You Doing You...Rocks: The Confidence to Step Out

I hit a game-changer this weekend. I had a significant ‘Ah-ha’ moment that shook my paradigm and I want to share it with you. I was MCing an event this past weekend for a group of professionals. It was well organized, all the speakers were on time with their material, and it flowed rather well. During the afternoon break a couple of people came up and complimented me on how I was doing. I smiled and thanked them, but the problem was that inside I was dying quietly. I did not really think that it was going that well, I did not feel I was connecting with the audience. All in all I was rather dissatisfied with my performance. I relayed this to a friend of mine later that night. He threw a quote back at me that blew me away. He said ‘Just keep doing You. You doing You…Rocks!’

That was it. End of discussion. I did not have to try harder, up my game, fake it on the stage. He had seen me MC before, knew I had the skills and ability. All I had to do was get out there and do what I already did; openly, without shame or reservation. 

When can you be you? It is easy to be self critical and say ‘well if people saw the real me they would hate it’. Instead we put up walls to stop people connecting in case they get to close. We shy away from taking up positions of responsibility because we feel unready for them, because we are not perfect. At the other extreme we know we are not perfect so we fake it, and we fake it so much that we forget who we really are and live a life that is a series of lies with no call to accountability.

I am not suddenly saying there is no room for personal growth. I could have done a better job MCing, there are a couple of points that I need to fix next time in presenting. That part of growth will always be there. However, I can have the confidence to step out, as me, with my personality, my way of doing things and have a significant impact. So how can I continue to be the best ‘Me’, how can you be the best ‘You’?

One of the big hindrances to stepping out where we are now is our past. Our fear of previous failures and thoughts of what people may think of ‘the boy from the rural areas’ hinder us from doing our best work. Embrace your backstory and move forward from it. Your backstory, the bit in your life about where you came from, can be the most powerful storytelling tool you have. You cannot live in your past, but you can use it to propel long lasting and meaningful change. Not only that, it makes a great story; one that inspires others. The story of the CEO who used to walk to work in the founding days of him company resonates with us. Being comfortable with your past, being open about how it has helped you become who you are today is part of being comfortable with ‘You’. Many people, when they look at their lives, find something to be passionate about rooted deep within an experience in their past.

You have to be passionate about what you do. If you are not passionate about your business and the transformation it is making in it and through it I doubt that you will be either happy or successful. People can tell when you do not have a passion for something and will fail to connect. Millennials; people born 1980 to the mid 2000’s, don’t just want a competitive salary, they want to be connected to something bigger than themselves. This applies to them as both as employees and as clients. Being you means allowing that passion to the forefront of your life.

Tied to passion is motive. What drives you? Making money or making a difference? Great motives are not self-serving. Donald Trump is steamrolling ahead in the US Republican primaries because he is coming across as motivated about people. Regardless of your personal opinion about him, his ‘Make America Great Again’ campaign has gained appeal among voters because the message it brings is looking to build up citizens to positions of success; the perceived motive is less about him attaining presidency (he already has success and money) and more about what the people stand to gain. 

The motive that keeps you going when under pressure is one that is less about you and more about others. A personal motive is easy to give up on because the only person it affects is you. When you have set a motives about changing the lives of others you are less likely to quit because the success of others rests on your success. If my motive when on stage is about me looking good as an MC then I will fail to deliver, if it is about the crowd having a great interactive experience that connects them to the material then it changes the way I behave. 

Under times of pressure it is easy to let passions be stifled or to twist motives to the most basic and self-serving. I am encouraging you today to begin the task of recalibrating. Rekindle that which you are passionate about and see where you can bring it to bear in the position you are in-especially if you have taken on a job just because it is something to bring an income and not something that excites you.

Each day we pass up opportunities to do our best work because of fear. Do not let that happen today. Unleash your A-game into your work and life wholeheartedly and completely. Remember just keep doing You. Because you doing You…Rocks!

The New Year: Prospects, Resolutions and Pain

As I write this article, gingerly using just one hand, my body is reeling from yesterday’s shock visit to the gym. The first session of 2016 (after a year’s hiatus mind you) has left me with various aches and pains that I would rather not have. Muscles I had forgotten existed are reminding me that they did not like being woken from their sedentary slumber. Combined with this is the inability to supplement my deadened energy levels with caffeine as I am on a detox program for the start of the year. As you can tell I am in the grip of New Year’s Resolution fever. This malady sees individuals attempting superhuman feats of denial and strength at the start of a year until the pain sets in and reminds them why they have failed to attempt this is the past.

Firstly I am not a resolution person; I prefer setting goals. Common resolutions are often set in the negative (quit, lose, give up are all negative ideas) and can be temporary (diets are short-term). Goals on the other hand are more positive and have a sense of achievement to them. Regardless of what you call your New Year decisions sooner or later a degree of pain is going to set in. Exercise requires effort. Losing weight requires sacrificing food. Writing daily requires cutting something else out to make the time for it. Bigger goals, like starting a business that aims to break even in Year 1, require even more effort. At the point of pain is where most resolutions fail. They fail because you can no longer rationalise that they are worth it, instead the effort outweighs the benefit and you throw in the towel.

Today I want to touch on a massive mental shift that can get you to push past the pain. Everything we do can be seen on either a ‘Have-to’ or a ‘Want-to’ mentality (except dying-that is a guaranteed ‘Have-to’). When faced with a task or a goal examine your speech. It will take one of two forms. Either ‘I have to do this...’ or ‘I want to do this...’. Even if you do not verbalise them the rest of the sentence in your mind is ‘or this or that will happen’. I can look at gym, for example, as ‘I have to exercise to lose weight or else I will stay fat and maybe die early.’ The flip side is ‘I want to exercise because I will be fitter, trimmer and have a great quality of life’.

The ‘have-to’ is followed by a negative consequence and is an attempt to motivate yourself out of fear. Fear is a poor motivator. Think back for a minute on times that you have had to do something. How well did you perform? Yes, you may have achieved the goal but you would have done the bare minimum required to do it. A ‘have-to’ is like a massive stick beating you from behind as you try climb a hill. You spend your life running just ahead of the pain of failure. Then when you hit the real pain-the effort required to succeed-you make a choice between the pain of the effort and the pain of the ‘or else’. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, the ‘or else’ just seems the less painful option.

‘Want-to’ has a positive consequence, a desired outcome. Rather than try pushing you from behind, the ‘want-to’ leads from the front and draws you to the goal. The pain of failure is so far behind you that when you hit the effort you push through keeping your eye fixed on the prize ahead of you.

Set some bold and realistic goals this year. Then make your goals into ‘want-to’. Alongside each goal set the positive benefits of achieving each one; how you feel, what you will have, what will have been achieved, the benefit to others. The brighter and bigger you can make this picture the more likely it will come to pass.

As a side note, if you are trying to get people to do something (like pay you) then incentivise it for them rather than just penalise it.

Now where did I put my gym bag? It is time for the second session.