What are you hiding?
Super-heroes wear masks. Costume-ball guests wear masks. The lucha libre wrestlers of Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries wear masks.
Entrepreneurs wear masks.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not necessarily a good thing, either. As an entrepreneur, a mask may serve you well in some areas and strangle your success in others. The trick here, as in so many areas of solopreneurship, is being intentional, knowing when wearing a mask will help and when it will harm. Here are some criteria you can use to decide when to go masked and when it’s better to go au naturel (within reason, of course).
Don’t wear a mask to:
- accept a job that will earn you money but violate your values
- hide your authenticity
- make it easy for people to disrespect your boundaries
- lie to yourself
Do wear a mask to:
- keep your personal issues or challenges separate from your interactions with clients
- keep your ideal clients calm; even if you need to scramble to meet their deadlines, there’s no reason to worry them by sharing your stress
- hide the scaredy-cat voice in your head that tries to keep you from stepping into your power
- “act as if” you have all the character traits you desire, such as courage, patience, and persistence; it’s much easier to act your way into a state of feeling or being than it is to wait until you feel a certain way before you take action
What are your thoughts on this? Do you believe a mask can sometimes be helpful? Do you feel a mask is always inappropriate? How do you handle the masked marauders in your own life?
By the way, thanks to Arturo Sotillo for posting his masks image in the Creative Commons section of Flickr.
This entry was posted in achievement, entrepreneur, success and tagged authenticity, choice, comfort zone, courage. Bookmark the permalink.
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