What’s Blocking You From Sex Educator Success? 🚫💰🚫
Do you know what’s holding you back in your sex ed business from accomplishing what your heart knows is possible?
Ask yourself… What is slowing you down? What -if anything- has you sliding backwards away from the success & financial dreams you’re trying to attain? It’s not that the world isn’t ready for you… Or that your dreams are so big & filled with passion…
Over the next four posts, we’ll be talking about the four fundamental blocks that hold sex-positive entrepreneurs back in business.
Some educators have two out of four, or all four… Some educators have more of one, less of another…
Whatever the combination is for you, these four things all apply and they can all keep us from the success of reaching more people, making more money, and taking better care of ourselves and loved ones. And these blocks run deeeeeeep for all of us. Myself included.
“So what is holding us back?” you ask.
The First of Four: Competence
The first one we’ll be diving into, is Competence. And you’re probably asking yourself, “WTF? Competence as a block?”
The word may sound stuffy and intellectual, yet to our survival brains, knowing we KNOW vs knowing we DON’T KNOW has a HUGE impact on our emotions, ability to take action, and even influences our thoughts and dreams of “what’s possible.”
Being unsure of how to do a task rapidly lowers our confidence, increases our hesitation, and can evaporate the courage & bravery that we need to take bold next steps and make progress… Being unsure can shut us down and even affect our ability to notice the opportunities around us.
To Fake It Or Not To Fake It. THAT Is The Question.
Many of us learned from culture and our families of origin, to pretend, to “fake it to we make it.” While that can work sometimes for some people, it’s a dangerous game.
You would never tell a client to fake their orgasms as a method of “making it,” right?
What if you don’t become successful fast enough? What if you have an internal integrity crisis about “lying” about “faking it”?
And what if someone calls you out on being a fake?! What if you’re negative self-talk is YOU calling yourself out on being a fake?
Trying to fake it often ends in NOT making it.
Like sexual prowess & expertise, learning how to run a business successfully isn’t something most people can learn by osmosis or fumbling around. And unlike trying to learn to orgasm, which you can devote a lifetime to, running a business has a ticking clock attached to it: You either run out of money, energy, or both.
Burnout and needing to get a “real job” to pay the bills has caused more talented sex educators out of our industry than retiring wealthy ever has.
To be confident AND competent, successful AND sustainable, we need to learn & practice actual skills and approaches that work & will sustain us. Building a foundation of skills and abilities that are tested, tried, and true is what allows our competency to expand. When we do THAT, we’re not “faking it.” We are “testing & implementing new ideas,” and “trying something new to see if it succeeds.”
You introduce your client to vibrators, teaching them how pleasure and bodies work, and help them unlearn shame & that it’s safe to explore.
Learning, exploring, and innovating aren’t fake. They’re powerful.
So, I invite you to use your courage not to “fake it ‘til you make it,” but to “learn and improve until you find the approach that’s right for YOU!”
Follow Your Incompetence
If learning is SO powerful, ask yourself where you could use to learn something. Why? Because we can use competence as our compass… Or, more accurately, our lack of competence.
Notice where you lack competence then head courageously in that direction. (We’ll be talking more about courage in an upcoming post- Courage is the heart of what you’re creating, just like Competence is the brain).
If you can take your energy away from faking & pretending that you know what you’re doing, and instead pour that energy & focus into where you’re unsure and could use a hand… You’ve turned your ship around and started sailing towards creating MORE of what you dream of!
Noticing where you need to learn something and getting support doing that ends the pretending game, lands you in reality, and stacks the deck in your favor of making actual progress because now you can get competent!
Business Meta Moment: Your ability to know what areas of business you’re not competent in… That ability as its own form of competency where you identify the area and then you get support in that area or hire it out! #BossBitchMove #LeadershipProwess
Your Survival Brain Knows When You’re Faking It
Your survival brain knows when & where you’re faking it. And it’s scared. It doesn’t want your pretending to be exposed for everyone to see! Shame and being ostracized are BIG fears for the survival brain and it will go to great lengths to double down and fake it harder in hopes that people won’t ridiculing you. That means your survival brain will make it harder for you to ask for & get the support you in need.
