#01: No matter who you are or what you do, if you want real influence and impact in the world, you have to show up and let yourself just be seen. But how?
#01: If you have a tendency to overthink like me, you know your mind can lead you to a lot of interesting places. Second guessing. Constant questioning. Searching for validation. There’s no time this seems to happen more than right before or after speaking publicly (or posting on social media). No matter who you are or what you do, if you want real influence and impact in the world, you know you have to show up and let yourself just be seen. But how?
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Shauna VanBogart 0:04
I'm Shauna Vanbogart. And this is Season Two of just being. Very year ago, from the launch of this episode, there was a lot of change going on in my life.
Shauna VanBogart 0:21
My husband and I had just settled into a new home, we had a seven month old daughter, we were adjusting to lives as new parents and also facing this radically different lifestyle, where we had moved from downtown Charleston, where we had spent an entire decade to the country where we now sat on some acreage in a small town. And there was just this day, where I was struggling with all of it, I was completely overwhelmed. My husband and I were having conversations where we were second guessing if we made the right move. Did we make a huge mistake? Like what did we just do? And I remember it because it was raining. And it was kind of dreary, and it just was like the perfect complement to my mood that day. Now, if you have a tendency to overthink like me, then you know that overwhelmed can lead your mind into a lot of interesting places. second guessing, constant questioning, searching for validation, even self deprecation. It can make you feel like nothing is right in that moment. So it's early evening, and I'm walking by one of the windows and there's this light in the yard that's catching my eye. So I got out on the back porch to discover there's this huge rainbow in the sky. But it was arcing directly into a plot of grass between two trees in our backyard. And I'm staring at this and I'm going Am I seeing the start of a rainbow in our backyard. So I call my husband over. And I'm like, look at that. And he goes, oh shit, that's awesome. That's a rainbow starting in our yard. Now at first I was like, Oh my gosh, it's a sign on a day when we were massively second guessing. Like, how amazing is that. And if there was ever a sign that you want to see, when you're second guessing your moves quite literally or move, it's a rainbow that starts in your own backyard.
So I pulled my phone out because I wanted to get a video of it, of course, and I wanted to put it on Instagram, which I did. You can see it in my reels if you go to my profile at Shauna Vanbogart. And as I went to post it still in the magic of it all, I hesitated. Because without the lens through which I was viewing this, my rational mind knows there is not in fact, a rainbow emanating from my yard. Because rainbows don't exist. You can't walk to it and touch it. It's not actually a thing out there. It's an illusion. It's an illusion created by the refraction and reflection of light. And I remember questioning if I should post this because what do people think I'm just silly or think I'm stupid? Or what if they think I'm someone who doesn't know that I know that it's just an illusion, or that I don't understand the science of it all. And so I almost didn't. The moment I started overthinking it was the very moment I started losing the magic of it all. But I thought you know what, this is cool. This brings me joy. And what if it brings joy to other people too? And so why would I let some potential rainbow fun hater ruin my parade? Have you ever minimize yourself, stifled your voice or hesitated to share yourself because of what other people might think? I'm going to guess that every single person listening is nodding their head. Yes. And have you noticed that it's seemingly the parts of yourself that are the most authentic, the most expressive or attached to your joy that are second guessed the most? And have you noticed that when you start thinking about your expression, that's when the entire train derails.
Shauna VanBogart 4:06
In March of 2020, it was the launch of season one of just being and it almost didn't happen. I had to be talked off the ledge by my team. I came to them in conversation, questioning if it was appropriate to be launching this right as the time that the world was being massively disrupted with a global pandemic, among other things that were happening. A lot of business owners were questioning if it was right to show up, and to still be selling their services and talking about the things in their business, when none of that seemed to matter among the contrast of what was happening all around us. At least that's what I was hearing from hundreds of business owners during this time. Like what is this matter when there's something so much bigger happening in the world? You then saw this wave of coaching encouragement, even trainings popping up around this very question. Is it appropriate to shine my Like when so many people are suffering. Now, obviously I stuck to my plan, because we did release thank you to my team for holding my feet to the fire. And I didn't feel totally resolved about it if I'm being totally honest. And I don't know if I ever would have because when it comes to putting ourselves out there, like really out there, Does it even exist to express totally void of any ounce of mental and emotional risk? Because if it wasn't world events, I'm guessing I would have probably found another reason to question if it was a good time to put myself out there. Now, I was also first trimester pregnant at the start of this pandemic, which was very quickly changing all of our plans. So to say that there were a lot of unknowns and constant questioning was a massive understatement. But I will tell you this, starting in March, every single Tuesday night going into Wednesday, when we would publish an episode to go live. And we did this for 12 weeks straight as the podcast was being released one episode at a time, I had a debilitating migraine, every Tuesday night, it was like this vulnerability hangover or fear manifesting in my body. And the moment all episodes were released, the migraines went away. I've pulled business owners about their biggest challenges in business and without fail, resistance to showing up and being seen is among the top responses.
