311: Strategies to Help You Show Up For Your Audience

Hey movers, it's Sally Koering Zimney with Be Moved. Let's go create some talks that will move this world. We're gonna talk with amazing speakers, share tips, tricks, resources, and we are going to be moved so that our audience can be moved. This moved me. What is moving You're here. You made it to training number 2 of your Be Visible Challenge. We're halfway through, about. Actually, I have no idea what the date is today. No idea, but that's fine. I am in Nashville, Tennessee. Actually, scratch that. I'm in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I flew into Nashville. I'm in Chattanooga because I am recording some some things tomorrow in this amazing studio that I'll give you a little tour of tomorrow if you guys want to see it. So excited to be here. Also, you know, feeling really cautious, being extra, extra careful about everything. And I am set up right now, just so you guys can see, in this really cool loft that they're letting me stay in as a part of this. Experience in the studio. So this loft is just— the whole place is really, really cool. One of the cool things that I really love about this job is I can show up and go live with you almost anywhere. Did you guys see my speaker dance party yesterday in the wild on the streets of St. Paul? Let me know. Say hello if you're here. I see you. I'm so glad that you are making time and space to be here. So that we can really help you be more visible for your audience. But today we are talking about some hows, some strategies. We need to show up anyway, and we need to— you've heard me say this— we need to lower the bar. Okay, so I want to keep these mindsets in mind because we've been talking about a lot of things that, that hold us back from really showing up and loving up our audience. We know it's something we should do and need to do, and in many ways want to do. Like, we want to serve our audience. We want to grow our trust and authority and our connection. But the how sometimes gets in the way, right? Our resistance, our self-doubt, the, the procrastination, the perfection, the fears, the imposter syndrome, all those things that we've been talking about are real. And you're not alone in facing them. Everybody's got it. And so we've got to find ways to outsmart those pieces, outsmart those very natural self-doubts so that we aren't really— we're not playing small. Okay? You— there's a message in you. Your audience needs you. You have a story to share. And at its very foundation, that means is that we need to show up and be visible to our audience. That's where we start. So that's what we are doing together this month. I hope you have, if you haven't yet, grabbed your bingo sheet. I hope you've done that. If you haven't signed up officially, come join us there because you'll get the bingo sheet in your inbox and you'll get reminders about going live and a few other little pep talks. Yay! Okay, so here we are. We are Talking today about some hows, and there's a lot of different ways we can approach this. Last week we were talking about mindsets, and mindset is absolutely important. And sometimes when we have the right mindset, that can help shift our attitude and our approach and help us get over the hump, whatever resistance we might be feeling. But I also wanted to offer you some very tactical things that have helped me and helped many of my speakers show up anyway and lower the bar. So let's start with this. We've been talking on Mondays. Raise your hand if you are— join us Monday mornings, 8:00 AM throughout the month of January. It is our set our intention time. It is our time to really decide, okay, how am I going to show up for my audience this week? And what is the thing that we do? Together, we schedule it, right? So we decide what we're going to do and then we put it in our calendar. So I'm going to just underline that for us. Okay, that is step 1 for us, is we need to schedule it. Here's why: what gets scheduled gets done. If it doesn't live in your calendar, it's too easily negotiated away. Even when it lives in your calendar, It's easy to negotiate this kind of stuff away. So we're gonna work on not negotiating it away by scheduling it. There it is. By scheduling it. Everything looks weird. And this is so important because especially when we are struggling with that sense of it's not ready yet. It's not perfect enough yet. I'm not sure if I can do it. It ends up showing up like we're just going to prioritize other things. And what, what I want you to do is I want you to look at this time, your visibility time. You could even just call it that. This is visibility time. You're going to put visibility in, in, in your calendar, visibility time in your calendar. Maybe it's a little bit every day. Maybe it is for a few hours once a week, you're gonna batch record some things and then schedule them. You've gotta figure out what works for you, but I want you to see this as, as important as all the other things in your business. Now, of course, there are times when other things have to take priority, the urgent tends to win out always, right? And unless we put some deadlines around this and really schedule it, unless we do that, it's just never going to win out. We're never going to make it important enough. So we start by scheduling it. Okay. So let me know in the comments if you already schedule your visibility time, and I'd love to hear what works for you. What has— in your experience, as you're working to get visible, what helps you stay disciplined in the showing up? Okay. Scheduling it is one thing. Following through on that is another thing. So we schedule it and we focus on not negotiating it away. I want you to do this for your audience, but also to prove to yourself that you are worthy of this, that you can do it. And part of the way we prove it to ourselves is by not negotiating— no, not negotiating it away, by following through and showing up. When we do that, we start to feel worthy of this whole experience of stepping out front, of leading with our voice, in our story of taking up that space because we're proving to ourselves that we can and that we are a person who does that. Does that make sense? And it starts with this very little itty-bitty habit of getting it on the calendar, scheduling it, and then the discipline of following it through. Okay, so that is number one. The second thing And the second idea I want you to start embracing is this idea of what 80% means. 