Holding Your Capacity To Receive A Growing Audience

As your audience grows, new internal challenges and fears can arise regarding visibility and responsibility. This track, guided by George Kao, explores the practical and spiritual aspects of navigating leadership and influence. Discover perspectives on handling engagement, maintaining authenticity, and embracing humility and faith on your journey. Learn to courageously share your message as your impact expands.

Transcript

To grow your business,

It's very helpful to grow your audience.

And yet,

Some of you,

Maybe many of you,

Might be internally blocked from growing an audience because,

Well,

I received this question and I think it summarizes the issue well,

And I look forward to seeing in the comments below whether you resonate with this question and how do you deal with it.

Okay,

So the question goes like this,

And this is something I received from one of my YouTube viewers.

George,

How do I grow my capacity to have and receive a large audience and not be afraid of becoming more visible or well-known as my audience grows over time?

Could you share how your mind and heart have adapted at each stage of your audience growth?

And this is such a thoughtful question,

And I'm surprised that more creators don't talk about this,

So I appreciate the sensitivity that brought this question.

And I will talk about my internal state in this video,

But first I do want to address the reality of the external situation.

There are some people who start making videos or making content online,

And then one of their videos or blog posts just goes viral,

And often unexpectedly,

And so they kind of get Insta-famous overnight.

And sometimes these people are quite young,

Like people in their 20s or even their teens.

And I always think,

Gosh,

People who are young who get famous probably haven't learned how to lead wisely,

Because what's really going on here is that when you grow an audience,

You are essentially being forced into a leadership position.

A lot of people don't realize that's what's happening.

You're simply becoming a leader.

It's not just,

Oh,

I've got followers.

Literally,

If you've got more followers,

You are more of a leader.

I mean,

You're leading more people.

It's not just people liking your stuff and clicking follow on your page.

You are having to grow your capacity to lead wisely,

And I think a lot of people don't realize that,

Because every time your content touches another human being,

You are influencing them.

Well,

The term influencers is quite appropriate.

Influencers are people who influence people.

What does that mean?

That means there is actually great responsibility there,

Because every time,

Every word out of your mouth publicly and just your presence and way of behaving gives permission to other people to behave and say those things as well.

And same thing,

Like whenever you go online and consume content,

You are that person.

The way they're behaving is making it more okay for you to think in a certain way or do certain things,

And so it's that quote from Spider-Man.

With great power comes great responsibility,

Right?

So as your audience grows,

You literally have more responsibility.

You have greater risk of karmic debt,

Essentially,

And not just like in future lifetimes.

I'm talking about in this very lifetime,

Too.

Whatever you do will come back to you.

If you are inspiring more gratitude,

More love in the world,

You know what?

That's going to come back to you.

If you are inspiring more short-term thinking and more,

I don't know,

More grasping,

More anxiety,

Then that's,

I think,

Also going to come back to you,

Because that's the kind of audience you're going to be growing,

And they're going to become more anxious,

Fearful,

Whatever may be,

Or more shallow,

You might say.

The more you're willing to show up with,

Shall we say,

Depth or willingness to dive deeply and to think about life from a more virtuous perspective,

Then that's what you're going to influence other people to do as well.

So I hope that we really hold our growth of audience with a lot of thoughtfulness and care and love.

So it brings us to the original question,

Right?

First,

It's like,

Well,

Having just said everything I did,

I wonder if it makes you even more afraid,

More internally blocked to grow your audience.

And so let's talk about this,

Right?

Because,

Like I said,

Some of you might be struggling in your business because you have a small audience.

And the more people follow you,

The easier it is to sell anything,

Including your services or whatever you want to promote.

It's easier to sell as your audience grows.

Your true audience,

The people who actually truly receive you,

Like truly pay attention,

Not just people who like something once and then they barely like anything else,

But people who actually watch your videos,

Read your things and let it influence them.

How do you become more expanded in your capacity to hold all that attention?

Okay.

So a couple of things I have to say here.

One is that there's the logistical practical side that you do not have to respond to comments.

You do not have to respond to direct messages from your fans and comments.

I know every other social media person,

Expert says,

Oh,

You should respond as quick as possible.

And of course,

Practically,

I understand.

Obviously,

If someone comments,

They're anticipating,

They're hoping that they've been heard.

And the sooner that you are able to respond,

The more they feel gratified and like,

Oh,

Wow,

This creator is listening to me.

I get it.

I understand the practical nature of it.

And yet I know a lot of you who are watching this are sensitive people,

Maybe introverts.

And just basically,

That's why this question exists.

How do we hold all that attention?

And part of the reason is the practical misconception that you're supposed to respond quickly or respond at all.

And let me just give you the permission now that you never have to respond to a single comment.

