Holy crap, I can’t believe the number of women that are afraid to talk about their business. It’s astonishing and downright shameful.
How is anyone going to know about you and your business if you don’t tell them? A lot of women aren’t good at talking about themselves, me included. It must be that nurturing side of us, the part of us that takes care of other people before we take care of ourselves. This is an area we could and should be more like men. But believe me, when it comes to talking about Women in Business, there is no shutting me up.
Then there are other women that only tell a select few about their business. Why is this? Fear of judgement. Fear of not being liked. Fear of rejection. The funny thing is that we are afraid to tell those that we know will be judgemental, and we base our business decisions on their reaction! If these folks aren’t going to be supportive then they aren’t worth your time…for anything, for ever. We say we don’t want to hear their opinion but in reality their opinion stops us from moving forward. We value what these naysayers say before they actually say anything. The rest of our supporters are ‘just being nice’…gag me with a spoon.
I hear it all the time…what if it doesn’t work? What if I invest all this time, energy and money and it doesn’t work? I don’t want to fail, because then everyone will know I failed. How embarrassing. I’ll just hear; ‘I told you so’.
I say; ‘Go ahead, tell me I told you so’. What does that prove? That you were right and I was wrong? So what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with being wrong? Absolutely nothing is wrong with that and everything right with it. The real secret that demotivates us is our innate need for ‘looking good’. We all want to look good to others and not just the way we dress or style our hair. We all want to impress people with our success, with our income and our lifestyle. If we fail, we don’t have a way to impress. Telling people about our business, especially a new business or just an idea, and the door is still open for failure, scares the hell out of us. If we can just test out our idea or new venture privately and see if it works, then we will tell everyone…geez Louise, get a handle on your insecurities and give your self esteem a kick in the ass. And by the way, the door to failure is always open, it never closes.
I live by these words; ‘You just never know’. All too often we assume and we over think things. We think we know everything about others thoughts, feelings, emotions and ultimately what they believe about us. I bet you that you are wrong 99% of the time. You have to be wrong because then no one would like anyone and there wouldn’t be a business owner around. We would all be too shit scared to even try!
I say, tell anyone and everyone what you are up to, what your ideas are, what your dreams and desires are for your business, where you want to go in life and how you want to get there. Then do it! Don’t just think it or say it quietly. Do something about it. Do the thing you have always wanted to do and find out if you will fail or succeed. Failing is such a huge factor in succeeding, we don’t even realize it. Sales people love to hear the word No. You want to know why? Because it’s a numbers game; the more no’s you hear the more yesses (and I have no idea how to spell that!) you will hear.
I obviously have a problem with this, as you can so plainly read. It bugs the heart and soul out of me when I see someone letting their ridiculous fear get in the way of trying something they so passionately want to do. I am not talking about the fear of heights or fear of doing stunts that may kill you. Starting a business, changing careers, getting a divorce and all that will not kill you. It may put a dent in your pocket book or sting a little when you have to start from scratch again, but so what? Look at it this way; you get the chance to try again, to start over in a new direction and now you know, whatever your endeavour was, it didn’t work. So now you can stop saying; ‘Hmmm, I wonder if….’
So get off your high horse and get your hands dirty. You can always get a manicure when you hit pay day.