Episode 80. I’m Not Good, Successful, or Attractive Enough

I was inspired by recent conversations with some of our awesome clients, particularly surrounding feelings of not being enough. Not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not smart enough. Not unique enough. And so on.

These conversations brought up a lot of my own experiences with these thoughts and insecurities and doubts, especially since starting my own online coaching business.

Let’s talk about the thought of not feeling [adjective] enough to create a successful business online (E.g. Not pretty enough, not unique enough, not successful enough, etc).

In This Episode:

Why people saying that you’re not good enough is actually their BS and their internalization of society’s BS

In one conversation, a client shared that she was comparing herself to other coaches, but more specifically, she was associating the success of other coaches with how they look.

She also shared that throughout her life, she had experienced a lot of self criticism on her looks and had received comments from people around her about her appearance. 

Another client shared that she was struggling to think of herself as having unique thought leadership or be recognized for her zone of genius.

Because during her school days, she always felt that she was much slower than her peers to understand the concepts or materials that they were learning in class. She also shared that her parents would compare her academic performance with that of her siblings.

These types of conversations are very, very common among a lot of clients I work with. The feeling of not being good enough in some way or in multiple ways, and that leads them to think that because they’re lacking.

That’s why they think they’re not capable of building a successful online coaching business that is highly impactful in the industry, reflective of what they want to be known for, and attract ideal clients to work with them inside their paid programs. 

I’ve coached on many different variations of this topic. More examples include: 

  • My English isn’t good enough so people might prefer another coach who doesn’t have an accent when speaking English 
  • I’m too young and therefore not mature or professional enough
  • I’m not pretty enough compared to the other super successful coaches on Instagram
  • My day to day life is too boring, it’s not inspirational or inspiring enough
  • My achievements to this day are just so so. I’m just not successful enough and don’t have enough street cred 
  • The list goes on…  

Let’s start here first. When the thoughts of not being XYZ enough come up for myself or for my clients, there is usually some sort of past event or past experiences that fuel these current thoughts and affect how we apply those thoughts into the current business that you’re building. 

Honestly, those past experiences of people pointing out, oh, you’re not really good enough, and we can replace the word good with any adjective, it’s just other people’s BS and their internalization of society’s BS.

Really think about it.

All of the social or cultural norms that we are immersed in are kind of arbitrary. It’s arbitrary and context dependent.

These rules are decided by group think, which is something I learned in my first year of University in Psychology 101.

According to Britannica, groupthink is defined as a mode of thinking in which individual members of small cohesive groups tend to accept a viewpoint or conclusion that represents a perceived group consensus. Whether or not the group members believe it to be valid, correct, or optimal.

Groupthink reduces the efficiency of collective problem solving within such groups. 

I’m not making this up. They literally wrote that in the Britannica dictionary. They really said that groupthink is inefficient and hinders our ability to be even more creative or effective at problem solving and moving forward.

One of the most common phenomena I’ve observed in the coaching industry is that we literally scroll through Instagram and follow all these other big names in the online coaching space.

And we start to draw patterns among the successful coaches and we decide if there’s several clearly very successful coaches who are making a ton of money, helping a ton of people.

Because they’re doing this or they look and sound like that, and this must mean that it is not just the norm in the industry, but it’s also how you’re expected to be if you want to also be successful.

My own experiences with these types of feelings and how that led me to try to look and sound like everyone else on Instagram at the beginning of my business

Like many people who are active on Instagram and we use this platform to grow our businesses, I can share my own personal experiences with it.

When I think back to 2019 and 2020, I can definitely see that I subconsciously picked up on some “rules” or “norms” in the online coaching space, especially in business coaching.

In other words, I thought that I should be like XYZ in order to be able to attract ideal clients to my coaching program.

I thought that there were specific things I had to do in a specific way in order for my followers and potential clients to think positively of me and want to work with me.

So in the first year or year and a half of my business, I can tell you that I definitely cared quite a bit about making the right impression on my audience.

I think I continued to think in this way up until around August 2020, when I experienced a lot of profound internal shifts and I really just stopped caring about what people think.

