Never Underestimate the Power of Someone Believing in You

Today, I attempted to share with my brother an important decision I had made to revive an old project that captured my imagination a few months earlier. As I backed into my announcement I spent about five solid minutes giving all kinds of disclaimers, because I expected him to question my dream, you know to say, hey, that’s like the stupidest thing you every said. After struggling, he let me off the hook, and said, hey you should go for it, but I can tell you have a lot of fear around the idea.

He was right, I do, and mainly because we live in a society that feels we should be productive, and productive means, doing what we want you to do. This post is really also inspired by a very creative and funny commercial for a financial services company that shows a young, middle-school age, geeky kid in on the dance floor just having a ball doing all manner of the most outrageous choreography you can imagine – with a crowd of his classmates standing there, all mortified and jaws dropping, that he would be so embarrassing to dance by himself, and like that – ewgh. This kid is dancing like he is the only one in the room, and he doesn’t give a rat’s butt that his peers are watching and judging him big time. He’s just out there, making it happen for himself, and then “sweet young thing,” probably his soul mate, gets it, and makes her way to the dance floor and starts doing the dances in unison with him, her courageous move, a show of support and was a daring break from the “crowd” mentality. You guessed it, moments later; the dance floor was packed with sea of uncoordinated bodies getting their boogey on. All it took was a brave girl to show her support, and then everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, and join in.

The commercial reminded me of my earlier experience feeling afraid to dance by myself because I did not have crowd approval. Thank god for people like this kid, because many if not all of our most important human advancements met with a ton of resistance and criticism up front. Now, back to the title of this blog, and why I called it this – well, first, all it took is one person, the young girl, to show support, and then everybody joined in. What this tells me about us humans, is that secretly we are in love with each other, why because we are part of the ALL, and deep down inside we get afraid when one of us goes it alone, because we fear they will fail, and if they fail, we know we failed, because we recognize at a soul level, we are ONE. It’s kind of like the inmate who is planning to escape from prison, their cellmates are conflicted, because if he succeeds, they are happy for him, it’s a victory for all of them, even if they remain there, it shows hope, but what if he fails, then it means they all fail, there is no more hope of breaking out ever, just deal with it. Finally the big day arrives, and his cellmates are hoping like hell this guy will outrun the guard’s bullets, and as he clears the line of trees, and is apparently safe from the scope of the riffle, they feel a deep sigh of relief, because had he of failed, those bullets might as well had pierced their own bodies.

The moral of this story is pretty simple and quick. When you see someone out there dancing on the floor alone, jump out with them and show them support. It means a lot, because then other people will join suit, and you never really know if what you are supporting is the cure for cancer, or the way to solve a problem in our city schools, or the next great work of art, or piece of music or technological advance, or social agency to bring healing to others. When you support someone else, you in truth support yourself, and simultaneously empower yourself to break free and be your true self, not needing approval or permission to be you. But isn’t it nice to show people we support them being their authentic selves, and in doing so, we encourage others through our act, to do the same, and that is how movements are started. Now – back to the title – Never Underestimate the power of someone believing in you – it is contagious, and it’s the right move to make.