The Way We Show Up

Why success begins long before the title

This morning I gave my ten-year-old son a lecture on the tennis court.

He was in the middle of a coaching session and, from where I was sitting, I could see it. He wasn't fully there. He was hitting the ball, following instructions and doing what was being asked of him, but he wasn't bringing himself. His body was on the court. His attention was somewhere else.

Afterwards, I told him something that probably sounded harsher than I intended.

"Show up."

What those two words sum up is this: Bring your intention to what you're doing. Don't drift through life on autopilot. Don't go through the motions. Don't allow yourself to be distracted. I told him that how we do one thing has a habit of becoming how we do many things. Every interaction, every conversation, every piece of work, every practice session tells the world something about who we are, not through our words, but through our presence.

As we drove home, I knew—and I could feel it in my body—that I wasn't only talking to him. I was reminding myself.

I've realised over the years that I know when I'm showing up because I can actually feel it in my body. It's difficult to describe, but it feels as though my energy is gathered. Collected. The energy isn't leaking away through being self-consciousness, second-guessing myself or trying to anticipate what everyone else is thinking. It isn't scattered in ten different directions. It's within me, mine to use intentionally.

I've always believed that even in the smallest moments, we reveal something about ourselves. Take a handshake, for example. I've always paid attention to the way people shake hands. It is such a simple gesture, yet it carries so much information. Before we've even spoken, we are already communicating something.

A handshake isn't about crushing someone's hand or, on the contrary, the limp shake (the worst kind of handshake in my opinion). You see, for me, a handshake is about being deliberate. Intentional. When we look a person in the eye, when we offer our hand with intention, we are being fully with the person in front of us, even for just those few seconds. Those things matter. They tell the other person, I see you. You have my attention. I've met enough people in my time to know when someone is genuinely interested in meeting me rather than simply filling time.

The way we shake hands with someone also communicates something to us too. It reminds us not to shrink. It reminds us that we too belong in that space and not to disappear before we've even given ourselves a chance. For me, it’s my version of staking a claim on who I am before anyone else can make assumptions on me.

Life will give us many reasons to doubt ourselves. Disappointments, setbacks, and moments that test us are part of the deal for living a full life. There will be times when life asks more of us. Redundancy, illness, grief, caring responsibilities, mid-life can bring all of these to the surface at once. And today it seems, we are living in a time where it feels like experience is not only overlooked but shunned instead being valued. It's hardly surprising that so many of us question ourselves. Showing up isn't about ignoring those realities like they don't exist. It's about refusing to let them become the final word on who we are.

There will be days when holding your head high feels like the hardest thing—even the most impossible thing—in the world to do. Yet, that is when it matters the most.

I'm not talking about pretending everything is fine, nor am I saying that hope will make our struggles magically disappear. What I am saying is that those are the moments we practice staying connected to ourselves--not abandoning ourselves--even when life gives us every reason to retreat. Because what I've learned is that sometimes the body has to lead before the mind catches up.

This has been shown to be true not only in my own life, but in the people I coach. So often we wait to feel confident before we say we can take action. We wait until we feel ready, until the doubt has disappeared. But confidence rarely comes first.

What my life has shown me is that it wasn't confidence that helped me show up, helped me put myself forward for opportunities. It was courage. You see, confidence is the evidence of courage in action.

Courage, uncertainty, fear, and doubt are like occupants of a car. Each moment is a chance to choose who is driving. Confidence doesn't arrive as a prerequisite for action. More often, it is created through action. We speak up while we still feel uncertain. We walk into the room before we fully believe we belong there. We make ourselves visible before we are convinced we deserve to be seen.

Sometimes the body has to lead before the mind catches up and that's where courage lies--in our body. Then, slowly, confidence begins to grow—not because we've eliminated doubt, but because we've gathered evidence. Evidence that we can do hard things. Evidence that we can stand in discomfort and remain standing. Perhaps that’s what I really mean when I talk about showing up

Show up in the handshake.

Show up in the conversation.

Show up on the tennis court.

Show up when no one is watching.

Show up when we don't yet feel ready.

