A Moment I Will Never Forget, for All the Wrong Reasons
Four steps I learned from this experience to better know myself.
10 years ago I was inducted into the National Charter School Hall of Fame in front of 5,000+ people in Nashville, Tennessee. A Hall of Fame induction is supposed to be the pinnacle of a professional career. Right? A time to celebrate a lot of hard work and a life’s impact. A feeling of deep satisfaction.
I felt numb. On the surface, I was happy, but deep down I felt little positive emotion.
I was grateful and honored. Truly. The National Alliance made it a very special week for me. It was fun to hang out in the green room with Andre Agassi.
However, I really was not present. I could not really enjoy the moment. I had so much else on my mind. I was consumed with challenges, planning, and thoughts for the coming year at DSST. The thought “DSST has to get better, we have so much to improve on and too many storm clouds on the horizon,” consumed me. I could not bring my mind to rest in the moment. I did not enjoy this award as a normal human would. That was scary.
I did not really know myself. There was something unhealthy at my core that I did not understand. It was like seeing a big red “engine trouble” light go off on my life dashboard, not knowing anything about how to fix a car engine. I needed to change.
That started a 10 year painful, but very good process of getting to know myself as I am, not who I hoped I was, or who other people saw me to be, or who I thought I should be. It was not pretty. There was a lot to unpack.
So, how does one come to know oneself?
This is a deceptively hard question. I think most of us have ideas, oftentimes vague, about how to do this. When pressed for details, I think we struggle. It feels like a college philosophy department question too esoteric to really grapple with. It is surprising how easily the busyness of life, and distractions can allow us to push this question further into the background. So, in the end, we default to living life and not really having a good way of approaching the ongoing process of knowing ourselves
I think that is a mistake. I have passed on this question for too long myself. I think to be a great friend, parent, spouse, or leader, having a working answer to this question is important.
Busy leaders. STOP. Hear me.
You must do this work if you want to be an impactful leader over the long run. The people you lead deserve a leader who knows themselves, not a leader who works out their stuff on those they lead because they haven’t bothered to take the time.
So when I pressed myself for details on my approach to this over the last couple of weeks, I didn’t have great ones. That led me to want to write this post. I am no philosopher, therapist, or psychologist, so take my amatuer musings as just that, not gospel.
Before embarking, I remind you this follows last week’s post which posited that to be fully loved, we need to be fully known. And, that starts with having the courage to get to know oneself.
Ok, so let’s move from the philosophical to the very practical. Here are four ways to come to better working knowledge of yourself. While there are many other good approaches, these are my best thoughts.
Commitment: We need to build a commitment to break through our assumed identity to get to the other side to who we really are.
Observation: We need to watch, observe and regularly reflect on who we are, not who we think we are, hope we are, or have been labeled as.
Finding a mirror: We need to pick a worldview, external to what you want/desire and use it as a mirror to guide us in our journey of discovery.
Finding friendship: We need to be in deep relationships with a small group of people who really know us.
Commitment: We need to be inspired or shocked into a commitment to break through our “stuff” to build a true understanding of who we are.
Without careful curation, we build our identities in a somewhat haphazard accumulation of experiences; our childhood family, community and schools we grew up in, faith traditions cast on us or chosen, first jobs, medical challenges, work successes and failures, friendships good and bad, and our own families if we have them. The list could go on. Often this accumulation leads to the formation of a complex identity with many parts. This is a beautiful part of being human. We accumulate “strengths” and “shadow sides,” pride in what we do well, and shame when we don’t feel enough. All these layers of identity take commitment to understand. There must be a desire, a motivation to work through the pain and joy of understanding ourselves.
For me, it was realizing that, despite outward success, inwardly, I was broken. Often, we need to experience brokenness to find this commitment. That is one path, Another path, is to be inspired by an idea, a realization, a friend to start the journey. Either can work.
Observation: We need to watch, observe and regularly reflect on who we are, not who we think we are or should be. We view ourselves in the world through our own lens. And often, we use that lens to reinforce who we hope we are, not who we actually are. Often, it takes a crisis or really difficult feedback to help us realize this. My Hall of Fame experience was that for me.
To that end, step two is to begin to build the muscle to observe who we are in all settings; work, home, friendships, with yourself, in difficult moments, and in happy moments. Being curious is one way to shed our “lens” (which we can’t do entirely) to start understanding ourselves more deeply. If we ask questions like:
Why did I respond in that moment with anger?
Why did I feel so happy at that moment?
Why did I not enjoy the praise I just received?
What is going with my emotions underneath my reactions?
What core part of me did that emotion touch?
Asking and then journaling/reflecting on these questions in written form will help us start to understand who we actually are, not who we think we are. Patterns will emerge, more questions will surface, and the self-discovery process begins.
Finding a Mirror: Pick a worldview, a system of beliefs, external to our own wants/desires, to use as a mirror to learn who we are. I don’t believe we were created to live the mantra “you do you,” or “be true to yourself and do what feels good.” There is an implicit set of human values and beliefs (I happen to believe God given) that humans were designed to live within. The current state of the world and politics portends what happens in a society, which errs to the “be true to yourself” approach as the guiding worldview. Dictators, autocrats and tyrants are ruling the world by “being true” to themselves. Yes?
If we choose a value system to live by, we have a reference point to objectively look at ourselves in the mirror. The most often chosen belief systems rest in world faiths (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hindi, Christianity etc..). But it also could be stoicism or existentialism or some other point of view. You can then ask questions:
Who am I based on the value system?
Where does my life reflect what I believe and where am I falling short?
An objective belief system can teach us a lot about who we really are. And, it gives us a road map, life tested, proven over centuries, to grow under. I generally put my faith in ancient wisdom, not self generated wisdom.
Finding Friendship: Be in deep relationships with a small group of people who really know us. We need others who know us well to truly reflect back to us who we are. Divergent perspectives are good. They are reference points that help us discern who we actually are versus who we hope to be. They can check us against our chosen worldview. They can do this in two ways: First, provide positive and growth feedback and accountability on how they and others experience us in our daily life. Second, each friend we have can bring out a unique side of ourselves. One friend may draw out our sense of humor, another silliness, and another our best work, and another, reflectiveness. By drawing these parts out of us, we learn and relearn who we are.
However, it goes without saying, this presupposes that our friendships are deep, vulnerable, honest, and full of trust. A friend who “knows us extremely well”. Friendship research speaks to our ability to have 4-5 of these at any one time. That is enough, if they are those kinds of friends.
So I suggest a path to take on the journey to know yourself better. There are many. This is just one.
Committing to yourself to know the “real you”
Regularly observing and reflecting on who you really are
Finding a worldview to help you “benchmark” yourself in the process
Finding deep friendship to give you ongoing feedback and drawing parts of you out.
Of course, as you might imagine, coming to know ourselves is a lifelong journey that never ends. It is an ongoing process of self discovery. As we change and grow, we must rediscover and rediscover.
And that can be a beautiful journey to take if you embrace it.
Reflection of the Week: Are you on the journey of truly knowing yourself? What next step might you take wherever you are?
"The people you lead deserve a leader who knows themselves, not a leader who works out their stuff on those they lead because they haven’t bothered to take the time." Ouch. Thanks for the hard but convicting word.