Fitting In vs Belonging

[Music] I want to talk about fitting in versus belonging and this concept comes from someone in our organization we have this superpower named Ellen reuter she is so profound and she Nails what’s most important in every situation that I’ve been in with her she swims through the cloud and gets to its core and today in a meeting she brought up the difference between fitting in and belonging and suddenly oh my gosh not only did my entire career life unfold before my eyes but my entire life itself as a whole so let me I want to use my life as an example and I think a lot of you are going to recognize this ingredient in yourself I spent more than half my life trying to fit in I want to fit in and the thing about fitting in is it it it’s a lot to do with understanding the rule set of some group and what that group expects of me what that group has as its guidelines what it values and I’m asking myself myself how can I fit in with that how can I do whatever it takes to twist and contort to be what they want me to be you know that idea is what I lived most of my life in trying to fit in as a filmmaker trying to fit in as a cutting Ed Edge game designer trying to fit in as a trainer and teacher how I can fit in with the uh HR department’s uh education you know people it’s like how do I fit in with construction architecture engineer how do I fit in with management consulting this the entire life how do I fit in with an audience as a speaker is this what a real speaker is all of that was not getting to what I am what I am is different from how I contort to try to fit in what I realized is the later actually maybe the first years I grew into the world not needing to fit in you get into High School suddenly you have to fit in and then your income depends on it in your working world but I hit a point where I belong this is a massive difference is to find the place where you belong where it’s not about how I contort myself to fit in it’s how I integrally belong here giving this value now that’s the essence of this conversation is belonging is where you want to be fitting in is a simulation of belonging and I want to throw out to you that the truer answers for you lie with within what you are what you do what your value is what your authenticity is and some cases what you’re either hiding or bending around to fit in they don’t have a prescribed method I just got successful enough in the things that I did that finally I just realized I I belonged um I’ll get closer to it some ideas that you can action but the the the way it applies to life is I spent a lot of my life not really wanting to be here you know I I I tried tried tried so hard but it felt like the place that would make me fulfilled wasn’t attainable because I was always contorting myself to fit in and the moment I suddenly realized I belong here I love my whole life I want to be here more than I ever have with my family with my prospects with my clients with the industry in my work I want to be here so the part I’m going to give you as a a bit of a technique is you know ask yourself what are you always the one doing inside of a meeting or room or conversation that nobody else is doing look at what what was what were you the only one doing and that’s a good step in sort of figuring out how your differentiated authenticity serves and that’s how you belong is when when the thing which is your gift to give is what you’re being that’s when you find yourself belonging the other idea is back to the old sage presence classic you’re the hero in the story you belong not because you’ve been invited but you might have been you belong not because you’ve been asked what you might have been you belong because you’re stepping up as a hero fighting for the other person the other people the group the team the company the clients who serve the industry you’re in the world you’re here as a Hero trying to help others get forward you do not get to a sense of belonging selfishly you get to a sense of belonging by stepping up to help someone else get to a better place and when you do that and you get to the point where you’re doing the thing that you were the only one doing anyway that’s your gift and your superpower and your angle you’re authentically giving what you are to make others go to better places you go from contorting yourself to fit in to this better higher resonance higher orbit place of belonging [Music]