Stop Fixing Yourself: Building Real Confidence and Trust in Your Solo Business Journey

Tim Newman [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Speaking with Confidence, the podcast that helps you build the soft skills that lead to real results. Communication, storytelling, public speaking, and showing up with confidence in every conversation that counts. I'm Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I'm thrilled to guide you on a journey to becoming a powerful communicator. If you've ever felt like you're doing the right things but still feel out of place, burned out, or unsure how to communicate what makes you different, this episode is going to give you permission to stop fixing yourself and start trusting yourself. Today's guest is Sarah Pitts. Sarah is an international best selling author and seasoned business development consultant. With 30 plus years of coaching experience, she empowers solo entrepreneurs to break free from overwhelm.

Tim Newman [00:00:53]:
Using her signature potent productivity method, Sarah's insights have helped countless individuals reclaim their focus and passion. As a deep thinker, expert strategist, and incredible communicator, she's a perfect guide for solo business owners who are tired of second guessing themselves and just want to get stuff done. Sarah, welcome to Speaking with Confidence.

Sarah Pitts [00:01:14]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Tim Newman [00:01:16]:
You know, I really love the, you know that last line of just get stuff done. You know, I talk about that a lot. You know, people ask me, you know, what are you doing? I'm just trying to get stuff done. Just trying, trying to do the things that need to get done and not necessarily worry about all the other things that come in into play. Just one of my sayings is be where you're supposed to be and do what you're supposed to do and everything else takes care of itself. Just do the things that have to get done and everything's going to be great, right?

Sarah Pitts [00:01:48]:
Yes.

Tim Newman [00:01:49]:
So you primarily work with solo business owners who feel overwhelmed, stuck or unsure when, when it comes to, to identity, such as blind spot. Why, why, why do so many people, why do they feel so incapable or why, why, why can't they get past that blind spot?

Sarah Pitts [00:02:09]:
Yeah, I think the people that I've met, particularly solo business owners, they are not uncapable people.

Tim Newman [00:02:17]:
Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:02:18]:
Exceptionally capable people. And I think that's part of the problem, is that we know how capable we are and we can turn our hand to most things. And when it's important to us, we just get on with it because we want to do it. We just get it out the way and all the rest of it. But it ends up that we end up doing all sorts of different jobs that we didn't set out to do. We've had to learn along the way, and we get stuck in this learning loop rather than figuring out how to stick to what we know, stick to what we're really great at, and give other jobs to other people. And because we're so capable, we find it really difficult to identify what it is that we're really great at. So everything's important, everything needs doing, and we have to do everything, you know, other than we're just like, well, how do I move forwards now?

Tim Newman [00:03:13]:
You know, I resemble that remark. I'm with you. I mean, I still struggle with that. Like right now, you know, we just talked about before we came on that I finally gave up editing one of the podcasts. I like doing it, but it, number one, it takes up too much time and it stops me from doing some of the other things that actually, you know, need to get done. But, you know, I, I, I'm kind of like you, you know, you see people and you're probably one of them as well, that if something needs to get done, you just jump in and start doing it. You, if, if you see something that has to get done, you don't ask questions, you just go in and do it. And then all of a sudden that becomes part of your daily tasks and, and things where you never set out to do that you set out to, to build and grow a business.

Tim Newman [00:04:00]:
And now you're, you're filing papers or you're, you know, not. There's something wrong with filing papers. Filing papers has to get done. But that's not what you should be doing as a business owner, as the entrepreneur, you know, pass those things off to other people.

Sarah Pitts [00:04:15]:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, it drives me crazy when people say, oh, there's so many hats that we have to wear. They're not hats, they are full time jobs for other people. Yeah, right. But as solo business owners, we seem to have this in our heads, that we need to be great at doing all of these other jobs that other people do full time. And we need to be able to do all the stuff that we care about as well. And it just doesn't work that way. You can't do 15 full time jobs, you know? Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:04:47]:
Something has to give somewhere eventually, you know.

Tim Newman [00:04:51]:
Exactly. Let me circle back to one thing that you said as well. You know, business owners sometimes struggle with figuring out what they want to do because they're so good at things. Did you struggle with that?

Sarah Pitts [00:05:08]:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Honestly, I have done jobs because I've had to, I've done jobs because I thought I should and I've Also done jobs that just needed doing, you know, so, for example, building websites, right? I was in the fitness industry for a long time. I was treating sports injuries and I developed a way of helping people to do their own treatment at home through movement, right? So I created these videos and I was, a friend of mine was building the website for me to put these videos on because the software, the, like the off the shelf software wasn't great at the time. It took a lot of learning. So he was, you know, it was his full time job, he was a web guy, he knew what he was doing. And we had an agreement that when I got paid, he would get paid. And we were plodding along nicely and then all of a sudden he turned around to me and said, I want 30,000 pounds, which is about $45,000 to finish your website. And he stopped talking to me, stopped communicating with me, stopped putting videos on this website.

