If you’ve ever sat through a session of America’s Got Talent or American Idol, then you are familiar with the judging personalities of Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell.
If not . . . then I would describe their judging as something akin of an over-bearing Italian grandmother combined with the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding yelling, “why you wear THAT thing?!” in front of two hundred of your closest friends in the middle of your wedding.
Painful? Maybe.
Is it the truth, cruelty … or just grandma/Morgan/Cowell projecting their childhood crap on you because of some deep dissatisfaction in their everyday lives while they chase perfection?
Both Morgan and Cowell have taken their share of public flogging for their honest opinions on these talent shows. Some say they’re brutal. Maybe. But whenever I watch them judge I think how lucky the contestants are to have someone tell them when they may suck.
Can you imagine how hard that is?
Sometimes dreamers fall so much in love with their dreams that they lose all sense or perspective on themselves and the ability to self-regulate their decisions. It’s hard to know when you suck. Or maybe you just need a little fine-tuning.
I agree that it is hard to tell when you think you need to get better at something feels like you might be selling yourself short.
How do you look in a mirror and know where you really are with your dream?
This week my son and I started preparing for his entrance into the 11th grade. No I am not that old. This has caused me to be in the living room more than usual. That boy has a lot of socks. Looking through his clothes with him and figuring out what he needs to start the year gave me a chance to watch Piers Morgan on America’s Got Talent.
I was shocked to find myself agreeing with Morgan most of the time … a contestant needed more coaching; another should perform in a different venue — like their bedroom; and the last one needed to lose the group and go solo to make it.
It’s easy to see when it’s not you … huh?
My son decided this summer to try out for the linebacker position on his varsity football team. This week at football camp the coaches and fellow players told him he’d be a better defensive end. My son is as strong as a refrigerator and loves to tackle quarterbacks. He’s a science nerd who just happened to inherit his height and size from the Paul Bunyan side of my family.
I guess these are qualities that make up a good defensive end. I just thought that it meant that they could devour a leg of lamb in one sitting. He’s built to lift Big Blue Babe with one hand and contemplate frictionless rotation while adjusting his glasses with the other.
His coaches and fellow players see him differently than he sees himself.
The first two days he came home from camp and went straight to bed. I could tell he was upset. I hate it when my son behaves like I did when I was a teenager. I could only press him so far to tell me what was going on. He refused.
I finally nagged my ex-husband enough to go to camp after work and observe what was going on. It turns out trying to become a linebacker was harder than my son thought.
Should he give up on his dream?
The solution sort-of presented itself on the third day when he made a big play as a defensive end that all the players and coaches noticed. His father said he was amazing. He wasn’t so amazing as a linebacker. As a defensive end he came home strutting like a peacock. The answer to your dream can often be found in how your dream is making you feel.
My son had to decide if the work to become a decent linebacker was worth sacrificing the opportunity to happily make many great plays this season in another position. Everyone saw where his real talent was . . . except him.
We can screw up our vision sometimes, pushing ourselves in one direction until something sets us straight.
This is the moment that we need our own Simon Cowell or Piers Morgan in our lives who will give us not only constructive criticism — but information on how we can improve if we are serious. It’s hard learning to accept what you hear and weigh it in your head for a while.
These judges have been wrong.
Your ability to hear what your personal dream talent judge has to say about your dream is only information. If you allow yourself to take the constructive criticism in and roll it around — without taking it personally — it may force you to make changes that create your big dream.
Then who knows where playing defensive end will take you.
Catherine
Catherine’s dream is to make 8 Women Dream the premier online publication for women looking to change their lives. She is a published author, known for her humorous speeches on finding your dream life and blogging for fun and profit. Catherine also writes about her life as a mom at the blog, A Week in the Life of A Redhead and several online marketing publications. She would also like to be invited to speak at TED about her observations on people chasing their big dreams. Catherine posts on Sunday evenings and fills in when needed. Join me on Google+ rapieress@aol.com
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