A Lesson In Showing Up

Over the past month, I have been speaking with someone in the TV industry who does product placement and branding for TV shows.

She previously worked on Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution shows, and I met her through my participation in Food Revolution Day. After her work on Jamie’s show, she began to realize her passion lies in food, and she shifted her career focus toward branding and funding development for culture-shifting food organizations and companies.

After my first conversation with her, she emailed me a list of potential contacts who could be interested in Food On Our Table. Her connections are big-named, well known companies. My response was to freak out and pretty much shutdown.

I didn’t prepare for our next call. I didn’t ask what she expected me to do. I didn’t know what actions she needed to see in me to have confidence that I would make the connections. I simply sent her my program materials.

She spent two weeks going through my programs. She liked my stuff, and said she related to it.

Her kids are grown up now, and she said I helped her realize ways she could have raised them differently.

She said she now finds herself in the grocery store making a mental plan of what she wants to eat in the coming week. She is compelled

to think differently in the grocery store; she said she can’t help herself. Our call was going well.

Then, her enthusiasm fell flat.

She asked me to go to the website of a company that has my same target audience. When I got there I could immediately see who they were, what they were about, their brand and their intention to serve.

Then she said, “Your material is good, but I kept looking for your

brand and your personality.”

In spite of all that she learned from going through my program, she said she ultimately missed me: the passionate woman she was talking to on the phone.

What I sent her was good, but not good enough.

Ugh …

I was disappointed. I slowly faded out of the conversation with a lame promise to keep in touch.

I woke up the next morning and took my regular walk with Sadie. As we walked, I rubbed the burn of my disappointment by reviewing our conversation. Then, I began to wonder. Why didn’t I ask her what she thought I should do to improve my offerings? Where did she see possibilities for growth? What did she see as my next steps?

It was then that I realized that “little me” had shown up on each call to ask if she wanted to come out and play. I hadn’t come to our calls ready to change the world.

I now see that she had a big vision for me, but she can’t help me until I see that vision for myself.

There is no Alice-in-Wonderland-magic-potion to help me grow into a bigger version of myself. There is only me believing and stepping into in a bigger version of myself.