I’m Just a Soul Whose Intentions Are Good…

If you are a fan of Eric Burden and the Animals (yes, I AM that old) you know that the next line of this song is “Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood). Actually, rapper/hip hop artist Lil Wayne has his own version of the song that includes the same lines, so even if your taste is not “golden oldies” you may have heard this, too.

So nobody wants to be misunderstood, right? Well, maybe not. If you read my recent post, “I AM a Maverick Leader” You already know I’ve recently become interested in the work that Sally Hogshead is doing on helping people identify their “fascination advantage”. One of Sally’s premises is that you should find out what your unique strengths are, and rather than try to govern them so that you fit in better (do you REALLY want to be plain vanilla?) you should celebrate and even amplify these differences, most of the time. “The goal is not to be liked by everyone, but to be loved by a core audience.”

There is a risk to this approach. While you are fascinating your core fans, you may be alienating others. I suspect it is yet another situation in which the “bell curve” could describe the outcome. If I pour my energy into the characteristics that set me apart, 20 percent of the people I encounter are going to be crazy about me, but on the other end of the scale, 20 percent of the people will not want to have anything to do with me. Since my particular traits as a Maverick Leader are being Pioneering, Irreverent, and Entrepreneurial, the criticisms I am likely to hear are that I am eccentric, prone to taking risks and disrespectful (irreverence turned into a negative quality). The 60 percent in the middle will neither love me nor hate me, but will likely find me hard to understand some or all of the time.

I have to decide whether, first, it bothers me to be disliked by those on the far end of the spectrum (it doesn’t!) and then whether it is worth my time to try to be understood by those in the middle. For me, it is a question of investment. I recognize that an inherent aspect of my most potent characteristics is that I tend to pull the train out of the station before all of the passengers are on board, so I know that there is something to be gained by slowing down from time to time, and taking the time to explain myself better before expecting others to follow me down whatever path I may be going. Still, I know also that some people will always be late, or reluctant to board, so I need to decide when it’s time to shut the doors and start the engines. If my loving core is aboard, I’m happy. If a few of those from the middle are swayed to join us, the more the merrier!

I like to paraphrase the “Prayer of St. Francis” and instead of not so much seeking “to be understood as to understand” we should seek to not misunderstand others more so than trying not to be misunderstood. I’ve always liked the line from the children’s book The Velveteen Rabbit that goes “…once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Being misunderstood will always be a part of life, and there comes a time in every endeavor when that just has to be accepted. If you wait until everyone understands you, I predict you will move forward slowly – if at all – and ultimately you will be exhausted by the effort.