Don't Stay A Best Kept Secret

Staying a best kept secret isn't humble, it's a disservice. In this episode, I talk about why visibility is a practitioner's responsibility, the fear-based blocks that keep you hiding, and why you need to work on these immediately. Just like athletes train for visibility, you need to show up consistently. Someone is searching for exactly what you offer. Let them find you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Hey everyone, welcome back. This is going to be a solo segment where I share some of my biggest takeaways and lessons that I've learned through my career. And my goal here is to save practitioners tons and tons of time from learning these lessons the hard way, like I did. So today we're going to be talking about something that's been on my mind a lot lately. And in reality, it's actually one of the biggest motivations behind this podcast, The Fulfilled Practitioner. And the episode, I'm going to be calling it Don't Stay a Best Kept Secret. And I know some of you are thinking, hey, Ricky, I'm not comfortable with self-promotion. I just want to focus on helping people. Trust me, I get it. It's my life story. And here's what I need you to hear today: staying invisible isn't humble. It's actually a disservice. There's this phrase that I hear all the time from practitioners, and I used to say it myself. And I usually say it with a weird mix of pride and frustration. And that saying is, I'm kind of a best kept secret. So your clients probably love you. Maybe you're really getting a lot of referrals in your practice. Maybe when people finally find you, they wonder where you've been their entire life. And that feels really good, right? It validates the work that we do. But the problem here is that you really weren't meant to stay a secret. So secrets don't change the world. Secrets don't produce impact. Secrets don't reach the people who are desperately searching for that exact kind of support that you offer. So in full transparency, I've struggled with this my entire career. I would kind of ebb and flow with times where I put myself out there and maybe I had some sort of launch or webinar or in-person seminar that I was doing. And that's when I would market more aggressively on social media. But then I would go radio silent. So there were times where I just simply focused on my current client load and the people that I was working with. And I was getting great results. But the interesting thing was that nobody really knew. I found it very, very difficult to speak about this because, in a way, we see it as self-gloating. We see it as kind of tooting our own horn. And initially, you might think that that is you being humble, that you don't want to speak about yourself in a positive light like that. You don't want to say me, me, me, me, me. And you really want people to also value their privacy. But what I've learned the hard way here is that the longer that I stayed a best kept secret, the longer people continue to suffer. Because if you have a skill that can change the world, if you have a skill that can help people transform their health, was the foundation of how we see the world. It's literally the biggest thing that everyone should be working on. People will continue to suffer. So think about it this way: imagine a professional athlete. I love sports. So if you're listening to this podcast, you're going to hear tons and tons of sport analogies. But if you're a professional athlete who refuses to play in big games, you've got the skills, you've done the training, but you're too nervous to get on the field, or maybe you're too self-conscious to promote your highlight reel to scouts and things like that. And you just keep waiting. You're just hoping someone will find you one day. A team might find you and offer you a chance to play or sign a contract. And think about it, to us, it's almost funny, right? We know that wouldn't fly. We know that people wouldn't find you unless you're actively getting yourself out there. You're actively showing up in big games, you're actively going where those scouts are. So athletes know that part of being elite is being seen. So they train for performance, and that's what they're known for on the field. But even before that performance, they actually had to train themselves for visibility. This is a really, really clear distinction because I meet some of the best practitioners and my jaws drop when I hear what they're working on and all of the amazing transformations they're having in their practice. But they really don't train visibility. They show up, they compete, they put themselves in the arena again and again. And that's how they earn credibility, that's how they get paid, that's how they grow. But this is where we need to know that that also applies to you. This athlete mentality applies directly to you. So if you want to make a real impact in this world, if you want to help more people, you want to create more freedom, you want to build a truly fulfilling practice, you literally can't afford to stay invisible. So I know invisible is very comfortable. And that's one of the things that kept me motivated. I was kind of always the behind-the-scenes person, the clinical rat, the one that was uh researching a lot in my own time and honing my skills and finding out the best possible ways to help people, but I really didn't work on my visibility side of things. So here's a reframe. And the big purpose of this podcast is not to talk theoreticals, it's to leave you with practical ideas and strategies and tips that could move the needle for you. So here's a reframe I want you to really sit with. Being visible isn't about ego, it's about responsibility. So you have a responsibility to share your talents with this world. As we all know from watching all these superhero movies, Stan Lee famously wrote in Spider-Man, with great power comes great responsibility. So you have the skills, you have the training, you have this transformation that you can offer people. And someone right now is Googling symptoms you've helped countless people resolve. So I'll repeat that. Someone right now is Googling symptoms that you've helped countless people resolve. So just think about that, right? Think about how many people would love to work with you if they knew about you and how much of an impact you can make in their life. But because there's this potential fear, there's a resistance where it's very difficult to put yourself out there, they never hear about you. And then they probably become a cautionary tale and they probably bounce from practitioner to practitioner. And that's not a bash on other practitioners, but there's a lot of generic advice out there, and they're hoping to find someone they trust. So if you have a system, if you have a specific technique or a framework that you work from, and this is proven in with evidence, with testimonials, with people telling you that, oh my God, my life has changed. You have a responsibility to get that out there. And if you're not showing up doing that, guess what's gonna happen to that individual? They're gonna end up somewhere else. They're gonna potentially be confused, underserved. And the worst case scenario is they're probably gonna keep searching after that. And with each