You had a survey on Instagram that I found fascinating. and it asked your audience: Do People Know the Real You? and half answered "Yes". How sad is that to you that only half answered yes? Do you know what? The truth is I'm not surprised. I feel like we've lived in a world that's constantly trying to get us to fit in. Like we were always taught to fit in, stand in line. And when you grow up, everything is like, "Oh, how do you stand out?" Like it makes no sense right? Like I remember going to school and everyone was just like "Stand in line!" Right? "Fit in!" "Wear the same uniform" And then when you grow up it's like "Personal Branding, stand out...
...be yourself" and it's like okay. So, I'm not surprised that people don't know the real them because I think people are scared of being themselves because that may turn people off. Everything comes with connotations. We've been taught to be a certain way of what's normal and acceptable. All of those things. I remember the first time I wore robes on a street. It was like so scary, I was like "What if somebody who knows me sees me?... ...I'm going to feel weird." And then you think about it and it's like "Why?" Why do we think that? Because all these conditionings have been placed. So, for me...
...I'm not surprised by that is my first point. I don't feel surprised by it. And to those who answered "No", what's your advice to them? To allow people to see the real you, to be more authentic? I think the first thing is you've gotta get comfortable being you. See, no one will ever be comfortable with you being you if you're not comfortable being you. And I think we first try and prove ourselves to other people. So my favourite, this is like, I talk about this all the time, it's probably one of my favourite pieces of insight. It's from a writer named Cooley in the 1900s. And he said: Today I'm not what I think I am I'm not what you think I am I am what I think you think I am So what he means by that is We are living in the perception of ourselves. If I think, you guys think that I'm nice then I feel nice. If I think that you think I'm weird I feel weird.
So we're constantly living through the perception of a perception of someone else. So my first thing is to get away from that. Take that away, figure out how you feel about yourself. So I will say happiness is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself. Right? Like how do you feel about yourself when you're by yourself when no one else is around. And start there. When you mention that of these perceptions the first thing I was thinking is how exhausting to...to want to know what you're thinking, then what you're thinking of me and then now I'm going to... - (laughs) That just sounds like an exhaustive day. And we've been friends for twelve years, these thoughts never cross our mind. It doesn't happen around friends. -Yes, When we're around the people that we have a relationship with already we're not constantly second-guessing ourselves and feeling inauthentic.
But when we're around strangers, and we're trying to impress them, instantly all of that self-doubt creeps in and all of a sudden we put up this facade. So one of the easiest ways for me to fake it until I make it as I'm working through this process of trying to get more comfortable as an introvert, meeting more people and having to put myself out there is treated people like they're already your friend. Right? Assume that they already like you. Start there that we're already friends, and then you don't have this inauthenticity that you're struggling with. I really like that, that's a great tip. I love that. Yeah, and I think the other one is like just get comfortable being you and figuring out what that means. Like if you just observe when do you feel uncomfortable. So I found this, when I go to an event that I'm not speaking at that is not about what I do, but I'm attending, I've observed that I prefer to find a one to one conversation in a corner and going really deep with someone, rather than trying to mill around the popular circles and trying to have and direct a conversation. It doesn't work for me.
So now I can be myself by going: It's okay if I don't network at this event. If no one knows that I'm here it's fine. I'm going to go off and have a meaningful conversation with one or two people. When you know that, you just take the pressure off yourself. And then you can be... So it's just observing when you feel at your best. and then figure out how to do that at each place. And that's going to take testing and time.
You're going to go to a party. You're going to do something that's not you. And then you're going to go "Okay, I'm not going to do that again." And we've all been in that position. But you gotta do it once. You gotta do it once. You have to do it once. Yeah, exactly!
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