Society Says Yes Be Yourself. Just Not Like That.

Show and up and be yourself. Be authentic and speak your truth. As this is the only way to find and connect with your people. Except this is tricky when you’re not sure what your truth is. Who your people are. And where to find them.

No two people are the same. We experience life and business differently. We may agree on some things and not on others. We have different beliefs and values. And people will think nothing of telling you that they think you’re wrong if they don’t agree with you, especially on social media.

So it can put you off “speaking your truth”. You may retreat back to where it is safe and comfortable and just blend in with everyone else. Not choose to upset the apple cart. Say nothing just in case someone no longer likes you or wants to be in your social gang.

But we won’t change and improve the world if we retreat. Will we?

Some people will only love you if you fit into their box. Don’t be afraid to disappoint.

“Because one believes in oneself, one doesn’t try to convince others.
Because one is content with oneself, one doesn’t need others approval.
Because one accepts oneself, the world accepts him or her.”

— Lao Tzu

As soulful petite business owners it is not our job to try and convince others to go along with our way of thinking or being. It is also unrealistic to try to appeal or appease everyone. We have to find a way to keep ourselves centred. On message. And develop the ability to powerfully continue with our mission whilst navigating the naysayers.

If we want to be the change our job is to lead with our own wisdom. To share our own stories. To talk about the world as we see it. It may resonate with some and not with others. And this is all OK.

The best thing about speaking the truth is you don’t have to remember what you said.

As when you come from a place of clarity, confidence and conviction impostor syndrome dissipates. You don’t need external validation to approve of your truth. You feel comfortable in your own skin. Solid. Rooted and grounded. Unapologetically show up in your entirety. You naturally gravitate towards your people. And they miraculously find you. But in order to achieve this it definitely helps to do the inner work on knowing who you really are and what you stand for first.

Here’s a tale of two tribes One has suits

Not so long ago I was asked to be a speaker at two different networking meetings on the same day. The first one was a breakfast meeting. I don’t usually do these kind of meetings, as there is typically only one 6.30 in my day.

I had suspected the attendees were not likely to be my kind of people but I’d agreed to go along as a speaker as a friend had asked me to. I walked into the room and my audience were men in suits and various traders. Instantly I knew I had made a mistake. These people were not my people.

It came to my turn to speak and I stood up and began to talk. I was just warming up and in my flow when one of the group facilitators decided my time was up. She thanked me for my talk. But I hadn’t finished and the other facilitator was clearly embarrassed and encouraged me to continue. I wondered was it going that badly?

I laughed off the interruption, fortunately so did the other attendees. But inside I was mortified. If ever there was a time I’d wished I’d said no thanks for the opportunity and stayed in bed this was it.

The irony being they had asked me to come along to share my wisdom about connecting. Relationship building. Finding our tribes. My goodness I could see they weren’t mine.

I tried to regain some composure and wondered where was I as I’d completely lost my train of thought?

Indeed where was I and more to the point what was I doing here with these people? As it transpired I seemed to be speaking a foreign language, talking about things they clearly did not understand and all I could see was a group of men in suits staring blankly back at me.

There was absolutely no synergy between us. At all.

Have you ever felt like you’re in the wrong room with the wrong people?

You begin to shrink. To squirm. Dim your light. Play it small. Wish you were anywhere else but where you are in that moment.

And then the self doubt kicks in, you think maybe you really don’t have anything valuable to share. Because if you did surely these men in suits would not be staring at you in this way.

Eventually I wrapped up and took my seat. In what felt like an eternity the meeting came to an end. Finally I escaped and I couldn’t get out of there quick enough. I made a pledge to myself never to agree to speaking at a networking meeting like this again. Never. Ever.

As much as I’d have loved to go home and crawl under my duvet, especially as it was still blinking early, I couldn’t. I had to get myself together as I had another meeting to get to. Where I would be the key note speaker.

Accept both compliments and criticism. It takes both sun and rain for a flower to grow.

As I drove to the next venue, I tried to reconcile what had happened. Did I get it wrong? Was it something I said? My confidence had taken a battering and I no longer felt up to speaking. To anyone.

It is not easy to show up and be who you are is it? It is tricky to share your truth. It takes courage to stand up and state what you believe in, teach what you know and talk about how you see the world with others. They may not agree. They may not get you. They may not even like you at all. And this can be catastrophic. Disastrous even. As you may decide that you’re not cut out for this speaking lark and never “speak your truth” with anyone else again.

