“I want to put something out there to help more people but I lack the confidence, knowledge or experience to do so.”
Sound familiar? I’ve heard these words reverberate in my own head and from the people in our community for a long time.
But that statement above – it’s not true. In fact, it’s a lie. And it’s one of many our mind makes up to trick us and hold us back from providing value to those who need us most.
In part II of this series (make sure to go back and listen to the last episode, part I, if you haven’t already), I’m going to talk about the 5 lies we tell ourselves when we start putting ourselves and our work out there.
Make no mistake, these fallacies are blind spots. But it’s one thing to recognize them, it’s another to tackle them. Let’s do that together – head to https://artofcoaching.com/blindspot/ so we can get started.
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TRANSCRIPTION
Brett Bartholomew 0:01
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Art of coaching podcast. And this is part two of our blind spot series. If you haven’t checked out part one, make sure to go back and listen to the previous episode, or and rather go to artofcoaching.com/blindspots. Again, that’s artofcoaching.com/blindspots, today’s episode quick hitter, something that I think is going to help a lot of you. It’s me being really transparent here and recounting some things that I dealt with on my journey, we’re going to talk about the five lies we often tell ourselves, when we start putting ourselves or our work out there more.
Now many of you have written in in the past and said, Hey, I want to do something, whether it’s write a book or a podcast, or start a business, or just do something to help more people. But I feel like I lacked the confidence, the knowledge or experience to do so. And I hear you, we all have that to some degree and I don’t care who says it, and what level of fame or celebrity they’re at, or status within their career. Everybody has those doubts. And there are lies. I mean, one thing that we’re not often honest about enough is we talked about the power of mindset, you hear that a lot in society, but our mind is not always our friend, right?
Our mind tells us a lot of lies, our mind plays tricks on us all the time. And those things can hold us back from providing value to more people. So without further ado, we’re gonna get right into it. The five lies that we often tell ourselves that hold ourselves back. And of course, this isn’t an exhaustive list. So if you feel like you have some more write in, let us know which ones you deal with. But these were some things that I’ve dealt with. And I know some of our other audience who has written in has dealt with it. So I want to share those with you. Line Number one, you have to be the best in your market or in your situation.
And this is pervasive sometimes when we’re just starting out, or if we’re in the middle of our career, or even if we’re towards the tail end. And we’re wanting to, we’re even more cognizant about our legacy, we feel like we need to be number one, or we need to go out on top or we need to be the best. And that’s not always the case. You know, much of the time people get way too caught up on outcomes, instead of processes. There is tremendous value. Let’s say you’re somebody just starting out on a new venture, you being able to document that. And being able to show people the lessons that you’re living out firsthand while you’re making mistakes. While you’re going through all the bumps and bruises of early stages is incredibly valuable.
Nobody learns just from watching people succeed, or, you know, it’s a whole reason we started this podcast is always annoyed me that every podcast seemed to just go after celebrities or people in these coveted positions, I wanted to hear about the underdogs. I wanted to hear about the people out there that were dealing with a lot of different leadership struggles and communication issues daily. That’s what I wanted to hear. And those are the stories where you’re going to hear about people that haven’t made it yet in their eyes or in anybody else’s eyes. So you’re getting the good stuff, you’re getting that organic, raw material that allows you to plug and play and say, Hey, this is what I’m dealing with right now.
So you do not have to be the best at what you do in order to start putting your stuff out there. You don’t have to work for some major organization or some team, what you have to do is share relatable, impactful tactical information. I mean, you don’t have to have all the answers, you literally just have to be willing to share what you know. So understand that you do not have to be the best, the best is subjective. Now, that’s not me saying that you have a free pass to do less than stellar work, or that you don’t have to pay attention to the details of what you’re doing. Nothing could be further than the truth. It’s me just saying that get over the pride.
