“I don’t give a f— what other people think.”
I chuckled to myself as I heard my client say this, remembering a time when I might have said the same thing.
Once upon a time, I was a brazen young fighter pilot who definitely loved to tell people that I didn’t care what anyone thought.
Not so many years later, I was an equally brazen young oil & gas investor. The industry in those days was full of modern-day gunslingers like us, and you had to be just a little bit cocky to go toe to toe with the big guys.
I often think back to that 33-year-old version of myself; the one who seemed to be so fearless. My business partner and I were betting on ourselves, and we were all in.
You couldn’t have told me then, but it turns out that I was wrong about caring what other people think.
It turns out, I cared. A lot.
I still do.
We all do.
It’s human nature.
The trick is not to care less about what others think of us. It’s an impossibility of sorts.
Rather than caring less, we should focus on whose opinion we are going to care about.
I call this giving someone your Power of Opinion.
You might be familiar with a Power of Attorney. This is a legal document that allows another individual to act on your behalf. They can transact, manage money, open and close accounts including credit cards, and essentially do anything you would be able to do from a financial standpoint.
As you can imagine, granting someone power of attorney is a huge decision. You must implicitly trust the person to whom you bestow this broad type of power. It’s typically reserved for only spouses or parents – people who you would trust with your life.
Your power of opinion should be no different.
The circle of folks that hold my power of opinion is very small. I’ve chosen them very carefully. I’ve selected each of them based on their sharing of similar values, purpose and integrity.
And rather than caring less, I seek to care more about what these people think of me. They hold me to a high standard, and see and encourage me to become the best version of myself, even holding a bigger vision for my life than I do.
I’m extremely grateful to count my wife, Claire, in this circle. I do my best to make her proud in all that I do, and if she speaks up and points out a place that might need attention, I listen.
Another person whose opinion I hold in high regard is my dear friend Dan Martell.
If you don’t know Dan, he seems larger than life. He is relentlessly dedicated to sharing his message with the world, and I’m proud to count him as a friend.
But even Dan is not always immune to letting others’ opinions creep in from time to time.
A few years ago, Dan was admiring my new Volcano Red McLaren 570s – a supercar in every sense of the word. It looks like a UFO or a priceless work of art depending on the angle from which it is viewed – and sometimes seems like a little bit of both.
“I would love to buy a McLaren. But there is no way I could drive a car like this.”
“Why not?”, I asked a bit incredulously. It certainly wasn’t a financial matter, as he could buy the car many times over without even missing the money.
He went on to explain that he had always loved sports cars, but he lived in a small town in Canada, and that wasn’t the way things were done there. He would draw a lot of negative attention from people who would think he was greedy, ostentatious, or boastful.
I offered him another perspective. I told him that he could choose to rewrite that story, and that he could use his car to give rides to kids and inspire them to dream bigger and set goals for themselves.
One thing that I love about Dan is that when he is presented with a new perspective, he will change his mind on the spot. I watched as the lightbulb came on and a smile spread across his face.
It couldn’t have been more than three weeks later when I got a call from him, and this time it was my turn to smile.
He told me about the excitement of getting his new McLaren Orange 570s delivered – and it caused quite the ruckus in his New Brunswick hometown.
But to his surprise, the attention was overwhelmingly positive. Everywhere he went, people (especially kids) would ask him about the car and what he did to get it.
And he would tell them.
Over the last few years, Dan has built an incredible supercar collection. He drives them to charity events, and takes them to speak to at-risk youth about entrepreneurship.
On the other side of his fear of judgment lay a tremendous amount of joy and inspiration.
The two of us now call this phenomenon the McLaren Mindset.
You see, so often we keep ourselves small to avoid upsetting those around us. We allow ourselves to be just successful enough, careful not to display too much lest we draw the ire of the collective.
We grant our power of opinion to just about anyone, including people we don’t even know.
But here’s the rub: why would we listen to the opinions of people whose lives we don’t want to emulate?
Life is too short to live someone else’s story for who you should be.
Ask yourself: where have you given away your power of opinion to those who haven’t earned it?
Where are you keeping yourself from playing full out in order to placate those around you?
Maybe it’s high time for you to reclaim your power of opinion.
No small plans,
Mb
