BE SEEN with Jen Gottlieb

0:01Light that spark fire nation JLD here and welcome to entrepreneurs on fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like inclusion and marketing. Today, we'll be breaking down how to be seen. To drop these value bombs, I brought Jen Gottlieb into EO Fire Studios. Jen is a powerhouse entrepreneur, international speaker, host of the I Dare You podcast, author of Be Seen, and co-founder of Super Connector Media, an award-winning training events and online education company. For years now, Jen has been making waves in the entrepreneurial world by teaching business owners how to build profitable brands and become the recognized expert in their field.

0:43And today, Fire Nation, we will talk about this. We'll talk about being seen and what steps we need to take to get there. We'll talk about the imposter syndrome, how to travel back in time, the confidence continuum, and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jen and our sponsors. Business Made Simple, hosted by Donald Miller, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Business Made Simple takes the mystery out of growing your business. Join my friend, Donald Miller, each week as he shares value bombs on topics like the secret to making better marketing decisions.

1:19Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcasts. Nessuite is the number one cloud financial system that gives you everything you need all in one place. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netsuite.com slash fire. That's netsuite.com slash fire. Jen, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What's up, Fire Nation? I'm so excited to be here. And here's something that a lot of people disagree with me on, but it's actually shifting, I think, more onto my side, but people still disagree, that you have to have a virtual presence in order to be a successful business owner.

2:13I believe that 100 % in 2023, right now in the world that we live in, you must be visible virtually. You must have some sort of brand visibility online. Would you agree, John? I agree. I've been agreeing with that for 11 years now. And I do think you're right that the tide does seem to be shifting. There's still going to be some holdouts, but at the end of the day, I mean, let's be real. It's 2023. Yeah. I mean, think about it. So like, even with when I'm, I find myself doing this all the time, like even hiring, finding a doctor or hiring someone to watch my dogs or, or even with dating, like, could you imagine if you were still single back in the day, or maybe let's say you were single now, let's just make pretend.

2:55I know you're going to have your baby any minute, but let's make pretend you're single. And you link up with somebody on a dating site and you go search the internet and you find absolutely nothing about that person. That person doesn't exist online. They have absolutely no presence. I would never meet up with that person. That would scare me. It makes me think of that Netflix show. I can't remember the name. It's like love or something where the guy like stalks this woman and then she tries to find something else about him online. She can't. So she's like, she kind of blows it off a little bit, but then it takes a turn for the worse because there's a reason why there's nothing about him online.

3:30So take that Fire Nation with a grain of salt or two, but let's get back to talking about being seen because Jen, you are one person that has done a fantastic job over the years of being seen. I mean, you are a successful actress, but you are still struggling with being seen at that point. So share with us now, what does it mean to truly be seen? And more specifically, what steps do we need to take to get there? Yeah. So I want to just make sure Fire Nation knows that what you're talking about, about my past, when you read the book, you'll hear the story. But I was so seen in the tactical sense where I was an actress and I was on a TV show on VH1 for five years about heavy metal music.

4:17So I, I was being seen, but here's the thing. I didn't like heavy metal music and I was being seen as a version of myself that couldn't have been further from who I truly was. So I was building a brand. I was building this, this whole persona and this whole like audience of people that were believing that I was somebody that I wasn't. And it was getting more and more difficult every single day to keep that up. And you get further and further disconnected from your audience when you're showing up as somebody that's inauthentic to who you are. So what I believe being seen really is, is it's first and foremost about seeing yourself for who you are so you can allow the world to see you.

4:54And I get to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs every single day and many of them come to me and they're like, Jen, I just, I've been building this life and this persona that somebody else wanted for me a long time ago. And I woke up one day and I'm like, this is not who I am and this is not what I want. And I got to tap back into who that really is. And it's really scary to start allowing the world to see that person. And, but I believe that once you figured it out, and I only believe this because I did it myself. Once I found who I, I really, I call myself like real Jen, like who real Jen was. And I got to take down that mask of being heavy metal girl and start being seen as me.

5:29That was when my business took off. That was when my brand took off because people don't like connecting with something that seems very fake and feels not vulnerable and not real. People like to connect with the true vulnerable you, the stuff that makes you unique, the realness of you. And on our side, as entrepreneurs being seen, it's so much easier to just be yourself than it is to put up this persona because that can be exhausting to keep up with. Now, you figured it out. And actually, while you were talking, I figured it out. The name of the show was called You, Y-O-U. Have you ever seen that show?

