Flash-forward a few days and I was suddenly meeting characters from across the city. Interesting people. Out of the woodwork. Where were they all my life? I had coffee with the director of a ballet, went jogging with someone who’d founded a food co-op, and met up with a marketing exec at a coffee-shop lecture about life in the year 3000.
I was having a blast and finally falling in love with myself.
So what’s the simple way to master your most important relationship?
Be you.
Be you.
Be you and be cool with it.
There is nobody else you can be better. There is so much of you unique to the world. The deep-down version of you is the best version of all. You are unique and complicated. You are different and dimensional. Those rare thoughts, those flying thoughts, those late-night thoughts, grab on to those and hold them. Those things you think, those things you do, those things you say, those are what slowly helps define who you are to yourself.
Nobody knows every thought in your head. But you do. You hear your thoughts. You should follow them.
Be you.
For you.
Do you know why it’s critical to display your true self at work and school and home?
Because:
There is nothing more satisfying than being loved for who you are and nothing more painful than being loved for who you’re not but pretending to be.
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This is the most authentic person of all time
I want to take you all the way back to a peanut farm in Georgia in 1932 where little Roosevelt Grier was born.
Friends called him Rosey and he grew into a 6'5", three-hundred-pound defensive tackle and NFL Pro Bowler. Rosey was a massive guy you did not want to go up against on the football field—he was part of the Fearsome Foursome on the LA Rams. One of the best defensive lines in history.
I love Rosey Grier. But I don’t love him for his football career. It’s not the sacks, interceptions, or Pro Bowls that are most important. I love Rosey Grier because he was a deeply authentic person. After retiring from the NFL, Rosey let his heart lead him.
He became a bodyguard and ended up subduing the gunman during the Robert Kennedy assassination. He became a recording artist and his song reached #128 on the charts. He became a talk-show host in LA. And my favorite of all? Rosey Grier took up needlepoint. With complete passion. He said it calmed him down, took away his fear of flying, and helped him meet women. In fact, Rosey loved needlepoint so much he wrote a book called Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men.
Published in 1973 and still for sale today.
Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men is trumpeted online with five-star reviews. Rosey let his heart lead him and look where it led!
Now imagine for a minute you were a hulking NFL football player. People staring when you walk into a restaurant. Extra-extra-extra-large shirts. Extra-extra-extra-large jeans. Picture the framed jerseys. Picture the shiny trophies.
Now imagine after you retired, you, a massive NFL football player, went out and published a book about needlepoint. Featuring you needlepointing your own face on the cover!
What would the reactions be? What would The New York Times Book Review say? What would your football friends joke about? What questions would you get? Think about that for a second.
Now think how you’d feel if you read this review of your book online:
Visit http://bit.ly/1X5NA5T for a larger version of this image.
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“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
That’s the power of being you. That’s the feeling you get following your heart.
It’s not always comfortable at the beginning, but it’s always comfortable at the end.
Marilyn Monroe said, “Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
Mother Teresa said, “Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent, anyway.”
The Mad Hatter in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland asked, “Have I gone mad?” and Alice responded, “I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But let me tell you a secret: All the best people usually are.”
Be you.
Be you and be cool with it.
Love your tics and nicks and loves and scratches and fears and passions.
Knowing them leads to living them, and living them leads to loving them.
Your relationship with yourself is the most important relationship in your life.
Settling in to your true, weird, authentic self isn’t easy, but it’s the most satisfying way to have everything.
Let’s talk about why.
So many burned-out C-level execs and financial wonders and professional speakers I’ve spoken to are exhausted coming to work every day . . . pretending to be someone they’re not. They think: The pay is so good it’s worth taking the role and acting the part. But any misalignment between what you’re doing and what you want to do allows a dull and invisible unhappiness to fester. Confusion sets into the heart and mind about values. That brain jam—also called cognitive dissonance—isn’t just exhausting. It’s dangerous. Why? Because your unique sense of self is at risk of being drowned.
Your unique sense of self that was formed by long summer days and starry twilight dreams and tent conversations and first jobs with great teams—it’s at risk of being buried under sandy, windswept layers of cultural expectations. You risk forgetting who you are.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
But it’s not easy.
So why should you aim for it?
Take it from Gandhi. He knew a lot about happiness. He espoused wanting nothing, doing anything, and having everything for himself and his country.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
Say it again, Gandhi.
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
That’s the destination with authenticity. Total alignment of thoughts, words, and actions. Your arms and legs and brain all snapping together with a loud plastic click. Like the cover on the remote control. Snap!
Being you leads to happiness.
But how do we get there?
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3 simple tests to uncovering this secret inside you
So let’s say you’re confident.
Not always. But often. You’re not always there but you’ve gotten there before and you can get there again.
Now you want to listen to yourself a bit. You want to find your authentic passion. You want to be authentic. How do you search your heart and mind to find your authentic self?
After sifting through Harvard visioning exercises and attending endless executive corporate retreats and paging through dusty leadership textbooks I have found what I consider the three best tests to finding and aligning your authentic self. I have shared these tests with countless leaders and use them on myself at least once every year.
Here they are:
The Saturday Morning Test
What do you do on a Saturday morning when you have nothing to do?