Self-aware Sally is one of the four brave & brilliant personality types I talk about a lot - each has a varying level of clarity and bravery in relation to their business and, if you plotted them on a graph where Clarity was on the Y-axis and Bravery traversed the X-axis, they'd each sit in one of the quadrants.
Sally is the reason why I now delight in helping others embrace The Four Fears® as she made herself known to me in a meeting about ten years ago.
To be more accurate, there were about twelve Sallys in the room.
I had invited a group of our top sellers, recruiters and business builders to lunch, to listen and learn what made them tick. At the time I was working on a strategy to grow our sales division and, not only did I want to present the vision to them (to get buy-in from our key people) but if I could find out what they were already doing so very well (and grow that dozen into two dozen, thirty, fifty brave and brilliant leaders), then we were off to the races.
What I heard in that room shocked me (proper click bait sentence there - sorry).
From the outside looking in, I saw twelve remarkable women (they were all female entrepreneurs) who were excelling at what they did. But when asked about their 'secrets to success', their responses were along the following lines:
I've been lucky - opportunities have landed in my lap
I don't know why others look up to me - I'm waiting to be 'found out'
I'm nothing special - anyone can do what I do
This success won't last - the bubble will burst
Interesting they were much less self-deprecating when talking cross-table. They saw the brilliance in each other; they just couldn't see (or admit) it in themselves.
Of course, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy on their part as, if they believed they 'couldn't'... so they no longer did. The next time I had a lunch with our top people... most of that first gang, were no longer in the room. They had talked themselves out of the brilliance they were clearly capable of.
That's when I realised it was essential we focus our efforts on helping others (re)connect to that energy and embrace the consistent successes they deserve. The only obstacle to those 'victories' was what they were telling themselves (the fears). Could we help rewire some of those internal conversations and unlock their true genius?
This is essentially the origin story of The Four Fears®. My approach to embracing the fears has changed over the years by listening to many more stories. But the joy it brings me, to witness the success of others, is why I continue to share stories like this and ask you big questions like "what is it you truly want and why is that so important to you that you are ready to take action to achieve it?"
If you'd like help in answering that question, leave me a comment or send me a message. Thanks for reading.
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