“You’re no one.”
I hear these words every day. They come from the resistance. It is a force outside of myself. It lives in me (and in all people trying to create what they were made to create) but it is not me. It has traits that make it easy to identify no matter who its target is. It is a universal experience, reality and being all at once. It tries to ruin my marriage, my work and my passions.
Consider it a privilege to be lied to
The resistance said the same thing to Barak Obama when he wanted to run for President. You can say the man was born on Mars and hate every single law he’s ever helped enact but he’s still the President with a capital P. He’s a black man who before getting into office didn’t have much gray hair. What in the *%)& was he thinking when he decided to run for president? The resistance told him he was no one. That is the most common refrain I hear. It tells me I am no one because I have no employees, there were months in these first two years of running my own business where paying the mortgage included prayer. My state has less people than the city I grew up in. I am no one but only to those who don’t know me. Everyone is someone and that is why the resistance says I am no one, because his job is to lie and kill my dreams.
There’s a little truth in what he says
The resistance is like the devil in that he always includes a little truth in his words so we’ll listen. The small truth hooks us into believing the rest of his lie. I am no one but so was Barak Obama, Seth Godin, JK Rowling, Billy Graham, Donald Miller, Jason Fried, Mother Theresa, Tony Dungy, Mark Zuckerburg, Steve Jobs and Leo Laporte. Not all of these people are my heroes but we all share something in common with them. They are no one. One day they told the resistance to shut up and they went and did something. They responded to an urge, a dream, an idea, a plan. They did the work.
It’s about the idea
Assuming the resistance is right (and he’s not), let’s assume I am no one. Let’s assume I have no friends, no fans, no followers, no family and no influence. I can still have a great idea. I can still create something that will make the world a much better place. The resistance tries to get me to look at me instead of my ideas. They’re great ideas and they’re becoming reality because of books like Poke The Box, Do The Work, Delivering Happiness, No More Mondays and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. Dreams are free, reality will cost you. Tell the resistance to shut up, pay the price to make your ideas come to life and do the work, even if you’re “no one” like me.
So the resistance tells us we’re no one. Who cares? Do the work.
