Be Awesome With Yourself
At FullContact, the single overarching and most important core value we hold is “Be Awesome With People.”
This value guides the products we build, the way we treat our customers, and the way we work with teammates.
It guides how we think about our relationships with vendors, partners, investors and the broader community.
It also serves as a way to help us think about relations with our friends and family.
It’s not an easy value to live up to. It’s a perspirational value — we have to work at it every day — and sometimes we screw it up.
For me, I find that when I screw up, it’s usually because I am not being awesome with myself.
What does being awesome with myself look like? For me — here is what it looks like:
- It means making sure self-care is a priority.
- It means making sure to get enough sleep
- It means eating healthy
- It means limiting alcohol consumption
- It means getting exercise every day
- It means taking the time to read fiction
- It means taking the time to laugh and play with your child
- It means meditating daily
- It means limiting the number of meetings taken in a day
- It means carving out Maker Time for reflection, thinking and writing.
- It means getting a massage
- It means going to Yoga
- It means treating oneself with respect
- It means checking in with yourself and your body and asking “How am I doing, really?”
- It also means pushing yourself beyond your own limits.
- It means striving for excellence
- But it also means accepting your own humanity and not judging yourself too harshly
- It means forgiving yourself
If I don’t do these things, my energy levels can easily get depleted. Then I can easily shift into a reactionary, lizard-brain, hyper sensitive state. This can trigger fear, anxiety, and depression. Hardly a place a leader should be operating in.
I have learned, time and time again over the years, that to serve others best, I have to serve myself first.
So it’s great to be awesome with people. Just remember to be awesome with yourself first.
