Ever have one of those moments where you think you know how something is going to go, and then it turns out completely differently, but it still works to your favor?
That was my experience last week when I asked my facebook connections to vote on a video topic for a contest I'm entering. I asked them to choose between these two topics:
Hands down, the winner was #1 - in all but one group where the vote was evenly split. For whatever reason, people I know can really relate to the struggle of showing up fully as themselves - a malady I can SO relate with.
But here's the thing... both topics are really about the same thing.
It almost sounds like a dangerous idea, right? I mean, there are "blueprints" and "formulas" galore in the world. There are gurus, guides, and coaches who want nothing more than to sell you their 'proven system' to help you be "successful" in some area or another of your life or work.
Heck, I'm a mentor myself. I have systems and tools that I use and offer to others, so it stands to reason I could lump myself in that category, too, right?
I wouldn't blame you if you did.
The thing that I hope sets me apart is that I detest the one-size-fits-all approach that so many leaders laud. A lot of people tread that path, and in my experience that's where the mediocre are. Back in my direct sales days, there was a "technique" that was touted as a sure-fire way to get business: pass out your business card to everyone with a pulse. Does it work? Sure. Eventually. But it's painful, awkward, and gives you a bad reputation.
Cookie cutter "blueprints" have their place. Like making cookies, or building houses. You want to know, before you invest your resources, a reasonable idea of what the end result will be. But you can take one blueprint and build two "identical" houses and they won't even be close to the same. Why? Location, interior decoration, and other considerations that have nothing to do with the blueprint itself. Likewise, three people can take the exact same cookie recipe and have three dramatically different results. Why? Again, lots of considerations that have nothing to do with the recipe itself.
The difference in the house and the cookies lays squarely with the owner. Who's the one doing the building, the decorating, the baking? That's what's really going to dictate how things shake out. That's something most coaches and gurus don't take into account in their blueprints.
Frameworks are helpful, but you can't expect to duplicate someone else's success because you are not that person! Believe me. I've invested my share of cash into training, blueprints, and frameworks. Any time they're a step-by-step "here's what I did to be successful" approach, it falls flat. Because I'm not them! I've been coaching and training for almost 10 years, and while there are some common themes, every client is different. There are no two people, no two businesses that are exactly alike. Even in direct sales, where every consultant is selling the exact same product from the exact same catalog, the results are markedly different because of WHO is doing the selling and HOW they are doing it.
A blueprint or a framework can show you how, but it may not work for who you are. It's the underlying principles, the concepts, and the WHY this worked that matters. Once you know WHY something works, you can figure out HOW to apply it to your situation in a way that works for WHO you are.
It was my very first tagline and it's still true. You are the most important piece of the puzzle in growing a profitable, sustainable business. Without you, it's just another product, another service, another offering. You are what makes it special. But if you're spending all your time, money, and energy trying to fit yourself into the mold of someone else, you're missing out on your biggest opportunity for success.
Showing up as yourself more completely means being willing to own your shadow and your light. None of us - not even the well-paid gurus and muckety mucks of the world are perfect. No matter how much spit and polish they put on. We all have bad days, make poor choices, and then have to live with the consequences. Being willing to admit your imperfections takes courage, and a little vulnerability, it's true. What I've learned, though, is that when I am willing to show up as myself - warts, sparkles and all - it gives the people around me permission to show up as themselves, too. It's an upward spiral that perpetuates itself.
When I finish speaking in front of an audience, I usually hear two comments. The first is usually about my energy and enthusiasm. The second is about how refreshing it is to see me be so "real" on the stage. They appreciate that I speak without talking down, insulting their intelligence, or making them feel inferior. They appreciate that I'm not afraid to tell the messy stories of my life. It gives them confidence to share their stories - sometimes just with me, but often with a larger audience they've been nervous to talk to.
From my perspective, life is messy. We all know that, yet so many people try to pretend otherwise. Embrace your mess, maybe even love it a little, since that's where the juicy stories come from. That's what makes you relatable.
Don't be afraid to be yourself. It's a job no one else is equipped to do. (click to tweet)
That doesn't mean you have to air all your dirty laundry. I do my best to share my stories in ways that are helpful to others. I'm one of those people who believes that if you can learn from my mistakes, then you won't have to repeat them. I also believe that every choice I've made (for better or worse) has led me to this moment. That if there's something from my journey that can help you on yours, then I want to he able to share it.
