6.Work on your nonverbal communication.

90% of what we communicate at any given time is not through words, but by nonverbal communication such as expressions, gestures, and posture.

7.Expect best.

Your self-talk is very important all time, and particularly in an interview. Remember it’s YOU who puts thoughts into your own head. (If someone else has done this and you aren’t mindful, get some coaching. It can be changed.) If you go into an interview thinking, i.e., saying to yourself, “I’ll never get this job,” or “no one would ever hire someone my age,” or “here comes another rejection,” you are setting yourself up for defeat. Instead program your thinking.

8.Be mindful of your attributions. They will color your expectations and influence your ability to succeed.

Learned optimism means bad attributing things in a way that isn’t personal, permanent or pervasive. If you don’t get job, attribute it to something not personal (“That interviewer doesn’t know a good candidate when he sees one”), not permanent (“Well, I’m sure I’ll get next job”), and not pervasive (“Not getting that particular job doesn’t reflect on my abilities or rest of my life”).

9.Claim your successes.

When you do get job, and you will, celebrate. This is crucial to your self-esteem and personal power. Attribute it to things personal, permanent, and pervasive. In other words, don’t say it was just luck, or fact that no one else applied. Tell yourself it was because you were best candidate, this is a fact of your life, and applies to your life in general. You got job because you deserved to get it. It is crucial that you celebrate your successes in order to build resilience and manage your self-talk.

10.Get out of your own wake.

If you’ve been on a cruise, and looked at stern of ship, there’s a lot of commotion going on back there. The bow of ship is thrusting cleanly through water, but behind ship there’s churning water that even smart fish have sense to keep away from. It isn’t necessarily bad, and there isn’t much to be learned from it. It’s just what ship has to do to go forward. If outcome of one interview was bad, just keep going forward. Don’t look back.

This exercise provides a lot of perspective and insight, but you have to actually DO it not just read directions and say, "That sounds like a great idea. I’ll try it later." It’s really important to "get clear."

This first step is critical to your success. If you make decision to become conscious to become completely aware of what is really going on you become aware of what it is that you really want. We often become excited after participating in a workshop, attending a seminar or reading a book. We think, "Oh, this is it. This is thing that’s going to change my life." However, we don't make decision to start, to take action. Or we may think that by simply reading a book, it will somehow magically change our lives: "The information is going to float over me and my life is going to be different."

When pebble in our shoe bugs us enough, we pick up a book or attend a seminar. We briefly take off our shoe. We enjoy comfort of idea of not traveling with pebble in our shoe anymore.

When seminar or book is finished, we put our shoe back on over pebble. Then we start our journey again. We feel a little lighter and more enthusiastic, because of encountering new material. So pebble is barely noticeable. However, we never made a decision a conscious choice to remove pebble or get shoes that keep pebble from falling back in again.

We never really get started.

Whether you know what you want to do or no longer want that quiet, nag pebble in your shoe realization that you need to make a change and take action is a great place to be. When you make decision to move forward, it’s truly a momentous occasion. Today, you are finally awake.

This excerpt from The Soul of Success: 7 Steps to Monetary and Spiritual Wealth For A Rich Meaningful Life is reprinted with permission from Essence Press.