Suz Chadwick [00:00:00]:
Welcome to the Brand Builders Lab podcast. I'm your host, Suze Chadwick, certified business and mindset coach, author and speaker. Each week we'll be talking about simple but powerful business and mindset strategies that will help you build a lean, clean and profitable business so you can learn to get out of your own way and pay yourself more for get average. It's time to level up. Hey, lovely. Welcome back to the Brand Builders Lab podcast. Awesome to have you here today. I wanted to talk about why you're not fully showing up in your personal brand and the fact that that might be the reason that number one, you're not loving it, and number two, you're not getting the traction that you want.

Suz Chadwick [00:00:42]:
I have had so many amazing conversations with new clients recently who, as I've said before, my ideal client, highly skilled, has a business, knows what they're doing, has had success in their business as well, but is finding it hard to put themselves in their personal brand. And the number of conversations that I've had recently where I've had amazing clients who are like, I just, I have opinions, I have things that I want to say, but I'm editing myself when it comes to putting them out there. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. How can you put your full self in your personal brand so that you can stand out in today's market. Now, obviously, I want to remind you as this is going out, it's going out on Wednesday the 16 October, but the doors to amplify close tomorrow at 06:00 p.m. and so if you are wanting to build an amazing personal brand that is aligned with who you are and who you want to be in the world and the things that you want to share with your audience and community and the movement that you want to build as well, then be sure to come and join us. And if doors are closed, then come and join the waitlist because, you know, this is something I love to work with clients on all the time. So we definitely want to be helping you to build an amazing personal brand.

Suz Chadwick [00:02:08]:
But listen, let's dive into today's episode. So let's start at the beginning, is that you have got opinions, you've got thoughts about your industry. You've probably been in your industry for quite a while, especially if you're building a business within your industry as well. And so just starting there, starting there and thinking about, okay, when it comes to what I'm doing, what do I believe? And I think sometimes we don't actually stop to ask ourselves those questions. And so when we're out there sharing our message and we're out there doing the things that we do, we can feel very surface level because we haven't drilled down, we haven't actually sat and thought, what is it that I want to be talking about? And one of the things that we go through amplify. And one of the things that I go through with clients is actually initially doing the deep dive. It's before we do anything else, before we're creating, before we're messaging any of that, we're actually just getting the foundations down. And the foundations are, what is it that you do? How do you do it differently? Why do you do it differently? And what are the beliefs that you have? And so even asking yourself some of those questions are going to start to get you on the path where you can start to see, oh, okay, this is what I believe.

Suz Chadwick [00:03:36]:
And one of the things that I love to talk about is the hill, the hill that you're willing to die on. So for me, the hill that I'm willing to die on is that women, there are women out there who have incredible skills, knowledge, expertise, who have amazing personalities, but who are not showing them. And so the hill that I'm willing to die on is that you can stand out. If you are truly you, if you are authentically you, if you dig deep and you are willing to do uncomfortable things, you can stand out and build an amazing personal brand. That is one of the hills that I'm willing to die on. Yeah. Because I know I've seen it. And there are going to be people that are like, that's not what I want, and that's all good.

Suz Chadwick [00:04:23]:
But for the people that want it, if you feel like you were meant for more, if you feel like you have got something that you want to say, then this is the work that has to happen. You are absolutely capable of standing out and building a platform and a movement. The other hill that I'm willing to die on is that you do not need to have a big following in order to have a big impact. And I was looking at a number of people where they, they're just not really on socials. They don't really have a big social following, but they've got a big business that does a lot. And so just knowing that you do not have to follow the conventional paths as well. Obviously, social is free. We've got access to social.

Suz Chadwick [00:05:10]:
It's available to us. We can reach a wide audience there. But also just knowing that you can have a big impact without having hundreds of thousands of followers online. And I think that that stops us a lot of time. It makes us feel like we're, I don't know, not good enough, not there. What we have to say isn't important enough. And as I was saying to a client the other day, you really want to impact the people who need what you have. And the industry that she's in is not a huge industry.

Suz Chadwick [00:05:45]:
Like, it's not mainstream industry. Like, it's a particular niche. And so she's not going to have huge numbers of followers, but she can still have a big impact in her area of expertise. And so really catching yourself and figuring out what are the things that I'm thinking about myself right now that's holding me back from fully showing up now it could be that I don't have enough followers. It's too hard to grow on social. That might be a thought, it might not be. But really taking a look and saying, am I showing up in the way that I want to if I wanted to be a leader in my industry? And that could be in lots of different ways. I mean, you could be going to conferences and networking events.

