Show Up!

Michael Burns
Columnist

I often hear people say they want to make a difference in people’s lives. I have chosen the same aspiration as my own purpose in life.

Do I want to be of service, to give back? Do I feel I have what that takes? Do I feel that who I am, and what I have to give, is valuable? Do I think others want that? And finally, do I question myself more often than I applaud myself?

I had to overcome these doubting questions in order to live my purpose and create a powerful legacy that I will be remembered for.

Here are some results of the work I’ve done to overcome self doubt:

I now trust that when I SHOW UP for an event, meeting, conversation, experience, gathering, or whatever, that thing will be different than it would be if I wasn’t there. I have an impact and, even if I didn’t say or do anything, it’s changed because I
howed up. How much it’s changed is irrelevant.

Back in 2010, I made a verbal declaration to witnesses committed to supporting me to improve myself. That means to hear me; to believe me (or point out my bullshit); to trust that my intention is to make a difference in my own life, to grow, mature, evolve, be a better man. I am more prone to hold myself accountable when I know that these witnesses also strive to hold me accountable to my intention.

The commitment I made was to pay less attention to the voices I have grown up with, my own voices that are negative about me. I set out to neutralize these chattering negative voices by paying more attention to what I do that is good, right, positive.

Once, in 1990, I attended a 4-day life-training workshop and one of the classes was for public speaking. I took it hoping to increase my confidence. The first assignment was to memorize this mantra, and to present it first to the class, then to all the workshop’s participants:

I AM PRESENT
MY PRESENCE IS WHAT I PRESENT
THIS PRESENT IS THE GIFT I GIVE
WRAPPED IN THE THOUGHTS,
WORDS, ACTIONS OF THE MOMENT

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Living with this mantra has helped me learn to trust that I am ok, I am good enough, I am worth being with. The shift has taken
many years, but now the balance has clearly tilted to being satisfied and content with who I am. More accurately, with how I show up.

I have proven, to myself, that I am always a good man, even when I occasionally don’t think, speak, or act like one. It is my choice – in the moment – whether I think, talk or behave like a good man and, more often than not, I make the right choice.

A vital awareness that enhanced this shift in perspective was being sensitive to how people respond to my words and actions.
Thanks to the continual repetition/practice of paying more attention to what I did right than to what I did wrong, my commitment is being fulfilled.

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PS: Senior Moment:

Many years ago I was in the locker room of the pool I frequent, and I noticed a youth, who appeared to me to be “on the spectrum”. He was shutting all the open locker doors, making it appear homogeneous.

Now, in my 77th year of living, I tend to close all the open locker doors in that same locker room when no one else is around.

Just saying… my awareness of the aging process and results takes increasing amounts of attention away from “am I ok or not?”