Sarah Pitts [00:06:19]:
And all of a sudden I'm panicking because one, I haven't got that amount of money and two, I'm letting my people down that are already paying me monthly for this membership thing. And I'm just like, okay, now I have to learn how to build websites because crazy. I was in business before he came along. I will be in business again. And I will not be bullied into paying somebody or not be, you know, held hostage for a website. I'm like, okay, well you can forget working with me, I'm gonna do it myself. And then that spirals into I don't trust anybody else to do work for me, you know, and I've paid people to do stuff and I could have done it better myself. And I'm like, well, there's no point then.

Sarah Pitts [00:07:05]:
And it's just these constant experiences and conversations that keep going round and round and round. And then eventually you just like, nope, I'm just gonna do everything myself.

Tim Newman [00:07:14]:
And ultimately that's one of the worst things that you can do. But when you're in the midst of it, I think you feel like you don't have a choice, right? Oh yeah, I can hear it. And I've been there myself. It's hard to make some of those decisions. And at least for me, I had some, you know, people in my inner circle, you know, you know, those, everybody, you know, people talk about those five people need to have five people in your inner circle. And I, I, I trust and I, I truly believe in that. And I had people within my inner circle who at one point came and had a, you know, for lack of a better term, Intervention and, and told me, you know, you know, if you, if you want to grow the business that you're in, if you want to do these things, you have got to stop doing, doing these. They actually gave me five things.

Tim Newman [00:08:09]:
You have to stop doing these five things and start doing these seven things. Okay. And you know, there was, I tell people I'm coachable and I really am. It may take me a minute to get to that point, you know, to get over that, that defensiveness that, you know, whatever, whatever it is that we want to call it, right, to be able to listen. But that's again, that's the only way that we're going to get better is listen to those other people and understanding why they're saying those things and why, why we are holding on to doing some of those things. Like you said, trust, trust is a big one. And when it comes to your business, you know, that's your, that's, that's not only your livelihood, it's your passion. It's the things.

Tim Newman [00:08:55]:
It's a thing that gets you up in the morning and drives you to do what you do. Um, so letting go of some of those things is, is important. And you know, that, that also comes to some of the things that, you know, you and I have talked about in the past, that if, if you don't believe that you're worthy of being in the room, it doesn't matter how good the strategy is. Right. So, so why is the belief, why is that belief gap so dangerous for communication confidence? You know, going back to dealing with your website partner? I mean, just as an example.

Sarah Pitts [00:09:29]:
Yeah. I mean, I think when, when we're self taught or when we've been in an, in a, an environment for a long time and we step outside of that environment, for me it was building websites for other people. It's switching careers. You know, I did switch careers at the end of it to try and utilize all of the skills that I'd learned how to do. But I think when you don't believe in yourself, they say in, in sales, they say in order to get people to buy from you, they need to know you or they need to feel like they know you, they need to like you and they need to trust you. And I think it comes to a point where when you don't believe in yourself, you don't know yourself very well, you don't like yourself very much and you don't trust that you're not going to be found out or you're not going to do the job properly or Whatever. We put all this pressure on ourselves to be the best we can be because we have these standards that we want to live up to. And when we have any kind of doubt that we can live up to those standards, then we start backing away.

Sarah Pitts [00:10:45]:
I don't know about you, but I've worked with energy medicine quite a lot, and, you know, I feel how people are feeling quite deeply. So I can tell when somebody's in a bad mood. I can tell when they're not 100% comfortable about something. And I can tell often before other people can. So it comes from dealing with, you know, putting my hands on bodies quite often and feeling what they're feeling through my hands. And so I can sense that, and everybody can sense that. It's a human thing. It's an animal thing.

Sarah Pitts [00:11:22]:
We can all sense the world around us without having to use words. And when people. When your ideal customers or when your people that you're talking to are sensing that you don't trust yourself, it kind of. It kind of puts a barrier between you and them. It's like a distance that the customer can't put their finger on. They're like, I'm not really sure about her, but I don't know why.

Tim Newman [00:11:50]:
Don't know why. Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:11:51]:
Yeah. And it's that uncertainty, it's that lack of confidence, it's that lack of clarity that makes the customer. That makes the ideal customer not trust you. You know, and when it's that internal belief that is being projected into the world around you, it's how you hold yourself, it's how you speak, it's how you. It's just how you are in the world. And other people can read that, whether we like it or not.

Tim Newman [00:12:19]:
Yeah, that's. That's the piece that I think a lot of people don't. Don't get. Right. You know, when you. When you think, think about, you know, the idea of being confident and cocky. Right. You could be as cocky as you want, but people can see through that.

Tim Newman [00:12:40]:
A lot of times that's an act. Right. Because like you said, when you. When you're dealing with people and you're dealing with athletes and you're. And you see them and you start to learn human behavior, and this is something people don't truly understand. I say something along the same lines as you. I can. I can generally tell really pretty quickly about how somebody's feeling, what their mood is, who they are as individuals again, because of some of those same things.

