Can You Be 100% YOU @Work?

Can you be entirely yourself at work? 100% the real you? Using your real gifts? Feeling free?

What if you can't?

Sitting around a campfire eating s'mores the other night in South Carolina, I asked Margaret, a best selling author, and world-class speaker a question and her answer's had me thinking ever since.

"Margaret, what are you at your core? Are you a speaker who writes? Or are you a writer who speaks?"

Margaret looked down in thought for a moment. "Honestly, I'm just Margaret."

Nothing else needed be said.

I learned why Margaret so captivates audiences in whatever medium she communicates. She's the real deal! Herself. Margaret.

And I can say that's one of the hardest journeys for many of us.. Especially if it involves our work, vocation or job.

We feel like we should be "other" since it's too dangerous to be "us." Or wonder if there's really such a place for us.

Years ago, I coached a fifty-something man in job transition who told me he felt he had to be "this other person" when he did a job interview.

He told me, "I wondered who that guy even was! It was like I was outside myself looking in. I felt like such a fraud."

"So, I'm assuming that job isn't a fit for you," I said.

"Well…. No. They're offering me double what I used to make! I think I have to take it!"

I now wonder, at what price will many sell their souls to be or do things that aren't them at work? And what's the real cost

• In energy?

• Depression?

• Loss of productivity?

• Never reaching potential?

Of course, that may not at all mean you won't make plenty of money when you do things that make you "Just You." You probably should get paid a whole lot more to do that!

But clearly, too many sell themselves too cheaply to be and do things that aren't them.

Theologian Martin Buber wrote,

"Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?"

The coaching tip today is to ask yourself 3 questions.

1. Can you be entirely the real you at work right now? (Why or why not?)

2. If you had super-hero courage and confidence to be fully you, what would you do differently? (if anything?)

3. What might the fully real you accomplish in the coming five years if 100% set free?

All to say —- Find how to be 100% you!