What does success mean to you? And how is what you perceive to be success determined by your sense of self, value and identity?
Matt Purcell is one of Australia’s leading young entrepreneurs and speakers. He is on a mission to help doers think and thinkers do. Co-founder and creative director of Mentored Media, a creative agency in Sydney, he works with Australia’s top brands and individuals. This includes American Express, M.J. Bale, Tourism Australia, and leaders on branding, social media, content, podcasts, and more.
Matt works closely with 100X Legacy – teaching on Storybrand and Marketing. However, when he sat down with Pete and the Xtsers to record an episode of the 100X Legacy Business Podcast, he shared some of his own story and the lessons he has learnt on the importance of knowing who you are and your value.
He shared around purpose, identity, opportunities, distractions and empowering the next generation. He posed the question, ‘If someone had to write a book about your life – what lessons would you have in yours?’.
For more information and to hear Matt’s backstory, check out this episode of the podcast:
This article draws from this episode to explain 9 secrets to success based on a solid sense of self and identity.
1. STOP SUBSCRIBING TO TALL POPPY SYNDROME
‘Tall Poppy Syndrome’ is a cultural phenomenon commonly seen in Australia and New Zealand. It surrounds ‘cutting down the tall poppy’ – deliberately pulling someone down who has grown or achieved success in their field. This perceived success could be monetary, creative, intellectual, athletic, societal, or cultural.
It is almost seen as a moral obligation to keep others humble – to ‘even the playing field’. This is often done through avoidance, abandonment, resentment, and criticism of the ‘tall poppy’, or anyone who thinks too highly of themselves.
‘In this country that we live in, in Australia. It’s “the tall poppies”, to assume that anyone who is doing well for themselves was lucky, or was just given it by an inheritance or a will. It’s absolute bullcrap! It just takes away from and discourages people from trying and makes people want to hide their gifts. It makes people hesitant to truly flourish in their area’, says Matt.
In this seemingly altruistic pursuit of equality, we even see people cutting themselves down (through self-deprecation) or limiting their own potential. Matt describes this by saying a lot of people become reserved or insecure about admitting their talents, strengths, or successes. ‘The Australian in us goes, “you can’t say that”‘, he says.
‘If you see anyone who seems to be doing okay with their life, don’t assume that they were born with a silver spoon in their bloody mouth. I tell you that much. Because it’s not always the case’.
Some of us struggle with a lack of humility, others with a lack of confidence. However, most people aren’t being who they are destined to be because of a lack of confidence – not a lack of humility.
2. KNOW YOUR VALUE
Matt says, “The person in me didn’t become real confident until I started believing in something more than just trying to please people”, says Matt.
An example of people-pleasing can be seen in the clothes we wear. Why do you dress the way you do? If you boil it down might be because it makes you appear a certain way.
It works the other way too – you might be dressing down to please people. Perhaps you don’t want to be a tall poppy.
A lot of people dress for others. Who you are trying to impress will determine how you dress. We put external things on to try and change the internal.
Matt asks himself the question. ‘Am I the mannequin with the clothes wearing me, or am I wearing the clothes because I know I give them value and I don’t need them to give me worth?’
Another place we can look to for identity is confidence in our skills and achievements. Matt explains that technical confidence comes from repeatable outcomes. ‘You aim at something, you practice it repetitively, you have a deep understanding of it, so it doesn’t remain a fluke.’
‘For me, it was actually a revelation that my value wasn’t really boiled down to my achievements … I had revelation From God as well, my personal faith. No matter what I achieved, what I did, or what I accumulated, I’m as good as the poorest person or the richest. We’re all the same and death renders us as equals’, says Matt.
He explains that the thing that now gives him confidence is the realisation that everything he does is valuable. This is not because his actions or the things he does are inherently valuable, but because we, as humans, give things value.
‘We have, as human beings, the ability to be able to give love to dead things. We’re given to dead things all the time. Without your attention, without your attendance, everything you basically have is useless. Facebook is useless. Zoom is useless. Money is useless. It’s only useful because we collectively believe in it and we act upon it.’
Matt finds true value and confidence in being able to walk into a room and know that he can bring life there – that he is in that environment but not of it. This comes from a realisation that his worth is not derived from external things.
‘The fact that I give love to things, that I give value and attention to things, shows that I have value. You cannot give what you don’t have.’
3. GET CLEAR ON THE MAN, MISSION & MESSAGE
When it comes to identity and value, Matt says three factors influence these – the man, the mission, and the message. The clearer you are on these things, the more things you attract that are specific to them. “You’re going to have people try and seduce you or try and distract you from that. That just can be part of the parcel of knowing who you are”, says Matt.
He explains that there is security in knowing who you are but there is also an enemy that comes against that. It is very easy for us to go around trying to avoid a battle. If you got nothing to die for you’ve got nothing to live for.
“Knowing who I am as a man, what mission I’m on, and the importance of finding a message and refining your message, means that in tough times I’m not as shaken”, says Matt.
There is a culture, especially socially, where we commentate from the spectator’s stand. This doesn’t compare to being in the arena.
Theodore Roosevelt once said ‘It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.’
When you find your mission and your purpose, you’ll have to pick up the sword and stand on a side. You’re going to encounter enemies, you’re going to find critics.
Criticism doesn’t change whether you have a conviction or not. Whether you pick up your sword or not, you’re going to have a critic. However, with conviction, you’ll live a life where you stand for what is true to you.
4. STOP SAYING YES TO EVERYTHING
One of the challenges that competence brings is more opportunities. You start getting good at one thing and start realising all of the other things you could start doing!
