I suffered from the spotlight effect for so long.

Not familiar? Here ya go.

And when other people are watching us, specifically in our career or passion projects, it’s easy to be afraid.

As an ambitious person, I feared if I changed my passions and efforts too much, I’d be seen as wishy-washy.

But in 4 months of building a personal brand on LinkedIn, I’ve pivoted 4 times.

• First, I was talking about personal development.

• Then I was talking about leadership.

• Then I was talking about remote work.

• Then I was talking about leadership for remote work.

Almost nobody noticed how much I changed.

While I’ve been comfortable testing, experimenting, or dabbling, I know a lot of people struggle with the spotlight effect, just like I did.

And that’s a damn shame because it’s limiting the potential of millions of talented people.

What it does to us

The spotlight effect heads straight to the limiting beliefs inside our heads and makes us feel like our inadequacies are shining brighter than the top of the Chrysler Building.

More specifically in terms of pivoting…

It makes us choose too early. We think everyone is watching us. So when we pick a

• Career

• Passion

• Partner

• Interest

we start panicking if it isn’t working out.

And if we’re not careful, we’ll let that panic become a full-blown retreat.

And retreating to safety because we are concerned about what others will think is a one-way ticket to a life full of regret.

The pros and cons

Pivoting may seem like a big jump off a diving board. And when the spotlight is on you, the last thing you want to do is belly flop into the pool.

But the original study proved that the number of people actually watching us is half of what we believe.

And that half has a really short memory.

So the fear of failing at something new or looking silly because you pivoted is preventing a lot of creative and influential minds from reaching their full potential.

All because they think twice as many people that would actually care are going to laugh at them.

Asking “so what?”

One of my favorite self talks during my dabbling has been Sahil Bloom’s approach of asking, “so what?”

He says anytime he thinks of a future spotlight situation, he asks himself, “so what?”

And in almost every case, the result is way less terrifying than he initially thought.

So if you’ve been in a job that doesn’t fill your cup and thinking about trying out a side hustle, so what if it fails? You learned some new skills.

If you’ve been working really hard on a project and it falls flat, so what? Now you know what not to do on the next one.

If you put yourself out there and don’t get the response you want, so what? You learned more about yourself.

Diminish the spotlight on yourself

We never fully eliminate the spotlight effect in our lives. But we can diminish its impact.

• Ask, “so what?“

• Know the rest of the world is too self-absorbed to notice

• Know the ones who do notice will forget

• The ones who won’t forget care about you and won’t hold it against you

Grab hold of your spotlight and turn it into a flashlight through pivoting.

Point your light forward to discover more about yourself, challenge yourself and find more joy.

I promise you if you fail, I won’t even notice.

See ya next week.

Here’s something that changed my mentality

Mario and I connected a few weeks back and it’s been a whirlwind of knowledge. He’s one of the most giving people I know.

Check him out here.

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