5 Things I’ve Learned About Becoming A Thought Leader
No one would believe I was a thought leader. Thought leaders are people with experience and knowledge. I don’t think that describes me.
I’ve been in an incubator program at Founder Institute (FI) for my startup, Dally, for the last 3 months. Although the workload has been intense, there wasn’t anything that I felt has been impossible to accomplish. This was until I was given a special assignment by the regional director, Jeanine. I had 1 week to establish myself as a thought leader on 3 platforms. It could be a blog, a podcast, a YouTube channel, it didn’t matter. My gut reaction was to scream in horror, both internally and externally, call my co-founder in panic, call anyone that was willing to pick up the phone, and have a freak-out because this was my worst nightmare come to life.
The logistics of it didn’t bother me, it’s not difficult to send out pitches, what was screaming at me was my inner imposter saying, “Who would believe you’re a thought leader or have anything valuable to say?”, “What if everyone rejects you cause your writing stinks.”, “No one is going to have you as a guest on their podcast, what valuable insight could you possibly share?”
If you haven’t caught on, the “freak-out” was a procrastination tactic. It was a way to delay and convince myself that this is an impossible task and there’s no way I can do this. My fear was so deeply ingrained that I seriously considered quitting a program that I’ve been doing well in and have a chance of graduating from. The fear of putting myself out there was strong enough to get me to give up.
After my co-founder calmed me down and we talked it thru, I realized that in order to lead a company, I have to work to get over the idea that I’m an imposter. I have built a successful 20+ year marketing career, I’ve had other success small business ventures in my life, I have experience and knowledge from my entrepreneurial upbringing. “I” had to accept that I was an accomplished woman and in order to do so, I had to accepted the assignment.
Here are 5 Things I Learned in Trying To Establish Myself As A Thought Leader
1. I had to figure out why I was doing this
To overcome fear, there has to be more than someone telling you to. It was important to figure out why I want to be a thought leader and remember why I started my company. That is where passion comes from. Passion is the culmination of the idea that you have a mission or goal and it’s important enough that nothing can stand in the way and knowing your passion can help overcome fear. It’s the drive that allows us to face our greatest challenges and move mountains.
2. You can’t win if you don’t play
That’s what people say when they play the lottery. Without realizing it, I thought I can avoid losing by quitting and not risk the chance of failure. Inadvertently, I did lose because I never had the chance to win. Even though not expressing my opinions as a thought leader means I technically didn’t fail, I’m missing out on an opportunity to succeed. I learned that if I want to succeed, by taking the risk, the rewards will go beyond being a successful thought leader, it’s living a life that I want and deserve.
3. Anyone can be an expert.
An expert is someone that has comprehensive knowledge and skill in a specific area. As I researched, reading blogs and listening to podcasts, I realized there were so many experts out there like me, some with more experience and other with less. What the difference between us is, they weren’t afraid to share their expertise. I learned from their examples, if you have a message and you shout it loud and long enough, someone will listen.
4. The fear of failure can be disguised as procrastination or perfectionism
Working on the assignment was supposed to be a priority but I procrastinated. I had lots of excuses that I told myself like; I needed to focus on other tasks, if I rush my writing, it won’t be done right, I need to have the perfect blog and topic, I need good photos of me…the excuses never stopped. When I was finally forced to do it cause time was running out, I realized it was the fear of failure that held me back. I had to let go of perfectionism and allow myself to just do my best and overcome my own judgments.
5. Failure is a part of growing
Being afraid of failure has stunted my growth as I became afraid to try anything I didn’t think would result in success. Although I have an established record of success, there were opportunities where I could have excelled even more but because I risked failure, I would quit so my “record” could go untarnished. Until now, I has unwittingly held myself back and closed myself to opportunities where I could’ve blossomed and grew both personally and professionally.
I wish I can say that learning all these lessons has helped me finish the assignment quickly and easily. In actuality, I procrastinated by telling myself, I needed to research procrastination. I did get one valuable piece of advice which rang true. If I can get past my fears and do something once, why can’t I do it again and again. It’s a matter of taking one step at a time to conquer my fears. So while I still procrastinated, I still forced myself to submit a blog and face my fears. After the first submission, I submitted another one, and another one. It got easier because I stopped thinking about it so hard. If you’re wondering what the results of all those submissions were? One of my blogs got accepted and is scheduled to be published on Small Business Bonfire. I’ve also decided to start a podcast for Dally, and I am a little braver in defeating my inner imposter.
