Last Monday night, thanks to my great friend Dede Bartlett’s orchestration, I had the pleasure of speaking about No Excuses at the New Canaan (CT) Public Library. What made the event really special was that two of the women I interviewed for the book were present.

So I invited Sophfronia Scott, writer and founder of Done for You (a service that helps authors write and package their books) and executive coach Bonnie Marcus, who also hosts the “Head Over Heels” radio show, to share their stories with the audience.

Both demonstrated power tool #6: wear the shirt, by revealing their authentic selves, their passions, their aspirations.

Marcus described how she went to a job interview at a cardiac center with no management experience– in fact, no business experience whatsoever, and yet by showing her passion she got the job. “I talked about my passion for cardiac fitness,” she said. “I had been teaching aerobics. I talked about how the mission of their company resonated with me because my dad had a heart attack at fifty-seven and my family completely changed our lifestyle at home, becoming more active and eating heart-healthy foods. I showed the cardiac center how their mission and message was my way of life. They hired me! Certainly not because of anything but my passion and energy for the company and their mission.”

Scott told us how she decided to tell the world (via a powerful blog post January 1) that 2010 would be her year of living fearlessly. “Once I declared my fears, and how tired I was of letting them stop me, I was able to pledge: ‘I’m stepping out onto the high wire. There may be a net down there or there may not be. I don’t know, I’m too high up to see…A lot of this, I know, will challenge me on what I really want to write, how I want to be with my family, how I want my business to be run.'”

Both of these women had the courage to “wear the shirt” of their convictions in their personal and work lives. When have you done that? Or wished that you had?

You can also wear the shirt for a cause or issue you support. Was there a time when you did that? What was the result? How did you feel when you shared your authentic convictions with others?