How many of you have received cold messages from someone else in the industry and thought to yourself, that’s so gross? Little did you know that this tiny thought can open up a can of worms that can cause significant issues within your own business.
When the judgment of others and how they sell occupy space in your brain, it can often find its way into how you present your offers, leading to inaction over the fear of sounding gross or spammy. That’s why this week, Kristen is talking about releasing the judgment you have about other social sellers in order to show up for your audience consistently.
Listen in to learn about this week’s topics:
- Examining your thoughts and stories surrounding how you like being sold to
- Learning to have compassion for those still stuck in hustle culture
- How to know when you’re in the judgment zone
- The crisis caused by thinking there’s a right and wrong way to sell on social media
- Finding things to learn from your sideline/upline, even if they sell differently than you
When we cast judgment on others for doing things ‘wrong’, it creates a divide within the network marketing community. Instead, learn to redirect these sellers with compassion instead of reprimanding in judgment. You can build a community in which we all belong when you learn to release your judgment.
Discover the power of reaching your ideal audience effortlessly with The Audience Accelerator‘ a game-changing 30-Day content strategy plan that will revolutionize your online presence through targeted marketing strategies and expert guidance.
Introducing the Social Selling Leadership School: A 12-week Advanced Leadership Certification program for Network Marketers. This program was designed to give you everything you need to be a confident and transformational coach for the people you serve and help your team get massive results. This is the ONLY Coaching Certification program built specifically for the social selling market. Find out more and join the waitlist here!.
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https:/Kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.TheSocialSellingAcademy.com
Transcript for Episode #170: RE-AIR Releasing Judgement
Kristen Boss (00:20): Listen, are listening to the Kristen Boss podcast. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. As a best-selling author and performance coach, I’m on a mission to share about sustainable and purposeful approaches to both business and life. Each week I bring relevant topics that I believe are necessary to create a life of purpose, significance and meaning. Entrepreneurship is about so much more than growing your bottom line. It’s about who you are becoming in the process and building a life that is truly extraordinary. Entrepreneurship is really just the beginning.
Kristen Boss (00:57): Hey, bosses. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. We are doing something a little bit different on the show. For the next few weeks, we are going to be sharing with you some of our favorite and most downloaded episodes that we have in the vault from the past that we know that you will love. And maybe it’s an episode you haven’t yet heard before. And if it’s a re-listen, maybe this is just a sign you needed to hear it again. So I hope you enjoy the stuff we pull out of the vault over the next couple weeks. So enjoy the episode we have for you this week. Hey friends, welcome to another episode of the podcast. This week we’re having a fun conversation, a conversation I know will help you and serve you. If you have ever said to yourself, I don’t want to be that girl, this is for you.
Kristen Boss (01:45): Or maybe you’re a dude listening or whatever, and you want to be like, I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to do it like they do. If you’ve ever said that this episode is for you. Okay, so let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about your fear, because most people, I hear this a lot, they have a fear. I don’t want to look like that person over there. I don’t want to be that girl. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be that person on social media. I don’t want to, blah, blah, blah. All this avoidance of this idea of becoming someone that you think is distasteful or unlikable on social media. And I want to unpack that a little bit, and I think there’s a lot of layers to that because if I were to ask you, well, what do you mean by that girl or that person?
Kristen Boss (02:35): What do you mean by that? You would probably say, well, I don’t want to be spammy. I don’t want to be all salesy and gross. I don’t want to be that person that can’t stop talking about their company, and I don’t want to talk about money. I don’t want to just shove it down people’s throats. And I’ll be honest, this episode was totally inspired by a couple of coaching topics that came up in the academy. I’m like, you know what? We’re going to do the world of social selling good when we talk about it on the episode here. So you might have all kinds of reasons or examples of what you think it means to be that person, someone that where you’re like, oh, I don’t want to be the person that when I go to a party, people avoid me because they think I’m going to sell ’em something.
