Stop Begging For Permission to Be Great

You Don't Need Permission to Shine. Being Larger Than Life is a Skill Anyone Can Master.

I always used to hope that someone would recognize my greatness… Thereby granting me unbridled access to it.

What a ridiculous notion.

Greatness comes from within.

I have a 77-year-old dance teacher who taught me a lot about how to be great.

As I mentioned in my upcoming book, she was one of Garth Fagan’s dancers. He’s the guy who choreographed the Broadway version of The Lion King.

This unassuming old lady knows what greatness looks like.

She taught me that being larger than life is a skill.

And you can learn it.

Frances is a living masterclass on how to be a badass.

This old lady still parties at least once per week.

Sometimes, two or three.

Bless her soul.

I know her well enough to know that she IS slowing down bit by bit with each year.

I can’t imagine what this lady was like when she was young.

She’s 77, and she’s unmarried with no kids. She lives alone, and she couldn’t be happier.

She’s a sight to behold.

She once told me she tried to date a few times…

And the guys would show up all dressed up and slicked back.

She’d look at him once over and said…

“What else ya got?”

She can be ruthless that way.

Frances is keenly aware that she loves her life.

So, any romantic interest can absolutely upset the balance.

It’s better to stay single.

In all my life, I’ve never seen an old lady stunt so hard.

In the summer, she’s rocking sunglasses as she pulls up to an afternoon party.

She’s feeling herself so damn much.

She wants you to know.

I stole that power move from her.

The entire dance community reveres Frances. People are handing her plaques and awards all the time… just for being herself.

There’s a tune that’s always playing in Frances’ head.

At least, that’s the impression I’ve formed of her over the last 3 years.

It keeps playing and playing, and she has to respond.

She has a creative instinct that most people do not.

Most people have a consumption instinct.

Netflix and chill.

Youtube.

TikTok.

CNN

7 hours per day.

Frances wants to create.

We do this salsa dance called Rueda.

We dance in a circle and in a synchronized fashion.

It looks wacky and zany and beautiful.

Then I stop and think — wow, that shit came out of Frances’ mind.

For a while there, Frances was my wingman.

We’d go to Syracuse to party.

It’s Friday night, and she doesn’t want to go alone.

I’m always going harder than most, so why not drive an hour to find a party?

We get there — it’s at a Ukrainian community center.

The building is well-maintained, but you can tell it’s close to 100 years old—maybe more. There’s an old, aged wood smell about the place.

On the third floor, there’s a beautiful showroom with a wood floor.

There’s a stage at the front where the DJ is always set up… Overlooking the dance floor.

We’re always the first on the floor.

Most people are always trying to follow someone else’s lead.

Anybody else?

Please — somebody lead.

Anyone but me.

That’s how most people behave.

“I’ll just wait until the dance floor has more people.”

That’s most people’s attitude when a party starts, and the floor is empty.

Nobody wants to be the person to break the ice.

Let me tell you…

After racking hundreds of parties under my belt…

That instinct is thoroughly trained out of me.

I’m almost always the first on the dance floor when the music starts.

I start the party.

Frances taught me that.

Once, we stopped at an old bar we’d never been to.

There was salsa playing, so we wanted to check it out.

A live singer — she was excellent.

But everybody was sitting.

This wasn’t precisely a dancing type of bar.

But the music was perfect.

That night, Frances locked eyes with me and told me to go grab a girl and start dancing.

Yikes.

I orbited around this pair for longer than I should have.

Having to convince someone whether they should cut their conversation short to dance with a stranger on an empty dance floor.

It was a tall order, even for me.

My nerves jangled.

When I’m nervous, my voice goes up a whole octave.

I hate that tick. Usually, it shows up right when a man ought to have a little bass in his voice.

I look back at Frances. She’s grabbing a guy to dance with and shakes her head at me as she walks to the dance floor.

With Frances breaking the ice, I find enough courage to ask an older mom to dance.

I still feel myself cringing inside.

All eyes are on me.

They’re sapping me of my charm and swagger.

I muddle through the song. She gets to the end and has had fun… but she still isn’t entirely sold on this whole dance concept. She’s eager to find her seat again.

It was an imperfect execution, but I still feel good about facing my fears and taking charge.

Some people lead, and some who follow.

You can’t become a leader by being a better follower.

But that’s what you do when you look to others to anoint you with greatness.

It’s ass backwards.

In Zen, we say you are the very thing you seek.

Some people come to a party, they see an empty dancefloor, and they say, “Party sucks.”

The dancers are all beginners… “Lame.”

This is weakness in action.

Are you going to let that empty dance floor define you?

Why don’t YOU bring the party?

