Ep 138: Making Reinvention Stick: The Power of Self-Image

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello friends , I hope you had an amazing week Today . I wanted to do an episode that kind of builds off the last one .

If you remember , last week we talked about repositioning , and what I tried to do in that episode was to help you start to think about yourself in a more objective way , using some of the perspectives that brand strategists use in a corporate setting to look at a corporate brand that might not be performing the way the company wants it to , or maybe that needs

reinvigoration of some sort , and so I think that it's really helpful sometimes , at different stages of our life , maybe , where we feel like we're not exactly where we want to be , it's really helpful to look at ourselves in that way , because it feels more distant .

It feels like we're looking at ourselves in a dispassionate way , a way that doesn't have a lot of fear or self-doubt baked into it , right ? So if you haven't listened to the episode last week on repositioning , I invite you to do that . It's kind of fun .

I juxtapose talking about ourselves as a brand and sort of how we might use a four-step process to reposition us if we're not exactly where we want to be . But I juxtapose that with some of my observations about big , well-known United States brands that have successfully repositioned .

And the reason I wanted to build off of this is because the truth is and I mentioned it at the end of that episode repositioning is not easy to do . It's really challenging . If you are a corporate brand strategist it's much easier still a challenge , but much easier to introduce a new brand .

That , if you do it in a fact-based way and have some great bulletproof strategies surrounded by a great product and a great marketing campaign , is much easier to do than to take a brand that's in trouble , maybe for a long time , or stalled or declining in market share or whatever is the issue .

It's tough to take a brand that's in trouble , clining in market share or whatever is the issue . It's tough to take a brand in that position and reposition it , reinvigorate it , refresh it and put it back on the path that the company had always hoped it would be on . That's tough , and the reason it's tough is what I want to talk about today .

It is hard to get people to look at the brand in a new way . It's hard for for talking about company brands for a minute .

It is hard for the universe of potential customers of that brand , who have a negative opinion about that brand , to change their mind about the brand , to even consider the brand and their universe of possibilities if they're thinking about buying a product , and it's really hard to get them to actually pull out their credit card and buy the brand .

It's tough , and so I talked about a couple of automotive brands on the podcast last week and I am I've never worked in the automotive category , but I am a huge fan of those two brands and the marketing teams and really everyone in the company , because it was about way more than marketing . It was the whole ecosystem of that brand .

Both brands really reinvented themselves . Tough , tough to do , but it can be done Right . So I want to talk today about why . Why is it so hard to reposition ? You know , because in the personal development space and one of the things I always help my clients with a portion of them anyway is reinvention .

Right , a lot of people who come to me are coming to me for two big buckets of things . There's people who come to me for other things , but in general most people fall in one of these two categories . They're either looking to up-level or reinvigorate where they're already at .

So if they're on the corporate track , they're looking to to next level in some way either a title or , you know , income up-leveling or sometimes it's about transitioning from one career track to a different one . So that's one way . One reason people come to me is a corporate reinvention .

Another way they come to me is they're an entrepreneur and they're looking to next level in their business . Right , maybe they've been humming along just fine or have been following sort of a gentle upward trajectory , growth curve in their business and they're looking to really jump right to the next level .

So I help people mostly with those two things and sometimes I also help people move from corporate to an entrepreneur . That is something I know very well because I'm living in both worlds right now , so myself , personally . So I know a lot . I know a lot about what does that mean ?

And all of those things , those buckets I just talked about , that I help my clients with at the foundation is reinvention , because in order to get to the next level with anything in life , honestly not just your career , but you know your marriage or your relationship with you , know your children , if you have them , your relationship with your family , your

relationship with your friends it all involves reinvention . And I think sometimes we sometimes we think of it in that way and sometimes we don't . You know , but any kind of change I think is is a form of reinvention , any type of change that we do with ourselves .

And I think if we think about that , it's helpful , because I think a lot of times I know from coaching so many people and I know I used to think about it in this way when we think about change in some aspect , when you think about something we want in terms of a next leveling of an area of our life , we look at it and we think of the things that we

need to do . We think about , oh , here's my action plan or here are my goals , and then we think about just diving in and going after it . But the truth is that the only way that the reinvention or the changes or any of the strategies that you think of or the goals that you put in place .

