Tag: Insecurity

How Weakness Becomes Strength

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity Guy1 Comment

Your greatest strength comes from your greatest struggle.

For me, that strength is curiosity. It’s helped me get to know and understand people well. I’m not the best in the world at it, but I’m pretty good—and it’s served both me and the people around me.

This strength is born from a place of lack—from a deep-seated belief that I didn’t have much to offer in conversations. So I learned to fill silence with questions that draw others out.

Initially I just enjoyed the feeling of relief to not have the pressure of carrying a conversation, but over time I realised that getting to know people is fascinating and a gift that they give to me. Everyone has a story, something interesting going on in their world that we can learn from and be encouraged by.

I’m grateful for those insecure (and incorrect) beliefs, because they led me to develop a strength I can use for good. What I once saw as a weakness has quietly become one of the most valuable parts of who I am.

It didn’t arrive as confidence or clarity. It arrived as compensation—an attempt to avoid discomfort, to fill silence, to protect myself from judgment. But somewhere along the way, that coping mechanism became curiosity. And that curiosity became connection.

The irony is that the belief I was trying to escape—that I didn’t have much to offer—ended up shaping something that helps me draw the best out of others. Not because I fixed myself, but because I followed where that insecurity led long enough to discover its value.

And maybe that’s the point.

We don’t just grow by eliminating our weaknesses. Sometimes we grow by walking through them long enough that they transform into something useful, even beautiful.

I don’t always need to have the perfect thing to say – and I’m comfortable with that. It keeps me curious, engaged, and open, creating space for other people’s stories to come alive.

And for that, I’m genuinely grateful.

Get Out of Your Head

Published on by Kieran Johnson - The Generosity GuyLeave a comment

I sometimes have what I call an ‘out of body experience’ where I almost come to terms with the fact that I can only view the world through my own eyes in this present moment, but at the same time there are billions of other people doing exactly the same thing, and this has been happening my entire life, and I assume for a long time before that (I don’t actually know, I wasn’t there but people I know were). How can I balance the entire weight of human history and everything that has ever been done with the reality that I can only experience this moment by myself in my own head. It’s like the sound of one hand clapping, or a tree falling in the woods etc.

Being inside my head is mostly boring I admit, but at times it can be a chaotic, trippy and enlightening place. The problem is that if I stay that I get so caught up in my own thoughts and feelings that I feed my selfishness and offer no value to those around me.

Maybe you can relate, or maybe for you it’s a different experience of a downward spiral of troubling thoughts, or unhappy feelings, or a land of insecurity. But generally getting stuck in your own head with your own thoughts for too long doesn’t end well.

The greatest weapon we have against selfishness, unhelpful thoughts or feelings or insecurity when we get caught in our own heads, is generosity. There is a reason that on the steps in the 12 Step Groups, is to ask their members to be of service because it helps them get out of their own heads.

When you do something for someone else it is a circuit breaker for your own thoughts and feelings. Being of use to another person stops your downward spiral, even for a moment, and helps you see that there is a whole world of people right in front of you, who you can do something for.

That is of greater value that any ‘out of body’ experience I can create for myself.