Raising Your Business: For Moms Growing Their Business and Raising Their Family

42. "Social Media is Fake" and How to Navigate Vulnerability & Authenticity as a Personal Brand

• Yael Bendahan

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Wondering exactly HOW much to share online as a personal brand? In this episode, I dive into the "Social Media is Fake" trend that took over the internet a few weeks ago. I share my personal experience with the trend, the surprising results I saw when I participated, and the key lessons I learned about showing up authentically online. We also discuss the types of content that are really resonating with audiences right now and how you can use stories to stand out in a sea of faceless reels and AI-generated posts.

What we talk about:

  • Discover how being vulnerable online can actually help you connect with your ideal clients on a deeper level (and even lead to new sales!)
  • Learn why your unique story is your most powerful asset in a world of generic content, and how to leverage it to build trust and authority with your audience  
  • Get my top tips for sharing vulnerably and intentionally on social media, without compromising your professional image or "oversharing" 

MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST

  1. My “social media is fake” post 
  2. The CEO Moms Business Blueprint is still on presale until May 13 - get it here >>> yaelbendahan.com/blueprint 
  3. DM me "SECRETS" on Instagram to get first dibs on my upcoming "Real Secrets of CEO Moms" audio series, where I interview 10 successful entrepreneur moms about what's really working in their businesses in 2024. 
  4. And if you're looking for personalized support to help you level up your business this quarter, in honor of MOMentum May I'm offering $250 off my 90-Minute Intensives booked in May - just mention this special deal when you apply here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/90apply  

Don't forget to screenshot this episode, share it on social media and tag me for the chance to win a 1:1 Momentum coaching call with me 😀

LINKS
📈The CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

🔥Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process that’s creating multi 6 figure years (even if you’ve been stuck riiiiight at 6 figures for way too long) working nap times and being a full time mama. Claim your spot here >>> yaelbendahan.com/leverage

💰Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

✨Join the Collective
In the "building" stage of your business? Join the MOMentum Collective - my most accessible mentorship program for moms growing to $5-10K months.

💃 Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Speaker 1:

So when I tell my clients to share personal things and get a little vulnerable. They wonder can I really share vulnerably but be seen as an authority right? What if I get friend-zoned? What if I'm not going to be seen as that expert anymore? And what this taught me was that I actually could share vulnerably and be hired.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the Raising your Business podcast. I'm your host, yael Vendahan, founder of CEO, mom Academy, mama 5, and lifelong reading addict.

Speaker 1:

This podcast is here to empower moms to run. I'll see you next time. Marketing of simplicity and the mindset of a CEO mom. Now let's dive in. Hello, my friend, welcome back to the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Today, I am actually recording this from my little Airbnb in Jerusalem. I'm on a workation and I am batching out a whole bunch of podcast episodes because my goal is to try to add on at least two episodes per week to record so that I can have a sort of a bank built up for when I have the baby. I have a few interviews that I want to do as well, that I'm going to be incorporating into my content plan, but I wanted to at least record the ones that are the solo episodes that I plan to record. This has been so relaxing, so amazing. I rested more than I expected and I did not get as much done, but I still feel like it was worth it, because just having this freedom to just sit down and record whenever, create when I feel inspired, just have that perspective and uninterrupted time is game changing. As a mama and if you're a mom and you're listening to this, you probably are you know what I'm talking about. Obviously, it's not something that we get on a regular basis and I'm not saying that you need to get this on a regular basis in order to grow your business, because obviously you can even without this, but I would say that it doesn't really hurt to take some time away a couple times a year to just knock some things out, get some stuff done. Just be able to just get things done without people interrupting you it doesn't happen very often or the laundry interrupting you, because that can happen too.

Speaker 1:

Today I want to talk about the social media is fake trend that was happening a few weeks ago, my results when I tried it out and the kind of content that's working the best right now. And my goal for you is to walk you with clarity on how to show up authentically without feeling like you're selling yourself out to your audience or feeling like you're oversharing. And I think that there's a very there's a fine line between oversharing and being authentically vulnerable, and not being authentically vulnerable in the buzzword-y kind of way, but like truly being truly able to show up vulnerably with a purpose and with, in a way, is still showing up as the authority. So let's dive in. Before we do, I just want to share a couple things with you. First of all, the CEO Mom Business Blueprint is still on presale until the 13th of May, which is in just a few days. I am going to be adding in the full training and once the training is in, the price is going up. So this is your chance to grab it at $17, to the lowest it will ever be, whether it's in or out of a funnel or literally anywhere else. So this is the place. This is the chance to get the CEO Mom Business Blueprint with all the bonuses for presale until the 13th. The second thing I want to tell you is I have been holding this to myself and I just want to share it now. You can't sign up for it quite yet, but the Real Secrets of CEO Moms Audio Summit is coming next week.

