Unique Genius – A shift in perspective

Jump to Comments

How do you help yourself find yourself.  Mat Boggs said, “It’s like looking for water from the bottom of the ocean.”  Yes, agreed, it’s hard to see yourself when you’re looking for yourself.

Aaron and I meet on Mondays for an hour or so go over PebbleStorm or Predictable Revenue.com.  This time he said we’d find my unique genius.  And with some excitement and nervousness, I realize as I’m walking toward the hot food aisle, in Whole Foods, where we meet sometimes, that my future is about to change just a little more.  There’s some trepidation though.  “A mind once expanded never regain its original dimension.”  A favorite quote of mine and it’s so true.  You cannot be untainted by new ideas and perspectives. You just cannot!  There’s no going back.  My direction and path are about to shift another degree and I know this is a poignant moment.

DREAM BUSINESS

I get some yummy Indian food and we sit down to figure it out.  Over curry chicken and rice, he asks me, “What’s your dream business? What do you want to do?” 

I’ve been avoiding answering this a question for awhile.  Well…mostly avoiding the accountability that will come with knowing I don’t live my life in purpose…still and again! 

I’m not sure what my dream business is, but in a way, I am completely sure.  I can only say for certain what it isn’t…which I see so clearly, everyday, when I go to work. 

• It doesn’t look boring and annoying
• It doesn’t deal with people who grasp basic skills
• Does not have people who cannot add, multiply, put piece of paper one behind piece of paper two and fax it, who cannot pay attention
• It would not have people who pull on me everyday. 
• It would not be in a smelly office
• It’s would not be hard, debasing or depressing. 

Yes, this list sounds disparaging, but you haven’t met most of my current clients.  It’s a trial in patience everyday.  A true trial.  The good ones are my saviors!   Also,  I know my dream business is the converse of this experience - Light, happy, helpful, uplifting, passionful (my word!), happiness based, meaningful, and fun, easy.

“I don’t know,” I tell Aaron, “but what I’ve been finding myself doing lately is helping my friends change their perspectives.”  (Side note: I think I’ve been doing this in some small way my whole life.  If I had to say the one thing people told me for most of my twenties was that it made them smile just to see my smile.  And I knew this, so I purposely smiled all the time at people to brighten their day.  I knew I changed them by being me!)

I tell him about a conversation with my friend the juvenile court attorney who was going home to cry everynight feeling herself a failure, when the kids were sent to jail.  “Really?  A failure?  You? My sweet, smart, and caring friend? YOU?  You are resonsbile for their lives?  You are responsible for them being in your court?  Wow!”  I responded.

“Yes, It’s on me when they go to jail.  This how I feel.  It depresses me.”  she says.

Regardless of how I see it that the kids are responsible for the choices they made, this is poignant to her, so I ask more questions and she answers them. 

“Yes, I feel as though I’ve failed them.  I care a lot about them and the court system is stacked against them.  Often the judge feels jail is a better alternative to their home life, so they go despite my efforts.  It’s depressing.” she says.  

I ask her to try on this perspective,  “Maybe you are the only person who has actually cared about them to this point? Maybe you in caring for them and giving them your passion for seeing that they get better lives have actually impacted their lives in ways you don’t or won’t ever see.”  You could see the wheels turning.  I had her there.  That certainly was another possibility!  She does care a lot.  She is fabulous with the kids even keeping contact with them after they go to jail to make sure they are still moving forward, in a positive way, and to maintain being a positive influence in their lives.  “What if you don’t take responsiblity for their lives, but give them the best you have while they are with you knowing and being at peace with how much just that can and do impact them?”  I tell her.  “What if you’re an angel to them?  What if they got you for a reason and not someone else who doesn’t care nearly as much?  What if you’re the most amazing person they’ve ever met?” 

