fbpx
meaningful work podcast

What they didn’t teach you at school about getting what you want

Jan 21, 2025 | Podcast

Today, we challenge the lessons you learned at school that are holding your business growth back.

Outdated beliefs about selflessness, modesty, and fitting in, have a real impact on your relationship with power which has an impact on many other things in business. If you want to earn more, and build your business on your terms, then it’s time to embrace the season’s theme of “the Summer of Selfish.”

You’ll learn:

  • Why turning insults into assets is the ultimate power move

  • Why putting yourself first isn’t selfish — and why believing selfish is an insult is keeping you stuck and small
  • Why we burnout because of the myth of meritocracy and why working harder is not going to build the business you want
  • Why “let your work speak for itself” is one of the most damaging lies — and how to become your own best advocate rather than feeling like a braggard

  • How the competency-likability trade-off harms female business owners

  • The dangers of trying to be likeable on the internet.

Free yourself from the shackles of school, overcome outdated ideas, and build a business that works to your strengths, centres your values, and gives you what you need to thrive.

Download my free Aligned Goal Setting training to put this momentum into action.

Transcript

Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life. I’m your host Brook McCarthy, and I’m a business coach, trainer and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Camargo people here in Sydney, Australia. In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love and money, magnifying your impact and doing work you feel born to do. We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work and the meanings we derive from work.

The best and only strategy that I know for taking back control of the haters. When you feel like you’re under attack and maybe you are under attack, maybe you are actually under attack, or maybe you’ve let the perceived trolls squat in your brain and take up too much valuable real estate. 

The best strategy that I know is to turn insults into assets. Because why do people use names? Why do people judge and cast aspersions on other people? They do it because they’re attempting to change the other person’s behaviour, right? They’re attempting to shame or guilt them into a change of behaviour, into conforming to how they think that other person should be. Now, if we cannot control other people, which we cannot, we can still control ourselves, our response to other people. And turning insults into assets is the best and possibly the only strategy that I know of to take back your control, to take back your power. Now I’ve been called selfish in the past. 

I’ve been called selfish by family. And I’m not having a moan. It just so happens that I come from a very loud opinionated family who are excellent at hurling insults in, you know, red, hot, heated moments. You know, we are hot blooded people. And for a period of time, this was my family’s favorite insult for me. They would call me selfish. And it would annoy me, of course it would annoy me and I would rise. They would get a rise out of me. And after a while I stopped rising to it and I started embracing it. And I realized that this was the ultimate flex in so far as it stopped them from using that, yeah, using that selfish as an insult because Selfish is a good thing. 

This is why the whole season is about the summer of selfish. Because what I am attempting to do is to radically change this perception that we have towards selflessness and towards goodliness and kind of that’s related to godliness, regardless of whether you’re religious. I think the origins are religious, right? 

This sense of morality, this sense of godliness. You know, goodliness, goodness, it is a sense of interconnectedness and a responsibility for other people that a lot of us feel, and I would hazard a guess to say most of us feel. Yeah. But when we can turn insults into assets, because it comes from a good place, right? This idea that we have to be selfless. It comes from a very, you know, good place. Again, sorry, apology.

Gosh, this is actually not a podcast about morality, although it sounds that way at the moment. But when we can turn insults into assets, we take back our power. Because when we can agree with people, when they’re attempting to insult us, they’re attempting to get us to conform and we can agree with them and we could even exaggerate it. Yeah, it confuses people, it throws them off. It is a psychological flex and it means that the power moves from them to you. And you are actually gaining, you know, because you’re not letting other people control you anymore. You’re not letting their attempt to control you actually work. And of course, for a lot of people as well, a lot of business owners, people, they may not actually be in conversation with people who are insulting them, but there is a perception that they’re being judged by others. There’s a perception that their competitors will think ill of them. Their competitors, their colleagues, their peers will think ill of them if they, you know, do a certain thing or act a certain way. And this becomes self-censorship, a very effective way of self-censorship. So it’s a bit of a double bind, of course, for women.

It becomes even worse because we’re attempting to grow our businesses. We’re attempting to, you know, be single-minded in pursuing our, our dreams, our goals. We’re attempting to earn more money. We’re attempting to create a thriving livelihood with or without employees, with or without, uh, you know, a virtual team or traditional employees or, you know. And we’re also being judged at the same time for how we act because make no mistake.