Tim Newman [00:13:12]:
And when you can do that and figure out and take that person and switch that mindset. Really, it doesn't take a whole lot to find and switch that mindset on somebody as well. But people see through it. People see through that. The non confidence people see through the. I wouldn't say not being truthful, but not necessarily, but let's just say not being completely truthful. I had had a conversation this morning with a former student. He's, he's now a department chair and he's, he's working with somebody who's a department chair in another department than him.

Tim Newman [00:13:55]:
And he said, this guy's, he never tells the truth. And I see. Right. And he says, I see right through it. And I said, how did you learn how to do that? And we, and we went through that process. You know, how did you, how did you figure out how to do that? What, what were. And then what do you do with that? That's the other piece as well. Because as individuals, what do we do.

Tim Newman [00:14:14]:
Do with that when we, when we see it?

Sarah Pitts [00:14:16]:
Yeah. And I think that pretending or that cover up, if you like, is it comes across in everything you do online. You know, a lot of solo business owners that I deal with are online people. So they think that if they write sales copy, that's, you know, all oh so exciting and this, that and the other. But if it doesn't feel genuine to you and it doesn't feel like it has any integrity, then again that goes back to the values and the standards that you have for yourself. And if it doesn't fit those, what we tend to do is shy away from them.

Tim Newman [00:14:59]:
Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:15:00]:
So you could have the best sales copy, you could have the best landing page, and if you don't believe it, you won't tell people about it. You could have written a really great book. But if there's something in it that you're not happy with, maybe it's the ad at the back of the page or maybe there's a spelling mistake or maybe there's something in it that you're not happy about. You will not promote it, you won't send people to it. And because you're hesitant, that comes across to everybody else, you know, so you could have written a book like Tim, I know you've written a book. And so if you're not happy with it, then you wouldn't be telling people about it. You wouldn't tell me about it. And if you did, you'd be like, well, yeah, I wrote a book, you know, and you dismiss it.

Tim Newman [00:15:47]:
Yes.

Sarah Pitts [00:15:48]:
And then people would be like, oh, well, that book's not very good, then if he doesn't think it's good, then it can't be very good, you know?

Tim Newman [00:15:53]:
Yeah. And you wrote it, dude. So come on.

Sarah Pitts [00:15:55]:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, if you think it's terrible and I'm not reading it.

Tim Newman [00:16:01]:
And again, we're going to talk about books here in a second. And you know, I got a. I'm not somebody who talks about myself. It's just not who I am. And I was at a conference a couple weeks ago and I gave out. I just gave out a bunch of books, just, you know, and I, I met an individual who. He's in the National Speakers association hall of Fame. He's in another speakers hall of fame.

Tim Newman [00:16:30]:
And he speaks a lot on AI now. I mean, he's an older gentleman and gave him a book. And he sent me an email yesterday and said he really loved the book.

Sarah Pitts [00:16:43]:
Cool.

Tim Newman [00:16:44]:
And not that I was surprised because it's a good book, but I was surprised that. And here comes the confidence piece that somebody of his stature that I put him up here would say that. And that's the other piece of confidence that we need to actually look at. Doesn't matter who says it's good or praises you or whatever it is. We put people on pedestals that we've, that we have made up. Right. Because that guy's just a person, just like, just like anybody else. Maybe he's accomplished something over here or over there, but he's still just an individual, just like we are.

Tim Newman [00:17:29]:
And if he had never responded, I'd have been fine. If he, you know, so, so. Right. So. So that, that's, that's the other, the other piece in, in, in, in that self confidence, in that inner, inner talk, inner dialogue that we've got to deal with.

Sarah Pitts [00:17:45]:
But it also works the other way.

Tim Newman [00:17:47]:
Yes.

Sarah Pitts [00:17:47]:
You know, if he'd have said, oh, this book, great, but again, you weren't happy with it, you wouldn't. And you would still go back to that. Oh, well, this book's terrible because I haven't done this and I haven't done that and it needs rewording and it needs, you know, this, this, this. And I've missed this out and I've missed that out. Nobody knows that.

Tim Newman [00:18:07]:
Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:18:07]:
And they're reading what you've given them and they're going, it's great. But because you don't believe it, you're going.

Tim Newman [00:18:12]:
Right. And that's why you got to put out a second edition. Fix all those.

Sarah Pitts [00:18:19]:
Yes.

Tim Newman [00:18:19]:
You know, to fix all those things.

Sarah Pitts [00:18:21]:
Yeah, absolutely. But it goes back to what you believe about yourself. Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:18:29]:
So let's talk about, you know, communicating your individuality with meaning and not just sounding different. So what's that difference and why does that distinction actually matter?

