The best you can be
Below is a video recording of a speech I gave as part of a Toastmasters contest this past Monday. A text version follows.
One thing that saddens me is when people settle for less than their best. Much of the time it’s for no other reason than they believe that their best, if they were to give it, wouldn’t be good enough anyway.
I had a conversation with a friend recently and discovered she has a secret desire to become a published author some day. Now that surprised me. I’d known this girl for years and I never even knew she liked to write. As it turns out, she writes short stories quite frequently, but they usually end up in a drawer somewhere, unread by anyone but herself. Once she even took part in that National Novel Writing Month, where you try to write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in the month of November. My friend completed the challenge, actually wrote a 175-page novel in four week, but again, once she was done, she decided to hide the pages away in a drawer and not let anyone read them.
I listened to my friend tell me all this, and I asked her why she didn’t enter her stories in some competitions, or post them on the internet? How did she expect to become a published author if nobody ever got to read her stuff?
She replied that she didn’t feel her stories were good enough. She reads quite a lot herself, and couldn’t see her own stories and writing skills measuring up to the those of the pros.
Here’s a girl with all the intelligence and potential in the world, and she was telling me she believed her best simply wouldn’t be good enough. That saddens me. And the fact that there are sooo many people like her out there… well, that saddens me even more.
I’m lucky in that I was able to overcome such a limiting belief — the belief that my best isn’t good enough — and I’m so glad I did.
A little more than six months ago, I started this blog about personal development, which was kind of a ridiculous thing to do. Ridiculous because, if you Google the term “personal development blog,” you get back more than 50 million results. That means there are literally millions of other blogs out there on the same subject, many of them with huge followings and massive archives of great content. What made me think that I could carve out a niche for myself in such an already over-saturated market? What made me think that people would find and read my blog, and benefit from it? I mean, with all of those other blogs out there, you could assume that pretty much everything that ever needed to be said about personal development has already been said, said in hundreds of different ways and translated into languages that I’ve never even heard of.
Really, what the hell was I thinking, setting up a personal development blog?
Well, truth be told, I wasn’t thinking too much. I wasn’t worrying about the big picture. All that really mattered to me was that I loved personal development, and I wanted to help people. And so I started with that. I focused on sharing concepts that helped me and writing about my own experiments and experiences.
And you know what? These last six months have been fantastic. I’ve accelerated my own growth by forcing myself to research and write articles once a week, and I know for a fact that I’ve helped people and made their lives better, got them thinking in new ways and believing in themselves more. I’ve gotten feedback from people all over the world, folks thanking me for writing something that resonated with them, or challenged them in some positive way. One article I wrote resulted in a lengthy e-mail exchange with an old college friend, who had never been interested in personal development, but who is now setting lofty goals and striving to become a better version of himself.
What it all comes down to, is that I know I’m making a difference in people’s lives.
And it makes me wonder, what if I hadn’t set up my blog? what if I’d kept my passion for personal development to myself? what if I’d been scared to compete with those 50 million other blogs and decided not to bother?
Lots of folks would have missed out and I’d be feeling a lot less fulfilled, that’s what.
Now, I know I’m not the best personal development blogger out there, and I might never be… and I’m okay with that. What’s important though, is that I’m giving it my best shot. I realize that I don’t have to be the best in the world. I just have to be the best that I can be.
And when you think about it, everyone can be the best that they themselves can be. Personal greatness is within everyone’s grasp. The only person you have to compete with is yourself. Nobody else.
I’d like my friend, the secretive writer, to know this, too. She doesn’t have to be the best writer in the world. She just has to be the best writer she can be. If she strives for that, she’ll find an audience, she’ll make an impact by doing the thing she loves to do, and, most importantly, she won’t wake up some morning 50 years from now, filled with regret, wondering what her life would have been like if only she had followed her dream.
I’d like to leave you with this short poem, author unknown. Read it more than once, then let it sit with you for a while.
At God’s footstool, to confess,
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
“I failed,” he cried. The master said,
“Thou didst thy best. That is success.”
Hi Niall,
What synchronicity is this?
I just got home with the intention of writing my speech for next Tuesday’s meeting which is going to be entitled “Always do your best”.
I was having a conversation with one of my passengers today on the way to the airport and told him the story that is outlined in my first blog post on the new blog that I wrote day before yesterday and he inspired me to give the talk on this subject, using this blog post as the metaphor for anyone to be inspired to do their best.
http://coachdavidgcarpenter.com/Test/wp/blog/archives/21
Great Talk,
David
Thanks for the comment, David. That’s a great post you wrote on your site. As my Dad always says, “If you’re going to do something, you might as well do it right!” I think back on some jobs I had, that I didn’t really like and often half-assed, and I regret not giving them my best. If I had, I’d have gotten better references, learned some new things and I would have been happier knowing that I wasn’t just passing the time and collecting a paycheck.
I love this post Niall. As a very, very new personal development blogger myself, what you say about not thinking about all the other blogs out there on the same subject (is there really that many?) really resonates with me. I
think that if you go into any endeavour worrying about how you compare to others you will never really come across as truly authentic and what does set your blog apart for me is just how genuine it is. I also think that true self-belief will never comes across as arrogant but will actually inspire others to start believing in themselves as well. Something I have definitely found with your blog – cheers!
Thanks so much, Caroline! I heard Corbett Barr talk about this recently. He set up a blog about traffic building (a hugely crowded niche) 18 months ago, and he had the same kind of mindset. He knew that there were tons of other blogs out there competing with them, but he just focused on doing his best, putting his unique spin on it, and he’s now doing amazingly well.
Looking forward to seeing more of your best on Life Is Limitless. You’re off to a great start
Wonderful speech Niall!!
Delighted that your own personal development has allowed you to arrive to the point where you can stand in a room in front of people and deliver a raw, talented and inspired speech!
Thank you and continued success.
Great Post, Niall !
When I first started to read all the travel, language, volunteer and lifestyle design blogs myself, I had posed the same question to myself: Who would read my blog anyways. As you said, it does not matter. It just matters that we act and try our best. I want to quote from the 9/11 documentary I was watching today: “you never know which day in your life is the last day”…So, its better to try and fail (and keep trying) than not do anything at all..
Ciao
Ajay
Thanks, Ajay. I was thinking more about this recently, and realize now that it’s also important for us to try because we can all reach people that others won’t. For example, I’ve been inspired by the likes of Steve Pavlina and Tim Ferriss, and I’ve gone ahead and spread some of their ideas to friends and family who might never have heard of them otherwise.
Cheers!