We've all put on the brave face, the happy face, the facade that says everything's okay when it's not. But I'm talking about something deeper. You've heard me talk about "The Pretender" and "The Coward" before. One mask protects you from the world, the other protects the world from you. Yet, neither serves your highest good. You have to take off your masks to risk being truly seen.
When you know who you are, you aren’t afraid to admit who you are not. I'm not a scientist. That's my husband. When the kids come home with math homework, I quickly remind them I was a music major in college, so I can count to 12 and divide by 7, but that's about it. I know my limitations there. But it's easy for me to forget those limitations when I slip on the mask of what a good mom is "supposed" to be. I'm pretending. It's frustrating. And it's just digging my hole deeper.
Once you start wearing a mask, it becomes risky to remove it. Showing up as yourself means letting people see what you don't know, what you can't do, what you aren't capable of in this moment. That's scary stuff.
But it also means showing people what you do know, what you can do, and what you are truly capable of in this moment. That is sometimes even more scary.
I grew up in a "gifted" program full of smarty pants kids. We were all too smart for our own good and socially awkward. Most of us had one or two things that we really knew - we were smarter than even the smart kids! But if we dared to show our intelligence in that area, we were quickly brought down a peg by someone who was smart in another area - just to show us that we didn't know everything.
Sadly, that attitude doesn't leave us when we're adults. So being seen as smarter, faster, or better than someone else can become an equally heavy burden and scary proposal.
Masks, to me, are like McDonald's. Once you've seen it, you know what to expect. When you walk into a McDonald's you pretty much know what's on the menu, where the bathroom is, and how competent the counter help will be. On those rare occasions when they're offering a special menu item (remember McDonald's pizza?) it throws you off. Now you're not sure what to expect. That could be good or bad, but either way, you're thrown for a loop for a minute while you get your bearings.
Masks become a cultural shorthand. The problem is that humans grow and change, and masks don't fit forever. Try taking a picture of yourself when you were a child and wearing it around during the day. Unless it's Halloween, people are going to be thrown off. Why is this grown-ass person wearing the face of a small child? What are they hiding? Why are they hiding?
Peeling off the masks is a must-do. How can we fall in love with you if we can't see who you are? If you're wearing a mask, we're not falling in love with you, we're falling in love with the mask, and that creates all kinds of internal backlash and self-loathing. It's a vicious downward spiral that keeps us trying on different masks, hoping that one will eventually fit.
It takes guts, and tremendous amounts of courage to be true to what really matters to you. Lady Gaga takes a risk every time she steps out in public in one of her crazy ensembles. Yet, it's far less of a risk than playing small and not owning her outlandishness. If you fell in love with "small-playing" Lady Gaga, you just might have a heart attack watching her tramp around in some of her crazier get-ups. Her outspoken, outlandish appearance is part and parcel to who she really is.
To deny any part of you is to deny all of you.
You can't say "that's not my hand" when it's clearly connected to your body. If you deny the hand, you deny the body. Likewise to deny what's important to you (family, faith, travel, relationships, etc.), is to deny YOU. You can't deny a part of you. You're denying your whole self, because that "part" is woven into the very tapestry of your existence. It's a meaningful thread of who you are... whether it's a piece from your past, your present, or your future, it's every bit as important as every other part of you.
In the next few days, I'll be sharing a special gift with my subscribers to help remind them to remove their masks and show up more consistently as themselves. If you'd like to get it, be sure you're subscribed above. In the comments below, I'd love to hear your stories. When did you recognize you were wearing a mask? Did you choose to take it off? Why? What happened as a result? It's in sharing your stories that we lift each other up.
I've been wanting to write a post for a very long time about a concept I dubbed "the two I's". Inasmuch as we have two eyes through which we see the world, there are two "I's" through which we see the world: our divine self and our human self.
You can try to dodge them, but no matter how hard you try, you will experience the agony and ecstasy of both "selves" in your lifetime. I've talked about our Shadow self before. How the Coward and the Pretender protect ourselves from the world, and the world from us. How they are all part and parcel to our being. But I thought an incredibly personal example from my own upbringing might drive the point a little deeper.