6:07Yes, it's a scary show. It's a scary show. And it's so true about how when you don't have an online presence like this individual did not, man, that should be a big red flag in 2023 and beyond. But again, getting back to the point here, you transitioned, Jim, from acting to becoming a fitness coach to starting your own media company. I mean, that's a lot of change under word, the line change here. So how did you deal with the imposter syndrome telling you, who am I to be an actress, now a fitness coach, now starting my own media company? How did you deal with that? It was there, let me tell you.

6:44And it's still there, John. People ask me all the time, they're like, how do you overcome imposter syndrome? And you don't. I get to talk to a lot of really successful people and they all tell me that imposter syndrome rears its ugly head often, no matter what, when you're shifting and you're growing, especially when you're pivoting. And it's not about necessarily getting rid of it. But what I like to do is envision that I'm bringing it along the ride with me and understanding and knowing that if I'm stretching and growing and pivoting and trying something new, that feeling of like, Oh my gosh, am I going to be good at this?

7:14Are people going to believe me? Is this going to be like, can I really do this? Am I worthy to be here? All of those feelings are completely normal and they're going to be there. And that fear is going to do absolutely everything that it can to keep me from moving forward. But my job is to put it in the passenger seat of the car, tell it to shut up and understand and know that it might drive with me. It's going to come with me. It's going to be there alongside me and just say, don't touch anything. I'm in control here. I'm going to take action anyway. And I get it. You're going to be there. You're going to start yelling in my ear that you're an imposter.

7:45And I'm going to say, shut your mouth. I'm going to do this anyway. And the more I find, the more that I do things, even with imposter syndrome there, and I get to the other side of doing that hard thing, I kind of put another coin in the confidence bank. I prove to myself what I'm capable of. And slowly but surely, the more action steps that you take with imposter syndrome there and the more that you prove yourself wrong, the less power it has over you. It doesn't mean it's going to go away, but it has less power. And it can't stop you from taking action anymore the more that you take its power away.

8:14You have a chapter in your book about how to travel back in time. Now, that really intrigued me. I do love Back to the Future. So what exactly does that mean? Well, I talk about time travel a lot in the book in the way of traveling back in time to when you were the most in the pocket. So when we talk about finding the real you, the person that you want to be seen as, right? Really like diving back into who are you truly and who do you really want to portray when it comes to your brand visibility and how you want to be seen? And I like to go back to the times in my life where I was the most in the pocket, meaning many people are very familiar with the term in flow, when you just feel like time stopped and you were doing something where you just felt your most authentic self, like whether you were cooking, making, baking with your grandma and you just felt like you were so silly and having so much fun and you were so you, or maybe you were speaking on a stage and you felt like the words were flowing through you and you were having the best time ever.

9:13I like to go visit those times again and really embody the person that I was in that moment to bring back that feeling and those emotions and then practice walking around the planet as that person and make decisions as that person and show up as that person. I learned about that when I was an actress and we would practice method acting and bringing back old memories and sense memory from different times in our life. And I found that even to this day, when I'm an entrepreneur, when I'm having a hard time tapping back into like, who's me at my core, like the real most authentic version of me that doesn't care what people think, the real, real gen, I like to go back to certain memories and I'll put on certain songs that trigger that maybe when I was a little girl and I was just full of life and I didn't care what people thought.

9:55And I was just living in my truth, completely unapologetic. And that's a way that I use time travel to go back and bring back feelings and emotions that will help me to step into situations that I'm doing right now with way more courage and way more confidence. Man, songs can really transport you. I mean, snap your fingers. You are back at that moment in time when that song was being played. Your emotions are there. I mean, you're there. I mean, that is truly traveling back in time. That's crazy. I love that example. And Fire Nation, we have some really important things to talk about as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors.

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13:34netsuite.com slash fire. Jen, we're back and you have a phrase that I love, the confidence continuum. What does that phrase mean for entrepreneurs like Fire Nation? Fire Nation. I want to teach you the confidence continuum with an example. Can I tell you like a really great example that I think everyone will appreciate? Okay. So I get to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who have a very big fear of going live on social media or making a video on social media. Understandably so. It's a scary, vulnerable thing. But as we said in the beginning, it's really important for brand brands and business owners and entrepreneurs and anybody with a service, a story or a product.

14:14It's important to make yourself visible and to get really good at creating content online. But it is scary to press that go live button. I know because I used to be absolutely petrified to do it. Now I like to use this confidence continuum to teach how confidence is built over time. So it, let's think about you're going to go live for the very first time and you're really, really scared to do it. And you have zero confidence in going live on social media. Okay. We're going to build confidence and here's how you do it. It all starts with that first scary action step. So envision what we were talking about earlier, putting that fear in the passenger seat of the car.

