Why embarrassment is the way to business success

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Squirrel. Squirrel. In this episode, I'm going to tell you why

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embarrassment is the way. I'm Katie McManus, business

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strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weenie cast.

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Squirrel. People have a whole bunch of

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beliefs about what it takes to be successful as a business owner. Lots of people

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believe that you have to be good at talking about yourself. Others believe that you

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have to be good at selling. While more will think that you have to have

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an advanced degree, like an MBA or something, none of

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that's true. Here's the number one most important quality

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that will lead to your business success. And it's the willingness to

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look stupid. It is the willingness to embarrass the

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out of yourself. And I'm not just talking, like, using the wrong

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word occasionally in a conversation. I'm talking full on Bridget

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Jones humiliation, which, by the way, I can't even watch those

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movies. I get so much secondhand embarrassment for her that, like,

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as it's playing, I have to, like, get up and walk it off. It's like

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my. But I get so anxious in my body for her in those movies that

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I'm like, ah, I gotta go make popcorn. Gotta go. Can't

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sit still, can't do this. That is what it takes to run a

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business, which I will say is

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incredibly hard for people in general and is harder for people with

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ADHD. Because we all have had

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experiences growing up where we didn't understand the

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instructions or not that we didn't understand the instructions. We stopped

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paying attention to what the instructions were about two minutes in, and then we did

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the activity wrong, and then we did it differently

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than everyone else, and everyone looked at us funny.

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Growing up, I did so many assignments wrong. I

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remember I watched the wrong french movie and wrote a paper on it.

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I still got credit for it because I wrote a paper on a movie, but

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I definitely miswrote down what the movie was. There were

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projects that I had to present to the class that I did it on the

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wrong thing. And every person with ADHD has some variation

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of this, you know, and it could be something from school. It could be

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showing up to a party and wearing the wrong thing or showing up late, showing

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up at the wrong time. I had a friend who once showed up to my

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birthday party the day before it happened. Like, we jived on that we

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were buddies, we both had adhd, but it's that attention to detail that we

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sometimes just kind of gloss over. We're busy paying attention to

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other things and it doesn't really jump out at us. And it's

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embarrassing because it points out that there was a moment where you weren't

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100% like everyone else, was able to do it right and you didn't do it

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right. And kids are mean. When you do something wrong as

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a kid or you do something that's different, other kids can make fun of

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you. Sometimes teachers and adults can make fun of you as

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well. So we grow up being extra sensitive

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to doing things wrong, being extra sensitive to making mistakes

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and looking stupid. Because sincerely,

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growing up, when you make a mistake publicly, you're made

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fun of for it as a child. It does kind of undercut your

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sense of safety because it is a form of rejection.

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It is a form of ostracization. Right. That's the

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word. I'm just going to say that again so I don't mispronounce it.

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It's a form of being ostracized. Speaking of

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embarrassing yourself and making mistakes. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. And growing

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up, it really can affect your sense of worthiness. So it's

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completely understandable that you're sensitive to embarrassing yourself.

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Right. Because in your mind, even though you know it's not logical,

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when you embarrass yourself, you're showing the world that you're not

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capable. You're showing the world that you make mistakes, that you weren't

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paying attention, that you do stuff wrong. And your subconscious takes that

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as, oh, my God, they're going to kick us out of the tribe, and then

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we're going to have to go and survive alone in the woods with the bears

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and the lions and the tigers, and we're going to have to be sure not

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to eat the mushrooms that'll kill us. And if we have pets or children,

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we're going to have to take care of them, too. And that's really scary for

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us. That kicks in a whole bunch of survival instincts.

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But here's the thing about starting a business and

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reinventing your life and doing something that you've never done

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before. You're going to get it wrong. You're going to make

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mistakes. Those mistakes will often be publicly viewable.

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And there's no way of building a business without doing that.

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There's no way of doing something you've never done

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before without fucking it up.

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So in 2019, I decided that I wanted to upgrade my

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business. So I invested money I did not have in a coach that was

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way more expensive than anything I had ever invested in in my life.