It's probably a good thing my family doesn't read my writing much. Especially this week. I've written about my Dad before, but I don't usually talk about my Mom. That's because ours wasn't the greatest of relationships. While my Dad and I weren't exactly buddies, he wasn't around much as a kid, so he and I didn't develop the strong animosities that Mom and I did.
Dad was a Vet from WWII. He fought in the Asia Pacific Campaign on the island of Hawaii. I never knew much about what he did or who he was, since that was 30+ years before I was even born.
This past week, his replacement Army medals arrived. He earned a bronze star for his campaign medal, and I'm still not entirely sure what that means. In addition to the victory medal, also earned a Good Conduct Medal and a marksman badge for rifle (which explains the gun he kept in the closet when I was growing up). He also earned an honorable service pin. To look at all that regalia, you'd think Dad was some kind of war hero deserving of a halo and a front row seat in Heaven.
Perhaps.
This was the same man who, in his 60's no less, took my mom to abandoned houses to pull out and strip the copper wiring to sell at the junkyard for cash. Granted, that cash was used to feed his family and keep a roof over our heads, but breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter what the intention.
Lest you think Mom was some kind of victim in all this, she is the prostitute in the subheading above. Did you ever wonder what happens to prostitutes after they clean up their act and get off the street? I did, until I learned about Mom's "torrid past".
Back in the early 1970's, Dad was a cab driver. He was in his early 50's, married to a drug addict with two kids - one whom he'd sired and she another she brought to the marriage. To hear Dad tell it, he loved her, but she couldn't kick her habit, so he was looking for another "option". That's when he met my mom. She was this 20-something vixen - one of the few white chicks that hung out at an all-black bar in town where he liked to go between calls.
I never knew mom or dad to be much in the way of drinkers, so that story took me by surprise.
He knew she was earning money the "old fashioned" way, and decided he wanted to get her off the streets and clean her up. So he moved her into his house - with his wife and kids - under the guise of being a live-in nanny and part-time cabbie.
My mom, the undercover live-in lover of my dad, a married man with kids. The wife was too high to care, I presume. Then one day Dad was in the kitchen making wifey a sandwich. She OD'd right in front of the kids and died.
There was nothing to stop them from getting married, so they did. Mom & Dad eventually adopted both boys and went on to have both me and my sister - all before the end of Gerald Ford's presidency.
By the 1980's we were one big family - the kind that put the "fun" in dysfunctional (this picture is from one of the few family camping trips we all took together). My oldest brother (on the right) started stealing from the family. My heroic war vet dad would bind his hands and hang him from the wrists in the garage and whip him with a belt to get him to 'fess up. That put fear into the rest of us to not steal.
My other brother (on the left) decided that it was okay to force himself upon his much younger sister (me) instead. I didn't understand then why my Mother defended him. For years it was easy for me to see the darkness of Mom and the light in my Dad. Dad, the Angel, had left my mom because, well, she was the Devil. Nothing was ever good enough for her demanding ways. It was stressful, painful, and downright horrible.
After Dad and mom split up the first time, Mom took to the belt like a natural. It was an abusive, yet loving home - something you'd only expect to hear from a child of an abusive home. I'm pretty sure my extended family was somewhat aware, but nothing was ever done to my knowledge; no visits from child protective services as far as I know.
Then, in an effort to "make it work for the kids' sake" they got back together. That didn't last long. It was a painful mess of a relationship that colored so much of what my view on men, marriage, and family became for many many years.
It wasn't until I was an adult, with a child of my own, that I could really own that they were both a tangled web of shadows and light - like we all are.
As I approach my fortieth birthday, I look back and do my best to temper both the light and dark in my family. Fitting, since I'm biracial, right?
Amid all that darkness, I remember how my Dad would sit with me every week when my oldest son was still a toddler, and instruct and encourage me to be a better parent. How Mom attended and supported my sister's softball team in high school. The vacations and road trips we took to various parts of Michigan and the Eastern U.S. How they were both compassionate grandparents for as long as they were alive.
Those were good, glorious times: when Mom and Dad were letting their Divine selves shine through.
No one is perfect, in the zone, or "on" all the time. We see it played out when celebrities get caught doing something stupid, or a politician admits to some "corrupt" act. When I yell at my kids, swear at the driver that cut me off, or give credence to the "not enough" voices in my head.
