I hid in the bathroom (how to captivate)

As you may know I just recently submitted my new book manuscript for review. I’m now preparing to busily work on the edits. What fun!

In the book I share the story of my very first networking event I attended. Well, I use the word attended lightly as it went more like me peering down the hall at the meeting, getting nervous and ducking into the bathroom until I could compose myself enough to leave.

I share this today to create an image of the me who started my business. I was anything but captivating. I was shaking in my shoes. I was about to embark on something where I didn’t know the rules.

I’d surpassed all kinds of mental barriers to that point, from going to college when my parents hadn’t, to a Fortune 20 corporate job, and even leaving that cushy job. I was used to breaking rules.

Yet somehow I seemed to always first KNOW the rules in these areas. I knew how to read my teachers and study the right materials to get good grades. I knew how to figure out what my boss wanted me to do and do it really well.

I was a Grade A people pleaser. Given the right structure I could excel.

And then there was entrepreneurship. The game with no rules. In fact often the fewer rules someone knows the faster they will succeed, would you agree?

So what’s a rule-knowing people-pleaser to do this is scenario. After emerging from the rest room of course.

Well I needed to change everything. Most everything. Well I needed to change one thing specifically that changed everything.

This leads me to our seventh Captivation Factor, which was by far my harshest learning curve.

Captivation Factor #7: I am willing to talk with people about things they may not want to talk about to serve the highest good.

I learned this from a paper written by Albert Gray, which was given to me by my first mentor. It was called “The Common Denominator of Success.”

In the Common Denominator of Success, Gray walks us through the difference between ‘successes’ and ‘failures.’ Based on his study there was one difference.

First, he established that successful people were willing to do things failures wouldn’t because they had a PURPOSE that was greater than their FEAR.

Oh, but that’s not the common denominator. He gets more specific. What were they afraid of? The thing that all business owners (he worked specifically with insurance salesmen but it applies everywhere) were most afraid of was this: talking with people about things they may not want to talk about.

The common denominator of success then was being willing to talk with people about things they may not want to talk about.

I have absolutely found this to be true, and it is included in our top ten traits of a captivating business owner because here’s the Truth. If you will ‘go there’ to talk about things that others won’t, you are automatically more interesting. People will become curious about how you could help THEM see their own Truth when they recognize that you are not playing by the same ‘rules’ they are/ the same ‘rules’ society lives by.

For example, have you ever noticed how being ‘polite’ can often times lead you to bite your tongue and not say the things you really mean? We have the unspoken rule of, “You don’t call me on my shit and I won’t call you on yours.” It’s one of the reason most of us stay in our old limiting stories and behavior patterns for so long.

If, in a sales conversation for example, when a potential client starts to tell you their whole background story about how they got to where they are, and you graciously but firmly intrude by letting them know, “I don’t need to know your story of why you are where you are, what I want to know is what you want,” for example… you stand out. Because 99% of the people on the planet will listen to their story and try to help them solve their problem from where they already are. And now two people are in the problem. Sharing your Truth directly, whether you think they will like it or not, allows them to instead entrain to YOUR energy (the energy that trusts that all will unfold perfectly even if that person is offended). This is where real transformation can take place.

Now back to me, starting my business and entering that “Positive Connections” networking event for the first time. (I did eventually go back but the first time I truly did only see the bathroom).

As I mentioned, I was a great people pleaser. While I’d taken coach training several programs over the years, and I had become much more aware of each person’s responsibility for their own responses to life, I still wanted people to like me. To be more specific I wanted everyone to like me.

And wanting everyone to like you is a surefire recipe for hiding in the bathroom. It also makes it hard to succeed in business. Especially when that success is dependent upon talking to people about things they may not want to talk about. Helping them see the Truth that is actually going to serve them in changing their life.

We have to be willing to ‘go there.’

Today I thrive on what I know to be a service in the world, which is asking people questions that cause them to reflect on what’s so without avoiding it. Because our world will expand in proportion to the Truth we are willing to see about ourselves without shying away.

Yet if I’m honest with you (which I like to be 🙂 ), I still would much prefer everyone like me. I can still feel a little sick in the pit of my stomach at the thought of causing someone discomfort. It gets easier. I get more and more grounded in Spiritual Truth, knowing there’s no growth without expanding our comfort zones.

One of the reasons my clients hire me is because they know that I’m someone who is willing to ‘go there’ with them. That they can’t bullshit me into living in their story, and that I am completely comfortable with any degree of discomfort they may experience as they see their own Truth. (And others have held this space for me as well).

Our Truth will truly set us free. And this Captivation Factor can bring Truth like no other.

If for some reason you mistake this concept for coaching people who don’t want it, or saying things to make people uncomfortable without compassion or intention, see Captivation Factor #2. (Published August 25th).

What’s your experience with talking with people about things they may not want to talk about? Are you willing to “go there?” Please share!