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You're Not Too Much: Betting on Yourself When You're Scared · You're Not Too Much

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  What other people will think about your decision to bet on
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  yourself, to build a side business, to share your
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  expertise, to be confident in the fact that you are who the hell you
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  say you are, that's got nothing to do with you. And it's not where you
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  should be putting your energy. But if you have something that you want people
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  to know and, or you think that other people could benefit from, and the only
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  reason you are not saying it is because of what some probably
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  irrelevant white dude is gonna think on the other side, that is
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  not a reason. We can do things scared. It doesn't mean you're not scared.
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  It doesn't mean that you're not worried about things. It doesn't mean that people won't
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  have opinions. But in my experience, the people who matter don't have time to
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  have opinions other than positive ones about what you're doing.
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  Boom! Welcome to You're Not Too Much from the Different, Not Broken Network,
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  a podcast about how you're not too much. Space
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  expands, so let's fill it.
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  There are very good reasons for not starting your own
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  business or not starting your own side business, whichever. There's
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  super good reasons for doing it. You have a job, you don't
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  want the stress of owning your own business. You don't want to be responsible
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  for all of the details and minutia of running a business. You don't have
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  time. You don't have energy. There's so many good reasons and there's nothing wrong. There,
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  there are lots of people who advocate for starting your own business who make it
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  sound like there's something wrong with having a job, like working for someone else is
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  somehow embarrassing. No, you have to pay your bills. If you're in
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  the US, you have to get health insurance. You have to take care of your
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  family. And if you're doing that through a job and you're doing the damn
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  thing, you are doing the right thing. So I am not an
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  advocate for big middle fingers towards your full-time job
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  or not having a full-time job or whatever. I don't believe that.
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  So if the reason that you're not starting your business is
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  I don't have time, I'm worried about the finances. I
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  have some sort of non-compete with my full-time job. I
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  don't want to create conflicts with my full-time job. Like,
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  all of that's valid. And if the safety and security
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  that your full-time job gives you is important to you or something that you need,
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  100%, I'm totally on your side. However, if the reason
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  that you are not starting your business or
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  positioning yourself as an expert in your field is
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  because you are worried about what other people will think,
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  that is not a reason not to bet on yourself. Put
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  plainly, other people can get bent.
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  What other people think about you is not your business.
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  What people say about you when you're not in the room has nothing to do
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  with you. If people are shitty and talk about you when you're not in the
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  room or have nasty things to say about you, let them. That's their breath
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  that they're wasting on something that has nothing to do with them. But what other
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  people will think about your decision to bet on yourself, to
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  build a side business, to share your expertise, to be
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  confident in the fact that you are who the hell you say you are, that's
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  got nothing to do with you. And it's not where you should be putting your
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  energy. And I mean that in a lot of ways. Should you not wear a
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  thing you want to wear because you're worried about what other people will think?
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  Fuck them. Should you not try a
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  new hobby because you're worried that somebody else will think that it's silly or
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  stupid? Fuck them. Like, the opinions of other people
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  should not be interfering with what you want to do. So when I say,
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  what is stopping you? What is stopping you from
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  fractionally helping other companies? What is stopping you from
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  building yourself or creating content or doing things around what you know
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  and how you can help other people and things that you think other people should
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  know in whatever way you're comfortable with. It doesn't mean that you have to
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  start a vanity project podcast just so you can talk into the microphone every
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  week and drive your producer crazy. Like, I'm not saying you have to do that.
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  It doesn't mean you have to do video content all the time. It doesn't mean,
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  it doesn't mean anything. But if you have something that you want people to know
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  and, or you think that other people could benefit from, and the only reason you're
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  not saying it is because of what some probably irrelevant white
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  dude is gonna think on the other side, that is not a reason. We
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  can do things scared. It doesn't mean you're not scared. It doesn't mean that
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  you're not worried about things. It doesn't mean that people won't have opinions.
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  But in my experience, the people who matter don't have time to have opinions
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  other than positive ones about what you're doing. They don't. The
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  people who matter are not spending the time and
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  calories on thinking about what you are doing at all.
