Find Your Bravery

**Who we are is not the same as what we post.**
This is the primary lesson that social media mirrors back to the world. When people ask me to explain the popularity of [Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/mitchjoel “Facebook”), I often shoot back that Facebook feeds the highest level of our most basic human need: self-actualization. It allow us to present ourselves in the way in which we would like others to see us. We’re all so deeply engaged in that activity. With that, we also know that by trying to please others/everyone we wind up pleasing no one. Especially ourselves. What makes this even more strange, is that the people that we all admire and respect are the ones that made their own way. They didn’t focus too much on what others might think, or they have the courage and bravery to put something out into the world that demonstrated who they really were and what they were really thinking. We see this in music and poetry. We see this in a brilliant ad or a disruptive startup.
**How can you gear up to be your best?**
Most people think of [Brene Brown](http://brenebrown.com “Brene Brown”) as the amazingly [popular TED speaker](http://go.ted.com/bpZY). She’s an author (if you have not read [Daring Greatly](http://brenebrown.com/books/ “Daring Greatly”), you really should). This past week, Brene announced the her newest book, [Rising Strong](http://brenebrown.com/2015/04/09/i-love-big-book-news-and-i-cannot-lie/ “Rising Strong”) (which will be out in late August). Reading about the book (and getting excited about its publication date), I was reminded of this stunning presentation she gave to the creative industry at [Scott Belsky](https://twitter.com/scottbelsky “Scott Belsky”)’s [99U](http://conference.99u.com “99U”) event from last year. It’s called, [Why Your Critics Aren’t The Ones Who Count](https://vimeo.com/78769611), and it’s a 22 minute presentation that we all should schedule ourselves to watch every couple of months. It’s a strong reminder to show up, do the work… and know why you’re doing it.
**Watch this…**