Episode 159. Growing Your Business as a High Achieving Entrepreneur Who Feels Average and NOT Good Enough

Even if you have a thought leadership framework or strategy in place, it is natural to still feel not good enough or not qualified to build thought leadership.

In This Episode:

My story on feeling like you’re good at what you do, but you’re not the best
How to become known even despite feeling not good enough
Thought leadership is a skill you can develop and hone

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If You Don’t Feel Qualified to Build Thought Leadership…

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I want to unpack a sentiment that many of us feel, myself included, which is feeling like you’re good, but not great.

In other words, even though you might feel like you identify as an ambitious and hardworking person, a high achiever, you also simultaneously feel like you’re average or slightly above average at best.You feel like an average high achiever.

It’s like you do feel like you’re good at what you do, but you’re not the best. As a result, the recognition you get is just kinda, so so. You feel like people do know that you’re good at what you do, but that’s about it.

The ultimate celebration and recognition always goes to the small percentage of people who are seen as the best and hence are better than you in whatever that you’re comparing yourself to. You ARE good, but you’re not good enough.

This feeling of not being good enough is highly prevalent among us entrepreneurs. And I think it’s especially prevalent for those of us who do have the drive and work ethic, we also do identify as someone who is high achieving or capable of achieving big things.

But because we feel like we’re not as good as other entrepreneurs or professionals – whether because they’re way more established, making way more money or they’re super well known in their space and are now speakers and authors.

We feel like we have to compensate by working really, really hard, by doing more, and by doing better so we can also be recognized for the value we bring to our industry and become known for the work that we do.

My story on feeling like you’re good at what you do, but you’re not the best

Just like many others who might be listening to this, my parents played an influential role in the views I hold today.

My dad, in particular, played the biggest role in a lot of the beliefs I held about success and career. He is someone who really believes in the importance of being a hard worker.

He has always emphasized that even though his own family was very poor and he himself was not the most talented or smartest person, he prided himself as being someone extremely hard working.

He never gave up despite rejections, failures or embarrassments. He really embodied his own core values of hard work, commitment, never complaining, and never quitting. That’s how he was able to persist through many challenges in his life and career, and was able to make an income that provided me, his only child, with a very healthy and comfortable lifestyle.

Because I had seen how his hard work was the reason why I had the privilege that I had while growing up, the concept of being a hard worker in every area of my life was deeply imprinted in me.

Also, throughout school, my dad constantly perpetuated the importance of hard work. For example, in high school, when it was exam season, I would go to sleep for a few hours between 11 to 3am, and then wake up at 3am to continue studying.

My dad would actually support this by coming to wake me up at 3am and cook breakfast for me at 3am. Okay, well, maybe it’s not breakfast. But the point is, perhaps he and I both had an extreme view on the notion of hard work. Either way, I really believed in the importance of hard work and persistence from a young age.

As I continued to grow up and found myself in more and more competitive academic environments, I felt that even if I wasn’t necessarily the smartest and brightest in the room, I surely would compensate for this by being extremely dedicated and hardworking.

All the way up until my junior and senior year of high school, I always felt like I was a good student and got really good grades. But I was usually just second best in the class, at best.

Quick throwback. Back in primary school, I studied in a local Hong Kong school for Grade 1 and 2. Back in the day, the teacher would actually read out the results of the top scorers of the class.

I remembered in Grade 1 and Grade 2, the teacher would announce the results and say, “So and so got 6 As this semester. And Cheryl got 4 As.” Keep in mind I was like 7 years old. So from a young age, I always felt like I was good, but I’m not the best.

This carried over to my high school, where in freshman and sophomore years, I was not bad at all when it comes to my grades. I’ve always gotten pretty good grades. But at those award ceremonies every year where they would celebrate the top scorers in each subject and announce who got the highest overall average grade of the class, it was not me.

I remembered back then, I felt, well, jealousy and comparison. But at the same time, I also felt like I had to do better. I HAVE to study more. I HAVE to clock in more hours to study next academic year. Because I wanted to be acknowledged for my own efforts.

In junior and senior year of high school, that’s what I did. I studied my ass off and when the award ceremonies came around again, this time, it was me who got the top GPA award.