Speaker 1:

I did this in 2022. People freaking loved it, and what I did again this round is that I interviewed 10, 6, multi-six and seven-figure business owners to hear the real story behind the story. What is really working for them in their business, what are the real things that they struggled with? What's the kind of stuff that, basically, I ask them, the questions that people are wondering in their heads and don't actually want to ask or want to say or don't have someone to ask, and I was actually really like I really I hit them hard sometimes. I'm like, okay, tell me a little more about this. We're going to go deep here. So we covered things like balancing masculine and feminine in your business. We talked about what's actually working to sell offers in 2024, how you can use lead magnets to lose a customer forever and how to use them to turn people into raving fans, and so much more. Mom guilt and lack of mom guilt, and how to actually build your business so it can run without you, and how to scale a one-to-one coaching business, even with a kid. There's so many like so many good things, so many cool things that we got into, so I'm really excited.

Speaker 1:

The lineup is incredible. I have the best women in there. I can't even begin to describe. So DM me secrets on Instagram and I will send you the link when it drops. I'm so excited to share it with you. I cannot even get over it. Dm me secrets on Instagram. So I know that you listen to this and I really am excited to share this with you. And there's going to be some really fun little bonuses as well, and everyone's giving a freebie or something or a little gift. So it's going to be really great and you're going to really enjoy it.

Speaker 1:

One more thing before we dive deep into social media being fake I am running a promotion on 90-minute intensives in May and this is not fake news. I have exactly four more spots for intensives before the baby is born. So I'm not coming back until at least the middle of August and probably September, because my kids are still going to be home in August. So in honor of Money, momentum May I want to help you create momentum too. So when you book in May, when you book intensive in May, you can get $250 off and an extra week of telegram support. After Normally you get one week of telegram support and you will get two weeks instead of one. So 90-minute intensives are best for things like quarterly planning, maternity leave planning right, if you want to set yourself up for sales and monthly occurring revenue during maternity leave, this is a really great option for you.

Speaker 1:

Messaging and premium positioning. So really diving into your messaging, figuring out your secret sauce I did this with Lupita and the very next day she sold her new signature package for 10K and then another downsell package right after that, like the next day, within 24 hours, she had a. I don't know what it was. It was like a 10X, it was maybe not 10X, it was gonna be like an 8X, right? So the key here is not just helping you figure out your messaging, but also adjusting your positioning and value in your own eyes and the mindset piece is really important as well, and that's what we work on together. We look we also can talk about offer suite development, content planning. There are so many things we can do together in an intensive, so I'm going to drop the link in the description to apply for the intensive and you'll see in there I go a little deeper into what we can talk about and you can see if that speaks to you and just when you apply, just mention this special Momentum-made deal, right? So $250 off and an extra week of Telegram, all right. So let's get started.

Speaker 1:

So I'm sure you've seen the social media is fake trend. So people basically say social media is fake. So here are some things you don't know about me. And then they share all the things that they haven't told you or they haven't been, they haven't they've been embarrassed to talk about or whatever. So I saw this trend and I was both interested and repelled it because, as an Enneagram 3, I want to look perfect. My friend, latasha Booth, wrote a post the other day about this which said as an Enneagram three, getting feedback is really hard for me. Like I appreciate and I do want to improve, but also I have a deep need for everyone to love me at all times, think everything I do is wonderful and perfect. So there's that.

Speaker 2:

And I totally, totally agree with her.

