Latest / All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting / 90. Nomadic work, personal branding and how to “sell” yourself with Sam Burmeister

Transcript

90. Nomadic work, personal branding and how to “sell” yourself with Sam Burmeister · All Figured Out with Andrea Barr: Figuring Out Work, Life and Parenting

• 0:00
  Welcome back to the All Figured Out Podcast.
• 0:02
  My name is Andrea Barr. I'm your host.
• 0:04
  Thank you for joining me again this week.
• 0:06
  I just finished recording a really cool episode with
• 0:09
  Samantha Burmeister. She is the founder of the Nomad
• 0:13
  Copy Agency. She is a nomadic writer.
• 0:17
  She travels the world constantly and she is really obsessed with
• 0:23
  helping people to just get their story out there.
• 0:26
  How to really craft and hone your personal brand.
• 0:29
  And I have to read or bio to you because it is probably the best
• 0:33
  bio I have ever received. I always ask my guests, hey, can
• 0:35
  you send me a bio? And then I like, you know, cut
• 0:38
  and paste from it or whatever. This is her.
• 0:39
  This is her entire bio. Sam writes really freaking good
• 0:43
  sales copy for service providers.
• 0:44
  She runs her business from all over the world so that yours can
• 0:47
  be found from anywhere. That's it.
• 0:50
  I mean, I love it. I think it says so much about a
• 0:52
  person who can, you know, just keep things short and sweet.
• 0:56
  So it might feel like a bit of a funny person to have on given
• 1:00
  this is a parenting podcast and a lot of you are in perhaps the
• 1:04
  corporate world, have a more structured 9 to five job and
• 1:08
  maybe aren't entrepreneurs. However, I really wanted to have
• 1:11
  Sam come on because I think there's something really special
• 1:14
  about thinking about yourself as a personal brand, regardless of
• 1:19
  if you're on TikTok dancing or whatever, but you yourself, you
• 1:23
  are a brand in your career, in your life as a human being, as a
• 1:26
  parent, you know all the different hats.
• 1:28
  And Sam is such an expert in this topic on how to write and
• 1:34
  somebody who knows how to write really good sales copy, which is
• 1:37
  what Sam does, really knows a lot about how to get your
• 1:41
  personal brand across. And so she comes on and we talk
• 1:45
  about her nomadic life while her travels from around the world,
• 1:48
  her story of quitting while she was on a beach.
• 1:51
  Yes, it's a real story. We talk about some of our
• 1:54
  favorite books in business and for the career person, the go
• 1:58
  getter, she shares advice on really beautiful topics actually
• 2:03
  in the parenting space about how you shouldn't be apologizing so
• 2:07
  much and not apologizing for having kids.
• 2:10
  Oh, we just go in so many different directions.
• 2:12
  She's so wise. She's got such savvy
• 2:15
  communication chops. And I think you're going to love
• 2:17
  this episode. So without further ado, Sam
• 2:21
  Burmeister, you're listening to the All Figured Out Podcast.
• 2:27
  I'm your host, Andrea Barr. I'm a career coach for parents,
• 2:32
  mom of two, and a self-proclaimed expert at
• 2:35
  winging it. After 10 years in the corporate
• 2:37
  world, two major career pivots, and navigating life with kids,
• 2:41
  I've learned one thing. No parent has it all figured
• 2:44
  out, and that's OK. Here, we're all about growing
• 2:48
  personally and professionally while keeping family time
• 2:51
  sacred. You'll get practical tips,
• 2:53
  career strategies and musings on life, plus guest experts to help
• 2:57
  us fill in the gaps. So grab a coffee or hide in your
• 3:00
  car for some knee time. We're about to figure out this
• 3:02
  work, life and parenting stuff out together.
• 3:08
  Sam Burmeister, thanks for joining me on the All Figured
• 3:11
  Out podcast. Hi, thank you.
• 3:13
  Nice to have you here. Yeah, it's good to be here.
• 3:16
  I'm glad to talk to you again. You too.
• 3:18
  Now it looks like you are in your California home.
• 3:22
  Correct. Yes, that is not normal for you.
• 3:24
  You're not normally home. Correct.
• 3:28
  Yeah, From my understanding, Nomad and the copywriter, that's
• 3:32
  the things to know about me. Personal professional.
• 3:35
  There you go. OK.
• 3:37
  Wait, I have to do a true or false?
• 3:38
  The very beginning versus the very end?
• 3:40
  OK, can you be nomadic in your work and not be a copywriter?
• 3:46
  I just feel like all nomadic workers are copywriters.
• 3:51
  Yes. Oh my gosh.
• 3:51
  I know so many designers, software developers.
• 3:57
  I know several nomadic podcasters.
• 3:59
  Seriously. Love it.
• 4:03
  What else? I'm trying to think product
• 4:05
  designers, project managers, like people who are working full
• 4:08
  time. There's a lot of project
• 4:10
  managers out there and, and a lot of people that you wouldn't
• 4:14
  expect to like I have been sitting at a cafe or recently,
• 4:19
  this was last year, I was in a airport lounge in Bolivia.
• 4:23
  And the woman next to me was a BP at Emerson Heating and
• 4:28
  Cooling, which is one of those like biggest companies you've
• 4:30
  never heard of kind of thing. And she gets off her call and
• 4:35
  she had this like jacket that she would wear during calls that
• 4:38
  was like kind of blazer, but it was actually like, if you see
• 4:42
  what I'm wearing now, kind of a sweater material.
• 4:44
  And that's like was her call thing.
