I have been guilty of using humor and apologies to glaze over fear & insecurity. If I pick on myself with witty one liners, no one can laugh at me - they’ll be laughing at my one liner. The apologies have been used when insecurity about an idea or concept surfaces and it goes like this, “so sorry that this may not be a great idea…” or “let me apologize in advance that I’m…”. I think you get the idea and I believe most of us have done this before, right?
I find it common for our insecurities or fears to provoke all sorts of time wasting thoughts in our head. I was in a recent discussion about my latest web-redesign with the CEO of a Detroit based digital company, Whim-Detroit, and I received some powerful insight on the topic.
Lori McColl is brave and powerful. She is building her business from the ground up and the work she has completed in support of Paperclip Thinking LLC (www.paperclipthinking.com) has been amazing. We were talking about the fear and insecurity that can rear up when you are starting something new and she looked at me and said, “the fear or insecurity we all face when we embark on a new journey, isn’t “glazed” over when you’re self-deprecating or inauthentically apologizing, the fear seems magnified to the people you’re talking to, so I stopped doing that!”
Her quote inspired me to think about the ways I work to prevent that fear and insecurity from getting too loud in my head and triggering that “let’s joke or apologize” button, so for anyone who has experienced this, here are a few ideas that may support you in approaching these situations differently:
de- “label” - innovation and creativity are rooted in idea generation. I don’t subscribe to “good” ideas or “bad” ideas, they are simply ideas. Some will add value and some might not and that is a beautiful thing. I invite you to keep the ideas flowing and when you take the labels away, idea generation becomes less fearful and those amazing ideas are ready to share.
agendas - I have been guilty of beating around the bush and then losing my idea and confusing the hell out of the person who is talking with me. I’m working, diligently, to create agenda points for my crucial conversations, so when I’m on the phone I remain on point and this mini-agenda process has afforded me the ability to be more crisp and succinct and that has eliminated the fear and insecurity from my discussions.
Enjoy your week and thanks for reading!.