Second Cup: Make it about them, not you

0:03Speaker 1:Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before a Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is to focus on the services you are providing to other people and not on yourself. Doing so does tend to raise your profile over time, but has the upside of making you less self conscious. However your profile goes. Today's tip comes from Shira Gill, who writes about organizing and decorating and is the author of the forthcoming book Lifestyled. In her Substack newsletter, Shira offers five lessons for entrepreneurs drawn from her fifteen years of entrepreneurship.

0:55Speaker 1:Less than one was to focus on service over ego. She writes, I've found that when imposter syndrome sneaks in, the best way to get out of my own way is to shift my focus from am I good enough? To how can I help? She goes on to say that scaling while keeping service first and ego second will result in growth that feeds your spirit and bottom line. I think this advice generally makes sense for entrepreneurs and employees alike. I do a lot of public speaking, and I could obsess forever about how I look on stage and whether I'm wearing the right shoes and things like that.

1:43Speaker 1:But ultimately that just makes me nervous and doesn't do much for anyone. I am better off focusing on whether I am helping my audience figure out ways to manage their time better. Do people come away with useful tips to the follow up? Surveys indicate that people are trying things I suggested. If so, and as long as my shoes aren't their own spectacle, things will be fine. Or maybe you own a small business and you keep hearing how important it is to have professional social media accounts make yourself into some sort of influencer in order to promote your products. I mean it could be, but are you providing great products for your customers at a fair price.

2:28Speaker 1:Are people happy with what they buy? Do they tell their friends because they're happy and your products make their lives better? Then keep doing that serving your customers, and people will follow your Instagram account if they want to or they won't. But having carefully staged photos of you looking a certain way which you may or may not look naturally and your products with pithy captions doesn't need to be the main thing. Or maybe you're a bank teller, you could focus on delivering excellent service to all the customers you encounter while being a great colleague to other people who work in your bank. You don't need to become obsessed with whether you are the brank teller every one knows by name. It's about your customers and colleagues and not about you. Now. I know that, depending on your work configuration, you may need to pay attention to your personal brand. You may need to make sure that you are spending time on promotable work and that your boss knows what you are contributing to the company. I get that, but in general, most of your attention should be on what you are offering and not on how

3:43Speaker 1:you are seen. Putting service over ego and focusing on others means you are more likely to provide what your customers, clients, and colleagues need that will benefit then. More likely than not, it will also benefit you professionally over time. But you'll definitely feel less self conscious about being in front of people. No need for impostor syndrome, because no one is an impostor when they are genuinely serving others. In the meantime, this is Laura, Thanks for listening and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast.

4:33Speaker 1:If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.