• 4:46
  And then she like pulls it off. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I
• 4:48
  thought they were going to hear my flight being announced in the
• 4:51
  background. And she hadn't been back to her
• 4:53
  home base in like 3 years. That's so crazy.
• 4:59
  OK, Now to layer on the next question that so many listeners
• 5:02
  have will be can you do this with a family?
• 5:05
  Now I know you yourself don't have children, but do you used
• 5:09
  to come across other nomadic people who are workers who have
• 5:12
  families? Like is that?
• 5:13
  Is that a thing? Yes, it totally is.
• 5:15
  And I'm forgetting the name of one of them off the top of my
• 5:18
  head, but there is a company that specifically helps people
• 5:22
  in families who are homeschooling or world schooling
• 5:26
  or remote schooling their kids. They create these communities
• 5:30
  where people can move. I think the minimum is for three
• 5:33
  months, but up to a year. And you can also bounce between
• 5:36
  different communities. So they've got one in Greece, in
• 5:39
  Uruguay and Portugal, and these lovely, fun, professional
• 5:45
  parents get to hang out and then they have these on-site
• 5:49
  facilities for them to work and for the kids to do school work.
• 5:52
  And then they also have primarily English speaking
• 5:55
  communities all around the world.
• 5:57
  Yeah, it's totally a thing. No, I'm so happy I asked that.
• 6:02
  That is OK. That raised you really want to
• 6:05
  have a conversation with my husband like ASAP.
• 6:08
  It's a real thing. It's a real thing.
• 6:10
  And there's a lot of people too, in the online business world
• 6:13
  that I fall in who I've met them and they say, oh, my family and
• 6:17
  I just did Italy for a year last year, and they'll be like, oh,
• 6:20
  yeah, and we brought our dog. We just rented out our apartment
• 6:22
  in Vancouver and did it. Yeah, Oh my gosh.
• 6:29
  OK, wow. Inspired, inspired.
• 6:33
  And this is even what we're here to talk about.
• 6:36
  Well, kind of, I mean, we're going to talk about a lot of
• 6:38
  different things, but that is so freaking cool.
• 6:40
  So tell me your story. What is your I listen to the
• 6:43
  Cubicle, the CEO podcast from our friend Ellen Yang, and she
• 6:48
  always says, what's your cubicle to CEO story?
• 6:51
  So what's yours? My cubicle, the CEO story.
• 6:53
  So I went to traditional university.
• 6:56
  I'm American, so I did the four years after high school kind of
• 7:00
  classic, been there, done that story.
• 7:02
  And it was during college that I studied abroad.
• 7:07
  I did a multi country study abroad program and I also did a
• 7:10
  kind of internship work situation abroad.
• 7:14
  And I realized like I can work and travel.
• 7:17
  And this was back in 2010 to 2014 ish.
• 7:20
  So it was before FaceTime, but after Skype existed like the
• 7:26
  tech of where we were in the world.
• 7:28
  And I was like, this is what I want to do is I want to be
• 7:33
  wherever I want to be, but still have my cake and eat it too.
• 7:37
  If I want this corporate career, I want to climb the ladder.
• 7:39
  I want to be that girly and I want to hike in the Alps and not
• 7:46
  have to save my meager 10 days of PTO to be able to do it.
• 7:51
  So I got a degree in marketing and international business,
• 7:55
  started travel blogging on the side, went into a sales career,
• 7:58
  learned a ton about selling and sales and went into sales
• 8:02
  leadership and then got really burned out and didn't want to do
• 8:06
  it anymore. So I leveraged my experience
• 8:08
  writing with my experience selling and in 2019, quit my
• 8:12
  job. That's a whole other story that
• 8:15
  we can touch on, but while on a beach in Vietnam and was like,
• 8:19
  I'm not coming back. And I've been helping other
• 8:23
  people sell using the words on the Internet ever since.
• 8:26
  Unbelievable. Tell us the beach story.
• 8:28
  I think that there's a lot of people listening who are
• 8:32
  fantasizing about A not only being on a beach, but B quitting
• 8:36
  their jobs. Well, on the beach.
• 8:38
  So tickle our fantasy here. Absolutely.
• 8:41
  So the writing was on the wall with my job, like I had been
• 8:45
  very transparent of. This is probably my last year
• 8:48
  here. I've had a lovely time.
• 8:50
  I'm going to see myself out and I think a lot of people dream
• 8:54
  of, you know, especially while they're on the beach, having the
• 8:58
  Corona commercial life, right, of which we could just do this
• 9:01
  every day of wanting to do that. But that life isn't sustainable.
• 9:07
  I'll be very real. You can't drink on the beach
• 9:09
  every single day. You can.
• 9:11
  You're not going to go far. So I knew that.
• 9:16
  But I was on the beach, I was checking into a hotel, and I
• 9:18
  accidentally logged into my work e-mail rather than my personal
• 9:21
  e-mail to get my reservation. And I saw that who I would call
• 9:25
  my grand boss had really thrown me under the bus.
• 9:29
  And I was like, I just had this full body like hot and cold at
• 9:33
  the same time. Anxiety of I can't go back
• 9:38
  there. And I was with a friend who
• 9:40
  really talked me through it and was like, OK, but you have been
• 9:45
  talking about how you want to save money so that you can quit.
• 9:48
  And then you saved enough money and you didn't quit.
• 9:50
  And then you wanted to wait until last year and then you
• 9:53
  didn't quit. And now it's this year and
• 9:55
  you're telling me at the end of the year you're going to quit
• 9:57
  when your lease runs up. But like, that's convenient.
• 10:00
  But what are you doing? What's the real goal here?