80% done. This is a concept that I use when I'm helping people develop their signature talk. So for those of you who have been in the Signature Talk Studio, this is not new to you. And for those of you who are gonna come join me in STS here over the next few months or year, then this is a really important concept to understand because it is how we move through. Otherwise we get stuck in content creation mode instead of ship it and show up mode. And that's what we want to do. We want to get— move through the content creation mode and ship it and show up. So the, the idea with 80% is we It's good enough to share. It's good enough to learn from. It's good enough, even though it's not as good as it could be, even though it's not perfect, which doesn't exist, but we're going for that a lot of times, even though we are going to share it and not feel great about it, even though That's how it's gonna be when we first turn to start to share it. We stop at 80%. And the reason we stop at 80%, and I want you to stop at 80% when you are building out, when you're like, okay, I'm gonna go live, I'm gonna go live in ESS on Be Live Tuesday, I'm gonna go live and I'm gonna really, I really want to be prepared. I want to make sure that I am seen as professional and polished. How do you know when you're done? How do you know when you haven't overworked it? How do you know when you're ready? Well, we're shifting it. Instead of ready, we're going to stop when you're about 80% done. And I call that ready enough. The rest of the learning to get from 80% to 90%, you're never going to get to 100%, you guys. So just if that's what you're going for and that's what you're waiting for, if you're waiting for that, it's keeping you from showing up. You can show up at 80% and there's still value to be gained for your audience. And, and, and when we show up at 80%, it's not 60%, it's not 75% where it's like, oh, this person hasn't really been thoughtful about what they're doing here. We're talking 80%. When you show up at 80%, the learning that happens between 80 and 90% can only happen on your feet. That's the only way it happens. So we spend a ton of time from 80 to 90% all by ourselves, obsessing, trying to finesse it, and like questioning everything and self-doubt. And that's such a waste of time and energy because until you ship it, and show it at 80%. That learning is going to get you to 90% so much faster, but you have to be okay with— you have to embrace that it's not at 90% yet, but it's still worthy of sharing. There's still value there, and it is okay for you to learn on your feet. It's okay. If it's at 40%, you're not ready yet, right? If it's at 60%, it's worth a little more time and energy. At 80%, go, go, go, go, go. For you perfectionists, your 80% might be other people's 90%. Or wait, opposite? What would that be? What I'm saying is you're likely at 80% faster than you think is really what I mean. You're following me on that, right? Okay. So 80%, stop there. Don't waste any more time finessing and perfecting between 80 and 90. You just need to get it out there. You just need to get out there and go, go for it. The learning that happens on our feet when we ship it and we show it is powerful and cannot be replaced. Now, if part of you is like, how do I know when I'm at 80%? And what are some boundaries that I can put in place for myself so that when I show up at 80%, I'm, I'm not freaking out, right? And I feel like I have what I need in order to do this. With a sense of self-confidence, okay? Because you're building self-trust as you do this. The more you go out there and you, and you fall on your face, it's, it's part of the growth process of self-trust. But here are some things that might help you and kind of give you some boundaries around how do I know when I'm at 80%. So everybody's 80% is going to be a little bit different. And let me be really clear too, there are some contexts that don't even need 80%. Okay, when you are there, there's— and you probably have some material that automatically you start at 75%, you just need to like take a moment and get clear in your head. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay, I know what I'm saying, I know my key points because I've done this before, right? The more you do it, the faster you can get to 80% and go. Okay. And some of you, if these are repeated consistent messages, like the kind that we develop in a signature talk, once you've done that, you can show up and get to 90% really, really fast. Okay. So it's all about practicing and allowing yourself to show up at 80% and let it be what it is. Okay. But here are some things that may help you. Set up some boundaries around what 80% is and how you can show up with 80%. So the first thing to think about is if you are doing some practicing, like, okay, I just want to say this out loud, which is always a good thing to do, say it out loud on your feet 3 times. Okay, some people just want like the prescription. Here's the prescription: say it out loud on your feet 3 times. And then go. Don't go, "Oh, that third time wasn't very good." You've done enough repetition that it's refining and refining. 