We all have those moments. Whether it is a personal interaction, or you watch, read or see something. The thing just stops you and makes you have a look at yourself and ask what it is that you can do to be better. Maybe it means you need to stop being a jerk, but mostly it means that you become instantly aware of what has been lying underneath all along. Of course, there are many moments like this (and I have been warming up with my fair share of Brene Brown), but in THIS moment I come to where I actually am today and know powerfully where I might go.
That moment for me was from a Facebook post that Alok Appadurai wrote yesterday. My wife, Cate, sent it to me because she knew I needed to see it (yes, she is way ahead of me, miles in fact – no shock there). I will repost it below because summarizing it will not do it justice. However, I did want to point out a few things in the context of my work and that of creative business in general before you scroll down.
The first point is that fear does not only mean there is a gun pointed at your head or some similar threat. In fact, physical threats are not the deepest fear we all face for the simple reason it will be over one way or another. No, the deepest fear is being seen, or worse, ignored for the essence of who we are even if the very reason the relationship exists is BECAUSE of this essence. This fear is pervasive and all too often neverending. I would never ever take this out of the context of gender given where we are today. Men appreciating what it takes for a woman to show up today and listen to her fully is the challenge of our times. All men can do better no matter who we are.
The reason Alok’s post first hit me is because I, as a man with many women clients, have to appreciate who is in front of me no matter her external success. Intimidation and bias is baked in and I have to be sensitive to where it is in me and her. Yet, I also need to work through it with her so that I can be effective in helping her make change. After all, this is the reason we are together — to develop a stronger foundation for her art and her creative business. To make a better foundation, we have to challenge what exists, sometimes (ok, often) break it down before we can rebuild it more strongly in her image. We have to move through “I am doing it wrong” to the place where she can definitively say her voice is stronger, her vision palpable and uncompromising.
However, Alok’s post struck me further and much more to my core as to why I do what I do. In the context of creative business there is an overlay of the power of the feminine as we might all contemplate in a spiritual/metaphysical context. Choose how you might come to it, but the power of the feminine is in the universal sense of creation and wisdom to know what is without logic.
While this masculine/feminine can exist between men and women it is far beyond gender and ultimately is about the wisdom of universal creation — faith that your ability to transcend the knowable with your art. The fight today is to compel the intrinsic value that lies within universal creation so that it might become manifest. Today though, more than ever, we swim in the sea of creation with those who do not appreciate either the depth of the water or its ability to transcend. These are intimidating people and is a powerful basis for fear and a reason to hide in the “easy to understand”.
Perhaps it is too difficult and too vulnerable for any of us to live in the sea today, yet we all must try to have the courage to acknowledge our fear in the face of the masculine who would seek to define the undefinable. Again, not gender specific. We must come to honor the feminine that lives in all artists, work diligently to disrespect those who seek to marginalize the feminine out of their own fear or even rage at what is not theirs to understand, artists very much included.
How we go about this, ironically, is to honor the humanity in the relationship — the power within each of us to touch another with our gifts. To transcend the known. No doubt, some may not get there and that will just have to be. For the rest of us, be present to the relationship in front of you, frailty and strength all at once and hold the center for where it might bring us all. Hopefully, to a new awareness of what makes us proud to be in our skin, no matter the skin.
Thank you so very much for your words Alok Appadurai and without further adieu, here they are:
Have you ever taken something for granted that took someone else a ton of courage to do?
Yesterday, that was me and I want to share the incredible healing it led to.
As you know, I have been interviewing parent entrepreneurs about their challenges getting 5-figure clients. Well, during one of them with a mother of 3 yesterday, something amazing happened.
At the beginning of the call, I noticed that she was quite strong in her positions but as the call went on she softened.
She began to share that fear was actually the root of what was holding her back in her business.
What she revealed though is that being vulnerable in front of a man she didn’t even know was incredibly hard for her. That even getting on the call which she volunteered for was challenging because of past pain.
I was stopped in my tracks.
I do so many of these interviews and my lens is on “parent entrepreneur” not “man or woman” that I had lost sight of how courageous it may be to talk with me about what she hasn’t done well in her business because I am a man.
It may risk being “mansplained…”
It may risk being judged by a man.
Our entire call shifted to an a touching exploration of life beyond gender divisions, how I hired a woman coach myself who only works with women, my mother’s legacy, and how much I respected her ability to break through her own hesitations in order to create a new way forward where men and women can share ideas and uplift each other.
I haven’t stopped thinking about that interview.
Yes I got many valuable insights that can help me shape my group program to help parents like her get 5-figure clients. But the real learning went soul deep.
Some may call it naive but I see a world beyond gender where I hope to be viewed as human first. I try and see what unites us more than what separates us.
This isn’t intended to silence or question the realities and hardships that so many face because of gender.
It is simply my desire to not see “man entrepreneur” or “woman entrepreneur”
Just “entrepreneur working hard to provide for their loved ones.”
This mother and I moved mountains I felt on that call.
These are the subtle behind-the-scenes healing moments that bring humanity closer together.
We laughed, we darn near cried, we explored her next steps to touch more lives in her business and allow herself to be seen.
We shared our own challenges and successes.
And at least for me, we experienced connection that can create hope for a better future for all.
It takes tremendous courage to break through stories that have no shortage of evidence in order to allow a new story to be written.
After the call, I closed my notebook and just took in the courageous act I had just witnessed.
