Let's Talk "Competition"

Competition is a common concern for freelancers and businesses alike. However, it's important to shift the mindset from viewing competition as a threat to understanding that people choose others because they align with them. Authenticity and self-awareness are key in attracting clients who resonate with your true self. It may be challenging to embrace your unfiltered version, but it's a journey of self-discovery. Personality tests, journaling, and seeking feedback from others can help in gaining a better understanding of yourself. Embracing your strengths and recognizing your weaknesses can lead to finding your zone of genius and feeling aligned with your work. Hey everyone, Phoebe here, and the topic for today is, let's talk about competition. Alright, so just like some context about this, if you don't know yet, I run a freelance business, so I'm a brand strategist, and I help B2C brands amplify what makes them different, because when people understand why they should be the choice, that is when they buy. Okay, so that's me, I'm a brand strategist, I do brand strategy branding for businesses, and if you think about it, there are so many other brand strategists out there. You can start searching on LinkedIn, and there are so many of them out there. So yeah, that is me, and if you come to think further, it's not just for brand strategists, it's also the same for other service providers, such as copywriters, FB advertisers, marketing people, funnel designers, website developers, people like them. They also have a very saturated community, if we're going to think of it that way. What I mean by that is that there are already so many of them out there. Now, this thought, just one cent about this, this thought, let's say you're not yet delving into this, but you're planning, but this thought is keeping you from actually starting, what I want you to do right now is to demolish that belief, because it's not going to help you anyway. But that's your ego talking to you, making sure that you're safe, keeping you in that comfort zone. That's your ego self or ego mind talking to you, I just want you to be aware of that. So yeah, that's just one thought that popped into my mind, but getting back to the topic, so that's the reality, there's so many of us out there already, and it's also the same for product-based businesses. For instance, clothing businesses, food businesses, competition is also tough. You probably always hear this statement, there's so many of them out there. Now, previously, just to share with you guys, previously, how I viewed the concept of competition, it's all about being better, it's all about finding the weakness of other people who are in the same business with you, again, so that you can show how much better you are. That's my view of competition before, and a sample scenario of that would be, if people choose others, that means that they are better than me. That's my previous mindset. But how I shifted from that, how I grew as a freelancer, as an entrepreneur, as a brand strategist, is that if people choose others, that's basically because they feel aligned with them. And same thing goes with me, or with you. If people choose you, that's because they align with you. That mindset shift is so powerful because it keeps you peaceful, mentally, emotionally, and it removes that toxic relationship or energy with other people. Because if your potential clients do choose other businesses that they feel aligned with, is that something to be actually happy about? I mean, wouldn't the world be better if you're doing stuff or working with people that you are in harmony with? I mean, just imagine, have you ever worked with someone who is a nightmare person or client or whatever that is? You probably have. Maybe at school or at work. And it's so frustrating. I know you know the feeling. And if you want to share some stories of memories where you experienced something like that, please do feel free to share that with us, for the listeners, in this episode. So you can email me, I'll put the link in the show notes below. Or you can also comment that in the comment section, if there's any comment section where you are listening to this. Because I'm posting this in different platforms. So yeah, that's a mindset shift that I wanted to share with you because it can help you as well. Again, just to clarify so that everything is clear. If people choose others, that does not mean they are better than you. People choose others because they align with them. And there are also people who will be choosing you because they align to you. Now, the question here is, how does alignment work? Alignment happens when you don't filter yourself. I mean, how can you attract, let's say you are a red person. So let's just do analogies, and analogies like in terms of colors. Let's say you are a red person, okay? But for some reason, you learn that the world is so dangerous, and you have to cover yourself and put on a violet mask. Now, when you function as a violet, it's like you're keeping your true self, and you function as a violet. People perceive you as a violet. Guess what? You're gonna attract people who are not aligned with you. You're gonna attract people who are attracted to violet, and you won't feel in alignment with them because you are a fucking red. So yeah, that's just my point there. I hope that was clear enough to understand. So again, alignment happens when you don't filter yourself. Of course, in a good way. I'm not saying that you go out there and just say all the stuff that you want, be rude, hurt people. That's a different topic. And if you're that kind of person, you need to grow, my friend. So back to the topic of alignment. Again, it's all about showing up in your unfiltered version. You know, radiating that energy to the world, letting people know who you really are, what kind of things you value, how you do things, etc. But this alignment thing, this showing up in your unfiltered version, easy to say, hard to do. And that's because we people are conditioned to keep ourselves safe. Because of that, what do we do? We copy what other people are doing. And when we copy what