Speaker 1:

I feel the same way. It's very hard for me to share like places where I made mistakes or admit that I'm wrong. Okay, and this. This has actually been something I've been working on very hard in the past year, both in my marriage and also just in general in my business and life, because obviously, not being able to admit you're wrong is a problem when you're married to someone, and so I've learned to really just take a pause and not go immediately on the defensive. And the truth is, I can't even tell you I'm not saying that you have to say that you're wrong all the time in order to have a good marriage. I'm not saying that you have to say that you're wrong all the time in order to have a good marriage. I'm not saying that. But I will say that when I, instead of my husband, would say, oh, why didn't you do this or what happened over here, instead of getting immediately defensive and freaking out and being like, oh, but you? And pushing it back on him or whatever, taking a pause and being like am I right or does he's a really smart person, it's just been something that it's been like a personal growth work for me in 2024. And it has really changed my life for the better, to be honest.

Speaker 1:

But the idea of this still scared me. I did not want to sound not perfect, I did not want to sound like someone who was not an aspirational person, and my coach, taylor, challenged us all to do the post in the mastermind that I'm in. So I bit the bullet and I did it, and I learned a whole bunch of things that I'm going to share with you. So I'm going to read the post to you super quick and then I'm going to talk about the performance and the lessons that I learned. Okay, so social media is fake. Here's some things I struggle with, in no particular order. So I have a lot of body image issues and weigh about 50 pounds more than my comfortable and my skin weight not pregnant, which is why I rarely post reels or photos showing my entire body.

Speaker 1:

I'm really good at pregnancy, birth and parenting babies and little kids, but preteens and teenagers are making me doubt my abilities as a mom in a whole new, entire way, and it makes me feel like I'm failing in the skill that I was most confident about. Until now, my launches have never converted at less than 3%. Until this latest one, this was 1.5%, which was technically not a failed launch but still didn't feel good. And when these things happen in business, it brings up all my imposter syndrome and feelings of failure and that I'm not good enough of a coach, because a good business coach would never fail. And I know this is not true, but the feelings are there.

Speaker 1:

It takes me a lot of time to work through. I love having a girl so much and I really want another one, but it feels ungrateful to even wish for that when my baby is healthy. I don't find out the gender beforehand, but I really would like another girl. But I also recognize that I'm so lucky to just have a healthy baby that's growing and growing well. Oh my God, boy, is it growing? I just, yeah, I feel guilty about that. Every time I think about it I feel guilty, but I really just enjoy having my daughter so much.

Speaker 1:

I know that a big part of what gets people to work with me is the fact that I'm a relatable CEO mom in sweats and glasses. But every once in a while I wonder if I would make more money by being fancier in quotes and more aspirational. My biggest mindset blocks are comparison first board enneagram three here, looking for the problems that have solutions, and consuming more information. I really should be implementing, and I fight these three impulses every single day. I love what I do and I'm really freaking good at it, but I'd also be totally okay with being a stay-at-home mom and not working. I don't feel the need to prove that I'm not just a mom and I would happily be a full-time homemaker. And then I wrote even with all that said, I very often get overwhelmed and overstimulated by the noise and chaos of my kids and feel like running away at least once a day. But I still want more kids yes, more than six, because I love being a mom, and I don't know how to reconcile these two parts of myself. And the last part was living as a Jew in Israel.

Speaker 1:

I'm always so torn on how much to talk about the content, the constant. I don't know why. It says content shoot, existential threat that we're under and anti-Semitism at large, because I'm worried it will significantly affect my business and I feel it's irresponsible to endanger my family's income. And then I wrote do you relate to any of these? And that whatever. So that was the actual. Those are the things that I present to the world. I'm like these are the things that I haven't talked about here, things I struggle with.

Speaker 1:

Take it or leave it, and you can. I'm going to link to the. I'm going to link to it in the description so you can actually look at the actual post and you can just read it for yourself. All right. So first of all, performance wise, it is the non-real post that got me the most reach in the past two years, aside from a couple that I ran ads to. So it got me the most reach in the past two years ever. It got the most likes of every new post I've ever done. It also got the most interaction and engagement again aside from the ones that you know after ads, and the second most profile visits, after ads as well. It got nine saves, or anything is like the most saves that any one post got. I don't think it's maybe the most saves, but it's very close up there and I don't even know why, because I don't know how this would help people. Maybe it's for inspiration.

