How To Be Relatable vs. Being Their Best Friend
Today we’re going to talk about relatability - which is a compliment I get often from my clients and community on Instagram. I’m told that I’m so authentic, relatable, xyz - I’m very grateful for these compliments because being authentic, honest and relatable is a value of mine that’s important for me. It’s important that I come off the way I actually am in normal day to day life and conversation. I have this unique ability of making friends with everyone everywhere I go and always finding something in common with people. It’s not something that requires effort from me but I do believe it’s something that could be acquired as a skill and why that’s so important when building your online business; but more specifically, when you’re in a role or level of leadership. When people are looking up to you to lead them, as a guide, a mentor, a coach, a leader - when people are looking at you as someone who is going to help them get from point A to point B, being relatable is necessary and they need to see you as a leader. So how can we bring relatability to our brands, messaging and essence but also at the same time maintain that level of leadership and not be seen as the best friend.
For example, you’ll know you’ve crossed that best friend territory when it comes to online marketing. You’ll post something and people will say, “I’m so proud of you!” or “You’re doing amazing!” - These types of comments are coming from people you want as customers/clients, are not going to make you feel good. They’re looking at you more as a friend rather than someone that can guide them. So how can we infuse relatability in the way we show up without compromising our leadership.
Having authentic authority
Authentic authority is the ability to lead as an authority but through your own authentic expression. So in order to be relatable, you have to be yourself. It’s exhausting trying to be someone you’re not, to constantly be smiling on social media and be this certain person when that’s actually not who you are. The more authentic you are and the more you can embrace being yourself, the more of an authority you’re going to come off as because you’re not copying anyone. It’s palpable and your audience and community can tell that you’re just being yourself. You’re not here to please, you’re not here to pretend, you’re not here to be performative, to put on a mask - you’re really showing up as your fullest expression and by doing that alone, you will have a level of authority to you.
Vulnerability from a healed perspective
Vulnerability is definitely a buzz word nowadays, you hear people saying on social media to be more vulnerable. How can we be vulnerable from a place that’s going to create relatability and also maintain a level of leadership? It’s by sharing your vulnerability through a healed perspective/place - the scab if you will versus an open gaping wound. There’s an art to doing this; how can you share something that’s very vulnerable and at the same time have it be of value to the person receiving it and reading it? A couple of times I’ve done this was a couple of months ago. I had a very disturbing text from my ex-boyfriend and if you know anything about my story I was in a very emotionally and verbally abusive relationship for five years all throughout college. This was someone who repeatedly told me that no one was going to watch my videos, no one was going to purchase my programs and that I was going to lose - I endured that for many years. We’ve been broken up for over 6 years and I’m now married. My life has completely moved on and a couple of months ago I received a disgusting text that I don’t even want to read out loud because of what he said but it was abusive. I admit that I got triggered when I first read it and it brought me all the way back to the times when I would listen and hear him say those things to me in person. I decided to share it after I was triggered and after I felt the full spectrum of emotions and I went through it. It was a conversation I had to have with my husband as he helped me move through the emotions I was feeling. He was actually really confused and wondered why this was bothering me and of course I said I’m human! So I moved through the emotions, I held space for myself and my feelings, I talked about it and then from THAT space, I shared it. When I shared it, I shared it to bring value to the person receiving it. The way that I know the person receiving it got value from it was based on the responses that came through from it. Some of those responses sounded like, “Wow, thank you so much for sharing this. I also went through something similar and I always thought I was weak that I went through this but seeing someone as strong as you also went through this, makes you more relatable. It’s inspiring that someone like you went through something like this too” versus receiving a response out of sympathy like, “Omg I’m so sorry. Omg that’s so terrible. Screw him!” I didn’t want those types of responses. I also prefaced it and said, “I’m not sharing this to get sympathy but to really highlight and show you the type of verbal abuse someone can get and how you can overcome that. How you can hear something like this and not let it affect you or how you can hear something like this and move through the triggers and hold space for yourself and come out even stronger. You do not have to be a victim to your experiences and circumstances, we can move through this and you are strong enough.
