Ep 50: Don't Be Normal. Why Average is Boring and How to Stand Out with Authenticity

EPISODE 50

 
 
 

Are you caught in the paradox of wanting to be seen yet afraid to be different?

This week, we hit the big 5-0 with our podcast episodes and we're marking it with an exploration of this conundrum. As we unpack the struggle of being conspicuous versus blending in, we spotlight Threads, a platform that champions uniqueness and authenticity. We also share insights from Sarah Ashman about the universal challenge of standing out while fitting in.

“Don’t be normal. Don’t fit in. Don’t lean on trying to fit in and being average. Average is boring.”
— Christina Edwards

Then, we take a deep breath and plunge into overcoming the trepidation attached to standing out. We delve into the power of grit as a driving force that keeps us moving forward, even in the face of failure. We discuss the danger of suppressing your unique voice just to fit in and emphasize the importance of persisting, even when it appears your efforts are not yielding immediate results. Remember, Rome was not built in a day; it may take more than one or ten episodes to make a significant impact.

Wrapping up, we dissect the relationship between effort, grit, and resilience. We make a case for praising effort over success— a philosophy that holds the potential to revolutionize parenting and personal development. We also tackle the challenge of standing out, the authenticity that it demands, and the role of a coach in helping you achieve your goals. As we conclude our milestone 50th episode, we hope to leave you with a greater appreciation for your unique voice and the tenacity to keep pushing, no matter what.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Purpose and Profit Club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission-driven creatives and social entrepreneurs. Get ready to stop dreaming and start doing. Here ideas become action. We prioritize purpose and profit. You ready, let's go. Today I'm celebrating episode 50 of the podcast 5050. I'm excited and just pumped that I'm here. I had the idea to really start the podcast. I remember it was October, I think, of last year and I hit the gas and just said let's go, let's try this, let's go. And it's been challenging, it's been fun, it's been educational, it's been inspirational, it's been motivating, it's been all the things. It also has had moments like learning GarageBand. I didn't have any desire to learn GarageBand y'all, but I learned it. And, like anything worth doing, there are bumps in the road of figuring out my SOPs, figuring out my promotion plan, figuring it out, and this process has been a good test into my own work. Episode one was minimum viable MVP method of getting your idea out into the world and that's what I did with this podcast. So taking a moment to celebrate and we're digging into this idea of putting your work out into the world. Putting, whether it's a service or a program, or your mission or whatever it is, out into the world is really just the first step. It's actually just the first step, but getting your work noticed, visible and funded is the most important step. A lot of us get our idea out into the world. We press post on the blog, we press send on the outreach email. We have the first thing and then we're like where is everybody? And this idea of don't be normal, Don't fit in, don't lean on trying to fit in and lean on being average, average is boring. That's the theme of today's episode and this podcast is an example of that. Because in order to stand out in a world that has a lot of podcasts right, that has a pretty saturated market, I cannot do this well if I just want to blend in and fit in with every other podcast out there. So Threads recently launched. Threads is kind of Facebook's answer to Twitter and it's been fun to hang out on there and a couple of things have come out of that. Right out of the gate. One, I've noticed that people are willing to just embrace their weird or the embrace their curiosity or their just I'm just going to fly by the seat of my pants and kind of post something and not overthink it on this app and I think they're doing that because it's new and the thought behind that or the belief behind that is well, it's new. We're all kind of just figuring it out and winging it anyway, and for that reason, a lot of us on there have enjoyed it more. A lot of people who are following different accounts are enjoying the just, you know, sneak behind the curtain, the realness of everybody on there. It's not so serious. It's not about, you know, creating the perfect post and the perfect feed and saying the perfect thing. One of my posts recently was like I love that there's no best practices. Yet there's no best practices. Just do whatever you want, just put your thoughts out into the world, and that's been really fun. I came across a new follower I hadn't really connected with her too much and she said this thing first, I want to attribute it to her, so her name is Sarah Ashman and she said so many entrepreneurs, and I would say also nonprofits, struggle with this. Okay, she says the simultaneous desire to stand out and fit in, simultaneous desire to stand out and fit in, and I was like, yes, that's it. As I was developing the notes for this podcast episode of just like, don't be normal, don't be average, normal doesn't stand out, but we want to be normal, why? Because we also want to be liked, we want to fit in, we want to be in the in-crowd, we want to be part of