If you’ve never met me in person, you probably don’t know this, but I have a hand tremor.
Usually it’s not too noticeable, but when caffeine kicks in or I have low blood sugar, my hands get pretty damn shaky (like, I could never be a surgeon, shaky).
For years I’ve felt so much shame around my tremor. I felt like it made me look like I was nervous (even when I wasn’t). I’ve made jokes about it and laughed it off if I accidentally spilled a drink, but it has always felt distinctly “uncool”.
Anyway over the weekend I was in a room of over 100 women entrepreneurs at a posh hotel in Beverly Hills, and I was excited.
My hair looked good, I felt confident in my outfit, and I was excited to be one of the speakers at this event, and meet women in person who I’ve been connected to online.
But as I was mingling in the morning, I could feel my hands shaking as I held my coffee cup, and found myself wondering, “Do the girls I’m talking to notice? Do they think I’m nervous? Do they think less of me?”
Lately I have been getting 1 central memo from The Universe on repeat:
Be vulnerable, be vulnerable be vulnerable.
Take off the mask of “perfection” and show the world your awkward, wobbly (or in this case, shaky) parts.
I feel like my shaky hands were my vulnerability at the event. In a situation where it’s so tempting to put on a mask of “I’m a polished powerful entrepreneur” the shaky hands made me human, raw, relatable.
I talked about the experience with a few women at my table and was met with so much love and appreciation for being vulnerable. Later that night I posted about it on my Facebook page and it received well over 100 likes, many comments and numerous private messages.
The lesson?
When you are vulnerable, people feel connected to you, and that leads them to trust you. This idea that you have to seem like you’ve “arrived” and “have it all figured out” to be a credible coach is total bull (and buying into is is REALLY stressful and unsustainable).
But Rebecca, if I’m vulnerable won’t I lose all my credibility?” I hear you ask.
Here’s my honest response to this very real question…
You are not qualified to coach on a particular topic because of the results you’ve produced (for yourself or others) or the place you’ve “arrived”. You are qualified because you are actively IN PROCESS with the subject around which you coach/teach/consult. You are qualified because you are wildly interested in/deeply committed to sifting through all the muck to find the gold.
Let me repeat: YOUR WORTH IS NOT YOUR RESULTS (at least not in the way that the world typically defines “results”).
Because when you conflate the two, you are pretty much guaranteed to periodically feel like total shit, because The Universe doesn’t really let us “arrive” anywhere. At least not for long. We are inherently “in transit.” Change is awesomely (and at times, excruciatingly) unavoidable.
So let’s get practical here…so you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about and how it applies to you:
- You can be a love and relationship coach and go through a messy divorce.
- You can be a weight loss or health coach and have a health or an emotional eating flare up and gain weight.
- You can be a business coach and be in break down around your business, lose clients, have a failed lauch, etc.
Being “in it” (ya know, sifting through the emotionally messy, murky stuff) in a particular area does not disqualify or diminish your credibility in that area. It enhances it.
We can only take people as deep as we’ve gone. And if we want to be of MASSIVE SERVICE we have to get over our fear that we will lose our credibility if we tell the truth and “go there.”
Do you agree? Disagree? Would love to know…