The Courage to be Imperfect
It takes courage to be imperfect.Yes, you read that right: it takes courage to be imperfect.
Many of us in the Juice Plus+ business have been brought up to believe that we must strive for perfection. Which to the heart often means that we should be like the person who seems to have it all together. All of us notice people who do it better, faster and prettier than we could ever hope to do ourselves. We take on enormously high standards from the outside and start applying them to ourselves.
Then, when we fall short, we berate ourselves. We become convinced that because we can’t be perfect, we probably don’t fit in. We doubt ourselves.
I’m one of those people always telling myself that I need to get better, stronger:
- Read more
- Set Goals
- Dream Big
- Build wide
- Work on personal development
- Be consistent
- Lead by example
On the surface that feels like a lot of pressure. And that’s the problem: it’s all on the surface.
We seldom take the time to be quiet, to get alone and to listen. Listen to our heart. Listen to a seasoned, experienced mentor. Listen to God. But when we do, they all tell us the same thing:
We’re not perfect. We’re not complete. And we never will be. In fact, perfection was never the plan. The plan has always been to go out and live boldly with all of our imperfections.
That’s what makes certain people attractive—not that they have it all together, but that they’re so incredibly comfortable not having it all together. They know that Juice Plus+ is what they do, not who they are.
That’s why I love this business so much. It encourages us to be who we are, stumbling forward, making mistakes, getting up and going after it again.
- We don’t have to have the last word…to always be right
- We don’t have to give wellness presentations like Julie Herbst or Kathrine Lee
- We don’t have to Fast Track in 3 hours or get to NMD in 15 months
- It takes courage to allow our friends to think of us any way they want to…without our getting all chatty, trying to convince them otherwise, explaining our motives or defending our actions
- It takes courage to say, “I don’t know the answer to that. Give me a couple of days and I’ll see what I can come up with”
- It takes a lot of courage for me to say, “David, a lot of people aren’t going to get this. But that’s OK”
It takes courage to be imperfect. But you know what? I think we’re up for it. I think we are ready to go out and blow the roof off of this business, touching and changing thousands of lives—completely happy knowing that we’ll never get it quite right.
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"Sara Rosati, a 9-year-old special olympics athlete, understands that 90 percent of life is about attitude. We could learn a thing or two from her."
~Steve Adubato Atypical Inspiration, in the NewJersey Monthly: August 20, 2008