I've seen this dynamic all the way back to my image consulting days when clients would come to me showing me pictures of women that they'd see saying, I want to look like this, I want to look this confident this stylish, she's so together so effortless, this is what I want. So we've go through the process of finding the outfits that looked amazing on her that were suited for her the colors that were complimentary everything, basically giving her exactly what she asked for, only to discover that she was incredibly uncomfortable stepping out into the world in her new clothes that we just carefully curated through a very personalized process. I would hear feedback from them saying, Well, I feel overdressed or I don't want to stand out. And that is the problem. I want to wear this, I want to do this. And you neglect to remember it's not about what you do. It's about who your being. What the clients were most attracted to in those pictures they would show up and give to me was how that woman was feeling and the energy that was being conveyed off of those photos. I never once heard a client come to me with a photo of a woman who looks stylish and say I want to feel this way. And we wouldn't. That's not instinctual to us to put it that way. It's more instinctual to look at process to look at system, how it looks what to do. If you listen to season one, you know the most important question to be asking is not what do I do per se? At least not as the first question. The first question should be to examine Who do I want to be? And then allow your actions to be inspired from the conscious and intended answer to that question. The tactical is frankly, the easy part. Because strategies are found all around us. With the right information and the right resources, you can learn how to do something, and then actually doing it is another thing, I mean, the actual moves you make to put yourself out there. And then doing it in a way in from a place within yourself or that expression is authentic, where it's powerful and influential is a whole other thing. And as we'll talk about in the following episodes, it's not as simple as just going through the motions of doing your IG TVs or publishing that blog post or making your offer.
Shauna VanBogart 8:55
If influence was a process, we'd all own the handbook and be following the instructions diligently. Real influence and impact is a power that is cultivated from within. It's not something to do it's something to be, which is why even trying to make your marketing activities authentic and make that doesn't work. Because you're still trying to achieve something through doing not being Have you ever created something and thought for sure this is going to get traction? How could this not go viral? You feel so good about it. And then it totally falls flat? It feels like it's never the piece of content you think it's going to be that's the most engaging. So if we can't try to be authentic for the very reason that it's in trying that waters down the connection, how do we approach showing up in our business that gets results? Because after all, just being is one thing, but if you're here for impact if you're here for results, if you're here to do something in this world, you got to be seen
Shauna VanBogart 10:00
Ever since I was little, I'd watch people in their talents, and I'd be so moved, I sometimes couldn't keep myself together, you know, those singing shows on TV like the voice or American Idol. For me, it's really hard to watch those shows and not get emotional. Some of you listening are also this way, just sensitive to the expression of other people or deeply moved by expression like music. I'm so moved and inspired by it, that I actually find it very difficult to be in the presence of capacity and talent that's untapped. It's a big part of the reason that I stepped into the work that I do, because I get the privilege of working with some of the most amazingly talented humans on this planet. And I get to help them foster that connection to their gifts, in a way where it can come up and out in the exact way where it does create the impact that moves people. I can't not see it, and people and I don't know if I'll ever not feel the urge to want to spark someone's connection to it. And what is it, it is their gifts, their talents, their art, those are some of the labels to define it. But really what it is, is just the unique expression of a person who's out in the world, allowing themselves to be seen, and in that act of being seen simultaneously is inspiring people to move, whether that's to buy or to reach out or to engage, or perhaps to literally move them. And as I've been in this work for almost 15 years now, working with individuals on a deeply personal level to show up as that more ideal version of themselves, I will tell you this, the paradox of being seen is very real. It's the simultaneous desire to shine our light and hide at the same time. Some clients are conscious of their desire to hide, at least on some level, but most are not because the desire to hide resides in the subconscious. And it's driven by a fear of not being accepted. And it's more complex and multi dimensional than you think. In fact, a lot of people I've worked with may even say that they don't fear what people think, only to discover they are in fact tethered to this common thread that I believe each and every one of us carries. I think about my rainbow and how quickly I started making myself wrong when I was inspired to posted on my feed because I got all up in my head. And I started thinking about what people would think we do this all the time as humans, we feel a compulsion to minimize ourselves in anticipation