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Episode 201 – How To Get Your Creativity Back
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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being A Virtual Assistant. I’m your host, Tiffany Parson and you’re watching and listening to Episode #202. Today, I’m just gonna jump right into our topic. We are talking about Caring Less. Caring less–Caring less about what people think about what we’re doing.
I want to give you the analogy and when I give you this analogy, it’ll all come clear on how we should not care about what people are thinking about what we’re doing in our business and what we’re doing as far as promoting ourselves and how to put ourselves out there. A lot of people are nervous about sharing what they do because they don’t want people to know or they don’t want to look dumb or silly or like they don’t know something or they’re afraid that people won’t click Like–that people won’t share, that people won’t respond, that it’ll just be dead–that nobody will be saying or doing anything. And while all those things can happen, we have to detach our emotions from it and not care. There are many people that will see your post, your video, watch it and maybe they’ll just contact you directly without commenting or liking or anything on your profile.
What we want is the result, right? If we get the one client, the two clients, the five clients, the 10 clients, the15 that we’re looking for, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter how many people liked, shared and commented. Even though social media would like to have us believe that’s what it’s all about. You’re in the service-based business: actions speak louder than likes and comments. All right. Oh, and having said that, even if someone does comment, it doesn’t mean they’re gonna actually come and purchase your service.
Okay. Now, let me give you the analogy because I don’t want you to be afraid of this anymore. I want you to put yourself out there from this point forward. People need to know about what’s going on in your business. I’m gonna talk to you as though you’re already doing your thing, but maybe you’ve just been gun-shy on blogging or social media or maybe you just stopped or maybe you’re gearing back up. Whatever the reason is–Okay? This is hot off of the Being Creative podcast: and if you didn’t listen to Episode 201, listen to that first because I want you to get geared up and creative and then this one is going to help you just put yourself out there and not even care–Okay?
All right, so here’s our analogy: swimming. I’m gonna use a swimming analogy; it gives us exactly what we need so I can paint this picture. So I want you to imagine that we’re all standing around a huge pool: maybe it’s an Olympic size pool. But it’s not a race, right? All of us, standing around the pool and there are lanes. Everybody has a lane and we can jump in the water at any time. We can jump in, swim across, jump out, jump in, swim across–or stay in the water and just go back and forth. There’s no limits on how long we can swim in our lane. Everybody has their own lane. The pool is big enough for all of us–that we have our own lane.
So, we decided to go ahead and jump in and start swimming. Some people are there with no intentions of ever jumping in. They’re just there to observe, they’re spectating. And like most spectators, they’re gonna have comments and things to say about the activity that’s going on in the water. They’re going to talk about someone swimming slow or too fast or they’re behind or this or that–all these things, but all along they have no intentions of getting in the water.
Now the swimmer that’s in the water can’t hear any of those things that’s going on around them. It might just sound like loud noise if they’re indoors. If it’s an outdoor pool, they might not even hear it at all. When you jump in the water, you’re focused in your lane, your own private race. You’re swimming ahead. You don’t even have time to talk to the swimmer beside you, to your right or to your left. You’re focused on swimming. If you’ve ever tried to talk and swim at the same time, it’s hard. It’s difficult to swim and talk at the same time because the other swimmer, they’re moving ahead, you’re moving ahead and there is no time for a conversation. And when you get to the end, maybe you both get to the end at the same time, you might take a quick breath, depending on how many strokes you’ve already–you know, how many laps you’ve already done. But there’s no time for a long conversation unless you stop.
The spectators have no intentions. They’re sitting in lawn chairs, they’re observing; no intentions of ever getting in. The other swimmers are all dressed, they’re going to get in the water at some point. The people that have the most to say are the ones on the sidelines who have no intentions of going into business for themselves. The business owners, the swimmers that are dressed out ready to swim, they’re not gonna have anything to say about what you’re doing in the water because they’re focused on what they’ve got to do on the water.
They’re focused on making sure that they get their strokes right, that they get their breath right, that they get the actual, you know, whatever they’re doing. If they’re freestyling, butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke, whatever–they’re focused on, “what am I going to do next? Am I gonna hold onto the wall when I get to the other side, or am I going to try to flip like they do, you know, in the Olympics to see if I can go to the other side.” They’re focused on their game plan.
