A little something about Amy Noelle that most of us know, but some may not – in addition to being a great leader and a great president, Amy can make a cake like nobody’s business. I don’t just mean delicious but the prettiest, classiest thing you’ve ever seen. She’s confident in the kitchen.
Speaking of confidence, when Carol Offman is creating jewelry, that’s what she brings as well. It’s in her conversations around the design process and then again when she goes and executes.
Aaron Pierce doesn’t just bring it in the courtroom or to the meeting, but he feels it on a motorcycle.
And in both their businesses and beyond, you’d observe confidence in Matt Long when he’s refinishing and restoring wood and sculpting jaw dropping sand sculptures. And in Celia Reiss when designing and creating both kitchens, and pies.
I want you to consider that every single person in this room has confidence. And yes, we may witness it showing up on the surface more with some of us than others. But I assert that the drive, and strength, and brilliance, and capacity to create is alive in all of us.
So what has us stop? What has us limited in certain places and at certain times? Generally speaking it’s fear, of course. But fear of what?
Is it thinking we don’t know? Is it desperately trying to somehow get it all right, or to not take risks and stay safe? Maybe. It could be one or all of those things.
But for today, I’m going to suggest that all of us – to varying degrees – have a gap in trust. We don’t trust something, or maybe someone. And maybe that someone is us. To be fair, it’s not all or nothing. We do trust of course, but only up to a certain point.
And trust is one of those things that we often don’t spend a lot of time thinking about. And really, if we’re doing a lot of thinking about it, it’s probably not for a great reason. Because when we are trusting, we tend to take it for granted. Not in a bad way. I just mean we accept it as what is. Kind of like your car. When you get in, turn the key and head off, you don’t think about it. You simply expect that everything is fine, until or unless something demonstrates that it’s not.
What if you could trust the process of your business, and ultimately trust yourself, without having to think about it in that fearful way?
You could still choose to create more on purpose. You could still decide what to do, who to be, and where, but you had the confidence that it would all work out. That the business would happen, the clients and money would come. And that no matter what you’d be ok. Even better than ok – that you’d be great. As successful as you wanted to be.
While typically we look for evidence of whether or not this makes sense, consider it’s actually a choice. And I’m inviting all of us today to take responsibility for that choice.
You can choose to need evidence that everything is ok. That you’re allowed to exhale. Or stand up and make a bold ask. Or raise your rate. Or whatever.
Or you could just trust that – separate from what the external measuring sticks say – if there’s something you believe, something you want, something to ask for, go after, or create, you can just go for it.
Remember, courage is not the absence of fear. But rather taking action in spite of it. We all stop somewhere. Take responsibility for where you stop, and try to notice where your edge is. And then grow by practicing going past that by five percent. Just five percent. Just one more step.
Maybe that’s sending one more email after not getting a response. Or not being overly careful about your ask or how you present your commercial or message in the world. Maybe it’s reaching out to someone in your warm market to make a referral or ask for a referral.
Whatever it is, imagine what growing even just five percent could do for your business? For your confidence?
I tell you what, it’s not only totally possible, it feels pretty good.
