I have recently watched this great TED talk by Michael Brody-Waite. Michael is talking about 3 principles: be authentic, surrender the outcomes and do uncomfortable work. These principles resonated with me and made me think about myself and How I am doing against them. In his talk, he also tells us about how he has been using the quite famous “What is your greatest weakness ?” interview question to get people to be authentic and talk about themselves. What follows is me answering this question.
Over the last couple of years, I started to realize that my greatest weakness was a lack of courage. Not the courage that relates to bravery but the courage of being vulnerable, being uncomfortable with others. I learned that I value a lot of connections with others, taking actions that put these connections at risks scares me.
Often that lack of courage is materialized by fear and insecurity. Questions like, “Am I good enough? “, “What do others think about me? “, “Should I say that? “, start to become inhibitors and restrain my capacity to take actions. As an example I have been living in Poland for the last 4 years, and my Polish language skills are far from being great. The main reason for me not having made better progress is that speaking in polish makes me uncomfortable. I am feeling vulnerable, judged, and I start doubting myself. “Will I be understood? “ “Will I understand others? “” This is hard and it feels much better to stay in my comfort zone.
Recently, I learned that the word courage comes from the Latin cor which means heart, its original definition is “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart”. I find that definition excellent, it emphasizes the fact that being yourself and true about yourself is hard. Looking forward, I want to push myself to be more vulnerable and speak more about my weaknesses and fears. I believe this can have a strong impact in today’s world. Let’s be more authentic instead of pretending to have a perfect life, showing off on social media, and using filters to hide our weaknesses.
“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” - Bruce Lee.