There are a lot of dishes I can cook well. When my friend invited me to bring some food to a party, the dish I brought was some complex thing I had never cooked before.
This is a drive I find myself having often. I have the opportunity to share something that’s easy for me and valuable to others, but I get more excited about doing something new. I get twisted up thinking that the new & difficult thing is going to be worth more. It’s great that I want to learn more, but there’s always something new to learn in the familiar, too.
I see this in the people I hire for things and the people who I consult. Our greatest force becomes invisible to us. Once something gets easy, we stop noticing that it’s awesome.
Part of this comes from identifying as a grower or an underdog. As we’re coming up in our careers, we have a lot of learning and growth, but when we become experts, we hav e the opportunity to start a new chapter of using all that learning. If we made growth part of our identity, it can be hard to look for opportunities to share because we might not realize what we have is worth something.
Part of this is a negativity bias. Evolutionarily, we pay attention to danger or lack more than abundance. It’s tough to bring attention to the good things in our life like our skills. We’re looking for our inadequacies in order to stay safe.
What our fans want from us is not innovation of self. They want the greatness of us in our power.