How about that?

This idea of believing in yourself is complex.

It could be the topic for a whole book.

All of these forces will act upon you to undermine your self-confidence.

And confidence isn’t something you can wish into existence. It must be based on some foundation. Otherwise, it’s just bravado.

How do you get that foundation?

You must love yourself so much that you don’t need other people to tell you you’re great.

That takes self-leadership.

If you want to be a Lion, you can’t be a sheep like everyone else.

But most people will never taste their greatness.

Even those with the best of intentions.

That’s because being great takes work.

Finding yourself requires courage.

To become the best version of yourself, you must be willing to examine your shortcomings objectively.

Most people aren’t interested in that type of work.

What if you woke up and realized that everyone in your life — your spouse, boss, friends, and even your kids- was wrong for you?

What would you do?

Would you leave? Or stay?

Would you do what it takes to live aligned with your core values?

With your most authentic self?

As a very high-level overview, Your task is to find yourself. Meet yourself. Own yourself.

Know yourself.

Know how you are distinct and unique.

ChatGPT tells me that I practice Radical Self Awareness.

I never really thought about it like that…

But at this stage that I’m at… I’m discovering sides to me that I’d never seen before.

Writing out my memoir helped me understand how fundamentally sensitive I am.

It’s a trait that I rejected about myself since kindergarten.

No.

My task is to be myself as fully as I can be.

Not to repress the parts of me that I don’t like.

So I’m this male that’s so sensitive I’m almost a little bit effeminate.

Today I’m striving to do things the way a sensitive person would.

In so doing, I’m finding it easier to express myself and connect with people.

If you reject yourself, you only permit the world to reject you.

Cut that shit out.

And be that person. Own that person. Get clear on who you are and what you value. And live in alignment with that.

Double down on you.

Do it again and again.

Do you think I’m crazy suggesting there’s a world where you should abandon your kids in the name of self-love?

This may sound extreme, but there are real cases where staying in toxic relationships—yes, even with your own children—can destroy you.

As I spell out this scenario, I’m considering the movie We Need To Talk About Kevin.

An otherwise typical middle-class family — however, one of the children is a stone-cold sociopath who takes pleasure in making his mother suffer.

He injures his younger sister.

He later becomes a school shooter…

I can think of a murder that happened down the street from a friend’s house.

The son killed his mother. Gutted her like a fish.

Surely, there comes a point when you decide even your children don’t deserve you.

Indeed, you deserve better than having your son stab you and having them take pleasure in ruining your life.

An excellent case study on this is 50 Cent and his son.

50 Cent says that his son has no shame being 27 and still complaining about not getting child support.

He talks about how becoming successful cost him his relationship with his son, who believes he’s entitled to all 50’s money just because he’s 50 Cent’s son.

50 explains that once his son realized he couldn’t get what he wanted, he started associating with 50’s enemies—people who wanted him dead.

“How long can you love someone when they refuse to love you back?” 50 said.

How long, indeed.

I often tell people that I don’t recommend my lifestyle.

It certainly comes with a price.

It’s up to you to decide whether you will pay that price.

It’s better to be honest and accept that you aren’t if that’s how you feel.

Stop waiting. No one is coming to save you.

No one will anoint you with greatness.

You either step up and claim it, or you die waiting.

Most people are waiting for an invitation to be great as if some secret committee needs to approve them.

Newsflash: There is no committee. You either declare yourself great, or you stay in the crowd forever.

Keep filling your cup, with things and activities that affirm your worth and value.

If you have spent your life living the opposite way, you may be low on reserves.

You may surprise yourself when you find up how bottomless that cup is.

Keep filling it.

Don’t stop.

Let that cup overflow…

So that you ooze with self-love.

People can smell it, and taste it when they’re around you.

It’s so crazy — this subtle shift makes all the difference.

It’s one of the great secrets to life — hiding in plain sight.

I just did a 7-day silent meditation retreat in January.

I told myself I’d wait until this summer to do it again.

I signed up for the next one in March instead.

I was fat — I became a runner and have run more races in my 30s than I did in high school as a varsity athlete.

I constantly fill my mind with high-quality books.

Some guy with a PhD took 20 years to write that book. I’m pounding back 2 or 3 of those per month.

I went to hundreds of salsa parties.

Danced with thousands of women.

Now I’m this freak of nature out in the wild, and nobody understands how I became this way.

Repetition is the mother of all skill.

We’re too domesticated to remember what it was like when we were wild stallions, roaming proud and free without a master telling you where to go.

Until next time,

Anton

Dancer, Writer, Buddhist

P.S. If this resonates, forward it to someone who needs to read it.