EPS 403 - Building confidence as you build your personal brand
[00:00:00] How do you build unshakeable confidence when you're building your personal brand? If you are anything like the clients that I work with, it can be a real struggle and cringe when you start seeing yourself on video all the time, or listening to yourself if you start a podcast and really getting over it.
Meaning getting over yourself can definitely be hard work if you are just not used to it. Today I wanna talk to you about how you can build unshakeable confidence when it comes to building your personal brand, how you can learn to love seeing yourself, hearing yourself. And the reason why it's not about ego, it's about service.
And the one thing that I need you to know is that confidence is not the starting point. It's the result of the work that you'll do
if we've not met. Hey, I'm CS Chadwick. I'm a personal brand and business coach, and I help you build a personal brand that sells for you and a mindset that helps you get out of your own way.
So when you are building a brand, especially online, it's gonna feel a bit cringe. You are gonna look at yourself on camera [00:01:00] and read your captions and think. Who do I think I am? What if people judge me? Ugh, I sound so awkward.
But here's the truth that nobody tells you. Confidence does not come first.
Confidence is the result of taking action and getting through the cringe and swimming through the river of misery. That is that first few months of really starting to get used to being online and sharing your message.
When you're starting to build your personal brand, there's so many things that you might wanna do. I work with a lot of clients where they've come from an area of expertise, maybe offline. They've built incredible businesses and they've really not needed to be visible. And that can feel really awkward when you are now shifting into the online space.
But if you wanna scale, then you wanna be connecting with more and more people.
And so starting to create content, writing a book, creating videos, whether it's YouTube, socials, Instagram, TikTok, whatever it is. It's gonna be new [00:02:00] and it's gonna feel really awkward to start with. And it's the people that are able to get through the awkward moments that are gonna be able to build their personal brand and start to attract the clients that they want in a scalable way, become known, share their message, and have the scalable impact that they know they're meant for.
So one of my beautiful clients who is a leadership coach. A few years ago, we were working together and she just said to me, Suze, I've been asked to speak on this International Women's Day panel, but I just don't feel confident. And one of the things that I tell my clients all the time is courage over confidence.
If you can choose to be courageous in the moments where you don't feel confident, that is how you are gonna eventually get there. And so ask yourself when somebody says to you, will you come and speak at the International Women's Day panel? I said to her, ask yourself, am I willing to be courageous in this moment?
I'm not asking myself whether I'm confident, whether I've done it before, whether I've got a track record. The question is, [00:03:00] do I feel courageous enough to do it? And also realizing that they never would've asked her to be on that panel if they hadn't already recognized that she was somebody of influence, that she was somebody who had something amazing to say.
So she came back to me and she said, sus, I said, yes. Because I thought to myself, what would Sue's do? What would she tell me? Am I willing to be courageous in this moment? Anyway, she ended up coming back to our coaching calls and she said, I did it. It was amazing. I got such incredible feedback. I had so many people come up to me after the event and tell me.
That what I shared meant a lot to them. And so that is one practice that I really want you to adopt when you are looking to build your personal brand is don't ask yourself if you're confident enough to do it. Ask yourself, are you courageous enough? When you are ready to get online, when you are going to create a real, create a video, create a YouTube, whatever it is, are you willing to be courageous right in this moment?
Is it gonna be perfect? No. Is it [00:04:00] going to be flawless? No. Are you gonna make mistakes? Potentially, but with anything in life, and I'm sure with anything that you have experienced in your career, any kind of success that you've had, it was not without. It's moments, it was not without you failing and learning and then becoming better.
So I don't know why when we go to build our personal brand, we somehow feel that we should be perfect. And the one thing I do recognize is that when you have built success in other areas of your life and career, and then you are now looking to do something new. That that can feel really awkward 'cause you're like, I've been successful, I've had the success.
I know what I'm doing. But now this is like starting afresh. This is all new and awkward. But just remembering that you've been here before, that you've been able to get through hard things that you have learned from a place of not knowing, to then a place of knowing and being amazing at what you do. So really having the thoughts, [00:05:00] I've been here before.
I've done this before. I know how to do hard things. I can create the outcomes that I want is so important. So today I wanna share with you four key things that I think can really help you. I. To move through the cringe a lot quicker and to start to really back yourself as you build your personal brand.
The first key mindset shift that I really want you to have is practice self-love over self-criticism.
You've gotta choose to love the messy version of you. And even when you watch yourself online, when you hear yourself, when your brain says, oh, that's so cringey, I want you to override it with. The loving big sister, the loving big brother, the loving person who is gonna say she chose courage that day. She showed up.
That day. They created from a place of knowing that they wanted to serve. And look at them, go. Is it perfect? No. But is it impactful? Yes. And so [00:06:00] practicing that for yourself on an ongoing basis it's such an important skill to build. And really catching those thoughts as well and seeing them for what they are.
Are they helpful? No. Are they gonna help you to move forward? No. Are they gonna make you feel good? No.
So just like you wouldn't tolerate anybody saying bad things about somebody else that you love, you have to do that for yourself as well. And so I was just coaching a client on this recently and I said to him, every time you have those thoughts, you've gotta come back with.
How brave were you to do that? How amazing that you decided to be courageous that day and speak on that stage. Get on that podcast, record that video. How incredible of you to be able to do that. And we've gotta become our own cheerleader when it comes to building our personal brand and showing up online and being visible.
- Because it's really easy to think about what people are gonna think and how we didn't get exactly right or the way that we [00:07:00] wanted. It wasn't perfect. And so practicing that self-love instead of self-criticism is gonna be your biggest advocate when it comes to you showing up more. Because if you have the thought, I'm gonna get online and I know that I'm gonna have a lot of bad takes before I have a good one, but I'm actually not gonna get to the good one until I go through the bad ones.