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  And if there's anything relatively negative that they have to say about it, it is
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  a two-second blip before they go about their day. They've completely forgotten about it.
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  So what is standing in your way? Is it money? Is it
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  capital? That's real, but you'd be surprised how
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  many consulting businesses you can start without a dollar. There's so much
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  good information out there, and a lot of it is already stuff you know.
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  You might need somebody to push you in the right direction, but it's already within
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  you. Is it not having the right connections? Is it not knowing where to
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  start? That's an easy fix. Just go make some friends. Find
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  people in your, in that industry. Make some friends. Genuinely make some friends.
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  Do not make transactional friends who you want to make money off of.
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  Make friends in that industry. And you know what? Make
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  friends, meet new people, foster older
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  relationships. Because I get a ton of referrals
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  to my business every day— knock wood— and a lot
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  of the referrals I get are not even from people who are in the
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  field that I'm in. It's just somebody who knows
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  somebody, and they call and say,
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  hey, I have this friend and he's starting a startup and and knows nothing about
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  healthcare compliance. Can you help him? He's never billed before. Can you help him?
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  He's never done this before. Can you help him? That person's in like underwater
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  basket weaving, but they just know that I do healthcare things.
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  And so you will get referrals from people who are not even
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  in your ecosystem, but they run into somebody who's in your ecosystem
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  and they remember because you told them, “I am now doing
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  consulting in bowling alley maintenance.” And they're gonna meet somebody who
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  runs a bowling alley and they're gonna put you guys together because this person probably
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  needs bowling alley maintenance. I have no idea what bowling alley maintenance is. I just
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  made that up. I assume it's a thing. I'm gonna guess it's different now
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  that everything's automated, but I also, if anybody is an expert in bowling alley maintenance,
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  I would love to hear from you because I wanna know what it is now,
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  but it just came outta my mouth. So if what's stopping you is your
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  network, go build a network. If I can put on
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  pants and shoes for three days and
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  talk to a bunch of strangers at an event like I did recently.
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  You can message people on the internet unless you're a white guy
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  being creepy. Don't do that. Or any guy being creepy. Don't do that. Keep it
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  about business. Be nice. Be authentic. Don't tell people they're cute
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  unless you're another woman commenting on a woman's hair. That's
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  fine. But like, there's a lot of creeps on LinkedIn who think networking
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  is saying things about women's bodies. And it's not, it's not, it's never been. Don't
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  do that. If there is an expertise within you, and I know there is, I'm
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  certain there is. If you need help finding it, you reach out to me because
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  I will help you find it. I guaran-damn-tee you, someone
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  else who is less qualified is getting paid to
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  teach people about things you know way better. And the things that are
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  stopping you should not be the opinions of
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  anybody else. Because those people are not going to pay your bills.
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  Those people are not going to help you build a business by having a negative
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  opinion of anything. So when that pops into your head, I want you
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  to literally out loud tell those imaginary
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  people or those people who you are putting words into their
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  mouths to get fucked and go do the thing.
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  Go do the thing. One, you can bet on yourself.
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  But two, I know you have it in you. Do not stop what is in
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  front of you because of the imaginary or
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  perceived or sometimes real, and if they're real,
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  thoughts of jackasses that you are either
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  conjuring or giving way too much airspace to. Tell them to get
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  bent and get to work. Ask L2. We
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  have a question from Deborah. I hired someone
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  to take the admin off my plate, and I've spent three weeks
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  secretly redoing their work at midnight. Am I a bad
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  boss or just a bad delegator? I don't wanna say it like it's a
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  little bit of both because that's not the case. I don't think you're a bad
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  boss. You might be a bad delegator. It sounds to me like more than
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  anything, you just aren't sure how to communicate what you actually
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  want or need, but there's also a world where it's just not the right
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  person. Like, in my experience, when it's the right person,
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  after you've done the training part of it, they'll
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  know when to ask questions to get
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  the parts that they need so that they're doing it right. And so
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  this is not a criticism of that individual by any means, but like, sometimes it's
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  just not the right fit. The people who do well
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  managing me, and it requires a lot— I'm, I am a mess. I
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  need a lot of people to manage me. It, like, figure out pretty quickly
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  that sometimes it's not asking me, sometimes it's telling me.