of someone sharing another perspective that's different than ours. And it's really about how we think we're gonna feel when we hear that alternative perspective. In this case, I almost didn't post because I didn't want to sound stupid, or for someone to call out the scientific understanding of how rainbows are actually formed and how I wasn't actually seeing it in my yard. I didn't want people to think that I didn't know that. And you have to understand that our fears always point to some an evolved belief about ourselves that could use some attention and nurturing. And so for me with this circumstance, my fear over sounding stupid, shows you exactly what my belief about myself was in that moment, that I have to present in a way that people know I'm smart. Now, can you imagine all of the missed impact in this world, if people only showed up according to that inherent mental rule that they've created? If everyone only allowed themselves to show up and be seen so long as it proved to people that they were smart? How miserable, dull and unexciting of a world that would be? And what if I didn't have the wherewithal and awareness to expand beyond this belief to see it for what it really is? I would have retracted and I have in the past because I wasn't a deep habit of shape shifting to be who I thought others in my business needed me to be. I think a dose of frustration and anger internally is almost needed to push yourself out of the cycle of minimizing yourself. It's almost like you first have to get frustrated enough with your own shit. So that you can make that frustration more intense than the intensity of the underlying fear. I say this because fear is a pretty strong force. But so is righteous anger. And after seeing the evidence of spinning in the same dynamics over and over, despite what you throw at it to fix it. You do get to a place where you realize there may not be another path forward than to exit entirely from the conversation and approach it radically differently.
Shauna VanBogart 14:47
I remember a turning point for me, where I realized I was very, very tired of focusing on me. I realized that every worry I had about my insecurities. I wasn't able to then worry about the things that really matter to me. For all of the energy, I spent worrying about my capacity to acquire wealth and revenue in my business or to hit certain milestones, I was trading off prioritizing my energy toward impact in service. I was so tired of spinning in the energy of insecurity on all levels, I was bored with it really. And I felt for the first time the desire to care about something else, coming from a different place inside myself. But I did have to get pretty fed up with myself first to get there. I've had to remind many people that I work with privately and in my high minds community, that this work is not about eradicating our problems, it's actually about elevating them, meaning we do this inner work not so our problems go away. We do this inner work so we can keep rising to new and different challenges, which most of us are okay with, even motivated by, it's when we spin in the same problems for years that things go haywire.
Shauna VanBogart 16:09
I love to use money as an example, because it's so easy to work with. But this can be applied to anything in life. I often see business owners solving the problem of making more money for so long that they don't even realize when it's a non issue anymore. It feels like making money is still a problem. But that's mainly because they've identified so closely with being a person in financial struggle. And so problem solving money has just become habitual. Now, sure, there could be some pushback here, like, Shawn, I look at my bank account, look at my debt. Look at my p&l statement. I do need more money. But typically, when I see a client that has spent years working to make more money, the solution is not to keep toiling away at it, but instead release that problem for a new one, a more truthful problem, because the real truth is that she doesn't have a problem making money, she now has plenty of evidence that she clearly knows how to make it.
So maybe the question is not how do I make more money? Maybe the actual next level problem is, how do I make smarter investments? Or how do I eliminate fear from spending my money? Or how do I bring more peace to spending on myself? What's a new problem that she could focus on? Instead, what's a different set of questions that that client can work from, besides constantly coming back to making more money as the problem needing fixed? Now, disclaimer, it's not fair. But this discernment is really hard to do alone. When you are so closely identified with a habit, especially a thought based habit that we're talking about here, it can be really difficult to see yourself clearly and what you're working with. I'll give you another example from a recent clarity call to really drive this home. And maybe it'll spark a few things for you. I also, by the way, see this dynamic a lot. It's super common. So this woman was at a transition point with her career. Her problem, according to her was that she didn't know what she was supposed to be doing next, she felt out of alignment. Nothing was seemingly exciting her but she could just feel like she was supposed to be doing something different. The solution she thought was to pinpoint the thing that she was supposed to be doing next. If she could just see what she's supposed to do next, then her problem would be fixed. And yeah, I mean, when you spell this out, that seems like a very logical conclusion to come to, like, you don't know what to do. So yeah, I need to figure it out. And then I can make my moves.
