Magnifying glass: A series of questions that make the thing you are boldly living into … bigger, clearer, more defined.living as if no one is looking
Your fundamental character may be what you do when you think no one is watching. Thomas Jefferson asserted that truth. To live boldly is to create a synthesis between your observed and unobserved life.
I asked everybody in my symbol class to think of themselves dancing. To imagine how they move and what their patterns are in those movements. Then I asked them to draw a line showing that pattern of movement. And a hand raised. Question?
“Do you want us to draw our dancing when people are watching us or when we are dancing alone?”
I'll thank him again for asking that question. Dance is a mighty fine metaphor for living boldly. Live Boldly is an admonition to allow your desires and illuminating natural character to overshadow your sense of being watched, of standing in the judgment of others. That awareness of scrutiny is less about reputation than it is a fundamental desire for approval. If selfvalidation were our most significant measure, we would give trophies to ourselves, not watch celebrities receive them on TV. I wouldn't have to ask prominent and recognizable people to endorse my books. I wrote it. … I will endorse it for you. I would recommend it by virtue of having taken the time to create it and offer it to you.
“But what will the neighbors think?” is a question that many people ask, almost unconsciously. Many decisions are based upon this inquiry and the concern it represents: “What will people say?” The strength of public opinion can be important, but the key in living boldly is being able to discern when it doesn't matter a tweak. I love the way Dr. Seuss said it: “Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.”
Said another way, living boldly is living as if no one were watching you. And then … not having your actions change when you know people are watching.
Live Boldly.
I was asked, earnestly, by a mother of two who had just married again, “How is it you have what it takes to live so boldly, and other people seem so timid? What is that?”
I answered, “I have a tremendous capacity for failure.” She gasped. It wasn't anything she expected to hear. I continued, “Which is to say, I see failure as an opportunity to learn. To try something different. And I have the capacity to see failure as an element in the process of my own growth. I learn from it. I move on. I see the failure, but I do not identify myself as a failure.”
The questioner objected. “But how—how can you move into a new thing fully knowing you might fail?”
“Because I move into a new thing knowing I might succeed. But I'm willing, willing to fail.”
The most insidious failures I have experienced are the ones in which I never risked the trying. Then I was left to live with the wondering of what might have been. Winston Churchill lived by what he is known for saying: “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” Indeed.
A health plan trying to promote physical activity created a billboard campaign announcing that the real victory occurs when you cross the starting line. I say it differently: “Hitting the ball out of the park and having the courage to pick up the bat-they're the same thing. Go ahead—pick up the bat.”
To live boldly encompasses many things. An invitation to act true to your nature, to act in accord with your natural strengths. Absent that, it is the vision to begin to act in accord with your inclination, seeking out that thing you would like to be, or face, even when the natural ability, or the courage, isn't yet within your grasp. Living boldly is walking right into the thing you need at the moment … and putting it on. Seeing how well you can make it fit.
Jan, one of my long-time friends, shared her opinion of boldly taking on a quality you don't naturally possess. Laughing, she said, “Well, you know, Mary Anne, there are some things in life that I actually can control and change. And the rest of the stuff I just run away from.” She was only being half-silly. We all run from something. Living boldly is about stopping yourself in the midst of your run.
Stop.
Think about what you are running from.
Turn around.
Look at it. Reach for your personal tool kit.
Take it on.
Taking something on with boldness might even mean running! Who knows? Only you know the right tool … and I sincerely hope my words work together with your good thinking and produce results you are pleased with.
Living Boldly doesn't mean living LOUDLY. As in my aphorism:
courage doesn't always roar.
sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the
end of the day saying,
“i will try again tomorrow.”
so it is to live boldly. The impact is somewhat counterintuitive. People tell me they think of living boldly as living loud(ly). Not so. Think of the breath a wind instrument player uses—it must be full. Bold. That doesn't mean it produces a loud sound. It means it produces a full sound, as the musician intended. Of course, loud is always an option.
An assertive, rough-around-the-edges client sat before me. Disciplined and accomplished as a yoga practitioner, she expressed frustration that she was so loud. That she was not calmer, quieter, gentler. It was a simple thing for me to remind her that the calm and quiet people often have the same longing for the trumpet and trombone of her parade. I celebrated her strengths and asked her to find ways to take those very qualities and make them work more effectively for her. Work with them instead of against them.
School systems often require students to attempt to master the very thing in which they perform most poorly. What would happen to our students if we provided them with the most intense instruction in the subject at which they excel? If we took their “better” and made it the “best”? What would happen to you if you did that for yourself?