• 10:04
  And so I responded, I let my boss know and she let him know.
• 10:09
  And she was really happy for me. And I never, ever heard back
• 10:14
  from the grand bus that threw me under the bus.
• 10:16
  So that was really affirming for me and I was on a two week
• 10:22
  holiday in South Asia. I ended up staying for three
• 10:24
  more months before going back and living in that apartment
• 10:27
  that I had a lease on. Way Yeah.
• 10:31
  Oh my gosh, yeah. Incredible.
• 10:35
  And would you say that that was a real like, did you know what
• 10:37
  the what the what was on the other side for you?
• 10:40
  So you jumped and did you know what you were jumping into?
• 10:42
  No, I absolutely jumped out of the airplane and built my
• 10:45
  parachute. On the way down.
• 10:47
  I reached out to a few people and said hey, you know me and my
• 10:52
  character and I know that you own a business, so if you or any
• 10:55
  of your business owning besties need anything, let me know.
• 10:59
  And because I had been publishing my travel blog on the
• 11:03
  side, every single person asked me to write something.
• 11:07
  Most of them were websites. I had no idea what I was doing.
• 11:10
  I was like, it's $500 a lot and it floated me along.
• 11:15
  But what's funny is I had left my computer at home.
• 11:20
  I was just traveling with like a small backpack, like one week's
• 11:23
  worth of laundry. So I didn't have that on me.
• 11:26
  So thank goodness it was 2019 because Internet cafes were
• 11:31
  still a thing. So I could go borrow a computer
• 11:34
  and pay $2.00 an hour in Thailand to log into Google Docs
• 11:40
  and write stuff for people. Which was kind of.
• 11:43
  Crazy. That is so, so cool.
• 11:47
  What would you say? So we're going to be talking
• 11:49
  about a lot today. We're going to be talking about
• 11:51
  things like personal brand, feeling salesy and that sort of
• 11:54
  thing. But when you put yourself back
• 11:57
  in Sam of that moment of really like jumping out and not like
• 12:00
  you're like sewing the parachute truly as you're here falling up,
• 12:05
  I would say. What was your personal brand at
• 12:08
  that point? How would you describe your
• 12:10
  personal brand then? I think my personal brand was
• 12:14
  very corporate, very buttoned up, very professional.
• 12:17
  There was not a lot of me in that brand.
• 12:21
  I was saying and doing things that I would be OK if my company
• 12:26
  found out about, even in my side gig, because I was still
• 12:29
  publishing that stuff to LinkedIn.
• 12:31
  I was just also, and that's another thing, it was LinkedIn,
• 12:33
  not Instagram. I was very buttoned up in that
• 12:36
  way. All of my personal accounts were
• 12:38
  private, that brand. I remember one time going
• 12:44
  surfing in Guadalupe, which is a French island but in the
• 12:48
  Caribbean, and I had somebody at work say like, oh, that you're
• 12:54
  always going to dangerous places.
• 12:56
  I was like, I was literally in France, like it's not dangerous.
• 13:01
  So I think I thought I was buttoned up, but perhaps other
• 13:06
  people perceived me as being like the crazy adventurous one.
• 13:11
  But I was definitely adventurous within brackets.
• 13:15
  OK. And then how would you, now that
• 13:17
  we're kind of you're introducing us to the Sam of today, how
• 13:21
  would you describe your personal brand now?
• 13:23
  Personal brand now is much more confident in that way that I am
• 13:28
  not afraid to be who I am and bring those sides of me into my
• 13:35
  business. My business is built around days
• 13:38
  rather than weeks. So I build my business around my
• 13:42
  life and therefore I can allow glimpses into my life through my
• 13:46
  business because for example, like sorry, can't work those
• 13:51
  days I'm camping and that's OK. But it's not a travel focused
• 13:55
  brand anymore because I'm writing copy for service
• 13:58
  providers and service based businesses.
• 14:00
  I'm not, I wouldn't not work with travel brands, but I'm no
• 14:04
  longer trying to make the travel blog thing a thing and I'm just
• 14:08
  helping other people sell. So when I call myself Nomad Copy
• 14:13
  Agency, it's I get to pull in these sides of me that are the
• 14:15
  science and the art of copywriting and the adventure of
• 14:19
  my lived experience and the reality of what people offer and
• 14:23
  just bring all of that into one fun little rubber band ball of
• 14:28
  an offer. That's so cool.
• 14:30
  So it's like you've created a brand.
• 14:32
  Like it sounds like you really wanted yourself to be seen and
• 14:35
  to be seen for who you are versus wearing this corporate
• 14:37
  mask. And some people aren't even
• 14:39
  wearing a mask. I should just say like, we're
• 14:41
  not shitting on this. So we are not shitting on the
• 14:44
  corporate employee. I've been there, you've been
• 14:46
  there. I think it is the perfect setup
• 14:49
  for so many people. Probably majority of people, if
• 14:52
  I'm being honest, like entrepreneurship also isn't for
• 14:54
  everybody. But I wouldn't say majority.
• 14:57
  I should just say a lot of people.
• 14:59
  But it sounds like you were really after like, no, I just
• 15:02
  want to, I want to be me. And it's kind of cool that
• 15:03
  you've differentiated the fact that you are no longer writing.
• 15:08
  It's not like you are a copywriter for the travel
• 15:12
  industry that you're like, no, you're showing your whole self
• 15:15
  and the fact that you live a nomadic lifestyle so that your
• 15:18
  clients know that about you. And you're not like tiptoeing
• 15:21
  around or like pretending like you're working or like you're
• 15:25
  just, you're like, this is who I am.
