Just be yourself.

Simple, right?

Not so, as professional communicator Nancy Regan shares in this excerpt from her bestselling memoir From Showing Off to Showing Up: An Impostor's Journey from Perfect to Present.

And now, take a trip from fear to love!

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At the end of my book, I share some of my own Doorways to Presence—my personal practices for extricating myself from the past and future and planting me back in the present moment—how learning the art of presence, or being in the moment, helped me step out of social anxiety and fear.

Onstage, a significant part of that transformation comes through shifting a speaker’s focus from performance to contribution, but this is equally true offstage, in our daily lives. In my terminology, Showing Off means “presenting” yourself to others with a focus on their judgement. Showing UP, in contrast, is bringing your authentic self to the interaction—that is, without the internal dialogue that can so easily undermine your message, your power, and your presence.

When I talk about Showing Off, I’m describing our propensity as humans for adopting a character just as actors take on roles. Developing it and filling it out to create just the right impression in the minds of others. Showing UP, on the other hand, is what happens when we arrive on this planet. Here I am. Unadulterated. Un-adulterated. Showing Off is what we learn to do in order to fit in, win approval, and often protect ourselves. We learn to present our selves according to the expectations and judgements of others. I learned early to mould myself into whatever form might earn the most praise. Here’s the kicker: Showing Off is driven by our hunger for acceptance and belonging, but I believe the only way to really earn those treasures is through a commitment to Showing UP.

I’ve come to understand that the path to true comfort in any spotlight is simply the path to comfort in my own skin, in my own life. But to learn that, I had to get uncomfortable.

Just be yourself.

I don’t have any data to back up this claim, but I’m pretty sure this is the most oft-quoted advice regarding the fear of stepping into the spotlight, going for a job interview, or heading out on a first date. I know I was presented with this little gem when I was a teenager, and I’ve heard it countless times since in many different contexts. But I have a theory that blows it out of the water. Let’s start with the innocuous sounding “just” in this statement. This is the first fatal flaw. “Just” suggests simplicity, and for many of us, being ourselves in front of others is not a simple task—in fact, everything in my experience has taught me that it can be one of the most difficult. “Be” is no less problematic, but we’ll get to that later. Right now, we’re going to zero in on “Yourself.”

In order to be yourself, you need to fundamentally understand who you are. In my experience, part of really getting to know yourself involves figuring out what it is that you don’t like about yourself. And what has caused those disturbances to your ego’s ecosystem?

Your egosystem, let’s say. The next step is coming to terms with those parts of you that don’t fit comfortably. In order to raise your self-esteem, you’ve got to improve your self-acceptance. Ideally, you’ll eventually come to understand you are enough, and learn to like yourself. That might be the end of the story. But it can get even better, when you realize you’re more than enough and completely worthy of love—your own and others’.

This is the adventure I hinted at before. It’s admittedly challenging, but it might be the most rewarding expedition on which you’ll ever embark. It has been for me, and I’m eager to share with you. But please understand my motivation. I’m taking you along on this very personal journey so that you might discover a path that will serve your own growth as my journey has served mine. It’s a trip from fear to love, and while it’s a lot of ground to cover, it’s also as simple as shifting gears. And for the record, this journey of mine is far from over. The more I learn, the more I learn how much I have to learn. Consider the Socratic Paradox: “The more I know, the more I realize I know nothing.” And now let’s modify it a little bit. Tell yourself, as I often do: “I am a work in progress—a work in practice.” This is something I am grateful to have accepted in my own life. It’s a long way from the perfectionism that constricted me for decades, and it’s an infinitely more expansive way to live.

Excerpt from From Showing Off to Showing Up, copyright © 2022 by Nancy Regan. Reprinted with permission of Nimbus Publishing.

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Learn more about FROM SHOWING OFF TO SHOWING UP:

An intimate memoir and guide to overcoming impostor syndrome, stage fright, perfectionism, and embracing our most authentic selves, from the former host of Live at 5.

"My life was perfect. I was confident and outgoing. I was a deliriously happy wife and mother. I loved my job. That all sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, every one of those statements is false. I was false."

This might seem like shocking honesty, but to Nancy Regan, it's simply the result of dropping a mask she clung to for decades. In her first book, the former television broadcaster gives us a behind-the-scenes account of her experience hosting a newsmagazine with a daily audience of over a quarter million—and interviewing some of the biggest celebrities in the world—all while studiously concealing fear, insecurity, and self-doubt. With remarkable candour, Regan describes how she created the illusion of having it all together because she didn't want anyone to know how close she was to falling apart.

In From Showing Off to Showing UP, Regan explores in lyrical prose how overcoming these challenges enriched her life and now fuels her ability to help others through her work as a presentation coach. Weaving together memoir and self-help, this intimate book takes readers on a compelling journey— from Regan's childhood growing up in the thorny world of politics, through highlights and lowlights of her TV career, to what she considers her greatest personal accomplishment: self-acceptance. Featuring soulful lessons from her conversations with such luminaries as Oprah and bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat Pray Love) and serving up some of Regan's favourite practices for staying grounded in presence, From Showing Off to Showing UP is a powerful roadmap for living a more authentic life..