The only way any of those things are going to stick is by first changing the way you think about yourself . And why is that ? That is the entire reason , by the way , of why New Year's resolutions don't work . That is the entire reason why the diets mostly don't work , or the you know I'm going to get back in the gym thing doesn't work .

It doesn't work because we haven't done the inner work on ourselves , because we haven't changed who we are , and we maybe haven't even gotten clear on the way we're looking at ourselves , because that is the entire reason . The way we're looking at ourselves is the entire reason why we got where we are .

So if we find ourselves in a place where we don't really love in some way , you know and we were looking to make some changes either in one or many areas of our life the only way that's going to work is if you start on the inside .

And I'm not saying , by the way , that this is all fall work , that you just change how you look at yourself and everything magically changes . I am not saying that because you have to do many things , not only get clear on what you want and what areas of your life are in the need of reinvention .

And if you're not , it might be helpful to go back and listen to last week's podcast , because we did talk about you know , how does a corporate brand strategy start ? They start by saying , hey , there's a gap between where we wanted to be and where we are right now . And then they take a look at well , how did we get here then ?

Right , if we're not exactly where we want to be , why is that ? And they do a very dispassionate , clinical , 360 view of all of the reasons and all the contributing factors .

Because if you don't do that , if you just go in your gut and the same holds true for us personally , by the way you may be missing some of the big boat anchors that are holding you in place in a place where you don't really want to be . So that introspection is important .

If you haven't listened last week , go back and listen to that and then come back to this one . I think it'll be helpful . So what I'm not saying is it's just about thought work . It does start there , and the reason why that's so important is about labels . That's an easy way to think about it .

We assign labels to ourselves and other people assign labels to us . The labels we assign to ourselves are about our self image , how we see ourselves . That is at the foundation of my entire business . I believe , and I know for a fact , that everything that you want in your life starts on the inside and it starts with how you see yourself .

And if you're not where you want to be , you have to get clear on all of the unhelpful ways that you look at yourself that are keeping you in a place that you don't really want to be or that isn't optimal . And so those labels are another way to say your self image . Those labels sometimes are helpful labels .

In some areas of your life you might assign really great empowering labels to yourself . I'm a great friend , I'm a great spouse , I'm a great mother , I'm really good at my job .

You might say all kinds of helpful things , but for many of us I would dare say most of us there's a good portion of our brain that runs below the surface , that has been developing our entire lives , through our early childhood origins , through our schooling years , through our early adult years and into midlife .

That is combined with the things that people say to us , the experiences that we have and our interpretation of all of those things is just stored away in our human brain and that becomes a filter for how we see ourselves . That becomes our default self image .

If we don't get in there and do the work To understand what all of that even is , what parts are helpful and what part parts aren't helpful , and to do the work to recalibrate that , that is the only way that you can make a Reinvention of any part of your life last .

That is the only way that you can set a big goal , a life-changing goal , and actually achieve it . Think about people at the high point of their game . You know they're About to start the NFL season . Preseason for my team starts in let's see 12 days , the 18th . So I always think about those athletes , their training camp right now .

It's like how did they get there Right ? So many gifted athletes never make it to that level . What's the difference ? I Believe it's not only the gifted physical attributes they have and that they were likely born with . Of course , they have to develop those Physically .

So there's actions that they have to take with trainers and nutrition and all that , but a big part of it is mindset work and if you're not sure about that , I invite you , if you're a Netflix subscriber , go watch quarterback , that the paint and Manning produced series , and look at the work those folks do on their mind .

There's a couple of episodes in there that talk about some of the , the neuro feedback and just the mental Stuff that it takes To succeed in a sport that's quite violent and dangerous . I think there's like a hundred percent chance of injury . Every game like it's .

It's a tough sport , right , and in order to get great at it , you've got to conquer your human-based . You know your fear triggers of when you know if you're a quarterback of 300 pound linemen is Trying rushing at you , trying to take you down . You know how do you stay there and still find your receiver and and hit it . You know with that throw .

So people who get where they want to go in life . It's not an accident , anyone in any area , people in business , people who are running their own businesses . You don't get from zero to ten million dollars in revenue by a wing and a prayer , by just taking a series of actions .

There's a shift that has to take place in your mind where you go from , especially if you've spent 20 years or more in a corporate career when you're trained to think of your pay is about putting in the time and then collecting whatever the company decides to pay you for that gig .

