You'll probably not be all that surprised when you finally do succeed.

You know how some celebrities aren’t celebrities at all?

They are famous, but not for the sake of being famous. They’re just famous for this significant thing they’ve done or achievement they’ve unlocked. ?

They’re not known for their love life or their bad behaviour while drunk. ?

They’re legends for all the right reasons. ?

That’s how I feel about Cathy Freeman.

She’s a household name in this country for her athletic achievements, most notably that unforgettable gold medal at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. What she’s not known for is being a celebrity. ?

She’s a Mum. She’s a community-minded woman. She’s a self-described shy girl. She isn’t a slick, smooth or spectacular speaker. But I was captivated by her every word earlier this week in Alice Springs, as part of Northern Territory October Business Month. ?

Naturally, her fireside chat with Dale McIver - who I think is the Territory’s best MC and interviewer - covered the big moments. The wins and the story around the lead-up to that. But we all know that story. ?

The Young Australian of the Year, who years later became Australian of the Year as well. The world championships. The injury two years before the Olympics. The comeback. The crazy Romanian coach. ?

What I had never read or heard before about Cathy is how she felt about all those things. Or what she had been doing since those big stories. Or what she thinks of the process of training, learning and growing.

So that’s what I’m going to focus on this week.

There’s nothing surprising about success.

I know a little bit of success. I was a state champion runner between the ages of 14 and 18. I ran at the Pacific School Games and was a national medallist. I have started and grown businesses. I have won awards. And this last week I has a huge week on LinkedIn.

And by huge, I mean four million views of my content driven by a few videos I posted on the platform. I went “viral” for the second time in a month.

And I wasn’t surprised, to be honest. ?

In Cathy’s fireside chat, Dale asked her if it took her a few moments for the moment to sink in when she won that race in Sydney. And Cathy’s answer was not what I expected,

She said that when you spend your whole life working towards a goal and then reach it, it’s not surprising when you do. ?

After all, isn’t this what you’ve been working for and expecting? Were you honestly expecting to fail? Of course not. We approach life with optimism and hope. At least, most of us do. ?

Likewise, it wasn’t surprising when my content on LinkedIn went viral this past week.

After all, I put a lot of work into my content. I’ve been networking and growing an audience since January 2022. I’ve been building a local following and audience around what I do since 2018. I’ve learned from others, tested ideas, iterated on what worked and didn’t, and posted every single day, multiple times a day to get to this point. ?

So why would I be surprised that I succeeded?

I hadn’t thought of this much until I heard Cathy talk about this very thing. So I’m deeply thankful that the lesson hit at the perfect time because I didn’t know what to think of what happened this week. I was thrilled. But I wanted to be humble. It was a big achievement. But I know that I will be back to normal next week. ?

So, thanks, Cathy. I now know what to call what I’m feeling.

I’m feeling accomplished. ?

What you want comes from knowing who you are.

I’ve always been a big fan of knowing our values. They are a core part of who we are and drive most of our behaviours.

But you can’t know your values without knowing who you are.

So, who are you?

We’ve been taught to consider that question as philosophical and mysterious. After all, how can one honestly know themselves?

It’s quite easy. You are a combination of your potential (as observed in your thoughts) and your execution (as observed in your behaviour.)

We can throw in lots of fancy words about cultural context, genetic legacy and spiritual connections to ancestors, gods and ethereal beings, but it’s the same thing. They are all just contributors to our thoughts and our actions. ?

That’s who you are. Your thoughts and your actions. ?

In her chat, Cathy Freeman described how it requires a great deal of knowing who you are in order to know what you want from life. ?

From the age of five, Cathy knew she was a runner. She not only loved to run from that age, she was really good at it. That is reflected in the name of her book, “Born to Run.” ?

She knew who she was so early in life that she knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted to win a gold medal in running at the Olympics. ?

As a former runner myself, I never had this certainty. I didn’t think I was born to run. And I didn’t have any real goal to win Olympic medals. Sure, I wanted to win state titles. But they were short-term goals at the end of a sport season. Not a life goal. ?

My head was full of so many other big questions as a child and teenager - and none of them included going to the Olympics.

Is God real?

Will He stop me from being gay?