On the other hand, our Divine nature calls us to live beyond our humanity. Wallowing in the "bad" things we do and resigning ourselves to our imperfection is a cop out. Saying "I told you I was trouble. You know that I'm no good." - with apologies to Amy Winehouse - is a cop out. We owe it to ourselves - to our highest good and to the people who need us to share our divine gifts - to keep showing up, warts and all.
When I meet someone for the first time that's previously watched my videos or read my blog, invariably, they say something about how inspiring I am because I have the courage to just show up as I am. That me "being vulnerable" is some kind of salve for them that gives them hope and courage to show up for themselves, too.
I used to think it was a back-handed way of saying "you could at least put on some makeup in those videos!" See how I couldn't even receive the compliment that was being handed to me? I was stealing from myself and robbing them of the gift of true gratitude.
Recently, though, I've noticed more and more people saying the same thing - as if my vulnerability is a gift I get to shine into the world for those who need it.
I'll be the first person to tell you I'm not perfect (my kids would probably be the second). It's part of why I don't show up with flashy videos and perfectly coiffed hair. My dishes are regularly undone, my house it quite often in disarray, and don't even think about looking at my desk right now - I'm not sure you could find it.
I've lied. I cheated. I've been "the other woman" - on more than one occasion. I've been mean, cruel, and just a downright "bad" person. And, as my favorite poet likes to remind us, still I rise.
Why?
Because my Divinity refuses to let my Humanity own me. Each day is another chance to stand up to the shadows of all my yesterdays, shine a light and say "screw you yesterday, I'm going to show up and keep trying to do better."
Not "do perfect." Do better.
My Humanity also refuses to let my Divinity own me. Because each day is another day for me to experience joy, emotion, respect, fear, lightness, darkness, faith, courage, happiness, anger, rage, and all the other emotions that are part of the human experience.
It's difficult to see the world through one eye. You're constantly craning your neck to see what you're missing. If you have two eyes, it seems senseless to cover one of them and pretend it doesn't exist. Why not put it to good use and see the rest of the world around you?
Why indeed. It's much harder to live life pretending you're perfect (or evil). You're constantly shift around to keep people from seeing the side you wish to ignore. If you have two sides, it seems senseless to cover one of them up and pretend it doesn't exist. Why not put it to good use and let us (and yourself) experience you showing up fully in the world around you?
About a year ago, my husband and I bought a Porsche. We call it "The Time Machine" because it's really a blast from the past.
When we bought it, we got the expected commentary from friends and family:
"A Porsche? Really? How can you afford that?"
"What are you going to do with a Porsche? It's way too small for your family."
"Mom, can I have it when I graduate from high school?"
... and on and on.
When they found out it was a Porsche 924 - a classic from 1977 - and we only paid about $1500 for it, the comments took a different turn:
"What are you going to do with an old beat up car?"
"Forget it! I don't want my friends seeing me in an OLD car!"
"That's $1500 more than I would have paid."
"Does it have seatbelts?"
"Regular or unleaded gas?"
... and my favorite: "Can you even fit in that thing?"
One guy I used to know - who owns a limited edition Porsche Panamera (valued around $75k) - liked to poke fun and ask me when we were going to get a real Porsche. He'd say to me "Don't you want to see yourself someday in a new Porsche?"
I wonder if he'd say that to his wife - who is about 20 years his junior. 🙂
Last summer was a rough one for us. After two years of trying to keep a failing business venture afloat, and some personal financial issues around the health of our kids, we made a tough decision (more…)
"I am enjoying showing up as myself more completely."
That was the nugget of gold I rendered from my weekend intensive with my coach this past weekend. Once a quarter I sojourn in Minnesota for a few days to do deeper work to heal my "stuff" and open up blocks around my mindset. Because I'm a coach myself, I know the value of having a different perspective to help me open my eyes to my own hangups about success and how my life "should" be at this point in time.
This revelation came as a surprise as much as it came as a soothing realization. There's ease in showing up as myself - without worry or self-censorship. Granted, there are times when a little tact is recommended, but to just be myself fully - warts, sparkles, and all - is a gift I'm learning to give myself (and the world) more regularly.
