Thursdays With Jodee - 3 (Friday edition)

Yesterday's post was delayed because of travel - so here it is a few hours late!

Thanks to everyone who participated in last week's dialogue about favorite teachers. We heard from Tracy and Deb who had very interesting recollections about the people who made a difference in their lives. Tracy said:

I recognize that the teachers that stand out in my own history are those that recognized my uniqueness and strove to bring those qualities out in me and allowed me to be an individual in a world full of sheep in flocks. They knew I would never be happy marching to someone else's drum and showed me ways to dance to my own music.

And from Deb, who leads training sessions now, we learned of three of her favorite teachers.

All three of these teachers knew their topic well, told stories as a way of connecting, made the topic relevant, and brought a passion to the topic that spurred me on to continue learning in those areas for the rest of my life.

So this week, the question will be the same question I submitted to Raj Setty's blog Life Beyond Code, which he calls a Quoght (a question which provokes thought):

Where in your life might the fear of criticism be greater than your desire for success (however you would define that)?

So, I guess I need to answer the question first. It is only in retrospect that I'm able to see the results of that question in my own life. Since I learned of and named my genius in December (thanks again, Dick!), it's been much easier for me to give up the fear of criticism. My genius is "Inviting Dialogue," and there have been many, many times in jobs and also in relationships where I haven't said what I really believed for fear of being rejected or ostracized or criticized. I can remember being in fourth grade and asking my teacher why sometimes there were 2 lines through the S of the dollar sign and sometimes there was 1 line and my teacher giving me an exhausted sigh, implying not to ask so many questions. At home I remember my mom's standard answer to my many questions being "look it up."

I understand now - and thanks to those experiences - that I have many, many resources in which to look up answers to my many questions - and that it's OK to ask questions as long as my intention is to invite dialogue ("dialogue" being suspending assumptions for the purpose of learning something).

As I've learned to step into my power and to be who I am, I realize that success doesn't have to be daunting thing (I can redefine success to be joy and fulfillment instead of being a standard to live up to) and I have much more joy in my own life when I don't worry about - and don't take personally - other people's comments or actions. If my intentions are joyful and loving, I have no fear of criticism anyway!

How about you??