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And at the same time, I went to Italy for the month of October.

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I was doing a nomad year. It was fabulous. I highly recommend, if you

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run a business that is virtual, go and do this whenever you can.

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It really changes your perspective on life, but just

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setting the stage. So I just started this program. It was all about

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putting yourself out there and, like, producing yourself in the world.

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And I remember I was doing this zoom call with the

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cohort from my little kitchen in my roman

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apartment that I had gotten for my stay.

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And behind me, there was this mural, this

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beautiful mural of, like, an agora. And there are just people, like,

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milling around this fountain, this square. And my

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coach pointed to it because I had asked a question, said, write

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a post about that. Write a post about that painting in

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your kitchen, in your little roman apartment. And he said this just as

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an example of, like, anything can be content. And I was just

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getting my feet wet with social media. I was just getting my feet wet with

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posting online, because I'd really built my business up until that point by

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networking in person, by going to happy hours

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and networking events and talking to people through

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LinkedIn, really connecting with people one on one. I hadn't really promoted myself

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on social media yet, and so this is a whole new thing for me. And

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I was terrified. I was terrified of posting something stupid. I was

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terrified of writing something and having people react

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badly to it. And so my coach really pushed me. He said, you know what?

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Like, as soon as this call is over, I want you to sit down, I

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want you to take a picture of that thing, and I want you to write

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a post about it. And so I did. And I had just arrived in

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Rome, so I was really jet lagged. I'll also own that I was in Rome,

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and I was cooking, and I was drinking some wine, so I

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wasn't drunk, but I also was not really sober. And so I wrote this post,

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and, like, it was a very, like, abstract painting, and there were, like,

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these symbols around it that I didn't recognize. And I kind of, like, made an

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offhand remark in this post about the symbols meaning something, whatever.

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And one of my old professors from

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college commented on the post and said, those are

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letters from the greek Alphabet, like, the symbols, like,

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calling out that I'd made this really stupid, dumb mistake.

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And I remember this woman, Sharon, who was also in the

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cohort with me, dmed me as soon as she saw it. She's like, are you

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okay? Because I'm sure she saw that, and she's like, oh, my God, I

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would die. I would die if one of my former professors came

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in and called out such a stupid

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mistake, right? And in hindsight, I'm like, oh, my God, of course, that's

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the greek Alphabet. But my brain was not on the level at that moment.

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And I realized in that moment that this was just the first of

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many embarrassing moments that were going to happen. If I wanted to have a business,

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if I wanted to be sharing stuff online, if I wanted to promote myself and

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put myself out there, and it really desensitized me

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to future mistakes. Now, of course, there have been many embarrassing

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moments since then.

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There are endless ways to embarrass yourself as a business owner,

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especially when you get into email marketing, let me tell you. Because

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when you post something on social media, you have the control to go

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in and either edit it if you had a typo, or delete it if it's

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just a huge mistake. Embarrassment. Embarrassment

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is the way you live to

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win another day. If you accept

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that. Imagine if you have an email

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list of about 1000 people and you send out an email

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blast and you do something wrong in that email. Like

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you copied and pasted some stuff and you have like the same sentence three times

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in a row. Or maybe you had a really dumb misspelling,

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or maybe you, like, left in some lorem ipsum language from

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the filler. I've done it all, let me tell you. And

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there's nothing like that sinking feeling and

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the heat just rising in your face as you realize, oh, my God, what did

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I just say? People, like a thousand people

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just got an email with me that makes me look like an idiot. Oh, my

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God. And I remember the first couple times this happened, I would

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call one of my business besties, Kelsey Letko, and I'd

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be freaking out, and she's like, dude, it's fine. Absolutely fine. You're

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gonna send them like a funny gif. You're gonna make fun of yourself.

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You're gonna own it and laugh it off.