There is a double bind for women whereby we are expected to act a certain way with all the kind of feminine. I use that term very lightly. I have air quotes around that. I really don’t like feminine masculine. I find it very out of date, especially when it comes to business. I don’t think, you know, I don’t think it’s relevant oftentimes, but there is this expectation that women act a certain way, right? And so either we are warm and caring and responsive and agreeable and encouraging. And we’re kind of exhibiting those traditional feminine attributes. Or we are taking on those traditionally male characteristics of, you know, disagreeing, being assertive, speaking out, speaking up, and therefore our likability is suffering. 

So we’re either seen as, you know, female and less competent. Of those characteristics that I just listed, or we’re seen as, you know, being effective, but not likable because we’re going against the grain of that expectation. So that competency likability trade-off, it’s a constant balancing act for women. It’s more difficult for women. Yeah. And oftentimes we’re kind of taught that it’s also, you know, it’s our lack of drive. It’s our lack of, you know, ambition that we need to lean in. We need to be, you know, acting more ambitious if we’re actually going to get ahead, so to speak, in business. And again, this is really, really oftentimes not useful because it’s all well and good. 

And I see this every day of the week. It’s all well and good being driven, being ambitious, being focused. But if the odds are stacked against you, because let’s pretend. You’re a business owner and a mother and your hours are limited to 9.30 after school drop off to 2.30 or 3.00 PM when you pick up the kids and yes, you know, you could make some arguments here about gaining 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there and putting the kids in before school care and after school care and getting up early and da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da. But the fact remains, you do not have the, you know, the time, the resources that are available to other people, other genders. 

It is not an equal playing field. And this is before we even get into people with marginalized identities, people who have, you know, more than just their gender to, you know, to make things a little bit more challenging. Life is not a meritocracy. And this is what they don’t teach us in school. We are taught in school that pretty much anything can be overcome by excellence that so, so long as we work hard, so long as we’re diligent, so long as we finish what we started, so long as we, you know, keep your eyes on the ball, practice makes perfect, all of this stuff. That you will win. And what I see a lot of in business is I see women have internalized this and they are committed to excellence. Yeah. And you know, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that women and women of color go above and beyond in so far as qualifications are concerned. I have so many overqualified clients, clients who have PhDs in their topic of expertise and still they are doubting themselves. Still they are charging less than the average. Still, they have convinced themselves they need yet another qualification. I have so many overqualified clients, overqualified women in business who have confused qualifications with self-worth and self-confidence. 

Yeah. Because this is what we’re taught. This is, this is what we’re taught in school. That life is fair and that life is a meritocracy and it’s simply not. Yeah. So this is not just, you know, there are multiple layers to this. And what I’m trying to, the point that I’m trying to get to is that it’s a systemic problem and it’s a structural problem and this attempt to constantly make it an individual problem is yet another example of this kind of hyper individualism that, you know, we see most obviously in the US where, you know, it’s every man and woman for themselves and you just have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You just have to lean in, you just have to work hard and you’ll get ahead. So let’s talk about some other things that they taught us in school that turned out to be completely and utterly not just useless, but damaging when it comes to building and growing and scaling your own business. Yeah, because I think a lot of this still endures to this day. 

The first one is let your work speak for itself. If your work is good enough, it will speak for itself. Now, when I say that, I want you to honestly ask yourself whether this is something that you believe. Do you believe that if your work was good enough, it should speak for itself? What I hear a lot of, I hear a lot of bragging by business owners where they are not doing any marketing, they’re not doing any kind of marketing activities and they’re telling me that word of mouth, they get all their referrals or their business from word of mouth. And to me, that is not a brag. Yeah. It’s fantastic. Great that people refer business to you, but I would expect that as a bare minimum. It would be worrisome if you never got any word of mouth, right. And it’s certainly not something that I would even deem to be marketing because it’s something that’s outside of your control to an extent, right? 

You’re not actually doing anything. If you want more leads, if business is slow and you need more, more business, more sales, you can’t control word of mouth. Yeah, you could run some kind of incentive, but that would be a marketing campaign.

And therefore it would be, you know, marketing activity. Whereas this is kind of like, I just sit on my ass and I let my work speak for itself. Your work does not speak for itself. And especially if you’re wanting to change, especially if you’re wanting to pivot, especially if you’re wanting to promote yourself, if you’re wanting to change your target market, increase your prices, change the kind of type of person that you’re seeing, you cannot rely on word of mouth because word of mouth will bring more of the same. It will not usher in any change. So your work doesn’t speak for itself. You have to speak for it. You must speak for it. 

