The quality of your performance is all about the quality of your practice. And the more you actually practice speaking up, when you know you want to speak up, the more you will actually step into your next-level of power. And the more you actually betray yourself by not speaking up when maybe someone in a restaurant is serving you and they’re not being polite, or maybe a client is being disrespectful, or maybe someone on the street is doing something that is dishonoring your humanity, every single time you swallow what you most need to you say you actually lose power. You actually become more and more impotent as a leader, as a producer and as a human being. Because you know this, we give away our power to the things that we avoid. The hard talks when you actually speak up are when you grow in power and you actually not only grow in power, you build intimacy in the relationship. Just think about it, when you actually speak up with someone and you tell them how you’re feeling and you tell them what’s most important to you. Well, if it’s the right relationship, one that’s meant to be in your life, whether it’s professional or personal, that is really a gateway into the other person having the permission to open up as well. And then you have two mature people talking about what’s really most important versus sidestepping the truth.