It's a big difference between that and being successful in that and actually starting your own business and Generating that cash yourself and Seeing yourself as able to make that kind of money . That even just a money shift of an entrepreneur in the Seven or eight figure range is huge , huge or even multi six figure range .

If you never made that much money in your corporate career and I would say for myself I always made multiple six figures in the last 15 years or so in my career but doing that on my own and Generating that from zero , from a business idea and a dream , up into the multiple , multiple six figures has been a journey right .

And that is about changing the way you see yourself from just a corporate person to an entrepreneur . And that's true for anything .

If you want to lose weight , you know you may have been thin all of your life but let's say , for the past 20 years you've been steadily putting on weight , a couple pounds a year , and now you find yourself , you know 20 years later you need to lose 30 or 40 pounds or more . You know you've learned to look at yourself in this way .

You've learned the sets of behaviors that got you here . The habits have been Engrained and that's kind of just how you live your life right Even the size of clothing that you wear and how you put yourself together in a day .

So it's one thing to say I'm gonna start the diet and I'm gonna lose the weight , but the truth of the matter is , when that takes longer than what we want , it's easy to get stalled and it's easy to give up .

And the only way that you stay with it Through the discomfort , through the urges and the cravings to eat the things that you know you can't eat if you want to get there , through the desire not to go to the gym but actually to get in your car and go anyway Is by changing how you see yourselves from the person who needs to lose 40 or 50 pounds or more

To the person who's again at their ideal weight .

You have to see yourself back there and Believe in some ways that you're already there , that there's a version of you that is there , that can be there again and start living your life and changing your habits gradually over time , making those small identity shifts and the matching small action steps that move you from needing to lose 40 to 50 pounds to actually

being at that weight . That is exactly the same journey for anyone .

If you're sitting at a director level and you've always wanted to be at a vice president level , how do you get there ? Yes , you can try applying for a lot of different jobs and maybe you might get lucky and one might hit .

But I can promise you you're going to struggle with imposter syndrome in that new role until you actually make the shift tiny little shifts in your self-image and your level of belief and all of the things that you need to do to change the labels you've put on yourself .

That if you did go out and land that big job or that big opportunity , or if you have your own business and you land that huge new client that significantly up levels your revenue , I can promise you there's a world of imposter syndrome there that you're going to live in for a while .

If you don't do this identity shift work , it's because of the labels that we put on our self and the labels that others put on us . It's about the way we see ourselves and the way that others see us .

And there's a huge part of the human brain that I think it's like linked to our primitive brain , that one of the things that we do and that our brain does automatically is it categorizes things . This dates all the way back to our ancestors , right ? So we learned to label or categorize things so we could quickly identify threats .

That's one of the things the brain does and that is why we label people . We label ourselves , we label people , we label others , and we do that to kind of make sense of our world . We put things in buckets , right , and then we want them to stay in those buckets .

So one of the hardest things to do as a person or a corporate brand strategist is to change how a brand is positioned in the market right , or to change your own personal brand .

Because even if you did all the right things , even if you do all the little steps to gradually shift your self-image and you start to see yourself in a different way and you start making those shifts , one habit change at a time , one small action at a time . That is how it's done , by the way .

It's not done by massive action , it's done by tiny little micro steps that gradually turn you from facing north to facing south , and that happens steadily over time and that's how you gradually move from seeing yourself in one way to seeing yourself in another .

Even if you do that and you're right on track and you successfully nail the new goal or make the change that you want to make the outside world , the last thing to move and to lock into place are the people around us .

So , like if you're trying , like the example I just gave , like you're sitting at a director for let's call it 10 years , you're at a director level and you really want to be at the vice president level and you've done the identity work , you've made a lot of the shifts in how you see yourself right and you go out and try to get that job .

I think it's not impossible . But the easier way to do that journey would be to try to do that at a new company , because the company that you're at sees you in one way .

That doesn't mean you can't change their mind , but it takes a long time and I would say a consistent level of overperformance at a next level for the people around you to finally recognize oh , this is a new version of that person . That person is this new thing . It can happen .

It's just if you want to do it in your same company , you have to know that the tail on that at changing others , people's opinions of you is probably going to take a lot longer than what you think it is and maybe a lot longer than what you're patient enough to endure .

It's much easier to go into the market , find someone who's willing to take a bet on you and get into that new job and kill it . Right , because they don't think of you in that way . Right , and you can have a narrative about why you were at that level for a long time , about the lateral moves you made and how you rounded out your experience .

