes in my teens and early 20s. Examples of
these are, I taught myself how to drive since no one else would teach
me. I surprised myself when I took a test to get a position with IBM.
Fresh out of a 2 year Electronic School, I applied for a job with IBM.
In order to get accepted there were 3 test that they gave you. The first
was the Electronics test and since I just graduated from an Electronics
school, I passed without a problem. The second was an intelligence
aptitude test and here was my surprise. It was a timed test with 30
seconds to answer each question. Out the 100 questions, I got 97
correct. I was told that no one that ever took that test ever got that
many correct much less finished all 100 questions. They were making
plans for me to join IBM. Next came the hands on mechanical test which
I flunked terribly. They even gave me another opportunity to take the
test and I flunked that one too. So needless to say I never got to work
for IBM. However it did tell me that I wasn't stupid and in fact was
very smart under certain circumstances. After my divorce I had reached
my low point in confidence. So I decided that either I was going to
change my life or maybe end it. I stayed in my apartment for 3 days
thinking things out. What I came out with was that I did have abilities,
I was not a quitter, and that the people that put me down were actually
less intelligent then me and far more insecure. So I came out of my
apartment on the third day and began my journey to success by believing
in myself, never taking advise from anyone that hasn't gone where I
wanted to go, never fearing to fail if I compiled all the facts before
trying something, and If I failed, to look back at it as a learning
lesson. From then on I never looked back at
the old Bob.