It starts with permission…to yourself

You’ve probably heard the saying that fear has killed more dreams than failure ever has. The pressure each of us faces from society, family, friends, colleagues and social circles to be a certain way, to do certain things, to walk on the well defined path that’s been laid out for us is immense. Add to that the world of social media, online influencers and flexing culture.?

We spend more time watching other people online live their lives than we do designing our life. We assume that their lives are perfect and that they’ve never experienced failure or personal setbacks along their journey. One of the reasons I initially branded my podcast as The Hero’s Journey Podcast was to share the full journey of those people.?

People see Marc Saltzman a well known tech expert online or on the radio but don’t know he started out by reaching out to publications through magazines at local bookstores. People see Michael Landsberg the former host of TSN’s hit sports show Off the Record but don’t know he suffered through depression during the show’s most successful years.

People see Jack Armstrong broadcaster for the Toronto Raptors basketball games but don’t know he was fired from his job as head coach of the Niagara Purple Eagles. Before getting into education and teaching, I had stints where I was working for free, not working or on employment insurance. People don’t always want to hear about the journey and we tend to want to show people the best parts of our lives and minimize or avoid our low points along the way.

Giving yourself permission is about letting go of what other people expect of you and saying yes to yourself to at the very least experiment with the things you’re interested in and passionate about without attaching a result to them. If you attach a result to what you’re doing, you’re setting an expectation and that’s how fear makes its entry.

Your working life can easily span 40+ years. If we aren’t eating or sleeping, we're likely to be working whether it’s for ourselves or someone else. Ideally you’d like to spend your working years doing something that brings you joy and also gets you excited. Living for the weekend isn’t it.

When I look back on my 20’s, I wish I had had the courage to do more of the things I had wanted to do. Things I thought and dreamt about but never really took a chance on or even trying a cupcake version of it to see if I really liked it and how it made me feel. With the pandemic it made me feel more strongly about not taking advantage of more opportunities during a relatively safer time from a health perspective.?

Courage is doing something knowing you can’t guarantee the outcome. It’s knowing and accepting that you won’t know what the outcome will be ahead of time.

If you spend your leisure time thinking about or dreaming about things that you wish you could do or want to do, you owe it to yourself to give yourself permission to try it. Build your cupcake experience and go all in on that. Make a decision on whether to continue scaling up to a birthday cake only after you’ve experienced the cupcake version.?

Expose yourself to different people. We tend to see, meet with and interact with the same types of people.? The conversations tend to be the same. Spend time with people outside of your work domain. Spend time with people who have different viewpoints and perspectives on work and life.?

The further you move from your area of knowledge and comfort, the more you’ll learn not just from others but about yourself. We tend to avoid situations where we don’t feel confidence and competency in but it’s exactly in those environments where you learn and experience the most growth.

Earlier this summer, a former colleague reached out to talk about reinventing herself. She wanted to start writing more but was hesitant to start. My advice to her was to just write something everyday no matter what the topic was. As long as she was writing each day. If you’re worried about what people will think, write and post online but don’t share it. It’s about getting into the habit of doing the things you want to do and giving yourself permission to do it.?

From a young age in school, we’ve been taught to ask permission in class and that works within its boundaries but in real life - the only permission you need is the one you give to yourself.?

When I wrote this article, I was inspired by a speech made by Toronto’s own Simu Liu (star of Marvel’s Shang-Chi) in early 2022. In that speech he talked about permission. He talked about going to college for finance and accounting because he didn’t have the courage to give himself the permission to do what he truly loved doing, which was acting. It all starts with permission to yourself.

I’ve told some people this but I’ve always been a bit conscious of how my voice sounds. I wasn’t always a huge fan of how I sounded when I actually heard what my voice sounded like for the first time. It was a shock to realize that the voice I hear internally when I speak wasn’t what other people heard.?

Ultimately in 2017 I started giving myself permission. Permission to start a blog and writing. Permission to teach part-time after work. In 2021, I gave myself permission to start a podcast despite still having reservations on how I felt I sounded when speaking. Everything started with permission to myself and having the courage to do the things I wanted to start doing.

Whose permission are you waiting for?

Thanks for reading and see you again next week.

~V

The Hustler’s Mindset