a group and that's like human nature at its core right. We want a group of people who get us, who believe us, who support us. And so it's like this weird dissonance when you are putting your work out into the world when it's to fund a program, it's launching an online campaign, it's pitching donor prospects right, just putting yourself out into the world, sending an email that doesn't sound like a big, homogenous brand email but instead actually sounds like your unique point of view, you're butt up against this, this, this dissonance between who do I sound like me and stand out until the truth, or should I just sound homogenous and safe and blend in and be normal? Don't be weird, be normal, right. When you do that, you blend in with everyone and then you don't stand out. And then you come to me and you say organization Isn't getting getting notice, our organization is underfunded, help. And I go and I audit what you've been doing, what your marketing looks like, what your story telling, what your appeals look like. It's very, very normal. It's very, very vanilla, okay, so I get it. I think the first piece is this awareness piece of it is normal to want to fit in. It is normal to want to like, find your community and be liked and not have people hit, reply to your emails and tell you they don't agree. Right, that's a normal desire. But when you're fueled by that desire, it keeps you small, it keeps you safe, it keeps you underfunded. You see, yeah, one of the first times I got feedback that was I'm laughing because they meant it in an unkind way but one of the first pieces of unkind feedback I had on a webinar Was basically you're too excited, you sound too excited, christina. Which, mike, okay, that, that is my personality, it is coming through. It sounds like you're not for me, but they wanted to tell me that and my thought about it was Well, this is awesome. I'm in the arena, I'm ruffling a few feathers, even if I'm not even saying anything polarizing or controversial, anything like that. I'm just too damn excited for this person, right? Or another person I remember responded this is a few years back saying you email too much. Okay, right, that kind of piece of like in order to warrant a response like you're too excited, are you Too much? It means that I'm in the arena, putting my work, putting my stories out in the into the universe. Right? At least that's a nudge of like. I cannot be for all people. If I'm for all people, I end up being for no people. Right? It's a very, very just okay. So today's episode that's a long intro, but today's episode is really a prompt to urge you to. Number one realize it's totally normal like to want to just blend in and that's likely a big component that's keeping your growth stuck. Okay, there was an Instagram real that I said a remix with, so it's on my Instagram page. You can see it. It's from Jesse it's learn. Just Jesse, it's learn. I lovingly call him Mr Sarah Blakely, so he is married to Spanx founder Sarah Blakely and they're just a fun couple to follow on Instagram and he's been doing a lot of motivational speaking. So he'll go here. They're everywhere and do a lot of these motivational Speaking engagements and one of the clips I had to share was like super fired up about and I want to share that with you here. So he was talking about this saturated market and in this instance it was the saturated market of podcasts. He shared that there are two million plus podcasts on Apple. Okay, of that two million, half a million, five hundred thousand only did one episode. And then they gave up. What one episode. And I was just like, oh my God, right that after that one episode, all of those creators felt, I'm gonna guess, exposed, insecure, unsure, wobbly, felt like oh God, I don't fit in here. No one's telling me this is awesome, no one's telling me this resonated, I gotta get the hell out of here. And that was it one episode. And then they gave up. Then he went on to say 60% of that 2 million only did 10 episodes or less. Over half of all of the podcasters on Apple gave up after 10 episodes or less. Right, 10 episodes or less. And that really like that, really just. It just makes me wanna shake everyone. Because it's not about podcasting. It is about whatever your work is in this world. How much grit do you have or how little do you have, and how quick are you willing to just give up when it doesn't go exactly as planned, when you do not get pourings of emails and ratings and calls and yeses and donations and funding and requests and contracts and interviews and testimonials, when you don't get all of that right out of the gate and you just go. You know what that didn't work. Or you know what this feels terrible, I'm out. So in this reel, he talks about grit, and grit is something that is so important to me and is so important that I instill in my clients, because grit keeps you on course. Grit keeps you going. Grit is a muscle that you have to develop. Grit is you put your work out into the world and you don't meet your goal and you don't give up after that, right? Or some other version of giving up which I commonly see, which is you technically keep going, so you're keeping the lights on, but you're dimming your voice right, going back to that theme of just wanting to fit in, and so you're just dimming your unique authority. Many organizations listening to this, many founders listening to this, have a unique lens and unique identity and unique point of view, and it's why you do this work, why you're in this