Sarah Pitts [00:18:41]:
Well, there's a few things, really, but everybody is unique. We are all individual human beings. Nobody has lived the same life as somebody else. Even twins, you know, they brought the same way. They have different personalities. They have different ways of doing stuff. You know, they are different people. So when it comes to your uniqueness, people often think that there's nothing different about them because they do the same job as somebody else, or there's nothing interesting about them because, well, you know, they work and sleep and work and sleep and work, asleep, and that's it, you know? But what they don't really understand is that to connect with somebody else, you need an element of familiarity.

Sarah Pitts [00:19:28]:
Right. So, right. We're both talking on this podcast. We've both written books. We both know Jim Edwards. We both know certain things. Right. We have things in common.

Sarah Pitts [00:19:39]:
But we are different people with different life experiences. And even if we were talking to the same group of people about the same topic, we would have different ideas.

Tim Newman [00:19:48]:
Yes.

Sarah Pitts [00:19:49]:
Right. And I like to use the analogy of making a cup of tea. Right. I'm British. We drink a lot of tea. Tim, I know you're not a coffee drinker either, so, you know, you do, too. Everybody knows how to make a cup of tea. You need to boil some water, you need a tea bag or some tea leaves.

Sarah Pitts [00:20:06]:
You need to mix the two together. You need to put it in something that you can drink out of. And then you need to make it how you like it.

Tim Newman [00:20:13]:
Right?

Sarah Pitts [00:20:13]:
Right. My mom and I make tea completely differently. Right. She has been brought up with china cups. So you put the milk in the cup first so it doesn't crack the cup. When you put the water in. You put the tea bag in the teapot and you leave it to brew for a little while. Then you pour it together and you, you know, and you make stuff out of that afterwards.

Sarah Pitts [00:20:31]:
For me, I ain't got time for that. You put the tea bag in the cup. You pour the water on the tea bag. You know, it's like. And she hates it, but I put the milk in second. But that's the familiarity is the process of making the cup of tea. The uniqueness is how I do it individually, to me. Right, right.

Tim Newman [00:20:53]:
And. And so. So for me, I put a little bit of sugar, a little bit of honey in the cup, then I put the Water and the tea bag in. And that way when you put the water in, you don't necessarily have to stir it, so you skip a step because putting the water in stirs everything up to begin with. And then put the tea bag in there and you're good to go. And I don't use milk, but I think that's more of an American thing that we don't use cream or milk in our tea like we do in our coffee.

Sarah Pitts [00:21:28]:
Yeah, but you see, everybody's got their own way of doing something and their own reasons behind why they do it. And it's not that your way is right, my way is wrong, or the other way around. It's just a different way of doing it. And there's nothing less or more valid, you know, because that's the way you like to do it. And so if we were both teaching the same group of people, I mean, I use this all the time. When I was doing the movement based stuff for the sports injuries, I remember tipping out a box of children's building blocks, you know, wooden building blocks. And they were all different shapes, different sizes, different colors. Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:22:08]:
So there were some cylinders and there were some rectangular ones and there were some cubes and there was all sorts of different shapes. And I said to three different people, I did this multiple, multiple times over, build me a wall. I didn't say how tall the wall needed to be, I didn't say what color it needed to be. I didn't say how straight it needed to be. I just said, build me a wall. And every single time, without fail, I got three different versions of a wall. Because the same information is interpreted differently with each of us because we are individual people. And I think going back to the confidence issue, if you don't like what's unique about you and you don't own what's unique about you, then it's very difficult for people to understand what's different about you.

Sarah Pitts [00:22:56]:
Then there's no reason for them to buy from you because they don't know the difference.

Tim Newman [00:23:01]:
Exactly, exactly. And again, I think that's a key point and distinction that I hope the listeners get and understand that what is different, embrace that difference, you know, accept it. You know, let's talk about a number of different things here. You know, when talk about books, for example, as and as we were working with Jim Edwards on our latest books, one of the things I noticed about you that to me that really stood out was, you know, your branding, right? Your branding was everything that you did. I mean, the, the color scheme the wording, the, the everything was. I, I knew it was coming from Sarah. I mean, I just, it was, which is, but, but that's, that's, that's, to me, that's a really good thing. Right? And, and from a business perspective, that's really what, definitely what you want, because people want, want.

Tim Newman [00:24:04]:
You want people to associate whatever it is with you and your brand. Right?

Sarah Pitts [00:24:11]:
Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. People have a really, they have real problems trying to distinguish what their brand is because as a solo business owner, it is you. And there's no way of getting away, getting away from that, but it's your uniqueness and what makes you, you. Right? So I am a big five year old. I like bright colors and cartoon characters and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And my branding came from that place. It didn't come from some color palette. Somebody going, oh, yeah, you should have green or you should have purple or you should have this, that.

Sarah Pitts [00:24:50]:
And the other color, it was like, okay, what colors do I like? What, what design elements do I like? You know, and so then it's really easy. You pick one dark color. You can see the dark green behind me on the, on the wall. You pick one bright color. Same. Same shade, different, you know. No, rephrase that. Same color, different shade.

