EP33 | Fight for Your Own Greatness

What does it mean to fight for your own greatness? Recently Zach received a great message from one of the participants in his talks and this led him to explore this idea. What does it mean to let your light shine? To reveal you're true purpose in life? Find out more in this episode of the Create Purpose Podcast.

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Zach Arend: And by you fighting for and believing in your own greatness, you give permission for everyone around you. You actually are role modeling for them that they don't need anybody else to come to them, to tell them who they are that only comes from within.

I received an email. Just a couple weeks ago from an attendee that was at one of my workshops throughout the year. I, I love doing intimate workshops where we get to get back into touch with the leaders. We know we are and really get back into resonance with, with that, so that we can lead more powerfully, more creatively and have the impact that we wanna make.

And there was this workshop. We, I just hosted it. It was several weeks ago and I got an email back. And this person was just sharing with me their takeaways. He said that I'm learning that I have to fight for my own greatness fighting for your own greatness. I knew exactly what he was talking about, cuz it fit into the context of, of the discussions we had in that workshop.

He, he says that one of the outcomes was he realized that how many of us, and, and I'm wondering if, if you might be raising your hand too, if you were in the room, how many of us seemed to feel like we're just not good enough? We're not a good enough leader. We're not smart enough. We're not experienced enough.

We let that. Dictate the choices we make, the opportunities we pursue what we say yes to what we say no to. And the idea behind this principle that we must fight for our own greatness is that we need to start recognizing. And feeling it and giving ourselves permission, knowing that we belong here, we are good enough.

We can do it. You can do it. We need to start fighting for our own greatness because what do we do instead? Here's what I've observed. And I've observed it in myself and I'm willing to bet you will observe it in yourself as I share it with you. Instead of believing in and fighting for our own greatness.

We look around us looking for somebody to tap us on the shoulder to point at us and say, you got this you're great. You can do this. We are so craving for people to believe in us, deep down. That's what I want. I think that's what you want. We want to be surrounded by people that believe in us and we know it when we have it and we know it when we don't have it.

And that is what creates that rollercoaster experience of success. If you will, or the journey towards success and achievement, whatever you wanna call that we are putting ourselves at the effect of other people's opinions of us. When people are saying, we did a great job. When we, we hit the goal, we might feel good about ourselves when, when it goes quiet and we're on our own journey, which many entrepreneurs and business owners, that's where the, the rub is right.

Is you actually are creating your own course. You're the captain of your ship. You're a hundred percent responsible. Nobody else is coming. And what that also means is the affirmations that maybe you got in a, in a different life. Aren't there anymore, starting out and, and we have to learn to fight for our own greatness and instead of expecting other people to give it to us and to give us permission to be great, you know, the there's a, this, this hasn't been said better than in this poem by Mary Anne Williamson.

I wanna read it to you. You may have heard it before, but I want you just to this time, listen differently. Listen, as if these words were written written for you and only for you, Mary Anne Williamson says this. She says our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous. Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same as we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

That's why I want you to fight for your own greatness. Because nobody else will. And by you fighting for and believing in your own greatness, you give permission for everyone around you. You actually are role modeling for them that they don't need anybody else to come to them, to tell them who they are that only comes from within.

And, you know, I think. I have three daughters. Claire is about to turn 10. Sophie just turned eight. Thea's four full three daughters. And I want them to believe in themselves no matter what my opinion is of them. A friend of mine, I, I got this from her and if she's listening, she might, she might make the correlation.

But this idea of, we all tell our kids, we're proud of them, you know, and my daughter, Sophie. She signed up for a one week musical theater camp. All days, five days a week, her and the cast, she's a she's eight. They, they created this original show that they were gonna perform for us on Friday at the end of the day.

And so she, she learned songs. She learned her lines. She learned how to dance on stage. It was all, all the above. And at the end of the, the, the, the show after the week, it was like the capstone of the, the camp. We, the parents gotta come in and watch the play. I. Found myself telling her that I was proud of her.

And I was, I mean, absolutely was I saw the work she put in that girl was rehearsing her lines when she was supposed to be sleeping, not just rehearsing them quietly, but as if she was sharing them on stage without a microphone. So she's literally shouting her lines. It's nine o'clock at night, but you just can't stop something like that.

You're just like you go girl. So Sophie's in a room rehearsing her lines. So. Every night, literally every night until the night of the performance, I was proud of her, but I was reminded of a, a different question to ask her. And the question I asked her is like, are you proud of you? Are you proud of the work you put in?

Are you proud of your performance? And when she looked back at me and she said, yes, daddy, That's what I'm really after. That's what I really want to teach my daughters. That's what I really want to teach my clients. That's the experience I want to have of myself. I wanna be proud of me because I know that if I'm proud of me, I know that if you are proud of you, if my daughter is proud of herself, then what else do you need?

Really, that's what it ultimately means to fight for your own greatness to believe in yourself because nobody else is coming. Nobody else really can give that to you. And I think so many of us have craved that love that belief. From maybe a parent that didn't give it to us or a friend or a boss or a coworker, or, you know, those that we work around and are going on life's journey with our spouse.

We look to them to validate who we are, and that is a mistake. And it's fundamentally flawed you and only you are the one that can validate who you are. So therefore you. And I, my daughter, Sophie and everyone around us has to fight for our own greatness. That's the way, that's the only way. And when you do that, you get to let your own light shine as Maryanne Williamson says, right?

And, and you give permission to everyone around you to do the. And if you're leading a company, if you're, if you're an entrepreneur and you're building a team, isn't that what you ultimately want. So I want you to put your position yourself in the position of being the role model and role model, what it really means to fight for your own greatness.

That is the episode. Take a moment and, and pause and think to yourself what would be D. What would it look and feel like for you beginning right now, in this moment to fight for your own greatness? Just a little bit more than maybe you have, hopefully you really enjoyed this podcast episode. And my hope is you found it.

Really inspirational. And also most importantly, I hope you took away some practical things that you can start to do and apply in your own life. So finally, I have one small favor to ask of you before you go, wherever you get your podcast, whether that's apple music or Spotify. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review.

Love to hear your thoughts. Come find us on social media, share it on social media. It just really helps us get the word out, helps us grow our audience. So please do that. Thanks to my team, Ashley Bolden, who handles all the admin and Chris skipper who handles all the music and editing of this podcast for more information on the.

Purpose podcast, you can go to www.createpurpose.net, and you can also follow me on Instagram, @zach.arend. Please drop me a comment. Reach out, drop me a DM. I'd love to hear from you and love to hear what's you're taking away from these conversations. What would you like to hear more of? Do you have any guests that you would love to see?

Come on the show. And I'm always looking for great people to talk to and people with great stories that can inspire you. And so if you know of anybody send, 'em my way, love to hear from. I'm your host, Zach Arend and I'll see you in the next episode of the Create Purpose Podcast. Bye for now.