Mike Robbins

Infusing Life and Business with Authenticity and Appreciation

Appreciation

Being Bold : What Does it Mean to You?

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What does being bold mean to you? 

Bold people are daring and courageous—they’re not afraid to break the rules. They have their own identity and are willing to express it. 

Are you that type of person?

Do you consider yourself bold?

Some of us do, but most people I know and work with, myself included, admit that they don’t often think of themselves as bold.  

Even when some of us have moments of boldness, these moments can be scary and are often few/far between.

Why is this?

Because we sometimes don’t have the courage to be bold or we don’t find ourselves going for it in our work and our life—or not nearly as much as we’d like (especially during these difficult times).

Being bold is essential to living a fulfilling life

While scary and challenging for many of us, being bold is essential if we’re going to live an authentic, successful, and fulfilling life.  Boldness is about stepping up and stepping out onto our edge in life—pushing the limits of what we think is possible or even appropriate.  

It’s about living, speaking, and acting in ways that are both courageous and true to who we are.

Because we’re all unique, our individual versions of boldness will look quite different.  

Something that might be bold for me may not be so for you—or vice versa.  Going for it has to do with us getting in touch with our deepest truths, passions, and desires in life and then having the courage to live and act out loud in a way that is congruent with this.

5 Tips On How to Be Bold

Here are five key reminders of what it takes to be bold and go for it in life:

1. Be True to Yourself

A part of being bold includes having the ability to honor yourself, your emotions, and the things you believe in.

Tell and live your truth with courage, vulnerability, and commitment.  

Think about who you are and what is important to you. Don’t be afraid to admit when you’ve made a mistake, gone off course, or done something that’s out of integrity for yourself.

Remember that we all feel lost at times. Being true to who we are is about being ruthlessly honest and also forgiving ourselves (and others) fiercely and compassionately.

2. Live with Passion

Passion comes from within us, not from the external circumstances, events, activities, or people in our lives. 

Being bold is about going for it, not holding back, and giving ourselves fully to our work, relationships, and lives.  

To be bold, we must live with passion and be true to that passion. 

3. Step Out

Don’t be afraid to challenge yourself.

Say and do things that are outside of your comfort zone. Do things that scare you. 

When you start to challenge yourself, you force yourself to step out in life and to step more fully into who you really are. 

Sometimes when we try to step out of our comfort zone, we get scared. We don’t think we’re ready, we sometimes don’t know exactly what we’re supposed to do, and we rarely have a guarantee that things will work out.  So what. 

As Ray Bradbury famously said, “Jump and build your wings on the way down.”

4. Create a Dream Team

Never be afraid to ask for support and lean on others. Sometimes our support systems are what can help us get through challenging times.

Support, inspiration, and accountability from other people are essential along our journey of boldness and authenticity.  

You can’t do it all by yourself, which is why it is so important to understand when to reach out to others who believe in you, will tell you the truth, and can help you when you get stuck.  

Create a “dream team” of powerful and supportive people around you with whom you can share your hopes, dreams, and ideas.  Be willing to ask for and receive their support, contribution, and generosity.

5. When You Fall, Get Back Up 

We all fall – and that’s okay.

It’s essential to make peace with the fact that you will fall, probably a lot, especially if you’re going for it and playing big in life.  

How we respond to falling down is what truly makes the difference in our lives. How we get back up when we fall is how we become bold.

When we’re willing to get back up, dust ourselves off, be honest about how we feel, and not let it stop us from going for what we want – we tap into what true power, boldness, and authenticity are all about!

What are you willing to do in your life right now to step out and go for what you want boldly? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

 

Liked this post? Here are three more!

 

This article was published on February 17, 2011, and updated for 2021.

Speaking Your Truth to Live a Life of Authenticity

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Do you find it easier to talk about speaking your truth than actually doing it?

Speaking up and speaking your truth is an essential aspect of living a life of passion, fulfillment, and authenticity. However, we struggle to find ways to speak our truth for many of us, myself included.

Not too long ago, I was talking to a friend who told me a poignant and powerful story about speaking his truth. He was in a grocery store and saw a woman cruelly yelling at her kids.

He explained that he walked over to the woman and asked her to treat her children with kindness and love.

Bold, right?

