What I Have up on Oprah – Part 2

In my last ezine I shared with you Part 1 on what I have up on Oprah: I discovered Brene Brown and her work around “vulnerability” long before Oprah did! If you missed that article you can read it right on my blog and as part of that I introduced to you an important concept I teach called V&V Energy™: Visibility and Vulnerability; the willingness to be seen for who you really are.

Now that we understand what V&V Energy is, in order to really have this working for you in your business it's important to understand what V&V Energy is NOT. I've come to understand that all of the 'unreasonable reasons' and stories that you tell yourself about what's going to happen if you're visible and vulnerable, are created by the ego-mind, your fear based mind and are what's going to keep you from creating the level of success you want in you business.

According to Brene Brown, your fear of being vulnerable is all about the fear of disconnection.

You tell yourself, if people know about the real me then I won't be worthy of connection. Now, of course this feels scary, but also, of course, this is not true. According to A Course In Miracles, "you are a person who is powerful beyond measure". So to support you in feeling safe about being in V&V Energy in both your business and your life, let's look at what V&V Energy is NOT.

1) V&V is NOT throwing yourself under the bus, breaking boundaries, sharing things you're not comfortable sharing, or putting yourself into a dangerously vulnerable position in order to desperately attempt to make a connection.

2) V&V is NOT about playing the victim. It is NOT about dredging up all of the things that have not gone well for you in the past and laying them at someone's feet, whether they've asked for them or not, and expecting them to do something about it.

3) V&Vis NOT expecting, just because of what you've experienced in your past, that by telling people, people should treat you differently. That is what it is NOT.

4) V&V is NOT about over-stepping boundaries. It is NOT about asking your clients to take care of you instead of you serving your clients. That is NOT it.

5) V&V is NOT doing a 'I don't genuinely feel this in terms of my brilliance, but I'll pretend that I do and put it out there.' NOT.

6) V&V is NOT about sharing what you're currently in the process of processing. (I give credit to one of my Eminence members, Dawn Copeland, for so eloquently expressing this one!)

V&V is the willingness to say that you're not perfect, to recognize that perfection does not exist... And that can be a hard one for us highly sensitive entrepreneurs™. It is a willingness to buck the norm, it is a willingness to be seen for all of your humanness, all of the parts of your own "gap", all of the aspects of your vision and sharing those things that you have created, that you have succeeded at, that you have done well; the willingness to share your brilliance humbly and honestly.

V&V energy is about being truly visible in your willingness to be seen for who you really are in full personal and energetic responsibility.

So, now, let's take a quick look at what happens when you don't effectively use V&V in your business:

A. Well, we can make the connection back to (Brene Brown); what most likely will be happening is that you'll be experiencing a high level of disconnect.

B. You will feel disconnected from your business, from your marketing, and from selling. And how that will usually manifest is that either you won't do anything at all - you won't market and you won't sell, which means you'll have no business. Or when you attempt to market or have a selling conversation, the disconnect energy will be so present and so high that you'll literally have difficulty making connections. You'll go to a networking event and wonder why there doesn't seem to be anyone there that you can relate to.

C. You'll create copy and wonder why no one is responding.

D. You'll prepare a teleclass or a presentation and get very little, if any, response to your call to action.

E. You'll create an ad and the phone won't ring. You'll meet people, there could be the opportunity to give the direct ask, but you don't. Or when you do, there's a miscommunication.

F. Or if you get to the place where you have a selling conversation, the person on the other end doesn't really feel that you get them and they find very easily unreasonable reasons to not follow through.

These are just some examples of what most likely will be happening in your business, your marketing and your selling when you don't have V&V energy activated.