AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, this is AJ Vaden here, and welcome to my recap episode on my conversation with former, former NFL player Clay Harbor. I don’t know why that’s such a tongue twister for me, former NFL player, Clay Harbor. And this is a, I would say an inspirational, motivational episode, but also with some tactical details about how to launch and grow your personal brand if you are thinking about starting or growing your coaching, consulting, speaking business. Definitely worth a full listen. But here is my take on this episode and some of the big things that I walked away with from this and my, my view on this, and I think this is a, a really important conversation to have, is how is comparison holding you back? And on the interview, Clay talks a lot about showing up and the difference between 80%, a hundred percent, 0% and the importance of not just showing up but showing up consistently.
AJV (01:07):
And then it got me thinking about my own life and lives of people I know and how much that comparison is the reason that we don’t show up. And most often the reason that we don’t show up consistently. And so here’s my question for you today, if you’re listening to this video, is what are you comparing yourself to or who are you comparing yourself to that you need to let go? And I don’t care who you are, what you do, there is something or someone that you compare yourself to that at some point in your life will make you feel not good enough, not worthy enough, not smart enough, not successful enough not doing enough, not helping enough, not making enough whatever it is, fill in the blank, not enough. And that’s what comparison does. Comparison makes you feel not enough.
AJV (02:08):
And that’s the problem with comparison is so often as individuals specifically individuals who are trying to do something bigger than what we’re currently doing is we get stopped by looking around and comparing our step one to someone else, their step 1000. And we just don’t know what their step is. And I just, I know when we started Brand Builders Group just four and a half years ago, it was really easy to go, Oh my gosh, here we are starting a personal brand strategy firm. And our personal brands had recently been scratched and completely, we were completely starting over. So neither my husband, Roy Va in our eye had any social media followers. We, we had lost our podcast. We hadn’t even started a new one. We hadn’t even created a website for Brand Builders Group when we started.
AJV (03:06):
And there was a lot of opportunity for us to go, We can’t do this because of this, this, this, and this. Like, what are people gonna think if we’re a personal brand strategy firm and we don’t even have a podcast launch, we have no social media followers, we don’t even have a website for goodness sake. What will people think? And I know that in many times in our life and in my life specifically, that would’ve stopped me. It would’ve held me back and said, Well, here’s one excuse of why I’m not ready. And here’s another excuse of why I don’t have time and here’s another excuse of how I can’t afford it. And here’s another excuse of, well, what are people gonna think? I could go on and on and on. The point is, is they all had to do with comparison. Cuz the truth is we did launch Brain Builders group with no website and with no social media followings and with their podcast. And we were just fine. We were just fine. And that had a lot to do with doing it in spite of what we thought other people would think. It was doing it in spite of,
AJV (04:51):
Sorry, you’re gonna have to cut this part together where we fell downstairs. He’s okay. But we had to do this in spite of what we thought other people were gonna think. Because here’s the truth, we could have launched with all of those things and people were still gonna have opinions, good or bad. So we could launch without all of those things. And people were still gonna have thoughts, good or bad. So why not just do it? Cuz the truth is comparison most often just hurts us. There’s always gonna, people who love you and love what you do, gonna and love what you do. There’s always gonna be people who don’t love you and who don’t love what you do. That cannot be what holds you back because that only hurts you, comparison hurts you. It’s an internal thing that we suffer with and we’re the only ones who actually have negative effects from how we compare ourselves to.
AJV (05:43):
And it, it’s really easy in a world today to get caught up with, well what does this person have and what do they look like and what are they wearing and what are they doing? And how many followers do they have? And what, how many likes do they have? And how many downloads and how much do they make? And sometimes we just need to stop looking around and put on some blinders and go. Everybody is on their own path. Everyone is on their own journey. And truly as an outsider looking in, we get a very surface level perspective of what every single person is going through. Cuz at the end of the day, we all know that every single person on planet Earth has a struggle. They have problems, they have issues. They have their own insecurities. They suffer with their own level of comparison.
AJV (06:27):
And we don’t get that picture. We don’t get to see all of the struggles and the hurdles and the obstacles that happened you know, years before or days before. We don’t get to see the behind the scenes that would eliminate the level of comparison and the significance that that has in our own decision making. And so if we stop looking around and we just put our heads down and and focus on what are we called to do and what do I feel like my mission is? And you know, for me it’s like, what is the calling that God has on my life and how can I serve people? And I think that’s the biggest thing is like when we’re focused on showing up for other people, comparison starts to go away. When comparison creeps in is when I’m worried about me, myself, and I, but when I’m worried about who I’m serving and I’m worried about my clients and I’m worried about my family and I’m worried about my friends and I’m worried about causes that I believe in when I’m worried about the people that I know are suffering, it’s like my comparison goes away cuz it’s not about me.
AJV (07:26):
It’s not supposed to be about us. And when you focus on serving and you actually focus on like, I think I could help somebody I I know I could help somebody. And even if it’s one person, it’s like, focus on that person. And those feelings of comparison start to go away. And it doesn’t really matter if you have a nice website or hundreds of thousands of followers or a bestselling book or you know, a notable podcast. And those don’t get me wrong, those things are great and I think you help a lot of people and you get more reach. So don’t get me wrong here, but when you focus on the one, when you focus on serving who’s right in front of you, the neighbor next door the kid down the street, your colleague, your coworker, that client who really needs you, comparison just diminishes.
AJV (08:12):
It just starts to go away. But you gotta show up. And you gotta do it consistently because comparison will creep back in the moment that you stop focusing on the people around you, the people that you were called to serve. And so I do encourage you to go listen to this whole podcast cuz it is about showing up and doing it consistently and not making it about you. And I think that’s where we get to shine the most is when it’s not about us. When it’s about the audience and the people that we can help and that we can serve. And the benefit for us, in addition to doing good works is that feeling of comparison goes away. And what it’s filled with is satisfaction of knowing. It’s like I have purpose. I can do things for people who need help. And it gives you a newfound level of purpose and passion and mission that maybe didn’t exist the minute before you did it. So focus on serving, it, eliminates comparison. Show up, do it consistently and go check out this whole podcast. I’ll check you, I’ll check you next time on the Influential Personal Brand. See you later.
