So it looks something like this.
Beautiful, young woman. Rich, successful, living the life.
Happy marriage. Gorgeous, perfectly behaved kids.
Financially secure. Self-assured, strong opinions. Confident, oh yes, so confident. Sure of the way ahead. No doubts.
Of course, it’s a mask, a beautifully crafted costume. And it almost works. But not quite.
It happens a lot, I walk into a room full of beautiful people. Those who have perfected their costumes, made their image so wonderful. But scratch the surface, holy shit, scary stuff.
You see, you can spend years creating the perfect costume, the flawless mask.
But you can never hide the frightening truth underneath. The simple truth that’s really not so horrifying. That it’s never perfect, live delivers what it will and it’s never quite what you expect.
And worse still, it’s actually better that way. Under the mask, behind the costume is REAL – and that’s a hundred percent better (but only all of the time)!
It’s okay to have challenge and pain and difficulty. It’s okay to show the cracks. It’s fine to admit defeat or feelings of inadequacy. We’re all there.
You see, that’s where we all live. Not all the time. But sometimes. We live there enough to understand the day that you can’t stand your kids, or you feel like you’d pay a million dollars to be single again. The day you feel fat and ugly and you’re terrified that you can’t make the payments on your mortgage.
It’s real. It’s human. It’s you and it’s me. It’s not that much fun but it’s beautiful and it’s perfect.
And it’s the new currency of business. When you show up authentically, you connect deeply with people and that builds trust. You need to build trust with your potential clients if you want them to take the next step and actually hire you.
The authentic ‘showing up’ can’t be faked. We get that it’s a mask. We get it if you’re hiding out behind a great costume. And we don’t trust that.
But when you tell the real story. When you show up and just be there in the full messy way that life is…we believe that, and we begin to trust you.
And that’s valuable currency to build your business. It gets you followers, supporters and clients. It’s how you make money in your business. It’s how the opportunities to get your great work out into the world start to show up.
You need to show up first.
So go on. Take off the mask, get out of your costume. It’s not so scary out there. And it’s so worth it. You are so worth it.
Share your favorite costume experience here!
Image credit: kynan tait