Don’t worry about having some kind of perfect curated Instagram or that all your work is going to be just meticulously well phrase. And you’re going to use all the best words and the biggest vocabulary, or that every single part of your brand, or whatever you’re doing is going to look exactly the way you want it. All of these things evolve major companies, major industries, no matter what worldwide, these things evolve, so you don’t have to be the best. You just have to be willing to go through the process, I’d recommend documenting that process. And believe me, you’re gonna find other people that relate.
Number two, straightforward one here and a lot of you commented on my social media about this is you have to grind man, if we have not heard that term enough, right? That five letter word, you gotta grind lions, you know, don’t worry about the opinions of sheep. All these cliches that we hear people taking screenshots or photos of their alarm clock and throwing them online and then people talking about how, you know all through the night. They’re working and they’re grinding, taking pictures of themselves at that airports, you know, overnight grinding, everybody just keeps going guys, you do have to be consistent. Without a doubt.
If you are putting your work out there. You have to be consistent. You have to figure out a schedule that works for you. You have to work out what your day to day is going to look like. And can that be a grind I mean, sure, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about these people who glorify, being busy and make it seem like every moment of every day, they’ve got to get something done. That’s not reality, some of the highest achievers in the world, the ones that are actually being honest, know the value of incubation periods, they know the value of spacing their day out, they know the value of saying, hey, if I have three meetings in the morning, or three groups or three, whatever, I need a buffer period
Now are you always going to be able to get that? No, there are going to be some parts of your career, that it is what it is, and you’re going to have to be kind of in that system, or you’re going to be in the throes of that. And that’s just the reality, you’re not always going to be able to collect your thoughts or determine your schedule. But I’m talking about, again, if you’re starting a business, or you’re starting to build a brand, or you’re starting a process for yourself, that doesn’t have to be this all or nothing thing where you’re just launched out on coffee, or monsters and everything else, you have to figure out something that works for you.
How do I know this? Because I fell victim to that too. I mean, a lot of that is a culture of strength and conditioning, just grind and grind and grind. So what did I do, I transferred that to my work, my creative work, whether it was writing a book, or making any of my courses prior, it was this constant feeling like it needed to be output all the time. And I just felt drained. And it certainly wasn’t because I didn’t love my work. There was because I wasn’t letting some of my best ideas come to me. And that’s another reason why I’ve always hated that one phrase. And I think it goes with the whole grind thing is, you know, how you do anything is how you do everything. That’s complete trash guys, it’s I mean, how many of you, you know, mow your lawn, like you love your wife or husband
How many of you address you know, the errands that you do? Like some of the most critical reports you have to do in your job? How many of you, you know. You just think about all these day to day things. And where do these cliches come from, a lot of it is just meant to throw us off track, it’s meant to kind of feed this whirling dervish of anxiety that we create internally, and you burn out. So you don’t have to grind. If you want to start something and you need it to be successful, you just have to make it consistent. And that can be on your terms, you got to figure out what works. Not everybody should write a blog every day. And not everybody should do two podcasts a week, not everybody needs to do any of that.
But whatever you do, do, make sure that you’re consistent at it. And then when everybody else is glorifying, you know, being busy and all this stuff, and they’ve burnt out in a series of months or maybe three years, you will be riding that steady state to success, you know, over the decades to come. And that’s the key being able to plan for the long haul, not submitting to the short term mentality. All right, lie number three, you have to be extroverted. Now, I’m not going to go into some nuanced empirical defense of this statement, Susan Cain has a great book. And we usually don’t, you know, promote a bunch of stuff on the show.
But I remember reading her book, I quiet I believe it was, and she talks about this. And there’s this misnomer that we live in this world. We’re extroverts win, and you have to be careful, because the availability bias or heuristic will certainly make you see those things. You’ll see people on TV, you’ll hear people on this, you’ll start to notice seemingly extroverted people everywhere, and there’s a couple mistakes with that? Well, one, you’re mistaking the fact that many of these people aren’t extroverted, it’s just this situation. This is something I haven’t learned about myself, I always thought I was pretty extroverted.
