I Failed You. And That’s a Good Thing.

That failure led to something revelatory. A realization and truth that I wouldn’t have otherwise known…

I thought I could simply inspire you to unleash your superpowers by showing you the way. By flooding your social media feeds with powerful, positive content. By getting you to shift your perspective and believe in yourself a little more than you did before.

But in doing all of that for the past half-decade, I left out the one thing that arguably matters most: I failed to share my stories with you. I failed at letting you in. I failed at expressing my own insecurities and struggles, and tying them into the topics I coach today.

I just showed up on this mountain cliff (not the mountain top) one day trying to give you a hand so that we could climb the rest of the way together. But I never showed you how I got there. I didn’t fully empathize with you. And since you don’t know my story, you can’t really relate with me. There’s a dissonance. And it’s my own damn fault.

To be fair, I left my story out of the picture because I didn’t want to make it about me. My goal was to keep the focus on the business of you. On serving you. On fulfilling yourpotential. I naively assumed that my story was the least interesting part of who I am today. I didn’t think it mattered who I was as much as where I’m headed. “It’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at!” was the motto. Clearly, I was wrong.

It didn’t dawn on me until just yesterday that there was a vital missing piece of the puzzle that I never considered. You didn’t have a way in. You could feel me, but you don’t really know me.

Today I understand that you want to know my story. You want to know how I did it. The things I overcame. How I took my own advice. How I got here. You want to be able to relate. You want to see the proof. What I learned. The things I tried that didn’t work. Because I am mostly an enigma to you. And how can you trust what you don’t quite understand?

From this moment on, I vow to show you just how much we have in common. We are all dealing with shit. Especially me. But to you, it looks as though I’m The Bulletproof Hustler with an impossible work ethic and a discipline that would make the Navy proud. Thing is, I didn’t wake up like this. This is years of putting in the hard yards. And it’s never over.

I’m sorry that I failed you. Sorry for leaving this whole other side of my story unbeknownst to many: my past. The things I’m not proud of… the mistakes I’ve made. The all of me. But embedded within this failure is a deep catharsis. It will bring me closer to you than ever before and our shared experiences will give you context for why building your own brand equity is paramount. I look forward to going down memory lane with you and bringing things full circle. Backward is the way forward.

This story was originally published on LinkedIn on February 18, 2019