Weakness as a strength.

As a #founder or #entrepreneur, and even longer into your business career you may sometimes be weighed down with imposter syndrome, a fear of failure, a chink in the business suit. 

I live with various flavours often, and historically they've created a number of negative impacts on my work and personal life - so I wanted to share some thoughts that get me through.

Weakness is fleeting. 

If like me you don't mind exposing your soft underbelly, your quirks, and personal challenges - people will make judgements. Just remember that everyone has them, even if they don't want to let you scratch their belly. 

The (outwardly) toughest, smartest and most capable people I know all have a bag of ‘stuff’. And I’m not convinced keeping it all hidden is healthy, or all that smart, and it certainly has repercussions. (The rest are sociopaths so I try to avoid them).

The reason Branson's books (and all like him) are always titled something like 'screw it let's do it' is because they really do feel the fear and do it anyway. From self doubt and moments of weakness you get great strength, but that doesn't mean it always feels that way. The doing and feeling energies don't always match up and sometimes that’s not fun. But do it anyway. Just do it, the feelings will catch up.

Learn to enjoy failure. That does not mean revel in it as was a culture not so long ago in startup land, which is just nonsense. But instead learn to flip the failures in your head into lessons. And apply them quickly. Not only does it add to your skills armoury but it also reduces the frequency and depth of feeling weak. It deconstructs it from the other side of the equation.

Nobody reeeaaallly cares. What you think people know and feel about you is rarely the reality of the situation. The interesting thing to remember is that people have lives, they rarely see or feel what you’re really going through and as mean as it sounds they probably don’t care. So nobody is watching, nobody cares, so you dance your a$$ off.

Remind yourself every now and then what you're good at. What you take for granted. I guarantee there are a whole bunch of skills that you just take as read because they come easily to you. That’s not the same set for others. You are you. And you got skillz.

Don't let anyone steal your mojo. Those who aren't self aware, or refuse to broach softer subjects may see you as weak, put you down and try to take advantage. You can't educate them, just like you can't tell stupid that they're stupid. But you can be aware of them and their behaviour, so you can stop unhealthy interactions. Just do it with kindness if you can. I tend to get bitey, but it doesn't work. A work in progress.

The truth prevails. It always pops out. If you’re leading a team and constantly putting your game face on to hide personal or commercial issues, don’t think for one second that they can’t smell something ratty. They may not know the full story, they may play the game, but everyone knows that the square peg isn’t quite fitting into the round hole. My playbook for that is to share the truth and what is being done about it. It’s time to get meta! It stops the hearsay and in most cases motivates and inspires positive action from all.

Your greatest strengths are possibly your greatest weaknesses that you just haven't shared yet. Remember to give zero sh*ts what anyone thinks about you during the process (They probably aren’t even watching). 

And just go for it, remembering that today is an adventure….

More on what they don't tell you as an entrepreneur here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/being-entrepreneur-what-dont-tell-you-dan-bowyer/