mission-driven space. But you're not really saying it, you're not really stepping fully into the spotlight, right? Especially if it comes on the heels of a campaign that didn't go so well, if it comes on the heels of three donors in a row telling you no, right, if it comes on the heels of any sort of rejection, then you're like, screw it, I'm out of here, right, and that's really, really common. So, again, let's just bring in that awareness piece of that's okay, that's common, like if, when you feel rejection, which go back and listen to the podcast, the Courage series on rejection, so we can reframe that, right. But when you feel that way, it's normal to wanna just run hide under the covers. But that is a chance for you to literally start building the muscle of grit. And for me, one of the helpful ways to do it is thinking about the stop. Thinking about what Jesse said is so many people are unwilling to hear 10 no's, so many people are unwilling to hear to put their work out in the world once and then they just give up. But not me. I'm willing. I'm willing to keep going, I'm willing to keep trying because I'm committed to my goal, because I'm committed to making an impact, because I'm committed to service, right, whatever your why is really going back to that, and then I find that that helps diffuse it being so much about you anyway. Right, it's not really about you anyway, it's about the impact you wanna have in the world, right? So if somebody says no or something doesn't quite go how you wanted it to, your podcast is in a huge sensation right out of the gate. Or this is another one. You have that initial fundraising campaign and you don't get that pop you expected. It's a fork in the road. You can go, you know what, for the next 30 days. I'm just going to phone it in and the people who will donate will donate and the rest won't. Right. Or you can go all in and double down, double down. Maybe I wasn't clear enough. Maybe I need to send more emails, maybe I need to get on the phone. What are you willing to do to get there to that goal? Okay, and I think the idea of grit and effort are really, really linked closely. So let's dig into this idea of effort. As a parent, one of the things that I've read about and listened to blogs and you know, read all the posts about and books about is this idea of praising the effort and not the win. Okay, so there's another episode about the underdog advantage in this series. Go back and listen to the underdog advantage, but I'm laughing because the past two baseball teams that my son has been on have just been I mean the word dumpster fire comes to mind but they've been underdogs. Okay, he is naturally has some talent and he has a love for playing and he has a love for watching baseball, so he digs it. So we support that. But he has been on teams that little league teams, that they're rookies. Many of the kids on the team, especially this past summer season, had never played the game, so even just the basics they were really, really rusty on. And it was a challenge because all that would happen every Saturday was loss, loss, loss. There was like one or two games where they came close to winning and then they just got obliterated in the last inning. And as a parent in that circumstance it's a little bit easier or maybe the word would be, it's more natural to praise the effort. Hey, buddy, I saw you out there. You kept going. You tried praising the effort. He's he bats lefty and at first that meant he was really hitting the ball straight to first base. First baseman would catch it, tag him out, and that was brutal to watch, as we were, because he'd hit it and he just hit it straight to first base. And the effort, praising the effort. All right, you got it down to second. This time it was a little bit more this way that time or praising the fact that, even if he was out praising the effort. But on the flip side, as a parent, let's see, last summer his team was really good, they were like really locked in, really great team, they won a lot. And when your team is winning and they win easily or they win, you know, consistently, it's easy to praise the win instead of the effort. Do you see that? Because when they win, you're like, oh my God, you guys won, you're amazing, you rock. Look at you, you're the best, right Versus praising the effort, which is I saw you really focused. I saw you help your teammate out, I saw that that catch, you made right. Effort, effort, effort. I saw you die for it. And even though you didn't make it, or even though you did effort, and when we build the muscle of talking to ourselves, you can start by talking to your friends, your family, your partner, your kids. In this way of talking and praising the effort. It actually makes you stronger in this process of getting you closer to the wins and building the muscle of grit. Okay, we have science to back this up. There are studies that back this up, and so I want to share one with you. One study showed that praising the effort rather than focusing on perfection or intelligence so that would be, you know, your expertise in it can significantly improve performance by acknowledging the effort put into the task. We encourage problem solving skills and resilience resilience, do you hear that? So this idea of thinking about the effort, thinking about that even when things don't quite go your way, you're staying in the course and in fact you're doubling down on it, right, even when eight games in a row, y'all lost, we still suit up, we still go out