Finding your sweet spot

or, how to discover your authentic voice.

We are taught from an early age that being smart and getting an education is vital. It’s the way out of poverty and struggle, it’s the pathway to success. Over all else, society values your capacity for knowing things, your IQ, and your cognition.

I always thought that this was because it WAS the most valuable thing, so my head injury last year triggered a bit of an existential crisis. My identity was so wrapped up in my intelligence and cognitive abilities and my ability to work like a demon, go the extra mile and hustle hard, so who the hell was I and what value did I have if I couldn’t rely on those things anymore?

I spent months trying to unpick this, my brain providing a whole pile of unhelpful black and white thinking: Unemployed = unsuccessful. Neurofatigue = stupidity. Unable to work full-time due to pain = terrible, worthless person.

But I realised that society values intellect not because it’s the most important thing, but because it’s the most easily measurable and rewarded. How many questions did you get right on the test? How much is your yearly salary? How many people saw this post?

And this tunnel vision is where we go wrong in comms and marketing (and in life!). We go to university, attend conferences and webinars and read scholarly articles to learn how to be successful communications and marketing types. We pour over our ‘insights’ and other engagement metrics. We’re continuously prompted to “boost this post” to reach X number of people.

In the words of Maya Angelou:

And it’s pretty hard to make people feel something if you’re only seeing them as a number.

So take what you know intellectually and centre it within what you know in your gut. Forget about ‘doing it right’ and make sure it feels right.

Because if it feels right it probably is right.

And that’s when the right people start showing up more often.