subsequent practitioner, we lose hope. So I had a long health journey, which I'll break down more uh in the future. And I went from practitioner to practitioner. And each time that I had to find a new practitioner and kind of jump back on that horse and go down that route again and travel and find out like who to work with, what they're about, like it was very, very taxing. It really drains your energy overall. So these individuals are gonna keep searching, and and with each one, their hope is gonna get knocked down a level as well. So when you stay hidden, you limit your impact. And when you limit your impact, you actually limit your fulfillment. And that's what we're all about here. So why do we stay hidden? Well, what's really going on underneath the surface here? Usually it's fear. And I would say the biggest fear is fear of judgment, right? What will people think? Fear of criticism, what if someone disagrees with me? Fear of being seen, what if I'm not good enough, right? That the stakes kind of go up the more you put yourself out there. Whereas if you stay invisible, the stakes stay stable, right? They stay the same. Now, what I'm here to tell you is that these fears are normal. After working with hundreds of practitioners now and really getting to dive deep into their psychology and see their drives, the top thing we see is this fear that's preventing practitioners. They don't believe in themselves, they lack that conviction to put themselves out there because it's not what we went to school for, right? Our purest intention is to help people. And that purest intention is very valid, very solid. It's it's a great thing that comes from the heart. But if you don't take that extra step, if you don't learn how to be visible, then you're actually creating that disservice we talked about. You're not going to be able to impact the amount of people you want to impact. So you became a practitioner to serve, to heal, to facilitate, to guide. And none of that happens when you're on the sidelines. So you don't have to be fearless to be visible. You just have to be committed and consistent. So let's get really practical here because visibility really doesn't happen by accident. There's real blocks that stop us, and we need to identify them and work on them immediately. So maybe your block is you don't feel confident speaking about your work. Maybe you freeze up when it's time to post on social media. Maybe you're still holding on to guilt from a past burnout episode and you don't feel worthy of being seen as a guide. So these could all be valid concerns that you do have. And guess what? No marketing strategy, no funnel, no perfect offer is going to actually fix that. So what you actually need to do to support this is you need to work on yourself, not your offer, not your marketing. You need to work on yourself first. So this is a pattern I see time and time again. I've heard so many, unfortunately, cautionary tales from practitioners where they spent tens of thousands of dollars with a marketing agency, with an ads agency, with a social media agency. And at the end of the day, they got they got some progress because it forced them to take action and it forced them to do a few things and try a few things, but there was really no long-term result, that they didn't really get an ROI on their investment. So you need to start with you. So I I often say that there's there's usually two things that go wrong with a training when it doesn't work. One is usually timing. So the timing wasn't right, it wasn't the right time for you to implement that step. And the second thing is that the training wasn't so good. So that's definitely a possibility. But if we go back to the first one with timing, if you're in a state of burnout, if you're in a state of fear, if you're just not in a good place, even if you do some of the right steps, they typically don't work out well because you don't have the right intention and energy behind that. So we need to work on you first. Or some people, their block is they don't have a clear message. So they know what they do, but they really can't explain it in simple terms. And they're usually trying to be everything to everyone because they're afraid of niching down and missing opportunities. But every practitioner that I've worked with who stays stuck has at least one major block that has nothing to do with marketing. It's usually something deeper, it's usually an internal belief, it's usually a fear, it's usually some sort of unresolved pattern. And the longer you ignore it, the longer you stay a secret. So here's what I want you to do right now or right after this episode ends. I want you to get honest with yourself. So ask yourself, what is the one thing that's really stopping me from being visible? And really think about this. This isn't something that you want to necessarily just breeze past because the way that you win is you have to do the exercises, right? So if we go back to our athlete example, the athletic performance that we see in a game, it usually took way more practice than that game to get them there. So when we see a game, uh I always use hockey as an example being Canadian, but uh star athlete might play 20 minutes a game. But in that week, they probably practiced practiced for eight hours. And if we look at how much they practiced the rest of their career, like we're looking at thousands of hours overall. So this is where uh I really want you to do the exercise. So really think about what's that one thing that's really stopping you from being visible. Is it fear of judgment? Is it imposter syndrome? Is it you don't know what to say? Is it that you're overwhelmed by all of the different options at your disposal and all the different platforms you have to learn? Name it, give it a name, write it down because once you name it, you can work on it, you can get support, you could take one step forward. So you don't need to become some sort of TikTok star, you don't need to show from the rooftops, you just need to consistently share what you know, what you believe, and how you help. So this could be through podcasts like this one, through writing, through webinars, workshops, through social media posts, live events, whatever medium feels natural for you, you want to gravitate toward that. But the most important thing, what matters most, it's your audience needs to know that you exist. So visibility is a skill, and like any skill, it can be learned, practiced, and strengthened. You don't have to take a personality uh test to find out if this is for you. You don't need to have a personality for it. You just have to get started. So you weren't meant to be a best kept secret in your town, your industry, your field. You were actually meant to be a trusted guide, a bold presence, a practitioner with something valuable to offer and the courage to offer it. Just like elite athletes step into the spotlight when it's time to perform, you must step into visibility when it's your time to serve. And that time really is now because the longer you delay, the longer someone else is going to suffer. So stop hiding. You've been trained for this, uh, you're ready for this. Let the world see what you're made of. And thanks for tuning in. I'll catch you on the next episode.