“Why do you keep writing about your failed love life and all those other bad things on social media 💔?” said my friend as we were watching a game of football together.
“It makes you come across as a loser; you would never catch me sharing that much 🙂↔️”
On the one hand, part of me understands exactly where he is coming from (and believe me, I’ve received far more brutal feedback from others along the same lines 😳) but on the other hand: Screw that! I’m going to be ME, not be someone else 🙌.
In fact, since I decided at the start of the year to share my goals and progress on them publicly on social media 🎯, the reactions I’ve received have been absolutely fascinating 😊; I’ve had:
And so much more.
It’s not just writing about my dating life that seems to get so much reaction 💕; it’s also my updates about my ongoing efforts to buy an apartment 🏡, my efforts to lower my 10k running time 🏃🏻 , my drive to read more books 📚 , my desire to visit at least one new place this year 🌏 and so on.
In fact, take each of my current 9 goals and you’ll find that I have written extensively about them ✍️.
This isn’t a new phenomenon; since I started my business 5 years ago I’ve found that sharing the journey and talking more openly about the things I am doing (whether they lead to success or not) has been of massive benefit — it’s just that in the last year I’ve pushed myself to share more things and be more open.
Why do I share so much about all these things?
A lot of the reasoning is to make it more likely that I will achieve my goals through increased:
Just as importantly though are two aspects that have really pushed me to share more this year in particular; they are:
What’s with the desire to open up more?
As the years roll by, I have identified that a key blocker ❌ to my own success in so many dimensions of life is my tendency to remain emotionally closed with people 🤐.
Partly a defensive mechanism, partly a fear of being vulnerable, it has led me to remain guarded which in turn has hindered romantic, social and business Relationships 😔.
I am a firm believer that as a founder, in the early days of your business, your own bad behaviours and limiting beliefs will be the cap on the company’s success and Growth 🔒. If I don’t tackle this then it will impact my business 🙄. Does this resonate with you?
More importantly it will stifle any relationship I try to cultivate so I need to address it 🫡.
Being a person who has a mantra of: “Run towards the wrecking ball”, sharing more stories about things like my business successes and failures and my romantic highs and lows is a key part to getting me to be more comfortable with being Vulnerable 😢.
Hand-in-hand with Vulnerability comes Agency?
I have always been of the belief that, to go beyond your starting point in life, things don’t just happen, you need to make your own luck 🍀.
Since starting my own business this has been something that has been consistently reinforced.
I’ve seen lots of great technical practitioners (be they coaches, consultants, lawyers, engineers, etc) and small business with great ideas shut down because they couldn’t bring in enough work.
In many cases they became too complacent that their quality would bring the work in but it rarely works like that in my experience.
Instead, I’m inspired to “make things happen all the time” which (alongside enjoying it) is a key reason why I’m happy to send lots of voice notes to old acquaintances 📢, why I post on LinkedIn so much 📱, why I have written so many blogs 📝, why I attend copious amounts of networking events 👥, why I record a lot of podcasts 🎙️ and why I agree to have a ridiculous amount of coffee meetings every week ☕. [check out this article to get an idea of the full extent of things I do each week to build my business]
In a similar way it’s why I constantly throw myself into the world of dating, always explore new hobbies and challenges and push myself to see what I’m capable of.
I’m amazed at how many people I talk to who tell me that fate ✨ will determine if they get a new job, or that their quest for love hinges upon serendipity, or that their dream move will happen if it happens.
Even worse, to me are the people that have given up on so many of their goals ☹️.
If that’s good enough for them so be it but I can hand on heart say that it’s not good enough for me.
How does this apply to you?
So, if writing about my failed dating attempts portrays me as a loser to some people then good; those are probably not my people 🖐️.
In the same way that I don’t get a response to every voice note I send and how Shiageto Consulting doesn’t win every proposal that we send; you simply can’t please everyone.
I’d much rather have those along for the ride who want to be there.
I know it sounds scary to do this but how about giving it a go? Pick something new that you want to try out (it could be posting more regularly on social media, learning a language, asking for a small pay rise, etc) and write some posts about it, try some new stuff around it and then watch and see what happens.
I assure you the fear soon subsides and good stuff will come of it. If you want inspiration just follow my lead and tag me, I will give it some support.
Genuinely: What’s the worst that can happen????
As for me and my approach, at the very least I promise an interesting read each week; thanks for being here for the journey😊
Here’s to more Vulnerability and more Agency all round 🙌
Faris
Faris is the CEO and Founder of Shiageto Consulting, an innovative consultancy that helps firms and individuals sharpen their effectiveness. Connect with him here
Success = IQ x EQ x FQ
Originally Published on https://farisaranki.medium.com/
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