“Monday Motivation-Do You Own It?”
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. -Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher.
My word is my bond. My name is everything. This is what I heard from a few real estate agents this week when I asked them about their values. This all came in the context of of helping them build the presentations that they give to their prospects. My train of thought had been challenged by something I recently read that said all great presentations were based on values and described values as internal states of emotions…something more abstract than simple words.
Perhaps this discovery is at the very heart of why so many people seem to be going through the motions in business and life. It’s one thing to be taught something that works, but if you’re not really feeling it internally, won’t it shine through? If you believe that we can read each other by simple body movements, wouldn’t a lack of true conviction be obvious? Furthermore, if other people truly are looking for leaders and experts why would they line up with somebody that didn’t fully believe in themselves and their message?
Many of us are always after that seemingly illusive concept of success. We want it so badly that we tend to get obsessed with its pursuit. Some of us will even cheat to get it. Enormous volumes have been written about it. Many works about success eventually conclude that we have to start with why we’re after it at all. Why we want to be successful might ultimately be as simple as our drive to survive, which in modern days invokes a more complicated plight in the information age than kill or be killed.
But what if we just start with that concept of value as what we feel internally. Rather than left brain the analysis to death, what if you just get in touch with what you feel when things go your way? When you feel happy ask why. Why do many of us do what feels like the right thing to do? Not necessarily a moral discussion, but a simple feeling about what gives you that good feeling in your gut.
Once you start to feel that, name it. Write it down. Read it. Set is apart from everything else but especially fear. Fear is nothing more than all the excuses we use to suppress talking about what we really want and even worse it keeps us from taking action. We worry about feeling stupid. What if the world laughs? What if the magnetic pull of mediocre steps up and tackles us on the pursuit?
The fact is that you’ll have to expect to be robbed of what you truly value by everything and anybody, but why listen. What’s worse…living some watered down version of the best you can be or tripping, falling and sputtering as you fly relentlessly towards what your really value? Just saying it out loud gives you more life. So let it rip! My word is my bond! I’d do anything to protect my family name! I’d give up my life for my country! I’ll found my company because people need what I have! I’ll overpower Goliath with my passion! It’s in me and has always been there! I will give it life fearlessly before I die slowly! Go forward now and own it because the world always rises up to support the believers that own it!