other people are doing, that's basically like putting on a mask that other people use. So initially, that's not who you are. You're just trying out things. And as a beginner, that's definitely okay. Because again, you have to try things. You have to learn from them. But upon trying and learning countless times, you have to evolve into a person or into a version that is very authentic to who you are innately. Oh, also, I should mention this. When we're trying to copy what other people are doing, it somehow puts us in a position where we are just being generic. And we're not really communicating why we're different or like what kind of value we're providing. So yeah, that's like the cons of just copying. And the reason behind this why it's so hard to be like our unfiltered self, one reason is that we don't have a good understanding of who we are as a person in the first place. And because we don't understand ourselves, we're not very much self-aware of what we like, what we don't like, what things we value, what things we hate, you know, how we do things and why we do it that way. If we don't have a clear understanding of those things, then we don't have conviction. And when you don't have conviction about something, it's hard to defend it. So what do you have to do moving forward? It's really just simple, you know, but it's not a quick one-time, big-time process. It's a journey. It's an evolution. And it's all about being more self-aware. Things you can do is do personality tests, discover your strengths, your weaknesses, do journaling. What else can you do? You can also try asking other people, maybe your friends, family, people you've been acquainted with, and ask them your strong points and your weak points. That will probably show you your blind spots, things you've never realized before. So yeah, that's a good exercise. One example that I can give here is I'm going to compare me and Bea with each other. And this is a very great example because it's like we are the total opposites of each other. So for me, I am a strategist. I function as if I have the helicopter's view. So I can see the big picture. I can understand the vision of the people that I'm talking to. I can reverse engineer stuff because, again, I have the big picture. But my weakness lies in the details, in the actual execution. I've tried execution before, and it drains the life out of me. It's just so hard to do because that's, I guess that's my personality, that's my DNA. I hate it. And contrary to that, Bea, Bea is really good at the details. She's the one doing all the organizing. She's the one putting up the processes, the systems. Again, the nitty-gritty stuff, which is, again, that's like the total opposite of what I do. I'm not like a very organized person. I'm very spontaneous. Bea is more structured. So that's like, I hope that's like a clear picture. And to add more context to this, in terms of like favorite subjects in school, Bea's favorite subjects, oh, by the way, she graduated as an engineer, and she's good at chemistry. She's good at math. So she finds topics such as chemical compounds, you know, formulas, computations, numbers. She finds that really interesting, and she's really good at that. Again, those things, my weakness. So contrary to that, my favorite subjects are philosophy, social science, what else, economics. So not economics because economics are more of like numbers. I'm concerned with humanity stuff. I'm concerned with psychology, that one. That's what I pursued in college, psychology. And, yeah, just from that example, you probably see the kind of person that we are and how we're really different, how we have different strengths, how we have different zone of genius. And when we helped like Bea get more self-aware with her strength, with her weakness, we actually like pushed her to transition from being a social media manager to pursuing online business management because what she's doing is what online business managers do. And so she started pursuing that, and she mentioned that it was the first time in her life that she was waking up for a purpose and that she was waking up really happy. And it was because of OBM. She felt really aligned with what she's doing. So, yeah, I just wanted to share that story because I feel like that's one of the amazing things that we realized last year, 2022. So, yeah, that's that, and maybe like we should summarize everything again. Okay, so starting like with the mindset shift in terms of competition, instead of thinking people choose others because they are better than you, you have to shift your mindset to people choose others because they are aligned with them. And it also means that there will be people who will choose you because they are aligned with you. But here's the thing. Alignment happens when you don't filter yourself. Because when you don't filter yourself, that's when they really see you for who you are. And if they're the kind of person who has the same values, you know, same vibe, same wavelength with who you truly are as a person, then that's where chemistry, that's when synergy happens. And guess what? You're finding your people. Congrats. So, yeah, that's it for our topic for today. And I hope this short episode was really valuable to you guys. If you do find this valuable, please do share your insights, any comments, any stories that popped up in your mind or, you know, any suggestions for improvements with our episodes. That would be very helpful because I wanted to make this show as valuable, as helpful as much as possible. Or if there's any other message that you want to share personally, maybe you don't want to share it in public, that's also fine. You can email me at hello at the pbanasco.com. And just like put a very clear subject line so I know what it's about. Maybe, you know, put podcast as a subject line so I know where it's coming from. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. Again, I'm Phoebe. I am a brand strategist, although it's not brand strategy that we talked about here. It's more of like a personal development thing. And I really love talking things about that. That's it for today and see you on the next one. Bye.