Ep 6: The gift of NOT being the centre of attention

Host links - Saundra Brodkin

Website - https://www.saundrabrodkin.com

ADHD Confessions sign-up - https://www.saundrabrodkin.com/emailsignup 

Transcript 

I’ve come to realize why my business has taken such a hiatus, and why I constantly feel like I need to rest and I'm not in that breakthrough mode of bringing in new people and putting out new things. 

It's not because I don't love what I do and it's definitely not because I don't have enough time or enough of any of the intellectual capacities. Especially time; I definitely don't have an abundance of extra time, or any extra time, but I always seem to find time for the things that bring me happiness and enjoyment.

And if my business was bringing me that enjoyment through marketing, then I know that I would market. But no matter what avenue of marketing that I've tried I just can't seem to find that joy in it. Mostly it's because I get overwhelmed by advertising and marketing myself in any way. And before I started my private coaching practice, I was very quiet online and I would only interact with those I knew well and felt completely safe with. Other than that I avoided social media and really stood back from being that center of attention.

For the last three or so years I've really been trying to force myself into being that center of attention online; and I've tried so hard to really love it… but I don't.

I do absolutely deeply and intensely love the work that I do with my clients and I love when they find me through a referral or completely organically by me having done nothing specific to bring them into my world, into my sphere. And then I love the work that we engage in together I also especially love speaking and getting on stage to share my teaching, knowledge, my experience, my research because I am a teacher at heart. That was the first career that I, I engaged in and worked in schools almost 11 years. It’s riveting! The school setting was overwhelming for me though.

But that in person connection brings me an incredible, a beautiful, amount of joy as long as I just don't have to do the marketing to bring in the people.

If someone brings them toward me, I can talk about my love and my passion for everything that I do and teach and work with you for endless amounts of hours and days and it's beautiful and it's magical and it feels so refreshing and intensely enjoyable. As long as I didn't do the marketing to get them toward me. Something about it feels yucky in my gut. 

I'm a creative person, an artist, I love reading, I love research, I thrive on grounding everything I teach and coach on in facts - and anything that I ever put out into the world - I love knowing that it's based in those research facts and in experience and in something that I could really rely on; that I could point back to. I don't like pulling words out of thin air. Although, I strongly believe nothing comes out of thin air. There's always a place that something that I say comes from. Even if it's not the facts that someone else might believe in. But as long as I can back it up with my own experience and knowledge and explain it and articulate it in a way that makes sense, then it's reliable knowledge.

I've done something that one of my mentors calls the garbage post challenge it's where you go online and you post about anything, absolutely anything and you have to do it for a certain amount of time and post a certain amount of things in that given period. If you're interested in knowing about that for yourself or just curious, my mentor is Simone Seol, and her podcast where she talks about it is called “I am your Korean mom.” I believe the episode is around 160 anyways, in the title you'll see “garbage post challenge.”

And it's fantastic for people who can break out of that shell and it helps most people that are stuck in their shell break out of it. But for me, I've done that challenge and I've done it several times. And once the challenge is complete, I can't seem to continue with the posting on social media or the emails or whatever it is. As much as I somehow enjoy the challenge itself, it doesn’t bring me that sense of fulfillment that my more thought out emails, pieces of writing, speaking and all of that bring me. It feels like just a challenge I've accomplished and then it's time to move on. 

So I worked on coaching myself, and it's brought me to think about a new way to market because if I don't talk about what I do nobody's going to know it exists. And then my gift just floats Into Thin Air and nobody gets to enjoy it with me. I want to share it. So, I've found a new way back to podcasting. I'm picking up my phone and using voice memos that's how I'm going to do it. And then eventually these voice memos are going to make it onto my podcast so what you're hearing right now here today as you're listening might have been recorded yesterday or this morning, it also might have been done a month ago. I don't know when I'm going to post it I know that today is September, I think it’s the 22nd, the year 2023. It's a Friday, it's sunny, it looks beautiful outside and I want to go enjoy that. 

I've always loved podcasting and I just haven't posted in a long time. This is the first recording I’m doing in, maybe, I believe, a year. I’ve also stopped sending emails to my email list and nourishing any of you that are on there with the value because I get stuck in that “well if I'm emailing I also need to post on Instagram and maybe I should go live or maybe I should post on Facebook or maybe I should…” and I keep, I spiral.

So I've decided that I'm going to just stick to what feels good, what feels right, what feels comfortably safe while still pushing my boundaries but not going into a zone of panic and distress. And staying in the zone of healthy growth. And I would love for you to join me in that zone.

However you do. In your own life. We don't need to even know each other. But rethink the way you're doing certain things and get into your zone of Healthy Growth, whatever that might look like. 

If you'd like to know more about anything that I offer anything that I do please check out the show notes because as I've mentioned I am not comfortable with telling you where to go and what to do and how much to pay for it. That information is written up and it’s totally there and available to you, as am I. And if you'd like to work together please reach out and I'd be happy to get on a call and talk about what that might look like and if we're good for each other. We need to we need to jive and if we don't jive then I will let you know where else you can go. I do not like leaving anybody stranded empty or lost, so please note that even if I'm not the right person for you I will direct you somewhere somehow where you might be able to find a mentor, a coach, or a teacher that could work with you on whatever it is that you are looking for support on.

Thank you so much for listening.