Where it all started…….
During my childhood years I lived on a farm outside the tiny town of Havelock North, New Zealand, where we spent a great deal of time in the outdoors. I can vividly recall my trusty black Labrador, Judy, sitting beside me, while an old retired racehorse lounged in the paddock.
Rafters of noisy turkeys gathered everywhere on the property. When one gobbled, they all “sang” in unison. On one occasion, they were running around in circles while being chased, and their gobbling was deafening.
The point I’m making is a person will always be a turkey if they surround themselves with turkeys, usually because they’re unaware of their greatness and how high they can fly.
I’m writing a book on how to stop being a turkey, which includes a parable with a twist: A baby eagle is raised with barnyard chickens. As a much older eagle, he looks up and sees a spectacular bird flying effortlessly in the wind. When he asked a chicken what that was, he was told it was an eagle, the king of birds. But that since he was a chicken his lot in life was to stay in the barnyard. So the eagle bought into the lie, and died never knowing who he really was and the magnificent life he could have had being free as a bird.
Tapping into your greatness is easy: You just need to stand out from the crowd and find your authentic self. You also need to be aware of how the other turkeys have influenced your thinking and behavior, eliminate their negative input from your mind, and then soar high as your authentic self.
When your personality and actions are the same as everyone else, you’re being dishonest to who you really are, which in turn severely limits who you can become.
So how do you stop being a turkey?
- Be Authentic: Be consistent about projecting your genuine self to others and yourself. It can also be discovered by noticing how you’re being inauthentic (i.e., you want to look good, so you go along with the crowd when you disagree; or you say yes when you really mean no, etc.).
- Be Aware: A limiting mindset can stop you from being great. You’re conditioned with societal beliefs, values and assumptions that became the context for who you are (or trying to be). You need to restructure deeply negative embedded self-talk that limits how you should look, think, feel, act and be a certain type of person.
Listen to things you say or think, like “I’m not good enough”, “I’m not smart enough”, or “I can’t do that”. Then switch your thinking to “I AM good enough”, “I AM smart enough,” and “I CAN do this!”
- Be Committed: Are you committed to something bigger than yourself beyond fame, personal success or advancement? The foundation to being great is finding a cause that’s more profound than just your own needs.
- Integrity: By definition integrity is being whole and complete, which is achieved by doing what you say you will. Also, what you stand for is reflected in your character and your standards.
Please post any thoughts you have on this subject, and follow me on Twitter @GrantWattie.