You are running your “expert” business.
You have a few clients,
Some sales are rolling in the door,
You are a wealth of knowledge, not the Academic type, you’re not a bookshelf.
An engineer of sort, someone who has proven their knowledge in practice and helped people get exceptional results.
Yet you hesitate and try to hide in business because deep down you don’t want to be identified with what you do, or the industry.You have a distain, possibly even a deep seeded resentment to others in your space, maybe for their practices, or the way they market, or how they even deliver their services.
You may have even had experiences with other “experts”, that left you with less than desired results, or even worse, just downright poor experiences. Then brushed over everyone in the industry with the same black and tarry paint.
So you decide to call yourself something different, to try and create distance for yourself, and to stop others thinking the same about you.
But you can’t just put a Ferrari badge on your 2010 Audi, and it not be an Audi.
Everything about it is still an Audi.
It’s just an Audi, with a Ferrari badge.
So the real issue here isn’t solved with a different name,
It is layered into how you perceive the industry, how you perceive other perceive it and yourself in it.
If you being in it, means you are now what you and others condemn them for being and doing, then you will sabotage it, even when you are trying ways to dis-identify yourself with it.
Including killing sales. Avoiding opportunities for growth. Avoiding responsibilities. Not being in the spotlight.
The problem isn’t the industry. The problems isn’t the way others do business. The problems isn’t the stories and opinions others have about it.
The problem is your perceptions, your stories, your beliefs, your fears about being this identity.
Your rejection of this identity.
You can’t be it, if you resist everything about it.
In Andre Aggassis biography,
He consistently shows an undertone of,
Hating Tennis and loving tennis.
An inner conflict.
He said he hated it,
But consistently did it.
He even said many times “I hate it, I love it”.
He was able to achieve success even with this inner turmoil and rejection of his identity,
But he ended up in a massive crisis with an out of control cocaine habit,
He dropped to the high 200 top players from number 1 for almost 2 years while he worked through his self rejection and pain.
Then when he finally owned the fact he loved Tennis, but could also be his individual self within it.
He had his best 4 years of Tennis ever and truly found his greatness both on and off the court.
Andre resisted the identity, struggled with it, then fell into a massive pain
This pain led him to a choice,
To embrace his identity and step into his greatness,
Or continue to struggle.
I have many conversations with coaches, facilitators and experts who fall into this,
They speak about how much they hate “insert identity” or label everyone in their industry with a negative label, that they would never want to be associated with, or identified with.
Coaches are all (insert negative action)
Business Consultants are (insert negative label)
Then try to call themselves something different,
Then wonder why their business isn’t growing, they aren’t putting themselves out to the world and not serving as many people as they would love to.
As a coach, a facilitator or an expert or anyone in any industry and you find yourself dis-identifying with it, labeling others in it and talking down about it.
You’ve built yourself a cage that has trapped you at your current level of success with only one way out of it.
Doing the inner work.
To step into your identity,
And show up in your space fully expressed.
I invite you to give it a go.
Until next time,
Keep Smashing Growth Ceilings.
Justin “Identity Is Key” Wiseman