Kristen Boss (03:18): I don’t want people to think I’m selling something. I’m like, first of all, all, there is nothing wrong with you selling something on social media. In fact, probably 75% of users on social media are selling something. They have an affiliate link. They’re talking about things. And also selling is a way of life. Selling isn’t just a financial transaction. It can actually be an intellectual transaction. It can actually be, I’m going to sell you an idea. And when someone agrees with you, you have sold them intellectual, like an intellectual concept that they’re like, I agree with you. Whenever someone comes into agreement with you, you’ve sold them on some level. But we have all kinds of drama when it comes to a financial exchange between two parties that somehow that’s wrong. And I really want you to examine your own stories of how you like being sold to or maybe your thoughts of being sold to.
Kristen Boss (04:17): There are great experiences out there. I don’t know if you have considered this, but I want to just offer it to you. There is a way for you to experience a positive selling experience. In fact, you are sold every week on this podcast, every single week, every single episode you listen to. I’m selling you. I’m always selling you. And I have no drama about it because I really believe whatever I’m selling you is serving you at the highest level. I really believe when I’m selling you is transformation. I’m selling you a better way of doing things. I’m selling you peace of mind. I’m selling you fulfillment and purpose. And man, those things are great. I’m also selling my academy. I’m also selling like, Hey, there’s more work to be done with me. There’s more I can offer you. And I make no apologies about that either because I see the transformation my students have and it moves me seriously Every month I am moved to tears when I see the transformations that happen inside the academy, and I’m not exaggerating, it truly is life-changing what happens in there.
Kristen Boss (05:18): But I just want you to notice that every week you tune in, you’re still here. You’re still here. So selling isn’t always a bad experience. It doesn’t always feel spammy. In fact, selling that’s done right feels good to both the seller and the buyer. But if you have this connotation in your mind, this story in your mind, that selling is yucky, then you view of other people who are selling, you might have judgments, you might have judgments of how you see other people selling on social media. And now I think it’s so important we unpack this because many of you who listen to this podcast really are buying into the philosophy of sustainability. You’re understanding that hustle can be quite damaging. You’re understanding that hustle isn’t like an activity, it’s not sending someone a message. That’s not what hustle is. Hustle is this mentality. It’s living in a place of lack and seeking to have others or your audience or money or your business meet that lack.
Kristen Boss (06:22): That is what hustle truly is at its core. And I think I’m going to be sharing more about that as it gets closer to my book release, which by the way, you can pre-order on Amazon pivot to purpose, leaving the toxic hustle culture behind. I’m so excited to get the book in your hands. It’s going to be pretty epic. But I say that because I want to kind of bring it back to you’re here, you’re listening. You understand you’re starting to buy into the philosophy. And I think there can be this. Once you leave the hustle, I think there can be judgments that you might have for people that you see still in their hustle, and you’re making them wrong for it. In your mind, you’re looking at them thinking, wow, so gross. What they’re doing over there. They make us all look so bad.
Kristen Boss (07:16): Why are they doing this? And I really just want to show you that judgment that you are holding on them, the judgment that you have for them isn’t serving you, and it’s not serving them first, let me tell you how it’s not serving them. When you are judging them, first of all, you’re forgetting that they might be doing the best they can with what they know. They might not know any better. They are out there, they’re trying, trying to make money. They’re looking to work. Hey, at least they’re showing up. At least they’re working, right? But you might be forgetting that maybe you were once there too. Instead of having judgment on them, I would really invite you to have compassion on them, compassion for, okay, they’re trying in the best way they know how. And that might not be the way I do it now, but don’t make them wrong for it because the moment you make someone wrong for it, you’re bringing judgment on them.