Speaker 1:

I got a lot of comments which said oh my God, me too. You're not alone, you're a great mom, blah, blah, blah. And I was really nervous about it because I thought I get at least one person saying you're a fraud. What's wrong with you? Why do you think you can tell people what to do? Right? Here are a few things that I learned here. So when I tell my clients to share personal things and get a little vulnerable, they wonder can I really share vulnerably but be seen as an authority, right? What if I get friend zoned? What if I'm not going to be seen as that expert anymore? And what this taught me was that I actually could share vulnerably and be hired. I got another coaching client after that post, which was very interesting, and the stuff that you might be most ashamed of can be the very things that actually connect you with others. And to me, I think, shame. Honestly, shame is probably the number one thing that is like my, my waterloo, so to speak. Right, shame is the thing that holds us so back, so much from what is possible. It keeps us from showing up fully online. It keeps us from bragging about the things that make us awesome. It keeps us stuck and hiding, and I've had my fair share of shame back in the beginning of, towards the beginning of 2022.

Speaker 1:

I ran a. I ran a paid bundle. I was. I thought I ran the digital insiders business bundle. I enjoyed it so much. We made a lot of money. I'm like, let me try to do this myself. It was a great bundle, it was highly valuable, it was amazing.

Speaker 1:

But I made a couple of mistakes and I guess I didn't like no paid bundle etiquette or whatever. But number one was that I used an affiliate link to track my sales because I wanted to see how many people bought the bundle through me. I was curious about that and I wanted to know how many people would actually buy it through me, and I did not. Really I'm not a UTM link expert and so I'm like, oh easy thing to do is I'll just use an affiliate link and I could just see how many people clicked on my affiliate link, how many people actually bought through my affiliate link, and I offered a bonus because I didn't want people who were in my audience to lose out if they wanted to buy something through me. And what happened after that was that a few people who were in the bundle shared this in this kind of. Can you believe she did this? I was so horrified.

Speaker 1:

It was disgusting way she even put herself on the leaderboard and, first of all, I did not put myself on the leaderboard. I took myself off the leaderboard. I obviously did not like gift myself whatever, like I did not gift myself whatever. The top spot, I wasn't even the top spot, to be honest, I did not. But it was on the leaderboard, like in Thrivecart, because my name was on there and and I didn't, and I and everyone who was on the leaderboard got what they're supposed to get the top person got their prize, the third, the top three people got their prizes, whatever.

Speaker 1:

But there was a lot of very mean, girly, gossipy talk about me and it really bothered me because the people who were doing the gossipy talk and the people who were like like very, oh, just, oh, my God, spill the tea, whatever. It was just very. It just felt very mean, girlish, and these were people that I thought were friends of mine. I thought they were my friends and they were part of the bundle. They did not come to me after the first day and say, oh hey, elle, I noticed that you seem to be in the leaderboard, which means you're using an affiliate link. Did you know that? That's not really great etiquette to use when you're doing a bundle, because then it might cancel out the cookies from other people who might be sending people towards your bundle and I would be like, oh my God, you're right, I did not even think of that and I would have immediately stopped using it. But they didn't do that.

Speaker 1:

So this is just a little note, by the way to if you do see someone doing something that you feel is completely wrong and you know that person, you're not the kind of person who would do something like that on purpose, just to be malicious or just to be whatever greedy or whatever, that they're a good person. Let them know, gently. Let them know, because it's possible they don't realize, they're not aware, and it's. You can let them know in a nice gentle way. That probably won't make them feel like crap. Maybe they'll feel a little bit like crap, but it will be a lot better than going around and gossiping about them behind their back.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and so when that happened, when I realized what happened and when I realized what was being said and what was being about me, I was sick. I was like, actually sick, I think I found out. I found this out like on a Friday, I think I didn't eat the whole weekend, and that is very unusual for me, because I eat when I'm stressed. So if I don't eat, that means that I'm beyond stressed, all right, and this is something that it took me so much time to work through, and after doing journaling over the past whatever few months, I can trace a major dip in new income back to that point, because I was just it.