• 15:27
  Yeah, yeah. And you're setting up my post,
• 15:30
  my kickoff calls. And I plan my schedule around
• 15:34
  California time, 6:00 to 8:00 AM so that when I'm in Europe, when
• 15:37
  I'm in Asia, when I'm in Africa, I will still be awake.
• 15:40
  And I don't have to change that when I'm somewhere else.
• 15:43
  So I'm not a travel brand copywriter.
• 15:47
  I'm a copywriter who travels and I host my meetings during those
• 15:51
  times so that I can also meet with people who are in any of
• 15:55
  those time zones. So it's not just about me, it's
• 15:57
  about them as well because I can translate this like
• 16:00
  international experience to so many different people from so
• 16:03
  many different. Places that's really cool, so
• 16:06
  smart. And I think there's so many
• 16:08
  parallels like when you, we were chatting about you coming on the
• 16:11
  podcast and it just didn't feel at first I was like, oh, is this
• 16:15
  gonna be, you know, are there any gonna be any like parenting
• 16:17
  related topic? It doesn't matter.
• 16:19
  It doesn't matter that this our initial like we're not meeting
• 16:22
  because we're both parents or anything.
• 16:24
  We're meeting because we're both humans.
• 16:25
  And I think everybody should learn how to tell their story
• 16:29
  and to have a personal brand. And I think there's so many
• 16:32
  parallels with just humans. Like it doesn't matter if you're
• 16:35
  a parent or not, but the fact that you should be building the
• 16:38
  life that you want. Like, that is, so build the life
• 16:41
  that you want first and then have everything else fit around
• 16:44
  it. Got him work.
• 16:45
  Like, fit your work around the life that you want.
• 16:48
  Yeah. And so if the life you want
• 16:49
  involves children, then set all that up.
• 16:52
  Decide what you really want in that first, Maybe you are a
• 16:55
  nomadic family, and then fit the work and all that.
• 16:58
  It's like, OK, you're a copywriter.
• 17:00
  Does this make sense? Am I saying this correctly?
• 17:02
  It would be like I'm a parent who works versus like I'm a
• 17:07
  corporate girly who just happens to have kids.
• 17:11
  Right. Yeah, yeah, there's a difference
• 17:13
  between that and I think as women we absorb identities.
• 17:18
  I heard this from a realtor one time.
• 17:19
  It's Ford, like Henry Ford. Ford.
• 17:22
  When you ask somebody to tell them, tell you about themselves,
• 17:26
  they will tell you about F family occupation, R recreation
• 17:31
  or D dreams. So it's OK to say I am a or.
• 17:39
  I enjoy blank and as women, I think we have these identities
• 17:44
  pushed on us. And there's there's, I mean,
• 17:46
  mommy guilt is so freaking real and I don't envy it.
• 17:50
  But how do you be an entire person when you're also a
• 17:54
  parent? Sometimes it's a really tough
• 17:56
  balance to strike. So I always encourage people to
• 18:00
  think about it when they're telling their stories is sure,
• 18:02
  you're a mom, a sister or a wife or whatever, but you're also all
• 18:07
  of these other things. You're an expert chef and you
• 18:12
  have certifications in wine and lean 6 Sigma.
• 18:16
  Like you can just be all of these amazing, brilliant things
• 18:20
  and be a parent. I don't think that there's
• 18:24
  always this like hierarchy or I'm a mom first or I'm a career
• 18:27
  woman first. I think that that concept is
• 18:29
  pushed on us and it's like you're a career woman and.
• 18:33
  OK, I just marked that on my little recording device here
• 18:37
  because I think that is so important.
• 18:40
  I think that's such a smart way to to put it that you can be
• 18:44
  like, there doesn't have to be a hierarchy.
• 18:46
  Why are we doing that all the time?
• 18:47
  Why are we constantly feeling like we have to create a
• 18:52
  hierarchy or we have to prove what our hierarchy is like?
• 18:55
  Oh my God, I, I was working a lot this week.
• 18:57
  I've got to prove that my hierarchy is actually family 1st
• 19:01
  and then myself at the bottom and my husband, like they can
• 19:05
  all just live together. You and I met because I, we were
• 19:08
  both speaking at the Multipotentialite Summit run by
• 19:10
  Taylor Taylor Aller. And because we believe if you're
• 19:14
  speaking on that panel with me, which you were, we believe that
• 19:19
  you can be and, and, and like you can be.
• 19:21
  I can be Andrea. I'm a career coach.
• 19:23
  I'm a mom of two. I'm a wife.
• 19:26
  I used to do musical theatre. I still love seeing musicals and
• 19:30
  I dream of having an ocean view 1.
• 19:32
  Like, you know, it's like I was trying to do the fourth thing.
• 19:35
  Did you see that? Yeah, I love by the way, It's
• 19:39
  totally it's and and you can think about it like the spokes
• 19:43
  in a wheel, like the days that that mommy guilt is there.
• 19:46
  It's because the spoke on your career wheel is just like really
• 19:49
  getting some love and like the when you have these things that
• 19:54
  feel even the spokes on your wheel, your wheel is then going
• 19:57
  to turn really well. And that perfect balance
• 20:00
  probably never happens. But you just have to follow what
• 20:04
  feels really good for you. And you have to tell your story
• 20:09
  in a way that feels good for you and continue to follow that
• 20:11
  story. And it's going to melt and
• 20:13
  change over time too. Yes.
