“A truly confident person does not require arrogance, which is nothing more than a smoke screen for insecurity.” – Amy Cuddy, Presence
The phone conversation was maybe 20 minutes long. But I think it’s going to have reverberations in my life for a long time.
I’m not going to put who the conversation was with on loudspeaker, but if he’s reading this, he’ll know.
He’s a coaching colleague. Before this conversation, I didn’t know him well. But I know him much better now.
You must have a rock-solid relationship with yourself in order to attract a relationship with a partner who is worthy of you.
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Even more than getting to know this person better (which I am grateful for) this conversation got me present to something valuable in my relationship with myself.
And yes, I know I just spent over 100 words speaking in circles. And I’m going to continue speaking in circles. Because this ain’t about him, it’s about me.
This colleague (and I’d call him a friend now) and I have a mutual friend. He just happens to be married to our mutual friend.
I’ve written about this phenomenon before, but this conversation blows this theory out of the water.
One of my main stops in creating a romantic relationship has been what I see in the mirror. To attract the kinds of high-quality women I want to attract, I feel as if I lack a few surface-level things.
Yeah, whenever I spend time with a really beautiful woman I feel like it’s a beauty and the beast kind of thing.
Yikes! Seeing that in print makes me cringe. My God! What self-esteem issues?
In fact, I said to a friend the other day “what they (the caliber of women I want to attract) want is one of my celebrity doppelgangers – either Ryan Gosling or Reynolds. They don’t want Ryan Hall.”
Paraphrasing my friend Erica, she called BS on that. She said that what high-quality women want is someone to be authentic and real with them. “Will a man be as comfortable with you when you’re eating pizza and watching Netflix as when you’re both dressed to the nines and at a fancy restaurant?”
Let’s go back to the conversation I had the other day and why it was such a game changer for me. By the way, there is gold for many men in here if you read on.
Our mutual friend is an attractive, brilliant, confident, ambitious, and kind-hearted woman. And on the surface, my new friend is – to be kind about it – not as attractive as his wife is.
On the surface…
The first thought I had when I first met him was “what the hell does she see in him?”
After my conversation with him, it hit me like a bolt of lightning. This dude has a real presence about him.
He’s a really bright guy. There’s a quiet confidence about him. He’s got a sneaky sense of humor. There was no pretense about how he was showing up.
He’s real.
To get what you really want, sometimes you have to uncover some pretty nasty truths and judgements about yourself.
Earlier that day, I had breakfast at a local diner. It wasn’t the healthiest meal I have had recently, but it gave me some time to think and plot some things I’m working on.
And as I’m watching steam dance from my mug of coffee, I had an epiphany.
I have condemned an entire gender of human beings for some poor choices I’ve made.
To a person, all of the women I’ve been with in the past have been stunningly good looking. Great figures and pretty faces. These are aspects I find attractive – I have eyes.
But many of these women have tended to be surface level.
And there’s a saying in life coach circles that the thing we can’t be with in others is what we can’t be with in ourselves.
Long story short, we dislike in others what we dislike in ourselves.
And – I hate to admit this – I can be surface level myself sometimes.
In other words, these judgements I have about not just myself, but of other people I hardly know, have totally taken me out of this game. Not only is it unworthy of the life I say I want for myself, but it’s out of integrity with who I am.
And nobody knows more than I do: pretty girls are a dime a dozen, but a beautiful soul is rare.
All these breakthroughs started as a result of this amazing book I just finished.
Social Psychologist Amy Cuddy writes in her brilliant book Presence – Bringing your Boldest Self to your Biggest Challenges – about how confidence is a trap.
Confidence can be a smokescreen for insecurity and fear. And it can hide who you really are.
Confidence can be a smokescreen for insecurity and fear. And it can hide who you really are.
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Case in point, my uncle. He’s been married five different times yet still sees fit to give me advice on women.
He comes off so confident, but Stevie Wonder can see how insecure he is.
I have to say it…bless his heart.
You can take the boy out of the south…
In light of all this new awareness that I’m aware of, I’d like to make a declaration.
- I’m declaring that I’m no longer going to judge the women in my life today by the mistakes of my past.
- And I’ll see what and who I am based purely on what I have – not what I lack.
And make no mistake, what I have is beautiful. I’m brilliant. I’m really freaking funny (especially when I’m not trying to be.) I bring a warm, grounding energy that women are drawn to. I’m a leader. I’m powerful. And I’ve got a huge, kind heart.
And I’m pretty damn good looking, if I don’t say so myself.
If you ask me, that’s pretty damned attractive.
The moral of this story is that you must have a rock-solid relationship with yourself in order to attract a relationship with a partner who is worthy of you.
As with many things I write about in this space, I am in process with a lot of this. I’m in process with leveling up my relationship with myself so that I can attract the romantic partner I deserve. And, by that, creating the family I desire.
And I’m not doing this on my own. I’m getting plenty of support.
Let me support you to level up your relationship with yourself. Let my process support you. Shoot me an email so we can schedule a sample coaching session: [email protected].
Randy: if you’re reading this, thank you. It was a confluence of a lot of things, but I think our conversation put this over the top.
I believe I always had this inside me. I had this presence this whole time. But sometimes to get to the gold, you need to chip away at some rock, dirt, and pain.
This has been a long time coming, but damned if it ain’t worth the wait.
Photo by Carlos ZGZ