How easy is it for you to be completely yourself around other people? How much do you censor yourself based on who you’re around?
Can you honestly say that you speak, act, dress and think as your True Self around anyone? Or do you tweak yourself in order to be accepted by those you’re around? A little tweaking for friends and family and a lot of tweaking at work maybe?
In my quest to live a happy and passionate life, I’ve been much more mindful of how much I hide or expose my True Self in different circumstances. What I’ve noticed is a bit surprising.
The Importance of Values & Beliefs
As humans, it’s our nature to want to be accepted by our tribe. Hundreds of years ago, our lives depended on it. We’re wired with this need.
I recently watched a very powerful video of Simon Sinek giving a talk on how groups, companies, communities, and countries (i.e. groups of people) build a sense of connection and trust based on their values and beliefs and how significantly this affects our lives.
It can be difficult when the people we’re around don’t share the same values and beliefs as ours. If there are more of “them” (those with different values and beliefs) than “us” (those who share our values and beliefs), we tend to hide our own values and beliefs and pretend to honor theirs in order to be accepted. And this never feels good.
We look for people like us, people we feel we can create a connection with, people with whom we can be authentic. The deeper the connection, the more we can usually trust others. Depending on how alien our environment is, it may take very little to create that connection.
For example, if you were at a biker rally, you would probably seek out people who own the same type of bike as you. The fact that almost everyone there was American wouldn’t enter your mind. But if you and one other stranger were the only Americans in a crowded room of Russians, the fact that you were American would give you enough of a reason to create a connection.
Values and Beliefs At Work
When (smart) people create companies, they instill values and beliefs into “who” the company is. Then they hopefully hire people who share those same values and beliefs. While companies are legally separate entities and we talk about them as such, they’re basically groups of people working together toward common goals.
When we work for companies or clients, we’re naturally drawn to those groups of people who look and act like us – those who share our values and beliefs.
Many of us take jobs out of fear of lack of money and end up working for a company (group of people) with different values and beliefs. In order to be accepted by this group, we hide our True Selves and pretend to be like “them.” And we wonder why we’re not happy working there.
I once worked for a company for many years where my flexible and open-minded nature was rewarded. My values and beliefs were in alignment with those established by the owners of the company. I love to question why things are done a certain way (question the status quo) and look for ways to improve.
When this smaller company was sold to a very large, very structured company, my values and beliefs were no longer in synch with the way the new leaders wanted to manage the company. I was being reprimanded for things that got me ahead in the past. My job was now rigidly defined by others with little flexibility. I felt that my ability to help others had been almost completely eliminated. After eight years of excitement, I suddenly hated my job.
People Want to Help Others
This brings me to another essential human quality that is frequently overlooked in our society and in how most companies are structured.
People want to help other people.
Hundreds and thousands of years ago, our lives depended on helping each other and expecting nothing in return. We contributed to the benefit of the group because we knew that a healthy group would benefit and support us.
Many of us volunteer for various groups and organizations because it feels good to help others. We like to help friends and strangers because it usually feels like the right thing to do.
One of the best forms of therapy for people with depression is to have them help others.
Many people feel unfulfilled in their jobs because they can’t see how what they’re doing helps anyone. They can’t see the purpose for what they do. If there’s no perceived benefit or purpose, then what’s the point?
Work On Your Strengths
We feel even better about helping others when we can share our strengths with them.
We all have strengths and weaknesses. Society teaches us that we should constantly try to “fix ourselves” and turn our weaknesses into strengths. I think this is a huge waste of time and energy and a massive source of frustration.
In our groups, communities, companies, tribes and clans, we work together using our strengths to our best abilities. We look for others who are strong where we are weak and we work together to create a strong group.
When we use our strengths to help others, we feel great which encourages us to do more and improve our strengths. For example, if you’re a great writer and your writing helps to convey the benefits of working with your group to others effectively, you’ll want to hone your skills and consistently improve your writing. You know that you can help your group and your clients by improving something you’re good at and something you love to do. Win-win-win!
