Make it about them, not you

Banish imposter syndrome by focusing on service

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before a Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is to focus on the services you are
providing to other people and not on yourself. Doing so

(00:26):
does tend to raise your profile over time, but has
the upside of making you less self conscious. However your
profile goes. Today's tip comes from Shira Gill, who writes
about organizing and decorating and is the author of the
forthcoming book lifestyled. In her Substack newsletter, Shara offers five

(00:49):
lessons for entrepreneurs drawn from her fifteen years of entrepreneurship.
Lesson one was to focus on service over ego. She writes,
I've found that when imposter syndrome sneaks in, the best
way to get out of my own way is to
shift my focus from am I good enough? To how

(01:13):
can I help? She goes on to say that scaling
while keeping service first and ego second will result in
growth that feeds your spirit and bottom line. I think
this advice generally makes sense for entrepreneurs and employees alike.
I do a lot of public speaking, and I could

(01:34):
obsess forever about how I look on stage and whether
I'm wearing the right shoes and things like that. But
ultimately that just makes me nervous and doesn't do much
for anyone. I am better off focusing on whether I
am helping my audience figure out ways to manage their
time better. Do people come away with useful tips to

(01:58):
the follow up? Surveys indicate that people are trying things
I suggested. If so, and as long as my shoes
aren't their own spectacle, things will be fine. Or maybe
you own a small business and you keep hearing how
important it is to have professional social media accounts make
yourself into some sort of influencer in order to promote

(02:20):
your products. I mean it could be, but are you
providing great products for your customers? Is at a fair price?
Are people happy with what they buy? Do they tell
their friends because they're happy and your products make their
lives better? Then keep doing that serving your customers and

(02:41):
people will follow your Instagram account if they want to
or they won't. But having carefully staged photos of you
looking a certain way which you may or may not
look naturally and your products with pithy captions doesn't need
to be the main thing. Or maybe you're a bank teller,
you could focus on delivering excellent service to all the

(03:04):
customers you encounter while being a great colleague to other
people who work in your bank. You don't need to
become obsessed with whether you are the brank teller every
one knows by name. It's about your customers and colleagues
and not about you. Now. I know that, depending on
your work configuration, you may need to pay attention to

(03:25):
your personal brand. You may need to make sure that
you are spending time on promotable work and that your
boss knows what you are contributing to the company. I
get that, but in general, most of your attention should
be on what you are offering and not on how
you are seen. Putting service over ego and focusing on

(03:48):
others means you are more likely to provide what your customers, clients,
and colleagues need that will benefit then. More likely than not,
it will also benefit you professionally over time. But you'll
definitely feel less self conscious about being in front of people.
No need for impostor syndrome, because no one is an

(04:10):
impostor when they are genuinely serving others. In the meantime.
This is Laura Thanks for listening, and here's to making
the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

(04:33):
If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

(04:55):
listen to your favorite shows.