What Does It Really Mean to Show Up?

Progression of success.

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Marcy Axelrod is a management consultant, author, speaker, and strategist. What ties the various strands of her work together is her ability to reveal and address the psychological and interpersonal dynamics that block achievement. I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with her at the Camp David Saratoga Weekend and became intrigued by her deep dive into the seemingly straightforward idea of “showing up.” Her most recent research focuses on deconstructing what it means to show up in a way that gets you continually closer to realizing your professional and personal goals, as we discussed in this recent interview.

Michael F. Schein: When you talk about “showing up,” what do you mean specifically?

Marcy Axelrod: Broadly, showing up is how we present ourselves to the world. It brings agency to our lives. The two core components are knowing ourselves and engaging in conscious preparation rather than just assuming your best self or expertise will shine through. It should be the most straightforward thing in the world, yet failing to truly show up is the root of why so many people don’t get what they want in life. In a nutshell, my research reveals we constantly do something I call JSUP (just show up), then justify it when outcomes fall short. After observing this time and time again, I made it my work and my mission to get to the bottom of why people don’t fully show up so I can then help them do so.

Michael F. Schein: Why is showing up so key to getting what you want in life?

Marcy Axelrod: It brings more of you to the table, in each moment and encounter. One aspect is... while no plan survives the first punch, as Mike Tyson famously explained, it’s still helpful to have one. Plans carry us a few steps further and prime us to dance better on our feet. By bringing details into focus, we anticipate what’s needed. Responses and actions become clear. This heightens intent, honing our performance. We show up better as a result. The more we reflect and prepare, the more our life becomes a nucleus of efficacy and meaning. Truly showing up coalesces our resolve, motivation, attention, behavior, and choices.

In this way, even as life takes its own course, we’re better able to achieve, persuade and get into whatever winner’s circle we seek.

To go a bit deeper, the suggested thinking tools for being grounded and ready…things like slowing down, journaling, writing notes, simply investing the time to consider the why, what, when, and how of past or upcoming activities…are known to improve health, happiness, and situational outcomes. They reduce a realm of unknowns, bolstering confidence. We become more solid as a result. And everyone notices the difference the moment we enter the room.

Michael F. Schein: So then why do people fail to show up?

Marcy Axelrod: There are three main reasons — evolutionary programming, habit reinforcement, and cultural reinforcement. My research shows we tell ourselves we’re doing just fine. And on one level we believe it. On another, deeper, level, we know we’re not doing our best, nor living up to our dreams. Our culture says, “Just show up.” If Joe-T-shirt-wearing-football-watching guy sat pensively for 30 minutes each Sunday before the big game, pencil in hand, to reflect on his week and consider how to show up for upcoming meetings across fathering, husbanding, friending, hobbying, and digital media managing, we’d be in a different America. People don’t realize showing up is the foreplay of our lives. It’s the groundwork now for ecstasy later.

Then there’s habit, all the unnecessary busyness. Packed schedules discourage reflecting. Using our brains to think things through feels hard. It’s cognitively draining. And it can be especially daunting when emotional content is involved. This is one reason my research shows over 80 percent of Americans, across gender, income, education, and zip code, “just show up.” We dance on our feet, relying on a mix of experience and assumed raw talent. But approaching things this way inevitably keeps us stuck.

Data show we’ve implicitly accepted the “just wing it” sense we feel of incomplete preparedness. It may feel like a nonspecific distaste for some upcoming event, generalized avoidance, or basic grasping of busyness. Direct quotes from my research include, “It’s enough to get me through,” and “It gets the job done.” We think all is well, and everything is going swimmingly, when, really, we’re just getting by. It’s not until you ask a deeper question across a broader span of time, such as our lives, that people admit background dissatisfaction exists and that they’re not achieving what they believe they should be.

Humans are constantly fooling ourselves. We tell ourselves we’re smarter, faster, better looking, and higher achieving than we are. My forthcoming book, Life’s Foreplay: How We Choose to Show Up [due out in early 2022], cites research explaining why the most confident among us are also some of the least capable.

We compensate with inflated self-perception to cover disappointment, convincing ourselves JSUP’ing is indeed fine.

Michael F. Schein: What are some techniques or methods you might recommend to someone who has ingrained habits that are keeping them from "truly showing up”?

Marcy Axelrod: One technique is to simply slow down. A good deal of thinking takes place in the body. It’s called embodied cognition. Slowing down lets us live into our experiences more deeply, and offers time to think, so we become aware of these insights. We do it by pausing during our daily encounters…meetings, family interactions, solo work, and relaxing time…to recognize what’s happening. What did we feel? And what, if anything should be done based on it?

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Also, set time aside on your calendar to sit and think with a journal, paper and pen, laptop, or similar tool. Voice dictating into our phones is fine too, although writing is better because it’s known to expand thinking and evoke more meaningful processing. Focus on recent and upcoming events. While solo thinking time is my preferred recommendation, some people find speaking with friends, family, or professionals to help prepare for or reflect on events to be quite helpful.

Michael F. Schein: How does our primal wiring get in the way of our real-life modern goals and how do we get around that?

Marcy Axelrod: Our primal wiring says "Go! Do! Get stuff done!" The cave-person version of us who pauses to reflect ends up tiger dinner. That bloodline dies off, while the get-it-done, just-show-up-person survives, and here we are. This is how primal wiring created a society better at doing than thinking. Now the contemplative among us swim upstream of modern culture.

Ever been to a brainstorming session? Only the fast thinkers have anything to say...unless the whole pod...completed pre-assigned homework to think it through the night before. But how common is that?

Alternatively, truly showing up is bringing together two things: a solid understanding of who we are and forethought into the activity. This heightened readiness boosts consciousness about what’s happening now because we’ve already surfaced our intent around it. We’ve answered: How does it relate to our purpose? How do we choose to impact those involved? When these choices are clear we naturally live into them, bringing them to life. Now we’re truly showing up.