Sarah Pitts [00:25:18]:
Yeah. And then the contrast between the two, and you just keep using it over and over and over and over again. And it's not any more complicated than that. When it comes to colors for solo business owners, your brand is not your logo, it's not your color palette or anything else. It is you and who you are as a person. If you can show people your personality through those colors and through that logo and all the rest of it, then, yes, they're going to know that it's you. If you like having fun and you like, you know, being quirky and all those kind of things, you're going to pick bright colors. But if you're in a holistic space and you're like a, maybe a yoga teacher or something like that, and you like calm and you like, you know, serenity and all that kind of stuff, then bright colors might not suit you.

Sarah Pitts [00:26:09]:
But it doesn't come from the color, it comes from you.

Tim Newman [00:26:15]:
Exactly. And you know, my wife is a, she's a real estate agent here. And, you know, she, she's just starting to develop her own brand. And we've had this conversation. Sarah, I can't tell you forever, right? So she's been working on her, on her colors for six months. And I keep telling Her. I said, it's. It's.

Tim Newman [00:26:39]:
You're making this way more complicated than it needs to be. You're truly making it way more complicated than it needs to be. You know, that's. You think that the color is. Is what's going to attract people. That's not what it is. They're going to be attracted to you, and then eventually they're going to associate that color with you. It's.

Tim Newman [00:27:02]:
You're the product, you're the service, you're. You're what they're buying. And, you know, I. And I told her, you know, I get what you're trying to do, but. But what is it that you like? What is it that. That you truly want to communicate? And I think I finally got her because she, she. When. When I got up this morning, she said, here is a.

Tim Newman [00:27:27]:
What was it? It was. It was a diagram. Let's just call a diagram. And it looked really nice with good colors. And I said, okay, is that going to be it? Are those the colors? Because you can't. I don't want you to show me a different one tomorrow. He said, no, this is what it's going to look like next month, too. I said, okay, stick to it, and let's move forward and not talk about colors anymore.

Tim Newman [00:27:50]:
We'll talk about other things. But it's going back to the point that you said it has to be you because that's who. That's who they're buying. Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:28:01]:
And I think when people get distracted and procrastinate and overthink everything, that's a symptom of them not understanding themselves. It's a symptom of them not understanding or being confident enough in their messaging.

Tim Newman [00:28:14]:
Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:28:15]:
Because the color is this thing that stops. The scroll is the thing that gets the attention. But once you have that attention, if you can't back it up with us with a solid, clear message, then the colors don't matter because you're not keeping the attention that you're getting through the colors.

Tim Newman [00:28:34]:
Yeah.

Sarah Pitts [00:28:34]:
Whereas if you don't, you know, if you have a clear message, you can get through to a lot more people, even if your colors keep changing.

Tim Newman [00:28:41]:
Exactly.

Sarah Pitts [00:28:42]:
So, yeah.

Tim Newman [00:28:44]:
But it's. It's kind of funny when. When you think about it, at least for me. Right. Because I'm really good at helping other people in that. But I'm the absolute worst when it comes to me.

Sarah Pitts [00:28:59]:
Oh, we all are. Yeah, we all are.

Tim Newman [00:29:01]:
You know, it's insane. You know, like, I tell people, you know, if you want me to negotiate A contract for you, I'd be happy to do that. I mean, you know, it doesn't matter what it's for. It's for product or service or you want to buy a car, you want to buy a house, I'd be happy to go in and negotiate that price for you. But for me, I go in, salesman says, okay, this is a price, okay. I just say, okay. And, you know, if I want it, okay, great. That's what we're doing.

Tim Newman [00:29:28]:
Let's roll with it. But, you know, that's. And again, that's. For whatever reason, we step outside of ourselves, you know, when it comes to us. When it comes to us, you know, and it's. Look at it and just kind of shake your head sometimes.

Sarah Pitts [00:29:48]:
Yeah. And I think that's mainly because. Or the experience I've had is mainly because people can't see the big picture of their own lives. They can only see the section that they're in. You can't see the big picture of your own business until somebody shows you how to do that or somebody shows you a different way of looking at what you've been looking at, because you can only see what's right in front of your face because it's important and it needs doing. But when somebody pulls you back a few feet and you can see, like, actually the bit that you've been working on, it's just completely irrelevant. And actually the piece that's next to you is more effective. Then it's like, oh, right, get it now.

Sarah Pitts [00:30:28]:
But you can't help but only focus on the thing that's in front of the face as a person who's living your life, you know?

Tim Newman [00:30:37]:
Yes. So let's talk about that idea in terms of communication, in terms of time management and energy management, and how that emotional energy actually shows up in the way that we communicate or most of the times fail to communicate.

