Being Sold on Yourself

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here’s your hostess, master life coach Tonya Leigh.

What is happening, my friends? I am having a wonderful day, in case you were wondering. I just wrapped up a coaching call with my School of Self-Image members and I’m just in awe and full of so much gratitude for this community and the work that they’re doing within the membership and how it’s impacting their lives.

In fact, I just got an email yesterday from a woman who said that she has accomplished more in two months of being in the membership than she has accomplished in two years. And she’s doing it by elevating her self-image.

Honestly, I feel like every woman needs to know this, this work. It will change your life in the most extraordinary ways. You will hear me say it over and over again, but how you see yourself is creating your entire life. And do you spend any time at all thinking about what you think about yourself? Thinking about how you see yourself?

Or, do you just think that’s who you are? Because if you think that’s who you are and you don’t like the results that you’re getting, then I’m here to give you the best news ever. You can change your thoughts about yourself.

And when you change how you think about yourself and what you’re capable of, guess what happens? Everything outside of you changes. And that’s actually a perfect segue into today’s topic, which is selling yourself.

Did you notice what I just did? I sold you on why this is the most amazing membership ever. Because it is. You know, whenever I go to create something that I’m going to offer, one of the first exercises that I do is I sit down and I sell myself on my program.

I tell myself why it is amazing. I sell myself on the results that I am committed to helping women achieve. And when I sell myself on it, it becomes so much easier for me to put it out into the world.

Now, imagine if I didn’t do that. Imagine if my thoughts around what I was putting out into the world is, “It’s not good enough. No one’s going to like it. No one’s going to want to buy it. I don’t know if it really works. There are so many other coaches out there. There are other people that are doing something similar to me.”

I don’t allow my brain to go there. Because it’s just not useful. And I really have sold myself on being one of the best coaches in the industry, especially when it comes to self-image. Why? Because I’ve done it myself. I’ve completely reinvented myself, so I know what challenges women face. I know what it requires.

In other words, I know I am a master in changing self-image. It is my specialty. And I have sold myself on it. So, when I talk about it, it’s coming from a genuine place of I really do think this is the best thing ever. And I really do believe every woman needs to know this.

And so, speaking about it and sharing it and offering it to the world is so easy. And not only is it easy. It’s so much fun. And if someone tells me that they’re not interested and they don’t want to be a part, I don’t take it personally because I’ve sold myself on it. I’m like, “Are you crazy? Why would you not want to be in this membership? It’s so good.”

So, this got me to thinking about selling you to yourself. How many of you are not sold on yourself? How many of you are going out into the world wanting to be liked, wanting to be noticed, wanting to be validated, but you haven’t done the work upfront, selling you to yourself? Being sold on yourself?

This is the equivalent of trying to sell a product or a service that you don’t yet believe in. It makes it so much harder. There’s a desperation behind it. People can sense it. And unfortunately, the result is people don’t buy into you. And it’s not because you’re not extraordinary. It’s only because you haven’t sold yourself on how extraordinary you are.

It’s like the person who has created the best soap ever. I don’t know why I just came up with soap. But let’s go with it. But they haven’t sold the soap yet. And so, they don’t know that it’s the best soap ever.

So, they try to sell it and no one really buys it because they are doubting that it’s the best soap ever. And people are sensing their own doubt. And so, it’s not the soap that people aren’t buying. It’s the disbelief that the soap creator is having that people are sensing.

It is the soap creator – this is the funniest analogy. It’s the soap creator’s job to sell herself on how amazing her soap is, the ingredients that she uses, the story behind why she created it, how it’s beneficial to your skin. And when she does that work upfront and she puts her soap out into the world, even if someone doesn’t buy it, she’s not going to take it personally.

She’s going to be like, “Do you not realize how amazing this soap is? How it’s going to make your skin so soft? How you’re going to love the smell? How it’s going to make your evenings more luxurious?” She’s feeling sorry for the person see how amazing her soap is.

Now, for you, you haven’t sold yourself on you yet. It’s not that you’re not amazing. Because you are like that best soap ever. You just don’t realize it yet. And so, if people don’t like you or they shun you or you just don’t feel like you are noticed or you don’t feel like you’re getting the validation that you want, people aren’t rejecting you. What they’re doing is they’re picking up on your disbelief in you.

But here’s the thing. When you sell yourself on yourself, you don’t need that validation. You don’t need people to like you because you have bought your own program. You know how wonderful and incredible you are. And if people don’t want to be a part of that, you might just end up feeling sorry for them and what they’re missing by not getting to be with such an extraordinary woman.