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  Sometimes there are things that make perfect sense in my brain
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  that don't translate well, and they have to come ask me questions.
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  Sometimes it's putting time on my calendar and scheduling
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  so that I actually do the thing that they ask me to do. And they'll—
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  I had somebody who worked for me for a long time who did this, who
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  would put time on the calendar, make sure I showed up to the meeting. And
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  then when I showed up to the meeting, say, I just wanted to make sure
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  you did this thing. Bye. And leave me there. And that meant
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  that she blocked the time so that I actually looked at the things she needed
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  me to look at. But like, those are ways to get through to me. That
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  doesn't mean that's the type of stuff that you need. But first off, I would
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  try to communicate a little bit harder. And if you're making changes, you need to
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  be communicating those changes back to the person. Because if they don't get a
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  chance to do it the way you want it because you've never told them, then
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  that's a problem. But if you tell
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  them, but you still have to make those changes, then it's not the right person.
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  So first is communication. Communicate more. I get
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  overwhelmed when I have to communicate a bunch of instructions to people. And so I'm
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  much more comfortable writing out the instructions or making Loom videos
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  to show them how to do it. And then answering questions, like a limited amount
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  of questions that they might have after getting the whole visual. That's how
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  my brain works. That's how I learn better also. And so that's how
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  I tend to set those things up because the idea of like sitting on the
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  phone with somebody for an hour and talking through all of the things like that
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  sounds like my nightmare. I'm not great at that. But
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  on my own time, putting together training documents and
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  giving you the full brain dump of everything that I anticipate that you're gonna need
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  to do and showing you all of the weird
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  intricacies of different systems so that you have a version that you can
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  reference back to at any time. Like, that I love, and then I can
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  answer the other questions in the meantime. You gotta communicate with this person,
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  and if you're fixing things, they need to know that you're fixing it, not because
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  you wanna tell them they did something wrong, but because you wanna tell them the
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  right way to do whatever it was. And then if you
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  keep having to fix things after having communicated, or that person is
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  not taking enough initiative and requires that much supervision to do
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  every task, it's not the right person. That's not a criticism of them. It's just
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  there are some people who are not made for certain jobs, and that's okay. I
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  had an employee once who was somebody we all liked
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  so much, like literally one of my favorite people in the world,
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  and I enjoyed working with him so much,
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  but he could not answer chats
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  from users to save his life. We would
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  get chats and emails and he would answer them incorrectly every time.
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  And it got to a point where we were having to have him answer them
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  and then go double-check them before he could send them, which meant
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  responses were going out hours, sometimes days later,
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  because we had to have the bandwidth to double-check his work, which wasn't working.
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  And then it got to a point where we just started
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  taking things away from him because we were doing weekly coaching
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  sessions. We were walking him through everything that got responded to incorrectly. We
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  were giving him the resources. We were building new resources. We were pouring
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  so many hours into getting him where we needed him to be to be able
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  to do this role, and it just wasn't working. And that's not a criticism of
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  him. It just, for whatever reason, was not information that his brain received
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  well. And so, like, he wasn't the right person for that job.
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  And did it suck? Absolutely, because I deeply loved this
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  person and I thought he was the best. I thought he hung the moon.
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  But at this one thing, he sucked. He was bad at it, and
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  that was not good for the business. And so
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  first and foremost, always communicate, communicate, coach,
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  support, document, figure out whatever way you share information
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  back at this person. But then second, if that doesn't work,
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  assuming you are the problem, maybe there are things that you can do better, but
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  assuming you are the problem when you are doing all the work
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  instead of finding somebody who can work in that
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  ecosystem, it's going to be a lot of time of you trying to fix that
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  without getting the actual support and help that you need. So it might just be
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  you have to move on to somebody else. Thanks for being here, guys.
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  Have a good day. Love you, mean it.
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  Dude, if we get people who respond about bowling alley maintenance, we are putting them
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  on the air. We're gonna do a whole episode about bowling alley
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  maintenance.