Exhale #17: Escaping competition, how to be authentic, and relationship board meetings
I started this newsletter because I had this persistent thought that “I have so much I want to share, and I’m not doing it.” I did some solo podcasts last year for several months that fulfilled this desire to share, but nothing since then.
I started this newsletter a little over 4 months ago. Looking back now, in the beginning I was copy-catting people like my friend Nat Eliason, for instance.
His newsletter is filled with several short sections with links to articles, research papers, and more, and it’s really damn good. So I tried my best to copy him and some other similar writers while talking about what I’m passionate about, and I think I did a decent job.
Over time that started to feel constraining.
I was trying to write like Nat rather than write like myself.
Over the past month or so I’m rediscovering the power of just being me. I’ve written some long stories mixed with my own blend of rawness and humor and not a single link to an article or video.
This has felt scary as hell, but it’s also felt right. Like “oh this is more me.” It’s me being more authentic.
“Escape competition through authenticity.“
The only social media I consistently consume is Naval Ravikant tweets. Every couple weeks I hop on Twitter and catch up on what he’s posted. This is one of them.
I think the benefits of escaping competition are:
Creating something new rather than something slightly better than what others are creating
Realizing our fullest potentials by bringing forth what is uniquely inside of us to share
As a result of sharing ourselves, being seen for who we truly are
Likely receiving more material success (such as $) and external validation (sweet, sweet external validation)
I also succumbed to the common drive for competition when I started Brute Strength, an online fitness company, in 2014.
When we started out I had just discovered Instagram. I had so much fun writing captions to images that were similar to this newsletter. A little mindset and personal development type stuff mixed with some edgy, trying-to-be-funny-ness.
At that time I think we had a reputation for being cool, thoughtful coaches and were well respected.
Over time as we grew I wanted to compete with other fitness companies so I started to copy what they did. Higher quality images, more highly produced videos, and less willingness to be edgy.
At some point I outsourced our social media entirely and despite a ton of effort by our team, we just became more like everyone else.
This led to me feeling a disconnection from what we were doing because I wasn’t creating authentically and over time it led to less material success. I have since exited that business, and my then partner Matt has done a great job of keeping the ship sailing.
No one can compete with me on being me. The more I lean into my quirks and interests, the more my work feels like play and the more it stands out as something different.
How to be authentic
This is something I’m still trying to figure out, and I’m certain there are ways I’m being inauthentic to this day that I’m not aware of yet.
With that being said, I think there are two aspects to “being authentic:”
Authentic
You have to figure out what is authentic to you. You have to figure out who you are.
Be
Once you know what is authentic then you have to develop the courage to BE that, to actually be yourself in your work and your life.
Step 1 is a lifelong pursuit.
Learning what is authentic to us is about doing the deep internal work to understand how we became the person we are today, what we like and dislike, what our passions are and more.
These things are also constantly changing and evolving.
In our careers or artistic expression, being authentic means using all of the skills, experiences and knowledge that we’ve acquired in our lifetime to create something truly unique.
Outside of consistent work in understanding ourselves, it can also help to take into account some of the following:
What things are you naturally drawn to? What are you really passionate about in life?
What topics do you know more about than the vast majority of the population?
What would feel FUN for you to create?
The question that inspired me creating Soul Searching Adventures was “What is the most adventurous thing you could imagine creating in your career?”
What do others say you are great at?
I think it’s totally normal not to have great answers to any of those questions at first. That’s why it can help to try a lot of different things when you’re first starting out with anything. Over the course of our life and career, it becomes clearer who we are and what we love doing.
Step 2 is a practice.
Being authentic is scary because when they don’t like what I’ve created then it feels more like they really don’t like ME!
It’s easier to hide behind the work of a team or creating something very similar to what others are making. That way if it fails we can blame it on our competitors’ good luck or timing being better than ours.
It’s a practice because it’s vulnerable. Vulnerable, by definition, is scary. It’s never easy. We can’t just decide to be courageous one day and that’s it.
It is a choice we must make every day in every interaction. In time this does become more habitual.
The practice is simply learning to step up to the plate sooner and with more consistency.
To build the muscle of jumping into the deep end despite all of our justifications of why we shouldn’t.
In my experience, the fear doesn’t go away, but my ability to be with the fear and just do the thing has improved tremendously.
For me, BEing authentic looks like:
Me stopping doing almost all podcasts related to fitness because my interests have moved on. I continued doing these for years after my passion for competitive Crossfit had passed because I was so concerned about ratings and number of downloads. Now I have regained my position of only doing podcasts with people who I’m currently interested in learning from, and it feels damn good.
At WAG years ago creating a personal development program for many of our staff members. There was absolutely nothing to gain from this monetarily, but it was something that I felt so compelled to do for our staff.
Creating Soul Searching Adventures which is such a clear extension of who I am. Deep, edgy conversations mixed with a ton of joking and shit talking. Epic physical and emotional challenges with music, dance, poetry, and more sprinkled throughout. So many of my favorite things in an event. I do these because my soul longs for it.
Over the past month I’ve gotten more emails from subscribers and more meaningful feedback than any other content I’ve created in my career. Sweet, sweet, external validation.
Because I’m being me.
No matter where you are in life, no matter how big or small of an audience you have, the world is waiting for you to be your Self. There’s no one else like you on the planet, and no one can create what you can.
And because I’m still a copycat, here’s a very short section on love
On date night the other night I looked at Adee and asked if I could guide her through a very gentle experience involving a meditation. Gentle because she highly dislikes some of the intense breath work stuff I do. She agreed.
We started with a 20 minute silent meditation, and then I asked her to sit across from me with our knees touching. We looked each other in the eyes. Then, inspired by a mentor of mine named Zachery, for 3 minutes straight I told her everything I was grateful for about her without stopping. Then she went. Then we laid down and cuddled, both feeling so appreciated and in love with each other.
If you’re in a relationship I think you would enjoy this.
New on the Michael Caz Podcast
This week I released an episode with one of my closest friends, Andy Drish. Andy co-founded and sold a company called The Foundation, and he recently co-founded The Art of Love which is a publishing company for courses on love and relationships.
One of the things I’ve always found most attractive about Andy is his opting out of some of the most common status seeking games. He is comfortable enough in his own skin and his place in the world to opt out of social media and other ways of needing to be seen online.
In this episode we talk about why the headline on his website says “I’ve gone dark” and what led to him opting out of things like social media.
We talk about him building businesses and realizing that he was burnt out, and the journey he went on to Bali to work with an “elder.”
We also talk about relationships and the power of having couple role models
Andy and his wife, Libby, are who we stole the concept of relationship board meetings from as well as a number of other extremely helpful things. My wife, Adee wrote about these board meetings on her blog here.
Peace,
Michael