Dear ,
Want to know the slowest, most frustrating path business failure?
Actively hide.
How do I know?
I did it (exceptionally well).
And you might be doing it right now.
Yep, for real.
[And right now you're either like 'aw, crap' or 'wth is this girl even talking about'.]
If you're not sure, let me tell you what 'actively hiding' looks like.
- You spend a LOT of time creating graphics, and writing blogs that may or may not ever see the light of day.
- You busily update all of your profiles, make sure your posts are schedule at the 'right' times of day, think about algorithms, and think about the balance of offers to value to fun stuff to questions so as not to be too much of any one thing.
- You think hard. In your head. But not out loud to other people.
- You peruse the options of networking meetings, and think about going. You might even schedule to go (but probably don't actually go).
- You look at 'the competition', gather ideas, see what they're up to, compare your progress to theirs (ughhhh), and think about how to 'position' yourself and your business when you're where they are, when ever that will be.
- You make vision boards, journal, listen to podcasts, learn LOTS, and apply very little.
You are BUSY.
Busy busy busy.
But also HIDING. Very, very carefully hiding.
I know this, because I did it.
For YEARS.
And do you know where it got me?
[You know the answer.]
No. where.
Here's the thing. Here's the why
Creating stuff? It was totally in my control. Not scary. Not hard. Pretty fun.
And the gurus o' the internet said if I made stuff then people would like me, follow me, buy from me.
But, really, since I was hiding, the vast majority of what was created never got to the people who needed it.
It is really easy to focus on creating because it feels safe AND productive. You make it and then you made something, ta-da!
You can make all the graphics you want.
You can write ALL day.
You can listen and think and journal 24-7.
But if you never CONNECT with people, all of that stuff is ONLY FOR YOU.
And it's not even really helping you, since it's not growing your business.
It's just growing the pile of stuff you have that you're the only one who knows about.
So.
How do you break this cycle?
Welp.
Here's what I did. Deep breath.
I stopped making nearly all the stuff.
For an uncomfortably long time.
When I started my coaching business I totally flipped the proportion of creating to people-ing; where once it was all create and no people, I went fully the other direction and peopled like 85% and made only things that were absolutely required.
For like...6 months, maybe more.
It was hard. In my first business I actively hid for like...3 years. This was a huge habit to break.
[And before I owned a business, I was a creator - when I worked in sales, when I was teaching... both encouraged me to make lots of stuff. I'd never NOT created all the stuff all the time.]
So stopping felt so weird.
But it made a HUGE difference.
And listen, this is not me advocating for you giving up creating entirely.
But what if you made 50% less stuff and connected 50% more?
Or even shifted 25% less stuff and 25% more people?
Or took 5 hours a week that you normally spend on stuff, and applied it to human contact?
What might change?
Active is great.
Hiding is not.
And no matter what you make, if you are using busy as a way to hide, it's not going to create success - ever. I don't care what the gurus o' the internet tell you.
Less stuff + Less hiding = MORE growth
For real.
So, what's your plan?
How will you HIDE less this week?
Warmly,
Sara
PS. Are you like 'cool, yes, I wan to stop hiding, and also actually doing that is a different animal entirely dude'?
I get you. The same was true for me.
I didn't actually stop hiding until I got coaching.
Having someone who I paid to call me out when I was hiding made a HUGE difference.
And it can for you too.
I'm SUPER good at (lovingly) calling out my clients when they are hiding, and then helping them find a way out of the shadows that doesn't feel like death by 1000 cuts.
Just this week I had a client STOP hiding from new prospects and she said something like 'well, actually, doing it this way we agreed to was pretty easy. I did more than I even planned'.
You can stop hiding AND not hate it. It doesn't have to suck.
So if you'd like that, let's coach. Book a 1:1 call here.
But no matter what you do next KNOW THIS: you have hidden your fab-ness from the world LONG ENOUGH. It's time to stop the slow death march to failure and show the world who you ACTUALLY are.
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