One day when I was around my early to mid twenties, I went to the hairdressers for my monthly trim. This woman enquired about whether I had heard about the tragic car crash that had recently occured. I had not heard of any crashes and therefore she started to tell me about the horrible accident.

Three young men who were all aged twenty-two, were on the way for an evening in the local public house. One of them decided he would drive and on the way there, partly due to the fact that he was driving too quickly, he lost control of the car. His vehicle had then careered straight into a large tree, all three of the people in the car had died at the scene.

She continued that one of the men which had died, had worked in the butchers, which was only two doors away from her shop. She described the man in question, which turned out to be a person that I knew, just to say hello to. I actually saw him on most mornings and we often smiled at each other, and would say something like, hi there.

Later on when I was at home, I started to think even more about this particular person. Even though he was friendly, he always looked quite stressed and did not seem that happy. If he had known what was about to happen to him, I am sure he would have made the most of the time he had left.

It should not have taken this kind of tragedy to bring me to my senses, but it did. I suddenly realised that we are all terminally ill as we all will die at some point in the future. I am sorry if that is a bit morbid, but it is true. Not all of us will live until retirement age and our lives could end tomorrow.

I have always been a bit of a worrier; mainly about my speech I suppose as I had a stuttering speech impediment. I did eventually manage to gain fluency via an intensive one-to-one stuttering therapy course but even then I started to worry about business; I work for a composite door company and for a company of cost cutting experts on a part ime basis.

I now have learnt to stop stressing so much - life, I have now learnt, is just too short.

Do you lack confidence? Would you like to find out ways in which you could increase your self-esteem and self-confidence? If you have answered either or both of these questions in the positive then this article may well be of interest to you.

Throughout my childhood and teenage years I was a person who had a real lack of self-belief. I have to say that in reality I did not like myself. I was extremely jealous and envious of other people and what they seemingly had in comparison to me. They seemingly had it so easy where as for me life was a constant struggle. What I needed was to some how gain confidence.

I had a stutter you see which did make life unbearable at times. I did eventually, at the age of twenty-two, manage to achieve fluency which of course was a great relief. I had however already spent the previous eighteen years struggling to cope with a stuttering or what is also known as stammering problem that virtually destroyed my entire confidence.

At the end of the day I realised that the grass is always greener and that I had to start to realise that I was one of the lucky ones. I had to stop being so hard on myself and at the same time work towards improving the areas of my life that I was not happy with.

I also had to stop stressing, panicking and worrying so much. My whole approach to life had to change; I was now going to start to think in a positive manner.

These were some massive changes that I was attempting to make to the way that I lived my life and I will not try and tell you that it was easy. In the end however the hard work and determination did pay off; I am now able to talk fluently with a new found confidence.

I hope that you will also be able to gain in confidence; I will be happy to help in any way that I can.

As a successful businessmen I am now involved in various projects including one which offers online guitar lessons for beginners. This is a great deal fun as the lessons are very beneficial and the feedback thus far has been very positive.