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- It’s exhausting trying to keep pace with technological changes our families, our children, our friends
- Exhausting trying to keep up with work demands and the changing business landscape.
- It’s exhausting having to conform to industry, societal and — let’s be honest — social-media expectations of how to look, be and behave.
- It’s exhausting trying to prove that we’re good enough.
- It’s exhausting trying to perform and play a bigger game.
- It’s exhausting being human in today’s busy world.
We look externally for options to invest in learning and programs to improve our skills and capabilities. Maybe we buy tools and expertise to improve performance. We spend hours researching the next big thing so we can be ahead of the curve. And we invest materially in external validations of success.
We want to be in demand. To be needed. To be relevant. Be seen as successful. So we spend a fortune on stuff, on shit, that we think will make us ‘better’ — that will ‘fix us’.
Despite a perception of increased connectedness thanks to the quantitative counting of friends and connections online, and time spent scrolling, we’re living increasingly in an age of loneliness and depression — of disconnection from ourselves and who we want to be.
And despite the outward appearance of being in control, stress, mental health and disengagement levels are at an all-time high in the workplace and at home.
Relationships are breaking down, both with our team members at work and our family and mates at home.
We feel uninspired by leaders, organisations, brands, governments and businesses. We question the type of leader, partner, parent, friend and person we want to be.
Worse yet, in this fast-moving new world, we’re having to learn to live with incessant change. Talent is no longer enough, truths are hard to find and being fake is more visible; yet somehow, we’re expected to live and lead a brilliant life.
How on earth can we be brilliant — and feel brilliant — when we’re engulfed by disillusionment, comparison-itis, blame-itis, imposter syndrome-itis, and lack of self-belief-itis?
So, the solution here is to start by looking at who.
In 2009, Simon Sinek published his first book, Start with Why, which included the infamous Golden Circle framework for his approach to leadership — that ‘people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it’.
While Sinek was undoubtedly correct in identifying a starting point for why you’re doing something, this thinking has created a tsunami of significant unrest and anxiety as people and organisations try to find their purpose in life.
What do we value? What’s our mission? Why are we here? These are the questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis—and if we don’t have the answers, we panic!
While I’m absolutely not discrediting his great work, what I am proposing is that there are other, more critical questions that need to be asked first: who are you? Who are you being and who do you want to become?
Phil Knight, founder of Nike, talks to this concept in his book Shoe Dog. He writes about what sparked his success at selling. After being unable to sell encyclopaedias because he hated it, and feeling empty inside when selling mutual funds, he started selling shoes and realised he enjoyed it because ‘it wasn’t selling’: he believed in running and believed these were the best shoes to run in and that the ‘world would be a better place’ if people ran every day. He added, “People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible.”
What Knight shared is that the why for other people only became important when he had belief in himself — in his who — first.
So, what if we could remove the shackles we’re placing on ourselves and instead know that we have all we need right now? That we have all the skill and capability that’s needed to contribute and influence; that our opinion matters; that the culmination of all the facets of ourselves — the strengths, the weaknesses, the successes, the failures, the loves and the imperfections — are our perfectly imperfect and brilliant selves.
We just need to tap into it! Embrace it!
My wish for you is to understand that we’re all unique, that we all have individual facets that, when embraced, will help us become the best individuals, partners, parents, leaders, team and organisations we can be.
Much like learning how to meditate for hours or mastering a one-handed push-up, it takes continuous work to be brilliant, work that lasts a lifetime! But this continuous mastery, ongoing improvement and determination to become better is where the opportunity exists for you and for those you lead.
Only when we take ownership of who we are, and who we want to become, only when we accept all of our imperfections and rise above our limitations, only when we unleash our own inner brilliance can we truly create the space for others to do the same.
But what I have learned is to accept who I am and be pretty gentle and forgiving of myself. I’ve learned that I have certain strengths where I can add a lot of value. And, equally, I have a hell of a lot of weaknesses that are hard to change. I have learned to accept all of this about myself. And I’ve learned to get curious about my behaviours, and about how and why some people get under my skin. I’ve learned to continually lead from a place of courage and acceptance of others, of loving unconditionally and teaching always.
It’s not easy though. After all, I’ve got many years of my own unconscious bias, ideas and opinions, as do you. But when we give in to the inner demons and negative voices, we can’t do our best work. We can’t bring the best of ourselves to what we do. And we can’t do what it is we want to do and achieve with our life.
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