How Inherited Stories Leave Women Founders Behind
How Inherited Stories Leave Women Founders Behind
Do you feel the tension between being too vulnerable and an aggressive startup founder? Can you be both?
Photo by Clarke Sanders
Being visible as a woman comes with a lot of imposter syndrome. ⠀
When I first started doing more video and Instagram stories for my business, the thought that kept swimming in my brain was — will people think I’m vain and conceited for doing this so much? ⠀
Growing up, I was taught that I was flaming my ego by preening in front of mirrors, taking pictures of myself, and being conscientious about my looks. I was taught that being visible was a signal of being egotistical and a prissy girl who couldn’t be smart at the same time too. ⠀
First of all, we all know this isn’t true — there’s nothing negative about wanting to look good for ourselves. It’s a hard narrative to reverse though, especially when it has been hammered into your head since you were a little girl.
I still hold my breath whenever I post a photo of myself on my business or personal Instagram account. The anxiety of seeming too conceited still stirs me.
Second, in an age where the majority of sales are closed through in-person or video interactions with the brand, we need to be in front of a camera to do business. ⠀
This tension between being “too vain” and being an aggressive businesswoman who gets sh*t done is confusing and uncomfortable. Many of us let our negative inherited stories with being visible stop us from benefiting from a strong sales tool. ⠀
Once you address this discomfort and you accept that this story of being “egotistical” by being visible is a made-up story meant to keep you small, you have the possibility of raking in more money for your business, helping more people benefit from your products or services, and impacting more people positively through your voice.⠀
You can balance these masculine and feminine traits and stay balanced in a way that feels good to you.
Why This Is Important
This is why I think it’s so important for women to address this negative inherited story as soon as possible — because it’s leaving us behind by not doing it.
How many men do you think have the same thoughts run through their heads when they post a selfie on Instagram equipped with a lengthy business-related caption?
My guess is zero — I actually think no men stay up at night thinking about how the business post they just uploaded on Instagram seems too conceited. They view their post as one they need to share for work and they don’t think about how it’ll come off from an ego perspective.
If I were to measure the number of social media business-related posts that women do not post and correlate that to potential revenue lost, I’d guess that this number would rake in the arena of millions of dollars.
As a collective, women need to become more aware of these hidden stories that sneakily stop us from reaching our utmost potential. We need to recognize and correct all the ways in which we were told to be small via social conditioning. We need to call these out and empower each other to grow past it so that we can become stronger business owners raking in all that we’re worth.
In addition to all the bigger, societal changes that need to happen in order to catalyze gender equality within the startup world, we also need to free ourselves of the internal prisons we keep ourselves in.
Beyond visibility, there are plenty of other areas where women keep themselves small, most of the time unknowingly. Some examples include conversation dominance with a group of men, negotiations, not asking for as much money as one’s male counterparts, and denying ourselves the right to be vulnerable in order to preserve our reputation as an aggressive startup founder, to name a few.
We must work on confronting and moving past these internal stories that society has burdened us with. Men are outpacing us in every category when it comes to CEO presence, pay, startup funding, and more. We’re being left behind, and we don’t have to be. We still have a lot of work to do as a society to equalize this difference, but one place where we can all individually start as women? Within ourselves.
Want to turn your startup chase into a victory lap? Get my Friday morning emails: The Crux.