But then as I got more and more into just whether it was coaching, or whether it’s even this podcast, or certainly doing speaking events, I realized how draining some of these things were and I love them. So it’s certainly not something that I feel like, Oh, hi, I have to go do this. It just takes a lot out of me, these interactions can take a lot out of you. And so one, don’t make the mistake of thinking just because somebody seems extroverted that they are, all of us have those little pieces of ourselves that if we can become a really animated if we think about it, then I’ve used this example here on the show before but I have a friend who is extremely introverted, yet they love food.
And if they go to a restaurant and they love that restaurant, I am bound to get a call or a text, or maybe both it talks about how great this restaurant is, or how great this movie is, or how great this as I mean, like come to life. And we all see that, you know, so nobody is clearly and only an introvert or extrovert anyway, it’s not that simple. We all have different situations that are going to bring different aspects out of us. What you have to understand is that there are 8 billion people in the world, right? And there are plenty of people that relate to your message and how you deliver it. So no, you don’t have to be extroverted, if you’re quiet and you have more of a soothing voice where you don’t want to speak quite as much and you’re very pointed with your words and succinct with your message.
There are plenty of people that would love to hear this kind of tonality and just engage in that kind of slower paced interaction. It’s very common. There is a market for everybody. There are people out there right now. With multimillion dollar businesses, that helps self proclaimed introverts learn how to put themselves out there there are. And that’s the beauty of kind of the age that we live in is no matter what you identify with, in terms of where you are in your career, or what problems you’re trying to solve. There’s people out there already doing it. And that shouldn’t make you feel like you can’t do it either. You know, that leads into Lie Number four, nobody will care.
Man, nothing could be further from the truth once again, even if there are 10 15, a thousand people doing the thing that you want to do. They’re not you. And I know that seems egotistical. But I promise it’s not. There are so many folks in the world with such a wide range of interests, that even if somebody has a superior product at the moment, they may not deliver it the same way you do. There are plenty of times where I remember one time in particular, I took my wife for our anniversary to this wonderful hotel. I mean, beautiful, and it was a Ritz Carlton, right. And this is beyond. We’re not, we don’t have it like that, right. We can’t just drop money on Ritz Carlton’s all the time. And Ritz Carlton is an organization that prides itself on customer service.
And I have no doubt that 90% of the time they succeed there. But we had an awful experience at one. And so here’s his company with his beautiful product, I mean, a timeless, it’s entrenched in the DNA of who they are, that customer experience. And we just didn’t have that experience. And I’ve stayed at hotels that are a fraction of the cost. And they knew my name, every time I went to the desk anytime there was an issue, they compensated for it. I mean, one time, I think I had just, I had stayed 39 or 40 Nights at a Marriott and I had like a gift bag and I wasn’t even like a platinum member, then I’m sitting here looking at it. I’m like, that’s a prime example.
I would say another example is one time I bought an online course. And this course was around $2,000. And you know, it had relevant experts in it, I was really excited. This was people outside of my domain, I really was focused and engaged with it. But the course the outline of it, and just the layout of it in general wasn’t intuitive. It was cool. From the standpoint, I guess that I got to watch some high quality videos. But it was really hard to get the notes. And it was really, if you were able to get the notes, they were kind of just, they weren’t edited? Well, it was kind of you know, it just didn’t seem like it was what I paid for.
Conversely, I paid for courses that are $300 a fraction of the price. And you could do that thing, you could not only watch videos, but you could download slides, you’d be able to take those slides, and you would add homework, and it was a lot more engaging, and what have you and is a fraction of the price. And so again, if somebody’s got a better product or more experience, or what have you, you can always beat them on the delivery of that there are people that get fat and happy with where they sit in this entitled position, then you can always out deliver or, you know, you can make a better quality product.
