Reluctance vs. Essentialism

I learned a concept I hadn't heard of during a coaching session last week: the essential self.

By the word "essential," I don't mean "necessary" or "gotta have it." This is more like an irrevocable essence, granted to us by God from the foundation of the world.

For example: athletic aptitude is part of LeBron James' essential self. Business acumen is part of Donald Trump's essential self.

Perhaps even the dreaded word reluctance ... is part of my essential self? After all, I am an authority on it.

Come to think of it, healthy reluctance is "essential" to some people. There's no sense in denying that.

Since I'm in the business of helping people convey their true voice in print, you may as well know - I'm also deconstructing a fence I built around certain parts of my essential self.

Last week, I shared my decision to reverse a decade-old executive injunction against my own voice.

Growing up, how I spoke and delivered lines was 100% authentic.

Who did the play-by-play for our backyard hockey games? Who memorized entire stand-up routines and rock opera librettos? Who got belly laughs doing impressions of others?

No one else I knew, I can tell you that.

So why put a muzzle on one of my most genuine and impactful abilities?

We'll come back to that.

While this was going on, I took one of those (multiple) personality tests, and got Nurturer as my dominant frame.

Nurturers have many great attributes. I'm at my best when I'm helping people grow and exercise their frame through language.

But every virtue wrestles with a "shadow" - an ugly parody of itself, when propelled by our lower selves.

One example of this feels like a crippling terror in the face of relational disharmony.

During the previous decade, I became notorious (locally) for a monthly game of Texas hold 'Em in the smoke-filled lounge of a nearby cigar shop.

I share the story in greater detail in my book, Influencer Networking Secrets.

To paraphrase ... two of the regular participants got into a heated exchange over the table.

In all probability, neither man gave it much thought once the dispute fizzled. Everyone continued smoking, playing cards and the game ended unceremoniously.

But on the inside, I was crushed.

I felt guilty as sin for having been the "link" between the two men who butted heads. I wondered whether the time had come to stop organizing the game.

In fact, as it went on into the night, a few of the men seated closest to me took moments to ask me if I was okay. My face and tone of voice betrayed me.

You can imagine the havoc such occasions wreak on a reluctant soul.

Especially a soul trying to justify its own existence by building a second-rate reality, through denial of its essential identity.

I suppose I'd never connected the two ideas ... but I've never forgotten the pain. And that's two people opposing each other - never mind had they turned directly on me.

We WILL Be Heard

You probably know ... muzzling a voice doesn't make it "go away." Some people are more influential dead than alive.

Even so, my cruel decision to silence my essential voice ... hardly silenced it.

In fact, this coaching session surfaced a story I "remembered, but had forgotten."

Spurred on by voices I trusted at the time, including false ones in my own head - I walked away from radio, podcasting and pursuing my dreams.

On a soggy Friday in February 2012, I got a call from a local insurance agency where I'd interviewed for a job, and they invited me to join them the following Monday.

I accepted, with gritted teeth. But without hesitation; I had already slammed the door on working with my voice.

I remember the timing of the call. It was 2:00 PM on the dot - because exactly 60 minutes later, my phone buzzed again.

This time, it was from a radio station hiring manager, where I'd applied to work several months earlier.

I'd made it through the first round of interviews. But afterward, they went silent - they didn't return phone calls or emails. The classic example of "ghosting."

All of a sudden, they were now ready to do a second interview.

But it was too late. Too clever by half, I thought that phone call was from my mortal enemy, trying to lure me back into false hope and the instability of chasing rainbows.

So I turned them down. In hindsight, I may have misjudged it.

Since that fateful day, the message continued to repeat, often through strangers totally disconnected from the story: "Wow, you've got such a radio voice."

Reluctance may be part of my essential self. But so are willingness and eagerness, at least when it comes to using my voice to impact the world.

How I Kept Speaking

Even as I forayed through six years in the insurance business, I kept finding opportunities to speak. Or, should I say - they kept finding me.

At first, it was about insurance, during my presentation time at networking groups. But soon, by request, I started talking about networking itself:

People asked me to volunteer as an emcee with the local Miss America Scholarship Pageant:

And I'd get asked to do off-the-wall things with my voice, like pretend to be an auctioneer to raise money for the National Association of Professional Mortgage Women:

In 2018, at the behest of a mentor, I resumed podcasting. I wrote books, and sought out opportunities to speak onstage.

Eventually, I got my first paid podcasting gig, guest-hosting for my mentor Aaron Walker on his "Mastermind Playbook" daily Alexa blurb.

If you've read this far and watched or listened to anything I've done, you might scream, "WHY?! In the name of all that's holy, why don't you believe in yourself?!"

The answer lies in understanding reluctance ... because I wonder the same thing about you.

It's like there's so much we could glean from one another ... but because of these standing "laws" we make, we hog-tie our essential selves.

Moreover, we become blind and indifferent to those of others.

We "shuffle" through life - busier and lonelier than introverted single geeks in a Starbucks in downtown Seattle on a grisly Monday in February - with the fire sprinklers turned on.

This is no way to impact the world - shamed into silence by our own fears of the opinions of the self-absorbed people who pay us zero attention.

(Other than to move away, or tell us to "shut up" when we break the silence).

Are you "over" the benevolent ostracism, like I am?

Do you want to make some noise? Write a book, perhaps, or start publishing content?

Here's my card.