The woman responded by telling him to stick it up his “you-know-what,” grabbed her kids, and rushed out of the store.

My friend explained that he didn’t know if he did the wrong thing. He was scared, upset, and emotional. But, he also said, “Mike, when I walked away, I noticed something interesting. I wasn’t blaming anyone. However, since I spoke up,

I was at peace and not wasting any time or energy blaming anyone. I have no idea if what I said impacted that woman, but I don’t have to live with her. I have to live with myself.”

By Speaking Your Truth, You Open the Door to Freedom

What if we dared to speak up like that in all areas of life – our work, our relationships, our family, with people in public, and in general?

Imagine the freedom and power we would possess! It’s not at all about getting in people’s faces and challenging them, although sometimes it might take that form.

An important distinction to remember is the difference between our “opinions” and our “truth.”

We all have opinions – but remember: our opinions are not facts.

Our opinions are filled with righteous judgment and an arrogant sense that we’re “right,” and those who disagree with us are “wrong.”

But our “truth” runs much deeper than any of our opinions.

Truth is About How We Feel

Truth is not about being right. Truth is about how we feel and what is real for us. It’s about expressing what we think and feel in an authentic, vulnerable, and transparent way.

We are all entitled to our own opinions.

For example, I might have an opinion that you are rude. I might even have evidence of things you did in the past that were rude. My truth about this, though, might be that I worry you will hurt my feelings, or I don’t like some of the things you do, which make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable around you.

When we let go of being “right” about our opinions and take responsibility for our experience, we can speak our truth from a much deeper and more authentic place.

Speaking this deeper truth will not only liberate us, but it has the potential to make a difference for others and bring us closer together with them.

How Do We Enhance and Deepen Our Capacity to Speak Our Truth With Kindness, Love, and Authenticity?

There are lots of things we can do to accomplish this – here are three to think about.

Stop Managing Other People’s Feelings

When we try to manage other people’s emotions, we use it as a cop-out not to speak our truth.

When we let go of taking care of others in a condescending way, it frees us and them up to have adult conversations, which sometimes can get a little sticky or tense when we’re speaking our truth.

Be Real, Not Right

I wrote a whole article about this – click here to read it.

When we focus on winning or being right, we no longer can access the deepest places within our hearts, which is where our real truth comes from.

When we let go of our attachment to the outcome of a conversation, what the other person thinks, and our erroneous obsession with always having to be right, we allow ourselves to get real.

Being vulnerable and transparent are the key elements of speaking your truth and not dominating the conversation and the person we’re talking to.

Practice

Like anything and everything else in life, the best way to get better, deepen our capacity, and grow is to practice.

Will you mess it up? Of course! Will you say the wrong things sometimes? Yes! Will people get upset, offended, or defensive at times? Absolutely. It is not about being perfect. It is about being yourself and speaking authentically.

Have empathy and compassion with yourself as you practice – this is not easy for most of us.

Remember that each situation is always new and different.

Speaking your truth is not always going to be easy – but it will be worth it.

Speaking up can be incredibly scary and challenging for us. Even if your legs shake, your voice quivers, or your heart races (all of which usually happen when we get real and vulnerable) – take a deep breath, dig down for the courage you have within you, and be willing to speak your truth.

When we do this, we can watch our relationships and lives literally transform.

Where in your life are you not speaking your truth, and what are you willing to do about that? Share your thoughts, action ideas, insights, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

How to Appreciate Your Body and Love Yourself

How to Embrace Disappointment and Learn From it

It’s Okay to Do It Wrong

This article was published on September 15, 2009, and has been updated for 2021.

How to Embrace Disappointment and Learn From it

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I am not a huge fan of disappointment.

When I disappoint someone or disappoint myself, it can often lead me to feeling sadness, anger, and even shame.

How do you feel about disappointment?

Recently, I’ve been quite disappointed by some important people in my life and, in turn, they’ve been disappointed (and annoyed) with me.

As I’ve been noticing my strong reaction to these situations, I realize how I spend time focusing on doing everything I can not disappoint others while at the same time protecting myself against being disappointed.

Can you relate to this?

Don’t Let Disappointment Set You Up For Failure.

When we focus on trying not to disappoint others or worrying that people will disappoint us, we set ourselves up for failure.