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And honestly, every single time I did that, I got better

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responses because people, like, appreciated that I was a human

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who made mistakes. And what's funny about this is that Kelsey has

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done this too. She's done something embarrassing, you know, along those lines, sending

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out the wrong thing. And she calls me freaking out

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so we can remind someone else that it's okay, it's not a big deal,

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but when it happens to us, it's still humiliating. It still triggers all

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that for us. So I just want to share this because there's no way of

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avoiding it. Something that you're going to have to be comfortable with as you grow

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your business and really embarrassment is the way

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I want you as a business owner. If you really want to be successful, if

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you want to be a public figure, if you want to grow this business to

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multiple seven figures, then I'm sorry to break

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it to you, but you're going to have to embarrass yourself to that

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point. This really unfortunate

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truth about starting a business, your level of

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success will always cap at your level of shame. If

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you're too ashamed to post on social media, if you're too embarrassed, guess

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what, that's gonna be a really low level of success.

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Cause that's the bare minimum, you know, if you're too ashamed to pitch

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yourself to new segments, then guess what? You're not

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getting on tv. Okay? That's going to be the cap of your success.

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If you're too embarrassed to ask people for referrals, guess what? You're

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not getting referrals. Your success will be capped there.

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So let's talk through all the embarrassing, well, not all of them. There are

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just endless embarrassing situations. But let's talk through some of the most popular

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embarrassing situations that you will find yourself in as

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a business owner, especially if you're a business owner who's offering a service and

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promoting yourself online.

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Let's start at the very beginning when you decide you want to start this

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business. Oftentimes when you decide to start a business, it's a big jump.

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You're usually starting something that is different from what you've done all

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along. I know when I started off as a coach, like, I was coming from

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sales and I had jumped jobs

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so often, like, I was so convinced that people are going to

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see that I was announcing that I was a coach, and they'd have this whole

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judgment about, like, oh, my God, like, she changes her job every year.

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Like, how long is she going to stick with this one? I projected that people

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are going to be way meaner about it than they actually were. But

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announcing who you are now, changing the narrative,

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explaining to people what you're up to now, that can be

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incredibly embarrassing. That can trigger a whole bunch

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of negative projection on other people. And the biggest

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thing that I hear, the most common thing that I hear from people in my

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world, my clients, people who come to brave biz labs, which, if you haven't come,

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I open up this group coaching call every fourth Friday of the month

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to my whole network. So you can come and ask any

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question you have about your business, how to get clients, how to market

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yourself, so on and so forth. And if you wanted to join, I want you

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to go to weeniecast.com bravebiz.

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And we have that link in the show notes as well. But it's the most

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common fear that people will look at you and look at your announcement about the

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thing that you're doing now and say, who the did they think they

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are? Like, is this a joke? No, they can't

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do that. They've never done that before. Well, guess what? If you don't

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push past that embarrassment, if you don't, like, announce that this is a

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thing that you're doing and let people think whatever they're going to think about

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it, you're never going to have a business, right? Because people

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can't hire you if they don't know that you exist and who you help and

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what you help them do. And if you're not even willing to tell the people

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in your life that this is what you do, I mean, you're not going to

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have any clients. It's impossible. Who do you think you are,

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Batman? Let's talk about Batman for a second.

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Implausible and not implausible that this guy, like, is rich as

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all these gadgets and does a butler who sets him up to go and fight

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crime. And let's not even talk about the implausibility of

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all the villains and the weirdo they do and how organized

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they seem to be. Also, what is the property value

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in, what is it Gotham? Who would want to live there?

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It sounds like a terrible place to set up home and have a family.

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And also, like, the looting that happens. Who would want to start a business

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there? Okay, so all that aside, here

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you have Bruce Wayne, very wealthy, prominent

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individual in the community. His big secret is that he's

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Batman. What marketing campaign did they do for Batman?

