The arena of life - reflections in Rome
I recently enjoyed a much-needed holiday to Rome with my daughter, and of course, a visit to the iconic Colosseum was a must. At that moment, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Brené Brown’s work - yet standing in that beautiful arena, it took on a different meaning for me.
If you are familiar with Brené Brown’s work or have done the Dare to Lead (™) course with Firefly you may have heard her talk about getting into the arena and being brave enough to be seen. Having the bravery to step into the arena is one thing, but when you are looking out at the crowd, which seats are you paying attention to?
Are you focussing on the people in the cheap seats? Heckling you, throwing tomatoes and wanting to see you come unstuck. Or are you focussing on those in the privileged seats? Trying to perform and show off to those in positions of power. Or maybe you’re focussing on the important seats, the people who are showing you empathy.
While I have long embraced and even taught this metaphor, being in perhaps the most legendary arena in the world reshaped my understanding. Unlike a gladiator in ancient Rome who captured the crowd's attention, today, many of us exaggerate how much others observe and judge our actions.
When it comes to standing up and being seen in our careers, we worry if people will think we’re too big for our boots or we don’t know what we’re talking about. In our home life, we worry if people think we’re too lax in our parenting or too strict.
We spend so much time wondering what other people think, most of which we are just imagining - it probably isn’t even true! And we allow it to hold us back.
In reality, most people are far too engrossed in their own lives to devote much attention to ours (anyone who's tried building a social media following can attest to how challenging it is to capture people's focus!).
It might sound harsh, but it’s actually a gift. It gives you permission to be fully yourself and live the life you want to live. It frees you from the constraints of what other people think.
Reflecting on this under the Roman sun, I realised just how much valuable time, energy, and resources we waste worrying about what others think.
This realisation is something I never want to forget. So I brought back a little model of the Colosseum to sit on my desk. Every day it reminds me that most of the time people aren’t paying attention to what I do, so I should get on and do what I want to do and not let the fear of what people might think hold me back. The same is absolutely true for you.
In what ways have you been holding yourself back because you were afraid of what other people might think? What are you going to do now?