If you’re a great writer but your boss thinks that you need to improve your accounting skills (something you suck at), you’ll be unhappy because you’ll spend time focusing on something you hate. You won’t have much time or energy to share your amazing writing skills with your group. The group and potential clients won’t benefit from your strengths as a writer. You and your boss will experience frequent frustration because you’ll never be an accounting whiz. Lose-lose-lose.
Simple Steps for Businesses To Be Happy and Successful
Create a strong culture inside your company with your employees and outside your company with your customers and vendors. Stand by your values and beliefs and don’t try to please everyone. Please your tribe by being authentic. You won’t have to work hard to keep them around.
Only hire people and work with clients who support your values and beliefs. This keeps your tribe and business strong.
Show the people in your company how what they do matters, how it helps others inside and/or outside of the company, how it contributes to the overall mission of the company.
Support members of your group as they help others inside and outside of their jobs. Allow time off for volunteer activities. Ensure that compensation structures encourage employees to work together instead of competing against each other.
Simple Steps for All of Us To Be Happy and Successful
To be both happy and successful in life and in business, be your True Self and connect with others who share your values and beliefs. If others can’t accept you as you are, find other people to be around.
Help others. Help friends, family, and strangers. Help the people you work with. Help your competitors. And don’t expect anything in return.
Share your strengths with the world and find others to compensate for your weaknesses. You’ll find other amazing people in your search and together, you can accomplish anything that you can imagine.
Be bold. Be your amazing self and stop thinking about what other people think.
If you would like assistance with incorporating these concepts into your life and/or your company, I would love to help. I have over 30 years of experience working with entrepreneurs and companies from startup to $100 million in revenues. I’ve seen and experienced what works and what doesn’t. Check out my MindfulCFO.com site for more on how I can help.
Contact me at Paige [at] PaigeOldham.com to see how we can work together to create more happiness and success in your life and your business.
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The Mindful Living Guide
What a great post. I really enjoyed your wisdom and practical suggestions. I found the best thing I did was enlist the support of a coach. I found myself repeating unwanted patters, and after reading the following quote I was sold. It said ‘The definition you’ve placed on yourself – or have allowed others to place on you – is precisely why you have what you have, do what you do, are what you are and act how you act’. (Source: http://www.FTRnation.com, a wonderful mentoring/coaching site, and who I used). I like how you address being our self in front of others. I think that itself is the test for true self-confidence. Great read, thank-you for sharing!
Thank you Sedona! Working with a coach is a very empowering step to guide you from your current image of yourself to a much grander and truer vision that allows you to be your True Self and express your gifts. I love your quote!
While it’s a constant practice, the more I consciously express myself and don’t hide things for fear of what others will think, the happier and more relaxed I am. It’s tough at first but, over time, you learn that the world won’t end and people won’t hate you when you do this. Quite the opposite happens.
Best wishes on expressing your True Self!
Be bold and stand firmly on your own to do anything that comes your way.
You’re so right about us not talking about our values and beliefs if we sense that the majority of those around us doesn’t share them. In media and communications science this is called “spiral of silence”. When a group of people with a certain opinion thinks they belong to the minority they won’t talk about it. So these people might actually be the majority, but because they’re too scared to share their opinion they’ll never find out. I think that’s so fascinating.
Nothing like some peer pressure. Most of us learn about that in school and never learn to let go of it. We grow up with a fear of not being accepted and go to great lengths in hopes of others liking us. It’s always a futile game.
This is one of the many reasons we homeschool our kids. I see and read about it all the time: homeschooled kids are viewed as “weird” by adults and kids who aren’t accustomed to homeschooling because they’re so comfortable expressing their own unique selves without fear of not fitting in. They don’t understand why others wouldn’t accept them just as they are and, frequently, aren’t too bothered what others think. Imagine a world where we all functioned that way.
You’re getting me pretty interested in the whole homeschooling revolution!
Hi Paige :).
I completely agree with you that if we are able to align our values and beliefs with our work (and life) then we are setting ourselves up for success.
