Just Wear the Hat
by Co-founder, Quinn Simpson
It’s nearly impossible for me to walk out the door wearing a hat without being asked the question, ‘How do you wear hats?’ Most people seem dumbfounded by my ability to place a hat on my head and step outside my house. When I ask them why they can’t, I always receive the same answer: I’m not a hat person.
I wish I could reply, ‘Just wear the hat’. It’s pretty simple—people don’t become ‘hat people’ unless they actually wear them.
You see, I love hats. I wear them nearly every single day; they bring my outfits together. I swear a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt can be brought to life with the right hat, and my incredible Uncle Steven with a 50-piece, bespoke hat collection would likely agree. Hats are a fascinating piece of clothing—worn throughout history to demonstrate religious affiliation, identity or just for fashion.
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But that’s not how I wear hats. That’s why I do.
How do I do it? I get out of my own head. Funny, right? You need to get out of your head to put a hat on your head. The commonly-used excuse of not being a hat person is really just code for, ‘I care what people think of me.’ And, ‘I am worried I will look stupid’.
On our Advanced Coaching Course, The Journey, we use the metaphor of The Coachee’s Radio to refer to the positive and negative radio stations that you always have available to you. When you think, ‘I look dumb’, you are tuning into that negative radio station.
What’s challenging is that this isn’t a completely invalid fear. They may not pick the right hat shape for their head, or the right hat colour for their outfit, or the right hat style for their lewk.
This is when I turn up my positive station and say, ‘And, so what?’
I was 11 years old the day I stood on the playground and declared my lack of caring what others thought. It was the first time I ever fully listened to my Champion—my positive radio station. I realised that day that I was me and being me was all I could be. Easy to say but it takes practice. When I put on a hat 25 years later, I find myself feeling that same sense of confidence. I blare my positive station, look in the mirror and I tell myself—you look great.
What do you say to yourself when you put on a hat? What thoughts, fears or excuses lead you to wear or not wear hats? What station are you listening to?
We can’t control how others see us—they will likely see us as they want to—but we can control how we see us. That means it’s better to think you look awesome in the red, wide brimmed hat, than to leave the hat sitting alone on a random shelf, pretending you just aren’t good enough to wear it.