A guest speaker at a function I was attending this past year reviewed my website and told me frankly, “You’d be an incredibly fascinating dinner guest.”
His comment made me feel seen and reminded me of how far I’ve come. As recently as 2019, I was a guest at a friend of my wife’s house who was celebrating receiving tenure as a college professor. The house was filled with academics. I was as quiet as a mouse. I nodded and listened as people talked about topics like their PhD dissertations, and discussion of academic fraud. Things I knew nothing about. I nodded along. I left that house party without anyone knowing anything about me, because I didn’t allow it to be seen.
In the years since I’ve come from a place of hiding from the world, of being in severe imposter crisis (I consider what I was experiencing beyond normal imposter syndrome), to finally telling my story, bit by bit. Exposing myself to the world. Claiming my story, and the power that comes with claiming it.
It started with the smallest of steps, simply updating the “Our Story” page on my webinar company I co-founded, to tell the story of 2 founders, instead of me simply not existing on that page. Then I wrote a bio for my own website which had been a blank page for years. Then I started writing weekly articles. Most of them are stories from my life, things I’ve learned, that I now share.
During this time I’ve also published 2 autobiographical books (one is my memoir, the other filled with my own stories fused with self-help).
To come from that place, to now being seen as a fascinating dinner guest told me I’ve actually succeeded in what my primary “work” has been – myself. Being able to powerfully tell my story. To allow myself to be seen as fascinating.
I’ve also learned how to “turn it on”. You might have experienced me this way. I can intentionally step into my own power. I also have the comfort in revealing when I am struggling, because I know that no matter who you are, we all struggle. There’s power in revealing that as well.
I know now, especially when faced with someone who is everything I’m not (whether through their business success, education, impact, profile), that precisely because they are everything I’m not, that that is also true in reverse. I can be their secret weapon – by being everything they’re not. If I simply choose to view it that way, and then by stepping into my power and letting them see it that way as well.
One of the unexpected side effects of this work on myself, is that I see it in others. Just as I hid from the world, and didn’t see my accomplishments as that, and allowed myself to be small in front of others, I now know the truth:
You are deserving of your own memoir. Your story is that powerful, if you allow yourself to tell it.
You’ve lived an incredibly fascinating life, faced your challenges and demons, and now have the scars to show for it. And you are still here. That makes you a survivor. Every survivor should tell their story.
What is yours?
