Blind to Our Own Brilliance: Two Questions to See What Others See in You
There's a psychological concept that predicts confidence, resilience, and better decision-making. Most people have never heard of it.
It's at the core of what I teach in The VOICE Method when I help people Illuminate their identity and get clarity about who they are. Many of the people I come across aren't as clear about that as you'd expect.
Do you ever notice that you have a tendency to focus on what's wrong or deficient with yourself instead of what's good and right? If I were to ask you to make a list of 10 ways you're not quite cutting it or 10 things you genuinely appreciate about yourself, which list would be easier to complete?
For a lot of people, it's easier to call out what isn't instead of what is. It's like we're looking at ourselves in a funhouse mirror, only able to see a distorted version of who we are. That's why many of us are blind to our own brilliance. We can't always see the goodness that's already there. Sometimes we need somebody else to be a mirror to reflect it back to us.
Psychologists call this self-concept clarity, which means having a grounded, accurate, consistent sense of who you are. The concept was developed in 1990, and the research is clear: people with high self-concept clarity are more confident, more resilient, and less emotionally reactive. They make better decisions, have more satisfying relationships, and experience lower levels of anxiety and depression.
Without it, you're constantly shape-shifting. Who am I? Who do I need to be for you? In this room? In this moment? You second-guess yourself. You get defensive when someone challenges you. You look to everyone else to tell you who you are.
A lot of us lack self-concept clarity because we've never had anyone specifically acknowledge or genuinely affirm what we're good at. That or we've never taken the time to do the introspective work of mining our own strengths and capabilities. We develop self-concept clarity through introspection and consistent feedback from others, when we allow people to be mirrors for us. It also grows through supportive relationships (including the one we have with ourselves) that involve acceptance and honest reflection.
The Two Questions That Changed Everything
A year after I burned out in my early 30s, a coach named Lori reached out to me to guide me through a new coaching process she was getting certified in. As we sat outside of a Starbucks, she asked me to make a list of 8 to 10 people who knew me well across different areas of my life. These could be colleagues, friends, mentors, bosses, clients, family members.
Then she gave me two questions to ask those people:
What shows up when I do? What qualities do I bring to a room?
She asked me to pick one of those people and call them, without giving any context for why I was asking. So I called my friend Kara.
"Kara, what shows up when I do? What qualities do I bring into a room"
She said, "Rachel, you have this interesting dichotomy of excited energy and a calming presence."
I wrote it down, but there was a part of me that wanted to resist what she said. That’s what we tend to do when someone says something to us that we don’t believe about ourselves. Just because I didn’t see myself as a calming presence, did that mean I was seeing myself accurately? Maybe not.
Most of us have a tendency to resist and reject praise from the people around us. Someone gives us a compliment and we push it away. We're dismissive and we deflect because, deep down, we don't want to be seen because if we’re seen, we can be judged. And one of the biggest fears we have is the fear of somebody else judging us.
The Impact
I sent those two questions to 18 other people, and the responses I got back fundamentally shifted my sense of self-concept clarity. People said things like, “The spirit of the room is lifted” and “You help me shift from the unknown to ‘can do’” and “You give me the freedom to be myself. I feel lighter and happier, like everything is okay.”
I had no idea people saw me that way. Like many people, I can be highly self-critical and focus on all that I'm not instead of all that I am. Hearing that kind of feedback from people I trusted changed how I walked into rooms, carried myself, and showed up in the world. I finally had an accurate picture of who I was, instead of the distorted (and less generous) view I'd been carrying for so long.
I've done this exercise with thousands of people now from stages across the country. Sometimes people walk up to me after a keynote, holding up their phone to my face, with tears in their eyes, saying nothing, as I read what someone has reflected back to them.
All of us have such goodness in us that sometimes we just need to let somebody else stand next to us and be a mirror, to say, "I wish that you could see what I see when I look at you…I see Somebody."
What would it look like if you let someone be that mirror for you?
Now, It's Your Turn
So here's my invitation to you: Open up a text message. Pick one person who knows you well, and send them these two questions: What shows up when I do? What qualities do I bring to a room?
When you get their response, there might be a part of you that wants to resist it. Maybe you'll try to rationalize a reason why they're lying or just being “nice.” You might be tempted to dismiss or deny what they wrote about you.
Here's another invitation: Choose to believe them....without challenging it, questioning it, or raising any caveats. Borrow their belief in you and thank them for responding.
There are going to be moments in the future when you doubt yourself and don't feel capable, moments when you lose sight of who you are. And in those moments, you're going to need to borrow other people's belief in you until you believe it, too.
Start today.
Give it a try and let me know what comes up for you. Let yourself be seen and affirmed for who you are. ✨
I'd love to hear from you: What did someone reflect back to you that you needed to hear? DM me. I read every single one.
If you want to go deeper, I deliver my signature keynote that covers this topic: UNMUTED: Amplify Clarity, Confidence & Contribution to Come Alive at Work and would love to bring it to you! Learn more about how I work with companies here or send me a DM. I'd love to connect with you. My new speaker reel just dropped and you can check it out below!