Kristen Boss (08:13): And you’re going to know you’re in judgment. When you’re scrolling your fia, your FIA feed on social media, you’re going to know you’re in judgment. When you are watching how other people are working their business and you’re making them wrong for it, you’re mad at them for it. You feel maybe resentful. You feel like their way of working is a disservice to you. And honestly, the way they work has no impact on you. It has nothing to do with you. And you might be thinking, yeah, but they’re really hurting the industry and they’re really just, they’re hurting us all. Well, honestly, here’s what I’m going to say is more hurtful When there is hostility within the industry between each other. If there’s hate, if everyone’s busy hating each other and everyone feeling more superior with their method over somebody else, what that’s doing is causing divisiveness in the industry instead of unity.
Kristen Boss (09:08): Instead of like, oh, this is the best business model and we’re all really proud, and there’s many ways to work this, but when the moment we make someone wrong for how they work their business, we bring division to the industry and that does not serve. We think it does, but really it doesn’t because then we’re so caught up in what we are doing that we forget. We forget to serve. We forget like, oh yeah, we need to be out there serving and helping people and being people of value on social media. So when you’re judging them, you’re not actually helping them. And almost always judgment that we’re casting on others is really judgment that we cast on ourselves in some way. What would it look like for you to keep your eyes on your own paper and pay no attention to other, how other people are working their business?
Kristen Boss (09:55): And what would it look like for when you get a cold message? Because we all do. Instead of sending them a podcast episode of mine saying, girl, you need to learn better and do better in a kind of passive aggressive wrist slapping kind of way, I want to invite you to have a little more compassion and point that person in love, not reprimand them in judgment, point them in love. See where they’re, they’re coming from, applaud their bravery. They’re being brave. But there is a way to redirect with compassion instead of reprimand with judgment. So that is how you can serve them better. But here’s how your judgment of others is really a disservice to you. When you are busy looking at how other people run their business, whether it’s how they do reels, how they talk about their business, anytime we believe they’re someone is doing it wrong, the other side of that thought is we must be doing it right?
Kristen Boss (11:00): And what that does is it creates a lot of pride and it creates this air of superiority. And I am even going to go so far as to see, I’ve seen, I’ve seen people almost embrace this concept of moral superiority. They’re better as a person for doing it differently. I’m a better human because I do it this way, and you are a bad human for doing it that way. And they label like You’re a selfish human. And here I am unselfish. And the moment we bring moral superiority or inferiority into this, we play a very dangerous game. And that’s not what this is about. And then when you believe there’s moral superiority or a morally right way to work this business model, now we’ve created an internal crisis, and I’m going to explain to you what the internal crisis is. Suddenly, you now have this, you have placed on yourself because you’ve placed it on everybody else that you’ve observed that there’s a right way, there’s a wrong way.
Kristen Boss (12:00): There’s the kind way and the good way and the bad way, the selfish way, and the servant hearted way. And what happens is you end up putting that lens on yourself. So when you sit down to write a post, write content or make an offer, now your brain is telling you, Hey, we can’t sound selfish. We can’t do this wrong. We have to make sure we sound really servant hearted. We can’t sound spammy. We definitely can’t sound self-serving, and we definitely need to do this the right way because we don’t want to be wrong like everybody else. We don’t want to be bad. We don’t want to be that person over there. So because you put all those filters on yourself, now when you sit down to write a post, instead of it being a quick 10 minute ordeal, now it’s become an hour long because you’re afraid to do it wrong.
Kristen Boss (12:52): Because you now are afraid of the very judgment you have cast on others. You are afraid your audience will have the same judgment for you and it will paralyze you and it will keep you from showing up authentically. And honestly, you’re not going to sell. I’m going to tell you that right now. If you’re like, there’s a right way to do this, and there’s a way that doesn’t sound spammy and salesy and self-serving and wrong, you’re never going to post because your brain is always going to offer. I think this might be self-serving, and you’re actually going to convince yourself at some point that selling anything, making any type of offers, talking about your business is just plain, selfish and wrong. So what you might end up doing is hiding behind just doing a lot of value posts, having a lot of fun, and never talking about your business, never making offers because you’re so afraid to step into possibly in your mind, doing it wrong, sounding salesy, sounding selfish, so then you just don’t do anything.
