So many women I speak to have one thing in common. They are worried that they’ll be found out.
Can you relate?
Do you feel like you’re 5 minutes away from everyone discovering that:
- You’re not as far ahead as you should be.
- You don’t know enough.
- You speak too slowly.
- You speak too fast.
- You have a horrible voice (my personal favourite).
- You have a weird accent (close second).
- You sometimes forget what you were going to say.
- You didn’t pass that exam 30 years ago.
- It’s not your real hair colour.
- You have bad teeth.
- You could have a hot flush at any moment.
- You swear like a trucker.
- You’re not a good writer.
- You have typos no matter how many times you read over things (holds hand high).
- You’re not professional because your cat could jump on the keyboard without notice.
The thing is, the thing that you hate so much about yourself and are constantly trying to hide, is the thing that could actually be really attractive to your dream clients.
If you’re making out you’re someone you’re not, wearing a ‘mask’ to fit in (not the Covid kind of mask!), filtering yourself, shrinking to fit into someone else’s idea of who you ‘should’ be, what’s going to happen when you start working with someone? It’s like holding the beach ball under the water. It’s exhausting being someone you’re not.
This is the biggest reason women hide in their businesses. They are terrified to be found out as themselves. They think they need to be someone else. They scroll through social media & get triggered by the perfect people’s posts. Their marketing (if they have the courage to do any at all) is trying to be the same as everyone else’s.
When you stop filtering and let the real you shine through, one of 2 things will happen:
1) Some people will think ‘wtf is she talking about?’ & may not follow you any more (this is a great thing as they were never going to be your client anyway).
2) Some people will start to notice you as you’re speaking straight to their soul (this is an excellent thing- you need to keep showing up because they need you).
You need to polarise people. You get to choose how much.
If you have strong values around certain things and these come into your work (such as religion, environment or family) then you need to bring this into your messaging.
You have an opinion. You have a viewpoint. What do you want to shout from the rooftops? I’m obsessed with helping women to stop under-earning. I’m going to be shouting about it much more from now on as I realise that I filter myself around talking about what my family might think. My old belief that ‘it’s rude to speak about money’ can still pop up. But I can’t do the work I’m here to do if women don’t know I exist. I’m on a mission to end under-earning in women and I can’t do that if I hide & worry what others will think.
The way that I overcome this is to think about that woman who isn’t earning the money she is able to. By hiding and worrying what others think, I’m not helping. I’m not being of service.
I just need to consistently show up as myself, typos & all.
I’ve embraced being more of the tortoise than the hair. I used to give myself a hard time about this. But this is a marathon not a sprint and the tortoise is actually a majestic beauty.
How could you start being more you? Just know that most women feel that no one would want to work with them if they knew what they were really like. It’s totally crazy.
Please start bringing more of you into your marketing & see what happens.
Be outrageously you, your dream clients need your help.
With love,
Sarah xo