And we’re talking about 2025, right? We’re not talking about the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker any longer. We are talking about work that’s oftentimes complex. That’s oftentimes business to business. It doesn’t speak for itself. It can’t speak for itself. It can’t even be seen half the time. Yeah. You have to learn how to speak for your work. 

You need to learn how to communicate the value. You’re going to hear me say that. You’ve probably heard me say that hopefully. Dozens of times it’s our responsibility as business owners to communicate the value of our work because people do not understand it. That’s our responsibility.

The second one that we hear a lot in school that we’ve been brought up with out part of our, you know, shared socialization, I hazard a guess, is not to talk well of yourself. Now this one is complicated. This is really complicated. And back to that kind of double bind for women, right? Because it’s a hell of a lot more socially acceptable for a man to speak well of himself. It is a lot less socially acceptable. And I see women in the spotlight. I see women in the spotlight all the time. Women that have a media profile where they are doing some very complicated performance to do a humble brag. Women in the spotlight tend to be brilliant at humble bragging. It’s a bloody, it’s an aah. They are so good at it, you know, making themselves seem both modest and self-effacing and highly competent and fabulous and likable at the same time. It is not an easy thing. 

So you have to be your own hype girl in business. And I use that word deliberately. I know it’s a funny phrase, but it is something, especially in 2024. I really, you know, turn towards this discomfort that I felt in hyping myself and hyping my offerings and programs. And I went straight into the discomfort and you know what? It works. I have friends, not many. I have some friends. I have many friends and I have not many of those friends who are actually able to just say, I’m really good at this. And I’ve noticed even then when it’s my friend who I love and adore. 

And in one case, um, my friend is a doctor. She is a girl I’ve known forever. We went to high school together. She’s highly trained. She’s highly specialised. She’s got a PhD. There’s two jobs in Australia that she can actually do that she’s qualified for. So she’s obviously and clearly at the top of her game, right? And she has a way of talking well of herself on occasion that I’m always very curious about because she states her competence in a really, uh, plain, non-emotional, non-hypy way that I am yet to master. And every time she does it, I am in awe. Every time she says something well of herself, I’m really good at this. You know, I’m in awe of it. Yeah. 

You must be your own hype girl. You know why? Because nobody else is going to do it. Yeah. We can wait and wait and hope and wait for our clients to speak well of us. And yes, they write lovely Google reviews and yes, they write lovely LinkedIn recommendations and testimonials. But in the moment, when we’re in the room, when we’re making connections, we’re introducing ourselves to strangers. When we’re on the internet, when we are promoting ourselves, when we’re doing that direct sales promotional posting. We must be our own hype girl because nobody is going to think we’re any good without that. And of course, this is a massive topic. You need to get comfortable in the nuance of that. You need to figure out a natural way of expressing your own hype. But I don’t use that word lightly. I use that word very deliberately. 

The third is being likable. We’re taught in school, we have to be likable. We have to fit in. We wanna know where the hierarchy is, where the power hierarchy is in so far as popular kids are concerned.

You know, are we popular because we’re good at sports? Are we popular because we’re pretty? Are we popular because I don’t know, something else. And we kind of learn to play this game. We learn to dull down the parts of our, our attributes that are perhaps less palatable to others and to turn up the parts of ourselves, which are kind of more commonly acceptable or likable or attractive to others. Now, how this oftentimes plays out in business is that the, the, the woman in business, the female boss, the female owner markets their likability. And it’s all about the kind of the smiley posts and the, you know, traditional kind of photo shoots, wearing the normal kind of clothing, looking the certain kind of way with the traditional kind of that signify status and signified meaning. And there’s an attempt to fit in, which is disastrous from a branding and marketing perspective, because what happens when we fit in, we become the elevator music at the internet. 

We do not differentiate ourselves. We are not embracing all the weird and wonderful quirky parts of ourselves that make us memorable and unforgettable.

The other thing that happens when we market our likeability is that we make ourselves very vulnerable because when we confuse building our professional reputation with being some kind of an influencer on the internet where everybody likes us, we attract ingratiating sycophants. We attract people who love putting other people on pedestals.

People who go, wow, that person’s so pretty and glamorous and successful, and they’ve got all this shit together and I’ll just do what they do. I’ll be like them. And then everything will work out in my favor. Yeah. And this is not a useful kind of person to attract this ingratiating sycophant because they are the person who will be the first to tear you down when your behavior doesn’t comply with the idea that they have of you. Yeah. Because when somebody puts you up on a pedestal, they feel a sense of ownership over you. 

