I just don’t get it. People create brilliant businesses everyday. I mean, they struggle for months or years to put their precious ideas and dreams into a successful product or service and then don’t want to spread the word about it for fear of being self-promotional and heavens forbid, for offending someone along the way by doing so!
My yoga teacher rocks.
I mean, this woman knows more about yoga and the human body than any other yoga teacher or guru I have met in the last decade, and believe me, I went looking for one. I went to a studio for years and made incremental progress; then I went to Vickie and broke substantial boundaries. Other yoga teachers call out the poses, often mixed with encouragement and inspiration and there may even be a small adjustment or nudge here or there when you are struggling with a pose.
Or they may just be doing the poses for themselves and calling it out to the class and I’ll be blunt here: yoga by demonstration is not exactly an effective form of teaching. The point is this: the mileage varies with each studio and each yoga teacher but few have ever reached the “star” status in my heart.
Enter Vickie, my current teacher. She devotes every fiber of her being and every ounce of her attention and every moment of the class to every student in each yoga class. She is not concerned about “getting her own yoga in”. She is there to teach and teach she does brilliantly! She has no qualms adjusting you or touching you, thank God, because let me tell you, when I am in yoga, I want the teacher to push and pull and poke me in every which way necessary until I get it right, until I break a boundary or find a tiny adjustment that goes a long way.
I don’t want a gentle pat, thank you! I want to clearly understand what I am doing wrong and what I could be doing better. I want a deep level of devotion and attention in my yoga practice!
She knows precisely how to help anyone at any stage of their yoga journey take the next right step. She is partly the reason I created my 10 Minute Invigorator Program. To make a long testimonial short, she rocks my yoga world and has for three happy years. After finding her, I admit that I cannot truly enjoy another yoga class because well, I’ve experienced what is to me yet the very best.
How can you go back to less after you’ve tasted the best?
Funny enough, she is also the best kept secret around in the yoga community. She does nothing to promote herself. She has a gift, a rare talent and a skill at her work, her art, and has for 30 years. This, teaching yoga and transforming bodies and minds through the practice of Baron Baptiste yoga with her, this is her brilliance, her unique gift to the world, and yet no one but a handful of random local students know about her.
She could impact the lives of tens or hundreds of people suffering from aches and pains and stress and disease and you name it but she won’t be doing that because first and foremost, it takes her telling others about herself so they know about her existence on this good earth of ours!
So that’s the story of my beloved sweet and stubborn Vickie. Are you like my Vickie when it comes to your gifts and talents and skills? Do you have a brilliant business – even if it’s a budding small one-person shop of yours that you set up just a month ago – and are afraid to talk about it or tell the world about it? Do you sit on your couch day in and day out hoping that someone will knock on the door and offer you every business opportunity simply because you started one?
Are you worried that self-promotion makes you come across sleazy or lacking integrity? Do you dread the typical salesman image?
Well, self-promotion that is driven purely out of self-interest without serving any real purpose to others can be sleazy, yes! Self-promotion of things you do not believe in and services that do not provide value should and does feel lousy, no kidding!
But what if you believe in something?
What if you have something special to offer, and yet you hide it, fearing that you will offend someone?
Who suffers then? Who loses out besides yourself?
All those people you can help, that’s who!
So you offend someone. Or two someones. Or even ten. So what? You get to help a dozen or a hundred. Or if you set our intentions clearly, even a thousand and more. Or perhaps, you help a single individual transform his or her thinking for the better because of what you do. Now all of that to me is a great trade-off so those who will be “offended”, heavens forbid, simply stop to matter in the face of all the change I can bring about.
I mean, giant corporations, many of which have a few skeletons in their closets, promote their products and services shamelessly and we don’t seem to mind!
Why?
Because they still give us something of value, something we want, something we need, or better yet, something we did not even know we wanted until we heard about it. Think Steve Jobs and his brilliance with Apple products.
They do the telling. We do the listening. We like what we hear. Magic happens. Or rather, just a good old sale. Everyone is happy. We get something we wanted and they make a bundle.
Why can’t you make bundles and packages from the fantastic offers up your sleeve?
I believe that you can and should promote the smart, savvy, and professional way by following one rule of thumb:
If you have something valuable and useful to offer, then you have a moral obligation to do that, both to you and to the world! Period.
This year I am fiercely focused on helping you exit the wrong job, define your true passions and build your dream career or business and so I wanted to get you started on this self-promotion business. So, I created a space right here baby where you can promote your business, your passion, your blog, your hobby, even your ideas, shamelessly but also in style, in a way that you offer value and help do something worthwhile for someone else.
The response has been incredible: 42 outstanding promotions in just 7 days with more trickling in.
My Ask of You Today: Be the next to promote yourself in the community?
And if you still have trouble marketing and promoting your business, or if you are in the wrong career and job to begin with and want to change that, I just opened up a few slots for February in my coaching program so contact me for a 20-minute FREE consult to see if we can make some sparks happen for you. And yes, that was self-promotion on something I truly believe in.
Now it’s your turn. What gifts are you hiding from the world? Leave a comment and tell us about how you will unleash them with poise, style and class!
PS: Photography by the fabulous Pascal Monmoine
I am Farnoosh, the founder of Prolific Living. So glad you are here. My mission is to empower you to unblock your creative genius to live your dream life.