{"id":71232,"date":"2026-01-20T07:40:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:40:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thegoodtrade.com\/?p=71232"},"modified":"2026-03-13T17:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:54:12","slug":"self-promotion-how-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thegoodtrade.com\/features\/self-promotion-how-to\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Create Visibility For Your Work When You’re Afraid To Be Seen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For my entire career, I\u2019ve been building brands behind the scenes for female founders who were just a few paces ahead of me. Seeing their growth up close felt like a direct mirror for my own potential. They gave me that expansive feeling. If she can do it, so can I.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m a brand marketer who works at the intersection of storytelling, marketing, community-building, and helping founders find their voice. I\u2019ve always been able to see other people\u2019s magic \u2014 and translate it into a message, an offering, a brand that resonates with and finds the people who need to hear it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“When would I have the courage to put myself out there, and share my own talents, ideas, and creativity with the world?”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

But after a decade of telling other people\u2019s stories \u2014 and watching their success expand because of it \u2014 I started to have this nagging feeling. If I can do this for others, why am I not doing it for myself? <\/em>When would I have the courage to put myself out there and share my own talents, ideas, and creativity with the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around my 30th birthday, these questions stopped being theoretical. I was frustrated and shrinking into the background of operations \u2014 telling myself that if I could just figure out what<\/em> I wanted to build, say, or share, then I\u2019d finally start. Once I knew what it<\/em> was, putting myself out there would feel obvious. But the truth was: Waiting for clarity had become another way of hiding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might be familiar with the concept of a \u201cSaturn return<\/a>.\u201d It’s that period of time in your late twenties when the universe taps you on the shoulder and says, gently but firmly: It\u2019s time to stop living on potential and start taking responsibility for the life you actually want. Whether or not you believe in astrology, this maturation point between 28\u201331 usually illuminates everything you\u2019ve been avoiding, and asks you to let go of any conditioning that\u2019s not serving the authentic expression of your gifts\u2026 and this happens again<\/em> between 57\u201360, when life asks you to evaluate if you\u2019re happy with how things are unfolding mid-life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the throes of my questioning, I connected with a new friend. She was at a crossroads in her career \u2014 burned out on agency life and craving more freedom. Because I\u2019d taken an alternative path as a career freelancer, my advice came from the very real way I\u2019d navigated my own work: Helping her see her value as a creative, understand her marketable skills<\/a>, and identify brands she could offer them to directly so she could make more money on her own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I didn\u2019t see this advice as anything special. I was just helping a friend by sharing a perspective that felt second nature to me. But when she implemented what I suggested \u2014 and saw immediate, tangible success \u2014 she reflected it back to me clearly: You have to teach other people how to do this.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“I was ready to put my energy somewhere \u2014 to finally build something of my own \u2014 so I followed the ping and started down the path.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At first, I thought it was a boring idea. Teach people how to freelance? I was looking for something more exciting. But I was ready to put my energy somewhere \u2014 to finally build something of my own \u2014 so I followed the ping and started down the path of creating an e-course<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excited by the process, I wrote lessons, recorded audio content, designed my brand, and came up with fun marketing ideas. I poured myself into the project for the next eight months, and just when I thought I was nearly ready to launch, it hit me. Now I needed to put myself out there if I really wanted to build this brand\u2026 and that felt really, really scary.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stumbled across a video by an inspiring woman building a business around upskilling the corporate workforce. She shared her journey from zero to thousands of followers after committing to a daily value-forward social media experiment. I related to her background and was motivated by her story, but I remember lying in bed thinking, I would sooner die than put videos of myself on the internet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it wasn\u2019t because I wasn\u2019t outgoing or confident. It was because I was afraid of what other people would think of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the worries and doubts that tried to hold me back included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n