Mental Moment-On Being Authentic

I gave a talk last Saturday to a group of new half & full marathoners. My colleague Matt Forsman who runs Marathon Matt has been gracious enough to bring me into the fold of his program. It is such a great opportunity for me. What I mean by great opportunity is that I get to reach out to people who may be struggling, not know why and give them some clarity. Gaining clients from these talks are great but for me its secondary.

At this talk I invited a woman who wants to do some volunteer work with me in my practice. She is completing her MFT and wrote her thesis on a sports performance topic. She is interested in working with athletes as part of her business. Since this was our first exposure to each other I suggested we grab a coffee afterwards and chat.

I started the conversation by asking her what she thought about my talk; good or bad. She said she thought it was great. She went on to say that my style is engaging and humorous and that I made the information relatable to them.

She said she had conversations with other people working in sports psychology besides me. One woman seemed uptight and rigid and asked what she would get from the experience. She said after that conversation she knew I was the one she wanted to work with. 🙂

Here was my response. Thank you. I just want to be me. Of course there are certain areas of my work where parts of me are less acceptable but I am still me; no matter where I go or what I do.  Why would I want to be something I am not? That would make me rigid and uptight. I’d have to figure out who this new persona is gonna be, use it in my practice and the go back to being me in my personal life or worse have this new rigid persona take over my personal life. Yikes!!

Some people are going to like me and some aren’t but that remains whether or not I am me or another version of myself. I can’t please everyone so I may as well be authentic. I find that a lot of people like my authentic self: funny, honest, and engaging with a small hint of intellect and philosophy. People sometimes ask me how come I don’t use big words or research in my talks. Even though everything I talk about is either research or experiential based people don’t generally care about big words or research

As I make my way to Hilton Head next week to speak at the Professional Tennis Registry International Symposium my focus is on being authentic. I could get caught up in whose going to be there (like Patrick McEnroe), the cameras (because they’ve decided to videotape my session) and the information I am going to present but that’s not helpful. That only increase my anxiety and sets me up to be a mess. Instead I am choosing to be excited and confident in my ability to share what I know.

Happy Saturday!

Dr. Michelle

Photo credit: blog-blond.blogspot.com