As soon as I started to understand that no one gets a free pass in the human race, I started to see things differently.
All of a sudden my life wasn’t harder or easier than anyone else’s, it was just different and it was tailor made for me. I understood that I received the lessons I needed to open my eyes in directions I couldn’t see before… and life is happening for others that way also.
Oprah does her own stain removal and loves to do it… [she cleans and does laundry too?]
Seth Godin and Brene Brown were being consumed by negative reviews and it was affecting their work… [they worry about people criticizing their most precious thoughts and ideas too?]
Joe Gibbia co-founder of AirBNB who has a net worth of over $3 billion, stores his “crit buns” in his garage and packages them by hand and mails them out when someone orders them. They were his first ever industrial design product…[he fights with tape and scissors and packaging labels too?]
Just last year I heard Garth Brooks talk about the fear of releasing a new song and not having it live up to the expectations others have of him… [he loses his confidence and has to start over fighting those demons too?]
I’ve heard several successful people talk about their personal struggle with fear of failure and how beginnings are hard. They talk about the difficulty to keep moving forward and to be consistently productive… [they focus on that?]
There are a million more examples of the little pieces and stories I have picked up on podcasts, or reading books, or studying others, that have helped me to understand all of these people are the same as me.
So if they are the same as me I wondered what their secret was? How did they do what they did and become who they are?
And I’ve learned they humble themselves continuously.
They are not immune to the human struggle and they don’t expect themselves to be.
They recognize their humanity is very real, and they find ways to keep showing up in spite of it.
Oprah still spills red wine on her favourite dress and struggles with weight loss.
Seth has to protect his energy from vampires and critics.
Joe put his heart into a product that he’s proud of but it can’t sustain a manufacturing facility.
Garth still fears not being liked.
Countless others fight inertia.
They decided to search for ways to discipline themselves, to overcome their fear, to be humble, and keep moving forward in spite of their humanity.
I’ve realized that recognizing and accepting these shortcomings and then moving through them gives you a rite of passage.
You are different when you’ve experienced it.
That’s the only secret they share… and it’s only a secret because we haven’t decided to do it yet.