But that wasn't the problem, because she knew exactly what she should do next. But fear was preventing her from giving herself the permission to even venture into that territory. So what happens in these moments is it's like fear makes a deal with ego. And it essentially says, Hey, ego, kick up some dust and cause some confusion, so that we can distract her away from this unknown new place. She thinks that she was confused, and the solution was to figure out what was her next career move? She thinks the question is, what's my next thing when she already knew what the next thing is? Her actual question should be, how do I keep fear at bay, so I can stay the course of what I know I should be doing next. And this is what fear of being seen does to us. It sends us into these confusing spaces in our mind, where we don't even know the proper questions to ask. And we often create problems that don't exist, all as a distraction to simply keep us from showing up in this unknown territory. Being seen is a risk being seen as stepping into a space where you do not have control. When you allow yourself to be seen whether that means change. In career paths, or speaking up and saying what you really want to say, or even just selling the services of your business, you take a very real step into that unknown territory, where you cannot control what other people are going to think and how they're going to react. If this client didn't have that discernment, and this clarity that I gave to her, her mind could have spiraled for a long time, keeping her confused and pursuing the wrong problem. And when it comes down to deciding to venture into the unknown, or staying confused, 99% of us will subconsciously choose to stay confused and create problems that aren't the real issue or problems at all. Because the subconscious is not willingly going to go into the unknown on its own.
Shauna VanBogart 20:49
This second season is an exploration into that unknown territory of what it means to be seen. I pursued this for myself, I pursued this for you to get out and to better understand why we hold the best back on the deepest levels. Because I do know this, from my experience in talking to 1000s of individuals who have so much good in their hearts, that it's those very individuals who have massive, potentially life changing solutions to bring this world that can make real differences in our communities, our families and within ourselves, who are holding back the most. It's their very good heart that's playing into the fears of what showing up could do, how it could perhaps offend, it could hurt the ones closest to them, or could make others feel a certain way. And I just can't sit by and watch good hearted people with so many solutions for the world held within themselves, hold back from sharing them, not solely because the world benefits. But because I believe and I know that the most satisfying feeling in the world is feeling the impact of our gifts expressed. Sometimes it's about bringing more joy to the world. It's realizing that my magical perspective of the rainbow and the perspective of the science behind it both get to be right and both get to exist. I don't need to minimize my intended truth of what that rainbow was for me in that moment. Just because there's another truth out there, that's equally a value. Because what's amazing is not how the illusion of a rainbow itself is created. What's amazing is that I could see it to allow the facts in the science to show me just how magical it was that I was even witnessing it to have noticed it in the first place. On that day when I really could have used a sign that I was in the right place making the right moves, when I could have easily walked by the window looking in the other direction is amazing that two people can never see the same rainbow due to the specific degree that's required for the light to hit the raindrops in relation to the observer is amazing. And that I got to see it in a way where it appeared to start in my backyard is incredible, that our rainbow is actually made up of more than 1 million colors. And that the seven colors that I could see his evidence of 1000s of other colors that I cannot is amazing. My point, the power is not in the content of what you show up to share. The power is in the perspective. The miracle is not the rainbow. The miracle is that I could see it. And instead of other perspectives being at play, which were causing me to instinctively want to hold back. What if it's acknowledging that those perspectives getting to exist, is exactly what makes your point of view so valuable and desired. My hope for you is that you walk away from season two empowered to hold back just a little less. And not because I'm going to show you how to fix yourself so that you get to a place of total confidence within yourself to show up and be seen. But as an extension of just being more to come next time on just being seen.
Shauna here, hoping that you’re coming off this episode of Just Being Seen feeling inspired and challenged to see how good it can get for you in your journey to showing up and being seen in your gifts. If you want the crash course to deepening into the truth of who you are, you’ll want to get on the waitlist for the next round of Mynd Over Matter. Head on over to ShaunaVanBogart.com/MOMWaitlist to put your name down.
If you’re loving this series - guess what? There’s bonus episodes, behind-the-scenes video, and other discussions happening over on the Just Being Patreon community. Join in on the fun at patreon.com/justbeing.
Just Being is produced by Jeremy Enns and the team at Counterweight Creative. Special thanks to the variety of people who had their hands on some aspect of this creative piece, including my featured guests. And to the right-hand women I am honored to call my team, Kelly Elizabeth and Jess Butler, I see you, I appreciate you, and know that your support in this work is changing the lives of women around the world.