Speaker 1:

Just it broke me in a way, like it made me just be like I'm afraid to show up, afraid to sell, afraid people are going to find things wrong with me. I had so much fear and mistrust of people online that I've had to that I had to work through and it's taken me so much time to trust again. And it's and those people I definitely do not trust anymore, but it just it really messed with me on, on, on a deep emotional level, and looking at how much that affected me even till today, even when I think about it, I get a little bit sick to my stomach. I literally just got like I got heartburn just now just thinking I'm also pregnant, so maybe it's the pregnancy, but I was really horrified and embarrassed and ashamed, and so it has taken me time to trust again, and so I want you to realize that shame has held me back from a lot of opportunities since then that I maybe could have taken and didn't, and I've been pulling myself out of it little by little, but, on the other hand, it's not been the same way that I showed up from 2020 until 2022. I know that I can see. I can trace the difference in, like my entire confidence and everything about me back to that time and I'm working through it and I'm getting better and I'm getting better at showing up more confidently, but every time I, like hesitate, I can trace it back to that and it's again. I'm working through it and I want you to know that sometimes things can happen and it will take you time. It will take you time to work. So I'm sharing this here not to be like, oh, whatever. Like you should definitely stay mired in these kinds of things. This is the kind of stuff you work through with mindset coaches and with your journaling and with your mindset work. This is why mindset work is so important.

Speaker 1:

Right, you have to really rewire your brain and make decisions, and I've made some decisions in the past few months, like just deciding to just not allow this to happen. I'm not going to let a stupid terrorist organization prevent me from creating financial freedom for my family. So just because Hamas decides to invade Israel does not mean that I cannot show up and be the expert, as much as I want to Like stuff like that, because it's been very distracting. This whole war has been very distracting for me and distracting obviously. It's been terrible, right, people have been dying and there's been a lot of trauma and there's been a lot of fear and it's been very scary and and every time I get back on the horse, something else will come and knock me down. Whatever, something else will happen or there'll be some really horrible thing online or there'll be a really big attack somewhere.

Speaker 1:

This is it. Everything takes time and you're going to be able to show up in different places in different ways. This is me being authentic. It's going to take time sometimes and you have to also give yourself grace as well, right, yeah, yes, hold yourself to your commitments, but also give yourself grace. So what is it good? To show up vulnerably and if I'm talking about shame and I'm talking about opening yourself up and it's maybe I shouldn't open myself up. No, that's not true. Post that I made, this post that I made really like the response was incredible and again I'm linking it in here so you can see the comments that I got. I think it was very good for me. This post that I made meant that I had come a very long way from Yael of 2022, who went into hiding mentally, emotionally, whatever.

Speaker 1:

I do think that you should be showing up vulnerably because the more that robots are taking over the content on the internet, the more that real people are going to feel like more few and far between. So I do not mean spilling your emotions all over the internet as they're happening, those crying selfies or those crying videos, like. I'm not saying that you can't cry, like sometimes if you're sharing news, if you're sharing difficult news, like I know know someone just now had a miscarriage and she was very sad about it. If she got on and was like I just wanted to talk about this for a minute, I had a miscarriage and tears are falling out of her eyes. That's a different thing than being like bawling your eyes out and being like, oh, this would be a good time to record and I'll turn it into a reel, right? I don't know, just feels it feels a little different.

Speaker 1:

But when is it good to show up vulnerably is when you're sharing things that will connect with your ideal client where they're at. People appreciate it so much when you normalize things and you could see it in here, right? One person was like oh my gosh, I can totally relate to that, to the, to the what was it? Consumption over implementation over consumption? Right, I can still relate to that, it's so, to that. I also do that. I consume and then I don't implement, and it's just, I need to do that too. I need to work on that.

Speaker 1:

And other people were like oh my gosh, I feel the same way about my teenagers or whatever. So these things that I put there, I thought about what would people, my people, relate to? Do they relate to mom guilt? Yes, they do. Oh my God, there's so much guilt. I had the guilt when I realized that I feel like I don't know what I'm doing with my teenagers, when I realized that I really want another girl and people keep saying this to me like, oh, I hope your baby's a girl. And I'm like, but what if it isn't a girl? Then what? What am I going to do with it? Just give it away? Itd ultrasound it's adorable and I know that I'm going to love it, no matter what, obviously, but again, it's something that like, it's one of those things. And people have gender disappointment. That is normal, right? People appreciate when you normalize things. Another place to show vulnerably, to share vulnerably, is are things that people aspire to right. So people want your problems. And I say this in a way of one coach who's like I was stuck at 20K months. I'm like I would love to be stuck at 20K months. I'm like give me stuck at 20K months old. If I was stuck at 20K months for a year and a half, I'd be like, oh, I would love that.