I stopped focusing on external metrics or trying to seek out external validation, and overall, I gave a lot less [insert a certain swear word that starts with an F] here.

Instead, I started focusing on questions that mattered more to me, such as, how can I help people, what do I want to be known for, and what is the most helpful content I can possibly create even if I wasn’t signing any clients at all? 

But before I actually arrived at this point in my business, prior to that, I still cared a lot about trying to impress strangers on the Internet.

Here’s how I started to notice that this approach or strategy just wasn’t helping me as a person on an emotional level, or my business in terms of results and making money. 

Examples that contradicted what I initially thought was required to “make it “ as a successful online coach

First, I started to notice examples that contradicted what I initially thought was required to “make it “ as a successful online coach.

For example, one of my favorite shifts I’ve noticed in the online coaching space is that I’m seeing more and more diversity.

I’m not just talking about diversity in terms of what you can see from someone’s Instagram page, which could be like their cultural or racial ethnic background or their professional experiences or the geographic location that they are currently based in.

I’m also seeing more diversity in terms of who they are as a person on a deeper level that you might not necessarily be able to tell if you just look at a photo of them, but you’ll start to feel it from them, the more you consume content from them.

In a nutshell, when I compare the “more established” coaches I see online in 2019 versus today in 2020, things are looking quite different in just a span of years. And I’m here for it. 

Not only am I seeing more people who literally look like me, let’s say on a demographic level, I’m also getting introduced to way more amazing perspectives, lived experiences, lessons and challenges and how people navigated those, and so on.

Rather than feeling that these are the big names in the industry and they all pretty much look and sound the same, I can’t tell apart their marketing and messaging, so maybe that’s kinda what’s expected in the industry if I want to be successful…

Now I’m increasingly seeing coaches who are “making it” in their businesses, but each of them offer something unique, refreshing, different. And the key thing I noticed is that these individuals are owning who they are.

On the other hand, I also noticed a shift where the coaches who struggle in signing clients, more or less sound or look the same, in terms of how they portray themselves online.

Their content all use very similar verbiage. They are talking about the same how-to educational tips, motivational reels, sharing the top 5 tips to do XYZ.

I noticed that those who seem to have a harder time building traction, were the ones who seem to continue to subscribe to what they think is the norm in the coaching space.

Now, whenever someone comes to me and say that they feel like there’s a certain impression that they need to curate online, I truly believe that we can do some digging on social media and find examples of successful entrepreneurs and coaches who literally might be the polar opposite of what you think you need to be in order to have an amazing business.

What we might think is conventional. I really believe that there is less and less compelling evidence that that conventional is the standard. Especially in the online coaching and online business space.

That, in my opinion, is something I’m super excited about.

I realized that the visuals of my brand, website and content looked generic

The second observation that created profound shifts in myself and my own business was that when I looked back at the visuals of my brand, my own website and content, it all looked generic. It didn’t feel like me. It feels bland and I couldn’t feel the energy of it. It looked and sounded nice and put together. But that was about it.

A very tangible example I can share here is that if you compare the photos I shared in 2019 and 2020, versus 2021 and now in 2022, they give off very different energies and vibes.

In the former, you’d see me take the classic photos that you often see in the coaching industry. Meaning you’d see me typing on my laptop and smiling widely, in a nice coffee shop, with an aesthetic latte, all in one photo.

And I’d have different variations of that photo. Maybe I’d be looking off into the distance and doing a fake laugh. Or maybe I’d be scrolling on my phone and smiling widely. Which, but the way, unless I’m on an actual Zoom call with a client, I very rarely smile or laugh at either my phone or laptop. Even if I’m watching a funny video, my face usually looks stone cold. So… there’s that. 

Honestly, the visual elements of my brand and online presence back in 2019 and maybe at least the first half of 2020, looked like any other business coach you’d find on Instagram.

But it was around February 2021 when I did my most recent “brand photoshoot”. I started stepping out of my comfort zone by including cats in my photos. And that, my friends, was the moment that changed everything.