• 20:16
  So how as we, this is a predominantly female identifying
• 20:21
  podcast, I would say moms reticular, we have some dad
• 20:25
  listeners. So hello, this is important for
• 20:26
  you too. But how does a person who's
• 20:28
  listening create a personal brand that really feels
• 20:32
  authentic versus like, again, another mask of authenticity?
• 20:36
  Like I'm going to tell this one story because this feels
• 20:38
  authentic. Like how do you actually create
• 20:41
  a personal brand? You know what, Samantha, step
• 20:43
  back a second. What is a personal brand?
• 20:45
  Let's go there first and then it will ask that question.
• 20:48
  A personal brand is a lot of things.
• 20:52
  Such a big question, but. I.
• 20:54
  Always explained brand as the vibe.
• 20:57
  What is your overall vibe? Because there's a visual brand
• 21:00
  of written brand of this so that it can be a lot to sit down and
• 21:03
  think about. But what's your overall vibe?
• 21:07
  Love that. What's your vibe?
• 21:10
  What's your vibe? And I love that because then
• 21:12
  it's like, what's your vibe when you walk into a party?
• 21:14
  What's your vibe when you're one-on-one with a friend?
• 21:16
  What's your vibe when you're sitting down with a coworker,
• 21:18
  when you're in a big meeting, when you're presenting on stage,
• 21:20
  when you're wearing all the differents?
• 21:22
  What's your mom? But like, OK, do you think that
• 21:24
  it has to be 1? Is it like one umbrella with
• 21:27
  lots of like using like the spokes analogy where you can
• 21:31
  have kind of have different vibes based on the situation or
• 21:34
  is there like a core in that, would you say?
• 21:37
  I love you umbrella analogy because the core centre, the
• 21:41
  handle part of the umbrella. That's you.
• 21:43
  That's who you know that you are, but you don't have to show
• 21:47
  off your kids on LinkedIn to all of your colleagues.
• 21:50
  So that's your career spoke of the umbrella.
• 21:53
  That's cool. You can also be like there's
• 21:56
  like an entire say half of it that is surrounded by your kids
• 21:59
  because your kids are and being a parent is so much of your
• 22:02
  identity right now. But PTO mom and wine night mom
• 22:08
  can be two totally different things.
• 22:09
  Hosting at soccer mom. Mom that has to go talk to the
• 22:12
  principal. Those can be different brands,
• 22:16
  but they're still always going to come back to you.
• 22:18
  I don't think that there's ever a reason to leave yourself and
• 22:22
  your values at the door. Absolutely not.
• 22:25
  So that's why I love this umbrella and that people are
• 22:28
  going to know you differently. Your kids know you very
• 22:30
  different from your siblings know you're very different from
• 22:32
  your boss know you're very different from the people who
• 22:35
  work for you. It's so true if we think about
• 22:37
  that. So the, the arm of the umbrella
• 22:39
  arm, I don't know the big the thing you hold.
• 22:42
  Yeah, Yeah. So that's like the core who you
• 22:45
  are. If we were to treat the people
• 22:47
  listening as brand like as little businesses themselves,
• 22:50
  like if you're running yourself like a business, how would you
• 22:53
  encourage? And if you're working with a
• 22:55
  brand, how do you encourage them to really figure out what's in
• 22:57
  there? What's in I'm getting really,
• 23:00
  I'm like, if anyone's watching this on YouTube, I'm like
• 23:03
  holding the umbrella in my hand right now.
• 23:05
  Some of those people, that's really easy to hypnotize because
• 23:08
  you know, the test is always you hold the balloon in a rock and
• 23:11
  see how far. My husband says that if given
• 23:15
  the opportunity, join a cult because I'm going to be so
• 23:17
  easily like. Wait.
• 23:20
  So yes, I would be very easily. Hypnotized your umbrella cult?
• 23:25
  Yes. Yeah, OK.
• 23:28
  How do you figure out who you are?
• 23:31
  Take a step back and look at your values.
• 23:33
  Is exactly where I would start. You can build your values from
• 23:40
  what you do repeatedly. So for example, if you say I'm
• 23:45
  really passionate about giving, giving is a core value of mine,
• 23:48
  but you literally cannot show me anywhere in your balance sheet
• 23:51
  or your timesheet where you're giving, then maybe that's not a
• 23:54
  core value of you, so of yours. So this is like a really
• 23:58
  businessy thing to do, but do a time on it and see how you're
• 24:02
  spending your time. And we're spending your time
• 24:04
  feels good, probably is really reflective of your values.
• 24:08
  If you don't feel it's reflective of your values, then
• 24:10
  that's why you need to think about how you spend your time.
• 24:12
  But I think the other thing that people do when trying to find
• 24:14
  this like who am I? What is my personal brand?
• 24:17
  Who am I authentically is they're trying to be super
• 24:22
  vulnerable. We talked about authenticity and
• 24:24
  vulnerability hand in hand and it's like, I do not need to know
• 24:30
  what's happening under the Band-Aid.
• 24:32
  Like please, you know, because moms, right, you're always
• 24:35
  somebody's walking up to him being like, is this normal?
• 24:38
  Showing you, showing you too much?
• 24:41
  You don't need to do that. When you're figuring out how to
• 24:44
  communicate who you are authentically, you don't have to
• 24:48
  share all of your secrets. You just have to share what
• 24:52
  feels comfortable, what feels really real to you.
• 24:56
  So something that we see a lot with like I want to share my
• 24:59
  authenticity. I want to share my vulnerability
• 25:01
  is like really graphic stories, like birth stories or umm,
• 25:08
  potentially like something really negative that happened in
• 25:10
  your own childhood and that's why you're doing this thing now.
