The Art of Being You
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 |
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Amazing isn’t it how people label their view of our identity. And how we label our opinion of others…
This makes sense, of course, it helps us organize and categorize people we know. George Hamilton is “Tan”, Farrah has the hair, Dean Martin had his martini and Pam Anderson has big… well you get the picture.
For many years, I had long blond (mostly natural) hair… So I was the guy with Long Blond (some say Miss Clairol) hair. Then I cut it off and usually wore it slicked back a bit. This brings me to my latest hair adventure.
I was working an event called “Life Directions” for Peak Potentials Training. The training was in Pasadena (about an hour drive from my home in Topanga CA). I packed my bag, so I wouldn’t have to drive back and forth. Wednesday was our set up where I learned my position for the event would be as the Trainer’s assistant. Easy job for me. After nearly 20 years as an Assistant Director, taking care of the “talent” is second nature for me… but I digress.
One of the demonstrations from stage called for a jar full of big rocks. We couldn’t find the rocks so I volunteered to go home and collect some rocks and drive back early Thursday. When I got back to the event and eventually checked into my room, I realized that I had taken my toiletry bag into the house but not back with me to Pasadena.
So on Saturday with no “hair product” I showed up for work… Remember my identity at work is slicked back hair… Kieron Sweeney our trainer for the event was very surprised by my non-slicked back hair and talked about it for several minutes, finally saying, “it’s just so fluffy…”. For him it was just as though George showed up pale or Pam flat chested…
Jump ahead a few hours. There I am assisting with this jar of rocks demo. When Kieron introduces me to the crowd of 700, he doesn’t just introduce me, he goes on to gush about my “fluffy” hair, to which of course, I get get a standing ovation from 700 of my closest friends and dozens of compliments throughout the rest of the day.
So what does this all mean?
We are in the world to others how we present ourselves. So it makes sense then, to be who you really love to be. Be authentic. Be radiant.
Do it for yourself and do it to be put in the best category you can be…