In all seriousness, even though the photos I did in that latest photoshoot back in February 2021 still utilized poses that are, well, I would personally argue are still pretty standard, it was the fact that I also had my cats photographed in those photoshoots that sparked a lot of massive shifts in my own visual brand since then.

Ever since seeing the cats in my photos and feeling some type of way, meaning, I was like “OMG THIS IS SO ME”.

Not only did I start posting more cat pictures (which may to a lot of people, might look silly, unprofessional, off brand, not what you’d deem appropriate for business), but I also stopped caring about what I think I’m supposed to look like, especially when it came to the visual elements of my brand.

Long story short, I turned down how much I cared about what people think and I turned up the cats.

Because I started observing these two things in the latter part of 2020, I started reevaluating how I was showing up in my own business.

As I entered into 2021, which was sort of like a breakthrough year in my own business, I started operating around the central principle of “how can I express more of who I am, what I want to be known for and how I want to help people”, rather than try to paint an image of what I think is gonna make strangers on the Internet like me and want to work with me.

What I did when I realized I was trying to look and sound like other successful coaches on Instagram

One of my personal strengths since I first started my business back in March 2019 was the ability to connect deeply with my audience.

Whether it be sharing my own personal experiences, the mistakes and challenges and lessons I went through, or whether I’m conversing with people in the DMs.

The most common feedback I’ve received from both followers and clients, since the first few months of starting my business, was that they could feel my energy and intention.

Earlier I mentioned that I felt that the visuals of my brand lacked the energy, but the substance of what I had to share and the interactions I had with actual human beings on the Internet, people could feel my honest and genuine energy through those touch points.

This was something I would hear from people, not just by passing, but they’d send me a private DM about how they really appreciated my content and that my story was really helpful and it was exactly what they’re currently going through.

People would also say that in their application forms to my coaching programs and also on our sales calls together. That is a huge indicator to me that just being me is all I need to be.

I didn’t have to try so hard to look or sound like someone else.

All people needed from me was me, using my skills and knowledge and experiences to help them, to continue sharing my own journey, story and message, and continue being a genuinely nice person on the Internet who actually wants to help people through my free content and through my coaching programs. That was it.

The more I try to change up my visual branding, the more it’s going to dilute the overall impact I have on people because this means that I’m going to look like every other business coach on Instagram.

And it’s gonna be a lot harder for the quality, impact, and substance of my content and coaching programs to reach the people who would actually really find value from what I do. 

When I pieced all of the above together, I realized that I was trying to look and sound like other successful coaches on Instagram but that’s not my vibe at all. Like, it’s literally not me. And I don’t like it.

It’s not helping me stand out in the industry, it’s not helping me “be authentic”, and it doesn’t enable me to enjoy my business to the fullest extent.

So I started to have deeper conversations with myself about how I want to show up and build my brand.

What type of visuals do I want to infuse more of in my marketing? How can I express more of myself, without diluting the quality and substance of my content, message, and thought leadership?

Also, why the heck are we equating looking or sounding a certain way, or having a certain lifestyle, or having certain accomplishments whether it’s in business or in career or any other area of life, with success in our business? 

If I were to give my own answer to this question: I’ll just simply say this for now that social conditioning and past experiences that reinforce these narratives and discourse, are so prevalent in the societies, cultures or social networks that we have lived in.

This, by the way, is an extremely loaded topic and I don’t think this episode is the pace for us to have a full discussion on it. Also because I’m continuing to explore how this has shaped me into who I am today and where I still have things to unpack on my own. 

Anyway, I also want to say that it wasn’t the fault of any specific coach on Instagram who became known for using a certain color palette in their branding. Or maybe they really genuinely love taking photos with their laptops and coffee mugs, or maybe they genuinely love the lifestyle they live, even though it’s now become super sexy and desirable to live that type of life as well.

Because, hey, some of the people we follow online, maybe genuinely love those things and these are elements that are truly authentic to them.

Rather, for a lot of newer or growing entrepreneurs and coaches, the reason why this whole social phenomenon called groupthink, which we touched on earlier in this conversation, becomes a bit of an obstacle in growing your business, is because it really roots back to how we’ve been conditioned throughout our lives.