And just even knowing that is so important. It's like when you are building your online presence and you are doing the carousels and the reels and the videos and. You are not getting the engagement that you want. You're not getting the traction that you want, but just knowing that you are building brick by brick, I always say that your brand is a house.
. The foundations are your vision, your mission, your values, everything that you want to build and create. I. And then you build brick by brick with all of the content that you create, the connections that you make, the way that you show up, the intention that you have, they're the bricks of your brand house.
Is it built in a day? [00:08:00] No. It's something that you build one on top of the other, and the more that you build, the stronger it gets. And at the beginning, it looks like nothing. It looks like a mess. But as those bricks start to form, you start to see the house go up. And I just want you to know that when you feel like you're in that messy middle, when it's just a building site and everything's everywhere, that the more that you continue to move forward, the sooner you'll get to the finished product of having this brand that is selling for you, that is attracting the clients that you want, that is doing what you want it to do.
I'm a very visual person, so I really love that analogy. So I want you to think about whatever it is that you wanna build. How are you doing it? Brick by brick. And let's be honest, when we are in the cringe, it's part of the growth stage and we have to be okay with that. The second mindset shift that I really want you to have, and one that I tell my clients all the time, is you have to practice imperfection every day.
So stop trying to get it right. [00:09:00] Getting it done is better than getting it right. Because if you are constantly trying to wait for it to be perfect, to wait for it to be polished, to wait for it to be exactly what you want it to be, you're never gonna get anything done. You're not going to move forward
if you want better content, if you want better delivery, if you want a stronger voice.
That's only gonna come from consistency and being messy and being willing to look like a beginner as well. And so even just thinking about how can I start to practice that imperfection, let me just get on camera and start talking. As somebody who has been a speaker since I was 16 years old on the debate team.
There's been a lot of times where I've not delivered the way that I've wanted, but I've also learned so much in those times. I learn
how to prepare better. I've learned how to give myself more resources to show up in the way that I've
Suz: wanted.
And before I go and do a talk somewhere, a keynote somewhere, I'm practicing. I'm practicing, and I'm really thinking about the delivery [00:10:00] and the energy and the words and the way that I wanna say things so that I can create an experience for my audience. And the same goes for your personal brand. The more that you really understand what you are trying to create and what you are willing to do before you get online, before you show up.
It is gonna help you to do it in a way that you enjoy doing it more, and it's also gonna help you to become better quicker.
And the next mindset shift is really rewiring the thought about waiting. Stop waiting to feel confident. Stop waiting for validation.
Stop waiting for the perfect photos and the perfect message.
Confidence is not a prerequisite. It is a byproduct of doing the reps. And we've all heard the analogy of going to the gym. When you go to the gym on the first day, do you come out with muscles and the perfect physique? No. It takes time. You've gotta do the reps, you've gotta keep doing them. Your arm day, your leg day, whatever it is, your cardio going for the walk, going for the hot girl walk.
You've gotta [00:11:00] practice it ongoing in order to get the results. And so stop waiting for the right moment. Today is the right day. Right now is the right moment for you to show up and start sharing what it is that you have. And the one thought I really want you to have is that if you do not share it, then the person who is intended for may never get that message.
They may never get the opportunity to change the thing that they want to learn, the thing that they want to experience, the thing that they want. Why? Because you are their person. You are the person that is going to break through and get to them. And so if you are somebody who knows that you are made for more, if you know that you've got a bigger message to share.
Then you've gotta make the decision to get over yourself in order to have that impact, in order to be able to scale the business that you want, in order to stand on the stage, get on the podcast, write the book, whatever it is, you've gotta make the decision. Are you gonna be the person that's [00:12:00] going to let yourself wait and wander and think negative thoughts about yourself to the point where you are going to sabotage your own success? And of course you wanna be the person that says, no, Suze, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to show up fully and I'm gonna make this happen. Through the cringe, through the awkwardness, I'm gonna build my confidence through making courageous decisions every single day.
And the last mindset shift that I really want you to have is I really want you to never think why me? Because what I want you to believe is why not you? Why can't you be the person that is in the vision that you have? Why can't you be the person that creates the outcomes that you want? Why not you? And the longer that you wait to make it happen, the harder it gets because your brain just will continue to say, we still haven't done it.
We still haven't made the [00:13:00] change. We still haven't taken the step. Like, is it worth it now? Should we be bothered?
And you are gonna have to be the person, you are gonna have to pull on those internal resources, that internal character inside of you that is like, I am ready to go. Let's go, let's do it. I'm done waiting. I'm done waiting to be confident. I'm done waiting for it to be perfect. I'm done waiting for external validation.
I am here to serve my audience, the people that I want to have a relationship with, and that is what matters to me.
So if you take one thing away from this video, let it be this.
You don't build confidence in the mirror, you build it. When you're in motion, show up anyway. Say the thing, post the video, launch the offer
as they say. Even when your voice shakes, even when you are not sure. Your audience doesn't need you to be perfect. They need you to be real. They're waiting to hear from you, not some polished, fake expert. So today [00:14:00] I want you to choose courage overconfidence. I want you to practice imperfection. I want you to get out of overthinking,
and I want you to back yourself to become the success that I know is in you to become. So now I wanna hear from you down in the comments, what is one action that you are committing to this week to get out of your own way and start moving forward to building your personal brand and creating the impact that you really wanna have.
If you enjoy this video, make sure that you like, you subscribe, you share, and I would love to hear from you in the comments as well. Until next time, here's to building the scalable impact that I know you're so capable of.