Another example of me sharing my vulnerability was through my uncle’s passing. It’s funny because I don’t really talk about my family because I’ve been estranged from them for the past 6 years. I decided that I wasn’t going to go home anymore because of the traumas and wounds and everything that’s happened with my parents along with what happened with my wedding and all this other stuff. However, when my cousin passed away, someone who I had unresolved conflict with, it really brought up a lot of stuff for me. That was when I decided to become part of my family again. Long story short, my uncle passed away and I shared about it on Instagram but I shared about it from a healed space and I shared it in a way that the receiver can gain value. The way I positioned it was, “This happened and the universe is going to continue giving you lessons until you really get them.” I had to realize that the anger and resentment I held in my body and in myself in the end only hurt me. That’s the vulnerability piece. As a coach and leader, do I want to admit that to the whole world? No. But I can admit it from a healed space because as I said previously, that’s the thing about healing. It’s a tough pill to swallow. I continued to share that I know you’re strong enough to hold space for yourself, I know you’re compassionate enough to do this for yourself because those were the things I was doing for myself. We can share these pieces of ourselves and our stories and be vulnerable and relatable and not look like a hot mess and be able to share it from a space that really elevates our audience. One of the things we have to realize is that people are very selfish. Anybody reading a social media caption or watching your story, subconsciously they’re asking themselves, “How does this relate to me?” So, when we are sharing content we want to make it so that it is something they can utilize for themselves. It won’t be all the time, especially when I post about kittens. It’s not meant for everyone but rather meant for our nervous system to go “Awww.” So those are some of the ways you can share from a healed space so it elevates your community. I think that’s the biggest thing about vulnerability, can you share what you’ve learned?
How can you position who you are as learning lessons for everyone?
When you do this, that’s going to naturally give you that leadership feel versus sharing to share and it just being a word vomit; that doesn’t feel good for the person on the other end to read that. We love you but we don’t want to read your diary LOL! As a human design ⅗ and if you have a 3 in your profile, we are meant to go through this world by failing and learning and by sharing our learnings other people don’t have to go through the same thing - we can shorten the journey for them. If you don’t have a 3 in your profile, you can still do this! As you’re sharing your day to day on stories or creating content, really just think about, what is my purpose? What’s the purpose of this post? What’s the intention of this post? This will make sure that what you’re saying is in alignment with what your intention is. Oftentimes when we don’t have a purpose or an intention and we’re posting just to post, we may not get the impact that we’re looking for or someone may receive it differently. All that to say, you’re not completely responsible for how people receive everything that you write. But I think you can and should be responsible for the intention that you infuse into the content you’re creating.
At the end of the day, as a coach, your clients/people/community want to see the imperfect versions and sides of you. They want to relate to you and have to be able to see themselves in you. These are just some key ways that you can start to be more relatable in a non-sleazy way. We’re not trying to manipulate or con people into liking us, I just think that the more authentic you can be when it comes to coaching, your personal brand and building your business and the more heart-centered that you make it: 1. The more you’re going to help people and impact people because people want to work with people that are similar to them. For example, I cannot relate to someone who is a go-getter and hustler all the time. I can’t relate to these types of people and don’t want to work with them because I don’t feel that’s relatable. If you’re naturally like that and you don’t know how to be any other way, I’m probably not going to learn a lot from you. BUT, if you are someone who is able to maintain harmony and balance in your life and you show yourself getting stuff done but then you also show the times you’re not doing anything or the mindset things you have to overcome - then I’m going to want to work with you. That’s true for everyone, I would much rather pay for someone who went through the same problems I have and had the confidence to get through it instead of someone who pretends like they don’t deal with things like that. Relatability is going to help our clients see themselves in us; it’s going to be so much easier for you to show up on social media being your full, authentic expression versus this performative expression of you AND it’s going to really help your clients get the learnings of your life.
