Take Pride in Your Authenticity

Happy Friday,

As June ends, I want to share my, and my team’s, appreciation and respect for Pride Month—with a caveat... a "month" is just the starting place.?

There is intense power that comes from dedicating time and space to celebrate and explore philosophical principles. However, awareness campaigns are only the beginning of the change we’d like to see in the world.?

A world where people flourish.

At Finding Mastery, we’re in the business of helping people become their very best so they can help others do the same. Where we use our imagination, then psychological skills to turn our imaginations into actual life experiences.?

That journey starts with knowing who you are and having the conviction to show up authentically as your true self.?

That’s where change begins.?

While that conviction can only come from within, for any marginalized community, it also must be calculated against the risk of showing up authentically in different environments.?

For the LGBTQIA+ community, there is a near constant, sometimes exhausting, and increasing need to assess the risk of: Am I safe? Can I be myself here? Can I really be me??

We are all co-creators of culture—whether that’s within your family or at your place of work.?

When work is a space where LGBTQIA+ people have to wonder whether they’re safe and accepted or not—creativity, thriving, performance, and connection suffer.?

When we create conditions where people don’t have to wonder —where employers and teammates explicitly and implicitly convey acceptance, support, and allyship—there is a freedom that gives everyone the best chance to unlock individual and collective potential.

At Finding Mastery, we love shining the light on the courageous, on those who are committed to both self-discovery and the requisite psychological skills to "be about it". And, on those who co-create the conditions of support and challenge for others to do the same—especially in marginalized communities.

We also understand this journey, both internal and external, both individual and societal, is not an easy road. As people evolve, understand, and step-into their authentic selves, it can create tension for others. Sometimes people around us want us to be who we are to them, not necessarily who we authentically are.?

As we work through these tensions and evolutions, I encourage you to get curious on why we respond the way we do and to move forward in a direction of kindness and understanding.

Getting to acceptance requires shifting, for some, decades worth of belief structures and expectations.?

So the question today is: how can we, as leaders and teammates, find it in our daily actions to support our teams and our communities to show up as their authentic selves without fear or judgment?

To support and challenge them. To be a great teammate. To love the adventure of learning and unlocking. To commit to working from Inside-Out.

Sending deep gratitude for the leaders, teachers, and agitators who are showing the way.?

Keep carving your unique path.?

With Fire, and Respect,

Mike and the Finding Mastery Team