Showing up isn't about trying harder. Showing up doesn't always look like someone who has all the answers. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like admitting you're terrified. Sometimes it looks like writing a blog post and then hitting 'publish'. Sometimes it simply means refusing to judge yourself while life is asking everything of you. Showing up is about staying connected to ourselves.

The word integrity comes from the Latin integer, meaning whole. To me, that speaks to something much deeper than doing the right thing. It speaks to not being divided or distracted within ourselves. It speaks to having our thoughts, words, actions and energy moving in the same direction. It's about gathering ourselves so that all of us is available to the moment we’re in so that our energy isn't unconsciously leaking into worry, performance or the need for approval, but remains within us, for us to use intentionally. We’re centred in ourselves. Because how we feel dictates how we think, which determines how we act.

Only a few days ago, this same boy whom I lectured, my son, was named Head Boy at his school. Talk about two distinct moments. I couldn't have been prouder. What I was proud of wasn’t the title; rather, it was what it represented--the recognition of the person underneath it. My son is kind, thoughtful and deeply aware of the people around him. The school and this honour recognised something he was already embodying.

That's what I've been thinking about ever since: What does it actually mean to embody success?

We're taught that success arrives with a title, a promotion or a healthy bank balance. Those things matter. They can create freedom, opportunity and security. But they aren't who we are. We’re also taught that success means a house, a marriage and 2 kids. Does it though?

Jobs come and go. Relationships change. Money flows in and flows out. Sometimes things—be it partners or careers—end because we choose to leave. Sometimes they end because someone else chooses for us. Sometimes the world simply changes around us. None of those things is always in our control nor is a reliable measure of who we are, even though they can make us question ourselves. If those things disappeared tomorrow, would you suddenly become an unsuccessful person? Or would you still be the same human being who created them in the first place?

And I know what some of you might say: "That sounds all very well, but I need a job. I need to pay the bills. I need to keep a roof over my head. What does showing up have to do with any of that?"

It's a fair question.

Showing up will not erase financial pressure. It will not undo redundancy or make a difficult job market easier. It will not remove the very real barriers that prevent talented people from being seen and valued.

Survival comes first. Practical action matters. But underneath all of that remains a person who deserves not to disappear from themselves while they navigate what is hard. Losing a job is not the same as losing your value. Being overlooked is not the same as being insignificant. A career transition is not evidence that you have somehow become less than you were before—no matter how much it may feel that way.

I wonder whether we've got the order wrong.

One of the paradoxes of midlife is that our very survival will depend on how much we trust ourselves more than the systems that once validated us. That's incredibly uncomfortable when we've been excellent within those systems. We know who we are within those systems. But even those systems are changing, even crumbling. But here is where it gets interesting--this moment opens the possibility of a different kind of confidence—one that's rooted less in what the world says and more in what we know through lived experience.

We spend so much of our lives believing we'll feel different once we've achieved something. That we'll stand taller once we get the job or the promotion; that we'll finally feel we matter when the business succeeds. But what if success doesn't begin with achievement? What if it begins with embodiment—how we show up?

What if sustainable success is less about what we accumulate and more about how we actually inhabit our lives? What if it is communicated through the way we walk into a room, the way we greet another human being, the way we listen, the way we keep advocating for ourselves, the way we carry ourselves and speak to ourselves, the way we never give up on ourselves, the way we gather ourselves before we ask anything of the world. What if what it all comes down to isn't competence--after all, that can be learned? What if it comes down to congruence?

There is something unmistakable about someone whose words, actions and presence all point in the same direction. Someone who is not constantly looking outside themselves for confirmation that they belong; they already feel it in themselves, by gathering all their energy in their body to show up in a way the moment requires. It’s quiet, it’s resolute. It’s focused.

That's what that moment on the tennis court was about. I wasn’t trying to teach my kid how to hit a better forehand. I was teaching my son something I keep reminding myself: how to keep coming back to ourself. How to gather ourselves. How to show up like we mean it. Because true success, the kind that can withstand uncertainty and change, isn't something we acquire or achieve. It's something we embody long before the world gives us a title or external metric to prove it.

Monita xo