Everyone always talks about being “off the mark” but what about being “on the mark?”
Here is how I know when I am on the mark.
I finally don't give a rat's ass about someone’s well-meaning suggestion. The key word here is finally.
The truth is, I have danced in the intentions of others, and wore their suggested persona several times in a repeated pattern (that often involves my career) before I go, “Wait a minute.” I come to this astounding conclusion I am executing a life path others think I should have in a hot, flustered and irritated state of mind with a grip hold on the corn chips I am manically eating. I shake my head in disbelief. I said I wouldn’t do this two times before. How did I get here again? Then I know. This is the last time.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Taking THAT ambition off the to-do list.
How do you know when you finally can stop doing what people suggest is best for you and never get sucked in again? You simply are just done, and you know it in two hours. You will see from my journey below how this went from a victory, to a cost to a two hour window of closing the damn door. Usually, we circle back to the same objectives because we are in a place of nothingness (which means the Universe is cooking up goodness) and we feel radically uncomfortable or unproductive. How can I possibly do nothing today? Wait! I’ll try the same mission that I hated the last two times when I proclaimed I would never do this again! Here is the good news, when you are on the mark, done is done. You can finally celebrate only wasting one day making a misstep and that is surely something to celebrate. Stick to it, though, or you have another bad day in your future when you realize this is the seventh time you have made the bad choice. I know taking risks in your career and in life doesn’t always feel good but correction… it feels bad good. When a life direction just feels bad then it is bad and you have to stop. One day is not a lot to lose trying to float a new life angle, but if you realize you floated this angle before and it equally made you angry, then you better stop going down this path.
Cut to my ping pong attempts at paid speaking gigs. I said 8 months ago I was no longer interested in trying to be a paid speaker. Fast forward to now and a client of mine is slaying it in this space. She is getting paid and on Forbes stages and I love that she is in the spotlight she deserves. So I saw an opportunity (forgetting I said no to this career path) and asked her to connect me with her speaking agent, which she lovingly did. The agent suggested I check out this other speaker who is in the storytelling space like me so I could mold my speaking career in a similar direction. By the time I was done looking at this woman’s videos speaking in front of throngs of adoring people at massive conferences in her perfect shoes and almost doppelgänger Reese Witherspoon look, I wanted to just curl up on my bed with my chipped nail polish and my loser insecurities. I think I even referenced myself as a “work loser” (whatever that means) by text to the guy I am dating which is a red flag to self that I am not in a good “I love me” space AT ALL.
After watching videos of speakers and logging in my calendar speaker entry form deadlines, I saw the pattern that brought me here, feeling less than, soggy and downtrodden. Before the pandemic, I was informed I had wasted my great win on a stage in 2017, and I should speak on more stages. Paranoid I was yet again perpetuating a pattern of winning and quitting, I took the task on hard core and hired a virtual assistant from the Philipinnes to help me make a list of speaking gigs I could apply to. I realized when I got the spread sheet of research that he didn’t know the US map as he had me applying for gigs in Georgia for lunch. He also didn’t understand some groups had a certain criteria I simply did not meet. I eventually moved on from him (he made a nice list but I needed someone on the ground here to help me apply) and found myself invited to speak at a conference in Southern Oregon. The rub was, I would need to pay for the airfare, taxi and hotel all to get to speak in front of 250 women with another 100 virtually. I thought, what the hell, I have an inspiring speech about the importance of storytelling and I may land a client, I will go.
Not only was it a dud but they never got the footage they promised to the speakers so it was like I didn’t speak at all. And that was my only gig in the whole pandemic. I did it thinking I would get the footage and I got shit. I wasn’t super pissed about it because I said, I am not going to apply to speak anymore. Then here I am again, less than 8 months later, down in the dumps trying to be a speaker.
I am not particularly passionate about this aspect of my vocation. I would rather buy apartment units in South Carolina. Fly me there to see a building and I would be super stoked. Teach me how to pull equity out of one of my homes, so I can make more money and I would be jazzed. But speaking on stage…that ship may have passed. I am a good storyteller, but I am more like a spontaneous “vomit it out” kind of person. Like the little Irish guy in the bar who wanders over to tell you a great story and then sleeps with the sheep at night. Okay, I am not sleeping with sheep, but I also don’t want to round the story out with take aways or audience participation or “raise your hand if you feel me” language. I have a friend Tricia who has been training to be a speaker, and I was on the stage with her recently and she looked great, and had the whole pump up the crowd vibe going. I, on the other hand, had papers strewn on the stage and did little to no segue ways with the crowd except for “Okay now, let’s see, where was I.”
The truth is, I don’t want to package myself, and bring the listener into any kind of lesson or sale or walk away moment beside the story itself. I want to tell my story, complete with detail and drama, and then I want to cocoon and listen to the breeze blow through the azaleas.
A philosophy that doesn’t motivate one when looking to headline conferences.
So I decided I was done and I felt a huge internal and spiritual exhale, and then I heard a voice within that informed me I would be on a stage when it was my time in my Zone of Genius. I don’t know where this Zone of Genius idea came from, probably something I absorbed in late night IG reels scrolling between my cute sheep feed (hence the sheep references in this post) and Ben Affleck and J Lo’s relationship time line (important stuff.) I understood just because people make suggestions or connect me, or tell me I can make $30k on the stage, that doesn’t mean I should do it especially if all roads seem to be pointing to resistance. I was once in college offered money to strip with my friend Ariel but did we do it? No. Our Zone of Genius was getting free drinks. It had just landed us in a strip club in the back room with the owner. That was where the Zone of Genius ended.
That was an oversharing side bar.
The truth is, if I have a message to share that is connected to why I get out of bed everyday, I can speak on that stage with no fear. I will put on the eyelashes and buy the dress and smile my pearly whites. But if I need to go do a dance to make sales, or money, or prove to you how amazing I am, I can’t do it. Plus, deep dives showed that there are a lot of hustlers out there making money on all the people who think speaking on the stage is their financial ticket to retirement, and I honestly think that happens for very few people.
Life is getting shorter and shorter by the minute. Take your own internal direction, even if you think it feels radical or unique. It beats someone else telling you how to beat your drum.