Stop Proving and Start Leading: Your Work is Already Good Enough

tracie: 00:00:00

Hello, everyone.

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Tracie here, your resident

business, rebel, and your listening

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to digital Hello, everyone.

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Tracie here, your resident business,

rebel, and your listening to

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Digital Business Your Way podcast.

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The show that lets true stories

and insider secrets of online

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entrepreneur life unfold.

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Our business world is growing and as

an online business coach and digital

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product creator, I believe you didn't

become an entrepreneur to grin and

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bear your way through business.

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So I'll be your guide.

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As we drop in on coaching

calls, have intimate sit downs

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with online personalities.

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You love.

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And discuss ideas, opportunities and

strategies circulating our online world.

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So pop in your earbuds, tap,

follow, and join me as I demystify.

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This thing called business.

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Hello, hello and welcome to

Digital Business Your Way.

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I'm Tracie, your resident business

rebel, and today we're gonna talk

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about something that might just

be holding your best work hostage.

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It's that feeling that before you can make

your work real, you've gotta prove it.

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Prove the offer works.

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Prove the method is effective.

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Prove the idea is polished, airtight,

unshakeable before anyone else sees it.

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Hmm.

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Not 'cause you're lazy or unclear.

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Definitely not because you are quote

unquote, ready enough, but because

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you've been conditioned to believe

that before you bring something

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into the world, it has to be proven.

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It has to have 500 testimonials

and be five star reviewed and

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everything must be perfect.

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Yeah.

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And I get it.

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'cause you know, proving looks

like perfect and polished and

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practically peer reviewed.

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And if it's not, well you better

slap a beta badge on it, discount

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it into oblivion, and make sure

you say sorry on your sales page.

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14 different ways.

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Sound familiar?

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Yeah.

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Same, but, you know, let's, let's

talk about this more, and let's

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name what's really going on here.

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Because you are not a

factory of perfect concepts.

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You're not a machine designed to churn

out airtight frameworks on command.

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You're a creator, an

entrepreneur, an experimenter.

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The pressure to prove something before

you even build it, before you even try

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it, before you even get it in the hands

of the people who are gonna work with it.

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Yeah, that's ludicrous.

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And it keeps you stuck at the doorway

of your best work because your mind has

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confused perfection with leadership.

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Which is, it's not your fault.

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I mean, that's conditioning.

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Many of us were trained

explicitly and implicitly to

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treat leadership as performance.

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To only step forward when the evidence is

in to only speak, when we're sure we won't

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be challenged is, you know, the world has

messed with us and continues to do so.

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Right.

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That's not how entrepreneurship

works, and that's not the model that

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we have to do in our own businesses.

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It's not how transformation

works either, and it's definitely

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not how you are meant to work.

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So let's ground this in something

real because I've, I've felt this too.

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I have the conditioning and the other

day I was building my AI models.

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For your lunch style and I, I had to

do some pretty deep self coaching.

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Because these, these models, they don't

just support the work, but they reflect

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my entire way of thinking and teaching.

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And they have grown.

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They came from this idea of, oh, wouldn't

it be nice to, to being, you know,

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cornerstones and big marketing pieces

and pillars and things that every time

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people hear about 'em, they're like,

oh my God, I can't wait to see this.

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Oh my God, I can't wait to play with this.

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Right.

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And, and that builds the

pressure and the feel.

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And as the creator, you feel that

weight and that edge and you start

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to get those little whispers.

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What if they don't work?

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But then , when you've done this

and you're experienced, right?

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You also get kind of that immediately

deeper knowing of, well of course they're

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gonna work 'cause I'm gonna make 'em work.

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I'm gonna tweak 'em and I'm gonna change

'em and I'm gonna test them and I'm gonna

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fix 'em and I won't know what will work

and won't work until I make it and try it.

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But that tension that you initially

feel, well that's where so many

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visionaries they, they stand in

and it's not quite a stuckness.

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It's more like a pregnant

with possibilities type feel.

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Because it's not really a feel of failure.

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It's more fearing what it

takes to bridge the gap.

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That messy, gritty, non-linear process

of shaping things into form, right?

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That gap between brilliance and delivery,

between idea and implementation, between

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the vision in your heart and the thing

people are actually gonna interact with.

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We're not scared so much

that the thing won't be good.

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We're scared that we won't be

able to carry it across that

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messy middle to get it to do what

the other people need it to do.

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Right?

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And that feels so vulnerable.

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It feels so personal, especially when the

work is tied to any part of our identity.

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When the tools, the methods, the

models that we're creating, when

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they represent a, a piece of us, our

ideas, our brilliance, our ethos,

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our hopes, well, you know, of course

then our brain wants to protect us.

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Yeah.

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And it does so by giving that

illusion of control, saying,

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prove it before you show it.

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And it's baked into how a lot of us

were trained to succeed in corporate.

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In academia, even in a lot of small

business and entrepreneurship,

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where success equals polished decks,

tight frameworks, unspoken messages

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of, don't you dare share something

until it's quote unquote ready.

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But real creation,

that's not how it works.

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You know, it looks more like

kindergartner's, finger painting.

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Where a lot of it ends up on the walls

and on overalls, right, is here's the

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truth that we're unlearning today.

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You're not here to prove your ideas

' cause proving something that actually

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means trying to defend it, to justify it

to impress someone with its flawlessness

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to make it work before it's even real.