Comparisonitis is a dreadful condition. It's a horrible inflammation of the ego, causing immense discomfort about who you are, and overall dissatisfaction with anything you've accomplished. When you suffer from Comparisonitis, everyone else is always farther along, doing better, making more money, living the life you believe "should" be yours. There's no sense of satisfaction, and often you feel guilt - like there's something wrong with you, or you need to be doing more.
Comparisonitis is fear in disuise. Instead of doing what we can where we're at, we're constantly comparing ourselves to every Tom, Dick, and Jane out there that appears to be in a better position than us.
One of my first (and admittedly worst) cases of Comparisonitis was with a contemporary colleague of mine. It was around 2008, and another coach was having what appeared to be way more success and making way more money than me. We both launched our businesses about the same time, and I was frustrated at how much exposure she was getting, how many "big name" people were talking her up, and how she looked like she was on the fast track to success.
What I didn't know was that all that surface shine came at a great cost to her personal life. She had taken out a second mortgage on her home so she could invest in all the programs that those "big names" were offering, which came with a promise of promoting her stuff to their audience. Ultimately, she ended up divorcing her husband and starting over on a much smaller scale. She tried to leapfrog and wasn't ready for the hard landing that comes from such a high jump.
You don't know what's going on in someone else's world. Stop comparing your success to theirs. (click to tweet)
There's a difference between Comparisonitis and benchmarking - which I'll get to in a minute - but for now, realize that your first step in moving beyond Comparisonitis is to stop "shoulding" on yourself.
I forget where I first heard the phrase, but if you've worked with me for any length of time, you've heard me use it. We get so caught up in the "shoulds" - instead of accepting (and maybe even embracing) where we are now. I think Mark Silver over at Heart of Business said it to me best:
"As long as you are in comparison, you are rejecting what is true [for yourself], and you are not able to be present to what is... People make up stories to protect themselves from having to surrender to what is currently true for them."
- Mark Silver"
When we're not focused on what is, we're focused on what we think should be happening, what we should be doing, what we should be experiencing. All that does is create more anxiety, more guilt, and more frustration about where we are not, instead of appreciating where we are.
Yet, if we stop comparing ourselves to anyone (except our past selves), we can see how far we've come in our lifetime, despite the obstacles, trials, fear, worry, doubt, and pressure to be something other than who and what we are.
When I look back on my life (instead of comparing that life to someone else), I'm really proud of what I've accomplished, who I've become, and what's on the radar for my future. I get a chance to appreciate my own awesomeness (without arrogance), instead of poo-pooing and downplaying my life because it's not "enough" compared to someone else.
My coach has helped me practice what she calls "AWOJAWA" - awareness without judgement, awareness with acceptance. We often think that pain, discomfort and other feelings of that ilk are "bad" and to be avoided. While it's true that I wouldn't want to live there all the time, sometimes pain can be a powerful tool for recognizing a need to change. Fear can be a powerful motivator to get stuff done. It's not good or bad, it just is.
Likewise, we think that happiness, pride, peace, joy and other feelings of that ilk are "good" and to be sought after. Yet, how much happiness is there in chasing joy? How healthy is it to be peacefully blissed out and completely unaware of the 8 year old setting fire to your kitchen?
It's not good or bad, it just is. We are the ones putting all the judgment labels on our emotions.
Comparisonitis still flares up in me from time to time, and I do my best to use a healthier way to track my growth and progress. Benchmarking is an idea that's used a lot in corporate worlds, and one that I think we can use beneficially in other ways. The idea is to look to a standard and measure our results compared to that standard.
But here's the kicker - you can't measure to some external standard. Take for example, my weight loss journey. If I constantly compared myself to every other woman that was more than 100 pounds overweight, observed the charts and "standards" that governing health agencies said were ideal, I'd be miserable.
My standard, instead, is consistency. What can I do consistently? I can run - if I'm pushed - but I can't sustain that. I hate running (for now anyway). What can I do - and do it consistently? I can get off my butt and dance around my house for 10 minutes a day. Will that cause me to lose 100 pounds overnight? Nope. But once I'm consistent at 10 minutes, I can increase it to 15, and so on.
So I benchmark my progress against my own reasonable standard. Will I get there as fast as I want to - as fast as I think I should?
Um nope. But I'll be making healthier choices more consistently... which eventually leads to the result I want.
Did you hear that? I'll let you take a minute for that to sink in. You are already a success. How's THAT grab ya?
