Let Your Flaws Shine
They might just be part of what makes you captivating
Have you ever considered that maybe your perceived weaknesses or flaws are actually the things that make you special and unique?
What if those very traits are not things to fix, but are the keys to us standing out and growing our audience and influence.
Instead of hiding the aspects of ourselves that make others uncomfortable, why not lean into them and let them shine.
Story Time
I had a client. Let’s call her Jane. By all accounts, Jane was a successful professional with a bright future. Jane would best be described as fun and light-hearted.
There was a point in Jane’s life where she decided she wanted to become a leadership coach for executives of financial firms. This was something she wanted to do for a while.
She felt she was ready to make the move. She had all that it took, except the right personality.
When I questioned her about what she felt was the ‘right personality’ she said that she had been looking at other coaches in the space and she found that they were all very direct and serious while she was so light-hearted and easy-going.
So she determined that in order to be successful, she had to try to be sterner in her interactions. She tried to mimic the other coaches. How they spoke, How they interacted, how they coached.
She didn’t like how it felt. She felt uncomfortable and very in-authentic. But this was how people in her field got successful right? All traditional advice says you should emulate the traits of those you would like to become.
That was what she was doing. But it didn’t feel right.
What If You Flip It?
My question to her was “What if you stopped looking at yourself as having a character flaw or deficiency? What if you stopped looking at your character traits as something that needed changing? What if instead, you lean into it? Go all-in on it?”
The things that make you different from everyone else in your space, are often the things that a certain set of people really need.
There will be a group of people who might even represent the majority, who want particular things from a particular role, but I guarantee you, that there are those who are looking for something different.
There will be those that have tried ‘the typical’ and found them lacking. They may not know exactly what they want, but when they encounter you with your ‘non-typical’ traits, it feels perfect — for them.
You Can Only Be Yourself
Jane, despite her previous success, was never able to find similar success in her new role as a coach. No matter how hard she tried.
She was only able to attract a few clients and many of them left soon after starting to work with her.
Making content was difficult as she had to make an effort to not be herself, but even though she was mimicking others who’s content was successful, her’s clearly was not. Few people watched her videos and there was very little engagement.
When we looked back on her past successes however, we found that one of the things that made her successful was her ability to be light-hearted and funny. The very same trait she was trying to mute in order to go forward, was at the heart of her previous success.
When she was herself, she was successful, but when she tried to be someone else, it was a failure.
The Problem With Acting Like Someone Else
The effort you put into trying to act like someone else is taking away from the effort you would otherwise be putting into being great at what you do.
Acting like someone else is a lot of work and will be a major distraction for you. Remember, you’re just acting, not actually being.
You second guess your every move. You try to make decisions that fit into a frame that you simply know little about and end up making bad ones.
People usually have an uncanny ability to smell a fake. They rarely know what exactly is fake about them, but they can tell. And it’s a turn-off.
Now don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with improving yourself by changing bad habits or traits that don’t serve you. The problem is two-fold:
- We must first identify if the trait can be or is serving our goals
- We must adopt new traits slowly. Find an authentic place for them. This takes time. Anything else is just acting.
Our Desire To Be Average
Despite our protest to the contrary, many of us simply feel really comfortable being average.
From an ancient human perspective, being average is being safe. Being average is about fitting in and so we have a deeply engraved need to be and remain part of a group.
For our prehistoric ancestors, being part of a group was essential to their survival. And being part of a group meant being like everyone else because if you weren’t, you might get kicked out of the group. Then die.
Even today, that need to be part of a group remains part of our survival instinct so we subconsciously try to mute the things that make us stand out so no one notices and kicks us out of the group.
Group traits are usually amplified in the leaders of the group and we think that if we want to be among the leaders, we have to also embody the traits the group as agreed on as being worthy.
But having some traits or characteristics that are different from the group isn’t a bad thing. Especially in the modern era.
Two things can happen.
- Either you lean into the things that make you different, deliver uncommon value and the rest of the group starts to see these characteristics as acceptable and necessary.
- If they don’t accept it, you move on and start your own tribe. Humans are by no means monolithic in the characteristics they find appealing or useful in any given situation. You can always find people who are looking for you, no matter how off-center your characteristics may be. Just look at Reddit.
What You See As Flaw are Just Differences.
One of the most important things Personal Brands need to grow an audience is to be able to captivate people’s attention. But to captivate, you have to differentiate.
When you think about your personal brand and how you show up in the world and how you communicate who you are and how you do your job and how you work with your clients how you connect at networking events how you speak to people, so often we look at ourselves and fixate on a characteristic that makes us different from everyone else and we see it as a flaw.
But we should be looking at it as something that makes us captivating.
In Conclusion
Remember, the certain aspects of your character or your approach that you may consider as flaws, maybe they are things that other people admire about you. Maybe they’re the missing piece that other people need in order to reach their goals and so by you muting it and taking it away you’re taking away the opportunity for people to have and get what they need through you.
It’s not always comfortable. It’s not always going to feel good to be 100% yourself, especially if you have a trait that goes against the norm.
It may not feel good at the moment, but if you stick with it, and amplify it, it will act as a beacon and attract those who see value in it.
If you’re interested in my perspectives, — You, Me, Them is my email series reserved strictly for entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial-minded and creatives looking to captivate their audience’s attention, clarify their brand and stand out from the crowd.
