Thanks to the creativity and gumption of Linda Vos and Mike Rice, my website is coming back together bit by bit, new and improved in a form that Linda referred to, when she showed me the new home page design, as bold.
“Like you,” she said to me.
Bold. It’s a word and a concept that I’ve thought about more than you might imagine over the years. What are people saying when they describe me as bold, I’ve wondered. Do I live up to that descriptor? I’ve double-dog dared myself to be more bold and I’ve wondered if trying to be bold is a trap.
Last week, I had an opportunity to test a theory about boldness when I had coffee with the fabulous Caitlyn Scaggs of Blue Mobius Marketing.
I see Caitlyn as bold, much more so than myself. I wanted to ask her: When I and others describe her as bold, is she doing things that feel bold or is she simply doing what feels to her like the next obvious thing?
Her answer? The next obvious thing.
Imagine me doing an evil finger pyramid while staring out over my domain through a panoramic window. Or, you know, that idea but less sinister.
Here’s what I’m thinking:
- When people say bold, it’s a shorthand for some combination of courage, confidence, and outside of the norm in some way. (Caitlyn’s ventures outside of the norm look a bit different than mine and yet I can assure you, her ideas about marketing and business development are extraordinary, certainly nothing as boring as normal…)
- The internal experience of those described as bold is a Courage/Confidence Cycle. It’s as though the place where discomfort and excitement are hanging out together is a gym purpose-built for exercising the muscle that is confidence, with an outcome of being able to more easily deadlift the Next Obvious Thing, whatever that may be.
- Sometimes, the Next Obvious Thing is easy-peasy after all of those reps of Courage, and sometimes, the Next Obvious Thing is still scary. Either way, it feels obvious somehow.
Caitlyn told me a fun story that illustrates this very thing. She was using the auto-belay at Crimper’s Climbing Gym. If you haven’t used one of these, it’s a rope and harness system worn on a climbing wall; you fall and it catches you – you get to the top and you’re supposed to let go, lean back, and allow it to lower you down.
Caitlyn got to the top and felt a fear grip her that kept her gripping the holds. Now, I’ve been on that wall, too, and also have a fear of heights, so I’m going to estimate that the top is about 5,000 feet high. Or maybe 30. Somewhere in there. Point is, I know well that inner dialogue that says, “Just let go. You let go now. Now, it’s time to let go.” And the body isn’t obeying.
At some point, she did get her fingers to unclench and she sank back down to the floor. The Next Obvious Thing for that bold person?
Climb the wall again and again until she was able to let go on her own command. Naturally.
Over my years of coaching, I’ve created and offered a variety of programs both paid and gifts to my community, most recently a couple of free classes called New Year Resolution Reboot. Each time, I feel that stretch of discomfort and excitement, and often I feel some sense of what Brené Brown calls a vulnerability hangover as I Monday quarterback what I could have done better while often needing a little help to see what went wonderfully. And much like a booze hangover leads to a day of getting nothing done, I’ve often waited out these vulnerability hangovers without offering more programs in the meantime.
This time, though, my Next Obvious Thing is to work through the hangover. For the rest of the year, I’m offering at least one program a month, 90% of which are free, 100% of which are aimed at inviting you to play in this space of the Courage/Confidence Cycle with me.
First up:
Visualizing and Mapping Your Baddest Life
Wednesday, April 11, 6-7:30pm
Little Green Hive, Grandin Road, Roanoke
When we have a clear picture of the badassery we want to create, those Next Obvious Steps become clearer. After all, it’s a far different set of steps to get to the moon than the Mariana Trench at the bottom of the ocean. Or becoming a civil rights attorney versus a full-time parent, for that matter.
This class will lead into my May 9th Come as You’ll Be Party where we’ll preview the lives we’re creating with as much flair, fun, and realism as we can muster.
(High fives to Jack Canfield for that rad party idea in his book, The Success Principles, and to my sweetheart, Theresa, for encouraging me to keep moving in the midst of my vulnerability hangover!)
Your Next Obvious Thing might be as simple as a phone call or as far-flung as buying round-the-world airfare. Whatever it is, I hope it will also include coming out to play!