“I’ve been so many things the last 10 years. And it’s only been the last few years that I’ve really niched”, says multi-talented Matt. “I had so many versions of what I did … and I was doing things pretty well. But I reached a certain potential, and I couldn’t go any further.”
He found it hard to juggle too many balls at once and eventually had to let some go to scale other initiatives up. ‘I’d created several jobs for myself when I was in my early 20s. It was really crazy how I justified them to myself’, said Matt. He admits he found it difficult to know what to let go of. This decision was made as he stepped back and asked ‘Who am I?’
‘When you have all these opportunities, you need to have something like God, or an auditing system to pull you out of it and be values-driven.’ He encourages us, when weighing up an opportunity, to ask ‘How does this fit this is within my gifts, my passion, my ability, my values?’
‘Passion is such an interesting word because it’s thrown around all the time. All of us might have a definition of passion. For me, one little trigger point is what fires you up about the world? What pisses you off about the world? What do you want?’, says Matt. He encourages us not to assume that everyone has the same passion as us because the things that start a fire in us could be our calling.
You can do anything, but you can’t do everything. Instead of trying to say yes to lots of things, and doing them averagely, know your passion and purpose, and pursue things accordingly. What are the core things that you need to be doing? What’s the one right next step?
5. SPOT THE SECRET ENEMIES
Hollywood pictures paint seduction and Satan as obvious things but one of the things that may be an enemy in our lives is distraction: seeing all of the good options but having an inability to focus on the next right thing. Sometimes, the enemy will look at you and say ‘I know how I’d get you – by bringing a good cause in your world that’s not your cause’.
Another distraction we commonly see in entrepreneurs we coach is a vain pursuit of humility. You might say “I’m just being humble” but this is being vain because people aren’t thinking about you that much!
What are the secret enemies in your life or business?
6. KNOW YOUR NUMBER ONE
‘We all surrender our knee to someone or something, don’t we?’, says Matt. ‘It’s your boss, your shareholders, your wife, human beings, or a thing that’s bigger than ourselves. For many of us is, it’s a faith.’
Whatever our ideal or ultimate priority is, becomes our judge. For example, if your number one is work, everything in your life will be judged against your work. ‘Family? It’s not good enough if it’s distracting from number one, which is work’, Matt says in an explanation of this concept.
Matt goes on to explain how whatever is number one in our lives will ask us to surrender for it. Everything that follows it in priority will be asked to surrender for it at some point. ‘People talk about faith like it’s a wimpy thing, like it is a wuss thing. But it’s actually the hardest thing to do’, says Matt.
He poses this hard, hypothetical question to us: could you move on from this thing that gives you identity, provision, and other benefits? Could you move on from it? In his view, that’s the true test of what has your heart.
7. WORK OUT YOUR NUMBER
Get out a document. And write a list of every single thing you want to buy in your life – everything you’re working on right now. This might include financially securing your house or car. It might be funding a holiday. Whatever it is, be practical and tally it all up.
In the next column, write down the purpose of everything you’ve added to the first column. What’s the reason for all that stuff? Why that car? Why that house?
In a third column, add a monetary amount to each thing you want to buy and total it up. Is it $5 million? Is it $10 million? For a lot of us, it actually won’t be that as much as you think. Really think about when is “enough” for you.
‘I’m currently working on this process at the moment. It isn’t about accumulating the most wealth in my life anymore. It isn’t about having the most possessions. It is actually knowing who I am and knowing when enough is enough. And that’s values-driven‘, says Matt.
‘I don’t live, I don’t exist to be able to serve my business. My business exists to serve my life. And that’s the next step’.
8. HAVE THE FEET OF PROACTIVITY
If you were previously a smoker, and you go out and someone says “Do you want to smoke” and you say, “I’m just trying to quit”, what you’ve done is you’ve identified yourself as a smoker trying to quit.
If someone says, ‘Do you want to smoke’ and you go, ‘No thanks, I’ve quit’, you’ve identified as a previous smoker. The intent not to smoke is the same, but where you deriver your identity is a stronger predictor than your intent.
What happens when God gives you more than you can think or imagine? This is where the feet of proactivity come in – when it comes to keeping moving through hard times and going further than you’d imagined possible. It’s not about a number. It’s about a harder generosity.
9. EMPOWER THE NEXT GENERATION
In relation to the Theodore Roosevelt quote mentioned in point 3, how do we talk to the next generation about being the man in the arena, or the woman in the arena, and not being a spectator?
‘The mantle needs to be on business owners to be able to provide some really good, safe environments to be able to fail‘, says Matt. ‘My philosophy is maybe I can actually teach these guys how to do – then I don’t have to take it upon myself’.
Matt’s score in his HSC (end of school) exams was so low he wasn’t even given a number, he was given an asterix! He says there is an opportunity to encourage young people that school grades are not the be-all and end-all.
‘I think it is promoting an alternative way of thinking -that getting to where you want to go doesn’t have to be through that avenue. That’s why the street smarts and book smarts things are two different universes.’
Matt explains that having street smarts comes from leaning into experiences and having the opportunity to fail, which businesses and universities don’t want you to do.
‘If we can find more role models of people who have taken a different path, but ended up where they want to be it just gives much more confidence to people or young people to go “Okay, I’m not crazy. I’m not a nomad. I’m not just some crazy person. I think that I want to do it that way”.’
Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “Break the rules don’t break the law”. Why can’t the for-purpose entrepreneurs be a dangerous force for good? Why can’t we ripple through the generations and across the globe?
Let’s be the people that break the rules – that show a new way. Don’t break the law, but let’s break the rules of what people deem as normal or achievable, or realistic!