How To Take The Shame Out of Self-Promotion

We have another question. Amazing. How’d I get here?

Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching Marie TV, the place to be to create a business and a life that you love so much, so, so much. And today’s Q&A Tuesday, and today’s question comes from Victoria. And Victoria writes, “Hi Marie, I’m wondering whether you have some tips for self-promotion, how to go about speaking well of your brand and letting the passion shine through? How not to be afraid to blow your own trumpet? You seem much better at this in the US than we are here in Australia. I always feel self-conscious and nervous when I try to promote my own business, like I’m bragging. Please help. Thanks Victoria.” Great question Victoria and I hear this all the time. You know you often hear the term “shameless self-promotion” as though there should be shame in self-promotion. I think it’s important that we slow down, and really ask ourselves this question, where did we learn that self-promotion is bad? And more importantly, why do we accept that as the truth?

As intelligent thinking human beings, why is speaking about something that we do or have done a bad thing? And why do we equate expressing joy, or confidence, or pride about our work with something we should feel shame for? It’s just crazy. I have a completely different point of view on this. In fact, I think you should feel ashamed if you don’t promote yourself. Point is, if you do something great, I want to know about it. So here are three re-frames to help you get a little more comfortable tooting your own horn. And the first one is focus on what you can give versus what you can get. So I say this every single week, right? The world needs that special gift that only you have, and I mean it. And if you hold back from self promoting you are stealing from those who need you most. So you need to really start thinking of self-promotion as service, like a public service.

On a practical level, you never know if someone needs to hear about what you do, if not for themselves, maybe for their friend or a colleague. I’m sure you’ve had this happen in your own life. You go out and you hear about what somebody does and maybe they’re a web designer and you say, “OMG, you’re exactly the kind of person I’ve been looking for. Thank goodness you said something.”

Number two is stop caring not about other people, just what they think. So many of us shy away from self-promotion because we’re afraid that people won’t like us, that they’ll judge us, that they’ll find us totally annoying. Well, guess what? People already don’t like you. They already judge you and, unfortunately, they probably find you annoying. I’m sorry to say that it’s true, but it’s true about you, and it’s true about me.

Now, the real question is who are you living your life for? I’m pretty comfortable with self-promotion and it’s not because I’m from the US, it’s because I care more about getting my ideas out there, and helping as many people as possible than I do try to live my life, trying to be unjudged, which is pretty much impossible. So you got to ask yourself, what do you want on your tombstone? What do you want them to say at your funeral?

Today, we lay Victoria to rest. She didn’t bother anyone.

Amen.

Anyone else care to say anything? Anyone?

Now, of course, we’re having some fun here, Victoria, but the point is a valid one. And, like everything else in life, there is an art to self-promoting, which brings me to my next point. Number three, do not be a broken record.

I’m so great. I’m so great. I’m so great. I’m so great. I’m so great. I’m so great.

So yes, do let us know that you’re great. Tell us why, but have other things to talk about. I mean, think about it, if you talked about your kids and only your kids again and again. Or if I talked about Game of Thrones and only Game of Thrones over and over again, it would get pretty darn boring fast. So make sure you have variety and different topics and, of course, make sure that you celebrate other people and you’ll be totally fine.

One last thing, Victoria, what you’re feeling is not just because you’re from Australia. Most of us grow up being told, “Don’t brag and don’t show off.” And I think it’s time that we all started to untangle these feelings of shame and self consciousness from sharing our gifts and offering our service to the world. And we can start by remembering this tweetable, “Instead of calling it shameless self-promotion, let’s take the shame out of it altogether.”

Victoria, that was my A to your Q, and I really hope it helps. Now, I would love to hear from you and it’s a two-parter today. So number one, have you ever held yourself back from sharing about who you are, or what you do? What fear or concern stopped you? And number two, when it comes to self-promotion, which idea from today’s episode do you need to remember the most and why? Now, as always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at marieforleo.com, so go there and leave a comment now.

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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll catch you next time on Marie TV.

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Trump your own blow. What? Somebody tooted their own horn, [inaudible 00:06:20]. Oh my God, it’s lunch time. What kind of bug? As long as it’s not a mosquito.

It’s pretty scary.

If it’s a mosquito, it needs to get out of town. Peace.