Hooray for Guest Post Wednesday and Susan!
Those of us who write, interact and generally hang out on the web know that it’s entirely possible to show just the parts of us that we want seen and hide the rest.
And, of course, no one will ever know because you’re not face to face, right?
Actually… not quite.
photo credit: » Zitona «
We humans are a perceptive bunch
Have you ever seen a movie from the 1950′s where a door to door salesman scams a pretty housewife with a bad deal on aluminum siding? You were probably aghast thinking “How could she NOT see right through that?!”
It’s a great example of how much more perceptive we’ve become in the last several decades. I don’t have a lot of raw data for you on this, I just see the evidence all around me that our consciousness is evolving.
It’s common for us to talk today about intuition, authenticity and transparency, but you would never have heard those terms 40 years ago.
I call this our “spidey-sense” and I truly believe that this ever increasing ability to “feel” who people are and where they’re coming from is a big part of why we can be so comfortable interacting online.
When empathy joins the party, not much is hidden
OK, next TV analogy! Remember Counsellor Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation? For those of you who don’t, she was a very important advisor to the captain because of one main ability – she was an “empath” or someone who could easily perceive the underlying feelings of others.
The captain would receive a message from some new species they’d never encountered before and then he would always turn the video screen off and turn to Counsellor Troi for her assessment before responding.
And her advice would be based on whether the things they were saying outwardly matched what they were thinking and feeling underneath it.
If they didn’t match, she would usually respond with “I don’t trust him.”
This sensory match-up is the essence of authenticity.
And this is what your people are looking for.
When my company The Heart’s Voice first began in January 2000, it was all about helping people speak from their hearts. And so I coached a number of speakers in how to reach their audience by being really authentic.
You see, I’ve been an empath since I was a child and I’ve always had the same ability that Deanna Troi had. So in listening to these speakers, I knew right away when something didn’t match up.
But what was really fascinating, was that I came to understand that their audience always knew when they were “off” as well, but they didn’t always know it consciously.
Mismatches lead to mistrust
We don’t always know exactly what’s “off” when we’re evaluating a person, product or website, but there’s something in us that tells us to pause – a little red flag in our gut that starts to wave before we go ahead and make a decision or a purchase.
What I noticed in those audiences was that the more mismatches there were from the speaker, the less trust and connection they had with their audience.
And that always led to fewer sales, fewer sign-ups or fewer good contacts made.
So how does this apply to an awesome website?
Your people are reading your matches and mismatches just like a speaker’s audience and they’re going to come away with a decision about whether they trust you or not.
They might be getting mismatched cues from your site design – like loud colours paired with a soft message or too many mixed font types. (A good reason to have awesome guidance in this area if you need it!)
Or it might be something more subtle.
When you’re hiding they can feel it.
We all have a list of things we think we can’t ever share without people running screaming from the room (or from their computers) horrified at our weirdness.
It might be your ‘too edgy’ sense of humour or your ‘too out-there’ love of the mystical or the fact that you’re a big softy when you’re supposed to be a hard-nosed negotiator.
But when you feel the need to hide those things, that creates a tension in you – a need for control and self-censorship, always watching to make sure you don’t let something slip.
And that tension is felt by others.
They won’t know why your page doesn’t feel right, they just won’t feel a lot of ease and flow in reading it because you weren’t feeling much ease when you wrote it, what with all that hiding!
It’s actually that quirky stuff they want from you.
It’s the paradoxes that make you interesting… and human. The stuff that seems like it can’t possibly fit together. Like ‘softy’ and ‘hard-nosed negotiator’ or ‘delightful’ and ‘weirdo’.
That’s the essence of an authentic brand.
But almost everyone I’ve ever helped to find their authentic ‘voice’ or brand had to overcome their resistance to it before they could really share it with the world.
We each have an aversion to sharing things about us that weren’t fully welcomed by others at various times. That’s where the impulse to hide comes from.
But when you relax and let your quirky hair down, you’ll discover a joy and ease that just naturally leads to better connections and more trust with your right people.
What authentic parts of yourself would you reveal if you KNEW they would be 100% welcomed?
If you’re not sure, ask a few trusted friends and loved ones about your authentic yet quirky qualities.
Ask about 10 of them and you might start to see a pattern! Then see if you can embrace those things fully and start to let them show.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below.
And if you dare, use this as place to safely come out of hiding and let us know what delightful weirdness you want to start showing!
Susan Johnstone, at The Heart’s Voice, creates magic and movement wherever desires meet obstacles. She specializes in changing procrastination, self-sabotage, hiding and resistance of all kinds.