Decide Who You Are and Go Be That.

Giving a TEDx Talk was a huge opportunity to share my story with the world and, for the most part, I’m proud of my message.  In summary, the talk was a message that adversity is an inevitable part of life and we can choose to grow from our adverse experiences.  However, there is one thing that I regret about the presentation: I referred to myself as a Character Development Coach.  At the time I was convinced that I had to be actively selling something or my creative efforts would never produce anything financially meaningful.  Largely, I was letting other people’s opinions influence me in this regard.  To be clear, I’m not saying they were wrong.  I think my friends and colleagues saw me putting so much effort into writing, speaking, and making videos that they couldn’t conceive that I was doing all this work for no money.  Especially, in lieu of working a normal full time job.  I’ve also had several people over the years ask me to coach them even though I wasn’t offering/advertising any coaching services.  I legitimately enjoy helping people but in my experience as a coach, most of the time people just want to talk and even if we agree upon actions to take, they end up doing very little.  I’ve written about this before.  It’s a phenomenon where we know we want something in our lives to change and we can verbalize that desire.  However, when confronted with the actual actions we must take to make that change, we often are unable to find the will and self discipline to follow through.  I let myself be convinced by the legitimate concerns of others that I needed to have a service of some sort.  This was further influenced by real requests that I got from people to be coached.  All this was in opposition to my own belief that there was value in crafting my message, putting it out there, and letting the right opportunities find me as a result.  

I guess my big takeaways here are, first, to just be myself.  People have misunderstood me all my life and it’s not a malicious thing.  It is what it is.  As I write about in my ownership principle on maintaining a vision, it’s up to me to acknowledge the risks of the road I’m traveling.  I can’t expect someone else to see and understand my vision.  Second, I’m a thinker and I’ve had some profound experiences in my life.  Money or no money, I have been compelled to share my experiences ever since I was 18 years old.  You know the story, I fought hard for 7 years to lose weight and I finally did it.  In the midst of all kinds of resistance, I did something as a teenager that many people spend their whole lives trying to figure out.  I share because I feel a responsibility to do so.  

This all reminds me of a quote that is attributed to the late writer, James Baldwin,

“You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.”

And this is the takeaway for all of us on the creative journey of crafting the life we want to live.  Regret is a strong word but my TEDx Talk is a permanent reminder of the power of story and a lesson in being careful not to let the world tell me who I should be.  It’s my job to decide who I am and go be that.  

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