Sarah Pitts [00:30:54]:
Yeah. I think when we're doing a project, right, let's say it's, I don't know, creating a course. Okay. We get so involved in what we want to say in the course that we kind of skip out all of the other stuff. Like, how are we going to communicate what's inside the course? Because we. Because we're so close to it, we say what it is, not what it does. So we're coming at it from the communication of who we are and what we want to say. But the ideal customer is coming at it from a what's in it for me kind of point of view.

Sarah Pitts [00:31:32]:
And if we can't communicate that difference. They also want to know kind of what it is, but they don't really care. As long as it does what they need it to do and what it solves their problem, then they don't really care what it is. It could be a book, it could be a video, it could be a podcast, it could be anything.

Tim Newman [00:31:48]:
It could be anything. Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:31:49]:
They don't care. They just want to know, does it solve my problem? What's in it for me? How long will it take? What will I get out of it? You know, and I think when we're so close to the messaging because we're frustrated that nobody's listening, we fail to stand outside ourselves a little bit and go, what do these people need? We just go, well, this is what it is. This is what I'm going to teach you. You know, I do, I do a lot of coaching with solo business owners and a lot of it. The first time I asked them a coach question about what they do, they spend 20 minutes explaining to me the ins and outs of their process. I don't need to know that. Right, right. I want to know what the business is about.

Sarah Pitts [00:32:33]:
Of course. But I don't need to know exactly what it is that you're going to teach everybody. If you're wanting to sell this training and you want my help to write the copy to sell the training, you know, it's like, okay, I, yeah. So people, they are very close to what they do and they need help to stand outside of what they do.

Tim Newman [00:32:54]:
Yes.

Sarah Pitts [00:32:54]:
Most of the time.

Tim Newman [00:32:56]:
Yeah. Again, I chuckle a lot of times at myself because, you know, when, especially when I, when I go to my coach or when I, when I want to bring this to, again, there's five people that inner circle and they start tell me these things and the light bulb goes off and say, you know what? You're right. I can't believe I, I can't believe that I didn't see it. Right. Because it's. A lot of times it's, it's really so plain and simple that it's, it's obvious to everybody else, but it's not obvious to you. And it's, it's, it's funny. Not funny haha, but funny that we, that, you know, we get so down in the weeds with it, we.

Tim Newman [00:33:43]:
And we get so, so stuck with what it is that we want and we forget about the value that we're supposed to be providing for other people.

Sarah Pitts [00:33:52]:
Yeah. And you know, when we get in our own heads about our own value, then we're not enough. We're never enough. We're never, you know, gonna be enough. And that's when we stop seeing people as collaborators and we start seeing them as competition, you know, but when we see them as collaborators or potential collaborators, then we start to watch each other's blind spots, you know, so if I'm building a website and I'm better at design than I am about, you know, building the wide. The back end, but I know somebody who can really quickly build the back end, but they're terrible at design, then yes, we build website builders, but, you know, if we collaborate, then they can do their part really quick, and I can do my part really quick, and the overall result is a lot better than it would have been if we'd have both struggled by ourselves.

Tim Newman [00:34:43]:
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, now let's take that a little bit further because with. With the whole idea of AI, you know, because we want to do things. We want to do things really quickly. And, you know, we work real. We.

Tim Newman [00:34:59]:
We work closely with. With AI tools like, like Jim's copying content Genies and wizards, which, by the way, they're amazing. And I would. I would. I would encourage everybody to, to go to copyingcontent AI and, And check it out. But there's your free, free advertising, Jim. I'll make sure we let him know. But the biggest thing that you talk about, and I agree with you, those should not be replacing your voice.

Tim Newman [00:35:34]:
Those are tools. So where do people actually go wrong with AI and the whole idea of communication?

Sarah Pitts [00:35:42]:
The thing that I've seen most, I mean, I'm one of Jim's Genie coaches, so I've been working alongside Jim for a long time now and helping people to use software. And the thing that I've seen most is that people try and get the. The AI to tell them what they want to say.

Tim Newman [00:36:01]:
Yes.

Sarah Pitts [00:36:02]:
And it can't. It can only give you the gist of what you're trying to say, and then you need to personalize it. And if you don't personalize it, then your communication just gets drowned out by the same. By everybody else being the same as you, because everybody's AI is spitting out the same information as you. You know, and one of the things that I see people struggling with is when they have a different point of view. They think they can't use the tools to help them explain the difference, when actually AI is only ever going to give you what conventional wisdom thinks.

Tim Newman [00:36:40]:
Right.

Sarah Pitts [00:36:41]:
But everybody has a unique perspective. Everybody has an opinion. And when you start to put those Things inside of alongside what the AI is giving you. It augments what you're trying to say because you can go, oh, well, most people think this and use a bit of AI, But I think this, you. Little bit of your opinion. Here's a reason why. This is an experience I had. This is what I learned from it.

