It’s time to start being delusional

By Naowshaba Ferdous

9,998, 9,999, 10,000. I’ll never forget the day my online community finally hit 10,000 members. I had no idea what I was doing when I started my Facebook group, Thriving Female Entrepreneurs.

All I knew was I wanted to create a place that would make other regular women like me feel even just a tiny bit of inspiration. Inspiration that would jolt them into taking a risk and betting on themselves, so they could use their skills to buy their freedom. After all, that was how I started my first online consulting business in 2019. Being around thousands of powerful women in a Facebook group and realizing it was possible to take the knowledge in my head and the skills I’d acquired and turn it into a profitable online business.

What I didn’t know in growing my community was how much of my visibility wounds, fears of not being good enough, and good old imposter syndrome, would pop up. At the height of that growth, all of a sudden I shut down. I questioned everything. “What if this isn’t the right thing to say? What if I upset someone? What if they think I’m too much?” Every new member coming into my community, every new follower on social media, and every new subscriber to my email list suddenly felt like pressure I didn’t think I could hold.

Friends and colleagues started to check in. “Hey, are you okay? I haven’t seen you post in a while!” And eventually I got sick of my own avoidance too. So in true Naowshaba fashion, I kept it real and wrote a heartfelt letter to my group, sharing the truth. That I was grateful for the growth, but also intimidated by all the new eyeballs. That my mission to empower women to financial freedom was still the same, but to please be patient with me as I navigated the newfound spotlight I never expected.

What happened next changed my life. I received countless comments and DMs from members thanking me for my authenticity and honesty and that they completely understood. I think to this day, it’s one of the most highly engaged posts within my community. It was then that I realized that being unapologetically me and showing up just as myself wasn’t just enough, it was what my people were craving.

And today, that message is even more true. In a sea of fakes, people who don’t care about anything except making money, and rampant AI slop, giving yourself permission to show up exactly as you are and lead from such a genuine place is exactly what determines your success. What a blessing it is to be uniquely you! It is time to use those things that make you you: your story, your genius, your experience, your skills and leverage it into a business that brings you the money you’ve always wanted.

In fact, your belief in yourself must be borderline delusional. That word may sound weird, but if you don’t step up, give yourself permission to take up space, then who else will advocate for you at that level? It has to be you! You have lives to change, don’t you? This is a principle I teach and live by and my hope is that I lead by example so that other young female entrepreneurs see me being boldly me online while still running a profitable business, and say to themselves that they are safe to be themselves online too and that if they combine that relentless authenticity with hard work and consistency, their success is inevitable.

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