There's a good narrative you could tell to a new company about why that makes you exactly ready for the next level . But those new people in that new company , they're going to look at you as the vice president . People in the old company are going to continue to look at you as that director . That's just one example .

But same thing , like in our personal lives , like if you're that person who wants to lose 40 , 50 plus pounds , your friends , your significant other , your family are used to you at the 40 , 50 pounds overweight . They're not used to you being back there . They're not used to your new way of dressing . They're not used to your new confident attitude .

They're not used to your new habits of the gym and the not drinking during the week and the different ways of eating . They're used to and probably in some part of them wants the old you back .

So when we change , we move other people's cheese and that pushes against a little bit , I think , sometimes our ability to stay with it , because it's hard , in the face of people not liking the changes we're making , to stay with it . Right ?

So you know it's really about labels and the world's full of them Our title , our reputation , the experiences that other people have with us . Those tend to form the labels that people give us . In our career , it's like in our business .

You know if you run a business , the business you run , the people you serve and the experience they have with the business , they're going to assign labels to your business or to you . You know on how effectively they think you do that Right . Everyone has an opinion . You know they're hard to remove . It's hard enough for us to see ourselves in a new way .

That takes a while to make that shift , but the people around you , that next concentric circle out from you being the center . You've got to change yourself and how you see yourself first , but you're going to have to give the universe around you time to settle in to seeing yourself in that new way .

That takes a while and I think you have to be patient with it and I would say , stay the course with it , because it can be , especially if it's the people closest to us . It can be very , very enticing to kind of want to revert back to the old patterns of behavior that got us to that place that we tried to change in the first place .

There's a part of us that wants to stay there and the labels the labels others have of us and their desire to keep us where we are because that's the us that makes sense to them , or even the labels we give ourselves they can really become a self fulfilling prophecy .

And the only way to make reinvention stick is by taking control of your label , your labels . You've got to get really clear on where you want to go versus where you are , what that gap is , and then what are all the ways that are , what are all the behaviors and what are all the mindset patterns , thought patterns that you have . That got you here .

That didn't just happen . That started with your self image . The thought patterns are an outcome of that self image . That's why my business focus is there .

It doesn't do any good to just develop , to try to white knuckle it and develop better habits , or to grid it out and or to use productivity hacks and all of that , like that's all good stuff , that's fine , but it'll never work if you don't first change how you see yourself , and I am confident that most of us don't even know all of the labels that we

assigned to ourselves . So you've got to start there . It is critically important , right ? Take control of that , get clear on that and once you kind of understand that , it all starts with how you see yourself and that's the catalyst to enable any kind of re-imagine that you want to do down the road .

You know you got to get clear on where you are right now versus where you want it to be . So those four steps that I watched you through last week are super helpful place to start . But you also need to get really clear on okay , well , where do I want to go . Right , where am I trying to get to In what areas of our life ?

Is it just in one place or is it in many places ? And you got to . You know , sort of get clear on what the delta is . What degree of change is needed ? Right , is it a huge sweeping reinvention or are you just tweaking how you present yourself to the world ? Are you just trying to lose , you know , 20 pounds ? Like , what are you trying to do ?

Like , is it huge or small ? And then you know . The second thing you have to do is you have to get in there and start looking at , well , how did I get here ? Like , what are all the different ways and patterns and things that got me here ?

What are all the things that contributed to me being kind of stuck in this place that I don't really want to be ? And you have to understand that behind that action that got you stuck is an emotion that wasn't great , and so there are patterns of thought behind that emotion .

So the double click into all of the thought work and that's what I work with my clients on in my membership and one on one for the private clients is what are those things ? That narrative is the key to the whole thing , because that's what causes the emotions and that's the emotions are what causes the action .

So if there's a series of habits that you have on not going to the gym , or you know constantly overindulging in sugar , or you know overindulging in sugar or over drinking during the end of the day to buffer from your business day , or you know being a recluse at home instead of going out and socializing so you can actually widen the circle of friends , or you

know if you're just going through the motions at work and not really putting all the effort you need to do into your career in order to get to that next level . So the things that you're doing start with your thinking and your thinking drives the emotions and your emotions drive those behaviors that got you to the place that you don't want to be .

So just trying to change your actions doesn't go deep enough . You got to back all the way up and get to the thought work right , and the thought work comes from your self-image . So you've got to really not only decide where you want to go versus where you are .