I think that’s something we tried doing too. With some of our courses. When I bought other courses, it seemed like people just kind of set up tripods. And they were videotaping themselves in front of a screen, which is cool. I mean, that’s a starting point. And you got to do what you got to do. But I felt like this could probably be a little bit better. And so let’s try to figure out if we can get higher quality audio, higher quality video, if people are going to spend their hard earned money on these things. What can we do to make it a better experience? So somebody will care, because there’s some other way that you can deliver that you provide a unique user experience, or, you know, provide a neat connection point, maybe there’s somebody that does what you want to do. But they do have larger groups, right? Well, great, do something a little bit more intimate.
You know, we do that with our apprenticeship workshops, while everybody else is trying to fit 300 400 1000 People in our arena, we’re going the other way. We like having 15 to 20 people and going super deep. So there’s innumerable options out there for what you can do. But I promise, there’s somebody else that even if you have no clue what you’re doing, and you’re filled with self doubt, and you’re anxious and what have you, you even starting a brand that deals with guiding people that feel like you through it, somebody will care. That’s the beauty of the law of large numbers, somebody will care, you have to get over that.
And I’m gonna challenge you on something saying nobody will care. There are some people that genuinely believe that and then there are some people that just kind of use that as an excuse, and you know who you are. And I’m saying that lovingly, but you’re putting up all these artificial roadblocks, really, because you like that safety and security. It’s just easier for you to say, well, there’s so many other people doing it. And, you know, this is the issue why and I would but this or I can’t afford to do this at the time or, you know, you have to be honest with yourself, you have to look at that and think, you know, are you maybe just not ready yet and you’ve convinced yourself you’re not ready or maybe you don’t really care enough about the topic you want to do.
Because when you have something that you’re passionate about sharing, and you have a little bit of knowledge on it, and it really brings you to life and you feel like I want to help people, something that silly shouldn’t stop you so somebody will care. I don’t care if it’s one person, two people, three people. That’s how any of these things start, find the first 10 evangelists, or think about the people that asked you these questions of your subject matter, expertise the most, and keep going back to the well, see what other questions they have for you help them then see what comes of that, help them a little bit more build a solution for this, provide them with guidance, you’d be surprised at how many people actually do care.
Alright, line number five. And this is something that impacted me tremendously. That if you have a great idea, or a truly valuable skill set, that things are going to come quickly, right. So if you have been doing something and man it’s been four years, it’s been five years, and yeah, you have a little bit of a following, you’ve been making some traction, you know, you’re definitely in a better place than you were back then. But it feels like you haven’t broken through, you may be inclined to think, well, you know, what am I doing? Does anybody really care? And man do I know, I felt like that, and I’m sharing a lot of vulnerable, like, just straight up ego with you guys. Right? Here’s pure ego. Here it is.
My book has been translated in five languages, five languages, which is nothing. I mean, there’s major New York Times bestselling books out there that have been published in so many and translated in so many other books or what have you, but languages. But you know, my book is almost sold, really by the end of this year, as long as he keeps going more than 200,000 copies. And that’s self published, right? There was a point in time where I wouldn’t acknowledge that feat, because I just I didn’t think it was humble. But you know, I’m going to acknowledge that. And I think that was pretty cool. And I think that’s an accomplishment, yet I don’t have a literary agents calling me off the, you know, nonstop. I’m not on, you know, any kind of major, like massive podcast or what have you getting interviewed
Yet., sometimes you’ll hear about a book or this and that. And it’s kind of, you know, it’s a quaint book, it’s popularized and all these things. And all of a sudden, this person is on a press tour, they’ve got TED talks, they’ve got all these things. And I’m sitting here thinking, timeout, you know, from everything I heard, it was harder. It’s like, basically, if you sell 10,000 copies, as a self published author, you’ve made it. And we know that this has moved several 100,000. Man, it’s been translated, why don’t I have people reaching out to me? Am I just not likable? Is it not? This isn’t not that. But then you look around and you start realizing, guys, it’s just not that simple.
