You may or may not have read about my saga with The Woman’s Diving Hall of Fame, an ostensibly legitimate organisation that promotes woman in diving but in my experience is more of an ‘old boys club’ where apparently a Guinness World Record isn’t significant or good enough to get in. (read more here and feel free to mail them and ask why yourself). No explanation, just a rather bland, we regret to inform you!

It has got me thinking about being chosen and how it sucks to NOT be accepted, especially by bodies that present themselves as authorities.

We have been taught to seek out that sort of acceptance and acclamation and so when it doesn’t arrive, we are stymied. Well, actually we are more likely to be totally thrown off course and often, we just don’t try again. Why should you ? You were just told by someone who ‘knows’ that you are not good enough, so why waste any more time and energy ?

Because the people who get ‘there’ don’t wait for approval or look for it. People who get ‘there’ don’t wait to be chosen because it isn’t about how other people see them, it is about how they see themselves.

Seth Godin writes a lot about choosing yourself and that has always connected with me. To get deeper than 121 meters I had to let go of being chosen by Nuno Gomes and mentored to a world record. I had to do it the hard way and choose myself (for more about what it really meant to break a world record and how you could to, see my TEDxSoweto talk – coming soon).

I thought with a Guinness cert in my pocket that I would be immune to rejection from the outside world (and there have been some really nasty people out there in the diving world who have ridiculed my dive insisting I dived to 221ft and have lied about it, calling my certificate and my dive Mickey Mouse all of which was published in a reputable British Diving Mag by a man who claims to have been sub 250 meters but accidentally dropped his proof). I thought that it wouldn’t matter if a club like The Woman’s Hall of Fame, didn’t accept me. I was wrong! That instinct to fit in is still there, kicking away but now, instead of giving in and starting a whole conversation about how useless I am, now I remember that I do my best work outside.

I have never fitted in. I have never been in the popular crowd, never had 100 friends I could throw a party for. It has always been me, mostly me against the world.

A world record has taught me that ME is enough!

So if you are wondering why you can’t get into the right crowd, or get the right mentor, stop waiting and spending all your energy on being chosen! Start spending your energy on choosing yourself and making it happen. Before you know it people will be begging you to be part of their club and if they don’t ? Well, that isn’t the place where you can grow and do something even more fantastic.

Choose people who choose you! Don’t waste your time on people and organisations that don’t! Because it matters where you spend your time and using precious time to try and change a mind is a waste – rather use it to create the life you want!

And remember, there are more people outside of the ‘norm’ than there are inside it. That means that there are more people just like you, so …

Dare to be Different! Dare to Choose yourself! Dare to go and make it happen! Create a Dare revolution !