Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before a Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to focus on the services you are
Speaker 1: providing to other people and not on yourself. Doing so
Speaker 1: does tend to raise your profile over time, but has
Speaker 1: the upside of making you less self conscious. However your
Speaker 1: profile goes. Today's tip comes from Shira Gill, who writes
Speaker 1: about organizing and decorating and is the author of the
Speaker 1: forthcoming book lifestyled. In her Substack newsletter, Shara offers five
Speaker 1: lessons for entrepreneurs drawn from her fifteen years of entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1: Lesson one was to focus on service over ego. She writes,
Speaker 1: I've found that when imposter syndrome sneaks in, the best
Speaker 1: way to get out of my own way is to
Speaker 1: shift my focus from am I good enough? To how
Speaker 1: can I help? She goes on to say that scaling
Speaker 1: while keeping service first and ego second will result in
Speaker 1: growth that feeds your spirit and bottom line. I think
Speaker 1: this advice generally makes sense for entrepreneurs and employees alike.
Speaker 1: I do a lot of public speaking, and I could
Speaker 1: obsess forever about how I look on stage and whether
Speaker 1: I'm wearing the right shoes and things like that. But
Speaker 1: ultimately that just makes me nervous and doesn't do much
Speaker 1: for anyone. I am better off focusing on whether I
Speaker 1: am helping my audience figure out ways to manage their
Speaker 1: time better. Do people come away with useful tips to
Speaker 1: the follow up? Surveys indicate that people are trying things
Speaker 1: I suggested. If so, and as long as my shoes
Speaker 1: aren't their own spectacle, things will be fine. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you own a small business and you keep hearing how
Speaker 1: important it is to have professional social media accounts make
Speaker 1: yourself into some sort of influencer in order to promote
Speaker 1: your products. I mean it could be, but are you
Speaker 1: providing great products for your customers? Is at a fair price?
Speaker 1: Are people happy with what they buy? Do they tell
Speaker 1: their friends because they're happy and your products make their
Speaker 1: lives better? Then keep doing that serving your customers and
Speaker 1: people will follow your Instagram account if they want to
Speaker 1: or they won't. But having carefully staged photos of you
Speaker 1: looking a certain way which you may or may not
Speaker 1: look naturally and your products with pithy captions doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be the main thing. Or maybe you're a bank teller,
Speaker 1: you could focus on delivering excellent service to all the
Speaker 1: customers you encounter while being a great colleague to other
Speaker 1: people who work in your bank. You don't need to
Speaker 1: become obsessed with whether you are the brank teller every
Speaker 1: one knows by name. It's about your customers and colleagues
Speaker 1: and not about you. Now. I know that, depending on
Speaker 1: your work configuration, you may need to pay attention to
Speaker 1: your personal brand. You may need to make sure that
Speaker 1: you are spending time on promotable work and that your
Speaker 1: boss knows what you are contributing to the company. I
Speaker 1: get that, but in general, most of your attention should
Speaker 1: be on what you are offering and not on how
Speaker 1: you are seen. Putting service over ego and focusing on
Speaker 1: others means you are more likely to provide what your customers, clients,
Speaker 1: and colleagues need that will benefit then. More likely than not,
Speaker 1: it will also benefit you professionally over time. But you'll
Speaker 1: definitely feel less self conscious about being in front of people.
Speaker 1: No need for impostor syndrome, because no one is an
Speaker 1: impostor when they are genuinely serving others. In the meantime.
Speaker 1: This is Laura Thanks for listening, and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.
Speaker 1: If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
Speaker 1: me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.