Kristen Boss (13:51): How many of you are guilty of that? I guarantee you’ve been guilty of it at one point or another. And the only way for you to undo this, the only way to free yourself up from this is to first release your judgment of everybody you observe in this industry. Every single person, even the one that sends you the most cringy, cold DM that triggers you, and you’re like, see, look at you. You’re ruining the industry for all of us. I’m just laughing because I think it’s funny. And lemme just share with you, I’ve had my own journey here. Even as a coach, I have learned to have so much compassion and love for this industry, and I can observe someone operating this business in a way that I don’t teach, and I don’t make them wrong for it. I also don’t look at my colleagues.
Kristen Boss (14:47): It’s funny, I’m calling them my colleagues, and I don’t even know them. I guess you can say My competitors, I don’t look at them and make them wrong for how they teach this business model. I’m not like, oh, that guy over there, he’s teaching the most horrible methods. I really neutralize my thoughts around them. And I’m like, well, they’re, they’re teaching and the way that they understand best and the way that they believe serves best. And that’s okay, but that’s not my flavor. And everything for me is not in the lens of anti spam, anti sales, it’s all, everything I teach is through the lens of sustainability and simplicity. Simplicity. So for me, I’m always just going to ask someone, regardless of if they’re embracing my philosophy or my process that I teach, I’m just going to ask, is it sustainable? Can you see yourself doing this five years from now?
Kristen Boss (15:36): Can you see yourself doing this six months from now? If the answer is no, I might challenge the person to reevaluate, but I’m not going to make them wrong for it. And I think it’s really important you stop making yourself wrong for how you post, for how you ask for a sale, for how you’re learning to do this business model. Some of you have no compassion for yourself, and you have such a high standard of like, I can’t do this wrong. I have to do it right. And you’re still in the learning curve of this business. So because you have no margin of error, you make yourself completely paralyzed. You take no action at all because in your mind you’re like, I cannot make a mistake because to make a mistake means I’m wrong and I’ll be judged. But the only way to remove your fear of judgment from your audience is to first remove your judgment of others.
Kristen Boss (16:30): I would encourage you, the moment you see someone who you might normally think they’re doing this the wrong way, I really want you to move past that and really find something positive about that person. Like, wow, I really admire how brave they are, how they just show up powerfully and they don’t care. Man, I can really learn that from that person. Now, do I like the language in which they use? Is that my flavor? Is that my personality? No, but you can look at them with appreciation and respect on some level, and when you do that, you’re going to find so much grace for yourself in showing up in this business, and you’re going to find yourself when you sit down to write content, suddenly those filters aren’t going to be so strong anymore. There’s not going to be that filter of like, you better not be like that creep over there.
Kristen Boss (17:23): You better not be like that person over there. Can’t be like that, can’t sell, can’t be spammy, can’t be self-serving, and I just want to offer you, what if you never allowed the thought? I’m being self-serving, to take real estate up in your mind and to believe that to be true, but also being self-serving means that you stop caring about your or that you’re in for your own bottom line. So just check in with yourself and get to the place where you’re like, how am I okay? No matter what? How am I okay even without the sale? How do I not need this from anybody? Listen, the moment you need something from your audience, you are in lack.
Kristen Boss (18:09): Think about that. The moment you need from your audience, you leave service, you’ve left service. The true magic is when you want to give to your audience, when you feel desire to serve, desire to impact, desire to make their lives better, understanding that inevitably by enriching somebody else’s life, it always enriches your life too. And not just financially. I’m talking about fulfillment. Fulfillment is a really rich emotional experience that you don’t need money to experience that emotion. Can you hear me? You do not need money to experience the beautiful and rich emotion of fulfillment. And when you find fulfillment, it is amazing how extraordinarily you will surf and you will show up in the world and it will shock you. Your business will change. Trust me, it’s so funny. This is why in the academy we have the saying, calm your butt down. And people are like, this is so crazy.