But, you know what’s fascinating? When I graduated high school, even though I “hit my goal”, I felt oddly empty. I remember feeling really depressed around graduation time because I felt that even though I hit this major milestone and got the recognition for it, it felt strangely empty.

In hindsight , I can understand why this was the case. I think for many of us, we chased goals or metrics of success that honestly weren’t our own goals or how we’d define success.

And because we would hustle and grind our way to achieve some other person’s definition of success or what a successful life, career or business looks like, it makes sense that when we do hit certain milestones, it doesn’t make us feel any better about ourselves or how we feel about our life.

Because we haven’t spent any time doing what matters to us. We don’t know enough about what goals matter to us and as a result, we haven’t made time for what matters most to us.

Fast forward a few more years, I continued to see this exact pattern come up for me for years beyond high school, and also later on in my own business, especially in the first year of my business.

For example, in University, I focused on studying and getting a 4.0 GPA, but did not make much effort to build genuine friendships. Throughout my four years in University, I constantly felt alone and isolated. But I still didn’t do anything outside of my comfort zone to meet new friends, whether through school events or my existing social circles or even outside of my connections.

After university, I went to law school thinking that being a lawyer would be super fancy and prestigious and it would look good to be a lawyer. But in my first year of law school, I was like, ”Oh shit, this career path is NOT for me whatsoever.” And as many of you may know, I quit law school in 2018.

Even when I started my business in early 2019, this old behavior pattern and identity still continued to creep up.

I remember that when I first started my online coaching business, I would feel so below average compared to everyone else I saw on Instagram. There were already so many established entrepreneurs with large audiences, beautiful websites and brand photos, and many of them were already highly successful and created 6 or multiple figures in their business. I felt so inferior.

Because I was navigating so much self doubt and comparisons during the first 5 or months of my business, between March 2019 to August 2019, I really believed that I had to work my utmost hardest to “make it” as a new entrepreneur.

I thought I had to do 20 different things at once and go for quantity, because I thought that is what’s going to help me repeat success, just like how it worked back in school.

I thought that if I kept doing these things and did more of them, then I’ll be practicing my skills at the same time, so I’m hitting both the quantity AND quality markers, right? So that’s exactly what I did.

For those 5-ish months, on top of my full-time job as a research assistant, I also worked with 1:1 clients, posted on Instagram stories every day, posted several times on my Instagram feed every week, had a private Facebook group where I did weekly and month challenges and Facebook live streams, sent out weekly email newsletters, participated in other people’s Facebook groups, posted on LinkedIn, started a podcast…

I even posted a few YouTube videos before closing that down because it was just too much for me. That’s a lot of work, especially for a side hustler! That led me to burn out.

I got to a point around August 2019 where the business no longer felt worth continuing, despite creating some noticeable results for someone who just started their business.

I was signing clients and starting to position myself as a coach. But it was no longer worth the toll it had on my mental health, my physical health, my relationships with my loved ones, my focus at my full-time job, and so on. It was no longer worth it anymore.

All of this manifested because I really, really believed that what I was doing, still wasn’t enough and I wasn’t doing it good enough, and that I just wasn’t good enough.

Even though yes, I did sign clients and was starting to see traction in my business, I still felt like an average high achiever. Good, but not great.

How to become known even despite feeling not good enough

This is also a huge reason why so many entrepreneurs will consume podcasts or YouTube videos about content how-to tips, content strategy, etc. All of that information intellectually does make sense.

But when you have to implement those tips and strategies, you feel completely stuck.

Or it feels like no matter how hard you try, the content you produce still looks and sounds like everyone else’s.

The problem here isn’t because the suggested advice doesn’t work. It’s also not because the content strategy wasn’t “customized” to your unique business or brand.

Rather, the issue is, you don’t feel confident in your own voice. Heck, you don’t even know what your “unique voice” is. Like, what does that even mean!?!?

To top it off, you’ve consumed so much from others that you start to pick up on their language or style of writing, and now it’s showing up in your own work

But here’s the thing. In 2024, it is IMPERATIVE to develop your own unique voice (and become known for it).

Let’s unpack 2 ways you can start honing in on your voice and start to amplify it both online and offline.

First, let’s talk about speaking from your own voice, without the infiltration of other people’s voices.

