The world is shaming you as an entrepreneur
As we round out week 8 of our worlds being turned upside down, most people have gone through the highs and lows of wondering if they’re too concerned or not concerned enough, we’ve watched businesses close down, and all the broken bits of what hasn’t been working now has a giant spotlight shined on it.
You know what else shows up? Shame. Guilt.
It’s not surprising. With information constantly streaming around us, it’s hard not to see and feel all the “shoulda, coulda, and woulda’s”. And it makes it all very easy for trolls to take over to ensure their opinion is known.
With the pandemic, I’ve noticed shaming has shown up more consistently than ever before.
It’s showing up in Facebook Groups that were meant to bring communities together. We’re bringing it on ourselves with our own feelings of guilt.
Wait, what? Let me explain.
When my son was a baby I was flooded with feelings of guilt every day. Not only did I have a world of information sitting at my fingertips but I had the opinions of the world’s population too.
Those opinions shifted between making me feel like what I was doing was enough and pointing out how I was doing everything wrong as a mom and was totally screwing my kid up for life.
As people have tried to figure out what to do in their business, they’re going through the same thing. Do more, do less, do this, do that.
I’ve heard people thank me, watched people ignore me. But what if they think I’ve been shaming them? Hmm. That, I don’t know.
Here’s the thing to know about me.
I’m opinionated. I’ve been doing “this online thing” for over a decade and have worked with million-dollar clients, so I have an idea of what works and what doesn’t.
I’m not a coach. I’m not a psychologist. I’m not just a cheerleader.
My job isn’t to make you feel good about your choices, it’s to shine a light on the road I think you should be taking. Whether you’re a 1-on1 client inside an INCITE session or you’re one of the clients that I manage, it’s not my job to decide what lands best for you.
I’m a strategist. My one and only job is to give my opinion on what I think your next step should look like. What your launch plan should look like. What to include or not include in your copy. To provide the information I know to be true through a decade-plus of working online in an easy to understand kind of way so that you can take what you need.
That’s it. So what’s the difference between that and shaming?
At the end of the day, people literally pay me for my opinions. You’re paying me RIGHT NOW with something that is so much more valuable than money. You’re paying me with your time.
While I’m 100% invested in your success, because I’m not a coach I’m not invested in what you actually do with every nugget of gold I provide. Not every piece of information is going to resonate or you’re not mentally ready to take the step that’s scariest to you. My job isn’t to force you into a plan. My job is to give you the information that I have.
Here’s what I know to be true.
1. You can and should continue to sell your stuff.
2. You can and should continue to give the advice that you know to be true.
3. You can and should use this “slowing down time” wisely.
Here’s what else I know to be true.
1. If continuing to sell what you already have makes you feel like the shittiest person on earth, you have to make a choice. Stop selling, figure out what’s causing that feeling, or pivot your offerings.
2. If you can’t make money selling your stuff and you NEED money coming in, consider getting a temporary job. There’s no entrepreneurial shaming committee that’s going to show up at your door wagging their fingers.
3. I use the term “wisely” rather loosely. For me, it was taking direct response copywriting and content marketing certification courses. It is learning grade 7 math while my kid teaches it to me. It’s offering something new, writing more, and staying up late because I can.
My 13-year-old son, Spencer has a different version of wisely. He has been diagnosed with general anxiety and ADHD so he struggles with focus, concentration, and executive functioning. Sometimes the simple act of looking at what his teachers have assigned him for the week results in a massive breakdown.
But his teacher told him that he’s the only kid in the entire class that’s excelling at distance learning because he’s using this time wisely. With the help of the “Daily Mission” sheets I created for him, he’s beginning to plan his day around Mom’s schedule so that he can work on things he needs help with during my less busy parts of the day.
I don’t know what “wisely” means for you. You might have decluttered and cleaned your house 10X over or you might be raising a glass of wine each night because you can put another checkmark on the calendar because Mama Bear didn’t eat her young.
The point that I’m trying to make here is this.
Everyone has a different definition of …. productivity, “best use of time”, work, organized, planning, or wisely. What I want is for you to come out on the other side of what’s happening in the best possible way.
I kind of hate it when people say “everyone has the same 24 hours” because it tends to make just about everyone feel shitty. Here’s the validity in it. Most times we feel guilty about how we spend our time because we have an idea of how things should be going and get pissed at ourselves when it doesn’t work out that way.
But there’s no goal attached to that at all. Sure, you might say – this week I’m going to clean up the house and get it organized. But what the fuck does that mean?
If I ask my son and each of my nieces to clean a floor in the house each floor is going to look different. One of them is going to spend 8 hours reorganizing, wiping, cleaning and preening. One of them is going to vacuum, pick everything up, and make the room look presentable again. The other is going to pick up the loose things on the floor and call it a day.
If there’s no clearly defined goal, you flounder around trying to get shit done and you end up doing busy work just to feel like you’re progressing. Not only that, but you have no leading indicators to see how it’s going.
If I know that in order to clean my house this week I need to clean one room a day and I have a checklist of what has to be done to make it clean then at any point during the day or week I can assess how I’m doing. Without a realistically defined goal, it’s a lose-lose situation.
So forget about everything that has happened up to this point. It doesn’t matter because you can’t do anything about it now. But you can change what’s about to happen.
What is your goal when this is over?
Is it to just make it through alive? Then start taking the shit out of your day and week that is drowning you.
Is it to be in a better position than you were when it started? Then start doing something that will legitimately bring you to a new level.
Is it status quo? Then keep doing what you’re doing.
There are no right or wrong answers. This is something that none of us have ever experienced in our lifetime – no one has the perfect answer.
As for me, the only thing I can do is to continue to show you the path that I believe will bring you the most success under the assumption that you want to continue to learn right now or that you want to move the needle forward.
Whatever the case, what you do with my offerings is completely up to you and I need you to know that it’s offered without prejudice. So glasses up my friends. No matter what you have chosen in the past or choose for the future, we’ve made it through another week and there’s no better reason to celebrate.