In benchmarking, I'm allowed to see myself as already successful. Because I'm comparing myself now to what I've already done, and what's doable for me going forward. I can celebrate my wins NOW instead of waiting for "someday" in the great beyond.
Tomorrow never comes, yo. And yesterday is always gone. Insert cheesy cliches about embracing this moment here.
So in showing up fully as myself - as often as I can - I get to experience the grace and beauty of my own success. I get to draw closer to the Divine ideal of my life - whatever that is. I'm still figuring it out.
Here's another tidbit I gleaned from Mark - if we look at "excellence" (or "success" in this case) as a way to Master our world, we miss out on the other, more glorious result - we draw closer to the Divine.
So becoming myself more fully means I'm becoming excellent at being myself - instead of becoming something else that moves me farther and farther away from Divine Alignment.
Showing up as myself more completely means I own who I am, and I speak from my true voice - my truth - warts, sparkles, and all. Which, I think, is part of why I'm here on the planet in the first place. God doesn't make extra parts and pieces. We all have a gift and the only way we can share it is if we share it from our true self. I think Judy Garland said something about being a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of someone else. Why would you want to be a second rate version of anything?
It's so important that we understand how important we are - how important YOU are in this world. What do you see as your gifts? And what are you doing to share them with the world - fully as yourself?
(Author's note: this post originally appeared in 2011 on one of my old blogs. I've freshened it up a bit for you today.)
One of the things that really annoys me are those folks that say they want change, but don't take action when answers are provided.
It dawned on me why they don't budge.
Picture a huge file room in your brain. There's a file clerk in there, taking in "evidence" for the various files in the "cabinets."
The file clerk never takes a break. He's contstantly filing away bits of information in the various files.
Let's say, in one cabinet, you have two files, one marked "I can't sing", the other marked "I'm a good singer."
Then let's say you're invited to sing in a local Karaoke contest.
Quickly, you run to the file clerk and say "pull out the files to help me decide what to do!"
The file clerk, never missing a beat, pulls out two files. One is significantly larger than the other. The one that says "I can't sing" weighs 100 pounds, while the other has only a few slips of paper inside.
(more…)He was laying in that hospital bed for several days. Stubborn, cantankerous.
He'd had difficulty breathing when they admitted him, but this eighty year-old man was a fighter, and while he hadn't been eating well for the past few weeks, his strength was contagious. His children, gathered in the room, listened to him tell off the nurses, the doctors, and just about everyone that entered the room.
He talked about how he wasn't done living yet. He just bought a new house. He just celebrated his 80th birthday. He had a grandson he wanted to watch grow up. He was a vigorous "old dude" that didn't give up easily.
His vitals looked good, and no one knew what was causing the trouble. All signs pointed to stress, maybe from making that move, or not getting enough rest.
After a couple of days in the hospital, test results came back.
"You've got a tumor the size of a baseball on your lung. It's causing pressure on your stomach when you eat too much, which, is presumably why you're not eating." the doctor said.
"Cancer?" said the old man. "Well, I guess that's it."
(more…)[Note: I originally wrote this post a few years ago, for my Business Action Hero website. I've refreshed it here because it's still relevant - maybe now more than ever.]
"If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.”
- Seth Godin
It hit me between the eyes. This painful, jarring sensation at far too early on a Sunday morning - on a holiday weekend no less. This strange need for safety that we all seem to crave - even go out of our way to re-inforce.
Even if the result is less comfortable than pursuing change.
We don't want to rock the boat and get people mad at us. So we stay in the comfort zone. Maybe we push a little here and there, but we're not really making true progress on our own path.
It's here where we have to choose:
Because safety is the ultimate risk. Hoping and praying that nothing will change. Images of ostriches with their heads in the sand come to mind. They can't see that tornado bearing down on them, but golly, they sure feel safe!
[tweet "When it comes to owning your dreams, safety is the ultimate risk."]
Back in 2010, I had the honor of interviewing best-selling author Jonathan Fields about the upside of being an entrepreneur. During that interview, he said something that has stayed with me:
"There is no sideways in life. It's an illusion. There's only up and down. Usually this is the most horrifying scenario of all."
- Jonathan Fields
At first, I didn't want to believe it, but my own experience has validated that there's no standing still. You're either moving forward (as you define it) or you're getting left behind. When I interviewed him again for his second book, "Uncertainty", he offered up this gem:
"If you want to do great things in the world, you have to go to a place where you don't know how it's going to end."