Sarah Pitts [00:37:10]:
And then all of a sudden it becomes you and your piece of content that sounds so different to everybody else. And you're sharing who you are and what you think and how you, how you work so that people can just be like, oh, yeah, I like her, I like him. I like what they have to say. I, you know, they, they. You're proving to them that you've been there and done it because you're giving them stories of examples, right? So then they start to trust that you know what you're talking about. And then it's like, oh, okay, now I get it.

Tim Newman [00:37:43]:
Yeah, that's kind of what, what, what Jim's whole idea of, of soul is. And, and you can't lose that. Right? And, and that, that's, that's, that's the, the, you know, the big piece of it. It's, it's difficult. You know, I work with, work with a. Young people. Young people, and I'm talking, you know, 18 to 25 age bracket. Right.

Tim Newman [00:38:07]:
And, you know, trying to get them to understand that with, with, with using AI, as opposed to just putting a prompt in asking it a question, telling it what you want, whatever it is, and then, then copying that and then inputting it into what, whatever it is, whether it's a social media message, whether it's an email, whether it's a. It doesn't really matter what it is. Right. Trying to get them to understand that that's not, that's not the way to get people to, to know you or to buy into you, because it's not really you. It's not your message. It's. It's. And they don't, they don't quite understand that yet.

Sarah Pitts [00:38:51]:
No. And I think that the difficulty there is that a lot of the time they feel like they don't have enough life experience or enough. They don't know who they are as people. So they don't see how they're unique and how they're 18, 25 years on the planet, which is a quarter of a century. It's a long time. You know, some people don't have the privilege of getting to that age, so they've learned a lot. They've been through a lot. They've Been ups and downs.

Sarah Pitts [00:39:21]:
They've struggled through teenage years, they've struggled with so much stuff, by the time they get to 25, they don't know how to take that out and use it to their own advantage and use it as part of their uniqueness.

Tim Newman [00:39:35]:
Yeah. So how do they do that? You know, because like, you know again, 25 years, a long time. 18 years is a long time. How does confidence, clarity and self trust, how does that actually compound over time and when, when someone finally gives themselves, their permission, you know, to, to do things their own way. Right. Because you know, especially the younger generations, you know what, what they want is, they want to be told exactly what to do in a step by step by step by step process. So, so how do they give themselves permission to step outside of that directive that they've given themselves?

Sarah Pitts [00:40:16]:
Yeah, I like to call it proof hunting. Right. It doesn't matter how old you are, you can always find proof or examples in your life of where you have learned something or you've done something wrong or you've been taught by somebody else and you know, they've helped you fast track the process or you like what somebody else has been doing or whatever. You can always think of examples in your life of whatever it is that you want proof for. So let's say for example, a 20, I don't know, 18, 25 year old wants to go into the fitness industry. Right. They want to be a personal trainer. Everybody and his brother is a personal trainer right now.

Sarah Pitts [00:40:55]:
There's millions of them around the world. And so there's always going to be somebody who's got more experience than you. Right. But if your interest is in fitness, then chances are you've been interested in fitness way before you decided that you wanted to be a personal trainer. So you've had, you know, maybe in the US you've got a program inside of high schools and stuff like that that's very heavily sport orientated. We don't have that system in the uk. Right. So chances are you've been through the school system, you've experienced these team games or whatever it is that you've experienced that you can use as reasons why or, or examples of good training or bad training or whatever.

Sarah Pitts [00:41:40]:
You know, maybe you had a coach that was just pretending or there was filling ins for somebody else and they never clue what they were doing. Right. We've all had those people. Yes, you had those in school, you had them in college, you've had them, you know, in your life. And when you can look back and find that proof that helps you to change what you believe about yourself. Because you now don't believe I'm not worthy of this. Because you have the proof to change your mindset, to change your brain into I'm not good at this. I'm not, I'm new, everybody else is better than me into.

Sarah Pitts [00:42:16]:
Actually, I've done this before and I do know what I'm talking about. You know, it doesn't matter what age you are, it works for everybody. I work with people who are transitioning generally from one career to a new one. You know, maybe They've had a 40 year career in, in something and then they're learning something new like leadership and then they don't know how to mash the two together and they think they're totally new at the leadership thing and they, well, they keep putting themselves down or hesitating or you know, withdrawing because they've had 40 years of experience in something else and now they feel like a new kid in school is again, you know, they don't know how to translate the two.

Tim Newman [00:42:59]:
Yeah. And, and you know, try again, try trying to get them to understand that they've got, they've got all this experience that, that they've been through that they can pull from, you know, the stories, all those other things. And again, it comes back to the, the like you said, the things that we're, we're telling our, telling ourselves that again that we're not good enough, Especially the people that we're leading, they're not thinking those things anyway. They're looking for you to give them the guidance that you have. So stop having that negative self talk that whatever we want to call it. And, and what I say is get, just get back to being awesome, you know?

Sarah Pitts [00:43:51]:
Absolutely.