We as consumers are tired of content, marketing and selling that is formulaic. We want to see content, marketing and selling that is creative. That’s different.

A lot of entrepreneurs have the misconception that they need to use certain marketing language or phrases or tactics to get people to buy from them. But nowadays, if anything, totally NOT following these “best practices” may actually help you differentiate yourself in the market.

The more you’re caught up with the “I NEED to be saying this certain phrase in my marketing”, the more you’re letting other marketer’s voices mask your own voice, which is what your clients are actually craving for. They could care less about the marketing phrases or sales tactics you’re embedding in your copy.

A question to filter your content/marketing/selling post through is: What is your truth? Is what you’ve written – is that your truth?

To take it a step further, what is your story and how does your story tie in with what you’re teaching and why you’re teaching?

What are your non-entrepreneur experiences that shape the entrepreneur that you are today? How did those past experiences influence the content piece that you’re writing?

For example, I used to really struggle with my own voice in the online entrepreneurial/online coaching space because I was so… almost obsessed with what other coaches are saying and how they’re saying it.

So much so that I forgot my own voice. I lost touch with my own story and past experiences and hence totally forgot that I could actually develop an opinion or perspective of my own, without looking and creeping around other entrepreneurs.

This is the reason why I now lean into my story and the experiences that shape the way I think.

For instance, my story of quitting my PhD and my story of going from side hustler to entrepreneur – these two stories in particular help my people see WHY I now talk so much about thought leadership and building a body of work.

Because I had spent years building a body of work and honing my skills and craft and becoming known for my story, my thoughts and ideas, skill sets and what I help others with, I was able to leave my PhD and move abroad to be with my loved ones during the Covid pandemic, after being separated from my husband for almost two years.

I share my story while talking about thought leadership because people want to know the backstory behind why we think the way we think. Without the backstory, your “educational content” or marketing pieces will lack depth.

It’s like you’re telling people how to do something or you’re trying to convince them to do something, but your audience legit doesn’t know why you’re saying it. They don’t know the story behind it.

But when you do share the story, people are able to connect with you.

We, as human beings, need and want to know why you believe what you believe.

When it comes to developing your unique voice, part of this comes with being able to discern where or when you’re not speaking from your own story, truth, or experiences. And be able to identify when your words are being heavily overshadowed by the voices of others in your niche or industry.

Which, by the way, is why inside The Thought Leader Club we help you first develop an acute understanding of your unique voice. Then, we create an evaluation system to know whether you’re speaking in your own voice or from someone else’s.

In TLC, there is no content template you can simply plug and play. Instead, everything we work on inside TLC is bespoke and crafted to match your story, your lived experiences, perspectives, and everything that makes you, YOU.

The result is that moving forward, people will know when it’s a piece of content from you because your voice shines through. If anything, others will probably start to look to you for content inspiration!

TLC is THE room to:

Start putting in the reps to create your thought leader career and become highly prolific and consistent at building thought leadership
Build a body of work that lets you become known for your unique thought leadership, your story, and how amazing you are at what you do
And ultimately set yourself up for making your 1-3 year dreams a reality.

Your next step is to book a discovery call with me. You can schedule a discovery call by first filling out a short application form on the sales page for The Thought Leader Club. After you submit the form, you’ll get a link to book a discovery call.

Now, another nugget I want to offer is to learn to acknowledge the limitations of your ideas.

The truth is, not everyone is able to critique their own work or look at their own work with brutal honesty.

Think about it: How often do you ask someone for feedback but their feedback is just kinda flat/fluffy? That’s because not everyone can offer constructive feedback.

When you’re able to pinpoint where your own gaps are, the limitations in your arguments, and then, literally communicate that to your audience via your body of work, this actually shows that you are sharply aware and observant.

It shows the depth of your thinking. It also shows honesty and humility. All of which are qualities of an excellent thought leader, in my own opinion.

So how can you start flexing your muscle for being more self aware of your own work in a constructive way?

One thing that we like to do inside TLC is to seek feedback from each other. Especially if this is a brand new muscle you’re building, it’s gonna be kinda hard to judge your own ideas. Maybe you’re soooo excited about the idea you’re writing about, or maybe you’ve spent hours plagued with self doubt about what your audience on LinkedIn will think if you go ahead and publish it.