You don't even have to look at them.

Yeah.

You don't have to.

Okay.

If you're creating content and it's getting traction,

You don't even have to look at comments at all,

Your comments on your posts and your videos at all.

Now,

If you're not getting traction with your content,

Then it makes more sense to look at comments to see what people are resonating with and what they're not writing.

That makes sense.

But just talking about audience growth and what if someone fears that,

Oh,

I'm going to get all these comments.

No,

Just ignore them all.

If your audience is growing without looking at comments,

Well,

Wonderful.

Ignore them.

Ignore them.

If you want to grow your audience more,

You probably have to be more in touch with your audience so that you can care about what they care about.

But for the person who's worried that,

Oh,

My audience is going to grow and I'm not going to have the internal leadership to be able to handle all this,

Just ignore all the comments.

Ignore all the messages.

It's really going to be okay.

I've ignored comments for years now.

Sorry.

I know a lot of you comment wishing that I would reply back and I'm sorry.

I have to be I have to be cognizant of my energy and responding to comments really drains me a lot.

And so that's why I don't.

Some of you aren't drained by it.

Some of you actually get a lot enlivened by it.

And that's wonderful.

That's your advantage over me.

But I'm just saying,

I'm just giving permission to those who are saying,

Who are afraid of getting too much feedback and comments,

Just ignore them.

Really.

If you're growing and without looking at them,

Then you can keep growing like that.

Now,

There's also the there's also the dynamic of just being seen by more people and like embarrassing yourself in front of more people.

Right.

Like that's that's a big internal block for for maybe a lot of you.

And how do I handle this?

OK,

So I'm going to get a bit,

I guess,

Woo woo maybe with you now.

And if that's OK,

Because this is this is really what's what's you know,

What's actually happening inside of me.

And so here's here's what I how I see things.

Here's how I'm able to hold more and more attention.

To me,

I had as part of my upbringing,

As part of my past,

I I've been grateful to have two.

OK,

I'll say this.

I'm grateful to have two two influences that that still stay with me today.

One influence is my cultural heritage of being I'm from Taiwan and basically the Taiwanese Chinese Taiwanese sort of cultural upbringing is to it's not make waves.

Right.

It's to conform to what your family wants you to do and what society wants to do.

Generally speaking,

Of course,

There's in some ways they also because of Western influence,

They also celebrate rebellion,

Being a rebel,

Particularly Taiwan,

Rebelled from rebellion against China or whatever.

There's there's that there's that streak there,

Too.

But generally speaking,

It's not it's to not make waves and to not be too seen.

And so the way that I have like,

George,

How can you make all this video and be seen?

You know,

You're literally your face and your voice and be seen so much.

It's because I I then because I don't see myself as being me,

But I see myself as kind of representing an idea.

I'd represent the idea of authentic business or joyful productivity like I'm a representative of that idea.

So it's not really about me,

This flesh and bone and this person,

This person called George Cowley.

I don't I don't matter.

The idea matter.

The ideas matter to me.

And so I represent those ideas in my content.

And so it's not me getting more attention as those ideas are getting more attention,

Which is a good thing.

Right.

So I don't know how this connects to my cultural heritage.

You can you can psychoanalyze me in the comments if you want to.

But the second influence is also very important.

Part of my upbringing has some as I as our as my family moved to America from Taiwan when I was young,

I was converted to Christianity at a pretty young impressionable age.

I was living in Southern California.

There's a lot of evangelical evangelical Christianity there.

So I got converted to Christianity and I was I was an evangelical Christian for like all the way through most of college.

I no longer identify as that,

But I'm still deeply grateful for that influence.

So I know the Bible better than most people.

And I,

You know,

I have that that streak of influence within me and I'm very grateful for that influence.

And part of that influence is this idea that,

You know,

You may have heard the phrase glory be to God.

Right.

Glory be to God.

And also,

You know,

Be a fool for Christ.

That's a little bit less less well-known,

But it's still but one of the one of the core tenants of of Christianity is humility.

I think I believe part of true Christianity is is humility.

They're not the televangelists who like glorify themselves and and like,

You know,

All that stuff.

But humility is one of the core tenants and core guiding principles of of I believe to be true true Christians.

And so that has always stuck with me.

Maybe it also pairs well with my cultural heritage.

Right.

But this idea of being a fool for Christ means,

Listen,

And I still believe this part today.

I still believe that God is is good and God is within all of us.

This is now getting a little bit heretical word for evangelical Christians.

So I apologize for that.

Those of you who are.

But I believe that God is within within all of us,

Within you,

Within me right now.

That's why the namaste thing.

Right.

God is within you guys,

Within me guys,

Within everything,

Which means that it's all God and it's all good.

