I suppose you could call her a motivational speaker. She wasn't
a graduate
of
Werner's work.
Instead her seminars focused on winning, on success. They
targeted becoming rich, accumulating property etc. In that world, it's
not who you are that matters. It's
the car you drive.
It's which label you wear. Now there's nothing wrong with any of that
if that's what you want ie if that's what's important to you. And if
that is what you want, then you could learn a lot from
her. You could derive a lot from her seminars which were widely
respected and well-attended. That's what they made available. That's
just what they were. To her credit, she didn't pretend they were
anything else but that. She was something of a
hero
in that world (a "hero" can be both male or female).
I noticed she didn't acknowledge her sources ie she didn't give credit
to whom she got her knowledge from. It would be big of her if she did.
Yet that's all too
common
unfortunately. It's a "missing" for me. But I've let it go. In the
world in which she worked, no one else appeared to mind. It's said that
players catch the ball and run with it. And I say that in
addition, it's a mensch who acknowledges whom they got it
from (a "mensch" can be both male or female).
One day
something happened
which led to her examining her
public persona
in a way she'd never examined it before: on one of her travels, she
contracted a rare disease which resulted in a dramatic and all too
visible weight loss, accompanied by sudden energy crashes throughout
the day, which struck with no regard to what she was doing at the time,
even when speaking from a podium in front of hundreds of people. All
the above caused her concern, especially because so little was known
about its causes and treatment. But even more than that, it got in the
way of her presenting herself as a motivational speaker.
It wasn't merely that it impacted her physically, leaving her in less
than peak fitness. It was that in her weakened state, she was unable to
demonstrate
her erstwhile high energy lifestyle. She was no longer an example of
living successfully with high energy. She was saying one thing
heroically while appearing to be anything but. Worse, she
was no longer
walking the
talk
of someone heroic. Her act (if you will) was in ruins.
"I'm an inauthentic hero" she ruefully confessed during
one of our zoom meetings. Her fall from grace was palpable - not just
because she was unwell, but because she hadn't owned it
all - yet.
Before
her health
crisis, she shared with her audiences about what it was like for her to
be a hero. When she did, I could tell she was telling the truth - in
that way when you can tell people are telling
the truth? In that way. When she shared with me and some other friends
in private, she told the truth about what it was truly like for her to
be unwell. I could tell she was telling the truth - in that way when
you can just tell people are telling the truth. In that way.
The thing about it was this: nothing she taught while being a hero, was
working for her in managing being unwell in her private life. In this
regard, she was being completely inauthentic. "Physician: heal
thyself!" rang hollow. I could sense her abject frustration.
A chasm had emerged between her heroism and her inauthenticity, and it
was widening. In public, she was faking what she wasn't in private. She
was heroic in every other way - but not in that one. It had gotten the
better of her. It had gotten out of hand. She was being the hero, or
she was being unwell. They were mutually exclusive - or so it would
seem.
I said "I'd like to try something: tell me the truth about being a
hero, then tell me the truth about being unwell.". So she shared what
it's like for her to be a hero (at least to be perceived
as a hero) and then what it's like for her to be unwell. As she was
sharing, I could tell she was telling the truth about both, something
I brought to her
attentionagain and again and again
until
a light
went on, and she
discoveredthe common denominator
she had been missing until then: what's both authentic and
common
about being a hero and being unwell is the possibility of simply
telling the truth about both, the razor-sharp, unvarnished
absolute truth. It made her (simply,
tersely)
an
ordinaryhuman being
who tells the truth. It's how to be authentic (not to mention
inspiring) about being both a heroic motivational speaker, and being
unwell: tell the truth about both ... and especially tell the truth
heroically about being unwell.