Share the Scars, Not the Wounds

When we often talk about authenticity, we often have different understandings of what that actually means.
Over the last year, I have seen a trend come up. The trend has me worried.

Authenticity is understood as showing all your emotion, being real in the moment.
This does not build trust.
It does not show a good manner.

Every day has its ups and downs.
Yet we don’t need to start with or share all that.

There is another way to show your authenticity —
that actually creates more trust and is also building your relationships.

The difference might seem subtle.
In practice, it’s pretty big:
It’s the difference of sharing your scars and not your wounds.

We are getting stressed out by seeing wounds.
They push us to get to safety.
It is putting us in a fight or flight mode.
We lose the calm and collaboration.

Now when I struggle with the same problem, and you share the same wound as you —
we can rile each other up,
but we won’t be able to move on and get healed.

This is why sharing your raw emotions is authentic, but not helpful.

When you went through and got better —
you can still share the scar and be authentic in doing so.
Yet the results are much different.

That’s the difference between being a leader or being a peer.
Leaders share their scars, while peers share their wounds.

To grow our business, we should share the scars,
since they’ll be authentic —
and they build our trust.

Keep Reading

  • Clock Building, Not Time Telling

    All fathers I know want to leave their kids better off. They think about the legacy they leave behind. Many of those fathers think about starting a business. That’s what I also started out with. To this day I think the best way to start a business is with a service — something that you can coach or build for your clients. There is only one detail: This is all skill-based. You need to learn the skills. That is also why service is a good place to start. The hidden danger is that you become a…

  • In Business the winner is always the tortoise

    Most people start their business as the hare.Sprinting through the tasks. I did that too — thinking the amount of work is what makes the difference. So I tried to become more efficient. I hustled all I could. The interesting twist is:The tortoise will win. That is also true in business. Business is not a sprint. It’s a life-long marathon. There is no shortcut, because it ends when we’re dead. Success will happen when you do the right things at the right time. That’s the foundation side most…

  • Why Your To-Do List Might Be Holding You Back

    Our to-do list feels endless. There are so many things we could do. Some are more important than others. I recently listened to a podcast. They were chatting about this one guy being paid a lot to be an advisor. Yet he didn’t do much. He said that his job was not to add to the tasks in the business, but to make sure they didn’t do anything that hindered the business profits. I have also experienced the same thing. The real difference between success and failure is to do the right things and…

  • Nobody Asked Me This Question…

    One thing I keep thinking about is how slow I was going. In the beginning, I kept telling people about all the ideas and plans I had. The response I got was cool. They were all excited for me and interested in what I would do. Yet nobody asked me how fast I can do it. This is the most important question after all. Most of us start solo. So we are our fastest bottleneck too. Our runway is not long. The only question that matters is:How fast can you ship a product to get real results? The…

  • The moment I realized I can’t do it all

    When I was in University, I did everything. I was studying, volunteering, working, hanging out with friends. I also picked up some hobbies, like hunting, fishing and visiting reenactments. All of those things were time consuming. Maybe you know the feeling of:you can do everything when you’re on the top of the world. I really liked to be the Jack of all Trades. I saw a lot of people becoming experts, yet I stayed a generalist. It is said that Warren Buffet gave this advice once:Write out all…

  • The Productivity Lie I Believed for 5 Years

    For the last few years I’ve read so many productivity books. Watched tons of videos trying to figure out how can I get more done in my 24 hours than others. This is the core driver of productivity types: Getting more done with the time they have. It’s all about efficiency. There is one major flaw with productivity that took me 5 years to understand:It doesn’t matter how fast I run, if I’m running in the wrong direction. In the productivity space there is a lot of clutter about tactics that…