A short coaching talk (YouTube transcript) by George Kao about how to authentically demonstrate expertise. He argues against self-aggrandizing claims ("number one") and for a growth mindset of continual practice, showing up consistently, sharing learnings, and building authentic trust — which makes selling easier and more genuine. The talk closes with a reminder to align business with personal values.
When someone says they're number one in their field or that they are a best expert, best selling author in this or that, I always wonder by whose standards. Because when you try to prove yourself as superior in your field, you always have to try to defend that position. And you're also subconsciously strengthening your fixed mindset. So the fixed mindset is where you have this fixed identity about always being excellent. And you always have to try to prove yourself to that external standard instead of the growth mindset, which is this belief that with practice you can become anything you want and that if you are practicing, you can become better. If you're not practicing, you are probably slipping and becoming not as, not as skillful as before. So how do we authentically prove ourselves as an expert? We don't say and try to puff up our chest and say, oh, I am number one in my field. I'm best selling expert. I think all that is genuinely much of it is bs. Instead, how we prove ourselves as an expert is to show up consistently, continually practice, and try to improve ourselves and share what with our audience, what we're learning from our practice and from our experience, our own experience, as well as the experience of helping other clients. So in our content, for example, we don't say, this is the absolute truth. I know exactly what's best for everyone. These are the must dos. No, in our content, we say, this is what's working for me right now. This is what I'm learning right now. I hope it's helpful for you too. This is what's working for my clients. Maybe you should try it too. Let me know how it goes. So in our content, we don't, we simply say, what's working now? Okay, in our selling, you might say, well, George, when I'm selling, don't I have to say, I'm the number one expert in my field? No, that's all bs. When you're selling, you simply first you focus on selling to the people who already trust you. When you, when you sell to people who are skeptical and they have their arms crossed, then you have to try to puff up your chest and play the imposter syndrome game. What I mean is you, when you puff up your chest, you, you have imposter syndrome. But if the person in front of you has seen that you show up consistently, that you are in the practice, that you love your work, okay? And you simply share, hey, listen, I love this work. I care about this journey so much. I'm in the practice myself. I work with clients all the time and if you are struggling with this or you want to experience this thing, then it's something that I love to do, I love helping people with. So you know me, you know my work already from my content. Let's give it a try, see if I can help you. So therefore it's very authentic. It's not trying to like, well, you better buy now. You better, you know, it's not this kind of, this kind of energy where you're, you're sell, you're trying so hard to sell. If you ever find yourself trying hard, hard to sell, you're trying too hard. So first you've got to build trust. And when I say build trust, I don't mean using any tactics to try to get people to trust you. That's ironically not trustworthy. Building trust authentically means to show up consistently in the practice and in the improvement. And trust is earned, deservedly. Trust is earned naturally. That is authentic trust and that is authentic confidence. So when you have the authentic trust of the people in front of you, you don't need to try hard to sell. You don't need to prove yourself as an expert. They already trust you. And so you just need to be very plain in how you share about your services and your programs and your products. And if it's right for them, they will buy. It's quite simple. So I hope this is helpful. My name is George Kao, Authentic business coach. For those of you who don't know, I love talking about this stuff. How do we build business in a way that's truly from the heart? And not just from the heart in quotes, right? But truly from the heart, aligned with our values, showing up in the most real way possible. And so anyway, I always look forward to your comments and your questions and I wish you well. I wish you joy, deep joy and fulfillment as you work on your marketing and on your business. Take care.