there, we still keep trying. And that's really how those kids anyway will get better at baseball. Right, it's through the efforting. But when the kid in the outfield starts sitting and just digging into the grass, he's lost it. Right, that's when he's given up. He's not building the effort, he's not building the resistance, a resilience, he's not building any grit there. The same is true for us. So, as adults, we're sort of taught to assimilate, we're taught to be normal, we're taught to just fit in. We're taught to celebrate the wins. We're not taught and we don't consistently make a habit of praising the effort. So write that down, make it a practice where, as you're launching these campaigns, as you're going into funder meetings, as you are in growth mode for your organization or business, that you're taking time out to see where you are getting better, more nimble, stronger at all of this process, whether it's outreach, whether it's objections, whether it's meetings, whether it's the follow-up process. That's a big one, right? We sort of dip out of the follow-up process A lot of my clients. I have to keep them accountable. What is our follow-up process? I see you did the hard thing, but I see you don't want to follow up. On the meeting where you asked the hard thing, right, where you made the ask for a major gift, right. So, really praising that piece of watching yourself I'm getting better at this and maybe let's use that as an example of your in-of-funder meeting. And how much easier is it? You just want to just blend in. You don't want to rock the boat, you don't want to offend, and so you have two options in that scenario. You're very likely to just ask for the safe gift amount because you want to be liked and that's normal. But being liked and being normal and fitting in does not help fund your mission, does it? No, it is worth. Like I'm picturing you climbing up to a diving board and it's worth you walking to the edge right and making the big, daring ask. It's worth it because you don't want to average business, you don't want a normal, average, non-profit right? Make the big, bold ask, build that muscle. I wanted to share some examples of people and organizations that are willing to stand out and willing to not fit in and willing to not be normal. One of the ones that comes to mind is Charity Water. So they were an organization when they came out that seriously invested in their tech and in their marketing and in social media in particular. Go back and listen to Becky's episode. She is the co-founder of the Adventure Project and she was also hired number two or three at Charity Water originally. She talks about that. They were early adopters to Twitter right In linking okay, building community, finding community on social media, linking that to fundraising. They were great at that. They did not have a case study of non-profits that were currently doing this. Right, it's my entire Amplify social impact, that method of building a social street team. I don't have a lot of case studies except for students that have gone through my courses and done it of non-profits developing influencer marketing programs and fundraising relationships right. But I see the ROI, I see how it's a perfect fit for influencers to partner with non-profits right, I see it. And it's a strategy worth investing in, worth investing in and efforting on to build your visibility, to stand out in a crowded online world. Another example is the singer Lizzo. Lizzo is totally willing to stand out. She is totally willing to not fit in to a bubble of what a performer should look like, or what a performer should wear, or what a performer should say or what their lyrics should be right, she's uniquely her and, on the other side of her being uniquely her, she's very, very successful, right. So let's round out today's discussion. I would challenge you to go inward and ask yourself where have I been trying to be normal, fit in, not stand out? Where have I been watering down my voice or my message, or my aesthetic, or my style or my mission, whatever it is my outreach? That isn't actually true, right, that isn't actually true. Where can I ditch that? And where am I willing to share the real deal? Put in the effort when others are giving up after the first podcast episode, when others are giving up when they hear a couple of nos, when others are giving up, when they don't meet their goals, where am I willing to double down and hit the gas and go all in and develop some grit? So I'm going to link. There's a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth. I will link that in the show notes. It's a really wonderful book and talks about the importance of building grit for yourself, for your business, and how we see commonalities through lines, through successful founders and leaders, and grit is definitely one of them. So go out there, don't be normal, don't settle into average and go develop some grit. I am cheering you on and I'll see you next time. If you ask me, everyone should have a coach, especially you. I want to invite you to schedule a free discovery call with me. Go to splendidatlcom, forward slash contact. You'll see my calendar there. Book a call with me. You'll learn about my smart growth method, where we can grow your business or organization sustainably, with ease and massive impact.

You Get To Have Purpose And Profit. I’ll Show You How.

 
 
PodcastChristina Edwardspurpose and profit, marketing, entrepreneurship, purpose driven, nonprofit, social impact, mindsetComment