Some of the people that if they blow up faster than you, they have unique access to resources. They have friends that I had a buddy that he admitted, he said, Listen, I had an in, in one of the departments at the college that I worked at, or I had a buddy that did this, and they introduce you to so don’t think that if you’re doing something, and it’s good, but it hasn’t like really blown up on the mainstream yet that it’s just worthless. Guys, you never know you’re one introduction away, or your one listener away or your one next move away from from meeting that person, that might be a critical part of your support system.
Now, let me just say this, because I think that this is something we don’t talk about enough, it is okay to acknowledge your ego. There’s plenty of times where I probably wouldn’t have told you what I just told you. Because I feel like you guys are gonna think I’m just an ass like, Oh, here’s Brett boo hooing. He’s got, you know, this book that did really well. But he doesn’t have a literary agent. But the truth is, is people feel like this all the time. I used to work with athletes that felt like, When am I going to get my shot? You know, I’ve done this, I’m hitting it this kind of percentage, I have this many stolen bases. While I did this in college, I got great film. And I did pretty good at the combine. But why am I getting overlooked?
Guys, that’s just how life is sometimes everything happens on really well, everything doesn’t happen on our time. So that goes back to again, lie number two, you don’t have to grind, but you do have to be consistent. And you have to see it through. I mean, you guys don’t need me to tell you, there’s so many books that say, oh, you know, the majority of people that succeeded, we’re just about to quit, you know, and if you just keep going, you’ll see it. But there is truth in that, just don’t worry about it. Stay focused on what you’re doing continue to provide value over time. There’s nobody out there that is just going to all of a sudden be able to come and validate you and night you and be like, yes, you have the idea. You’re ready now, like that just doesn’t happen.
And there are plenty of people that jumped to that too soon. And their products really, you know, product is a relative term, their service or their value offering or what have you just isn’t ready to hold up at that level. So understand and take a view of the apprenticeship model, right? We know that a classic apprentice in terms of historical representation. That was a seven plus year thing, guys that took time. And so when I have people that feel like Oh, I haven’t gotten much of a following or I started a podcast, and I’m 10 episodes in and nobody seems to care. I’m like you’re 10 episodes in? You shouldn’t worry about any of that unless you have 100 episodes.
You know, you’re three months in Who are you expecting to follow you within three months? I mean, the amount of people that have to see something to be reminded of it and engage with it. The noise out there is tremendous. So you absolutely just have to keep going and you can’t let These lies submerge you. Because when you stop the lie, you get closer to knowing the truth. When you stop the lies and you quit telling yourself these things that provide easy outs or allow you to kind of just amplify your anxieties, you create a bigger blind spot, things that would have been in clear focus for you now become blurred, and they were in your periphery to begin with.
And that’s the last thing you want. You can’t operate in the fog like that. So I know it’s not enough just to tell you what these lies are. You’ve got to be able to flip them around. You’ve got to be able to counter these things and say, Okay, I know I tell myself this, but how can I leverage that? How can I start building momentum, and that’s just about truth telling guys, that is all about truth telling. Now, if this stuff, if you’re passionate about this, and you just feel like you’ve been stuck and you’re trying to figure out, you know, again, the next move or how to take something to the next level, or how to brand yourself in the right way so that you don’t come off scammy salesy and you can really get your true personality across so that you can provide value to other people.
If that’s your bag, make sure again, go to artofcoaching.com/blindspots. We got two more episodes on this stuff. And we’re coming out with more and more resources. Because if there’s one thing that 2020 taught us, and said, everybody can use a little bit more help, and that’s not bad to admit. People need what you have to offer. You got to put it in front of them though, and you got to get out of your own way to do so. That’s today’s episode guys, Brett Bartholomew from the art of coaching, signing off.
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