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And that's not what we're about.

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Right?

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Because you're not that

factory of perfect concepts.

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You're not that thought machine designed

to get it right on the first try.

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We're that messy creator.

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We're the person with the ideas that

spark light and hope, and then we have

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this beautiful ability to make it real.

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Because we're online, we refine,

because we release it in the world.

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Where someone who leads by engaging,

not by impressing, as to create

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means to bring it into form, to

observe what it becomes to shape it

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by interacting with it, not thinking

about it, but interacting with it.

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To iterate, just improve and embody.

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Yeah, so let, let, let's say this again.

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You're not here to be right.

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You're here to be real.

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And that's what builds resonance results

and repeatable growth with your clients.

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That's trust.

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Not some idea, but trust in you.

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Right.

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And we can even take that a step further.

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'cause once you start to

realize, you don't have to

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prove an idea before sharing it.

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Well, a lot of you kind of hit another

wall and one you've probably come across

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more than once in this online business.

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Well, okay, but if, if it's not

fully baked, well, I, I at least

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need to call it beta, right?

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I'll just run it as a founder's round.

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Maybe I'll offer a first time discount

so people know it's not perfect.

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Well, you don't have to use language

that shrinks your work in order

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to make it acceptable to release.

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Now, please hear me when I say this.

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Those terms, they can be strategic,

they can be used with intention and be

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very useful, but too often they're

just band-aids for a deeper fear.

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Sometimes our own fear and

sometimes labels that are put on us.

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Yeah.

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And they end up being armor.

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Armor that we use to protect

ourselves from being seen in

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that messy mid process armor.

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We use to pre apologize for something

that's already valuable right now,

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an armor we're told to put on.

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By programs and coaches and leaders

that we're listening to because what?

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How dare we sell something straight

out of the gate, even though we're

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fully grown humans who came into

this industry from real careers with

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real knowledge and real skills that

we're just packaging into a new way.

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I mean, you don't always

need that armor, right.

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You do need presence.

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You do need practice, and you can't

practice until you make it real.

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You need permission to lead in real time,

which is what we're talking about, right?

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if your work serves people,

even in its earliest iteration

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and your messaging is truthful.

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Then you're not in some

weird, rough draft.

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Let me give you know, 15 asterisks for

it and discount the crap out of it.

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It's a real offer.

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It's a living tool.

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It's an active contribution to

the people you're here to help.

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So let's stop treating everything like

some dissertation that needs 500 citations

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before it can see the light of day.

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You're not a student trying to impress

a panel, you're a leader , holding

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space for people's transformation.

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So let me offer this reframe for you.

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Instead of asking, is this proven enough?

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Let's start asking, is this real

enough to meet someone in motion?

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Right?

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So think about who this

offer is actually meant for.

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Where they are, what they're doing,

and then ask, is this offer real enough

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to meet them with what they're doing?

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' because your clients

aren't buying flawlessness.

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They're not looking for the

offer with the most footnotes.

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What they are buying is your ability

to guide the experience, to show

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up in process, not just in Polish.

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Yeah.

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So ask, what's the real

version I can build today?

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Not the shiny version for one day.

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The reality of it versus

the aspirational of it.

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Because you learn by doing, you shape by

listening, and you evolve because you're

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engaged in real time, not in isolation.

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Your people don't need some flawless idea.

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You're not selling philosophy.

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They need your steady presence

in the process to support

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them and their feedback.

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Have you creating, changing, coming up

with new ideas that no endless number

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of months thinking and toying with your

offer could ever have come up with.

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So let the co-creation

start now, and yeah.

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I'll even say this to myself too.

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These AI models I'm

building, they're good.

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But of course they're not perfect.

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They're not meant to be.

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They themselves have to learn, right?

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AI models have to learn, and they can only

learn by being used by having user input.

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So there's like a very meta

lesson in it right there.

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Perfect isn't the goal?

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Devotion is using, tweaking, trying.

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I'm not here to impress

people with shiny tools.

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I'm here to lead you with

something useful, and that means

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I have to start with what's real.

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If I waited for perfect,

I never get feedback.

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The friction, the collaboration

that makes things better and worse.

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I miss out on the chance to

help you right now, so I release

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what's real I shape by showing up.

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I iterate in integrity.

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That's creation, that's entrepreneurship.

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That's business my way.

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That's business your way, right?

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So let this be your reminder.

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You're not here to be right.

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You're here to be real.

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And that's how you build

offers that truly serve.

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And as I always say, when you put your

audience first, the money follows.

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Right.

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Real is greater than

right every damn time.

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So say it with me.

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I'm not here to be right.

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I'm here to be real.

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And if this episode landed

for you, I'd love to hear it.

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DM me, tell me what you've been

holding back on, or better yet,

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release the thing and tag me in it.

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Let it out in the world.

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Let it serve.

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Let it evolve.

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That's leadership.

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That's you.

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Until next time, be

well and have some fun.

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Thank you for joining me here

on Digital Business Your Way.

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Be sure to check out the show notes

for all the links mentioned today.

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And while you're there, I'd love

for you to rate and review the show.

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And if you have a topic or question you

want me to answer, I want to hear it.

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Head to Tracie Patterson dot com slash

AMA and ask me anything about business.

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If I don't know it, I'm bringing

up with one of my guests.

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And until next week, be

well and have some fun.