Suz Chadwick [00:06:30]:
You could be writing. You could be writing books and articles. You could be doing research. There's lots of things that you could be doing. And obviously socials is just one of them. And so the question that you want to ask yourself is, what is the hill that I am willing to die on? But also what is it that I believe right now that is either helping or hindering me to be a leader and be seen as a leader in my space and write these things down? Because I think sometimes when we're just thinking about them, it can be shallow, whereas when we write it down, we can start to dig in a bit deeper and we can probe a little bit more with ourselves. Well, that's interesting. Why do I believe that? Do I believe that I can be a leader? Well, kind of.

Suz Chadwick [00:07:17]:
What does kind of mean? And once again, this is like questions I ask clients. These are answers that I get sometimes. Yeah, I could be a leader. I mean, I don't think I could be as big as so and so. Why not? Well, because of no reason. And so really starting to question your own beliefs as to what you can do and the impact that you can have is important because when we start to delve a bit deeper into those thoughts, we can then start to shift the blocks. One of the things that I was talking about in my TED talk was the fact that I have a visual. We all have magnetic magic within us.

Suz Chadwick [00:08:01]:
We all have the ability to be magnetic to the opportunities and the things that we want in our life. But you know that old storybook, the princess and the pea, where the pea sits underneath all of these mattresses and the princess is on top. For some reason, that came to mind for me, and I think of it like this, the pea is your magnetic magic, and each mattress represents a block that you have. So it could be that, like, I edit myself, like, I'm too scared to share my opinions. And so there's fear. There could be things that you've experienced where somebody disagreed with you and that's living rent free in your mind. It could be society's expectations that this is not the way that we're supposed to be, or this is the opinion I'm not supposed to have. So I don't want to share it.

Suz Chadwick [00:08:48]:
It could be the way that you were brought up, whatever it is, understanding what those mattresses are that are holding back your magnetic magic right now and holding you back from sharing the things that you really want to share, it's so important to be able to name them, because until you name them, until you actually dig into them, you're not going to be able to shift them. You're not going to be able to move them. And so that is something that is worth doing right now, is really thinking about, what are all the things that I think are holding me back? Is it other people's opinions? Is it what they'll say? Is it a fear of getting it wrong? Is it a fear of looking silly? Is it a fear that somebody in my industry is going to come for me? And the question I have for you is, so what? Sometimes we want to be perfect, and we're not. And I think that that also needs to be a big realization. I am not perfect. I am a flawed human. Every single person in the world is a flawed human. But I have an opinion, and I have something to say, and I have a hill that I'm willing to die on.

Suz Chadwick [00:09:56]:
And I have an impact that I want to make. And I think you've really got a way up. Like, what is the impact you want to make? And how bad do you want to build your brand? How bad do you want to get out there and talk about the things that you're passionate about, the things that you believe, the things that you want to share with your ideal clients and your audience? Like, on a scale of one to ten, how bad do you want that? And if you're like, I do want it, suze, I really do want it. Then you've got to start to really look at what those blocks are and how you're going to start to shift them. And that's something that we do within amplify as well, because I don't believe that you can show up fully as yourself without having done that work and just knowing that you'll fail and being okay with it and looking back on your life and looking at all the things that you've done and where you failed. And you may have failed many times, but then you succeeded. And constantly going back to the evidence of where you have gone through hard things, you have done hard things, you have done the things that took, you know, something extra from you, where it wasn't perfect and it didn't work out, but then you learned and you got better. And so looking back on those times when we are trying to work through blocks, when we are going through the river of misery, when we are trying to go through, you know, when things suck and we're not great at it, but being okay and not being great at it, the great thing is, is that we don't need to be perfect online right now.

Suz Chadwick [00:11:28]:
It's all about authenticity. It's about the real and the raw. It's about sharing what you've got, but also sharing a little bit behind the scenes when things work and when things don't work. And so when we can learn that that is actually what having an authentic, personal brand is about, then we can stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, and we can stop expecting ourselves to have everything worked out and said perfectly, because it's in the imperfections that we learn to trust people. When everything is always perfect and everything always looks like, you know, the way that people think it's supposed to, we question. We're like, well, is that real? Because not everybody's happy all the time. Not everybody's got everything going for them all the time. And I think the brands that I've really connected to, they've taken me on the journey.

Suz Chadwick [00:12:22]:
They've shown me the amazing successes that they've shown me, the failures they've shown me, like, when things went right and went wrong, how they felt in the moment. And I think that's what we're really looking for. And that's what your ideal client, the client that you really want to work with, who is struggling right now, they want to know that you've been through it. They want to know that you get where they're at. You know, I talk about the fact that when I first came into the entrepreneurial space and I really didn't have a brand. I had come out of corporate and I really had to break my corporate speak. I had to break my corporate thinking to try and do new things. And even when I started running workshops and I had five people that came along and obviously I wanted more, but I just had five.