And, as I’ve seen recently, this makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to speak our truth, be ourselves, and live with authenticity and peace.

Disappointment can have all sorts of adverse effects but it can also be a positive thing.

It’s essential for us to be able to overcome our fear of disappointment and learn how we can use disappointment to our advantage. This way, we can embrace it and learn from every disappointing experience.

Why Not Embrace Disappointment?

What if we embraced disappointment instead of avoiding it?

Disappointment usually isn’t fun, but we don’t have to avoid it. It can actually teach us a great deal. It can play a significant role in our emotional development and can help us on the road to achieving our goals.

We will inevitably disappoint people, especially when we authentically live our lives. Speaking up, going for the things that are important to us, and being true to ourselves are all things that at times won’t align with others and, in some cases, may even upset them.

However, we can be mindful and aware of others and still be true to ourselves – these things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

Asking for what we want, counting on others, and trusting people – all of which are essential for healthy, fulfilling, and authentic relationships – make us vulnerable to being disappointed and even hurt by the people around us.

So what?

Disappointment is an Essential Part of Our Growth

Disappointment helps us grow, learn, and improve.

We end up getting more hurt and disappointed in the long run by withholding our desires and expectations. So we might as well live out loud and be honest about how we feel, what we want, and what’s important to us.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Dr. Suess

Disappointment, as uncomfortable and even painful as it can be for many of us, is essential on our journey of growth, self-discovery, and authenticity.

Being okay with disappointing others allows us the freedom to be ourselves in an authentic way. It also takes away the pressure and stress we often feel about always having to do, say, or be a certain way.

Letting go of our fear of being disappointed by other people gives us the ability to take more risks and ask for what we truly want.

When we embrace disappointment, we create a sense of liberation and space that frees us up to be who we are and let go of our attachment and obsession with other people’s opinions. Of course, doing this isn’t always easy, but it can be transformational.

The Benefits of Disappointment

It makes you grateful.

When you experience disappointment, it can help make you feel more grateful for what you have. Whether you disappoint someone or someone disappoints you, it helps you better understand and appreciate the things you have in life, the people who have your back, and the fact that you can overcome anything.

It helps you learn.

When you experience disappointment, it can be a great way to learn a valuable lesson. In addition, you can use the experience as a guide to help you deal with similar situations in the future.

It motivates you.

Once you overcome feeling disappointment, it can help motivate you to grow and learn from your mistakes.

It makes you more resilient.

Resilience helps us recover and move on from difficulties, face challenges, and grow stronger each time we experience stress or pressure. When we go through a disappointment, it helps us grow, adapt, and make goals to become better in the future.

How to Embrace Disappointment

Here are a few things you can consider and do to expand your ability to embrace disappointment:

Take inventory of your life and relationships.

Take an honest look at some of the most important relationships and activities in your life. How many of your actions, thoughts, conversations, and more (or lack thereof) have to do with your avoidance of disappointing others or being disappointed?

Be honest and take responsibility.

As you notice areas, situations, and people in your life where fear of disappointment is present, see if you can tell the truth about it in a vulnerable way to the people involved. For example, you may say to a friend, “I want to ask you for this favor, but I’m a little scared to do so because I’m worried you will say ‘no’ which might disappoint me” (or something to that effect). Take responsibility for how you feel and remember that your issue with disappointment is all about you, not them.

Practice saying “no.”

Saying no is a great practice, especially for those of us “people pleasers” who find ourselves saying “yes” to stuff we don’t want to do. While there is an astonishing amount of value in being someone willing to say “yes” in life, there is also a great deal of power in owning our “no” as well. See if you can practice saying “no” to people, even if it’s scary or uncomfortable. Be authentic and vulnerable about it – with yourself and others. And see if you can expand your capacity to decline requests of things you don’t want to do and make peace with yourself about it.

Be Kind to Yourself

As you delve into this, be kind to yourself. Showing yourself kindness is a big one for me and so many people I know and work with.

We all want to be loved, valued, and appreciated in our lives. And, most of us have had painful experiences of disappointment in the past, which have profoundly impacted us. However, if we can alter our relationship to disappointment – we can grow stronger and transform our lives and relationships in a beautiful way!

Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. In addition, I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. Finally, as an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

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This article was published on August 10, 2009, and has been updated for 2021.