- Jonathan Fields
(You can listen to that interview here.)
Since then, he's launched the Good Life Project and Revolution U, all the while, going where he'd never gone before. It's been fascinating and fun to watch. Clearly, this is a guy that continues to choose "adventure" over "safety".
Safety is your nemesis.
I don't mean you should recklessly throw caution to the wind. We need to be smart about the risks we're taking. Safety and security is one thing most of us crave - it's the foundation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Without it, we don't feel like we can move forward.
But once we "have" it, we're less likely to move forward because of it. Safety means we don't have to push, strive, or work as hard because, well, we're safe, and nothing's going to happen to us in our safe space, right?
That's a wicked catch-22.
Safety works hard to keep you stuck - just as hard as you work to plow forward in your adventure.
"What if they don't like it?"
"What if they think I'm crazy?"
"What if it flops?"
"What will _____ say?"
"That's too hard/easy/fast/slow/tedious/tiresome/boring/good for me."
"I'd love to but I don't have enough ______ (or I am not ____ enough)."
We judge ourselves so harshly that we don't give ourselves a fighting chance. Let's change that!
Remember: perfection is an illusion. You're already as perfect as you're gonna get. You're human. To expect perfection 100% of the time will only cause more judgement (pain, resentment, frustration). Stuff happens that we call "failure". Big deal. Take a moment to celebrate the wins, stop staring at the door that closed, and look for your next steps.
The nature of a nemesis is that it has an equivalent level of power and sway. Think of The Joker and Batman, Prof. Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes. A nemesis is not easily defeated, but can be thwarted and often contained. It is when you underestimate your nemesis that it takes a foothold, and often wins a battle or two.
Simple, but not easy.
[Note: This isn't a topic I get to blog about much, because, well, my skin color is usually irrelevant to the work I'm doing in the world (funny how that works, huh?). I've been very fortunate that the bulk of the racist remarks I've dealt with in my life stemmed from ignorant classmates during my school days. There was that one dumb co-worker, but I'll just chalk that up to his old age and inability to grasp multi-ethnicity. Fortunately, he's part of a dying breed, and a relic of a by-gone era, that hopefully never returns.]
Growing up as a multi-racial kid in a blended family wasn't easy.
I was called all kinds of names every day on the school bus. My favorite?
Zebra. The black kids thought I was "too white to be black" and the white kids thought "I was too black to be white". It was the one term they could all agree on.
As a "Zebra" I was delightfully different (okay, it wasn't so delightful then, but I digress). Able to embrace both my white-ness and my black-ness - regardless of how derogatory the term was meant to be. It was certainly better than "honkey" or that "n" word that still floats around in certain circles.
So imagine my delight (and my surprise) when I found this (more…)
Last year, I was introduced to a concept that I've continued to grapple with from time to time. The picture below is taken from page 61 of Dr. Maria Nemeth's book "The Energy of Money". It's an illustration that one of her teachers once shared with her:
When my coach first introduced it to me, it made perfect sense. I spent little time trying to understand it, and a TON of time trying to figure out where I was on that path.
I recognized I spent a lot of time pretending, a little time being afraid, and almost NO time embracing who I really am.
Sadly, my own experience as a coach tells me I'm not the only person living this way.
These three identities: The Pretender, The Coward, and True Self show up at various moments (more…)
[Editor's note: This is Day 22 of the Be Your Own Guru series, and we're continuing the them of "how-to's" this week. I met Winnie in an online class, and we teamed up to practice elevator pitches. Then we started talking about fear, love and God. Yep. Deep stuff. Winnie's got a great take on fear and how to get past it today.]
That famous social commentator, Anonymous, is quoted as saying “Owning a business is the best self- development program around.”
How right she is.
Whether you’re an accidental entrepreneur, fulfilling a lifelong dream of being on your own, or you’ve got talents and a passion you’re driven to share with the world, at some point as you build the business you come face-to-face with emotional baggage you either didn’t know you had or were sure you had unpacked when you were 18 and still knew everything.
Starting a business isn’t hard. Any child can tell you how to start a lemonade stand: Figure out what you’re selling, come up with a price, put up a sign, and collect the money.