I think the struggle for most people starts with identifying those values and beliefs. It can be so difficult with all the millions of messages we receive on a daily basis – to actually identify our own values and beliefs.
I know for me, I spent a lot of time being ambitious on things that I didn’t really care about. But I did this because I didn’t really understand my own values and beliefs.
I also think discovering our values and beliefs is an ever ongoing process. This is why I think it is so darn important that we step out and do new, exciting, and interesting things. As we do these things we gain experience and it can slowly unveil our true values and beliefs :).
What do you think?
Looking forward to your thoughts.
I agree with you for the most part Izzy. It’s very true that most people have no idea what their values and beliefs are.
For values:
Step 1 is to consider the question, “What are my values?” – something most people don’t take the time or attention to do which results in lots of time and energy spent running in circles of busy-ness and catering to the wishes of others, wondering why we feel unfulfilled.
Step 2 is to take the question seriously and spend the time to consider all the possibilities. The first time I wrote down all my values, it filled a couple pages.
Step 3 is to narrow down that list to the top 3 values. This is the tough part because it gets us to ask the questions, “What am I all about?” “What’s the most important thing in the world to me?” This step also begs the question, “Is this really me or what others expect of me (what I’m supposed to do/be)?”
Once we come up with our core values, life becomes so much easier because we can base all of our choices on these. Once we decide on our top values, I don’t think they change much over the course of our lives. My top three values are health, family and integrity.
Beliefs are a bit different. Those will definitely change as we have more experiences. I completely agree that we all need to get out and have new experiences. That’s how we learn and grow – a process that never stops regardless of how old we are. Reading about things doesn’t go very far. Experiencing them in our own unique ways can be transformational.
Values are more “who we are” while beliefs are “how we see the world.”
It sounds like you’ve done some work in this area and are using your values to guide your life. It also sounds like you’ve found a lot of excitement and happiness in doing this. That’s awesome!
May the excitement in your life never end!
Paige: I totally agree with you in your post. I change myself when I am at work because I have to fit a certain image, but the image I have to fit really isn’t a bad image. I have been making a lot of changes within my personal life and the new way that I am choosing to live my life isn’t so much different than what my job expects. I try to strengthen my weakness, but only if it is something I like, but just not good at. I want to be at my best at everything I get passion out of and I have a long way to go, but I practice daily for improvement. It is beneficial to have others that specialize in areas we are weak in. A side from my job, I find it hard to find people with the same values as me. I have had to let go of many friends and I am trying to find new ones, but it is hard. I figure that after I finish my book it will be easier because the poeple that enjoy it will have to be like-minded and maybe I can become friends with them.
You’re definitely on the right path William – strengthening your passions, living in a way that’s right for you and surrounding yourself with people who will support you along the way. A few dedicated friends are much better than many who are not. I’ve definitely found many more like-minded friends online since I’ve started this blog. Some live close and most live all over the globe. It’s an amazing experience!
Best wishes on your book! Let us know when it’s done!
This is along the lines of another post I read of yours yesterday that talked about your values. To often we sacrifice our values in the name of a paycheck and benefits, yet we wonder why we are miserable!
I’m there now…but I am setting the stage for a grandiose exit! 🙂
Brian,
I often write about values because they’re so important to all aspects of our lives. It’s difficult to be happy if you don’t know what your top values are and/or you don’t live in a way that prioritizes them.
Congrats on your big exit! It may be scary but it will be soooo worth it!
Imagine what a world we’d live in if everyone was empowered to work with their own true gifts and embody who they truly are? I know that’s what you’re asking here, and I think it IS something that’s possible – if only we could switch our mindset to embrace that as a reality. One of my missions is to promote the idea (and make it a truth!) that having a decent income and living our values can go together. Too often there is this dichotomy between doing ‘good’ work and making a living. IT doesn’t have to be this way!