Kristen Boss (19:23): You mean when I stop caring so much, when I stop meeting so much, when I stop feeling desperate, when I stop feeling scarce, my paycheck goes up, my customers go up, I attract builders. What? Yes, yes. We see this over and over and over and over again in the academy, and it’s so funny, it cracks me up because my students always say, they’re like, is this magic? And I’m like, it’s not magic. This is how the world works. When you stop needing something from someone and you make them feel more important than yourself, it is extraordinary what happens in your relationships, not just in business. What a beautiful thing, but you’re never going to get there if you’re too busy judging, if you’re too busy making judgements of everybody around you, too busy judging people for working this business differently instead of finding something to admire about that person.
Kristen Boss (20:20): And then maybe we wouldn’t be so busy bashing other people and how people do it. And I notice, and here’s what I want to offer you. Some people when they come to the academy, they might see their sidelines or uplines working the business differently. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong. Your sideline, your upline, if they’re working it differently, there’s still maybe something to learn from them. You don’t have to ostracize yourself from the community and isolate yourself because you’re in, I’m going to call this the camp of self-righteousness and a camp of being a martyr and be like, I will pioneer all alone. I really want to encourage you to think, how can I still belong here and be a part of this community even if I do things differently? What is still here for me? But some of you make your work so much harder because you leave community, you choose isolation because it’s kind of laced in this idea of like, I’m right.
Kristen Boss (21:23): I am superior to what’s happening over there. And I know this might be hard to hear, but when you remove that, you’re going to feel belonging. You’re going to feel community, and you’re going to feel a whole lot less judgment, and you’re going to feel really empowered writing your content and showing up and selling powerfully and making bold offers when you release that judgment. I want to share with you, I’m going to be vulnerable with you. I’m going to share you a little share with you a little story of something I had to work on healing within myself just to kind of drive the point home and why it’s so important. I have struggled with body image issues my entire life, and it is something I have been working on really intentionally for the last two years, really learning to love myself no matter what, no matter the size of my pants, what the scale says, that seeing myself as worthy and lovable and all those things.
Kristen Boss (22:17): But the biggest thing I had a hangup about was I assumed everywhere I went that people were judging my body. I really believed that in my core. I really believed when I walked into a room, people measured me by my body first before they even bothered to know my name. That was the reality I lived in, and it made me incredibly self-conscious. It made me wanted to hide my hide myself and cover up and hide behind baggy clothes and all of those things because I really, I feared judgment so much. And then I finally had to do the really pain work in realizing the only reason I believed everyone was judging my body was because it’s what I did my whole life. I would walk into a room and immediately, literally physically size up everybody in the room and figure out where I fit in the room.
Kristen Boss (23:17): I’m like, am I in the heavier half or the lighter half? Am I considered skinny in this room or large in this room? And that was this horribly toxic narrative that I was, I judged bodies. I judged bodies, I had opinions. So of course, I assumed everybody else had the same thoughts I did. I assumed everybody else was out there judging all the time. So it made me afraid to be in my own body in the world because of the reality I had created. And so I did this extraordinary homework, and I remember I went on a vacation where there was a lot of swimsuits. Everyone was in swimsuits, and my work on that vacation was, my work was to admire every body I saw in a swimsuit and really work to see how that body was beautiful, how that body was created in beauty, how everything was extraordinary about that person, and why I believed e, every body, every shape, every size, and every type of swimsuit where I would look, and particularly women, obviously, I’m not checking out the dudes, but the women I would just work on, wow, what a beautiful figure she has.
