You are a leader; you are an expert at what you do. You are confident in your abilities. Yet you self-sabotage when it comes to going live. And you can’t figure out why.
Does this resonate with you?
In that case, I want you to visit www.getmypowerup.com. There you can schedule a conversation with me to support you through this topic.
Without further ado, today, I am talking about going live and all the feelings that go along with it. Because we have a lot of feelings about going live, right?
Maybe you feel like everything has to be perfect to go live. Your inner critic likes to speak up and tells you that no one’s going to listen to you anyway; no one’s going to like what you have to say. So you self-sabotage, you make all the excuses, you hide. Then you start to lose faith in yourself because you fear how others will respond to you.
Sound familiar?
Here are three of the most common feelings that you might be having about going live:
1) No Room for Error
You might be feeling like there is no room for error. I will say that I have heard this repeatedly from leaders. Somewhere in your mind, you’ve created this story, this pattern of this belief that you cannot make a mistake.
The fear of making that mistake outweighs the benefits of showing up and being visible. Consequently, you miss out on opportunities. You miss out on showing potential clients who you are and how you can support them because that fear of making an error outweighs the benefits of showing up and being visible to them.
2) The Audience Is Judging You
You might feel like the audience is judging you. That’s another one that I hear a lot. Once again, you’ve created a story in your mind. And this time, that story is that your audience is full of experts in your field. They’re critiquing your every word, every little detail about your appearance, your background, everything you can imagine they’re critiquing you harshly.
Do you think that’s real?
Because when you self-sabotage in this way, what you’re doing is you’re undermining your expertise; you’re discounting what you know. And the truth is that you know more than the people who need you.
Do you hear that? You know more than the people who need you.
You’re never going to attract someone who knows more than you or who doesn’t need you. If someone doesn’t need what you have to offer, they’re not going to pay attention. But if you don’t show up because of that fear, then what’s happening is that the person who needs you is missing out on the transformation they could be having because your fear is greater.
3) You Feel You Need to Put on a Facade
The third most common thing I hear is that you feel like you need to put on some facade. You may feel like you need to step into some costume or persona to go live because you’ve created a story that who you are isn’t enough to pull it off. You’re not the kind of person who’s brave enough. You’re not the kind of person who can show up as an authority. So you have to put on some appearance, some costume, some personas, some fake thing, to have the guts to do it.
What happens here is that you’re depriving your audience of getting to know the real you, and the real you is who they’re buying. Even more so than that incredible expertise that you have. The audience is buying into you. When you can’t show up as you, then instead of seeing the true you, the audience sees this persona, and that’s not attractive.
Our human instincts are always able to call out the BS. Your audience is seeing right through that. I was talking with a colleague of mine a couple of weeks ago about this very topic. She is a TEDx speaker, and a dynamic leader in her industry, and a phenomenal coach. But when it comes to clicking that little go-live button, she goes into full-on panic mode, even though she knows her stuff inside and out. She’s utterly confident in her expertise about her knowledge base. She shared with me that she grew up with the belief passed down in her family: she’s never to be seen in public without being perfectly put together. That means perfect hair, perfect face, perfect clothes, perfect demeanor, perfect spit, perfect speech, everything like that.
This perfectionism rears its ugly head when she goes live. She will put it off, put it off, and make all kinds of excuses about why she can’t do it. Because everything is perfect as is, there’s not enough time for it to become perfect. Or if it’s not perfect, it’s not worth doing it. So we had a conversation about going live, and she opened up to me about her fears.
We talked about what’s behind all of it, and the very next day, I got a message from her that she went live in her bedroom in her pajamas! She felt inspired to let go of that fear of everything being perfect. She let go of all the excuses or the crutches that she used to use. And she did it! She felt amazing and proud of her accomplishment.
If you want to experience that kind of shift, and more, that kind of confidence, and more than let’s have a conversation, let’s talk about this.
I’m opening up some spots in my calendar to coach leaders like you who are battling the fear of going live or showing up as an authority, or giving presentations feeling like a fraud. What’s going to happen is I’m going to take you through my system that helps you maximize your true identity so you can influence any audience. I do these same steps with my singers, my actors, and my competitors.
We’re also going to use your vulnerability – the thing that you think is a weakness – as a superpower. I’m also going to show you how to command any room, any audience with authority. That way, you can show up, influence, and lead with power and confidence. You can eliminate that fraud factor. It’s time to make the most of your opportunities rather than just letting them slip away.
If you are a leader who would benefit from this, let’s have a conversation about how I can help you get to the other side of these fears to show up as an authority.
I know it feels scary, it can feel terrifying, but it doesn’t have to feel that way. There is a solution for this, and I want you to enjoy speaking and enjoy being in front of other people. I want you to step fully into your future so you can feel confident that who you are is not only okay but it’s exactly who you need to be.