They no longer see you as a multifaceted, well-rounded individual. They see you as some kind of a figurehead. And this is something I think that a lot of people get confused, right? It is not difficult to be put on a pedestal. It’s actually quite easy. It’s quite easy. And it’s not a good thing. It’s not a good thing because I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be surrounded by ingratiating sycophants who are basically like a puppet masters pulling, you know, pulling me this away and that away. Um, and I’m just like a puppet on strings, going through the motions, dancing, smiling, waving, so that I can, you know, please the fickle crowd because the fickle crowd will be the first to tear you down. I don’t know about you, but I want to be surrounded by clients who are smarter than I am. 

I want to be surrounded by people who are thoughtful, who are intelligent, who are critical thinkers, who take responsibility for themselves and who don’t project or get easily triggered by other people who don’t think that they have some kind of control that they don’t actually have. Because that’s somebody who’s got an emotionally immature psychology. They got deep for a moment. All right, moving on. Last one.

What we’re taught at school, which turns out to be not only incorrect, but actually damaging for your business is we are taught not to put yourself first. Summer of selfish, summer of selfish. Don’t put yourself first. Now, again, this is not a podcast on morality, despite its meanderings in that direction sometimes. But there is a difference between being an asshole, being unkind, being self-centered and putting yourself first. And when I say putting yourself first, I’m talking about it’s a Monday. It’s a Monday morning. You sit in front of your, your computer, you open up your inbox and then you immediately let the emails from your clients that have come in over the weekend to crowd your focus to decide on what you’re focusing on. And then you kind of shoehorn business development and marketing into the little slithers of time on a Thursday evening at 9 p.m. or a Sunday afternoon. Yeah, and it’s always about servicing your clients first at the detriment of your future. Because make no mistake, the marketing that you do now will pay off in three months time. 

The business development activities that you do today will pay off in years to come. So by focusing solely on your clients, by focusing solely on servicing your clients at the neglect of business development, at the neglect of marketing, you are putting your future last. So it’s really, really important. And we’re not doing an either or thing, right? 

We’re not deciding that we are more important than our clients. That’s not what we’re doing. What we’re doing is managing our time appropriately so that we are giving enough time and attention to our business future, to ourselves, to our needs and our wants and our joys and our desires, as well as servicing our clients. It’s not an either or equation. Yeah. But what I’ve noticed over the years, and this has been a process, right? Because I never ever used to, you know, I was modest to the point of idiocy. I would do little favors for clients and I would neglect to tell them that I’d done it. I would do things above and beyond the scope of a project and I would not tell the client that I’d done it. Yeah. I’d say nice things about the client. I’d refer business to the client I’ve introduced God knows how many people over so many years. I’ve, you know, facilitated hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business between different people. And sometimes I didn’t even let them really know what I was doing. Right. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t kind of put my head up or, or my hand out and say, Hey, you know, you can thank me now. You can say thank you because that’s a good thing. So putting yourself first or failing to put yourself first, you know, this doesn’t happen from our nature, right? 

I mean, look at two-year-olds. Two-year-olds, I’ve got to be the most self-centered little sociopaths around. We are taught to be selfless. We are socialised to think of others ahead of ourselves. And whilst much of this is wonderful, and yes, we are all interconnected, and yes, you know, we do need to appreciate that and to realize the consequences of our actions and that we can’t be assholes. For many reasons, not least of which is if we want to be in business for the long term, we can’t be assholes. 

We do need to learn how to put ourselves first and, and, you know, more concretely in the area of marketing and business development.

All right, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. Let me know, I’m always keen to hear from you. I hope this is not a one-way communication. Please reach out, say good day on Instagram. I do respond, that is me responding. I’d love to see you on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, all the usual places. Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited, or has you changing the way that you do business or life,

Would you do me a super quick favor and write me a short review? Your podcast review means so much to me and it helps other values-based business owners just like you to find this show, which is a fantastic gift to me.

Brook McCarthy Business Coach

Never miss an episode

Join our list

Acknowledgment of Country

We acknowledge the Cammeraygal people, the traditional and ongoing custodians of the lands that Hustle & Heart creates and works on. This lush land is just north of Sydney Harbour Bridge. We also acknowledge the traditional and ongoing custodians of the land, skies and seas where you are, and pay our respects to their Elders past, present and emerging. We recognise that these lands were never ceded.

Always was, always will be Aboriginal land.

Pledge 1% org

Social life

Say ‘hi’ to Hustle & Heart founder Brook McCarthy on:

© 2015-2023 Hustle & Heart | Privacy Policy | Hustle & Heart is owned by Brook McCarthy