Stepping Into The Light of How Others Perceive You
Take a moment to ask yourself an important business question:
** Do others see you as you see yourself? **
Think about it. If you asked family, friends, and colleagues for five hashtags that describe you, what would they be? And how would that make you feel?
We all go through times when we feel low or regret certain business decisions. But what if that’s your default position? Low self-value can chip away at success in many aspects of life, including your business. You’ll recognize it in symptoms like fear, uncertainty, and doubt – or “FUD” – a term coined by computer architect Gene Amdahl to describe IBM-instilled skepticism before leaving to found Amdahl Corporation.
Self-value plays an essential role in our lives. It can affect relationships as well as the profitability and growth of your business. It’s essential to take the time to consider whether others see you in a different light than you see yourself.
We think great leaders have a ton of confidence. But we all can be pretty critical of ourselves, whereas others have a different perspective on us – they have the opportunity to see our brilliance and the “light we shine.”
At Slater Success Coaching, it’s our protocol for all clients to examine the gulf between their self-evaluation vs. their observations of how others perceive them. It is a critical tool in helping them step into their brilliance and confidence. And it’s indispensable for these leaders to see themselves in the (usually brighter) shining light of how others see them.
I recently gave a TEDx Talk on exactly this subject, titled “Do Others See You As You See Yourself?”
· See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxT-v9ND3oo
In it, I cite two women leaders who have spoken knowingly and eloquently on the value of knowing who you are:
Barbara Corcoran, The Corcoran Group, has been known to say that she looks to “work for people who have a great idea and who are smart. BUT …
o … It’s OK to have a little self-doubt …
o … It’s OK not be fully self-confident …
o … in order to earn your leadership.”
She believes that “when somebody has that little bit of self-doubt, it’s the motivation to build, grow, and scale
Maya Angelou also has a wonderful quote: “When someone shows you who they are for the first time, believe them!”
My 92-year-old mother has that same gift to motivate, build and grow. She grew up in a different time and place where she wasn’t highly educated and did bookkeeping to pay the bills. Yet, she has grit, smarts, and intuition and knows how to manage money and data better than any CFO I encounter today.
In the early days of getting Slater Success Coaching off the ground, Mom was sitting in a retreat I was running on strategic planning for CEO’s and laterremarked to me:
“Ivy, you’re helping others tremendously and adding value to your clients’ businesses. But you’re not helping yourself in that same way. You’re not charging enough for the value you offer clients.”
Mom encouraged me to step into my own value. She had that outside perspective, that mirror we fail to see for ourselves. Right then and there, I committed to shift my mindset and to charge clients for the value they told me they were getting from our consulting. I resolved to step into the brilliance of the reflection others see in me.
At Slater Success, we help businesses scale, plan long-range, and plot their succession. These days, I also make a point of encouraging leaders to step into their brilliance and confidence.
To bring home this point, in the course of doing a strategic plan for a law firm, I asked the founder an important question critical to financial planning:
“What are you, the firm’s founder, charging out as an hourly rate, and how different is that from the hourly rate charged out by your attorneys?”
She responded: “We’re all high value, and so I charge all of us at the same rate.”
I asked: “Would you be open to shifting your mindset and seeing yourself as others see you?”
Someone who founded the firm.
Someone who hired all of these high-value attorneys.
Someone with the resourcefulness and creativity to build the firm into what it’s become today.
Someone who’s brought in valuable clients and millions of dollars.
She hesitated and asked for time to consider how clients would feel if she raised her rate.
Weeks passed, and she reported that she had raised her rate.
More time passed, and she told me how shocked she was that no clients ever even mentioned the rate increase, much less questioned its value.
To bring it all home, having a little self-doubt is OK – it can fuel the drive to create, flourish, and scale. It’s just as essential to own the reflection of how others see – who you really are. Step into that power and own it.
Be the leader you admire and see in others because you already are that person. You just haven’t looked in that mirror and owned it.
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