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How lucky did he have to be the first couple times that he

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just so happened to show up where bad was happening and he

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stopped it. And then people were like, oh, that's Batman. Cool,

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let's call him. And then they made, like a bat light and stuff, and then

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he shows up. I don't buy it. That's not

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a plausible way of things happening, right? Unless he's, like, hanging

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out in his Batmobile, dressed as Batman, listening to a police

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scanner every night, and then maybe slipping little

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flyers under the police officer's doors, like, hey, you

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got a problem you can't handle, call Batman. Yeah, I'm just not buying it. By

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the way, Batman was my favorite superhero, and is to this day.

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But not because of how rich he is or how cool he is or

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anything. It's because bats are my favorite animal, and I thought it would

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be so cool to just design your identity around bats because they're my

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favorite anyway, just in case you wanted to know that about me. So

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the baseline of embarrassment that you have to be okay with,

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you have to be okay with people knowing what your business is.

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You have to be okay with the weird judgments that you're gonna get from family

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members and from loved ones and from friends and from former

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colleagues and former classmates from your third grade. They're all going

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to have thoughts about it. And none of those thoughts are your business.

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Your business is growing. The business, your business is putting yourself out

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there and making sure people know who you

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are, who you help, and what you help them do.

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And that's it.

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The next level of embarrassment is cringe. Social

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media. And I know when you think of social media, especially if you haven't

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done it yet, and even if you have been doing it for a while, I

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bet you're thinking about, like, posting selfies and

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sharing reels of you talking while you're sitting in your house that might be

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a little messy, or people sharing really vulnerable

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things on social media. All of that

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can give you that sensation of wanting to, like, not just crawl out of

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your skin, but rip your skin off and, like, crawl under a rock. Now, of

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course, you're gonna get better at social media as you go, but it doesn't matter

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what it is that you're posting. The first few months where you're posting about your

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business and you're posting to social media and you're sharing about yourself

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are gonna be the most embarrassing months of your life. You're gonna post something

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that, years later, you're gonna go back and be like, that wasn't anything. Like, big

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whoop. But you're gonna post something, and five minutes later, you're gonna have

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this sinking feeling in your stomach, and you're gonna think, oh, my God, I can't

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believe I shared that. Oh, my God, what are people gonna think? And

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you're gonna have a full on shame spiral about it. That is

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the cost of doing business. If you're not willing to

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walk through that fire, you're not going to get any

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clients, you're not going to start making money, and you're not

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going to have a business. Embarrassment is the

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way. And as you start growing your business, there are

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going to be so many embarrassing moments where maybe you don't have any

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clients. One of the most common questions I get around the holiday

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season is, what do I say to family members when they ask me how

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my little business is going, my cute little side hustles

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going, and it's going bad. Cause you're not making any money yet,

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but you don't wanna tell them that because you don't want them to say, oh,

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well, maybe you should give up. Oh, that's too bad. Like, maybe you should just

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go back to having a real job. Yes, of course. That is a really hard

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conversation to have. There are definitely ways that you can answer that question,

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but you're not gonna be able to avoid the question. You're gonna have to face

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down the embarrassment of loved ones, well

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intentioned, mostly well intentioned loved ones, asking,

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how's your little thing going? And you're gonna have to find a way to answer.

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As it grows, as you build up your business with one on one clients,

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maybe you're consulting. Maybe you decide that you wanna launch some kind of

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workshop or group program. Guess what? 50% of the

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time when you launch a group program or a workshop, no one's gonna sign

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up. Another 20% of the time, only one or two people are

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gonna sign up for a group thing. And if you think no one signing up

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is embarrassing, try showing up to your first

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session with your quote unquote group, and there's only one person there. And

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then what do you say when you go to talk about it? Oh, the one

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participant that I had joined my group is doing really great. They're having

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success in whatever it is that you're teaching them. All

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that is part and parcel of growing a business. And in a moment, I'm going

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to tell you a little bit more about some of the really embarrassing things I've

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done.