Facing Challenges: How to Appreciate and Learn From Them

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Are you facing challenges in your life or your business right now? Most of us are, especially with everything we’ve been through this past year and half collectively.

Facing challenges is never easy, and these days, there are some real challenges many of us face – at work, at home, in relationships, with money, with family, in the world, and much more.

The challenges themselves, even the most difficult ones, aren’t usually the real issue.

The Real Issue Behind Facing Challenges

The real issue that we face when it comes to challenges is our relationship to them.

Our relationship with challenges is what can bring about the most difficulty and suffering. Think of what your life, your relationships, and your career would be like if you didn’t complain about or resist challenges when they showed up. For most of us, myself included, this would make things very different and much more enjoyable.

So why do we struggle so much when we’re facing challenges? How can we improve our relationship with challenges and learn how to overcome them in a healthy way?

Overcoming Resistance

Resisting, complaining about, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the “bad” things that are happening is normal. We’re often encouraged to deal with challenges this way by the people around us and our culture in general – whether we do it out loud or just in our heads.

However, while understandable, these things don’t address the real issues, the genuine emotions we’re experiencing, or make things better for us.

I’m not advocating that we pretend everything is “fine” when it isn’t in some phony way – this can be denial or toxic positivity, neither of which will help.

When it comes to dealing with difficulty, the question in life isn’t whether or not we’ll face challenges. The question is, what will we do, and how will we respond when they arise?

Do we avoid dealing with difficult things and learning from them by playing the role of the victim and not acknowledging our true feelings about them, or do we face them directly, acknowledge our emotions, and choose to grow from the experience?

It’s always up to us.

On our path of life, growth, and success, we all encounter difficulties. The road to success is full of lessons from failure, making mistakes, and facing challenges.

You cannot succeed if you don’t experience failure. It’s how you deal with failure that determines how successful you can be.

Challenges can be amazing learning experiences – things that force you to grow and change.

Many of the most successful and fulfilled people who’ve ever walked the planet have faced incredible obstacles. But they learned how to get back up after they fell.

What if we appreciated these challenges? Remember, appreciating something doesn’t necessarily mean we like or enjoy it. Appreciation means that we recognize the value of it.

How Facing Challenges Can Help Us Grow

Here’s a list of some things we can appreciate when things get tough:

  • Challenges often give us important feedback about where and who we are
  • Challenges give us contrast and can help us appreciate things when they get easier
  • Challenges can allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we weren’t paying attention to
  • Challenges are almost always an excellent opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement
  • Challenges allow us to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions

By learning to appreciate our challenges and see the opportunities in them, we take our power back from the situations and circumstances of our lives.

Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage gives us an important insight into who we are and how to create success and fulfillment consciously and deliberately.

Here’s What You Can Do

Make a list of some of the biggest challenges in your life right now. Answer these questions about them:

  • What can you appreciate about each of these difficulties?
  • What are you learning from them?
  • What are you able to appreciate in yourself and your life because of these things?

If you look for it, you’ll be able to find many things to appreciate about every one of them.

It’s time to get real about how we feel and to face our challenges head-on.

Appreciating these difficulties can allow us to accept them, learn from them, and ultimately take back our power from them. Doing this reminds us that we’re the authors of our lives – not the circumstances we’re facing.

Where in your life are you currently facing challenges? What do you appreciate about these specific challenges (i.e., what are you learning from them and what can you be grateful for about dealing with them)? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

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This article was published on February 10, 2011 and updated for 2021.

Get Back Up When You Fall Down: How to Overcome Failure

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With all that has been going on over the past year or so, many of us have been “falling down” in so many areas of life and business.

When you fall, do you get back up right away?

When you fail, do you learn from it and take it as an opportunity to grow?

Many of us, myself included, struggle at times with learning from our failures. We sometimes give up as soon as we fail, not realizing that what is necessary is to push a bit harder until we reach a breakthrough.

How to Get Back Up When You Fall

Have you ever seen a small child learn how to walk? If you have, you know what a remarkable experience it is.

I’d heard about this but had never witnessed it until Samantha, our now fifteen-year-old daughter, took her first steps when she was just over a year. She and I were playing in our family room one night, and although she’d taken a step or two here and there and could get around okay while holding onto an adult or a piece of furniture, she hadn’t really “walked” yet.