It’s soul-sucking to give up your values and your true essence for the big values of a company you work for. And the good news is that in this day and age there are many successful companies (and solopreneurs) who believe that business can also be about right livelihood and working with our values. I’ve never been able to hide who I truly am for a work environment or anything else (although my inner critic has exhorted me to try.) I just have to be me – for better or for worse. And it usually works out for the better.
I wish more people could experience what you have Sarah: being yourself usually works out for the better.
I think the negative programming starts in school where we’re rewarded for doing as we’re told and generally punished for thinking and acting on our own. We’re taught to put the values and wishes of others (the teachers and school) first.
Then we bring this into adulthood where we continue to hide our True Selves in order to be rewarded in our jobs. It’s scary to reveal our True Selves for fear of being somehow punished by our bosses, companies, peers and families.
As you’ve pointed out, it’s great to see that the tide is beginning to turn. There are incredibly successful companies that support right livelihood and personal values and see the benefits for their employees, businesses, customers and environments.
And there are places like the World Domination Summit that are full of people proving that doing good pays and can pay very well.
You’ve got an awesome mission that we share. It’s very possible to make a great living in accordance with your values. The first step is to believe that it’s possible.
Thanks so much Sarah! Big Hugs!!
Paige, I love your point about how we all have strengths that help our local and global tribe and thus it doesn’t make sense to kill ourselves trying to improve our weak areas. I mean, of course we want to improve things that are holding us back from being our True Selves, but the emphasis should be on how we can all help each other, not how we can individually become something we’re not!
Exactly Bobbi! Almost all of us are blanketed in limiting beliefs that we’re working to shed. I don’t see that as a weakness. It’s more human nature and the process of revealing and living as our True Selves.
I believe that we’re all put on this earth to help others and/or the planet. It’s our job to figure out what our gifts/strengths are and how we can use them for this purpose.
As in business and in life: find your core strengths, focus on them and utilize them to serve your tribe well. Delegate the rest.
Hi Paige, I think I had a realization in my previous career that was similar to yours — I was regularly working into the wee hours of the morning as an attorney at a big law firm, until I recognized that I just wasn’t interested in any of the stuff that usually drives people to become lawyers. I’m not interested in having a big house, an expensive car or an impressive wine cellar, and I don’t have kids (although I haven’t ruled them out). WIthout a desire for any of those things, I realized, there was very little to keep me where I was.
That’s awesome that you made that realization Chris! So many people think that they’re supposed to have all those things, regardless of how they generate the money, and they kill themselves in the process of trying to obtain it all.
Societal programming is so strong. It can be difficult to step back and realize that the American Dream isn’t for most of us and more difficult still to do something about it. Most of us have family and friends to remind us what we’re supposed to be doing (making lots of money) and making us feel like we’re crazy for choosing something different.
Bravo to you for changing your life in a way that supports your values! It can bring with it a true sense of freedom.
Wow. I read this through a couple of different times to fully absorb the message.
I used to work full-time at the hospital, graveyard shift so that I could be home during the day with my children. As a full-time single mom, presence to my children as well as presence to abundant income was essential to me. Because nature and solitude has always been essential to me, I would give up sleep in order to breathe fresh air. The only way I could manage these practices was to be cognizant of ingesting all that was enriching/enlivening. As anyone reading this can probably already guess, after a few years, my body decided enough was enough.
I learned the importance of alignment..in all areas of my life…because when I resisted this principle, I found myself in the hospital as a patient, then on bed rest for weeks…my body had to tell me “enough”. I listened, and I changed my entire life, leaving that “secure” job, to work fully through my site..now present to connection and creation in ways I couldn’t have fathomed existed. Is it scary to step out and hope Universe catches me?…at times, yes…but the alternative of living life constantly dimming my light was much “scarier”.
I love the affirmations you share through your examples…thank you!
Wow, Joy! You’ve come a long way! Being a committed, full-time single mom is huge all by itself. Leaving “secure” jobs is incredibly difficult. We usually feel that we must keep them, no matter what, in order to maintain that false sense of security.
