Not whinging but waving.
How do I fascinate?
Let me count the ways….
In the past week I have been introduced to a fascinating book, called Fascinate. Written by Sally Hogshead who certainly owns her brand ( There are 50 gallons in a Hogshead. What’s in your name smart ass?) and she no longer wants to marry a man called Jones.
Not only does she set out to fascinate but offers to tell you (after you answer 28 questions) exactly how you fascinate. It’s called the Fascination Assessment and it measures not what you are but how you are perceived by others. Armed with this insight she recommends you embrace (own) it and do more of whatever it is. There are 49 options based on your core two Advantages which is probably where other people’s perceptions intersect with something intrinsic in you. The essence of this is to encourage you to step up to your billing, because it’s where you fascinate. No hiding lights under bushels anymore.
Guess what? I come out clean as….no not the Catalyst I thought I was, nor the Maverick leader, not the Authentic but (wait for it) the Rockstar! Before you imagine that I am pleased to be a Rockstar let me disabuse you. Exhibitionistic flash I abhor, shouting too loud not my thing, taking the stand with a microphone? No. Yet the purpose of the exercise is to ‘do more of whatever it is, and do it better.’
But this assessment is a measure of OTHER PEOPLE’S ideas about you. Now I accept this Rockstar appellation as accurate because it is about other people, not me. In that it is plumb centre. It makes all my life fall neatly into place. Rockstars work alone, they use what instruments come to hand, they soldier through the performance until the end, and they accept any gig going. In that sense I accept some truth in it, because what life threw at me necessitated mammoth undertakings. I did not seek them, they found me, as easily as a steamroller finds a slope. Like homelessness had to build our house out of reclamation, the birth of a musician and needing to educate her without money. ( Plant sycamore and wait? Knit your own violin? No. Build concert hall.) What it also explains is why those undertakings brought such calumny from other people, such competitive and snide under-mining such determination to cut me down to size. And get others on side to help.
‘Now when the music starts bang the pots together. Ready?’
I begin to detect, for the first time, why even my failures have been of Rockstar proportions. Why my concert posters were torn down, why my reclamation built home was then desired by the rich neighbour and fought for until he lost at the door of the Court, why my orchestra was expropriated by the conductor I invited to conduct it. Why my concerts were boycotted. Why my frivolously rewritten Evolution is lumbered with Erudite and Magnum opus and sinks to the bottom of the pond.
It is the ‘solitary’ nature of the Rockstar. You can: You do: You are too BIG for Boots.
So how do you own your brand as a Rockstar and do it better? How much hissing do you want to invite? So I undertake a programme to understand failure and I do now understand it with Rockstar knobs on. I have certainly been helped to understand the past. The future looks less clear, and it was a future I was hoping to re-shape.
Any and all suggestions warmly invited.
Photo:By Hooterhouse (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
PHI lippa. Letters of Love 
Is it the outcome that is flawed or the expectations?
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Knowing the tendencies of the ‘rockstar’ undoubtedly the expectations! Touche Diana! Be assured they are being pared down and whittled away.
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It’s something I’ve had to learn (and relearn). Not that my expectations are always too high, but different. Staying in the moment and being open to the goodness in whatever comes has saved me some grief! 🙂
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You exude contentment, so you have learned it all thoroughly! I had very high expectations of myself ( undoubtedly unrealistic) but mostly just went on and DID without really asking who for or why? Now, seemingly without any expectations left, I am be-rimed and bereft, covered in salt, but not quite in the sound of the sea.
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So now the question might be, for how much longer do you embrace the grief and why? I wish you many moments of joy in this present day, Philippa, and in the days to come. ❤
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Promise I am working on it and it is simply a reconciliation with solitude. It was once a good friend and will be again. Leavened by a few virtual others who I value. I am grateful for having acquired the rudimentary means to talk to them. I’m not sure loss is necessarily grief…rather more disorientation. Thank you for all thoughts. So warmed by them.
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I dreamed once of a prima donna giving birth to Jesus. And I thought on waking, of course … but then thought they’re archetypes that can take us over, while befriending them is quite sufficient.
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That sez it! Archetypes are useful handles but sometimes when you want to move a weight you need muscles and resolve!
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Well, now, I am amazed as is fitting! Madonna? Yes, I think so – breaking of boundaries … and a re-shaping of the future as you WILL do Philippa. True, I would have named you as Madonna/Maverick …
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I have never used an emoticon, and there would not be one made that would tempt me. I wish I could design my own for you Joe!
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“I dig rock and roll music
And I love to get the chance to play (And sing it)
I figure it’s about the happiest sound goin’ down today
The message may not move me
Or mean a great deal to me
But hey! It feels so groovy to say
I dig The Mamas & The Papas at the trip Sunset Strip in L.A.
And they got a good thing goin’ when the words don’t get in the way
And when they’re really wailing
Michelle and Cass are sailin’
Hey! They really nail me to the wall
I dig Donovan in a dream-like, tripped out way
His crystal images, hey, they tell you ’bout a brighter day
And when The Beatles tell you
They’ve got a word “love” to sell you
They mean exactly what they say
I dig rock and roll music
I could really get it on in that scene
I think I could say somethin’ if you know what I mean
But if I really say it
The radio won’t play it
Unless I lay it between the lines”
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I think a recent new edition is due for release, but I was introduced to the book’s Fascinate assessment process via another course, and did it as part of that. I have not read the book itself, but listened to her talks.
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Am I allowed to guffaw?? In sympathy and true fellow feeling, to clarify, not mockery.
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Of course you are! I am (slightly under the breath!) Thing is, judging by reactions of others to this assessment it is horribly accurate, enough for companies like IBM to get their staff to take it and show that all those suited men cluster around Aggressor and Maestro, but fail to understand that their success depends on all those unseen Co-coordinators, Mediators and Control Freaks! It really is pretty persuasive. It persuades you to face up to what you really already know. There was I hoping for the NEW, the BOMBSHELL Instead….Ah well
Not far from siting on a handy log!
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I’m curious to know how you read this book when it’s not being released until April. Your skills are excellent but prescience that precise would impress me vastly.
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