Last week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Tony Nash, CEO, Booktopia for his podcast, Plugged & Unplanned. It was fabulous to chat about all things contribution, connection, legacy, and how to unlock our own superpowers. At the end of our time together, Tony wrapped up the conversation talking to the contagion of brilliance and invited listeners to ‘Start a brilliance pandemic’.
What a call to action! I’ll be honest – I got goosebumps.
Can you imagine the possibilities?
Imagine if you could be 1% better tomorrow than you are today. Imagine if you could unlock more of your own brilliance. What could the outcome be for you, your families, your teams, your organisations, the wider community?
In this world of change, the only thing we can control right now, the only constant we have, is ourselves and I think we all have to get better at being ourselves. The critical questions we need to be asking ourselves are:
Who are you?
Who are you being?
Who do you want to become?
There is no doubt that we are living in a world of crazy disruption. A world that is changing at a speed of knots every day, hour, and second. A world where actually we don’t have all the answers (maybe we never did) , because we’ve never been here before, nor do we have the exact evidence of the results of the decisions we are making – it’s all new territory. Yep, we are all living and leading in a world of adaptive challenge that is demanding curiosity, connectedness, inspiration, and intuition. A world that is demanding more of you.
I wonder what you could achieve if you were to remove the shackles that you may be placing on yourself right now?
I wonder what more you would be willing to do if you knew that you had all the skill and capability that you need to contribute more, to influence more, to be more?
I wonder what possibilities could be unlocked if you were to believe in yourself more? If you were to unleash more of your brilliance to the world?
Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, talks to this concept in his book Shoe dog. He writes about what sparked his success at selling. After being unable to sell encyclopedias because he hated it, and feeling empty inside when selling mutual funds, he started selling shoes and realised he enjoyed it because ‘it wasn’t selling’: he believed in running and believed these were the best shoes to run in and that the ‘world would be a better place’ if people ran every day. He added, ‘People, sensing my belief, wanted some of that belief for themselves. Belief, I decided. Belief is irresistible’.
In this new world we’re all learning to live in—what choice do we really have but to become the best version of ourselves that we can become?
If we can own our self-belief and who we are, if we can get out of our way and bring the best of ourselves to our life and our work, then maybe, just maybe, we’ll start feeling back in control and make the impact we want to make and the impact we’re all absolutely capable of making
As individuals, leaders, teams, and businesses all wanting to do better, be better, become better, we need to be the brilliant selves we can be.
I’m up for Tony Nash’s call to action – are you?
Until next week