Tim Newman [00:43:52]:
Stop down yourself and get back to being awesome. Yeah, I think that's real key.

Sarah Pitts [00:43:57]:
People don't recognize the gold in what they say as a throwaway comment.

Tim Newman [00:44:01]:
Yeah.

Sarah Pitts [00:44:02]:
Because when you are very experienced at something or when you have done something for a long time or you have got the proof or you have, you know, all of these things, somebody new coming along will listen to you talking and be like, wow, you know, like I, I tread sports injuries for a long time and I passed a lady in the street. She was running and she was holding a leg and she was walking funny and I was walking my dog and I just said to her, you know, are you okay? And we started having conversation and she was like, I've hurt my knee. I was like, oh, that's what I do. Do you Mind if I just show you something? And she was like, yeah, yeah. And so in two minutes, I showed her an exercise and she did it there and then, and she was like, wow, that really helps. Yeah, no problem. I'm just walking the dog. I'm just out.

Sarah Pitts [00:44:50]:
You know, I just show her this one thing. It's no deep. No big deal to me. And because it's no big deal to me, I think it's not worth paying for because it took me, well, two seconds. Right. But how long did it take me to learn all the time stuff that it took me to learn to get to that point where I could just do it for two minutes, you know?

Tim Newman [00:45:08]:
Exactly. Right, right. So let's talk about your book. Your. Your newest book is out. It's Only Common Sense to you. And I remember the, you know, as. As we were working together, we.

Tim Newman [00:45:22]:
You struggled on the title of the book to what. What was. What was happening just when you were writing the title, when we were coming

Sarah Pitts [00:45:32]:
up with the title. Yes. It's Only Common Sense to you is the title of the book or the main title of the book? Because it's what I see all the time and it's what I just spoke about. It's common sense to me. Right. But the thing that I have learned about common sense is that nobody else has got any, because what's common to me is not common to them. And I find this over and over with solo business owners. They set.

Sarah Pitts [00:45:58]:
They just don't value what they perceive to be common sense. And so that's why that was the main title of the book. And I was struggling to describe what seems ridiculously simple to you is gold dust to other people. And so that's where the problem with the subtitle came from, because I tried to explain it in a way that didn't work, really translate from British to. To American, you know, and so we ended up. I can't even remember the title now exactly. Let me just have a look. Is how to transform what you think is stupid simple into an intriguing, unique, and profitable solo business.

Tim Newman [00:46:37]:
Yeah.

Sarah Pitts [00:46:37]:
And it was the stupid simple bit that I was struggling to kind of explain. But, yeah, you guys helped me with that. Thank you.

Tim Newman [00:46:45]:
And, and, and so you talk a little bit about the book and, you know, if you could tell somebody in, you know, in two sentences why. Why they should get the book and how it's going to help them do

Sarah Pitts [00:46:59]:
that, I think, one, it will give you so much confidence in who you are and what you know, and two, it will help you to communicate that to your ideal audience. Because when you can't describe it, when you don't know what those things are about you that are different to everybody else, you can't stand out in the crowd. And let's face it, most, most industries these days are huge. And so the crowd is very big, you know. So, yeah, it's, it's really helping you to understand what your common sense is, you know, and why, why it's unique to you and why it's so valuable to other people and how you can build a business around that. So.

Tim Newman [00:47:48]:
And that, that, you know, that's a perfect example. And you know, I like some of, some of your characters that, that you've also created with, you know, with, with a series of books that you've created. You know, your sensei, Sarah, there's Kick Ass Katie.

Sarah Pitts [00:48:05]:
Yes.

Tim Newman [00:48:06]:
Is it Wacket Rose or Wreck It?

Sarah Pitts [00:48:08]:
Wreck It Rose. Yeah.

Tim Newman [00:48:10]:
Wreck It Rose. Yeah. So again, to me it's fun. And again, that's kind of who you are and what you've created. So where can people who want to explore what you're doing a little bit deeper? What's the best place for them to start connecting with you?

Sarah Pitts [00:48:30]:
You can go to SJP Business Development dot com. That's a website. You can contact me through there. You can find me on Facebook. It's Sarah J. Pitts, but there's probably lots of us. But you'll find a picture of me and my doggy. Yeah, so those are good places to start.

Sarah Pitts [00:48:50]:
I will say.

Tim Newman [00:48:50]:
And I'll put those links in the, in the chat for everybody but Sarah, I really enjoy the conversations. It's good seeing you again and thank you so much for spending some time with the Speaking With Confidence community.

Sarah Pitts [00:49:03]:
Thanks for having me.

Tim Newman [00:49:04]:
Take care. We'll talk to you soon. Be sure to visit speakingwithconfidencepodcast.com to get your free eBook, the Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and How to Overcome Them. You can also register for the Forming for Public Speaking course. Always remember, your voice has the power to change your world. We'll talk to you next time. Take care, Sam.