You're Not Aristotle. (That's a Good Thing!)

Two months’ salary for a diamond. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. Trite? Maybe. But what about these:

• You can’t love someone else until you love yourself first.
• You’ve gotta look out for #1.
• There is a right way to do this.

Okay, now are you starting to see some light bulbs popping?

Everyone of us has wisdom that rules us. And some of it is helpful; you don’t cross the street without looking twice, do you?

But if the whole world didn’t talk to strangers, we’d all be strangers. And if quality was always preferable to quantity, there’d be a whole lot less quality in the world – because it takes doing something in quantity enough times to where quality begins to be developed.

Conventional thinking isn’t always the best road to walk on.

Because as they say, “common sense ain’t that common.” Sometimes you need to forge your own road if you want to get anywhere worth visiting.

For example, I was teaching in my community recently, and someone asked me a question. Before they even finished getting their question out, I was already primed with an answer, because not only had I heard this question before, but I had been taught an answer to it on many occasions.

I started to answer the question, but got three words into it and stopped. I stopped because I felt my head had the answer, but my heart had something to add. So I backed up, felt what had come to my heart, and shared it.

And what happened? A lot more connection, that’s what. Instead of just regurgitating a platitude, I shared my experience. I shared my viewpoint. And we connected.

But what about the sages, man?

Haven’t there been people throughout history who spent their whole lives pondering the topics you’ve been learning about for months or years? Wouldn’t you just be better off just quoting them?

Not really, no.

Now, I’m not knocking Aristotle, Lao-Tzu, or Moses; I’m simply saying that stopping with what they’ve said is doing a disservice to whoever is in front of you, be it in person, or on the other end of your phone, or your readers.

Because you learned from the sages, sure. But that learning is now yours. You’ve taken it, grown with it, learned from it, refined it, and now you have an understanding that’s all your own.

And, because the person listening to you isn’t sitting in front of Aristotle. They aren’t asking Lao-Tzu. They’re asking you.

The audience you have is begging for you, for your intimacy, your presence, and your personality. Without it, you might as well just be a robot, spitting out quotes from a book.

It’s all about Authenticity.

If you want to find true authenticity for yourself, here’s a simple way to break free from the “same old, same old”:

Pick an area in your work you feel the most constrained.

It could be where you feel least in control, or the most on a track that feels fixed, unchangeable. It could be how you do your job, how you handle customer complaints, how you say what you do, what you feel is expected of you, etc.

Now, take out a piece of paper (or give yourself five minutes to just talk out loud), and just dump all your thoughts about it onto the page (or into the air).

Let it all just go, and see where you end up. Watch out for looping (cycling through the same thoughts over and over), and stay honest with yourself.

What you’ll come up with is a whole bunch of assumptions: thoughts that are ruling how you act, how you create, how you are in your work. And there will be a few that just stick, like white on rice. Those are the key ones.

Take time to roll these key assumptions around in your heart with a healthy dose of heart-connection.

Watch what comes up, and see what gets separated out. You’ll get to see what “truths” you’ve been clinging to, and what needs to change.

And then, when it comes to giving to/talking to/writing for your audience, you can give them the authenticity they’re begging for by standing apart from the sheep, and giving them the goods you’ve grown to get for yourself.

Be mindful of what “truths” you’re teaching, and above all, stay connected with them. From that connection, all kinds of freshness and insight is bound to flow.