She sums it up with “Wow.  That’s amazing, I never thought to think of it that way.  You’re good.”  You could literally feel the burden lift from her shoulders.  Thank goodness too, for a weird reason I couldn’t fathom, I’d given up a date with a smokin’ hot guy to go do dinner with her.  I hope all those juveniles going to jail get a happier, better attorney now, cause that was a BIG sacrifice to miss that date!  I digress…

“Who do you want to help?” Aaron asks.

I answer, “Well I would help women who are 28 and going through what I will now coin as the female midlife crisis.  I would save them a decade off their lives by creating more confidence in them.”  Funny…confidence would come up here.  Um, ya, I have confidence issues.  Well…I do and I don’t.  I get it that I’m fabulous and all.  I get it that I’m a devinely inspired being put on this earth.  I get it that my life is a gift.  I get it that my chances of being born were millions to one making me a winner from the very start!  I get it that I’m amazing, but there’s still a thing.  I know what it is, I know where it comes from, I know how to tranform it, I know all that, but it lingers still  – - this lack of confidence.  I name this feeling and call it “the lurker” and wave at it when it peaks at me, at critical moments, and tells me I’m not good enough, cause that’s what It feels like – - some creepy lurker who keeps hanging around and who I wish would go away.  I’ve almost figured out how to kill it off though awareness.  I start at awareness and keep moving forward in knowing that being un-confident doesn’t serve me.  And I see that more and more how it has debiliated me.

Does it serve you?

To give my self access I’ve really been thinking about how this perspective serves me: If I am not confident, then I will not risk.  And so I will not risk success, gain, loss, or failure or rejection.  It’s a stagnation of sorts.  That I have lived inside a smaller more difficult reality where I’m simply “not good enough” has served to protect me many a time, all the while shrinking my experiences into opportunities lost, and/or worse, never taken.  Another lovely possiblity of a relationship was lost to this perspective recently.  And the casualties of it are many truth be told.  We will survive ourselves and experiences despite ourselves for the both the positive and negative spins we can place on this perspective.  We can be the casualty of our lives or the hero of our lives.  I am dying to be the heroine in my story, if I can make certain I won’t get lanced in the heart, abandoned, and unrecognized.  Still…a more confident person wouldn’t think that way; wouldn’t work from a place of protection and defense.  And I’m almost there in shiftin my own perspective.  

Truly, in reality, when I take a real look at my life and experiences, there’s no one holding me back, no one not recognizing me, or no one not giving me support, and literally no one leaving me, ever, whom I did not leave first.  As for my heart, it’s treated quite tenderly by almost everyone.  My heart is a quite lovely and a deep pool of compassion, if I do say so myself and no one even wants to hurt it!   

What do you want?

Being un-confident doesn’t serve me.  Who would I have been already had I been more confident?  A doctor?  A teacher?  A famous writer/artist/world traveler?  A mother and wife?  I’d love to know.  For now, I am someone who is getting there, getting to greatness, getting to awareness and getting closer to the answer that is already inside of me. I know one thing, I want to be there at greatness, so I focus on Aaron and the conversation at hand.  

I try on my idea for size, for whom I would help to hear how it sounds to me.  “I want to coach 28 year olds so they can spare themselves the decade I lost.”  It’s not sticking even though I like the idea.   I think about it.  I let it hang in the air and see if it wants to stay.   It doesn’t.  I admit it.  “Aaron, I don’t love it.” 

“Who would you help then?” he asks.  I try again.  36-37 year old professional women who are great at what they do but who are destined for greatness in other areas.  Women who could use a perspective change to get them to see how amazing they are, so they can make the moves necessary to create a life they want.  I want to be a life coach and that’s who I would help.  

“Do they have a name?”  he asks.

Yes, I give her my fake bar name, Julia. 

“Ok, it’s Julia.”  And how would you help her.  Answer, I would help her transcend her current perspectives on herself, so she can be more confident.  It would help her move forward confidently. 