• 25:13
  If that doesn't have anything to do with how you are helping and
• 25:16
  supporting people in your business or in your personal
• 25:21
  brand, you don't have to share that.
• 25:23
  So I think there's a miscommunication going on that
• 25:25
  to be authentic you have to over share and that's not true.
• 25:30
  We just have to come into these, what are our values?
• 25:32
  What do I do repeatedly and then how do I describe that?
• 25:36
  So I had mentioned before that sometimes your core value might
• 25:40
  be generosity or giving. Give me that word and then give
• 25:44
  me a definition. Are you being radically generous
• 25:48
  with your time or are you generous in that you spend a
• 25:54
  minimum of 15 hours a week volunteering at your kids
• 25:57
  school? Is it with your time?
• 25:59
  Is it with your funds? Is it What?
• 26:02
  So all of that to say, find out what you're doing, what you
• 26:08
  enjoy, define it in a single word, and then give me a
• 26:12
  sentence to follow it up so that I'm very clear on what that word
• 26:15
  means to you. Oh, I love that so much.
• 26:19
  Wow. I think that is the truth bomb
• 26:22
  that could only be delivered by someone of like your confidence,
• 26:24
  but also like grace and the way that you said like we don't need
• 26:29
  to over sharing is not synonymous with authenticity.
• 26:33
  Like in order to be authentic does not mean that you have to
• 26:36
  have some sob story. And we've we've all got sob
• 26:39
  stories. And it's not to like discredit
• 26:41
  anybody's like storing where you come from.
• 26:43
  It's important that we like honor where we've come from.
• 26:47
  However, I'm ah, there's such an ick around that right now where
• 26:51
  it's like a real stretch. You can like really feel that
• 26:53
  the person was like, oh, I want to have a business.
• 26:56
  OK, I'm going to make this skin care line.
• 26:58
  OK, Now I'm going to retrofit in some story about it versus yes,
• 27:02
  I actually was listening to a podcast where Lily Reinhardt
• 27:07
  shoes on Riverdale was talking. I'm going to be honest, I
• 27:11
  actually didn't think she was a great interviewee.
• 27:14
  I wanted her to be a little bit flat.
• 27:15
  It didn't really seem like she wanted to be there.
• 27:17
  However, she got me to buy her product because she talked about
• 27:21
  how she had horrific cystic acne and I have struggled with bouts
• 27:27
  of acne in my like late 20s into my 30s now and things I feel
• 27:31
  like I've like seen the light. But she was just like, she
• 27:36
  wasn't that like salesy. She wasn't that charismatic.
• 27:41
  I'm going to be honest. However, her story was just
• 27:43
  like, I had brutal acne and I always have to wear makeup in
• 27:48
  this industry and my face is on camera and I was pissed off.
• 27:51
  And you could just like hear it in her voice.
• 27:53
  And I was like, wow, like Donna Assaria personal brand.
• 27:57
  I guess that's her like actual brand, because her personal
• 27:59
  brand was like, you know, not that I never.
• 28:02
  Quite literally is attached to that brand.
• 28:04
  Yes, yes, and it was fascinating and I keep thinking about that
• 28:08
  story for myself of just like how interesting that like it
• 28:11
  wasn't and and people are like, oh, but I'm not like I'm not
• 28:14
  very outgoing or when consider myself charismatic or whatever,
• 28:18
  like the stories that people tell themselves.
• 28:19
  But like this girl didn't really do it for me.
• 28:22
  However, her like the story that she told and like why she
• 28:26
  created this line, this product line and how everything is like,
• 28:30
  you know, acne friendly or whatever.
• 28:31
  I was like, I'm buying it, like I have to buy this.
• 28:35
  And I was, and it was just such a good example versus the person
• 28:39
  who you can just tell is like making it, not making it up, but
• 28:42
  they're really reaching and. They're really reaching.
• 28:45
  So let's say that that let's take that story and say like
• 28:48
  what then makes it feel like they're reaching.
• 28:52
  So let's say that she were asked on to a podcast about
• 28:58
  specifically new moms. And you can tell when it's a
• 29:04
  stretch of a story because let's say she's not a mom.
• 29:07
  And then she's trying to fit this in of like, And I remember
• 29:10
  when my sister and she was just crying in her face and it was
• 29:15
  red and it was puffy and it was awful.
• 29:17
  And it's just not only is it not about her anymore, she's no
• 29:20
  longer an authority in that space.
• 29:22
  She kind of starts to make stuff up.
• 29:24
  And I'm absolutely not saying this is the legal disclaimer
• 29:27
  that she did any of that, but it's when it's no longer her
• 29:30
  story to tell or it's no longer an appropriate story.
• 29:33
  So another example of it not being appropriate is, let's say
• 29:36
  then that she started talking about hormones and she's
• 29:40
  selling, say hormone replacement rather than a beautiful face
• 29:44
  cream. Like when they start to then go
• 29:47
  educate people and things that they are absolutely have no
• 29:50
  business educating people on. If she were to go on some health
• 29:54
  and Wellness and fitness and hormones podcast and start
• 29:57
  talking about it over there, that's where it's no longer an
• 30:01
  authentic story. It's not her story and it's not
• 30:05
  a story that she has any sort of authority in.
• 30:07
  And I think that's where we start to stretch in an uncomfy
• 30:12
  way is when we start to stretch away from an actual lived
• 30:17
  experience that directly pertains to your audience.