Speaker 1:

Things like big investments that you made that that didn't pay off because it means that they could make that five-figure investment. So think about where do you have? Maybe you made mistakes or maybe you have experienced things that for you felt hard, but for other people they might be like, oh, I wish I could have that problem. Like for me, I was like, oh my God, I can't believe I didn't crack 200K in 2023. I thought, I really thought I would, and I didn't. You know what? I still made past 100K, right, I made close to 140K and that was a hard year. That was one of my depression, anxiety years and I didn't make more money in 2023 than I made in 2022. But when it came down to it, there were people who were like, oh my God, I wish I could make $140,000 in a year. To me that didn't feel like a lot. To me, that felt like a failure, so to speak, because it wasn't double what I'd made the year before.

Speaker 1:

But when it came down to it, is that a problem people would like to have? Probably, yeah. So you want to be intentional about what you share, right, and like this idea of sharing from the scar and not the wound. So maybe not sharing these problems as you're going through them, maybe modeling how you can hold yourself and carry yourself through a really difficult time. But then another question to ask yourself is am I sharing from the wound right now? Am I still bleeding? And I really need to learn a lesson from this before I start putting it out there. Will it help someone? Also, I usually I'm going to share something if I think that this is going to help someone right now, so if I've learned a lesson from it, or it's something that I'm currently working through from a healthy place, so, let's say, the consuming, over-implementing kind of thing. So here are some ways, I'm focusing on implementing rather than consuming, so I'll share.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, after the war happened and I was like the war started here the day after I found out I was pregnant with this baby, and so I spent the next 10 to 12 weeks or so 10 weeks or so completely traumatized and sad, and we were going through something crazy over here Plus really nauseous and tired, and so I didn't share about that while I was going through it, necessarily Because, number one, I didn't want to share that I was pregnant yet, but I did share afterwards. Here's how I got through. Here's how I was going through it, necessarily because, number one, I didn't want to share that I was pregnant yet, but I did share afterwards. Here's how I got through. Here's how I was able to continue showing up even though all this stuff was happening, because I wanted to see if I was still showing up.

Speaker 1:

Is it going to help someone? Is this going to give someone some level of value or going to give them some sort of perspective? Did you learn a lesson, right? Going to lessen right? So that is something to think about as well. Don't start spilling your emotions all over the internet every time they happen. You don't need to do that, but people do appreciate when you share things that will connect with them. They appreciate when you normalize things right, when you share vulnerability, that people may aspire to being very intentional about what you share.

Speaker 1:

Sharing from a scar, not the wounds. Sharing from the lessons that you learned or something that you're working through in, or it's maybe something you're committing to right now. So I'd be like I'm committing to selling every day right now in my CEO, my mastermind, we're doing momentum may and we are doing a comp, a challenge, all right, which is a really great challenge, and what we're basically doing is showing up and selling every single day. So I have a special thread for this and people can, I said, just either drop a screenshot or a link to this particular offer or to your post, and then everyone who, every day that they share, they get an entry into a giveaway, and that is something that we're working towards, right, like we're just showing up every single day in the month of May, and so that might be something. If you want to do a challenge for yourself, be like.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I've been pulling back a little bit.

Speaker 1:

I haven't been as consistent as I'd like, so I'm going to be showing up every day sharing one thing, that one thing that I'm learning or whatever. I'm going to be showing up every single day, join me. Maybe you want them to join you. So this could be a good place to show up authentically, from a place of. Maybe I'm not there yet, maybe I haven't been consistent, maybe I haven't been embodying what I've been talking about. So here's me embodying what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1:

My friend and my coach, taylor Lee. So she's doing this like 360 days of conviction of really embodying the million dollar woman and she's sharing her stuff every single day and it's been really great so far and I've really enjoyed reading her posts. So I'm not looking at her as oh, if you're not embodying a million dollar woman, then I guess you suck and you should never coach anyone ever again. No, I'm loving watching how she's leading herself through that. You can do that as well. If you're leading yourself through something or you're working through something, then this is a great time to. This is just a great time to bring other people in and bring them along with you on your journey.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

That's basically, you know how to be authentic as a personal brand. So what is working right now? What kind of stuff is working right now? Now, obviously, value is still working, but basic education is not what's it anymore, because people can get basic education from chat, gpt. They don't need you to do this.