I made it to my next meeting. There were no men in suits. This group was all women. Lovely ladies. Ladies who in an instant made me feel very welcome and at ease. Things felt better immediately. I knew I was in the right room. I’d found my people. And what a different vibe this was.

In less than two hours I’d found myself back on my feet doing my thing, sharing my insights and wisdom with a group of receptive people. There were no blank faces staring at me. They asked questions. They were engaged. Interested. Keen to know more. There was a vibrant energy in the room. We were all buzzing. Even me. They were a lovely, lively group. I loved being with them. I felt so grateful that I’d said yes to this gig. Because in that moment I was back in my flow. My mojo and self-belief was restored.

I was back doing what I love best, sharing my “truth” and being me. Thank goodness for them. Because if I hadn’t had to show up at the second meeting I may never have spoken at another event again.

I don’t have anything against the men in suits. Or men at all in fact.

However, I have a pretty good idea of who my tribe is. When I consider my ideal client, I rarely consider demographics, job titles or business types. It’s about the person. The woman within. The one who when we speak something resonates and clicks between us. There is synergy. A spark. The connection. And this is what I spoke about at both events. It just seems the women I spoke to understood and got it immediately whereas the men in suits clearly didn’t.

The reality is before we attempt to speak our truth, we have to get to know ourselves better. Do the inner work. Learn more about ourselves. Who we really are. What we believe in and value. Only then can we show up with clarity, courage and conviction.

And if others don’t like us or what we have to say, we know it doesn’t really matter. It isn’t going to detract us from our mission and purpose. Because we have a job to do. And we’re committed, all in and unapologetically doing our thing. Regardless of whether we are liked or not.

Time to shake up the old school networking?

Recently whilst attending another networking meeting, I had a conversation with a lovely man. In a suit. He asked me about my work and invited me along to another group that he facilitated. There would be more men in suits. More corporate businessey types. Old school networkers. Predominately over the age of 50. Definitely not my kind of tribe. I could feel a big fat no coming on.

I politely declined. I’d been here before hadn’t I?

So I told him that I know who my tribe is and it’s unlikely I would resonate with his group. There is a place for everything isn’t there and I know this place isn’t mine.

He persisted and said “Please do come along, you’re a breath of fresh air and we need more people just like you to shake things up a bit and change how we network”.

Maybe I’ll consider it.

But only if they make a start by ditching the suits.............

Tune in to your truth. Live it. Breathe it. Beam it. Want to learn how let’s work together

Simply One of a Kind

Within the Social Collective we’ve been talking in depth about how to deal with other similar businesses replicating our work. It seems this is a hot topic at the moment.

So hot in fact that just as I thought everything was hunky dory in my world I received an email from a friend saying “Have you seen this, it looks remarkably like yours?” She’d attached a link and was referring to a brand new Collective that had launched. 

Yes I had seen it and I too could see immediately the striking similarities between my Social Collective and this new one.

I am wise enough to know mine isn’t going to be the only one in the world. There are loads of Collectives out there with more popping up all the time. But this one and it's entire concept, features and mechanics are identical to mine. Familiar and too similar for my liking.

Surely not a coincidence?

It appears not as shortly after another two emails popped into my mailbox saying “Have you seen this?”.........

I forwarded the message on to my husband for sound advice. His response was swift. “Plagiarism”. He doesn’t mince his words.

Sadly it’s not the first time someone else has decided they rather like the look of something I’ve created. It is easy to like the look of what someone else does and try to pass it off as your own. But not so easy in the long run. Eventually you get found out.

A LinkedIn e-book I wrote and gave away for free, was sent back to me with the logo switched to another, a few pages jigged around and re-formatted, some removed and words tweaked but ultimately I recognised it immediately as my work. When presented with the same like for like format and your own words staring back at you on the page, it doesn’t take long to it suss out. Hells bells this is mine.

I just so happened to be on this particular pilferers email list so fortunately I too received my new free ever-so slightly tweaked LinkedIn ebook download as a bonus. Along with all the other people on her list. I promptly removed her from mine and all my social pages. That would be the last time she'd be receiving a "gift" from me.

Moving on from e-books to websites. My second website for Scarletta had a cute boy with a flat cap speaking in to a horn. He appeared throughout my branding at the time. Until a similar local business decided to replicate my brand and instead of the boy with the flat cap they’d use a girl. I received more “Have you seen this website” emails from friends and acquaintances......... And realised Hells bells it’s time for a new website and brand.

I swiftly got to work and created Scarletta website number three and made a conscious decision from that point forward never to use stock images again. Everything I used I would  create and the photo images would be taken by my husband. The problem was solved. 