Now, because I coach some of you within the membership, I hear some of your challenges. Some of you are wanting to find a partner. Some of you are wanting to form new friendships. Some of you are trying to get a new job. Some of you are wanting to put your services out into the world.

And all of those things are going to require that you are sold on yourself first and foremost, that you believe in your own value, that you like yourself, that you love yourself, that you validate yourself.

And here’s the thing. When you get into that kind of energy, you’re going to attract the perfect people or person into your life for you because of who you are being. That’s who we attract. We attract who we’re being.

So, if we are insecure, we’re probably going to attract a lot of insecure people. If we are being joyful, we’ll probably attract a lot of joyful people. It’s called the law of attraction. Like attracts like. And when I look throughout my life, it works every single time.

So, when you sell yourself on yourself, you’re probably going to attract people who are sold on themselves. And so, you get people coming together who truly enjoy their own company and love sharing that energy with each other, versus people that are wanting validation and are needy and desperate. It’s a completely different dynamic.

But even deeper than that, it’s the relationship you have with yourself. Do you want to be with someone you’re not sold on? Do you want to be with someone that you doubt and don’t trust and don’t believe in? No. And yet, that is the relationship so many of you have with yourselves.

And let me assure you, I have been there. This has been my work over a decade of trying to sell myself on myself, of being a woman who believes in herself, knows her value, thinks highly of herself.

And so, how do you begin to sell you on yourself? The best way for me to describe this is to think about my relationship with my bestie. And any time we’re in a group of people, she is always telling them how amazing I am. To the point it sometimes is a little uncomfortable. She’s like, “Do you realize how amazing Tonya is?”

In fact, I was with her and the guy I’m seeing and one of the first things she said to him was, “Do you realize who you’re dating? Do you realize what a rock star she is? Do you realize how beautiful she is? How amazing she is?” I was like, “Okay, you’ve got to stop. This is getting really awkward.”

But I thought about how she speaks about me and I started to ask myself, what if I spoke to myself like that every single day? What if I sold myself to myself the way she was selling me to my new guy? What kind of relationship would I have with myself if I did that?

And I feel like I do a pretty good job. But being with her makes me realize I could do way better. It’s so easy for me to sell her to everyone and telling everyone how amazing she is. So, why wouldn’t we do that for ourselves?

So, think about someone that you love dearly. And when you’re introducing this person to someone, how you speak about them. You’re probably bragging about them. You’re probably telling the other person all of their amazing accomplishments. You’re speaking of the things that you love about them. You’re selling them to this other person.

Well, what would it look like if you did that to yourself? What if you made an effort every single day to say, “Let me tell you why you are so amazing,” and you began to look for all of the evidence for what you want to see?

Because what we usually end up doing in our own minds is we’re telling ourselves why we shouldn’t be sold on ourselves. We’re picking at our flaws. We’re thinking about our failures. We’re pointing out all the things that we don’t like about ourselves. And then, we wonder why we feel so bad.

But what if right now you decided that your work is to be sold on yourself? How much fun would that be? And just think about how much easier life would be when you’re sold on you and you’re out in the world.

Again, you’re not going to need people to validate you and to praise you and to appreciate you because you’re already doing all of that for yourself. But then the craziest thing happens, is that as you show up in such a way, you often end up getting the very things that you wanted in the first place but you were subconsciously pushing it away because you weren’t a match for it.

So, I want you to make it a practice, just as an experiment for this week, to sell yourself on you, to wake up every single day and be like, “Here’s what I love about you. Here’s what makes you amazing. Here’s what you’re so good at. Here’s what I’m proud of. Here’s why I think you are the best thing that ever landed on this planet.”

Imagine doing this work and this exercise until you are truly sold on yourself. I’m telling you all, change your life. You’re going to feel better. You’re going to show up more powerfully. You’re going to look better. You’re going to create better results. Everything’s just going to get better.

Why? Because all of the things that maybe you have been seeking from the outside world, you’ll realize were within you all along. You just have not sold yourself on it yet. But that’s about to change, my friends, hopefully after listening to this episode. I really want you to be sold on you; sold on your own program, sold on who you are as a woman, sold on your value, and sold on your ability to live an extraordinary life.

Thanks, you all, for tuning in this week. I cannot wait to see you in next week’s episode. Cheers.

Hey, have you grabbed your free copy of the School of Self-Image Manifesto? If not, what in the world? Head over to schoolofselfimage.com/manifesto and get a copy that teaches you how to think and show up in the areas of mindset, style, and surroundings so that you can transform your self-image.