Overcoming Vulnerability (Thanks To Hairy Maclary)
Most parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and carers know of Hairy Maclary.
For the uninitiated, Hairy is a fictitious dog who lives at a dairy and embarks on adventures with his friends.
Each story is playfully illustrated, written in rhythmic verse and begs the reader to deliver each page with theatrical enthusiasm.
My introduction to Hairy Maclary took place when our eldest daughter was a few months old.
Until that point, I had been winging it.
As clumsy as one could, I had been making my way through our story time routine using stilted and stutter-filled language.
It didn’t seem to matter until one day our daughter looked up at me when I tripped over a simple phrase, again and again. The look on her face said it all.
‘What’s wrong?’
Filled with shame, I had no response.
And through no fault of her own, this grew worse when my incredible wife was in the room.
More often than not I would defer to her incredible narration skills, born of being a voracious reader throughout her life, to deliver a far more elegant experience to our little angel.
I would stay and watch in wonder as the littlest member of our family absorbed every syllable and developed her unique sense of language.
The journey to finding my voice
I can trace this torment to my childhood.
I was an awkward first child growing up in Australia’s capital in the late 1970’s.
I have vivid memories of wanting to fit in and be one of the ‘cool kids’ but when the opportunity presented to say something, to communicate my worth, I stuttered.
It became a vicious cycle and the years of ridicule that followed placed a toll on my self-confidence.
For some reason, however, I knew there was a way through it. I just didn’t realise that the plan I was hatching would have even greater consequences.
I vividly recall obsessing about the explanations I would give to introduce myself and make new friends.
What would sound cool and win me favour? What should I avoid saying?
Eventually, as a six year old, I landed on bullet-proof logic.
Practice answers to these questions while walking around the playground at lunchtime. And to avoid looking like a complete lunatic, speak like a ventriloquist.
That way I could practice hearing myself speak but others wouldn’t see me speaking.
Genius!
I practiced many times each day, starting at school, then at home, and then anywhere.
My thoughts became clearer and to me, so did my explanations.
But remember, I was trying to avoid lunacy and the very significant downside of speaking like a ventriloquist was that I started to mumble.
Really mumble. So much so that when given the chance to speak, others couldn’t understand me and this led to further withdrawal.
At all costs, I would avoid public speaking and presentations through school, the army, my undergraduate degree, as a national athlete and the early parts of my career, particularly as the founder of my first company.
This couldn’t continue but I was clueless on how to change.
My first visit to Donaldson’s Dairy
That day, when I read Hairy Maclary to our daughter and felt that immense shame coincided with the year of my MBA.
Well aware of the impact that training has on preparation and success through my military and triathlon experience, I took the three Hairy Maclary books to the laundry beneath our home and read each story out aloud over and over for hours and hours.
I practiced theatrical delivery in different forms, each time imagining I was sitting in front of my daughter.
I did this for months.
I noticed gradual improvements until one day, as if by adding a compound to catalyse a chemical reaction, the confidence I had been searching for appeared!
It had been 30 years.
Not only could I entertain our little angel at story time (with or without my wife in the room), public speaking and presentations became occasions that genuinely excited me.
Dame Lynley Dodd and Hairy Maclary - along with Hercules Morse as big as a horse, Bottomley Potts all covered in spots, Muffin McLay like a bundle of hay, Bitzer Maloney all skinny and boney and Schnitzel Von Krumm with a very low tum - helped me realise that those chest-tightening, tear-inducing moments come from a place of insecurity. And insecurities can be overcome.
I will be forever grateful.
We all have insecurities
This was one of mine. And if my experience is any measure, it only takes a small, conscious step and practice to change a behaviour.
For me, it started with Hairy Maclary.
How will it start with you?
Businesses don’t scale faster than the leaders running them
Each Wednesday, I send a newsletter with thought-provoking, deeply practical insight to help you:
→ Lead with clarity
→ Create leverage through partnerships
→ Bring real meaning to your team
Subscribe and get immediate access to my Frameworks Vault, the essential tools CEOs and GTM leaders use to grow with confidence.
