Stop Posing!

Good afternoon, friends, and I hope you are all well and rested after your weekend. On Saturday we celebrated my daughter's 13th birthday, and took a bunch of her friends on a scavenger hunt at the mall, a shopping spree at Aeropostle, a visit down Memory Lane with a ride on the carousel, back to the house for cake - ice cream - and gifts, and then midnight bowling and pizza followed by a sleepover. Some of the girls didn't leave until Sunday night! We're exhausted!

Have you been making some time to get a little more introspective and think about some of the challenges I have been laying down these past few weeks? Last time we spoke about gaining some understanding about your strengths and weaknesses and developing a plan to either delegate or outsource those tasks which don't play to your strengths or work on developing skills in those areas of weakness.

Today I want you to consider whether or not you are a "poser".

A poser pretends to be something he or she is not in order to gain acceptance or respect from others. As children, we don't know a lot about posing and we're just naturally ourselves -- innocent. Then as we get older, and we begin to understand the type of behavior that our parents expect from us, we begin to learn about posing. Or perhaps we don't receive the attention we want, so we adopt new behaviors to get the attention we truly seek.

OK, I always try to be totally transparent with you, so let me give you some personal examples ...

As a child, I learned early on that to become the center of attention I needed to pose as an entertainer, whether that be singing, telling jokes or doing magic tricks. When I posed, I pretended to be a different person, and this continued well into high school. Being small for my size, the only way I could get attention for myself was to entertain. I was quickly dubbed the "little magician". Not exactly a great moniker but it achieved the purpose.

But I wasn't being myself, and it took an enormous amount of effort to pull off performance after performance. Deep inside I am probably more of an introvert than extrovert, but when I pose as an entertainer I become much larger than life. Two different people. Most people think the poser is really me and enjoy being around that entertainer, but it ain't me. Not really.

We all get stuck in these posing roles at various times in our lives. Young people good at sports may pose as jocks and adopt a BMOC (big man on campus) persona. It may become part of their survival tools in a new school or to make new friends.

People often pose based upon their religious beliefs. I hear more and more about how so-and-so is being a "good Christian". People adopt these poses to please others and become accepted in larger social situations such as a church. The truth is they may not be any better than the person standing to their left or right, but if they strike the pose right, no one ever questions them. It's funny, but growing up a Jew in NYC, I never heard anyone called a "good Jew". Strange the way that works.

In business, we frequently strike poses just to survive the corporate rat race. Back in 1993, when I was invited by WilTel to relocate from NYC to Tulsa, it was because the perception was I was type-A, rough and tumble, take no prisoners, get it done at all costs, executive. I learned quickly that senior officers liked this, so I adopted this as my persona and posed the way they wanted me to pose. It enabled me rapid growth in my career and to accrue tremendous wealth. It did not, however, make me happy, or portray me accurately. My close friends knew me better than that.

Obviously, posing can have some short-term gain -- social acceptance, monetary gain, popularity, etc. Long-term, however, it can cause tremendous damage. We get miscast in roles that do not accurately or truthfully reflect who we are. Posing blocks us from making new friendships, changing careers, etc. because it causes people to see us inaccurately.

So here's the question of the day, how and where are you posing in your life today? What is posing truly achieving for you? How are people's perceptions of you actually doing you more harm than good? What changes might you expect if you let people see the real you? Will you lose or gain their respect? Will your career or business take a wrong turn?

What would happen if we all started acting like the people we truly are? Hmm. Imagine a world where everyone was honest and you could truly judge someone by their words and actions.

Will you ultimately be happier being yourself than you would if you continued posing?

I know. It's a tough question, and I warn you, once you make the decision to stop posing, you need to be vigilant about it because it is oh so easy to fall back into the bad habit of posing. I know. I face that problem on a daily basis whether I am sitting across from a client or speaking to my wife and children. While the "little magician" inside of me might be very entertaining, I am much more than that and I want people to know that. Hopefully you do.

If you've been a long-term subscriber, then you have seen me make a concerted effort to change the direction of my newsletter. When I started it 10 years ago, it was focused on selling the latest Internet widget or ebook or software I developed. But about 2 years ago, I made a conscious effort to be 80% focused on building a relationship with my subscribers and 20% on making money. Thus far, I'd say this has been a step in the right direction for me, but it an act of faith.

Right now I have 1300 friends -- subscribers -- and some of you have introduced me to your friends by forwarding my newsletter to them -- and some of you have become pen-pals -- and others have become clients. Whichever it is, I am grateful to have you join me on this walk.

Stop posing.

Be yourself.

Until next time,


Steven

P.S.: Please help me to reach more people by sending the URL to this newsletter to your friends. Help me to help more people.