The Playing Small Tax

0:01Speaker 1:What is hiding your light actually costing you? Not just in missed opportunities or potential income, but in terms of your impact, your influence, and the person you're supposed to become. What if playing small isn't just limiting your success, What if it's limiting your service as well. Welcome to seven Minute Sunday on the switch Pivotal Quick Podcast. I am your host, Ayana Angel, and we're gonna spend the next seven minutes together getting you filled up with inspiration and goodness to get your mind primed to achieve greatness as you enter the week ahead. So this is the final episode of our series on the psychology of playing small, and today we're gonna talk about the playing small tax.

0:57Speaker 1:What it's going to cost you? What is really good to cost you when you hide your gifts from the world and sometimes even from yourself, seemingly the playing small tax. It isn't just about what you don't get every time you hide your light. You're not just limiting yourself. You're limiting everyone who could have benefited from your gifts, from your insights, from your perspectives, from your contributions. So I want to share with you for ways that the playing small tax shows up, and I'm gonna call them tax number one, tax number two, tax number three, tax number four.

1:40Speaker 1:And so the first way that playing small, the tax of it shows up is tax number one. The opportunity cost. Every chance you don't take because you don't think you're ready, qualified or experienced enough. Every application you don't submit, every hand you don't raise, every conversation you don't take the initiative to start. These aren't just missed opportunities. They're compounding losses. Every opportunity builds on the last one. When you skip the first, you miss the entire chain. Tax number two.

2:22Speaker 1:The impact costs. Your perspective matters full stop. Your experiences at value, your ideas help to solve problems. When you keep those thoughts, those solutions to yourself, you're not being humble. You are being selfish. I know it's a harsh reality. Someone needed to hear what you chose not to say. Someone needed the solution you chose to keep to yourself, so you can remember this the next time you feel yourself stifling what is bubbling up for you. Tax number three the growth cost. Playing small keeps you small. You're not growing when you consistently choose your comfort over playing into your courage. You stop developing the muscles you need for those bigger challenges and opportunities. You stay qualified for the level you've been operating at, instead of you growing qualified, gaining skills for the level you actually want to reach.

3:38Speaker 1:And finally, number four, the legacy cost. Now where legacy always feels like a big word, and so this is a big one. Every time you model displaying small action mentality, you're giving others permission to do the same. You're showing them how to show up. Some of the people that you mentored, some of the people that idolize you, quite frankly, for reasons, maybe even unknown to you, they are taking their cues from you. Your children, colleagues, friends, even they're watching how you treat your own potential. When you hide your light, you're teaching them to hide theirs. This became really clear to me how much other people are watching you and sometimes taking their cues from you. When I quit my job, blew up my life and wrote my book and went on a book tour, so many people asked me this question of like, how did you do this?

4:41Speaker 1:How did you have the courage? How did you have the strength. What was your knowledge based like before doing all of this, and that let me know that people were taking cues from me in terms of what was possible for them, and unknowingly I was becoming an example. And so that's why I switch Pivot or Quit and everything that I pour into it, and everything around the messaging and starting this podcast that has become a part of my legacy, and I'm proud of it. I don't always take all the chances that I should, but I am aware of what it costs me and other people when I don't, and so I try my best to push myself. And with that being said, I want to offer you just some insight into how you can better maybe digest this and think about this, because your expertise and your knowledge it isn't for you. It's for the people who need what you know. Your perspective isn't for you.

5:40Speaker 1:It's for the conversations that need your voice contributing to them. And your courage isn't for you. It's for the people who need to see someone go first. Like I was just talking about, when I made my switch, pivot or quit, it wasn't the common thing to do. Nobody was doing it the time. This was twenty fourteen, and people were not quitting their jobs without plans and deciding to move to other countries and taking a chance on themselves and writing books and you know, just doing all the things that I was doing. They weren't doing that. They were sticking with what was normal for them. And so the strategy I want to share with you that you can utilize it is simple, but it's not easy. We're not always looking for easy, right, So I want you to start treating your gifts like they are public utilities instead of private possessions. To think of them like electricity, where everyone needs access to it. Your insights, your abilities, your perspective, these aren't just for you to enjoy, even though a lot of times it feels like it there for you to share. Strategically, of course, and of course authentically. This

7:00Speaker 1:doesn't mean saying yes to every opportunity that comes in front of you and sharing just on a whim all the time. It means being thoughtful about where and how you contribute your gifts instead of holding on to them so tight and hoarding them out of fear of whatever. It is my challenge to you, and this is our final challenge of this series. It is the playing small audit. It involves some list making three lists to be exact. First, you're going to make an opportunities I didn't pursue list, and this is the opportunities you didn't pursue because you didn't think you were ready. Go wild with it, go back as far as you want. This list is just for you and your review. The second list is the ideas that you kept to yourself because you didn't think they were good enough. All the ideas that you can remember, even ideas that you've now seen come to light executed by other people, but you had a similar idea. You just didn't share it, You didn't act upon it, you didn't do anything with it. Write all those ideas down in this list. And your third and final list is going to consist of the moments that you stayed quiet

8:25Speaker 1:because you didn't want to stand out. You didn't want anybody looking at you. You could have spoken up and said the thing, but it felt too hard and uncomfortable in the moment. I know you probably have a few key memories of those moments, and I want you to make a list including those. And these lists don't have to be long and extensive. They can just be a couple items. It's just to get you started in acknowledging the times where you've knowingly or unknowingly held yourself back. Then, I want you to ask, ask yourself, what would have been different if I had taken those opportunities, if I had shared those ideas, if I had spoken up in those moments where I stayed quiet, not just for you, but for the people around you, what would have been different?

9:23Speaker 1:This isn't an exercise about regret and beating yourself up. It's about recognition, recognizing that playing small has a cost, and that cost compounds over time. The world doesn't need another person playing small. I can guarantee you that there's too many of us that are already doing that. It needs you amplified, bigger, bolder, better. Remember, your authentic self is your competitive advantage in so many situations. Lean into it. Thank you, Thank you so much for spending time with me today, and as always, I'm wishing you a wonderful week ahead, sending you big love and positive energy, and until next time, be well,