It sounds like you’ve consciously created the space you needed in your life to be open to new, more fulfilling possibilities. I completely agree with you that it can be scary to step out into the abyss and hope the Universe is there for you. But it’s definitely better than “dimming your light.”
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences here. You’re definitely helping others see what’s possible.
Big Hugs!!
Paige- I couldn’t agree with you more about work…and in our personal lives. It is critical to connect with individuals who share your values….or at least with whom you have a strong sense of connection over something that has meaning to you.
It takes a lot of courage in the workplace to be who you really are…and let the rest fall into place. I know you are going through that process Paige. You are becoming stronger each time you have an interview and put out the real Paige…I would guess at this point it would be hard to be anything else except the real you.
Thanks for a post with a lot of meat on it! xxoo-Fran
Thank you Fran! Yes, it’s definitely been a difficult process to reveal the “real me” in the professional world. It has become much easier once I decided that I didn’t want to please everyone.
We learn that businesses are much more successful when they focus on a very narrow niche and serve that niche well. If you try to be all things to all people, you’re doomed. It’s impossible. I’m applying that to my life and work and realizing that I don’t want to work with just anyone. By effectively branding myself as my True Self, I attract people with similar values and beliefs. This way I have a much better chance of being happy with the people and companies I work with.
Thank you so much for all your love and support Fran! Big, Big Hugs!!
Paige,
This is exactly how I feel about work too. Your work has to encompass your values otherwise you’ll never find happiness or peace there. It will just be a place to go everyday to earn a paycheck.
Wonderful artticle.
Thank you!
xoxo,
Angela
Thank you Angela! I think most of us have experienced that “place you go for a paycheck” feeling and it’s not something we want in our lives. I hope to help people realize that they have many more choices than they think.
Big Hugs!!
Such an interesting post. Being our true selves, being authentic certainly has rewards. I’ve directly benefited from this. When I realized i didn’t feel passionate about what I was doing, I made the decision to quit and work from home – and was lucky it all worked out. Here, lucky basically meant I had to work my ass off and put in a helluva effort to reach a steady state where I enjoyed the stuff.
The thing is, a well paying job that has a work profile that fits is too tempting as it means an assured income, which is essential to existing. On the flip side, pursuing what we really want is not always feasible, especially if we have money commitments. It means struggling to achieve one’s passions and one does not always have the luxury to do that.
In my case, I had the courage to do it only after I was very sure that we could get by for the next six months comfortably (what with a growing baby and medical expenses for Mom). But once I did take the crucial step, happiness was not far behind. Not that I did not enjoy whatever I did earlier – but working from home, being there for the family AND earning an income was practically a dream before I ventured out into a new career. I am glad I kept my mind open to what I was capable of, rather than what I was experienced with.
You post has a very valuable message, Paige. Thank you. It makes a big difference to practice being bold from a young age – because that makes all the difference in the choices one makes later.
Love, Vidya
Vidya,
You’ve done some amazing things with your life and are a beautiful example of what’s possible. Yes, it usually takes much more work to do what we love and make a living at it but, I think, the payoff is worth it. I’m not yet at a place where I can live off my passion but I’m discovering new ways of incorporating it into my life that create more opportunities.
I agree that the steady income from a job is incredibly alluring and sometimes necessary to allow us the comfort to venture forward with our passions. These are the many choices that we have to make, keeping our core values in mind all the while. They’re usually not easy choices but, like you’ve said, when you make them in alignment of what’s most important to you, the hard work is more than worth it.
One of my big intentions is to inspire younger generations to begin their lives with a clear mind instead of being guilted into doing what their families or society tells them they should do. This definitely does NOT mean that people in their 20’s or 30’s (or at any age, for that matter) have to have their lives all figured out. That’s another myth that creates untold anxiety for all of us.
Think of careers and passions as experiments. If they work for you, go further with them. If they don’t, do something different. There’s no such thing as failure. You won’t know what’s right for you until you actually do it.
You’re an awesome example of someone taking some bold (and difficult) steps and realizing the wonderful benefits for yourself and your beautiful family.
Big Hugs!!