I was kvetching to my mastermind group the other day about feeling like a fraud in leading a business marketing and profit maximizing class for coaches, therapists and other service professionals (www.taokaching.com) This 90-day seminar begins in February, and I was feeling like I’ve only gotten this stuff myself for a few years. And still, every day, am getting it over again in new ways.
“Old wine into new bottles.” I said. “Even though I know I’m teaching good and worthy material, I just feel like I’m basically hashing the same old stuff again. Why shouldn’t I just tell them to go to X Get Tons O’ Clients Seminar or Y Private Practice Marketing School or ABC Seminar on Small Business Technology that we’ve all taken. I mean look at it. We’re going to be going over all the map to bring the participants the contents of any five of those seminars. And we’re adding a handful of cool expert interviews and a heavy hit of cheap-to-free technology they can leverage. But is that enough? I feel somewhere, somehow like I’m being a total fraud…”
Ace said (in bold block print verbals) “YOU’RE GIVING THEM WAY TOO MUCH AS IT IS! And of course you feel like a fraud, we ALL feel like frauds when we put our stuff out there! Look at the rest of us, you know we all rant on the same as you’re doing right now. That’s how you know you’re on the right path and not being a snot about it. It’s like Andrea says, you are teaching the people who can only hear this message coming from YOU, with the cred you’ve got in your industry.”
I had to admit, he had a point. And I recalled that I’d been in some classes with…
facilitators who’d only learned the thing they were teaching a month or two ago and did just fine at it. Because at that time, they knew more than I did as a beginning learner. In the Land of the Blind, the One Eyed Man Is King…or so you’d think.
I have to keep bringing it back to the point, thanks to my dear level-headed colleagues, that I know so much that all I can see is what I don’t know…and though my deficit looks like SO MUCH to me, it isn’t to others who don’t have the same knowledge as I do.
I had a world class NLP teacher once beg my pardon for leaving a step out of a process we were doing together. I had a great experience with the process, and didn’t notice. Wouldn’t have known a thing if he hadn’t specifically mentioned it. Afterwards I remember thinking, “Wow, even people at his level sometimes feel this way. Jeepers!”
Is it the same with you? You know a lot about your topic, but deliver a speech or seminar and have your knees knock with trepidation before you go on. After, as you’re accepting the pats on the back and general kudos, you feel like you’ve done great, but still there’s a gnawing little core inside you that says “I could have said more on…. They really should have been told…… I hope no one figures out I left out the middle paragraph about….”
This comes about as a result of our general self esteem. And I’m right in the crowd with this one. We somehow feel as if alone, by ourselves, we are not enough, not correct, not adequate. But we are. Stark naked and alone in a room full of strangers, we are enough, by ourselves.
Each and every one of us.
We are all unique and have our own way of putting things so that those meant to hear our unique voices will recognize the message and shout for joy. They have been waiting so very patiently and so very long for your voice to come calling out of the wilderness of similar-sounding seminars, workshops and speeches. And it’s only your voice that they can hear.
Perhaps your message is the same as the ABC Life Coach Marketing Program / Speaker / Book / Seminar. But you won’t put it the same way, you’ll teach different parables, the words will be yours and yours alone. The personality you put behind your message and the subtle seasoning of your life experiences lend the special savor that those attracted to your services want and need to hear.
It’s as if your perfect clients have locks on their ears that only your voice as a key code, can open and penetrate with your unique message. Unique, because it comes from you. Kind of cool, isn’t it?
So if you’re feeling like a fraud, looking at what you thought was your original work and find that others have gotten there before you, Despair Not! Reflect that they haven’t your style, your flair, your life experiences nor your savvy in the particular way that you have it.
Now in a reversal of that famous acting-school exercise, strip naked and go out to your ideal audience, full of confidence in the Supreme Value that you have to offer them. You don’t need fancy graphics, specialist degrees or one iota more knowledge than you have right this second. Savor the juiciness of Being your very own Living Brand.
When you’re ready, the words will come. When you’re ready, your mouth will open, your pen or keyboard will come alive, and you will write, speak and Be The Message.
And this is True Value - Value that is beyond price.
Posted on Jan 11th 07 by Maryam Webster.
Maryam Webster is Director of The Certified Energy Coach Program (certifiedenergycoach.org), where Coaches & Therapists Become Sought-After Superstars. She helps therapists, coaches and entrepreneurs to blow past what is holding them back and create outrageous personal & business success "at the speed of thought". http://maryamwebster.blogs.com
Other posts on Coachamatic by Maryam Webster.
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