Presence Over Performance

This was a very much needed digital detox.

Not only because I needed a break from technology but also because I needed to get re-adjusted to the Los Angeles timezone after having spend 3 months in Asia.

I can’t remember the last time I slept this much. It was definitely needed and I’m excited to be back home for a bit.

I’ve been doing these digital detoxes for over 3 years now. At first it started out with a weekend with no phones and computers, then it turned to trying a whole week every six months, then every three months, then every two months and one year ago I committed to doing a digital detox the first seven days of every month and it’s been life changing.

At first when I came back from them, I had fresh new ideas on how to optimize my business, how to grow it, scale it and have more impact. But as time progressed, I had less of those because so much had already been built.

I also felt during these detoxes that I had to cram them with activities with my wife Ivy to “make the most out of it”. But as time progressed that also changed, we use that time to be present, do what we feel like doing. Napping, playing monopoly, reading, gym, beach, etc… But we don’t cram the whole week with “stuff to-do” that isn’t digital.

Coming out of them I noticed a detachment to social media, for me it was that darn Instagram & Youtube app that would keep me up at night scrolling until my eyes would shut closed.

And the more digital detoxes I did, the longer it took to re-download those apps on my phone. And it’s not until recently that I decided to not have them on my phone and to simply use them on my laptop which stays in my office. That was maybe two digital detoxes ago and that has been a huge help. Now when I go on it, it’s simply not as pleasant because the browser version is clunky and I’m sitting in my office chair.

One thing I noticed throughout the years is that “being” on social media and being an “online” person started to shape and mold my life. I called it the “Performance over Presence” model in my notes. My brain would think of shots or videos to take or things to do that would look good online during the day. Since I was documenting everything on Instagram stories of what I was doing.

I was so use to doing it, I’ve been doing it for almost 10 years. It was built into my “daily routine”. But as I did these digital detoxes it forced me to pause and not document/create every little thing in my life and it made me shift how I lived my life to “Presence over Performance”.

Not that I was living a fake life a few years ago, it was very much mine, but it felt slightly enhanced for the camera.

I hated it but I didn’t know I was doing it, I felt like I was numb to the algorithm, just posting highlights of how cool things were but when in reality I had my hard moments too just like anyone else.

So I decided to stop, that’s why if you go on my Instagram, LinkedIn, it’s more clips from my podcast which is my main focus and what I call my Ikigai. And sometimes a photo dump from the week which I get my assistant to post because I really don’t want to go on the platform.

And I’ve been feeling more like me than ever and it feels fudging fantastic.

I feel like I’m enjoying and appreciating life a lot more.

Presence over performance was 100% a good shift.

Anyways I feel like that’s what I wanted to share with you all.

I also jotted down a couple of things in my notebook during the detox that stuck with me. They might resonate with you too, or they might not. Either way, here they are.

Insight one:

The beauty of what we do as coaching is learning to transform while dealing with the human condition (stress, imperfection, making wrong decisions, controlling our ego, dealing with death, grief, jealousy, etc…)

That is one thing AI will never be able to replace, everyone thinks it’s all about creating a perfect world, a perfect process with the perfect information but all you would be creating would be the same person over and over again.

The issue was never having the perfect information, the issue always was to learn to deal with the human condition while trying to better yourself which inherently involves making bad decisions and learning from them because if you were perfect you would not need to improve and therefore would not make mistakes and would not have any opportunities to learn from them.

As painful as it might be sometimes that is the whole beauty of living. Those occurring moments of imperfections either due to ego or lack of knowing, or not controlling ones emotions that allow you to have that feeling of “progress” of you bettering yourself.

The goal was never to be perfect because perfect doesn’t exist and means something different to everyone and your idea of perfection might actually contain a lot of imperfection within that you aren’t aware about. The process of becoming more of yourself enlightens you to who you really are and how you want to live your life.

The happy version of you isn’t necessarily the most optimized version of you.

Insight two:

I’m learning to not waste my time trying to make someone realize something that they aren’t ready to realize. I need to continue on my journey, share authentically and whoever it resonates with at that time, in the lesson, in that small part of their life then that is what they are meant to get out of it.

I can remember many times when friends, mentors told me something that I didn’t understand, only to go through hundreds of different life experiences and for it to make sense later and then hundreds of life experiences later I realized that I relearn that lesson but at a much different depth and that it meant something actually completely different.

I feel that I “waste” a lot of time and energy trying to make people understand some of these “realizations” that I’ve had or am having but the reality is that I got there through thousands of hours of writing, reading, conversations, bad life experiences, good life experiences, all the nuances of life that I’ve navigated and to expect someone else to understand it to the depth of my understanding makes no logical sense.

And the same goes for when I receive pieces of advice from people that I value their opinion, it comes from decades of fluctuations of life and I can only understand it within the context of my own life experience which will never be fully received from the perspective they are giving it since we didn’t get the same experiences to get to that conclusion.

That’s it for this weeks article, messy as always but 100% real.

I’m not trying to build this page to anything so don’t subscribe if you don’t like these types of post. This is just my “personal page” to brain dump life happening.

Have a good week.

Sincerely,

Maxime