Standing In My Own Shoes
Or how "Be Yourself" might just be the worst advice for humanity
Geoff and Steve started The Creativity Guild to create a community of mid-life creative explorers looking to reignite their creative sparks. The goal is to build a place for us all to reconnect with our creativity, start the projects we’ve always wanted to work on and be the people we’ve always wanted to be.
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“Man, sometimes it takes you a long time to sound like yourself.”
- Miles Davis
Whenever I write a piece for The Creativity Guild there’s always a point, usually late at night, where I somewhat reluctantly, but absolutely necessarily, ask my wife Suzanne for her feedback. Her instincts are usually spot-on and even more importantly she calls me on my shit.
My first drafts usually contain a ton of hedging and weaving. They tend to be written through the lens of an imposter, of someone who is self conscious about actually saying the things I know to be true. Suzanne doesn’t hesitate to point this out to me, each and every time.
The big note that she keeps giving me is that I need to “stand in my shoes.” I interpreted this as marching orders to be more authentic. To not be afraid to let the world see the parts inside of me that are uniquely me. To find ways to truly be myself.
Then I heard a podcast interview that has made me rethink all of that.
When I was kid I thought Steve Martin was just the greatest human being in the world. I had all of his comedy records and I would listen to them over and over again. When my local record shop was getting rid of a giant cutout of Steve Martin promoting one of his comedy albums, I grabbed it and for most of my teenagehood had a two-dimensional life size version of Steve Martin in my room. The Jerk was and still is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.
His absurdist quasi anti-comedy spoke to something inside of me. He had a singular voice. No one sounded quite like him. His white suit, his jokes without punchlines. It was something the world had never seen before.
Recently I heard him interviewed on the podcast ReThinking with Adam Grant. They were talking about one of Steve’s mentors, the late director Carl Reiner. Apparently Carl was great at a party. He could walk into any room and ooze social bravery and charm. Steve would watch Carl fearlessly walk up to anyone he saw to strike up a conversation. Steve on the other hand was shy, but he realized that if he could channel his inner Carl Reiner then he too would be able to walk into any room and be as exactly as charming as he wished he was.
“I think the advice of “be yourself” is the worst advice for humanity” Steve said on the podcast, “because nobody knows, especially when you're young, you don't know what “yourself” is. You don't even know what that means. You think it means “Be Authentic” or something. Well, authentic would be, go lie on the sofa and watch television. I think it's good to have a role model, a template that you can work around and then find your own authentic self within.”
I’ve admittedly fallen into the camp of thinking that in order to find my authentic voice I needed to strip down my ego in order to leave room for my soul to shine. That may partially still be true, but what I’ve found challenged since coming across Steve Martin’s view on authenticity is that maybe my authentic voice isn’t as fixed as I had assumed it to be.
When I was a kid I was shy. I’m not sure how I came to that conclusion, but it was the box I felt I belonged in. It defined the way I interacted in the world, and to some extent still does. What’s odd is that as an adult I’m very comfortable speaking in front of a room, or talking to people at a party. I sometimes feel like a shy person who has learned to adapt to an extroverted world.
For me stepping into my own shoes is not becoming who I am. If that was the case I’d probably still be the shy kid full of fears and self doubt. What I’ve realized is that it’s a process of becoming the person I aspire to be. What is authentic to me is something that will no doubt change over time. I can be shy at one point in my life and seemingly extroverted at another. It’s not fixed, and every moment I have the opportunity to grow and change again.
There is a reason that we are drawn to certain role models. There is something in them that we want to be. At this point in my life the people I hold up are the ones who are able to be present with whoever and whatever is in front of them. People who aren’t afraid to show up for whatever moment presents itself. To me those are the traits that currently feel hard for me to achieve but that I authentically yearn to have.
I don’t have one authentic voice. What I have is an authentic journey. I feel like it’s been many many lifetimes since I was a shy little boy. I’m still the same person I was back then, but it’s my truths that keep changing. Standing in my shoes is about me being confident and willing to own the truth about things that I truly know, and perhaps more importantly being confident to admit what I don’t know.
It’s late at night as I’m writing this. I’m about to ask my wife for a proofread. Wish me luck…
Creative Prompts
Think about who the people you admire in your life are and try and identify what the traits in them are that most draw you to them.
When faced with a situation that challenges you, think WWTPIAD (What Would The Person I Admire Do)?
What would you do differently if you were to truly “Stand in your own shoes”?
What? We have a new feature? Yes we do! We want to highlight some of the awesomely creative things that our community is doing, and what better way then some old school community announcements!
Have something you’d like us to highlight? An art show? A zine? A workshop? A brand new finger painting? Please let us know and we’ll try and include it in a future newsletter.
To kick things off, here are a few things that are being done by folks in our community that we think are just the best.
Joanne O’Sullivan’s Storytelling Express
Joanne is the creator behind the super fun podcast Happy Funny Amazing. It’s a show where she gets people to tell a story from their life that’s both (you guessed it) happy, funny and (hopefully) amazing. Joanne has a ton of experience in shaping stories, and is now offering what she’s learned as a pretty affordable, low commitment workshop called Storytelling Express. The workshops are two hours long and cost only 45 bucks to participate. There are a few dates coming up to choose from. Highly recommended! Click here for more info.
Pippa Johnstone’s Expectant
Pippa is a lovely human being. Both Steve and I worked with her at a podcasting company for a few years and were always impressed with her creativity. But even still, we were pretty blown away by her recently launched her indie podcast Expectant. It’s a blend between fiction and journalism, all about the struggle to make the choice to have (or not have) children in a world with an uncertain future. It’s a project that she made on evenings and weekends, and it’s a true gem. For more on Expectant click here.
I loved this Geoff! Thanks for sharing :)
WWTPIAD... While figuring this out keep putting on foot in front of the other.