Overcoming Comparisonitis with Janine Coney |EP273

What if the key to business success lies in overcoming your biggest mindset block? Join us for an engaging episode of the Mindset & Action podcast as I, Donna Eade, sit down with the inspiring Janine Coney, a personal brand strategist and business coach dedicated to empowering female founders and CEOs. Together, we explore Janine's personal battle with "comparisonitis"—the habit of comparing oneself to others—and how it's impacted her business journey. Janine candidly shares that her struggle with self-esteem issues didn't just surface with her entrepreneurial endeavours but has been a lifelong challenge. She emphasises the importance of resilience and remaining true to one's unique path, offering invaluable insights for anyone grappling with similar mindset hurdles.

Janine generously shares practical strategies to combat the pervasive nature of comparisonitis, such as the importance of staying focused on your own journey—keeping your "blinkers" on and limiting exposure to others' work. She underscores the need for market research while cautioning against the trap of continually measuring oneself against others, which can stifle business growth. Throughout our conversation, Janine's message is clear: authenticity and confidence are essential for overcoming mindset challenges and driving your business forward. Tune in to this enlightening episode and prepare to transform your mindset, bolstering your business with newfound clarity and purpose.

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Transcript

Donna Eade: 0:30

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Well, welcome back to the podcast, everybody. For this mini Mindset Monday, I have a guest in the house, which means that on Thursday we're gonna be doing a full episode and it's all around the topic of branding. So make sure that you tune in for that one. Janine, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. Very excited to be here. I'm excited to have you here, and today we're going to be talking about the biggest mindset block that you have hit in your business and how you overcame it. But before we get into that, tell my listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Janine Coney: 1:20

Okay. Hello everybody, my name is Janine Coney and I'm a personal brand strategist, marketing and business coach, and I empower female founders and CEOs to get visible and become unforgettable and build their personal brands and their businesses for their success. I like to say that I take people from feeling unseen to unstoppable.

Donna Eade: 1:42

Donna, I love that. I do love that. I love it, love it, love it. Okay, so now the big question, the one question that we have for you today? What is the biggest mindset block that has got you stuck in your business comparisonitis baby, yeah, pairing myself to other people yes is that something that came at the beginning of your business, like was it there straight from the start or was it something that kind of crept in over time?

Janine Coney: 2:12

no, I think something like this um stems back further than that. I mean, I know we're not going to go too deep into that side of things today, but I think if you are somebody who has maybe gone through your life comparing yourself to other people or have suffered with so low self-esteem or low self-confidence, it can be something, when you decide to start your business, that you suddenly find is popping up more and more. And one of my best well, my best friend said to me at the time you're going to be amazing, janine, but you're going to need to find resilience. And at the time I was.

Janine Coney: 2:49

I'm a resilient person, but I think, when I look at the comparisonitis side of things and I'm separating that from imposter syndrome, because I think comparing yourself is slightly different I think she's absolutely right. You have to find that resilience to understand that you are you and you need to keep coming back and being you and being you and I often use the terminology of keep your own blinkers on and stay in your own lane and not worry what other people are doing around you and however many times I've said that to myself, I will still have times now where I will do it, and I know for sure that everybody else does too.

Donna Eade: 3:34

It's true, it's true. So obviously, then, it is something that still rears its ugly head sometimes so what are some of the things that you do when you find yourself in that situation where you're just like you know you've you've fallen down a scroll hole on instagram and all of a sudden, your? Your feed is full of other business strategists and branding specialists and you're looking at what they're doing. How do you kind of stop yourself in your tracks and okay, first of all, the obvious is don't look.

Janine Coney: 4:07

I would say there's a time to look, but absorbing what everybody else is doing all the time is just going to take you away from what you're doing and you're just going to get so caught up of comparing yourself to other people. If you're doing that, how are you moving your own business forward? You're going to get your mind in such a muddle by doing that, so don't do it. You know, I think there comes a time you have to do your market research. Yeah, um, and I, um you know another podcast, obviously, that we've recorded together. We've talked about this, about having to look around you and build a business and you are going to have other people who do what you do and you need to do your market research. That's going to happen and if you worked in another business, they would ask you have you done market research? Have you done competitor analysis?

Janine Coney: 4:56

But absorbing that every single day is just not going to serve you and your own business and how you run it and what you do has to come from within you. You have to absolutely adore it and love it. So therefore, if you're just building it based on what other people are doing or comparing yourself to what other people are doing, then you're not putting your body, spirit, love, attention into it and you're then creating something that you're not going to love and you're not going to be behind and you're not going to feel confident about. So you can kind of end up in a bit bit of a perpetual circle, and I see this quite a lot when I work with clients at the beginning stages of where they ever they are in their businesses yeah, and it's funny that you say that because now?

Donna Eade: 5:40

because, because, as you know, guys, I record these back to front, so we've already recorded our Thursday episode, so I knew what to talk about and tell you that to come back and listen to. But we were actually talking about this in that episode, where we were talking about your brand and being authentic to you and not looking at other people and mirroring. So it really is something that is core to how you help your clients, because it's something that you've gone through and you can tell that by the fact that it has literally come up in both episodes that we talked about. It came up in in our episode that we did on your podcast, um, as well. So it's, it's.

