I’m fortunate in my career that I get to speak at conferences all over North America and beyond.
If you’ve ever attended a conference, you probably have received some type of SWAG from conference organizers and sponsors. Over the years I’ve acquired bins full of YETI cups, coffee mugs, bags, hats, shirts, backpacks, pens, notepads, and a variety of other items.
While all of these were really great to receive, usually once I get home they end up on a shelf in my office, in a bag somewhere, tucked away in a drawer or storage bin. This is where they sit, sometimes for years until I decide to go through them. Once I pull them out into the light, I can’t believe how cool some of them are, and have no idea why I chose to hide them so they could never be used again.
As I thought about this, I realized that every one of us has some kind of SWAG that we have chosen to hide from the world. I’m not talking about conference give aways. I’m talking about the confidence and energy we used to bring into our workplace and our lives. That level of intention and certainty that knows without any doubt that we can have an impact on our environment.
For some reason many of us have chosen to stash our SWAG on a shelf or tuck it away in some long-forgotten drawer. We’ve gotten so comfortable not showing up with our bravado that we’ve almost forgotten we had it in the first place. Instead, we choose to hide our true value, depriving those in our businesses and in our lives of an authenticity that we’ve long forgotten existed.
Think about the last time you truly used your SWAG, and the impact it had on the situation? Do you remember how that felt? What it meant to truly use your unique skills and talents toward your desired objective? If you are honest, I would bet it felt really good.
This week I will ask you.
Where is your SWAG?
Where have you chosen to hide your confidence and unique gifts from those that would truly benefit from it?
How are you cheating yourself and others of the experience of that higher value version of you that we know exists if you only could bring it back out of the storage bin?
You job this week is to unpack all of your unique skills and talents, dust them off and bring them back out into the light. You may surprise yourself with how cool they are, and how you have completely forgotten the reason why you chose to put your SWAG away in the first place.
Until next time
Cheers to you and your continued Success
And relocating your SWAG
One Quarter Turn at a Time
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