Hey, it's Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business

and a life that you love. So much, so, so much. And today is Q&A Tuesday and today's

question comes from Victoria and Victoria writes.

“Hi Marie, I'm wondering whether you have some tips for self-promotion. How to go about

speaking well of your brand and letting the passion shine through. How not to be afraid

to blow your own trumpet. You seem much better at this in the US than we are here in Australia.

I always feel self-conscious and nervous when I try to promote my own business, like I'm

bragging. Please help. Thanks, Victoria.”

Great question, Victoria, and I hear this all the time. You know, you often hear the

term shameless self-promotion as though there should be shame in self-promotion. I think

it's important that we slow down and really ask ourselves this question: where did we

learn that self-promotion is bad and, more importantly, why do we accept that as the truth?

As intelligent thinking human beings, why is speaking about something that we do or

have done a bad thing? And why do we equate expressing joy or confidence or pride about

our work with something we should feel shame for? It's just crazy. I have a completely

different point of view on this. In fact, I think you should feel ashamed if you don't

promote yourself.

Point is, if you do something great I wanna know about it. So here are 3 reframes to help

you get a little more comfortable tooting your own horn. And the first one is focus

on what you can give versus what you can get. So I say this every single week, right, the

world needs that special gift that only you have, and I mean it. And if you hold back

from self-promoting, you are stealing from those who need you most. So you need to really

start thinking of self-promotion as service, like a public service.

On a practical level, you never know if someone needs to hear about what you do. If not for

themselves, maybe for their friend or colleague. I'm sure you've had this happen in your

own life. You go out and you hear about what somebody does and maybe they're a web designer

and you say, “OMG, you're exactly the kind of person I've been looking for. Thank

goodness you said something.”

Number two is stop caring. Not about other people, just what they think. So many of us

shy away from self-promotion because we're afraid that people won't like us, that they'll

judge us, that they'll find us totally annoying. Well, guess what? People already don't like

you, they already judge you, and unfortunately they probably find you annoying. I'm sorry

to say that that's true, but it's true about you and it's true about me.

Now, the real question is, who are you living your life for? I'm pretty comfortable with

self-promotion and it's not because I'm from the US. It's because I care more about

getting my ideas out there and helping as many people as possible than I do trying to

live my life trying to be unjudged, which is pretty much impossible. So you've got

to ask yourself, what do you want on your tombstone? What do you want them to say at

your funeral?

Now, of course we're having some fun here, Victoria, but the point is a valid one. And

like everything else in life, there is an art to self-promoting, which brings me to

my next point. Number three, do not be a broken record.

So yes, do let us know that you're great. Tell us why. But have other things to talk

about. I mean, think about it, if you talked about your kids and only your kids again and

again or if I talked about Game of Thrones and only Game of Thrones over and over again,

it would get pretty darn boring fast. So make sure you have variety and different topics

and, of course, make sure that you celebrate other people and you'll be totally fine.

One last thing Victoria, what you're feeling is not just because you're from Australia.

Most of us grow up being told don't brag and don't show off, and I think it's time

that we all started to untangle these feelings of shame and self consciousness from sharing

our gifts and offering our service to the world. And we can start by remembering this tweetable:

Instead of calling it shameless self-promotion, let's take the shame out of it altogether.

Victoria, that was my A to your Q and I really hope it helps. Now I would love to hear from you,

and it’s a two parter today. So number one, have you ever held yourself back from

sharing about who you are or what you do? What fear or concern stopped you? And number

two, when it comes to self-promotion, which idea from today's episode do you need to

remember the most and why?

Now, as always, the best discussions happen after the episode over at MarieForleo.com,

so go there and leave a comment now.

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Stay on your game and keep going for your dreams because the world needs that special

gift that only you have. Thank you so much for watching and I'll catch you next time

on MarieTV.