Linchpin (Page 6 5/7): Turning Your Biggest Critic into Your Greatest Proponent (Yourself)

Have you ever noticed there seems to be an inflections point where more effort is actually harmful to whatever you are trying to accomplish?

For instance, in my daily life during meetings, I can prepare with agenda's, detailed notes, the best PowerPoint, but it seems people just know you are trying to hard and don't buy in.

So then I started thinking, why am I trying so unnecessarily hard?

Well it's simple enough: anxiety (not to be confused that life-saving fight or flight fear). For whatever reason, at that meeting and with that subject matter I feel little confidence which breeds anxiety.

So we try our best to mask it, with big words, flashy presentations and feigned insights. The only problem is everyone knows. No one buys it. So all that anxiety has actually caused our worst case scenarios to self-fulfill.

What if we could forsake giving into fear and anxiety. Not react to it and overcompensate. Let the fear cycle helps us, rather than be our detriment. Well that's the focus of this excerpt from Linchpin.