What’s up everybody. I’m Shontavia Johnson and this is The Shontavia Show, where I want to inspire you to build a brand, a business, and a life that you love. Today is Thursday, and what I like to do each Thursday is talk business with you. If you have a nagging question or something you want to know more about, hit me up at askshontavia@gmail.com. I’ll pick a question each week and answer them for you. So I’m excited to start doing this. This is the first question and this question I’m excited about because it’s all about taking that first step of putting yourself out there.

So I’m going to read the question and then just provide some advice from my own perspective about this particular thing. All right, so here’s the question.

Hey Shontavia, my name is Terry and my question is about taking the dive and putting yourself out there. I desperately want to share my knowledge with the world and I really want to create a personal brand. I want to speak, write, consult and do all kinds of stuff, but whenever I actually think about doing it, I get incredibly nervous. I don’t have any certifications yet and while I have a degree, it isn’t really related to the work that I do. In addition, I hear all the negative stuff in my head that I’m not smart enough, connected enough or whatever. I follow your work and you seem pretty confident in what you’re doing. Any advice for a person who’s hesitant to get going? Thanks so much, Terry.

Alright Terry. So I love this question because I struggled with this for so long and still frankly kind of struggle with this. Even this show that I’m doing right now has been like four or five years in the making, and has been four or five years in the making because I was actually pretty nervous to kind of get out there.

And one of the main reasons I was nervous, and it sounds kind of silly now though, I know it’s not silly, was four years ago when I decided I really wanted to do this, I had just given birth to my second child and I was saying, “Oh, there’s no way I could get on camera right now because I’ve gained too much baby weight and I want to wait and lose baby weight before I get out and talk about business and entrepreneurship and building personal brands and that kind of thing.”

So I waited and I waited and I waited, and ultimately I had another baby. And so I waited so long that I ended up waiting, you know, to have another baby, gain more baby weight. And I finally said, you know, if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it now, you know, screw the baby weight.

I’ll work on it when where and how I can. I’ll develop a plan of action for that, but I’m going to do this. And so that’s really why I started doing this now. I finally, after so many years, gave myself permission to just get there and try it.

So I’m going to give you a couple of steps.

I’ll give you 3 steps, for things that I actually kind of walked through in my head as I was thinking about now how am I going to actually put myself out there?

(1) So the first thing I just say to you is give yourself grace. Nothing is going to be ideal all the time. It’s certainly not the first time. In my own case, if I fast forward to, you know, like right now I could have had a four year old show, I could have been way far down the path, but I let something like, you know, gaining weight, frankly keep me from moving forward.

And as I was waiting, I was looking around and seeing all these other people develop these really amazing brands and businesses and shows and that kind of thing. And you know the stuff in my brain has not changed at all. And so give yourself some grace. I know that the knowledge in my head is amazing. I know that whatever you have inside of you is amazing. So give yourself permission to take baby steps.

I know that is hard, but you know we have to do the best that we can. I had a mentor one time–I was going through a really difficult period–who told me, you know what? Sometimes, darling, you just have to bloom where you are planted. And I love that because what it kind of said to me was no matter where you are and no matter what’s going on with you at this particular moment, you should bloom where you are planted.

Just do the best work wherever you are and you’ll get to a better place. Those flowers will grow, those seeds will sprout and you’ll continue to move forward. So that’s my first suggestion to you. Give yourself some grace.

(2) My second suggestion is to start with your strengths. So one of the reasons we can be really nervous about putting ourselves out there is we don’t feel like we know enough or have enough experience or whatever the case might be. So I would suggest to you start where you know, you know your stuff. Start where you know your expertise is solid, you know, you know what you’re talking about.

Don’t try to be everything to everybody. You’ve got to exercise some of those expertise muscles, you’ve got to exercise some of that, like putting yourself out there muscles. I don’t know if you want to write or, well you mentioned you want to write, you want to speak, you want to consult, do all those things.

Start with the stuff where you feel really, really comfortable. I bet you know more than you think you do.

(3) And then number three, and you know this is gonna sound kind of harsh, probably, Terry, but you just have to get over it. If you really want to build a personal brand, you just have to rip the bandaid off. Creating a personal brand means you have to have a reputation with other people. So other people are going to have to consume your content. They’re going to have to see you. You’re gonna have to put yourself out there.

And, frankly, I believe you know, if you feel this compelled by something, then it must be part of your purpose to get out there and share it and the things that you desire to build, you probably desire to build them because it is part of your life’s mission. Whether you really know it right now or not.

Yes, it’s probably uncomfortable, but you already have the tools you need to get started. You do. Of course, now you have to protect your mental health and your sanity. When you put yourself out there, yes, you will get some naysayers. Yes, bad things will happen. You’ll get horrible comments. I have gotten some horrible comments, but you know, you can protect yourself from that in some regards. I guarantee you if you have something inside of you that you need to get out, the naysayers or the trolls or the negative vibes, those things will be drowned out by the positive, by those people who really, really need whatever you have inside of you.

So those are my three suggestions to you.

Number one, give yourself grace.

Number two, start with your strengths.

And number three, Terry, you just got to get over it, darling.

I want to see what you have to create and the rest of the world does too.

All right y’all. So those are my Thursday thoughts for Terry and her question about putting yourself out there. I hope something I said today not just helps Terry, but helps those of you who are also struggling with figuring out how to put yourself out there.

If you have questions about this or you want to ask, you know, other questions of me about personal branding, about business, about entrepreneurship, about designing a life that is supported by these things. Reach out to me at askshontavia@gmail.com. Thanks.