That night, I held her hands and pulled her across the room with me as she took some steps. I decided to let go to see what would happen. I did, and she took a step or two and then fell, face first, on the soft carpet. She was fine. She looked up at me, and although she couldn’t speak yet, she made it very clear that she wanted me to pick her up so she could try again. I did, and this time when I let go, she took about four or five actual steps and then fell. I screamed, “You did it!”, started clapping wildly and yelling for my wife Michelle to come into the room.

Michelle came running in. Samantha and I went to the far end of our family room. I held her hands to steady her, started walking with her across the floor, let go, and then it happened – she really walked – across the room, by herself. When she fell, Michelle and I were so delighted and moved, we both burst into tears and joyous laughter at the same time.

Samantha, so proud of herself, began to shriek with excitement and to clap her hands as she was lying there on the floor. And, of course, she wanted to get back up and go again.

Moving Through the Ups and Downs of Life

We all know how to do this – fall and get back up. Assuming we know how to walk, which most of us are fortunate enough to do, we went through this specific and miraculous experience ourselves when we were very small.

We’ve also gone through it in a figurative sense many other times as we move through the ups and downs of life, especially recently. The question isn’t whether or not we’ll fall; the question is will we be bold enough to get back up again?

Remember: it’s okay to do it wrong. Too often, sadly, we fall or make a mistake, and then decide we can’t get back up. Boldness is about having the courage, willingness, and commitment to get up when we fall – even if we’re scared or don’t think we can.

Resisting, complaining, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the “bad” things that happen is normal and what we’re often encouraged to do by people around us and our culture in general – whether we do it out loud with others or just in our heads.

However, while understandable, these things don’t address the real issues, the emotions we’re experiencing, or make things better for us.

Let Your Challenges Become Opportunities for Growth

Facing difficulties in our life can be incredibly beneficial – if we choose to allow our challenges to be growth opportunities.

Below is a list of some things to appreciate when we “fall down” in life. Obstacles, failures, and challenges can:

  • Give us important feedback about where and who we are
  • Provide an opportunity for us to be courageous
  • Allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we hadn’t been paying attention to
  • Give us an excellent opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement
  • Allow us to learn to appreciate ourselves, even when things don’t turn out exactly as we want them to
  • Give us an opportunity to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions in an authentic way
  • Challenge us to play bigger, make adjustments, or rethink our approach

By learning to see our challenges as opportunities, we take our power back from situations, circumstances, and outcomes in our life.

Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage, gives us an important insight into who we really are and how to create success and fulfillment in a conscious, deliberate, and authentic way.

Being bold, going for what we want, and living with authenticity doesn’t in any way mean we won’t fail, struggle, or fall short. If we aren’t failing or facing any challenges at all, it’s probably a good indication that we aren’t playing all that big in our lives.

Failure is a Key Part of Success

Failure isn’t the opposite of success, it’s a part of success. It teaches us about resilience, courage, growth, and support. Failure is a stepping stone to achieving all of our goals.

Every time you fail, there is a 100 % chance that it will teach you something. It is vital to use failure as a teaching tool to improve yourself and your skills, whether it be about decision-making, problem-solving, or more.

Many people associate failure with defeat, but it’s crucial to change your mindset about it. By learning and growing from our failures, we thrive, step outside of our comfort zone, and gain new perspectives.

Failure is ever-present in life – from the moment we take our first steps to our present life. It helps us grow and makes us stronger. It also allows us to learn from our weaknesses and develop our strengths.

Everyone fails, and everyone reacts to failure differently. We need to make peace with the fact that we will fall many times throughout our journey. However, when we commit ourselves to get back up, dust ourselves off, be honest about how we feel and what happened, and not let it stop us from being who we are and going for what we want – we tap into what true power, boldness, and authenticity are all about.

As Mark Twain reminds us in one of his many famous quotes,

“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”

Where in your life have you recently fallen down? Have you gotten back up yet? If so, great – acknowledge yourself. If not, what will it take for you to get back up, learn from the experience, and appreciate yourself in the process? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

Appreciate the Simple Things
The Trap of Comparison
Are You Threatened By Other People’s Success?

This article was published on December 2, 2010, and has been updated for 2021.

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