Authentic August – Day 24 (24 days ’til 28)
Sometime back in 2013, after a breakup with my first girlfriend (and not the final breakup), I searched the web for dating advice, and this one piece of wisdom has never left me:
“Deserve What You Want”
It’s nice to see that all these years later, Scot and Emily over at www.deservewhatyouwant.com are still doing their thing! Basically their main philosophy on dating is that you need to “deserve what you want.” In other words, if you want a high quality person as your partner, you need to be the type of person that deserves that person. You yourself must become high quality. This is straight from their site:
“Waiting around for someone to come along” or any other passive strategy won’t cut it. Actively becoming the kind of partner who deserves a great mate is the only option.
And for a personal development nerd like me, this idea resonated so freakin’ much! Of course it makes sense that if you want to date an independent and whole person, you too should be an independent and whole person. Because we attract who we are. And all we have to do is think back to high school to see the truth in this statement. The jocks chilled with the jocks. The band kids jammed with their bandmates. And the AP students nerded out with the other goody two-shoes. We tend vibe with people who are on our wave-length, and if you want to access higher vibrations, you need to step up your game, so to speak.
I’m not here to talk about dating, but I am bringing up this concept of “deserve what you want” because something I read this morning from The 7 Habits basically carries the same message: if you want external success, you must become successful within first. You must change your insides to solve any of your problems outside. So this principle of being so you can have, of deserving what you want, is applicable to more than just dating. Here’s an excerpt from what I read today:
“If you want to have a happy marriage, be the kind of person who generates positive energy and sidesteps negative energy rather than empowering it. If you want to have a more pleasant, cooperative teenager, be a more understanding, empathic, consistent, loving parent… If you want to be trusted, be trustworthy.”
And just this morning, in a moment of kismet, I was given the opportunity to be more so that I can later have more…
If you read my post titled What’s In Your Hands? then you know that I’ve been slacking hard in my role as the Social Media and Content Strategist for my friend’s financial coaching business, Metanoia. I concluded that post by recommitting myself to my role with Metanoia.
Well it turns out they also took notice that I was hard slacking! Because the lack of my consistency has been an ongoing struggle for us, the Metanoia Team really called me out on my bullshit during this morning’s meeting. They took ownership of how they enabled my slacking, I took ownership of my subpar performance, and we wiped the slate clean.
And this is where the kismet comes in: so I just wrote about being more faithful with what’s in my hand (Metanoia), and then this morning Sean and Fern presented me with an opportunity to step up in a big way. They came with a proposal. Essentially they said,
“Q… you can step up as the new Social Media Director, or we can go our separate ways; no hard feelings. We’ll still be friends, we’ll still support you, but if you’re gonna be with us, then this is what’s expected from you moving forward.”
They actually came prepared with a written job description, decked out with clear expectations, responsibilities, and even disciplinary protocol. Our previous arrangement was rather hazy and lax; this updated role is more concrete. There’s more clarity on how I should execute.
Quite serendipitous, right?! Yes, it was my lack of performance that prompted the need for more structure and detail, but it’s just funny how I decided only a few days ago that I’m ready to finally step up with Metanoia and suddenly this happens! (Side note: I didn’t take their “reprimand” personally. I’ve been hard at work on my own ventures here and on YouTube, and I let Metanoia slip through the cracks. But honestly, I’m reframing this morning’s “stern talking to” as an opportunity to start fresh. It isn’t failure if you learned something, right?)
And now bringing it back to The 7 Habits, we can use the previous if-then statements as a template to create one specific to my current situation:
If I want to have a digital nomad life, then I need to be the kind of person who develops digital skills and generates an online income. If I want to have what’s in my heart, then I need to be faithful with what’s in my hand. And that’s Metanoia. With this business, I get to learn and develop the digital skills necessary to one day build my own online business, which will allow me to leave the grind of the 9-5 and travel with my work around the world!
So I’m grateful that everything is coming together nicely; I feel very blessed. I’m beyond grateful for Sean and Fern’s patience, understanding, and continued belief in me.
I know what I want… now it’s time become the person that deserves it.
With LOVE,
Q.