How I built the confidence to put myself out there on the internet (as an introvert!)

Today, I'm talking about how I built the confidence to put myself out there on the internet as a personal brand. Because I think it's really easy from the outside to look at somebody like me, who has put a lot of time and effort into building this big brand. But when you're not in it, it's very easy to look at this person and say, “Well, they've got a lot of confidence. It's easy for them to do it. They're a confident person.”

>> Click here to listen to the podcast on your app of choice <<

 

How to put yourself forward in a personal brand, even when you're an introvert

 

I'm not naturally a very confident person. Confidence is really only something that I've built in the last year or so. I really don't enjoy having people's eyes on me, and the first little while, when I was building my personal brand was really uncomfortable. At school, I used to be the person who would avoid putting their hand up even if I knew the answer. Back when I worked in a corporate job, I would pretty much never speak in a meeting. The first business that I had, I didn't even put my name on the about page, let alone my photo. So to go from all of that to having a personal brand, was pretty terrifying.

 

Build confidence by doing

Okay, so how did I actually become confident? How did I build this confidence? You may not like the answer, but the only way that I managed to build this confidence was just by doing, by slowly, pushing myself out of my comfort zone a little more each day. You don't do these things because you're confident. You build that confidence by doing these things. I know it's scary to think, “Well, I want to do this stuff, but I'm terrified to do it,” but you're going to be terrified to do it until you do it. Then you're going to realize it's not as bad as you've been working it up to be in your head, and you start to become comfortable at this new level of discomfort.

 

Many successful people are introverts

I hear a lot of people also saying, “I'm an introvert. I can't launch a digital product or a podcast.” Guys, I'm an introvert too, and you'd be surprised just how many of the big names in the online business space are introverts. James Wedmore talks about it all the time. And I always used to think, “Yea, right. Easy for him to say, he's an introvert,” until I met him at an event in LA at the start of last year and realized that, “Yeah, okay. I can relate to this guy. He truly was an introvert.” He was hanging out in the corner of the room exactly like I would have been.

 

Introvert doesn't have to equal shyness

So being an introvert or an extrovert doesn't mean you're more or less shy or confident. It simply means that you either lose energy or gain energy from interacting with people. I personally find that after I've been at an event or even after a Zoom call, a lot of the time, I find that I need to have a nap. Interacting with people really drains my batteries. And after a multi-day conference back when we used to have conferences in person in real life, after those conferences, I would have to take like a day or two off to rest to undo the introvert hangover that I would have from having to be on, on, on for multiple days at a time. I think the online world has made it easier for us introverts because we can choose when we want to show up and when we want to hide and recharge.

 

I mean, I don't know if you guys notice this. I personally notice it because it's my business. But I have times when I will show up with a lot of energy on social media. You'll see me on stories a lot. You'll see me doing reels. And then I have times when I just don't put anything up for a while. That is purely because my energy fluctuates a lot, and I think as an introvert, I'm a lot more sensitive to that. I don't know. Maybe extroverts out there can tell me if you guys have the same energy fluctuations as well. So I think the whole introvert-extrovert thing isn't really a valid excuse to not put yourself out there. If you're waiting for that confidence to put yourself out there, you're never going to just magically find that confidence. You have to start by putting yourself out there first, and that's how you build the confidence.

 

Pin this?