Can you see the shame spiral beginning and how it pushes success further away from you?
Taking baby steps identifying, getting support and learning what you aren’t competent in soothes your survival brain and helps you feel stronger and more ready to tackle new opportunities. And small amounts of competency and soothing often lead to MORE competency and MORE soothing… And so on and so on.
Have you seen something similar in some of your coaching clients or workshop participants? As you helped them take baby steps with new skills, they wobbled at first but then started to glow & shine! They find their footing. They begin to feel more hopeful and eager. And, as their competency and confidence grew, their life & it’s possibilities felt more open to them (which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to new opportunities, new possibilities).
I want that for you in your business! I want you to glow when you think of your career. I want you to feel your career open up to more possibilities.
Sure it’s work & effort sometimes, but anything worthwhile is. I want you to feel eager to build and help more people even when it takes effort.
If you’d like my help (and my friend Cathy Vartuli’s help as well) with building your business competence, here are some proven offerings that can help you not only feel competent but boost your career skills to rock star levels! Building a successful business alone is hard… And the mission you’re on is too important to “fake it ‘til you make it.” People need your intimacy & relationship advice NOW so let’s create the foundation for you to reach more of your future fans and clients so you can serve them while also paying your rent!
Cathy and I hope you join us for some or all of these courses we’ve got coming up… All of these courses (1:1 coaching excluded) have multi-pay and some partial and full scholarships available. Click the images or links below to learn more.
Upcoming Events & Courses
Implementation Boot(y) Camp: Build the foundation of your business or fill in missing gaps so you feel competent that you have the infrastructure to help people and to reach new folks that need your help! With AI to speed up your growth and to save you energy! Reid and Cathy at the helm. — Register + More Info HERE.
Copywriting Deep Dive with AI for Sex Geeks: Learn how to write in ways that engage and invite your audience that lights a spark in them and has the right ones signing up in droves for your offerings. Plus, we’ll use AI to help reduce your workload by up to 70-percent! Reid and Cathy will be guiding you. — Learn More and Register HERE.
Sex Geek Conservatory: 3 Days working on your public speaking & teaching skills can change the trajectory of your career…Too many people fumble through when learning how to speak & teach and they leave bad impressions before they become great at it. Spend three days accessing your inner power & upping your teaching/speaking game so YOU can rock people’s worlds & leave GREAT impressions immediately! A Reid Mihalko offering. — Learn More and Register HERE.
Sex Geek Summer Camp’s 10th Anniversary: Celebrating 10 years! 6-Day/5-Night Sleepaway Business/Marketing/Facilitation Skills Development & Education retreat for Sex Educators & pleasure professionals. A Reid Mihalko offering. — Access Camp’s FAQ + Register HERE.
Coaching: Reid and Cathy offer 1:1 coaching to help you uncover your blocks and gain the skills you need to power your mission and make a difference that will echo around the world.
Coaching Info for Cathy HERE.
Coaching Info for Reid HERE.
Become Your Own MVP
Cathy and I believe in you, Sex Geek! YOU are the most valuable player in your career, and whatever ways you gain the competence to run a successful, thriving business & career helping people… Go get ’em!
Big thanks to Cathy Vartuli who drafted the ideas for this series of posts, and helped kicked me in the pants to send these out… Cathy is quite competent, if you didn’t already know.
We hope this posts helps you understand how powerful gaining competence in areas where you could use it is gonna be for you & your future!
To you learning all the empower things with ease,
REiD (and Cathy!)
Ps. Watch for an upcoming post to learn more! And for the secret #4 sauce that tops them all. Did you catch the Ted Lasso Season 3 reference?!