Nick Talarico, COO, Do it Best

Key takeaway: Self-awareness is not just knowing who you are. It is paying attention when the same message keeps showing up from different people in different parts of your life. Sometimes the truth is not loud. Sometimes it sounds like, “Just keep being you.” The real work is being curious enough to ask what it means, brave enough to hear the answer, and smart enough to keep truth-tellers close.

Find those people. Keep them close.

It was a long meeting, and I thought it would be nice to give him a lift back to his hotel. We talked shop along the way.

The short drive and nice gesture turned into an hour-long conversation.

He said he had some advice. Uh-oh.

Then he said, “Just keep being you.”

Ok… I thought. That could have been worse. I thanked him. And I meant it.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I heard it again.

From someone else entirely. Then again.

Different people. Different areas of my life. Personal and professional.

What is going on???

By the fourth or fifth time, I didn’t hear it as encouragement anymore.

Was this a warning?

I went back to the first conversation and asked him:

“You said this to me, and now I keep hearing it from others. What am I missing?”

That conversation changed how I thought about self-awareness.

Most of us think self-awareness is knowing yourself. And it is.

But, I think it’s also being curious enough to investigate when something keeps showing up.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s something worth paying attention to.

I got lucky.

I had people in my life willing to tell me the truth.

Not everyone does.

Find those people. Keep them close.