You've got to click in and understand how do you look at yourself today , because that is the catalyst for all of the thought patterns that are running subconsciously below the surface that actually drive those emotions and those emotions that drive the actions .

It starts with how you think about yourself and you've got to get clear on that and I think most of us are not clear on how we see ourselves .

We may be clear in some ways , but I can promise you very few people , because it's deep , deep , deep work to get all the way in there and I think some people have done it in some areas , like , I would say , athletes , in order to be an athlete that it sells .

They are constantly challenging themselves from how they see themselves and overcoming adversities and all of that stuff . But for those of us that weren't elite athletes , I think it's rare to do that level of thought work .

But you have to , because when you understand where you are versus where you want to go and you understand the self-image that got you here , you can immediately see well , if I want to go over here , whether that here is a little ways away or a huge transformation . Your self-image has to make that journey .

You have to shift that or it's never going to stick right .

It can be done , but it's not about the massive action , it's about the slow and subtle inner shifts you have to make in how you look at yourself , how you see yourself , because then you can start to catch all of the negative thought patterns that fall out of that self-image that you want to shift and turn into a more empowering brand narrative , more empowering

thought narrative , right , and then from there you'll find yourself steadily in a better daily emotional state and from that better daily emotional state a better set of habits falls out . So I believe that focusing on actions as a layer of the change you have to make is important .

I think , small and subtle , I call it habit layering layering in and replacing a habit that doesn't serve you with a habit a new habit that does , and doing that steadily and consistently is a great way to cement the change , because you do have to change the actions you take , but you can't start there , or it's not .

The only place that you have to focus is a different way to look at it . So do the habit layering exercise of what are all the bad habits you have and what one for one new habit could you put into place for each of the ones , whether it's about food swaps or other actions you need to take consistently in whatever area of your life you want to change .

But it's got to start all the way on the inside . It has to , and if it doesn't , you will not be able to stay with it long enough to actually be living the reinvention that you want so badly .

And it comes back to labels and just don't be surprised if you do all of that inner work and you make all of those changes so your emotional state is in a more positive place on a daily basis and your habits better serve you and you finally get to that reinvention place .

Don't be surprised if the people closest to you that you interact with on a daily basis in some area Find it hard to accept the new . You Don't take it personally , it is just about the human brain . Doesn't mean they don't care about you . Doesn't mean they don't want the best for you . Doesn't mean they don't love you .

What it means is they're super comfortable with how you were and it's going to take them time to see yourself in a new way . So never , ever , look to others as a reflection of what's possible for you . Look to yourself . Go all the way in the inside . Decide what you really want . Do the inner self image .

Work all the way in , at the core , to get clear on how you see yourself today versus how you want to see yourself down the road , understand how big that delta is and start doing the intentional thought work you need to undo those old patterns of behavior of those old thought patterns that have been in your brain since your earliest days on this planet and that

have just become your default filter . That's what got you here , but you can undo that . That's a choice . You don't have to keep all of that crap in your brain . You can keep the good stuff and edit out the stuff that doesn't serve you and replace it with new , empowering self image and thought narrative that does get you exactly where you want to go .

This is important work . I think it's the work of our life . This is the key . Like if you're somebody who isn't even really clear yet what you want , but you just wake up every day and you just don't feel great . You don't feel great about your life , you don't feel happy . This is the work .

This is the work you got to go all the way in and get really clear on what's at the center of that and I want you to really , most importantly , know you don't have to stay there . It isn't just the truth about you .

Whatever you uncover is just a bunch of data that got stored in that database of a brain that you have and you get to decide , no matter how old you are , how you want to look at yourself going forward . That is your choice .

This is your life , and don't look to anyone else as a reflection of what's possible for you , because I can promise you , if you go in and do this work and you make whatever the changes are that you want to make , whether they're big or small , if you give it enough time and you stay with it , those other people will not only change how they see you and

they will not only accept that you will be an inspiration to them on what's possible in their own life . So I just want you to know that everything that you want for your life , if it's a change in some way , it's about what's keeping you stuck .

There are the labels that we and others assigned to us , and the key to overcoming that is about getting all the way in and changing your self image . That is how you get from where you are to where you want to be and stay with that over time . So that is what I wanted to talk about today .

I hope you enjoyed this episode and until next time , make it a great week . My friends , do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it .

Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career and life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .