The Mirror: recognition starts with yourself, with a little help from others.

15 juli 2023

I must admit something
The basis of my training and lectures is based on my own experiences in both personal and business life. There was a time when I got very far with that. But in the end, I ended up in a situation where I sensed things but didn't know how to argument them. Thus, the penchant for knowledge and personal inquiry into scientific validation and research was born. With everything I train in, I find out whether it is purely based on feeling or whether I can also validate it. And vice versa, I also test in a safe setting whether the research is correct in practice. This can be very confrontational, and it takes much time. Gaining an experience, and becoming unsure whether something is logical, arises from my own cognitive bias. Looking for research, testing again, and then giving it a place in the training courses and lectures I give.

I often run into frustrations
People who sell aggressively, competitors who cut, paste, and repeat and then sell it, but are even better in marketing, which means that I miss opportunities. I then start to think that I am too much “the specialist in my field” and a “bad entrepreneur.” That frustration sometimes runs so far that it sometimes haunts my mind that I “can't do it, and I'm not suitable”. Should I just stop, give up and go with the flow again. That is simply easier and more comfortable.

But time and time again, the universe calls me back
In the form of good contacts and people around me who hold up the mirror again. The customers who tagged me about how happy they are developing a risk awareness test. A mentor like Joe Navarro with words of praise at a conference that impresses me so much that I must swallow a few times before I must speak. A business owner who wants me to take over his business because of a joint mission. A conversation with a startup supervisor who sees opportunities and possibilities and asks how he can help me to become a better entrepreneur.

And then there is the mirror
Because I'm bad at asking for help, I'm not used to surrendering to that. And although I am very capable of holding up the mirror to the other person with behavioral tendencies, I also must recognize that I sometimes feel like that “street cat” again that will manage herself and does not need anyone else. But by having conversations about the mission and vision behind my work and that it is much too big to carry alone, I realize that it is time for a different approach. Allowing people to reflect with me more often and even sometimes even do the work for me. To build teams and help other people to create more visibility.

And that is precisely the motivation behind this post
Giving more visibility to my mission and vision means taking (personal) risks. To do things even when there is doubt: “Can I do that? Do I have sufficient expertise? Is my English good enough?” and so on. And sometimes you must do it: take the first global steps.

I have not yet mentioned one example: a global speaker agency, mainly in New York and Paris. And asks me to join in to speak about my expertise worldwide. And that's exactly what we're going to do. I want to thank Patricia Du Charm for describing me in a way that I, as a critical perfectionist, would not dare to do myself. Therefore, as of this week, I can also be booked through the agency Presbourg Speakers for worldwide workshops and lectures, and you can find more information about the content here: https://presbourgspeakers.com/speakers/an-gaiser/.

Because the self-critical and perfectionist side of me is less important than the mission and vision to be propagated, in the hope of inspiring even more professionals to go against the grain from time to time!