14:49So you've got your phone, you're propped it up on your eye on your tripod. You're ready to go, but you feel absolutely petrified. Fear is screaming at you. Don't do it today. Your hair doesn't look good. You can wait till tomorrow, all the excuses. And you just say, you know what, fear, shut up. I'm going to do this. You're going to be in the passenger seat of the car. We're going to go together and I'm just going to take action. I'm going to do it anyway. And you do it for the smallest amount of time. You just do it. You get the task done. When you've taken that action step, you're going to, it's going to result in a win, whether you like it or not, whether the win is, oh my God, I did it and I didn't die.

15:20Or maybe something cool happened. Now, motivation doesn't come from a magical motivational fairy that taps you on the head. Motivation comes from winning. So once you've done that hard thing, you're going to get that little win, that little dopamine hit. Whoa, I went live. It wasn't that bad. Okay. I didn't die. A few people joined. All right. That felt good. Boom. Coin in the confidence bank. Now you're going to go do it again tomorrow. Tomorrow you're going to be still scared, but not as scared because you've removed some of the power that that fear had over you by doing it once before. So then you take action again.

15:52You're still afraid. You still need to put beer in the passenger seat of the car, but it's a little bit easier this time you go live and maybe this time five or six people actually join. They're engaged. You actually have a good time. You get off and now you have an even bigger win. Somebody DMs you after and they're like, oh my God, that live was amazing. Can I talk to you about working with you? Holy crap, big win. Once you get that big win, then you've created something really delicious is called momentum, because then your brain is like, whoa, when I go live, really cool things happen. I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

16:25So then you go and you do it the third day with way more confidence and you continue the continuum. And by the time you've done it for your 10th time, it's no longer scary, but you've got to get that first action step out of the way in order for the continuum to take loop. I mean, I so clearly remember when I interviewed Seth Godin, it was one of my first 10 interviews, I was holding a piece of paper behind my microphone and it was shaking as I'm asking the questions I had written on that page. It was so hard. I was so scared. I had no confidence, Fire Nation. But guess what? Every day I woke up, I did one more interview, one more interview.

16:59Eventually, I put that piece of paper down and eventually I don't even have anything now in front of me. I just love sitting down, ringing somebody up and having a fun, awesome conversation. But guess what? I'm 4 ,184 episodes in. I mean, it took time to get, it didn't take that long, but I've been doing this for 11 years and I built the confidence up by doing it day after day after day and building that cool. And now I will say it would be pretty awesome if there was a confidence continuum magical fairy hanging out, Jen. I kind of like that magical fairy reference. So let's keep that in mind.

17:33Now you've done an amazing job creating a thriving and engaged community around yourself, your brand, your business. what's the very first step fire nation needs to start down this path the first step is to start fire nation there is probably some of you out there that keeps putting it off starting your think about making the video you think about posting about your business but you're just you're stuck you're not you're waiting until it's perfect and i know that that is that feels like jen really just start like yes you need to start and you need to start and be consistent and one One of the biggest mistakes I see people make with their brand is they're comparing their chapter one to somebody else's chapter 20.

18:15They're looking at somebody that's been doing it like you, uh, John, you've been doing this podcast for years and years and years and years and years, and it's created massive success. But when you started, it wasn't easy. You need patience. You need consistency. And people don't necessarily see that. And they want to launch their podcast and they want to have the kind of results that you've had in years and years and years in, in two episodes. And so what I see happen is they post maybe once or twice, or they do two podcast episodes and they don't see the traction and they're like, oh, you know what?

18:41I'm just going to stop for a week or two. And like, I don't know, this isn't working. And they stopped too quickly, but it takes consistency. It takes showing up again and again and again. And it does take patience and it does take time. And the people that build the brands are in it for the long run. And so you need to start before you're ready. It's never going to be perfect timing. You're never going to have the perfect setup. You're never going to have the perfect everything because perfect doesn't exist. In fact, I found that with my brand, the more imperfectly I start, the more imperfect my content is and the more relatable and real it is, the better that it does.

19:15So just start, get on camera, talk about what you do. Think about the one person on the other side of the phone that needs to hear what you have to say and talk to them and then be consistent with it no matter what and be patient. And over time, you will build something, but it's not going to happen overnight. Just start Fire Nation. When Jen was talking, it just reminded me, literally today I got an email from somebody who said, John, I just joined Podcasters Paradise today. I was so close to joining back in 2013, but for some reason I didn't. And so now, you know, I'm going to start and I'm like, oh man, this person could have a podcast that's four years old now.

