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From Shame to Fame: Turning Life’s Toughest Emotion into Your Strongest Power (12)

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Shame is that uncomfortable feeling that tells us we are somehow not good enough. It is different from guilt, which is about what we did. Shame attacks who we think we are. It shows up when we believe we have failed, disappointed others, or simply not matched the invisible standards set by society. Sometimes it is earned through mistakes, but many times it is unfairly placed on us, even when our intentions and actions were right.

The trouble is that if you let shame move in and make itself at home, it quickly becomes a terrible houseguest. It lowers your energy, pulls down your consciousness, and before you know it, you are in a spiral of negative thoughts and feelings. It is like putting on noise-cancelling headphones tuned only to self-doubt. Progress feels distant, and opportunities slip by because you are stuck replaying the same mental soundtrack.

But shame might not the strong villain it first appears to be. When you step back and see it as just one of many emotions we will feel in our lives, it loses its power. It may be unpleasant, but it can also be the medicine that pushes us in the right direction. Sometimes the bravest move is to be a little shameless, as long as your intentions are honest. That shift from hiding to owning your story can be the start of a completely new future.

And here is where resilience is built. If your intentions are right and you face shame but learn to stand tall through it, you become unshakable. Very little can throw you off balance after that. This resilience is what sets the stage for real Fame, not the shallow kind measured in likes, but the deeper kind where people respect your strength and authenticity.

Look at The Pursuit of Happyness. Chris Gardner, played by Will Smith, endured moments that would break most people. Sleeping in a subway restroom with his son would make anyone feel humiliated. Yet instead of letting shame define him, he used it as fuel. His story proves that resilience through shame can lead not only to personal success but also to inspiring millions.

By learning to manage shame, you protect and even strengthen your mental health. You stop spiraling downward and start expanding upward. You gain perspective, clarity, and a stronger sense of self. That is the real prize.

So yes, your relationship with Shame can be the foundation of Fame. Not because shame feels good, but because overcoming it makes you ready for the spotlight that life has in store for you.

And while it might still feel a little taboo to talk about topics like shame, it is exactly these conversations that matter. Addressing them openly is how we strengthen individual mental health and move society forward in a positive direction.

❤️ASB

Water Water Everywhere, Not a Drop to Drink: The Knowing-Doing Gap (11)

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We live in a world that is soaked in knowledge. Everywhere you turn there is another book, a video, another “life-changing” podcast. LinkedIn is bursting with thought leadership. YouTube offers everything from strategy lessons to how to peel a banana using quantum physics.

And yet most of us are stuck.

It is not that we do not know enough. It is that we are not doing enough with what we already know.

This, my friends, is the Knowing-Doing Gap.

At an individual level, we know we should eat better, move more, email less, and be more present but somehow we are still ordering takeaways while multitasking between 14 tabs and wondering why we feel tired and slightly existential.

At a team level, businesses attend workshops, post selfies from strategy offsites, and have action plans colour-coded to within an inch of their lives. Yet somehow, the actual action bit gets delayed until Q4 when “things quiet down a bit” which of course they never do.

And at the organisational level, there are enough frameworks floating around to make a PowerPoint cry. Vision statements, Transformation journeys, Capability matrices, Innovation hubs. It all sounds very impressive until you realise that Tuesday’s big decision is still being made based on gut feel and Susan’s spreadsheet from 2019.

It is not about knowing. It is about doing.

Everyone is busy gathering knowledge like a precious gem. And then it sits in a folder somewhere. Untouched. Unused. Forgotten.

Let me bring it to life with an example. In Breaking Bad, Walter White goes from high school chemistry teacher to drug kingpin. Now setting aside the moral debate for a moment what is fascinating is that his success does not come from learning something new. It comes from applying what he already knows. He simply starts doing. Ruthlessly. Relentlessly. Effectively.

Knowledge in isolation did nothing for him. Action did. That is what changed his world.

Now I am not suggesting anyone start cooking meth, let us be absolutely clear on that. But I am suggesting that bridging the Knowing-Doing Gap can be life changing. In fact it can be happiness changing.

Happiness is not just about dreams or ideas, it is about progress. When we feel stuck it is often because we know what we should be doing but we are not doing it. That disconnect creates frustration stress and eventually burnout.

I spend a lot of time helping people and organisations close that gap. Not by giving them more theory or fluff but by working with what is already in front of them and turning it into action. My methodologies are designed to create those small shifts that unlock bigger momentum. No hype. No magic wands. Just intentional movement.

And sometimes, doing less knowing and more doing is the smartest move of all.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a webinar to ignore.

❤️ASB