Authentic branding, finding your voice and limiting beliefs

I do not always feel comfortable putting stuff out into the wild 🐻, meaning in the public. Like on social media and so on …

Although I DO belief, you have to come out if you want to attract exactly those people (friends / customers / … ) you want to attract 🧲.

It’s not that I think I don’t have any value to offer in this world.

It’s more like  limiting beliefs getting in the way

Thoughts like

• Who am I to talk about XYZ? There are other people that do it better than I do.
• What will other people think about me ?
• What if I have it wrong? 

3 CREATIVE TWEAKS with BIG IMPACT

A) Argue with your own limiting beliefs 🤯

The cool thing about limiting beliefs is you can argue with them 😃

So you can transform the list above to:

• Who am I to talk about XYZ? There are other people that do it better than I do
  Try to find evidence in past experiences where people appreciated it you were helping them with XYZ.
  Also, even if people know way more about XYZ than you do, you do it on your own way/style. Some people will prefer style 1, some will prefer style 2. So different people, different needs. You have your own style /personality … so ‘by definition’ you are un-comparable with people who also know about XYZ.
  I liked what Jesse Elder says about confidence: confidence come from evidence. So make a list of past experience that clearly server as a counter example.
• What will other people think about me ?
  That’s a tougher one in the sense it might be rooted deeper into your ‘operating system’ (and into the world outside).
  So basically this limiting belief means you give value on what other people think. There’s nothing wrong with it, it can be very useful to receive feedback, but it should be taken as that … just feedback.
  More often than not people disagree and that’s ok … In that philosophy I like the phrase: “We agree to disagree”.
• What if I have it wrong?
  Underlying is the urge of wanting to have it perfect all the time (because it’s often cultivated).
  Which is quite impossible as things tend to go wrong all the time (welcome life) and unforeseen things popup more than not (welcome life again). 
  First, who decides upon what’s right and wrong after all ?
  That’s so relatively … a question that I find more appropriate is instead of “right vs wrong” … what is useful?
  Secondly, this belief has lots in common with “what will people think about me?”. It relates somehow to a “fear of failure”.
  With failure being cultivated as something very bad in most cultures. Whereas if one could see failure as a way of getting more insights related to what you are doing.
  It’s exactly by doing that you will start experience what resonates and what’s not. Whatever the outcome is (so-called failure or success) it’s just feedback.

B) Host a Fictional Mastermind 👪

Host your own fictional MasterMind with the people you admire.  Could even be people that passed away.
I first encountered this idea in the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.
So you bring them together with you in your mind and ask them questions, explain them the problems you are facing right now … and ask them “So I am facing XYZ, what would you do?” .

It might sound weird at first but in the end, you ‘invite’ those people because you admire some aspects in them and want clarity around a topic. In a way it helps you ‘borrow’ their mind.

You could even find pictures of these persons and make a collage and put them on the wall to be reminded of them often as your “Virtual Board of Counsellors”.

C) Trusted Feedback Circle ⭕

Make a list of some of your friends you trust completely and that know you very well (perhaps even better than you do know yourself 😉 ).
Ask them to give feedback on how you are putting yourself out there (on Social Media, … ).
Be aware: as previously stated treat it just as feedback, don’t take it personally or so. 

But for me this helps for several reasons
1) Sometimes you might test things out because you heard some guru say: “Do X and you’ll get Y”.
Whilst it’s ok to test things out, I find it more important to stay authentic and finding your own voice.
Having a trusted Feedback Cirlce can help has a guided compass.
2) Accountability
You can use this Circle also as an Accountability group to make sure you regularly put things out there.

Conclusion

I sometimes feel stuck: at one hand my limiting beliefs hold me back to put things out and at the other hand my gut feeling says to go out there and do your thing. The tools mentioned above will help you to get over these hurtles.

🔥 BONUS

I like to complement those models above with breathing and meditation exercises as well. As those will help you get more in tune with your gut feelings.
Related to that I appreciate the work of Joe Dispenza and Jesse Elder a lot. As both men have made those tools accessible in a very pratcial, no-nonsense way.