• 30:24
  Does it always have to have a personal, like, does there
• 30:27
  always have to be a personal story for like the most
• 30:29
  successful brands out there or personal brands for people who
• 30:32
  are just like, I want to reinvigorate myself as a PR
• 30:36
  person in the corporate world. Like, do they have to have some
• 30:38
  like, personal connection, some personal story to PR?
• 30:43
  She's really mean. Like what is it we have to have
• 30:47
  in there like toolbox to create that personal brand that feels
• 30:52
  authentic? Are you saying so if somebody
• 30:55
  just decides that they want to go into.
• 30:56
  PR say they took a 10 year career break to raise their
• 31:00
  kids. They were in PR, they're they're
• 31:02
  in marketing now. They want to like really nice
• 31:04
  down. They've done PR before.
• 31:05
  They want to get back into it and they're like, OK, I'm
• 31:07
  refining myself in this space. But it's not like they're like,
• 31:10
  you know, for the past 10 years, I haven't stopped thinking about
• 31:12
  PR Like that's not their story. But they're like, how do I, what
• 31:16
  is my uniqueness around this area?
• 31:19
  I think at that point it becomes the connection to their audience
• 31:22
  because they have the authority, PR and marketing.
• 31:27
  Then it's the getting on the same side of the table as the
• 31:30
  people that they're marketing to.
• 31:32
  Right. OK.
• 31:33
  So if they wanted to mark it too MOT like brands to do with like
• 31:38
  parenting cool. Should they can speak to that.
• 31:40
  They can be like, cool, I've been raising my kids for 10
• 31:42
  years and I'm a marketer by trade.
• 31:44
  This is my story. OK, OK.
• 31:46
  So it's like, what are the commonalities with the audience?
• 31:49
  Or if they're corporate, you can be like, yeah, it was in the
• 31:52
  corporate world. For 20 years I've been project
• 31:54
  managing my home and here I come.
• 31:57
  I don't know, that's not a good example.
• 31:58
  But no, that's a great example because I think a lot of people
• 32:01
  discount what they're able to do from working inside the home
• 32:06
  into professional experience. And I mean, granted, are you a
• 32:11
  like snack engineer at this point?
• 32:13
  Does that guarantee you a career working at for Post Foods?
• 32:17
  I don't know. But the PR that you have to do
• 32:20
  and the communication that you have to keep with keeping
• 32:24
  appointments and booking travel and all of that, like urine,
• 32:28
  excellent project manager, don't discount that experience.
• 32:32
  You can do PR. You organized the PTO, your
• 32:35
  volunteer work that you're doing on the side, Any of that is
• 32:38
  incredibly valuable experience. I love that.
• 32:41
  OK, OK, so we're going to Fast forward in the process and we're
• 32:44
  going to say you've, you've been inspired by Sam and you're like,
• 32:48
  yes, I want to figure out what my personal brand is.
• 32:50
  You're doing a bit of an audit. You're downloading my free 5
• 32:53
  steps to Career Clarity, which is like a really helpful tool
• 32:56
  that can help you figure out what's your next step.
• 32:58
  If you're really like, whoa, I have no idea.
• 33:01
  You're also jumping out of that plane and your parachute is not
• 33:04
  been sewn together yet. And so you people are starting
• 33:08
  to kind of figure it out and they're like putting it
• 33:10
  together. They're that person who wants to
• 33:12
  come back to their, their PR career or whatever, and they're
• 33:14
  going to start talking about what it is that they want to be
• 33:17
  doing. And they're starting to talk
• 33:19
  about this, this new foray in their next level of their
• 33:22
  career. How does somebody talk about
• 33:25
  themself in this way without feeling salty?
• 33:30
  They serve instead of cell. Write that down so we serve
• 33:36
  instead of cell. And what I mean by that is we
• 33:39
  educate people on what they are doing now and why it's not
• 33:44
  working. We educate them on what could
• 33:47
  work better. We educate them on what other
• 33:51
  people like them have done to get past the spot that they're
• 33:55
  in, and we simply guide them. There's a book that I firmly
• 34:00
  believe is one of the marketing gospels.
• 34:02
  It's called Story Brand. I recommend anybody looking to
• 34:05
  story brand if you're wondering how to frame this up because so
• 34:09
  often it reads problem solution here I am right?
• 34:13
  Do you have trouble getting out of bed in the morning?
• 34:15
  Great. I have this incredible energy
• 34:17
  drink. DM me for more details right.
• 34:19
  It's just problem solution here I am and it's it reads as this
• 34:26
  hope it reads as salesy versus if you can get on again.
• 34:30
  I say this get on the same side of the table as people and say
• 34:35
  what is your ideal solution to not feeling tired in the
• 34:39
  morning? Do you need a sleep coach?
• 34:41
  Do you need a night time nanny? Do you need more natural energy?
• 34:47
  OK, it's natural energy. Let me have this conversation
• 34:50
  with you. Did you know that most women are
• 34:53
  severely lacking in vitamin D? And when you pair that with
• 34:56
  caffeine, it actually absorbs into the body better?
• 34:58
  Again, legal disclaimer, that is not science.
• 35:01
  I don't know. I made that up off the top of my
• 35:03
  head. It sounds.
• 35:04
  Good, right? But it's this education of like,
• 35:07
  oh man, then I need to find vitamin D and caffeine.
• 35:12
  It's just giving people the bread crumbs to follow.
• 35:15
  People love to feel heard. People love to feel smart.
• 35:18
  So it comes down to asking engaging questions, actually
• 35:22
  listening to the answers. And when people say my ideal
• 35:26
  next step is blank, the ideal solution here is blank.
• 35:30
  It's like, do you mind if I share how I do that?
