Be Yourself: How to Block Negative Energy From Others
My dear grandfather Morris Norman passed away last month. He loved golf. And he would have loved to have seen Tiger Woods win the 2019 Masters tournament.
I loved sitting next to my grandfather on the couch as a child, watching golf on television. He’d often comment about the character of the players.
“That guy is a class act,” he’d say about various players that demonstrated humility and calm. It made me want to show those qualities too.
Today, my grandfather would have something to say about Tiger Woods returning from the depths of physical and emotional embarrassment.
It had been 11 years since Tiger won his last major tournament and 14 years since he last won The Masters. That’s an eternity for a professional athlete. And much had changed over the intervening years. As many have said, the Tiger who won this year was a different person—more humble, likeable, and appreciative. He became a class act.
Early in his career, Tiger seemed to care more about himself and what other people thought of him. The dominance and success intoxicated him. But after his life and body fell apart, the only way he could move forward was to stop caring what others thought. If he spent his time worrying about how people perceived him or what they thought about him, it would have rocked his confidence and knocked him out of the game.
This is true of any sport, but maybe none more so than golf. Golf is a uniquely lonely and mentally fatiguing game. To win a major tournament, you can’t lose focus for even one of the more than 250 shots you’ll take over four days. There are countless examples of players getting distracted by the pressure of playing well or playing poorly. At The Masters this year, Tiger remained focused on who he was and the work he needed to do to accomplish his mission.
It was an effort and approach my grandfather surely would have appreciated. Tiger showed us just what my grandfather meant when he repeatedly said:
Don’t worry what other people think about you, because other people don’t think about you.
He didn’t just say those words, he lived them. He was one of the most non-anxious people I’ve known. He was also one of the most humble and caring people I’ve known.
Now, you might think that if you don’t worry about what other people think about you, it will make you more reckless or selfish. That it might make you less sensitive to others or more careless in your relationships.
Actually, worrying about what other people think about you makes it harder to care about other people. Being worried about how you’re perceived focuses your attention inward rather than toward others. When you’re not so worried about their views of you, it frees you. You’re able to show up as you really are and care about others as they are.
This is the connection between anxiety and relationships. The more you worry, the harder it is to have strong relationships. It’s why Dale Carnegie wrote both How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. My grandfather spent most of his career training Dale Carnegie programs, and he said it made him into the person he is. Everyone wanted to be his friend, and he didn’t worry about it.
Like Tiger, though, my grandfather wasn’t always non-anxious. Earlier in his life, he struggled with worry. But he came to realize that he couldn’t be his best self if he was in a constant state of preoccupation.
You see, most people spend the majority of their time preoccupied. Like all animals, we’re wired to self-protect and survive. That’s why other people don’t think about you; they’re much more focused on their own survival. And since that’s the case, why spend all your time worrying about it?
Tiger has clearly learned this lesson as well. Once he stopped worrying what other people thought about him, he became humbler and more appreciative. And that’s made him much more likeable and caring.
If you, too, want to be more authentic, likeable, and caring, take a page from Tiger, and from my grandfather: Stop worrying what other people think about you.
Comments are closed here.