“Yes,” he agrees.  We’re in the mind-meld now.  There’s lots going on around us, but he’s got his gaze on me and something is kind of happening to me in the back of my mind and it occurs to me that I’m describing myself, but I didn’t intend to, only I’m in the mix and we’re about to get somewhere, so I pretend I don’t notice I’m describing myself.  I like where this is going too much to stop.  I like the freedom I have here to muse and discuss and play.  Aaron holds no judgments and he’s looking at me knowing I’m figuring out what he already sees. 

He asks, “Would you do this for free?  Would you do this for money?” 

“Yes, to both,” I reply, “and I already do this for free.”  I see greatness in people.  I see beauty in people.  I see what they don’t see sometimes.  My friend Leah lost 140 lbs.  I cannot lose 5.  Well let’s be honest, I don’t put into place the actions necessary to lose 5 lbs, but she did – 140 times over.

Leah, my inspiration!

My friend looks better and healthier, each time I see her.  It’s revealed that she’s lost 140 lbs.  I start thinking about how diligent and committed, single focused, and motivated she had to be to do that.  I ask her, “Do you know what you did!?”  

“Yes, I lost more weight than you weigh?”  She says it sarcastically almost dismissively. 

“Noooo.  You lost 140 lbs!  ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY POUNDS!!!!!!  That’s amazing.  Holy moly!  You are a force to have done that!  WOW!”   She says sort of negatively, “Yeah, I know, but I almost gave up so many times.” 

“I know but..what?  Gave up?”

I’m confused by her a bit.  She’s missed the whole point of how amazing she is.  I said, “But that’s only half the story that you’re telling me and yourself.  I cannot believe that this is your perspective on your experience.  You may have wanted to give up.  I’m sure you did, but the rest of the story is for every time you wanted to give up, you DIDN’T!   Like hundreds of times over you didn’t give up, for every time you wanted to!  WOW!  That’s amazing, Leah.  You’re amazing!”  

I don’t think she really saw herself in that light, as being that fabulous, yet.  But then you could see this smile come over her face.  She agrees, “Ya.  I didn’t quit.”  For a split second I see her seeing herself as freaking amazing and it uplifts her!  She asks if I can hang out with her everyday and remind her of this! 

And it occurs to me, again, as I’m sharing this story, that I see people in a way they don’t from a perspective they do not.  It’s my gift.  I see their pain, their fear, and sometimes actually feel it.  I sense their discomfort.  I sense their inquisitiveness, their sadness, their joy, their openness, their darkness.  I am empathetic to it and I react to it sometimes too forgetting how attuned I am to it, when others are not.  I’m quick to see to the heart of their experience and give them a twist of thought about their experience. 

I share this story of Leah with Aaron, not really sure why it’s relevant, almost like I’m trying to prove that what I feel is true.  Always encouraging – - he likes it.  A few things click into place.  I really felt as though I’d helped her see herself differently.  And I do this for people all the time.  And…I have always done this for people.  My books for children will do this. My life coaching and speaking will do this, as well.  My friendships, my loves, my hopes, my world, my work with PebbleStorm, my future work, my being will do this.  Strangely, it always has and always will.   

He asks me more questions and we get to this point, where he simply asks, “So you’re on the cover of Time magazine, what does the headline say?”   These words pour out with little hesitation. 

Onna Young “Changing the World One Perspective at a Time.”

It feels right throwing it out there like that.  We both kind of smile and laugh, at the moment that’s presented itself.  It felt like it popped itself out into the world.  “Wow, Aaron, you can see how this can be applied to every other business idea/life idea I have…and I already do it!”   He points out the “person” I was helping was myself.  In helping ourselves and doing what’s authentic, we can help the world be a better place.  I LOVE IT!

May you all have an Aaron who helps you discover yourself more fully and maybe even a great guy with the eyes, both were so integral to this last baby step of moving toward confidence, toward my unique genius, and toward embracing my own good perspectives about myself, which do serve me.

3 Comments

Filed under Unique Genius