Because you’re already likely in a heightened emotional state, judging your own work might not be entirely feasible.

So seek our peers or mentors you trust to review your work and have them offer a new perspective, poke at any holes or gaps, and ultimately help you see the potential of your content in a fresh new light.

To summarize two ways you can start honing in on your voice and start to amplify it both online and offline:

Start learning to to speak in your own voice, without the influence of other peoples’ voices
Start learning to identify the weaknesses in your ideas

What’s a common thread that runs between these two tips? Both of them are skills that you can develop, practice, and hone.

You can get better at speaking from your own voice and get better in being able to critique your own work in a way that actually strengthens your credibility, rather than take away from it.

This is also why, even if you feel like you’re just average at best right now, and concepts like “thought leadership” feel really far fetched, I want to emphasize that you can 100% build thought leadership, and you can definitely become known for your unique thought leadership.

It’s not a fixed trait you were born with. It’s a choice to become known for something and it’s a choice to put in the work to become known for exactly that.

Thought leadership is a skill you can develop and hone

The value and impact of what you do is not dependent on how average you are. Or how “not good enough” you are.

Don’t limit and restrict your potential because of these stories you’re telling yourself.

A totally different perspective for you to chew on: If entrepreneurs and thought leaders do unconventional things like start a business, then why should you, as someone who has that entrepreneurial spirit, subscribe to conventional metrics of what is “good enough”?

If anything, shouldn’t you, as an entrepreneur or aspiring thought leader, NOT want your impact, potential, value and worth be measured by “common” societal expectations or standards of what is “good enough”?

Because ultimately, entrepreneurs and thought leaders help people.

For some, depending on the nature of their industry, creating something highly innovative is part of the goal.

For others, it simply means offering a solution or a different perspective that solves a particular problem.

Either way, the end goal is to help people.

You don’t need to be “good enough” to help someone. Even if you think you’re absolutely trash at something, you can still help someone, in some way.

This is also exactly what I see thought leadership to be – using the thoughts already inside your head, and using it to do something good in this world. It’s leading with your thoughts to create change and impact for others.

Even if you think you’re good, but not good enough, I hope you will continue to look at your work as an entrepreneur and as a thought leader through the lens of “I’m doing this to help someone”.

Be committed to helping people through the work you do and through the body of work you’re building.

And hey, even if you’re building your business to make money or to create your dream lifestyle, which, by the way, that’s expected. Nothing wrong with that. I’m doing that too.

I also want to urge you to consider how committed you are to helping people through your business and thought leader career, in addition to the beautiful benefits attached to having a business, like more income, more flexibility, more career options, and so on.

How much you care about helping people has nothing to do with how much money you make or how good enough or not good enough you think you are.

As we near the end of today’s conversation, I want to spend the rest of this episode speaking to those of you who are really, really resonating with this conversation and are ready and committed to do the work.

Meaning, you’re ready and committed to building your body of work and becoming known for your unique thought leadership in order to do something amazing in this world.

If this is you, then I’m also going to guess that right now, you’re craving to show up bigger and bolder, both online and offline, in order to make a name for yourself, confidently speak on topics that matter to you, and attract clients and opportunities from all over the world.

That said, this version of you sure as hell isn’t someone who follows “step-by-step blueprints to get clients and create a 10k month”.

You’re DONE with being who you were told you’re “supposed” to be.

There is a version of you that is cool, confident, creative, and playful AF, speaks articulately with conviction, and is damn good at what you do.

And this version of you is recognized for exactly this. People are captivated by your story, they love being in your audience and hearing your perspectives and ideas, and they know that you’re THE person they NEED to work with, right now.

And guess what? You’re not going to need to get a PhD or another “legit credential” to make this happen. You won’t need to post those “humble brag” posts on LinkedIn just to impress clients and get them to want to work with you.

There’s no need to fake a certain personality just to make yourself more likable and palatable. You also don’t need to creep other entrepreneurs in your space and analyze their Instagram content or take notes on their podcast episodes because you don’t trust that you have the aptitude to create good content on your own.

Here’s what you will need moving forward: Becoming known for your unique thought leadership and building a body of work that captures that thought leadership. This is precisely the work we do inside The Thought Leader Club.

Sounds good? Awesome. Let’s get to work.