Pressure and inspiration

# Chapter 104

Inspiring is what I have ambition to be, because it is the one most consistent emotion that drives all the others which will help people reach their goals. But inspiring is exhausting, especially when you need to have it most. You need to have it most when you are with people and working with them day after day, week after week and so on. I have lots of inspiration when I am sitting here writing this in my pajamas with a hot mug of coffee waking me up and its dark and still outside and inside the house. Later today when I meet with the CEO of a company and he needs me to be inspiring, that is when it goes all dark and cold and AWOL on you. Pressure, even good healthy pressure is kryptonite for inspiration. Obviously we all have different pressure factors, pressure capacities, pressure points, pressure valves, but learning to inspire people to dream, create and accomplish when they need it most is actually a pressure of its own type.

But because it is so important, and failing is better than not trying, you stand up straight and go do your best. In effect, inspiring yourself to inspire others. Or at the very very least, make a best effort at it. You can have the top of the class material, you can have studied the situational context until you know it better than anyone, you can have mega-loads of experience in the same situation that the CEO finds herself in right now, but if you don’t connect and inspire, it still falls flat and you fail to be all that you could have been in this moment.

Instead look deep within, remember what has inspired you in the past, recall what has moved you from A to B, get the hard core of it into your mind (just the most central pieces of the story because this is not about you and you need to listen far more than talk, but you want to make your talk matter) straighten up your mental posture and ramp up your energy because this is critical, an urgent moment to help someone pivot and succeed. BE your inspiring best today.