Living boldly is an exercise, a practice in reaching for qualities that will help you strengthen what is already strong within you but may need a little muscle work, some fine-tuning. It's also a way to identify what is not naturally present in you (or only present in what seems small measure) and put it there. Borrow it, in a sense, if only for a day.
To live boldly suggests that you can outfit your soul for the journey of your dreams or for the unusual demands of a particular day. That you can identify the qualities and characteristics that you need today, to live closer to the
dream,
to accomplish the thing that scares you,
to act in accord with your true and illuminated self.
In other words, to dance more closely to the way you really dance, when you think no one is looking. And here, perhaps, is a most important awareness: There is someone who is almost always looking—and it is you.
Ah, dance as if no one is looking. Jan and I were speaking of her nineteen-year-old daughter. For perspective, we remembered some of our shared experiences when we were nineteen. “Boy, remember that one time when you led the whole congregation in a dance?” she said. “And then you just danced by yourself? Remember that? That was so brave.” She was serious. She meant brave. For me, it was a matter of answering the longing of my heart. To express in movement what was hard for my young soul to find words to express. I had no training. No guidance. No choreography skills at all. Not even, really, a lot of grace. Certainly not the body of a dancer. Just the willingness to act boldly, as if no one were looking. Jan called it “being brave.” And over thirty years later, she still remembers that day.
Think of those times when you see something that really moves you, and you say to yourself, “Wow, I wish I had the nerve to do that!” That's an invitation to your own boldness. An invitation for you to discover what it would take for you to be able to do the thing you long for. I'm just sharing some of my starting points—only you know what it will take for you.
Live boldly before yourself so you live through your day to that just-before-sleep moment where you offer yourself the certain approval, “Today I have done my best.” That's when you get to present yourself a trophy. A trophy for living boldly forward in your day—living as if no one were looking.
In the following chapters, I present reflections on things that require boldness for me. Please look at them through the windows of your own experiences. You can read them straight through, or open them wherever you feel inclined. At the end of each reflection, I will pull a suggestion or two out of my “tool kit.” I offer these to you as a way to implement the desire to live boldly, to make it more practical. In the afterword, there are additional ideas on how to personalize this process. The types of suggestions are outlined below, and each has its own symbol.
Magnifying glass: A series of questions that make the thing you are boldly living into … bigger, clearer, more defined.
Segue/Small map: A suggestion of something to do to take you from one place to another. I know the word “segue” through stand-up comedy. The term refers to a way to get from one segment of content to another. It's an Italian word that means a short path. That path is represented here by a small map.
Mirror: Reflection, suggestions of things to think on. Also, one often looks externally for reasons or understanding. The mirror symbol suggests the answer lies within you.
Pen: Many people have said that they write to find out what they think. So often, students share with me the discovery that they didn't know a certain thing was true for them or about them … until they started writing about it. This tool can be used in so many ways. Here I will provide suggestions of ways to write toward bold living.
Icon: A physical object or universal sign/symbol that helps you focus on your intention toward boldness. I often carry a heart-shaped rock that my husband gave me, as a reminder that I am surrounded by love. This symbol 
is universally understood to mean no.
Trophy: A way to reward yourself or someone else. Living boldly may achieve recognition from others, but it recognizes that the most important validation comes from within. It is also a reminder of the key role expressing gratitude and appreciation plays.
Crowbar: Anybody who has ever used one knows it's an excellent tool to pry something open. Use this tool category to pry yourself loose from your habit(s), assumptions, and conventional ways.
Open book: A poetic reflection pertaining to a particular desired quality. Write one of your own … or focus on the one in the book. Carry it with you in the course of your day and see what insight it might open for you.
In safety, without harshness or unfair judgments, by yourself, take the opportunity to look at your need (identify). It helps to define it. Understand how others see it. (Check out a biography of an individual who articulates or demonstrates this particular quality. Learn what someone you admire said about it.) Define it for yourself. (Ask, “What does it mean to me?”) Express your understanding of it in context (say it in a sentence), or express it poetically (say it beautifully). Think of a time when this strength has been used in a life experience (tell a story about it). Ask questions about it (make inquiry).
Ask yourself what you would look like and how you would act if you were demonstrating that skill … and then create ways to step boldly into that circumstance with the strengths/ skills you have borrowed. Or accessed. Or recognized. I call it borrowing because sometimes I am not aware that I already hold that particular quality within my being. Frequently, in the course of this process, I discover elements of that particular thing within me … abilities I didn't previously recognize were there.
These exercises make a great beginning. Go ahead. Cultivate the qualities that can change your life.
