Goals & Vulnerabilities

a key stepping stone in building your personal brand

For several months now, I have been taught by a particular mentor to expose my vulnerabilities to others when building relationships. Very recently I learned that concept is flawed. Exposure your true vulnerabilities to the wrong beginner relationship and you will regret it. It was unfortunate that I put that kind of trust in this mentor's team; the very teachers of the practice. All that got me was a bargaining chip on their end for how much my support is worth on paper given my current state of being. Things would be much different If I never revealed my true vulnerabilities. I could have dominated the scene with my knowledge given the particular support I render, because I was more of an expert in my help than most of their team combined. If I just kept my weaknesses shadowed until the time was right to show candor, I would be more integrated into the overall system by now. At the same time, however, like your goals, your vulnerabilities should still be known to you. Your vulnerabilities could be the very things that are holding you back from your ultimate goals. For example, my writing skills are not so great; embarrassing even to a certain degree. Moreover, because of my Boston slang and accent, some people have a hard time understanding what I am even saying in speech. I even see it affect my writing because of how I hear certain words play back in my head because of the slang. Not good, I know. Because of these vulnerabilities, I am also fearful of doing public speaking with white boards and things of that nature. Oh but wait! There is a happy ending. Because I know what these vulnerabilities are and accept them, I have set goals to help better myself in these areas, which I am slowly, but surely doing. It takes patience people. Now think of this; if I can perfect my writing and speech vulnerabilities to the point of above average standard, that would do away with my fear of whiteboard writing all together. So by handling even 2 of the 3 vulnerabilities, I drop a vulnerability all together that I would have had to solve anyway, all while getting closer to one of my ultimate goals; being a motivational speaker that uses a diverse skill set of tools and trade, to better the success of myself and others. If I never accepted my vulnerabilities, and be willing to work on them, I would always be kept away from one of my ultimate goals. Be sure to add a Box 3 to your piece of paper, and title it, "my vulnerabilities". Start writing out some of those not so happy thoughts.

Now goals are something much different. Goals are more vast, and quite frankly, infinite in the scheme of things. If we could only live 1,000 years. Goals can be simplistic, yet, can become more complex then dreams themselves. Your goals should be constructive ones. They should be very to the point, they should be measurable (either you can or can't do it now or ever), they should be attainable, they should be something realistic, and they need to have some timeframe in when it can be accomplished.

Lastly, I should not even write what I am about to write this early in the game, although, I must also support those who have been there and done that. It is OK to stop striving for a goal if it begins to make you unhappy, resource depleting, or to make way for a more beneficial goal. Should you stop doing something a month into it, hell no. A few years though.... Maybe. One of my real dreams in my early 20s was to be a Rockstar. I am talking, a Rockstar! I had a band that was actually ripping it up pretty hard. We did some passive cover stuff from Pink Floyd and Tool, but we were really throwing down the Mudvayne and Slipknot pretty hard. I am sure some of you are already horrified. We were doing good though. It was probably one of the fastest growing dream accomplishments I have accounted. There was an issue though. One I could not part with because I loved it more. My family. My kids and the mother of my kids at that. I would have had to leave them constantly, and doing a dream that was more selfish than beneficial collectively. Lets just say I am not in a rock band anymore.