Choose truth over approval

Her podcast, her book The Let Them Theory, her talks.

She has built an entire body of work around self discovery and personal growth that is genuinely life changing.

One of her posts appeared timely the other day, and sparked this week’s column topic: You can be universally liked, or you can be authentic. You cannot be both.

There it is.

I grew up in Shepparton, which was a much smaller town back then.

I now live in an even smaller one.

From a very young age I absorbed a very clear unspoken lesson.

People are watching. People are talking.

What you do gets back to people.

When the people closest to you place enormous importance on how you are seen in a community, that becomes your operating system.

By the time I was an adult I was riddled with anxiety about it.

Deeply self-conscious. I can remember being told things that were said about me that were so completely fabricated they were almost impressive. Zero truth. Entirely invented.

And yet there I was, losing sleep over it. I started trying to undo that in my early 20s.

Then in my 30s, I started a business in a tiny town and everything got loud again.

When you put yourself out there professionally, especially in a regional community where everyone knows everyone, people form opinions before they have ever met you.

They make judgments based on second-hand information, on rumour, on one side of a story told by someone with an agenda.

I have had so many conversations with other business owners about this. Good people.

Genuinely good bosses who invest in their teams, pay their wages, give their time and energy.

Almost every single one has had the experience of asking an employee to simply do their job, only to find a version of themselves circulating around town that they do not recognise.

One employee’s unwillingness to be accountable somehow becomes your character flaw.

There is an old saying. To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.

Eleanor Roosevelt put it another way.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you will be criticised anyway.

You will be damned if you do and damned if you do not.

The only guaranteed way to avoid anyone having an opinion about you is to be entirely irrelevant.

Mel’s ‘let them’ theory is the answer. When someone wants to misunderstand you, let them.

When someone wants to form an opinion without the full picture, let them.

When someone wants to talk, let them talk.

It is not your job to chase people into thinking well of you.

It is your job to know who you are and keep going.

Roosevelt also said this: “Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

The people who matter will see you clearly. And honestly, most people are far too busy living their own lives to care as much as we think they do.

If someone is dedicating their time and energy to forming opinions about you, well. What a life they are living.

You can be universally liked, or you can be authentic.

You cannot be both. I choose the latter.