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So I'm the type of person that I lay the track as the train is

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coming. So sometimes when I have an email campaign, I set up

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all the logic in my email marketing so that there was a campaign

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and I'd have, like, blank emails or emails that had, like, instructions

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for what the email should be, and then I'd go and write them, like, right

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before they were supposed to go out. And this one time,

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I don't know, I got distracted and I didn't do it. And what

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got sent out was like, email seven,

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write about this, this, this, and this. And it wasn't the, it was

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like, instruction for me for what I needed to write. And it went out to

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my whole f cking list, and it was just like, oh, my God, I can't

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believe I did that. And it was all my fault. It was literally that I

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just forgot to do it. And it just didn't play

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into any of my awareness for what I need to do in

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that day. And I got several unsubscribes, obviously,

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because that obviously is incredibly sloppy. But, you know, it's funny. You'd think

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that would be enough to push me to pre write all of my emails.

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I still don't write all of my emails in advance.

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You know, I just can't. It's just like, it doesn't work for me. Like, I

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have to do it as the train is coming. Now that I have more support,

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that helps me, like, get everything organized. I have things done more in

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advance. But that was honestly probably the most embarrassing thing that I've done

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with my emails. I think we all kind of walk that line as we're learning

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how to be vulnerable on social media and as we're trying to figure out what

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vulnerability we're okay with. There have definitely been times where I

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shared too much, where I shared something that I wasn't ready to

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share and people wanted to take care of me and they wanted

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to check in on me and make sure that I was good. And

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I've always just gone back and edited those, but those are easier to

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fix. And, like, once you send an email to a thousand people, there's no

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taking it back. And, like, these are minor embarrassments, but

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they still hit me like a load of bricks.

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They still made me feel that shame spiral. They still made

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me kind of jump into this panic mode of, oh, my God, I can't believe

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I just did that. Everything's going to crash and burn. People are going to

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hate me. They're going to think I'm an idiot. All this stuff. If you don't

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have the stomach for that stuff, there's way worse things that can happen.

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There's this great book by Shonda Rhimes, who's the writer creator of

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Grey's Anatomy and how to get away with murder and Bridgerton on one of my

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favorite shows. And it's this book called the year of yes.

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And she decided that she was just being too much of a wimp in her

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life. And she decided that for a year she was just

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gonna say yes to whatever people asked of her. And

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her alma mater, Dartmouth College, which is in Ivy League

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college here in the United States, if you're not from the US, asked

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her to do a commencement speech, and she hated public speaking. She was

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so terrified of it. And going into it, she was

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convinced that she would have fear snot. Like, this is what she talked about

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in her book. So she was convinced that she would get up on stage and

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breathe out of her nose and a bunch of boogers and snot would just come

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flying out of her nostrils in front of thousands of people.

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And while it was being recorded, because she was the writer, creator of Grey's

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Anatomy, and highly successful person, who people would want to see the commencement speech

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for, that absolutely can happen. We're all

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humans. We all have snot. Like, it can come out of your face

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unexpectedly when you don't want it to. It didn't happen for her,

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but it could have. There are so many embarrassing

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things, especially if you have a female body. It can happen.

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Or you're out in the world promoting your business. If you're too

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embarrassed to potentially make a mistake in your email or potentially make a mistake

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in social media, how are you ever going to

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handle it when something bigger happens? The queen

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of shame herself, Brene Brown, her Ted talk that went

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viral, her original Ted talk where she owned

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having an emotional breakdown or a mental breakdown, she

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got off stage, had a complete shame

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hangover, called her friends, panicked at them. They were

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like, oh, but, like, how many people are actually gonna watch this?

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Over the next few days, this video went viral online.

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And in the comments, like, she wants to say that she didn't look at any

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of the comments. She read every single comment. Every single comment that called her

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fat, that criticized her outfit, that called her

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stupid, and then, of course, like, she had to then reconcile. Like, oh, my God,

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I just admitted to millions of people on the Internet that I had

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a mental breakdown. I can't remember which book she talks about this, but she

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talks about, like, how she deals with most catastrophic things. She

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just binge watched Downton Abbey and ate a lot of snacks,

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which relatable. Yeah, been there, done that. But

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also, look at where she is now. She is a household

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name. I doubt anyone who's listening to this podcast has to go

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and look her up. Most of you probably have her book on your

