This Success Tip is specifically powerful for people who need to perform on demand whether it be racing or creating, presenting or meeting people.
It's about allowing the real you to step forwards.
Success Tip #2
Shine As The Real You!
I want you to start off by thinking of someone who you regard as a true champion, one of the best ever, an individual who changed the face of their industry and raised the bar for all those who competed against them.
Here are a few to help jog your memory....
In motorsport we had drivers like Fangio, Senna, Clark and Schumacher.
In business we see people like Branson, Buffett, Gates, Ford, Jobs and Wazniak.
In other sports, wow there are a lot but we had/have Jordan, Ali, Pele, Bolt, Messi, Williams and Federer.
Elsewhere we could use Teresa, Winfrey, Jackson, Einstein, Bruce Lee, Will Smith and Cruise as examples.
All of these people are champions of their chosen paths and brought a whole new standard for everyone else to rise to.
Question
What do you notice about all of these champions or of the champion that you had in mind?
Answer
There are obviously quite a few qualities that they possess but for this Success Tip I want to highlight just one – They realised the importance of truly being themselves.
They learnt early on that in order for them to race, act, react, sing, create, dance, deal and perform at their best then they must allow their mind to just flow, to act without double thinking and to let themselves go in the moment no matter what is going on outside.
This is something that I am seeing less of nowadays, in a world when we are consistently being told how to do things (like a driver learning from data) we are losing our natural flare, losing our individuality and worrying more about doing things correctly.
These are all things that will hold a person back from using their instincts and accessing all their learned skills when it matters.
Everything that is done at a high level is an art, it uses our subconscious and as competitors we must give ourselves over in order to use our mental flow. Then in the words of Senna "We can fly high".
All of these champions we just mentioned were all different from each other but they knew the importance and spent a lot of their time practicing this mental muscle whilst most other people fall for the usual trap by becoming stressed and dropping the ball when it most mattered.
I don't want you to miss that trick, I want you to be able to perform in your way, to be the real you when you are out there doing what you love and for you to get the most out of your mind.
You will only do this if you can fully express the real you and blast through any confinements that you have placed on yourself.
Reasons For Why You Do Not Let Go
You know the importance of being that inner child and being able to do what you are capable of but hardly any of you spend time training this side of your mind.
Yes you want to focus more, to perform under pressure, to have less distraction, etc. but still you make the same mistakes over and over again because you keep operating using a your old internal scratched record.
To fix this record or to replace it you must be 100% comfortable with being yourself, to kick the habit of double thinking your actions and to simply let go.
Here are some typical reasons why people struggle or lose confidence in themselves when performing:
1) They fear screwing up
2) They do not want to be negatively judged (linked to point No.1)
3) They do not want to lose what they have
These few fears and concerns that most people have are all they need if they want to fail.
If you have these creeping in and they cause you to tense up or lose focus then you will never have your name on that champions list, you may win the title, but you will never be a true champion. Mastery will always elude you.
A Huge Fear
Now that most of us don’t have to fight wild animals in order to eat and fend off other people to keep our family safe we have allocated a lot of that fear response to things like being unloved, or loss of respect in the eyes of our peers, this in turn has attached our fears to our activities.
These fears cause overthinking and fear of failure.
Well guess what?
You are going to screw up and you are going to be subject to other people’s bullshit opinions. Anyone who is actually doing something with their life has this as their daily reality.
You can handle it in many ways but at the end of the day you should never, NEVER, allow it to hamper the way you perform when you are doing what you love. if you want success then you must accept these 'qualities' as part of the journey, they are needed.
Yes these champions dislike being unfairly judged and messing up but they have to consistently focus on what is more important, they know that they have to give themselves over fully in order to get the most out of themselves, if they don’t then they will lose or fail anyway, that slowly changes the way they see things compared to most.
“If you are failing and creating a stir of opinions then you are doing something right, it means that you are not following the herd and you will soon figure it out, keep going.”
Enzo Mucci
Here are some quotes to bring home what I am saying here:
Wiz Khalifa
"The most daring thing is to be yourself and to do exactly what you want to do at that point in time and not to be worried with what other people are doing or what's popular"
Matt Damon
"It's just better to be yourself than to try to be some version of what you think the other person wants"
Bruce Lee
"Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it"
The 'In a Room Dilemma'
How many times have you wanted to change the way you act but as soon as you go back into your daily life you revert back to the old behaviour?
I see this all the time, for example I get a driver or a person who wants to lead their team, to be more dominant and be the person that can turn things around. They go into the room with everyone there as usual and for five minutes or so that driver will have a strong posture, will connect with people and start to walk their talk,
But they let it go, after some time they start to revert back to their former behaviour and once again they settle for just fitting in. They may get knocked by other people jesting them and before you know it that driver is once again invisible in the team and has chosen to hide their intension.
NO!!!
You must be yourself and let go of the thoughts that make your head bow down or that prevent you from being you.
You only have a short time on this spinning rock so live in a way that reflects the person you are on the inside, break the old habits of beating your desires down and allow the real you to shine through.
Your Goal
It's your goal to never let others or outside influences effect the way you operate, make it your golden rule that from now on you are going to be the real you, not just what others want you to be.
Obviously you still treat people with respect and remember your people skills but dedicate yourself to living a truthful life.
If you do this outside and inside then you will develop so much faster and will be able to perform without apprehension.
This is a skill that takes more than just a blog post to handle but I wanted to share this with you so you can start your own journey in this area.
Just watch some of the true champions that we mentioned and observe how they express themselves and do not hold back, you can virtually mind read these people due to the way they are so open. Will Smith is a great one for this, if he was to hide his true self then we wouldn't even know his name.
Senna was another one, he earned so much respect from everyone in the industry because he always did what he believed in, a quality that is rare now.
We are all individual, use that to your advantage because it’s all you have.
Enzo Mucci
Photos.
Main photo from Nick Fisher
Bruce Lee from Walter Lim
