By Briana | January 30th 2013

Take Off Your Cool

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I’m writing to you from my bed. Yes, unfortunately, I picked up the bug that’s going around. I get sick so rarely, I’m a total baby about it when it happens. Luckily, I have my lovely man-nurse taking good care of me and pumping me full of herbs and vitamins.

Do you remember playing truth or dare in middle school or high school . . . or last weekend, as the case may be? I always felt like I was cheating unless I chose dare, because I’ve always been an open book. Truth was never anything that I was unwilling to share. As I entered the dating scene as a young woman and became familiar with the strategy of creating mystery, I began to think that this was a major fault of mine.

With my lack of aptitude for being mysterious, I’ve also never been innately cool. And any time I’ve tried to be cool, it was an utter failure. For example, I worked at a head shop when I was 20 and I was the only person there WHO didn’t smoke pot (first cool failure). Guys would come in to buy their bongs and I would say things like, “Oh this one has this neat little doohickey on it, that seems useful.

“Or, “I’m not sure you want to go with that one, because it doesn’t look like it would fit in a dishwasher. Are you going to want to put it in the dishwasher?”” (Cool failure number two.) They would look at me like I was from another planet. My co-workers had the lingo down. This was “sweet”, and that was “phat,” – and just by the way they said it, you knew they meant phat with a ph, never fat with an f. And everything was “totally dope.” So, I tried. But, “That’s a totally phat piece,” just didn’t roll of my tongue. Instead I ended up sounding like I was just learning English and trying out some terms I had learned in my American Slang Guidebook. (Cool failure number three.)

I quit the head shop and went to work as a waitress in a German restaurant, where the cook had a mullet and we were all decidedly uncool. I stayed friends with many of the people from the head shop, and found out that when they were no longer creating barriers and mystique around themselves, they were actually much more interesting.

As I pondered this, I found it intriguing that we use the word “cool” to mean neat-o or swell, but also to mean distant. And I think that we often use our coolness to create a barrier between our soul and other people.

Some people use this mystique to intrigue. I am not one of those people, obviously. In fact, when I took the quiz on how to fascinate, the results indicated that mystique is dormant in my personality (shocking!).

But, what I’ve found is that the more I give people me, the more they give me them. And that’s what I want – more you!

When we open up ourselves genuinely, when we let people into what’s real for us, when we expose our hearts and give them our full truth . . . people respond with sincerity. I’m not naïve about the level of openness – or lack thereof – that most people are comfortable with,some people will be uncomfortable, or even try to take advantage. Those people can opt out of our lives, or make it easy for us to see that it isn’t going to be a mutually beneficial relationship if they want to take advantage.

This song by Andre3000 with Norah Jones is so perfect for expressing this sentiment. Give it a listen.

I really hope for you to be able to take off any cool that you have going on, and join me in being ridiculously and fabulously open. Just remember, we want you!

Leave a comment below and tell me about a time when giving up your mystery or cool served you in getting closer to what you want in life. I love hearing from you!

P.S. If you haven’t had a chance to check out my Get It, Manifestation for Hustlers course, do it. It’s going to be a life changing seven weeks, and it starts on Monday!

3 Comments

  • Luz Donahue says:

    Oh, Briana! I’m so with you! It can be so hard to give yourself permission to be be yourself, even in business. This is something I work on daily. We can resonate so much more with others when we open our world to them in a way that is genuine and clear. The thing is that so many people are clutching on to that “cool” that seeing someone be open and ‘real’ does really stand out. You can’t go wrong being who you are. This is how we draw people towards us with the same philosophy and purpose and nothing is more fulfilling than working with people like that! There is a little bit of a temptation to put more “cool” on and cover ourselves in buzz words but that might just mean getting the attention of the wrong crowd and ending up frustrated and unfulfilled.

    Love your soul and your genuine spirit. And as for your self-professed lack of coolness… You’re like the Zooey Deschanelin of my blog roll. I give you high marks in the coolness department– and that’s real. 😉

    -Luz

  • Briana Borten says:

    Luz, You’re a total soul sister! So happy to have you here.

    And thanks for the Zooey Deschanel reference – I love her!!

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