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bookshelf or in your audible account if you want that level of

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success. Like, it's not just sometimes the fire you have to walk through,

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that is the fire you have to walk through. You have to walk

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through being seen by people

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as you are. There's no avoiding that. I want you to

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think of every single celebrity that you've seen, like, have

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a bad moment in public. Maybe they were

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drinking. Maybe something bad just happened to them and think about

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how they had to move through it. Some celebrities don't recover

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from it, and they go into hiding and they give up others,

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they push through, and that's really indicative of, like, how successful

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they're going to be in the long term. Alec Baldwin, who's had so many

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embarrassing situations and, like, awful situations in his life that,

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like, are very shame inducing. He's about to have a reality

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tv show with his wife who got called out

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for having a fake spanish accent. The lady's from Boston,

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her name is Hillary, and she had us all fooled thinking

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she was the spanish lady named Hilaria from Espana.

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Like, they have a reality tv show, they have the capability

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to withstand a ton of embarrassment

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and they're making money off of it. Like, come on. If they can

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get through the embarrassing things that they've done and still be

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successful, you can do anything.

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If you're not embarrassing yourself daily, if you're not doing

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something that's outside your comfort zone, if you're not putting yourself

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out there in a way that, like, you might get it wrong, you're not trying

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hard enough. There's no way to grow a successful

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business without embarrassing yourself, without

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making stupid mistakes, without public

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failure. So if you're not willing to fail publicly, if you're not

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willing to embarrass yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. But I

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highly recommend you do not spend the time, money and energy on trying

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to start a business. If you are willing to embarrass

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yourself, but you want to be productive with your embarrassment, you don't just

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want to embarrass yourself willy nilly all over the place and not have it get

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you anything and you're not sure what's going to help you get from where

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you are now to actually being successful in this business, then I

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invite you to book a generated income strategy call with me. Because one of the

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things that I do with my clients is I will not only help you identify

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what is your fastest path to cash, I

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help you come up with what are the things that can put you out there

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that will communicate as elegantly and as quickly as

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possible who you are, who you help, and what you help them

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do. I also edit content for my

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clients, so you're less likely to make a mistake. I don't guarantee

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no mistakes in my edits, but you're less likely to embarrass yourself with my

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eyeballs and stuff. And I'm going to show you the best

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ways for you to launch your business, for

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you to enroll clients, for you to start a group.

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So your ratio of public failure to public success

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is hopefully more in your favorite. And if you want to book a generated income

Speaker: 00:26:26

strategy call with me. Then I want you to go to winniecast.com

Speaker: 00:26:31

strategycall and remember, it doesn't matter what

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you felt like as a child. It doesn't matter what you felt like growing up.

Speaker: 00:26:38

It doesn't matter how you were made to feel in former work

Speaker: 00:26:41

environments. No one is doing things perfectly.

Speaker: 00:26:45

And when you do make a mistake, it's not a sign that

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you're less worthy. It's not a sign that you're stupid. It's not a sign that

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you're a fuck up. It's not a sign that you can't do this. It's a

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sign that you do not have the correct support for how

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your brain operates. This is one of the reasons why I've

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evolved my business consultancy business from just

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helping people start businesses to helping people with ADHD. Starting

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businesses, right. Because there's so much

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neurotypical support out there that is great for

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neurotypicals who have an easy time following all the instructions

Speaker: 00:27:22

and can check off the list and do all the

Speaker: 00:27:25

things. My clients with ADHD, they need something different.

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I needed something different when I started. When you have someone who

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understands how your brain operates and what

Speaker: 00:27:37

it needs to be able to be successful, you're able

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to let go of all the what ifs. Maybe not all of the what

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ifs. The what ifs will always come up, but you're able to let go of

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more of them so that you can actually push yourself to take action,

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even though you might embarrass the crap out of yourself.

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Oh my God, I'm so freaking

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embarrassed. No way. Cut that out of the

Speaker: 00:28:05

podcast. Just kidding. Keep it in.

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Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.