It's not about me

I was watching Wynnona Judd on Larry King Live. One thing she said that hit me like a ton of bricks came from the question – ‘What have you learnt in your life that has meant the most?’

 

And she said almost instantaneously – ‘It’s not about me’.

 

And I think it makes perfect sense. We seem to be always running out there to catch our dreams, when we actually are finding our way home. The ironic paradox of life as I have always identified with and learnt to come to terms with. It’s in living that we die. It’s in loving that we hate. It’s in learning that we have confusion. It’s in caring that we are hurt. It’s in loyalty where we discover betrayal. It’s in the lies where we discover truth.

 

It appears that our life is an aggregation of things that other people have decided for us. Maybe you have to get a job. Maybe you need to be a top performer. Maybe you find yourself being steered towards being what society defines you to be.

 

But really, it’s not about you.

 

I’ve done a number of trainings and speaking engagements before and those trainings were never about me – they were always about how to get people to understand what I have to say, to have them connect with what they need to feel. And I feel that it is this ‘connection’ that makes any training special.

 

You know, you might think that being a motivational trainer is difficult. I think it is the easiest thing in the world when you learn to discover that the motivation doesn’t come from me – it comes from the ‘connection’ in the audience. That sometimes in life when times are going tough, it is the people around us that sustain us. That somewhere in our dreams and ambitions, it’s not about “I want to earn $15 million dollars so I can spend it”, but it’s about “I want $15 million dollars as my gift to the world”.

 

If you throw a tantrum, or get upset and angry and fearful and all the other kinds of negative stuff, don’t just throw it. Share it. I think we all deserve a chance to be human and feel what we need to feel, not from weakness, but from strength. If there is sharing, whatever that transpires creates new learnings for people around us, and builds the connectedness.

 

My best times in training were with those whom I connected with the most. The worst times were with those where I hardly had a connection with, or hardly could create a connection to. At the end of the day, I’ll sit back and wonder if there was anything else that I could have done. But this phrase makes perfect sense – it’s not about me. I’m not so important to have to imagine myself to be the one controlling or making the changes that will create a huge impact. I think the only thing that needs doing is feeling and connecting. With this connecting, we can peel away layer upon layer of superficiality and begin to get to the root of our soul… and set it free.