I’m loving having a focus at Beautiful You this month about being an entrepreneur and blogger. I hope for all you amazing people out there in business and/or writing beautiful blogs that you were challenged by my first post on reaching out to build beautiful relationships. It really does work! This week I’m talking about the dreaded ‘c’ word – competition – but as you will learn below, from my perspective, it might not be as bad as you think. Stay tuned for a very special announcement soon here too about an offer I will be making in connection to Marie Forleo’s incredible Rich, Happy and Hot Bschool. If you haven’t been watching Marie’s latest round of free business videos – get yourself here lovely – they are totally worth watching!
Inspiration is everywhere.
It can come from listening to music. Reading. Browsing the web. Being outdoors.
But I often think the biggest source of inspiration is that we get from other people. Meeting them. Listening to them. Learning their story and simply being surrounded by whatever positive, brightening energy they give to others and the world.
I know for me that I quite simply love people and meeting new people too. Always have. And the more I have become invested in my business the more I have realised that meeting new people, learning from them and connecting with others is actually a vital part of business success.
The issue with all of this inspiration for some of us though is that it can’t ‘turn’ on us if we’re not careful – in the worst possible way.
That coach whose newsletter we initially loved to receive we can start to feel twinges of jealousy, comparison and frustration about.
That website we’ve long admired turns from being a place we loved to go to one where we’re constantly wondering ‘Why can’t I have that?’
That speaker we’ve always admired we see live and want to crumble when we beat ourselves up by saying ‘I’ll never be as good as that.’
That online shop you loved to browse and even buy from once, slowly turns you to mush when you start to worry more about what they are stocking rather than what you are stocking.
But here’s the thing.
When you truly embrace the uniqueness of you and all you do – including the way you do business, blog, write and engage with others – you have no competition.
Truly you don’t. Yes, you may make jewellery and someone else may make it too. But not like you. Yes, you may coach people and someone else may too. But not like you. Yes, you may have an online shop of beautiful children’s clothes and someone else may too. But not like you.
No one can ever be you.
They might have a similar business to you (do you KNOW how many coaches are out there right now?!) but they can never inject into that business the same heart, perspective and unique way that you go about doing things like your marketing, your client engagement, your follow up with your best clients. They may try but they will fail. Because you’re you and that’s not able to be copied.
So beautiful you….let go of the comparisons, the comparing and the worry about the competition. It’s not serving you. If you need to – step away from your computer and the online world and stop looking for awhile at what ‘others’ are doing. Don’t make assumptions about what you think is going on behind the scenes of someone else’s business. Focus on you. Build up you.
And then once you are consistently focusing on you and building you up, then turn to focusing on your readers, customers and clients. They’ve chosen to engage with you for a reason and it’s got way more to do with just what you’re selling or blogging about.
They’ve chosen to engage with you because you’re you.