Suz Chadwick [00:13:09]:
And so I started there. And did it feel great? Well, no, it didn't feel great because I expected it to be bigger, I expected it to be more, but I just sat in that discomfort. And then I grew it. And then we had the breakfast, and then I grew it from there. And can I tell you, sometimes we would have the breakfast, so we'd have one week where we'd have 50 people and we'd have another week where we'd have like 13. And that was embarrassing, especially if I had a speaker that came along, because I was like, oh, well, like, my brand isn't enough to pull in big crowds. My brand isn't enough to get the number of people that I want. And that was super uncomfortable.

Suz Chadwick [00:13:48]:
But I kept going, you know, and we ended up having the conferences that were 200 people, etcetera. But we all go through those ups and downs. And I think that it's really important for us to talk about them and for us to be honest and open about, like, what we're experiencing so that our clients know that we understand where they're at. And so thinking about, how can I be that beacon? How can I be that person where my clients are? Like, she gets where I'm at, she gets what I'm going through. She knows how to solve my problems. She can help me through this pain point to get to the desired outcome. And I love the fact that she talks about this in a really different way. I love that she doesn't sound like everybody else.

Suz Chadwick [00:14:32]:
I love that she has these really interesting opinions. Like, it really challenges my thinking. And you've got to remember that great personal brands challenge our thinking. Great personal brands help us to think differently. They present a new idea to us. They educate us on some particular thing. One of the other things I talked about in my TED talk was having a really strong internal game. Like, we want people who are not perfect, but they've got a strong sense of self.

Suz Chadwick [00:15:05]:
Like, I know what I believe. I know what I'm here to do. I love listening to other people. I love continuing to learn, but I also want to be a leader in this space. And so I am walking to the beat of my own drum. I am going to share this opinion, even if I know that it might be going against the status quo of what's going on in my industry. And so really understanding why people buy, why people follow, why people feel connected to you, it's not the people that are saying what everybody else is saying. It's the people who are standing up and saying, you know something? I know we've always talked about this, but I actually don't agree with it.

Suz Chadwick [00:15:43]:
Or I think that we can think about it differently, or I want you to know you don't have to do what everybody else is doing. You can do something different. And so when we realize that, when we realize that it's actually nothing going with the status quo that people want to hear, then we can start to, like I said, decide to share our unedited thoughts about what it is that we do and our space. So really start to think about how you can start to uncover what you think, discover new ways of thinking and being for yourself so that you can activate your magnetic magic and build a personal brand that is truly you. The longer that you stay in your cocoon, the longer you stay within what you feel is safe, the longer it's going to take for you to have the impact that you want. And is it easy? No, it's not easy. This is not for the faint hearted. Just going to say it.

Suz Chadwick [00:16:49]:
Putting yourself out there for anybody to comment on, putting yourself out there and going, you know something? This is what I think. People are always going to have an opinion, but who cares? They're not the people you're speaking to. This is the one thought that I have and that I've had for a very long time that has always helped me to show up. And that thought is, I am just speaking to this person. And if other people have got opinions about it who are not who I'm speaking to, they are more than welcome to their opinions. It does not affect me because they're not who I'm speaking to. They are not the people who are wanting to make an impact. They are not the people who are wanting to be the leaders.

Suz Chadwick [00:17:30]:
They are not the people who are willing to do the hard things. They're the people who are keyboard warriors out there having a go at other people who are doing the hard things. And so if that is a fear of yours, I hope that that thought helps you, because every time I write, and this is another exercise we do within amplify is. Is really on your who. And this is not ideal client. Like, this is going so deep, it's like every time I create a video, every time I write something, I am writing to this one person. And I know who she is, what she does, what she thinks, how she feels, what she desires, what her problems are like, what she's thinking about when she's falling asleep, how she's feeling when she's doing the work that she's doing right now. That isn't the work that sets her soul on fire.

Suz Chadwick [00:18:24]:
Like, I know who she is and I know what she wants. And I can picture her on a stage sharing her big message at a conference with the thought leadership that I've helped her to develop. And we've done it together. And she is up there shining, being her true self, knowing that she is being 100% her now. And by being 100% her, she has now grown this community and built a movement and is standing out. And she's got people that disagree with her, and that's okay. And so really thinking about who you're being for the people and the person that you want to work with is so important. You've got to decide to stand up and truly be you and put your true self in your personal brand if you want it to do what you want it to do.

Suz Chadwick [00:19:25]:
So hopefully that has given you some food for thought. Hopefully it's challenged the way that you're thinking about your personal brand and how you're building it. Answer the questions that I've shared with you in this episode and really start thinking about whether you're willing to go out on a limb and go, I've got something else to say. I've got something different I want to share with you. Have an amazing rest of your week. I hope to see you in amplify if building an authentic and powerful personal brand is something that you want to do, and if you've got any questions, let me know. I'll speak to you soon.