The less I try to impress, the more impressive I am. It works the other way round too.
There have been times in my life when I went out of my way to be something special. I wanted people to appreciate me more. Sometimes it even worked. I got the applause. I had people telling me what a great guy I was.
And it left me uncomfortable with myself, because the person they’d got to know wasn’t who I am at my core.
I owned up to it on the podcast with Nigel Risner back in 2019. “There was a big chunk of my life where I walked around with a mask on trying to be who I thought I needed to be to impress you.” You can hear the whole conversation in The One About Having a Vision.
Ralph Waldo Emerson saw why this is so hard. In his 1841 essay Self-Reliance he wrote:
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance, in Essays: First Series
On your own, keeping your own view is easy. So is going along with everybody when you’re with them. Emerson’s test is the bit in between. Can you hold on to what you think in the middle of the crowd, and stay calm and kind while you do it?
Two needs pulling in opposite directions
We all have two needs that pull against each other, often at the same time. You need to stand out: to feel significant and know you make a difference. You also need to fit in, with love, connection and belonging.
It’s the second one that catches you out. The pull to belong can be strong enough to make you drop your own opinions. Your values too, and even your standards, just to fit in with the people around you. You nod along in a meeting to a plan you’d have questioned on your own.
Once I saw that in myself, it changed the way I show up. It changed the way I walk into a room, the way I join a conversation, and sometimes the way I choose to leave one.
Five authors, one opinion of my own
It even changed the way I read. When a subject grabs me, I find four or five authors writing about it and get through them one after another. I say get through because most of the time I’m listening on Audible rather than reading.
Hearing several people on the same topic does a few things for me. I see the common threads, so I get a feel for the accepted opinion. I spot the outliers, the one idea a single author has that nobody else mentions. Above all, I come out of it with an opinion that’s mine instead of one I’ve borrowed.
That’s the same muscle Emerson was talking about. You can listen to the whole room and still make up your own mind.
Have you ever said something for effect, to shock people or get a laugh, and it didn’t land? Usually that happens when you’re saying it to please or impress the room. The real you wouldn’t have said it at all. If you’ve had one of those moments, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