19:52Like they could have been doing this for four. They could have built something so special in four years. Amazing. And, uh, it's just frustrating to see that. Now, Jen, if somebody's listening right now and they're building their brand, but they're struggling to figure out what makes them stand out, what makes them unique from others in their industry, what would your words of wisdom be? Find the lean in story. So I never used to want to talk about the fact that I was on VH1 ever, ever, ever. I thought it didn't make any sense when I was in the fitness world. That was the first business I created after I was on television.

20:25And I didn't think anyone cared about that. But here's the thing. Every time someone would ask me about it And I would tell them, oh, yeah, I was on a heavy metal talk show on VH1. People would stop what they were doing. They would all of a sudden pay attention and they would physically lean in and be like, wait, what? And they suddenly wanted to be my friend. They suddenly wanted to listen to everything that I had to say. So I really quickly realized that that was something that made me unique. There's a lot of people out there that do the thing that you do. So if you're listening to this, if you're a doctor, if you're a coach, if you're a podcast host, there's going to be lots of other people that do the same thing.

20:59But there's not another human on this planet that is exactly like you. There is only one John Lee Dumas. There is only one Jen Gottlieb with my story, with the way that I say things, with my cadence, with the way that I speak. So the more you, you can be, and the more you can bring your lean in stories to the table, right? The messier stories, the spicier stories, the juicier stories, the more unique stories that maybe you don't necessarily want to talk about, but you find that when you do people pay attention and they light up and they lean in, share those stories. because those are the stories that are going to make you stand out from the rest, because those are the stories that are unique only to you.

21:35Fire Nation, what's your lean-in story? One of mine is the fact that I won a car on The Price is Right. True story. No way. True story. See, Jen, you just leaned in, didn't you? Did you just lean in? Yes, I physically did. No way. What kind of car? It was a 2013 Ford Focus. I mean, just, you know, what every boy dreams of growing up, but I did win a car on The Price is Right. And Fire Nation, if you don't believe me, eofire.com slash about. That's my about me page. And on that page, I have the video of me winning a car on The Price is Right. It's a very enjoyable little clip there. So, you know, while Jen had a long running history on VH1, you know, I had my 15 minutes with Drew Carey on The Price is Right.

22:24Right. So that's my lean in moment. It's a great lean in. I love that. Thank you. So Jen, you dropped so many value bombs here today. What I want you to do is this, give Fire Nation the one key takeaway from this episode as you see it, and then give us the reason why we need to read your book, Be Seen, and the best way that we can do this. Okay. So my one key takeaway for you right now is if you have a service, a story, or a product, it is your responsibility to be visible because every single day that goes by that you're not making yourself visible to the people that you can help is another day that those people that desperately need your help are going to go follow someone else or listen to someone else or buy from someone else that's not as good as you or doesn't care as much as you simply because you're waiting for the perfect moment to be seen or you're too afraid of what other people will think of you or you're too insecure so it's not about you remember that one person that needs you today and talk to that person and it's your responsibility to be seen so that they can find you.

23:26So that would be my message. And then you should read my book because if you're, if you're sitting here and you're listening, so if you're part of fire nation, it means you're, you're, first of all, you're in a really good place because this is the place to be. You're like, you're in a good spot, but it probably means that you have a service. You have a product, you have a business. Maybe you have a story that can help people. And if you are not being seen as your most authentic self, if you're not connecting with your audience, if you're not building a brand online in 2023, you are doing yourself a disservice and all of your competitors are going to completely blow you away.

24:00And I hate to say that, but everyone that's building a personal brand or even just building brand awareness online is going to crush it going forward. It's a hundred percent necessary for you and your business to get over your fears or not necessarily get over them, but bring them along for the ride and, and get online and be visible and start being seen, but do it as you because that's the thing that makes you special. That's the thing that makes you unique. And that's the thing that's going to make you stand out from the crowd. So get the book. It'll help you on your journey. There's a lot of really fun stories from my life and how I learned to be seen and not to be seen and all the things along the way.

24:33And then lots of tactical strategies as well that you can implement immediately. Bang, Fire Nation. You need to be consuming content from people who have been there, done that, who have been seen, who are being seen, who can take you down that path because you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with JG and JLD today, so you better keep up that heat. Head over to eofire.com, type Jen, J-E-N, in the search bar. The show notes page will pop up. Links to everything that we talked about here today. Read the book, be seen, make it happen. Jen, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today.