We’ve subscribed to a lot of social norms about what is expected of us and what’s considered appropriate, respected or highly desirable.

Since starting my business, I’ve learnt that the rules we may have unknowingly followed don’t necessarily have to be true anymore

One of the most profound things I’ve learned since starting my business is that the rules we might have unknowingly followed and molded ourselves into throughout our lives don’t necessarily have to be true anymore. In fact, they might actually be a hindrance to us doing our best work as entrepreneurs.

I want to share a very personal example of how I used to think, and how I had to learn to detach from that way of thinking because I could see that it was not going to help my business whatsoever.

For most of my life, I picked up the belief that only a select few people who are at the top of their game are able to be recognized or celebrated for what they do. This really stemmed from a lot of miscellaneous things throughout my time in the school system. 

When I was in elementary school, my school would hold these ceremonies every semester where students would walk across the stage and get a ribbon that recognized their academic performance for that performance.

I remember that the yellow ribbon was for, I can’t remember exactly, but it was the better tier of results. And the other colored ribbon was for the other tier of academic performance.

Everyone else would be in the auditorium and are seated, and don’t get any celebrations or recognition. 

In high school, there were more subject specific awards or more merit based awards.

For example, the person who got the highest grade in the subject would walk across the stage and get this certificate thing. In grade 9 and 10, I didn’t get anything. I wasn’t the “best” at any subject.

So in grade 11 and 12, I worked my ass off to get the highest grades possible so I could be that student who would get the actual plaque, not just a certificate, for having the highest overall average grade/GPA for my grade. That’s what happened. In grade 11, I got a taste of what being the “best” felt like. 

But that’s not the main point I wanted to share here. I wanted to first set the context by sharing how my contextual surroundings through the school system played a role in one of my primary thought patterns throughout my childhood and young adulthood and even later on as an adult, after I started my business.

Let me explain more. 

The story about me as a competitive chess player as a kid (I promise it’s relevant to the conversation LOL)

One of my biggest life regrets goes all the way back to before I started elementary school, So I was in grade 4 or 5  when I first started learning about chess, purely out of curiosity.

I was an only child and didn’t have friends who I would see outside of school, so I wanted to do something in my spare time.

I remember my parents and I were at Best Buy one day… For those who aren’t based in North America, Best Buy is an electronics store. This was back in the day when CD-roms were a thing, and there would be these games that are on the CD.

So I saw this game called Chessmaster, which was a software on the CD that taught you how to play the game of chess and there’s like hundreds or thousands of different levels of difficulties that you can play against the computer. And I started learning the game of chess from scratch.

What started out as a way to pass time at home, eventually spilled over to my life outside of my house. I eventually joined the chess club at my elementary school.

I would ask my dad to drive me every week to these free open chess events where people of all ages and backgrounds would just hang out at this restaurant called Chili’s, which is a restaurant chain in the US, and we would just all come hang out and play chess.

Bear in mind. I was like ten or eleven years old, literally playing chess games with strangers. But of course, my dad would sit in the corner of the restaurant and keep an eye on me. And also, I started joining local chess competitions. 

Here’s where something started to happen. At first, chess was just something I really loved and had so much fun with. I loved learning. I actually even bought books and read about chess tactics and would watch analyses on famous chess games.

Eventually, I mustered up the courage and signed up to start competing in actual chess tournaments.

When I first started competing, I was okay. Not great, but it was whatever. I just felt happy to be there.

But then I started seeing my chess ratings go up after I started winning against players who had higher ratings than me.

For those who aren’t familiar, a chess rating is basically a metric that supposedly reflects your level of skill and performance. If you win against someone who has a higher rating, your rating goes up.

After every professional tournament you participate in, the chess association hosting the tournament will recalculate your new rating and it goes into this directory or system where you can see everyone’s rating.

That’s where I started noticing shifts in myself. Long story short, I started caring way more about the metric aka the rating. I cared more about winning more tournaments and wanting to compete at the state level.

