Did you really just tell me you want me to become less???

When my niece, Jordan, went to Korea to teach English, there was a mandatory health screening.  After weighing my niece--who happens to be much taller than most Koreans--she was given the advice that she needed to "become less."

While an English-speaking nurse probably would have said "lose weight" there is something revealing in the translation.

We have whole industries dedicated to telling us to "become less."

What happens to us when we receive that message over and over?  What happens to us when we feel our bodies are something to be hidden, camouflaged, shoved into a sausage casing called Spanx?

Of course, that is the message aimed at women.  The message to men is that they already are less. They need to become stronger, faster, bigger, (ahem) longer...

I am all for becoming all we can be, but we can't do that until there is an appreciation of who and where we are.  This constant barrage of saying we are not worthy is damaging.  And more importantly misses the point of the beauty that each of us--male and female--carry inside of us.

Somewhere along the line we got the idea that "you are only worthy if x."  And a great many feel they can't win so they just stop playing the game altogether.  They drop out via addiction, hiding, suicide or simply a self-deprecating sense of humor.

Could you imagine what would happen to our workplaces, schools, and media if we grasped how beautiful, loved and precious we are? What would a world look like without defense mechanisms?

And you know the real kicker?  It's all invented anyway.  All the rules about how we should look, what we should wear, the brand of our car...

I work in marketing.  I get that image is powerful and that it sways people emotionally. But the best branding is authentic. Let's stop being sad we are not x and enjoy the authenticity that is us.

Why?  Because x is always less than who you really are.