3 times and go. 3 times and go. Do it 3 times on your feet, out loud, not thinking it through like in your head behind the computer. Stand up, say it out loud on your feet, 3 times. And go. That's an 80% strategy. Find your safety nets. Another thing we talk a lot about in STS is what do we need in order to show up confidently. Some days and in some contexts, you might need more safety nets than other times. So safety nets are things like a teleprompter. Safety nets are things like, for me, I outline out what I'm gonna say. So I know I've got a plan. Okay, this is a safety net for me. I have the safety net of— sometimes I'll pull up a script behind me, so it's kind of behind my computer here, behind the, the video, and I'm not reading it word for word, but it's there if I get lost and I can go grab something in my mind there if I need to. Safety nets are a little easier to hide here in this virtual world, but when you are in person, the safety nets look a little bit different. So it's finding out for yourself, what are the safety nets I need so I can show up and be present? The thing about the safety nets is sometimes your safety net is actually a crutch. It's not way below in case you fall. It's like strapping you in and holding you up artificially. Okay, those kinds of safety nets, they take away the sense of authentic connection. So for example, I was just downstairs in the studio, in the video recording studio, and they were talking about how the teleprompter is this magical thing. I like using teleprompters. I'm really comfortable using teleprompters. And they were like, that's why anchors make millions of dollars because they know how to use a teleprompter so that it doesn't sound and look like they're using a teleprompter. It takes practice to do that. It's a different strategy. You can't use a teleprompter. And just figure, if I read it, it's going to sound natural. You have to learn how to read it so that it sounds like you're just speaking it off the cuff. They're different skills. So a teleprompter may not be a safety net for you. That might be a crutch, and you need to find something else that allows you to be present and connected and show up fully heart open to your audience, to the present moment, to respond to what is actually happening in the moment. Because there's some magical things that can happen in the moment. You get an idea, you— somebody asks a question that like has you shaping things a little bit differently, or you reframe something or whatever. Like there is— it's live theater. It's meant to be live and of the moment, not something that purely lives— like, I mean, you, you can just record it and then not ever be in the same moment with your audience. We still want those, those moments to feel authentic and, and of the moment. Yes? Okay, so we practice 3 times and go. We find our safety nets. That help us show up to be present and confident and connected so that we can be ready enough, 80%. Okay, so we schedule, we've got 80%. Uh, the third piece that might surprise you, here's a really important strategy that I want you to use to help you show up anyway. Are you ready? Celebrate any and all doings. Celebrate them all, because every time you do something, you are establishing evidence for yourself that you can do it, and it helps build self-trust. So oftentimes we're like, well, I did this thing, but it was like, uh, and I don't know, and I feel kind of dumb, and nobody showed up, and we're like belittling the doing, and I want you to be like, "High five! I went live!" Nobody was there, but that's fine because someone will watch it on replay, and it was good practice, and I discovered a new way of seeing things or doing things. I stuck to my discipline. I scheduled it, and I followed through, and I did it. High five! Mel Robbins, high five! It's powerful and important, and I think we underestimate the value and importance of acknowledging the doing. Celebrate any and all doing. Doesn't mean we're not— we're lackadaisical about improving, because it's important for us to continually be working on upleveling. And but the only way to do that is by doing. So the doing has to come first. Yeah. Okay, excellent. Let's review really quickly. We're gonna schedule things and we are going to follow through on the scheduling discipline. This is a discipline. It's way more about those who just show up and do it than it is about those who are uber talented. Show up, follow through, schedule it and follow through. When you're doing it, stop at 80%. You are only going for ready enough. That's all you need. I promise you, I promise you, it is— there's more value to be gained from your audience's perspective if you show up consistently, heart open, present, responsive to their needs in the present moment, than if you say all your words perfectly and have it all perfectly planned out. I promise you are already professional enough, assuming You know what you're talking about. You have lived life experience and/or expertise. Which you do. You have enough to offer other people something. So, okay, we're going for 80%, not 90%, not 100%, okay? We stop at 80%, we go. And lastly, we celebrate any and all doing. You're going to high-five yourself at every turn and say, you know what, I did it. Because the truth is, there are a lot of people who have the dream of building a business and a message, an idea, a movement that gains traction and that people recognize and appreciate We impact people's lives with our messages. A lot of people have that dream. A lot of people. And I love it. I'm all about it. And the people who do it, the people who really do it, are those who show up bravely, even when they're not feeling it. They show up anyway. And sometimes they lower the bar and say yes and to the moment that they are given. All right, that's it for me. Let me know, team, if you have questions, comments, if you want me to dig in deeper on something. But I am very so proud of you for everything that you're doing so far. Tomorrow, I'm kind of out of pocket because