I was doing well at the city level, so I wanted to compete at the state, and maybe one day, at the national level.

What used to be purely for fun and something I wanted to spend time learning, suddenly consumed every waking hour of the day. I could see myself experiencing feelings of stress, frustration, discouragement, comparison.

I would even keep scrolling through the results of tournaments in my city and as a result, I remembered the names of people who I would deem as my competitors. Again, I was like 10 or 11.

Sadly, by the time I was 12, I ended up quitting chess entirely. Meaning, I stopped going to the chess club. I stopped playing within the community. I stopped playing alone at home on the Chessmaster software. And I stopped going to competitions.

The reason was because I somehow managed to get myself to believe that I’d never be able to do well on a state level and definitely not at the national level, so why bother.

And through my creeping around and reading inspirational stories about all these chess prodigies, I could see that a lot of the players who were my age started way earlier than I did, and naturally they have been in the game longer. Again, I thought, what’s the point?

And sadly, I ultimately decided to quit because I somehow convinced my 12-year-old brain that I was not gonna be good enough, and there was no room for me in the field.

For years after that, even up until today, I still wonder what could have been if I didn’t quit. And also, I can honestly say, I do regret that I quit at that point in time.

Because in hindsight, I can see that I was only competing for one year. But I somehow managed to make a thought error that I had to be the best in the entire state or in the entire country to be deserving to compete.

I also made the thought error that I wasn’t able to catch up with players who started earlier than me. As a result, I didn’t even try.

Here’s what I’ve learned since then. Who cares if you’re not the best? Who cares if you’re not the top ten players in your age bracket in your city or state or country?

Like really, why does that matter? Why can’t you still go to competitions and make friends in your community? Why can’t you still play in your spare time?

You didn’t start playing chess because you wanted to be a worldwide chess champion. So why was I suddenly putting these external metrics on a pedestal?

This realization was something that was brewing in the back of my mind for years, and it was something that actually did unknowingly influence my business as well. 

For many of us, myself included, during the earlier parts of my business journey, I’ve seen that when we start building traction of some sort, it’s so easy to get so attached to those results.

What tends to happen is, as soon as we sign a few clients, let’s say, then all of a sudden we get into the mindset of, “OH MY GOODNESS, now I need to 10x everything and really take the business to the next level.”

For me, one of the reasons why I eventually burnt out in my business back in 2019, was because of exactly this.

I started thinking only about the numbers and how I need to do more more and more just to have more numbers, and I ultimately burnt out and stopped my business for a good seven months 

And during that downtime, I suddenly realized, “Oh shit. This is literally history repeating itself. When I was 12 , I literally quit the entire game of chess because I was so obsessed with the numbers. And now years and years later, I worked myself to the point of burnout in my business because once again.” 

I got caught up with the numbers. When I was able to see that pattern, I knew exactly what I wanted to do differently and eventually, I was ready to get myself back into the game.

Some of our thought patterns may actually be unhelpful to the point where it leads us to quit our business way too early

Now, it’s been three years since I started this coaching business, and I’m proud to say that we are still here, and I am continuously learning and growing as an entrepreneur, as a coach, and as a human being.

Because now, I really believe that there is no cap when it comes to our growth, whether it be on a personal development level and especially on a business potential level.

All that to say, we have all adopted ways of thinking that we picked up throughout our lives. 

Some of those thoughts, even if we’ve seen “evidence” that reinforces this belief, may not necessarily hold true in the context of your business.

For some of those thought patterns, it may actually be unhelpful, to the point where it leads us to quit the business way too early.

That’s why I hope that today’s episode is a starting point for us to be more open to why we think we’re not good enough to build this business. Like really, where did this belief even come from? How is this belief actually blocking us from making progress and seeing results in our businesses?

As mentioned earlier, this is a deep topic and it’s unique to every individual.

That’s why whenever a client comes to me with doubts about whether they’re good enough to make this business work, we take the time to look at what are their own lived experiences that have led them to this point and led them to question their potential as a business owner. 

And then how can we start to unwind that and coach them through it so they can actually blow their own minds and create big, big change in their own business and life.

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

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