What Cookie taught me about showing up in my business

Last week, I got into my first Facebook fight. It started off with me making a point I genuinely believed in and ended with me reflecting on how I am showing up in my business.

On Facebook I usually tend to keep a low profile liking and making a positive comment here or there. But on this occasion I just couldn’t do it.

My First Facebook Fight

One woman, a business coach herself, was making the argument that if you have your own business and also choose to comment on Fox’s super popular and amazing soap opera “Empire” on your personal Facebook timeline, you’re off brand, you’re hurting your business and won’t reach your ideal customer.

My response? Give me a break!

As someone with over 15 years of working in a corporate environment and who also loves to indulge in the juicy drama of reality television once in a while, I believe it’s more than okay to comment on an episode of Empire and maintain your business credibility at the same time.

Why is it so hard to just be ourselves?

The tagline of our business is “Be Authentic, Be Effective, Be Iconic”. Be Authentic is number one for a reason. As a Black woman working for corporations and large organizations, I didn’t see many people like myself. As a result I became hyper-aware of how I was perceived never really feeling comfortable sharing my personal life or my true personality, never really sure how anything I did would be interpreted.

So it became my dream to have my own business so I could finally just be myself. I think that’s the hope of many Black women who start their own business. It’s one of the reasons why we are are the number one creators of new businesses in America. We want to create a space where we can do things our own way and be who we are without apologies.

But old habits die hard … unconsciously we have a picture of what success look like and it often doesn’t look like us. So we create a business that looks like how we think success should look. And what do we do? We end up recreating that same old environment we couldn’t wait to get away from. We end up putting the same constraints and limits on ourselves we were trying to get away from. We can never succeed that way.

So when I heard this lady giving business advice along these lines, all I wanted to do was roll my eyes. I commented on her post that her perspective was outdated and people want you to be you because it gives everyone permission to be themselves.

Girl you got read!

That’s when I proceeded to get read like a romance novel on a hot summer vacation. She went through my facebook posts on my business page and posted comment after comment on how I was showing up. I wasn’t sharing myself and my personality.

The fact of the matter? She was right. I admire people who feel comfortable sharing themselves so openly online but never felt fully comfortable myself. That’s what I love about business. It pushes you to come out of your comfort zone.

So I have my Facebook foe to thank. Watch out this spring. We have a lot of changes coming. You will definitely be seeing more from me and if you’re ready to rev up your business, you can catch me at a few speaking dates.

Join us at Spring to Life!

I will be joining the fabulous Marilyn Porter in the Spring to Life teleconference on April 19th at 6 p.m. ET.  I will be talking about how to get more done in your business in less time. Register at bit.ly/spring2life.

Stay tuned for other dates coming up in May and June. I am so looking forward to sharing and hearing from you!

And one thing I’ve learned from Cookie is she is nobody but herself, love her or hate her. So if you’re watching Empire, have fun, comment on Facebook. You’ll get a like from me!