I’m fortunate that my work takes me to conferences all over North America. If you’ve ever attended one, you know exactly what happens. By the end of the conference, you’ve collected a bag full of “SWAG.”
A nice coffee mug. A backpack. A hat. A notebook.
Maybe even another YETI tumbler.
It all seems pretty exciting while you’re there. Then you get home.The bag goes into your office. The backpack gets tossed into a closet. The coffee mug ends up on a shelf.
Months or even years go by before you stumble across it again.When you do, your first thought is usually:
“I’d forgotten I even had this.”
That got me thinking.
I wonder how many of us have done the exact same thing with our own SWAG.
Not the free stuff from a conference. The confidence. The courage. The creativity. The energy. The enthusiasm. The willingness to speak up. The belief that we have something valuable to contribute.
Life has a funny way of convincing us to pack those things away.
A difficult boss. A failed project. A promotion we didn’t get. A little criticism. A few disappointments.
Slowly, we begin hiding the very things that once made us stand out.
The sad part is that the world doesn’t need a smaller version of you. Your team doesn’t. Your family doesn’t. Your customers don’t. They need the version of you that brings energy into the room. The one who’s willing to take a chance. The one who isn’t afraid to share an idea or have a difficult conversation.
Maybe your SWAG hasn’t disappeared.
Maybe it’s just been sitting on a shelf collecting dust.
Quarter Turn Action Step
This week, unpack one piece of your SWAG.
Speak up in the meeting.
Share the idea.
Volunteer for the project.
Encourage someone else.
Take the chance you’ve been talking yourself out of.
Because confidence doesn’t disappear.
Sometimes it just needs to be taken out of storage.
One Quarter Turn at a time.
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