When Their way is the Right way

I’ve always wanted to speak on a TEDx stage.  The desire has been rooted in my heart for so long that I can’t actually identify the moment that the seed was planted in my brain.  But for many years now I’ve envisioned myself, standing on that bold red dot, sharing a big idea with the world.

 

And, from that single red dot, I’ve watched the idea spread round the world and create change.

 

It’s so real to me that doing it has felt inevitable.

 

I’ve never allowed the fact that I wasn’t really sure what the idea was or what it would be keep me from dreaming about it, from knowing it would happen, from seeing myself doing it. 

 

I’ve just always known I would.

 

And, this year, I knew I would take things “always wanting” to do to actually doing it.

 

I knew I would take the plunge, or rather the steps, towards the TEDx stage because, in writing my book, The Tenacious Pursuit of Peace: where to go when success is not enough, my ideas and the topic I would share started to go from less than a hazy cloud, to a clearly defined array of powerful concepts.

 

As soon as my manuscript went to the publisher, I hired a professional firm, ThoughtLeader to help me with my talk.  

 

They have a highly curated (and highly successful) process for their clients to go from ideation to application to talk creation to stage.

 

When you consider yourself an expert in your field – as I do – it can be hard to conform to someone else’s way of working through your content.  And I’ll admit that I struggled to embrace their way.  I’ve been successful for decades doing it my way and I’ve given hundreds of talks already, so I didn’t think I needed to start from the beginning.

 

I tried to short cut the process, to skip steps.

 

And it didn’t work.

 

I was frustrated and wanted to put my frustration on them, but I knew that they weren’t the cause.  I was the cause.  I was frustrating myself by not being coachable.

 

So, I took a pause for a couple of weeks, gathered my willingness, and then dove into the process.  I started from the very first part of step one and committed myself to doing their whole process, step by step from beginning to end.  No shortcuts.

 

And the reward has been so rich.  I’ve had breakthroughs and insights that were totally unexpected and I couldn’t be happier with the outcome!!

 

Today marks the day when my talk goes from an internal document that I’ve been working on to something I’m sharing with actual organizers.  My willingness has yielded something amazing and I’m one step closer to making my dream my reality.

 

How about you?

 

Where in your life are you resisting the process that’s actually going to give you all that you need and more?