John Legend is known for a lot of things.
And now, as an unwitting motivational speaker.
’Cause all of me
Loves all of you
Love your curves and all your edges
All your perfect imperfections
Give your all to me
I’ll give my all to you
You’re my end and my beginning
Even when I lose, I’m winning
’Cause I give you all of me
And you give me all of you, oh-oh
That’s the chorus from All Of Me.
And an important reminder of what the world needs from us, every day of our lives.
Every day we check ourselves to make sure we fit in. Which is like buying a really expensive bottle of wine, and tipping most of it down the sink.
What a waste.
Since when did anyone stand out by fitting in?
And yet it’s precisely our perfect imperfections that distinguish us from the bland, the sterile, the uninteresting, and the just so.
When people trot out that vintage adage about ‘what will you regret on your deathbed’, they regale us with such examples as ‘not having visited Trinidad’, or ‘not having cosied up to Wim Hof in an ice plunge’.
None of that experiential bullshit matters a jot to me. They are placeholders for what really matters. Spending every second of every day being true to your authentic self.
Myself and the adorable OH talk a lot about the connection and expression flywheel. That only when you find yourself, and nurture her/him, you radiate love and joy in which others can bathe and rejoice.
How can you possibly sense that joy, contentment, and confidence, unless you’re you? That unvarnished, unedited, unalloyed, magnificent you.
I do a ton of coaching on a platform called ADPList. It’s traditionally been used by mentees to level up on their technical capabilities — product, design, dry stuff like that.
But in their infinite wisdom, Felix Lee and the crew recently introduced a way people could develop soft skills. While I don’t necessarily enjoy the phrase, I celebrate its importance.
The more AI pervades our dailies, the more we need to distinguish ourselves from what the algorithm spawns. Not that AI isn’t a godsend (or, for that matter, a silicon demigod); but it doesn’t replace the human touch, and it’s precisely these perfect imperfections that need to be proudly waved like flags.
Look at all your heroes. Are any of them conventional? Did Tina Fey destroy her comedy competition by blending in? Did Matt McConnaughey gain notoriety by being just like everyone else? Nelson Mandela? Usain Bolt? Ludovico Einaudi?
In times gone by, it’s served us to be drones. To comply with every request, wear uniforms that show we’re owned and tamed, and create a dull, lifeless equilibrium so everyone gets exactly what they expect and nothing more.
But we now live in different times. Where black swans aren’t unexpected. Where, sometimes, the only way to progress is to make a beautiful mess.
There are too many challenges on our plate for us to be someone else’s version of us. Innovation doesn’t happen when you’re doing what you always did.
It takes a very special kind of person to be joyfully subdued. I would speculate that they only exist in propaganda and other works of fiction.
Change. It’s time. Take back control of the you. Rejoice in your perfect imperfections. Be human.
What about being judged?
Those who love you, love you for you. Those who don’t, really don’t matter.
We bristle when judged. That’s the nature of the human condition.
And here’s a mic drop. I don’t think we can ever move away from that dulling sensation of being judged.
But what we can do, by working it like a muscle, every day — is choose who we allow to judge us.
It’s those people in our orbit who matter; those we respect, appreciate, and admire, and who feel the same about us; who are deserving of the right to provide us with the support we need to grow. They have been given the licence to nurture us, since they can be trusted with their feedback to embrace us and our situation from a position of compassion.
This is a filter worth fostering.
Be more you
There’s that apocryphal phrase about being you, because everyone else is taken.
It always makes me smile. Is the reminder I need, when I slip into drone Dave.
The road is littered with cautionary tales of those living subdued alter egos. Because when the mask slips, no one is more surprised than the wearer. And you regain consciousness at the least expected moment, which often causes problems when others recognise your inauthenticity.
Much better to put your mask in the bin. Remember the goodness and delight in being your real self. And remembering to cherish, adore, and embrace that authentic you, every day, for the rest of your life.