Will I ever find a girlfriend that will stop me from thinkin about guys?

Where can I hide this week so I don't get beaten up?

Is what happened to me last week something I need to tell someone about?

But even as an athlete, I never truly believed that global success was possible buecause all the winners of the events I would run were tall and black. I was neither tall for my age, nor African. In fact, I was pale as a ghost and kinda stocky.

I still had a lot of learning to do in life before I knew who I was. And I mean who I really am. ?

I overcame one big block when I was 19 and realised that I couldn’t “pray away the gay.”

I got a little closer again at around 30 when I realised that I no longer needed to pretend that?I believed in gods or spirits or devils. ?

I had a rather big breakthrough at age 40 when I sat in a sweat lodge with forty other men and “met myself” and realised that I had been lying to myself about who I was for so long that I needed help to reconcile the truth with my fragile ego. ?

Five years later, In 2019, just before the pandemic, I finally found that reconciliation that I had started in another city years before. ?

Four years later, I knew what I wanted from life and what my purpose was. ?

I was 49 years old when I found my mission in life.

But none of that came until I knew who I was. And I mean, really knew who I was. ?

It’s okay not to know everything.

The third and final insight I’ll share from Cathy’s fireside chat is around a question that Dale McIver asked her about having to take direction from coaches and having a team of experts as a high-performance athlete. ?

Dale asked about how comfortable she was with having a team of people who would tell her what to do every day. ?

Cathy’s insight into this was also quite surprising to me.

Quite simply, she was 100% comfortable with not knowing everything, including not knowing why she would have to do certain things and not others. ?

And while she occasionally disagreed and argued against some of those things, over 90% of the time, she was comfortable taking this direction without any explanation.

While people I know in Darwin know me as someone who directs things and moves and shakes, in my cafe businesses, I know nothing. ?

I have managers who run the operations. I have staff that make the coffee. The cafes aren’t even in the same state that I live in. I have accountants and lawyers who keep me out of jail as we navigate a very complex tax setup. And I only talk with these people once per month. ?

The rest of the time, I don’t need to know what’s happening because I wouldn’t know what to do with that information anyway.

But at first, I was horrified that everyone in that business knew more about it than I did, the owner. Then I realised just how liberating it was not to have to know everything. ?

I now apply that to my business interests closer to home in Darwin and online. ?

I’m not there yet, but I am starting to let go of many things.

Seeing Cathy in person this past week was a lot like the previous week when I saw David Koch speak. I have never thought too much about Cathy since her Olympic gold medal. And while I had a strong opinion about Kochie, I didn’t have any significant opinions about Cathy. ?

But I learned a lot about myself from listening to both of them.

Not about finance or running. But about knowing who I am and what I want.

Here are some things I have coming up.

I am running a LOT of workshops throughout the Northern Territory during 2024's October Business Month. I'm covering digital skills, entrepreneurship and technology. See the program and book here.

Three years ago I did a webinar about how to build an idea service business website. It's one of my most viewed ones and I still believe everything I said about the topic to this day. Watch it here.

I'm putting together a series of free webinars for you watch live and via YouTube afterwards for November, December and January. Tell me what you'd like to learn about most here.

Here are some of the new tools I've been using

I'm currently migrating all my customer relations, websites, marketing activities and social media monitoring to True Blue Connect. In fact, this newsletter will come from it next week. It's locally operated and supported right here in Darwin too. Find out more about it here.

Perplexity is an AI writing and research tool that doesn't make stuff up (like ChatGPT often does. It's now my most used AI tool. It's free and it's here.

I've been using Neuron Writer for over a year. I now have over 100 articles ranking on Google because of it. Get it here.

I've been levelling up my writing of blogs, articles, social posts and even the scripts for videos and podcasts using Dan Koe's Kortex app. It creates a whole new type of flow for content exploration and writing - and given that I recently hit 4 millions views for my LinkedIn content the past week, it is definitely working! Check it out here.

Motion is the calendar I use to bring all my calendars together. It's also how people book time with me. Check it out here.

Video doesn't have to be hard. For me, it's not something I can do on a mobile phone. I use the desktop version of CapCut to easily add captions, transitions and chop and change visuals. Check it out here.