Janine Coney: 6:19

It's funny how that works that whatever our biggest block is, is usually something that we help other people to recognize so they can move past it and the thing is, people forget their brilliance, they forget where they've come from, they forget that everything that they've done has led to where they are, so they'll forget that all of the experience that they've gained in their career even if they've moved into something new now actually is all transferable skills into what they're doing now. So they come in and they think well, I'm brand new. I do want to just say, though, that obviously I'm not one of these people who can just say you can't just become something, you can't just decide one day you're going to be an expert in something you know, because I think then you are probably going to get some doubt creeping. Well, maybe you won't, maybe you could just blag that, but I don't think many people can.

Janine Coney: 7:12

So I know that you can just profess to be an expert in something, but most people who I work with, and me included, with everything that I've done in my career today but still, I will look around me at times and compare myself and when I fall down that hole, but now I know what to do to bring myself out of it. So those things as you asked me or a, I won't look. I will. You know I won't actively search for anything like that. I will take myself away from the situation. For instance, in the morning scroll, people generally will pick up their phones as soon as they wake up. Most people are guilty of this. Don't do it.

Donna Eade: 7:53

Yeah.

Janine Coney: 7:54

Don't do it, because you will take yourself down a hole that you might not come out of for an hour and you know it might be, like you said, the doom scroll and you you do. And when you start looking at the lack of evidence that you have and then start looking at all the achievements that you have had in what you're brilliant at and how you've helped your clients and what you do and the qualifications that you have, because some people just constantly want more qualifications and are constantly, you know, looking for more- I love a good qualification.

Donna Eade: 8:38

I've got so many certificates.

Janine Coney: 8:40

I mean, I don't get me wrong, I think self-development is great, but sometimes people are like I that's not enough, I need to get. Yeah, it's for me.

Donna Eade: 8:47

It's that thing like I don't feel like I'm good enough, like I was a photographer for 10 years, photographing weddings. I started in 2009 and I got my diploma, I think in 2000, and I want to say 11 in photography, because I didn't feel like I was enough with just my portfolio. I needed that certificate. You know what? Nobody ever asked me to see my certificate. Nobody ever, you know, questioned whether I was qualified to be a photographer. But I needed to have that certificate it's so funny.

Janine Coney: 9:21

I mean, if you look at that from that point of view as well, very rarely is anybody ever well I think anybody said to me can you show me your your certificates for this? That the other. I mean you need to have the authority and the credibility, and I'm not, as I said, we're not professing here that people should just say that you're an expert in something, because that kind of grinds my gears really. But, um, you know, don't overlook what's brought you to where you are today and it's so easy to do it.

Janine Coney: 9:48

So self-care, self-love, self-appreciation, self-gratitude all of those things are big game changers, and that's why it's one of the first things I work on with people, whatever stage they're at one thing.

Donna Eade: 10:01

I wonder, um, if you have had this and what you did in that situation was we've been talking here about online and I think since 2020, everything seems to be online and we just think of everything as being an. We're just in an online world these days, but we're not. We do actually meet people in real life and stuff now. So what has it ever happened to you where you have been in like a networking situation where there's been somebody else and I know a lot of networking companies don't allow competitors in. You're only allowed one for every, but not all of them are like that, and there are events that and there are events that we go to. Has it been a situation where you have met a competitor in that kind of environment and it's just been something that you just like needed to get out of and get away from, and and how have you dealt with that in the early?

Janine Coney: 10:53

days. Yeah did happen, and I used to feel really uncomfortable. Now I bloody love it. It doesn't worry me one bit. I'll go up and have a conversation with somebody, because you're not really in competition with each other, are you? I always liken it to. I live in Milton Keynes, and at our railway station there's a Costa Coffee, a Starbucks, there's a Pratt, there's a Marks and Spencers that sells coffee. They're all busy, you know. There's enough. There is enough for everybody to go around. What I don't like, though, is if somebody is trying to um, claim to be the sort of the space holder as such. There's space for everybody yeah just be a nice person.

Janine Coney: 11:36

I suppose is what I'm saying. Yeah yeah, you know, and I think discounting somebody and that has happened before where I've kind of been discounted because that person might think they're in a different realm to somebody else yeah. I don't like that kind of behavior, but it doesn't worry me if I'm now in the room with somebody else who does what.

Donna Eade: 11:55

I do at all Brilliant, brilliant. Well, thank you for that. That's one. I don't know that we've had anybody come on and talk about with parasititis, so that's a new one for the podcast.

Donna Eade: 12:06

So thank you for that, thank you for sharing and thank you for sharing your tips on how people can deal with it, if it's something that they deal with. Guys, we are going to be back on Thursday, so please, please, make sure that you come back and listen to our episode all about branding. Janine's got a fantastic gift for you at the end there Really nice, low cost way to work with her and gain some visibility for your business. So make sure that you come back. Listen to Thursday's episode, janine, where can people find you?

Janine Coney: 12:35

You can find me on Instagram at Janine Koney. You'll find me on Instagram at Janine Koney. You'll find me on LinkedIn at Janine Koney, and my website is also Janine Koney. So, yeah, you can't get away from my name there, yeah, so?

Donna Eade: 12:47

that's where you'll find me Brilliant, and if you want a sneak peek before Thursday's episode, go over to our website and you'll be able to find all of those details over there. Thank you for listening and I'll be able to find all of those details over there. Thank you for listening and I'll see you in the next one. Bye for now.