There’s your life before and your life after the moment you realize that patience is not just a virtuous achievement to showcase at your next high school reunion but, in fact, a competitive advantage in business.
Because hardly anyone at all will have the tenacity to mimic you.
And while the first thought may be that this allows you to create a nice moat around what you offer, it also allows you to find out who you really are – and hope to become.
I remember reading about an idea by Malcolm Gladwell in one of his more recent books Talking With Strangers called Asymmetrical Insight.
You know others more than they know themselves yet they could not possibly know you better than you do.
This paradox can spark a renaissance of self-awareness if you let it; it did for me. It made me really evaluate the thoughts I would have when meeting someone new.
- What does this person in front of me want to hear?
- What does this person in front of me need to hear?
- What do I want this person to see in me?
- What do I need this person to see in me?
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything”.
Mark Twain
Authenticity is not a natural instinct and the feeling of overwhelm we feel in our greatest efforts to showcase authenticity is the indicator to how weak this instinct really is.
Even the best of us, if we are truly honest with ourselves, have a second mask so those that have felt they’ve truly seen us can feel capable and secure.
The truth of the matter is, most of us draw worry from the risk of our authentic expression being rejected.
Which is a silly thing to fear and pales in comparison to what we could experience, arriving on the platform of our potential – knowing our actions, emotions and intentions are aligned.
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