Until the next time. 

Have you had your stuff pilfered too? You’re not alone.

I’ve heard many tales from other petite business owner and creatives who show up and share their best work online only to have someone else decide they’ll have some of that too. It could be an image or an idea shared on a blog post or even an entire sales page, copied and pasted onto another businesses new website. Why get a copy writer to write up your services when it's easy to just take yours? 

Or someone may even go as far as working with you as a client.  Receive all your wonderful nuggets of wisdom and then decide that thanks to you they are now an expert and set up their business just like yours, offering the same service as you. As you made it look so easy, so surely it must be?

This is happening all the time whether we like it or not.

So what do you do, do you challenge them all guns blazing? Fire off a snotty email or make an awkward phone call?  Or do you go even further and trademark your work? This can be expensive and you can’t trademark everything.

Or do you decide enough is enough and seek legal advice.  Hmm now there’s an idea. Because why should you just take this on the chin and pretend it didn't happen? 

Of course the world is a big place,  there are plenty of people and there can be enough work to go round for everyone so why the fuss? Especially if it is your word against theirs. Pun intended.

It’s simple. 

If you are like me, you put your heart and soul into everything you do for your people and clients and it is not there for the taking. 

You put your time and energy into coming up with perfect ideas to support and continue serve your clients and tribe. 

You put your own creativity into creating your services, products and establishing your own living brand so you know and so does your tribe that without a shadow of doubt everything is authentically true to you.

You put hours of work into diligently learning, growing and evolving so that you can share your own insights and expertise and tell your stories in order to help serve the very people who need to hear what you have to say.

You don’t do any of it for someone else to pass off your creations as theirs.

That’s why.

Only we can decide personally what action we choose to take. For me it’s not something I will tolerate. I will pursue them every single time.

In our world of free online content  you have to keep it in the forefront of your mind that once you have published something you have soulfully created,  you have little control over what happens to it from that point forward. But that doesn’t mean you do nothing. 

What you do have absolute control over is to not hit the brakes and let it deter or detract you from your soulful work and mission. You don’t stop doing what you set out to do. It doesn’t mean you stop sharing your wisdom and work with others just in case someone else may copy it. And it definitely doesn’t mean you shrink back or remove or rewrite your original sales page just in case other people may think you are the one who copied them.

No. You allow yourself to be a bit pissy. For a while. 24 hours at the most. And then you pick yourself up, dust yourself down and carry on. As you were. Focused on what you intended. Heading back into your creative cave. To cook up some more ideas and unique creations that you are going to bring into fruition.

You continue to share your wisdom. Speak your own truth. And keep showing up online and off as you really are in the way only you know how.

Why?

Because you are one of a kind.

The fact is no one can be you. No one else has the same ideas, insights, approach, views, beliefs or expertise as you. Someone else simply cannot be you or your petite business. However hard they may try.

If you want to continue to be known, loved and trusted as a the credible expert, the leader in your field and an authentic change maker you owe to it yourself to make your mark and  keep putting your own soulful stamp on everything you do. 

Which enables others to know the real you as it’s your heart and soul written on the page. Your words speak in a way that only you can express them. Your images show precisely who you really are and demonstrate the true experience of what it feels like to work with you over and over again.

This is what true authenticity and transparency means.

Because let’s not forget, other people can detect an imposter without us having to waste any more time and energy on them. We have to trust copy cats will eventually be exposed and will move along onto another venture eventually.

As for our Social Collective, when I launched back in November I deliberately and consciously didn’t put everything on my website or sales material. I took a new and different marketing approach as fortunately for me I couldn’t get everything down onto one sales page. There was too much for me to say. So it was only those people who registered directly with me who received every little detail in its entirety. This approach served me very well. It's not all for the taking and most importantly I could ensure that the genuine people who were considering joining us knew precisely what they needed to know from me and not just via my website.

Somebody once told me.......

Someone I knew who offered a similar service to me once told me at a networking event that she could see how well my business was doing and felt that she was just a couple of steps behind me. She admitted copying my marketing and social approach as it seemed to work. Brave I thought. 

What she didn't know, maybe she has realised now is that however hard she tried her business would never be the same as mine. Because I never keep still. In my life or my business. I am never complacent and find myself constantly buzzing with new ideas and concepts. Nothing is ever static. It's always evolving. Growing, blooming and transforming.

I wished her luck and walked away, chuckling to myself as I moved to talk to someone else. I didn't feel this was a threat or competition. Or anything to be remotely concerned about.

As I know just like you and your petite business we're simply all one of a kind!