Kristen Boss (24:27): Wow, she has really strong arms. I just found every single body type I worked to find something beautiful about them. And of course, years and years of conditioning my brain to look at bodies with criticism, it took a little bit because criticism was first at the forefront. I’m like, oh, no, we’re not focusing on that anymore. We’re focusing. We’re looking for what is beautiful about this person. Every literally, every single person, I found something beautiful and I really believed it. By the end of the trip, I’m like, look at all these beautiful bodies. Everyone is so beautiful. I really believed that, and it completely changed my experience of how I walked in the world. I was able to look at my body and finally see beauty and finally see that it was well made and finally see all the wonderful extraordinary things about it. Do I still have bad days?
Kristen Boss (25:22): Of course I do. I’m human. But it was so powerful for me to realize, in order for me to love myself more and to release and heal my own judgments of my myself and my own body, it first meant I had to release my judgments and heal how I viewed everybody else’s body and how I found it extraordinary and beautiful. Cause it was easy for me to look at this standardized, or what is it? The beauty standards of today’s culture, of what the standardized beauty is, beauty standards, whatever. I’m stumbling over that, but it doesn’t matter. I was able to look at those. The thought that they were beautiful was very accessible with people that I thought met society or cultures standards of beauty. So it’s more, I tie this all back to this idea of how you judge yourself and your business. You likely have a standard of your, in your mind of how people should work this business, how people should show up. I want you to think of that as the standard of beauty. Like this is the bar I measure everybody up against, including myself, and it makes it painful to be in this world and to work my business when I have this bar that is so judgmental that actually doesn’t need to there.
Kristen Boss (26:45): When you stop having a standard that you place on everybody else, you should be this way. You should work your business in that way. You shouldn’t do that. Notice that every time you point a finger, really, it’s pointing it back to yourself. I shouldn’t do that. I shouldn’t do this. And you hold yourself to this, to your own impossible standards. And what you end up doing is living in a lot of self-judgment and shame. And when you’ve created this environment within your yourself, where you are afraid of your own judgment, and you don’t want to feel shame because you don’t meet your own standards. Now we’ve introduced perfectionism. Now we’ve introduced getting lost in doing it right and having to put nothing else out there, but a plus work, B minus, not okay, because I have this standard that I hold everyone else to, and I’m definitely holding myself to it, and instead of healing that part of myself, I’m just going to hold myself to this impossible standard to avoid my own self-judgment and shame that I create for myself.
Kristen Boss (28:01): This is the power of releasing judgment. This is why you do this work. You will move in the world differently. You’ll move in your business differently. Heck, start doing your body love now, before summer. Start looking and follow body, body positive accounts to really learn to see and appreciate everybody that people have. So it’s the same thing with your social media. If you see someone who you think is doing this the wrong way, don’t unfollow them. Don’t hate them. Look for reasons to appreciate them and look for reasons to think in some way. There’s something I can learn from them. I admire that they’re being courageous. I admire that they’re being bold. I admire that they’re showing up and being silly. That’s awesome. Go them. Does that mean you need to be them and adopt all their methods in ways? No, but it does release a judgment.
Kristen Boss (28:57): It does release a shame when you do that. You’re going to show up so powerfully. You’re going to feel so free in how you show up in your business and how you show up in life. Maybe you didn’t need this episode for your business. Maybe you needed it in your life. Maybe you’ve been casting a lot of judgments over a certain topic for certain people, and it’s time to start looking within. It’s time to release that judgment and find a lot of compassion, because if you cannot find compassion for others, then of course you have no compassion for yourself. So just want to offer that today. Will you do that work today? I hope you do because it’s really beautiful on the other side. We’ll see you next week. Serve well. That’s a wrap for today’s episode. Listen, if you love what you heard here today, I would love for you to leave a real quick rating and a review. This helps the show get discovered by new people. Be sure to take a screenshot of today’s episode and shout us out on Instagram. We’ll shout you right back out. If you’d like to find additional resources or discover how to work with me, head to kristenboss.com.