Speaker 1:

What does work is stories. Nobody can take away your story. My friend Ashlyn just did a post about this and pointed this out. This is the only thing that is uniquely, uniquely, wholly unique to you, and ChatGPT can't copy your story. It could, but it's not. Chatgpt does not have your experiences. Chatgpt did not have your life.

Speaker 1:

So the kind of stories that you want to share right, so you can mix the stories with the value right, so you want to give very specific value. When I say value and education, you want to make it as specific as possible. It's not just general like. Here are five things to do whatever Very specific education. I found. What's their names? Maha Copy Co. So Madison and Haley have. You can find them on Instagram at M-A-H-A copy co. So they have built their Instagram entirely on educational posts. But why are those educational posts worked when all the generic educational stuff is not working? Because their posts are very specific. They give you a ton of value. It's the kind of post that you want to save all of them. All right, how to nail the first line of every email. Steal these fun out of office messages 101 words to sound casual. You know how to nail your homepage headline. These are very specific. So the truth is, yes, they're giving education. So could Chachi PT do that? Yes, maybe, but like they just do it in a way that is just very actionable, bite-size, easy to just take and save and use, and they have a high level of value on their. I follow them because I'm like I literally could, if I feel like I could bookmarks every post of someone's, I'm going to follow them. I'm not saying that you can't share education, but you really do want to incorporate stories into your content, into your messaging. So what kind of stories do you want to share so you could share current things that are happening for you that embody what you teach. So that means currently you're on a workcation, right, because you've built a business that enables you to do that and take a little bit of time off and let your husband take time off, or maybe you. Today you literally worked for 45 minutes and then you close your laptop and you haven't opened it up again for the rest of the day, because you're building a freedom-based business. What else Maybe? You just had someone you teach YouTube and you just got five inquiries in this past week just from your YouTube channel. So things like that.

Speaker 1:

Client stories that give social proof, right. So client stories that show people yes, my stuff works All right. That's very basic Mistakes that you made that you learned from, that your audience can learn from. So again, this is showing up vulnerably. You don't want to admit that you made a mistake, but maybe that mistake will help someone else. It will keep them from making the same mistakes. So people appreciate that what's working for you and what's not. So, again, same thing, right. So here are some things I tried in 2023 that didn't work. Here's some things I tried in 2023 that did work. Things like that.

Speaker 1:

This is what's going to make you stand out amongst all the faceless reels and chat GPT posts, because it is real, it is you, it is your face, it is your experiences. And will people judge yes, they'll probably judge, but they're not your people and then maybe they'll unfollow you or whatever. Maybe they'll just feel really good about themselves sitting back and being all judgy Fine, that is fine. They are not your people. So if you learned nothing else today, all right. I want you to remember number one you can show up vulnerably online, but be intentional about it. Number two is think about why are you sharing this right now? What is the goal? What is the goal If the goal is just to be like fakely vulnerable so you can get some more likes or whatever?

Speaker 1:

No, maybe the goal is to just help people understand that they are not alone. Maybe the goal is to keep someone from making the same mistake that you did. Maybe the goal is to just open yourself up a little bit and just again do this exercise, because you're not good at opening yourself up. Figure out why you're sharing it and understand what your actual end goal here is. Your story is what's going to enable you to stand out. No one else can copy that. So I just want to encourage you.

Speaker 1:

I don't think you have to do this trend, but I just learned a lot from this experience and again I might do another one. I was like I might do another one because I have other things that I want to share and I'm like you know what? I don't know. I just feel like people felt really good from it. People felt really good. They felt they weren't alone. They felt like they were normal. They felt like other people are struggling with the same kind of things they are.

Speaker 1:

The important thing is to do it from an intentional place and not just dumping it all over the internet sort of place, and you will stand out, you will be unique. People are going to connect with you as the person. So don't forget to check out the CEO Mom Business Blueprint Again $17 until May 13th. If you want to get first dibs on the real secrets of CEO moms and dive right into the interviews, dm me secrets on Instagram and we can have a little conversation and I'll know that you were listening to this podcast. And if you want to snag an intensive for $250 off, plus a bonus week of Telegram access, you can apply at the link below and mention the deal and we can have a conversation and I'm excited.

Speaker 2:

I can't wait to be back next, you and your family. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to rate and review, and let's connect on Instagram Screenshot and share it on Instagram stories so we can get the word out to more mom, business owners like you. Tag me at TheEllBendahan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week, you.