So there's no ego.

There's no this George cow character.

It's just it's just a character being played.

It's not I don't think of it as a big deal.

So so when you say,

How can I hold more attention?

I'm like,

Well,

God,

That's just God seeing God.

It's infinite attention.

Like like God has infinite capacity to hold infinite attention because anyway,

It's all God anyway.

That's really how I think about it.

So I'm like,

What's the big deal?

It's like I don't mind this character becoming a fool,

Becoming embarrassed,

Making mistakes publicly because it doesn't really matter.

It's all going to be good at the end.

And it's all just this character.

Sure.

This George cow character,

This human being is a blip in the in the eternal existence of life.

And it's just this little tiny human being is maybe growing and learning certain lessons.

But the greater picture,

I'm a big picture perfectionist.

I'm a perfectionist,

But the big picture kind,

I'm also recovering small picture perfectionist.

Small picture perfectionist is like,

Oh,

This project better be perfect before I release it.

This thing better.

I've long seen the fallacy of that or the foolishness of that.

And I've been recovering from that for a while.

And now I'm a big picture perfectionist.

I mean,

I see that everything is going to be perfect.

Everything is already perfect.

Whatever mistakes I make is perfect because it's part of the whole entire process where the destiny of you and I is completely beautiful,

Is completely bliss,

Is glorious.

Our destiny is glorious.

All the mistakes we make,

All the struggles that we may be going through,

Ultimately,

It's going to come out at the end to be eternally amazing.

And so with with this kind of deep faith,

I think humility and faith for me are really related because the faith that I have teaches me to be humble,

Allows me to be humble,

To say,

You know,

It's going to be okay.

It's okay that I make mistakes.

It's okay that I'm a fool for Christ.

The more I am embarrassed,

Or the more,

The more,

You know,

Again,

This is also from the kind of the Christian upbringing,

The more that I'm embarrassed,

The more God can shine through,

Or the more that there are cracks within this ego.

If there are cracks within the ego,

Right,

The ego is embarrassed,

And it has cracks,

Then the light can really shine through.

The light of the divine can really shine through.

Now,

This is not to say that it's better to be embarrassed,

Right?

That might be a misunderstanding of humility.

Humility is basically low self-esteem.

People who have low self-esteem are very humble.

No,

I think low self-esteem might make you hide from everyone,

Not show your true self,

Because you are not willing to,

You are too afraid to be hurt,

And so you don't want to show your true self.

I think true humility is,

Well,

Here I am being so humble as to define true humility.

No,

The way I understand it,

I'll say this,

The way I understand it is,

If I believe that if my ego can be destroyed,

Can be embarrassed,

Can be unmasked,

Then authenticity can show through,

Then true divinity can show through,

The light can really show through.

If I'm really willing to be real with you,

No matter how embarrassed I am,

No matter what mistakes I make,

If I am,

If I,

If it comes down to truly the intention,

If my intention is to grow and to serve,

To be an example of the ideas that I champion,

Then I don't mind being embarrassed.

I don't mind making mistakes.

I'm just trying my best to allow those ideas to come through,

However falteringly they come through,

But I'm just trying my best,

And because I don't mind being embarrassed,

Because I know it's just God seeing God,

And it's all going to be good,

Then I just,

That's why I keep showing up,

And that's why I don't mind that more people see this,

Because again,

I champion the ideas.

I think the ideas are important,

And I think glory to the divine.

If more people see me be embarrassed,

Great,

Then perhaps God can be glorified,

And also me being embarrassed and making a fool of myself in front of more people also keeps me focused on the greater message and the greater picture of,

Well,

Is,

Am I being of service?

If I'm being of service,

And if I'm growing,

That's what matters most,

No matter if it's one person who saw this or 10 million people who saw this,

And there's my dog,

By the way,

In case you're wondering what that is.

I will turn off the blur,

So you can see my dog more clearly.

Anyway,

Yeah,

My dog and God are more important to me.

Why do you want to flip the word,

Right?

No,

I don't worship my dog.

Well,

Some people might say I do,

But that's God too,

Right?

Just like you and I and the greater whole is.

Anyway,

I thank you for allowing me to get a little spiritual here with you,

Or a lot spiritual.

I'm really looking forward to seeing if any of this resonated with you,

Because the willingness to be embarrassed is what is essential to authenticity,

Is essential to courage of championing your ideas and your story.

I hope this is helpful,

And really stories,

Anything like any story I tell is just to champion the principle behind the story,

The insight,

The learning,

The of service to others idea.

Anyway,

I hope this is helpful.

Thank you so much for watching.

I look forward to seeing if any of this resonates with you.

Thanks.

Reviews

Cracks in the ego allow the light to shine through really resonated with me.