I have always wanted to be accepted by people, to be the nice guy that everybody likes and respects. I’ve had lots of professional recognition, been president of more organisations than I care to remember, captained sporting teams and generally hold the respect of my peers. All good pointers towards success in life.
As we all know though, life has much more depth and meaning than being liked or seeking popularity. So much of our wisdom, depth, insight and understanding of life becomes progressively embedded in us through the teachings of those two disrespectful disrupters: rejection and failure. They have indeed taught me well, especially in the years since I made the quantum leap from secure public servant to self-employed lifestyle mentor.
Yet it had not resolved an ongoing battle between the mature me as a lifestyle mentor and the passionate little boy in me who still craved acceptance of who he is and what he’s good at. That this battle was largely resolved by events in recent weeks has, as you can imagine, had a deep and profound impact on my whole psyche.
I refer to a number of recent very public situations where the little boy had self-doubts about me saying what I genuinely felt. The mature me decided to ignore the little boy and "just do it".
The outcomes have gone way beyond the emphatic positive success on each occasion of me doing so. I had in effect taken a series of small steps which, combined, form a great leap in uniting the passionate boy and the mature man as one authentic self.
While this message still hasn't been easy to write, it's been a cathartic experience. :)