People without a game plan have time. We should not be concerned with people who don’t have a game plan. The ones who have the game plan aren’t going to be critical, they’re gonna cheer you on. The ones who don’t have a game plan, they’re going to support you. The ones who uh I’m sorry, the ones who don’t have a game plan, they’re not going to cheer you on, they’re not going to support you.
The ones who do have–do have a game plan, they’re gonna cheer you on. They’re gonna support you, they’re gonna root for you because they know you guys are in the same boat. Similar shoes, different lane, different race–similar shoes; business owners, doing this thing. And it’s scary because the water gets deep. It starts out easy, 3ft. But then the further out there you go, the more years you’re in business, the further along you are– you decide to leave your job to do your business full time, you’re in the deep end because it’s sink or swim. You gotta make it! You don’t have a choice.
I love this analogy y’all, this is a good one! When you first start your business, “Okay, let me think of a name. What’s my email address gonna be? What’s my social media handle gonna be?” Easy stuff, right? 5ft. “Hmm. What am I going to provide? How much is it going to cost? How will people pay me? Does anybody want this thing?” You go ahead and put it out there, go a little further–7ft. “Okay. I put it out there. Nobody’s responding, but I’m gonna keep swimming because eventually they’ll respond. I can’t stay right here. I can’t tread water for too long. I’m gonna have to keep going–and just keep going.” And the next thing I know I’ve done one lap, one year. Two laps, two years. Three laps, three years. Four laps, four years. Five laps, five years. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going.
The minute you care about the spectators, is the minute you stop. You hesitate, you doubt yourself, you might even sink because now you’re listening to the crowd. The crowd that’s never going to get in the water! The crowd that doesn’t even have their swimsuit with them! The crowd that’s got tennis shoes and socks on! They have no intentions of even getting their feet wet! Why are you listening to them? We have to care less, more! Uh huh–sounds funny doesn’t it? We have to care less, more! Care less about what people think who are not in the water.
From this day forward, press Play, Send, Publish. I don’t care how often you do it–every day, every week, every other day. It doesn’t matter. Go live. Let people see who they’re working with. Do not be ashamed–It does not matter. People want to know who they’re working with. I don’t care if people like, share, comment EVER on your stuff. The more you do it, the better you get at it! The more you do it, the more you learn your voice, your comfort level, what you feel good about posting, what feels natural to you, what’s authentic to you, what’s organic to you–and then you’ll find yourself weaving in more about your business as a Virtual Assistant. Letting people know about what you do, what you offer to your clients, how your day is going, what systems do you use? Give them a behind the scenes look. It might be corny–tape yourself typing on a keyboard–Let them see a little peek in your day. And don’t worry about who likes, shares or comments. We’re really caught up in that.
We’re caught up in follows and all this stuff: and it’s great. It’s like, you know, people giving us a pat on the back. But what happens when there’s no more pats on the back? What happens when nobody says it’s a job well done? What happens when nobody says nothing? This is why we can’t get caught up in it. This is why we gotta keep focused on the race. Imagine yourself in that water–you can’t be concerned with how many people clapped, how many people are yelling your name on the sidelines. No, you’ve got to keep going. You gotta keep going. Those of you that ever played a sport, you probably can’t relate to this better than I can as I’m saying this. If you ever were on the basketball team, football, soccer; something where you have to stay focused on the game. I cheered in high school. So it wasn’t like people were gonna yell our names because we were not the ball players you know. It wasn’t up to us to win the game. We were support. But imagine if you are a soccer player, basketball player and you get caught up in how many people are holding your name on a banner, how many people have your jersey on–that’s the equivalent of getting caught up in likes, comments and shares. It’s great. It’s nice. But the game is on the court; The game is in the water.
Keep swimming friends! You got this! From this day forward, you’re gonna push send, publish, go live, do your blogs, decide when you’re gonna do it and be consistent. Show up every single time you said you were gonna show up. Do it consistently! Keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it. And then one day you’ll look up, clients are coming, money’s coming, you’re accomplishing your dreams and goals that you set out for yourself. All because you got in the water and you didn’t let the spectators dictate to you the results.
Thank you guys so much for watching and listening to this episode. I hope you care less, more. You have a wonderful and fantastic day!
Much love,
Tiffany
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