• 35:35
  So different, it's so different and I feel like that could be,
• 35:40
  that's so applicable to the business owners listening.
• 35:42
  And I think it's really applicable to the corporate
• 35:45
  person who's coming back to work, changing jobs, you know,
• 35:49
  making that request for the informational interview, you
• 35:51
  know, Oh, Sam, I know that, you know, so and so at post foods,
• 35:54
  like, you know, bubble blah, like how and then you get that
• 35:58
  conversation. You're like, ah, how do I, how
• 36:00
  do I talk about myself? I want to ask good questions and
• 36:04
  at some point I do need to tell them a bit about myself.
• 36:08
  But I think that's a, that's a great point.
• 36:09
  It's like being engaging. There's a, there's a Ted Talk
• 36:13
  about 1010 Ways to Have a Better conversation by Celeste Headley.
• 36:17
  Ever see that one? It's been awhile but I've heard
• 36:20
  of it. Yeah, it's probably 10/10/15
• 36:22
  years ago, I'm sure maybe when the birth of of Ted talks, but
• 36:26
  it was she just is like be interested.
• 36:29
  Don't try to be interesting. Like don't lead with talking
• 36:32
  about yourself. Like be interested in what they
• 36:35
  have to say. Because also how many
• 36:36
  conversations I have done this a million times where you're going
• 36:39
  down a rabbit hole with somebody and then you stop to ask them
• 36:43
  the question and you realize whatever you were talking about
• 36:46
  is irrelevant. Whatever.
• 36:47
  You're like, you know, you're like teaching or telling them
• 36:50
  something, mansplaining something.
• 36:51
  And you're and they're like, Oh yeah, we don't even do that.
• 36:54
  And you're like, great, really, really glad.
• 36:56
  I like, you know, really glad I went down that rabbit hole with
• 36:58
  you. Or that they already do that.
• 37:01
  Say you're you are a project manager.
• 37:03
  You're telling them about lean 6 Sigma, whatever.
• 37:05
  And as if like you're just going off without listening.
• 37:09
  And they're like, yeah, we already do that, Scrum Master.
• 37:12
  It's like, what a waste of time. And that's why they say that
• 37:15
  sales is 80% listening as you're not listening to respond, you're
• 37:20
  not listening to reply, you're listening to respond so that you
• 37:23
  give that thoughtful response. And then you can also promote
• 37:26
  yourself really well. Because if you've ever read Dale
• 37:29
  Carnegie's How to Win Friends and influence People, the
• 37:33
  sweetest sound to any person's ears is the sound of their own
• 37:35
  name. The second sweetest sound is
• 37:38
  their own voice. People love to talk about
• 37:40
  themselves. You mirror things back to them.
• 37:43
  If they're saying lean 6 Sigma and you say wow lean 6 Sigma
• 37:47
  just it sounds funny do but practice it on your spouse,
• 37:50
  partner, kids. They will just keep talking
• 37:54
  about whatever they were talking about when you just subtly
• 37:56
  mirror things back to them and they feel so freaking heard.
• 38:00
  They feel like you get them regardless of what it is that
• 38:05
  you're putting in front of them, whether it's yourself as their
• 38:07
  next employee or your offer as an entrepreneur.
• 38:12
  I think we love the same books because I also love Story Brand.
• 38:15
  Story Brand 2 point .0 I just listened to and he's got a whole
• 38:19
  AI resource now that you can go on to online.
• 38:21
  It's really cool to check out, but um, the Oh my gosh, I just
• 38:26
  lost my train of thought. But anyways, there was going to
• 38:28
  be another book that I was going to say that also freaking love.
• 38:32
  I lost it. Maybe I'll put it in the show,
• 38:34
  not. So maybe it had to do with
• 38:35
  mirroring, because there's was it, I'm gonna say Chris Rossi.
• 38:41
  So you came back. It came back.
• 38:43
  Chris Fosses never split the difference.
• 38:46
  Such a good negotiating book. But I always tell people they're
• 38:49
  like, oh, fun, like Whoopi and negotiating like, no, it is red.
• 38:53
  Like, you could read all these harsh hostage scenario stories
• 38:57
  that he tells, and that's how he teaches you about negotiation.
• 39:00
  And he'll be like, OK, so in the corporate world, like he tells
• 39:03
  you this crazy story about a negotiation and like terrorists
• 39:06
  and like guns and whatever. And he's like, OK, so if you're
• 39:08
  in a boardroom meeting, you're like, wait, what?
• 39:10
  But it's so good. It's so good.
• 39:13
  Everybody should listen to it or read it.
• 39:15
  Yes, yeah, that's phenomenal. He also has a master class.
• 39:18
  If you have the master class app, he's on there.
• 39:20
  If you're not a reader, that's a that's a good one to watch slash
• 39:24
  listen to. Fun.
• 39:25
  OK, so I want to talk about like, how is that people can
• 39:29
  talk about themselves? Let's go back to the corporate
• 39:31
  person only because I think this is where there seems to be a
• 39:34
  disconnect with people really honing their personal brand and
• 39:37
  like who they are. They're like, Oh no, but I work
• 39:38
  for Aritzia. I don't need a personal brand.
• 39:41
  I already work for a brand. No, no, you yourself are the
• 39:44
  brand. So say you're just you're
• 39:46
  somebody who you know, you like what you do, will use this PR
• 39:50
  person as the example good, you know, good at PR whatever.
• 39:53
  And they're moving through life and they want to continue to
• 39:55
  propel their career. So they know that they should be
• 39:58
  out there like talking about what they do and meeting with
• 40:00
  people like in those just like generic situations.
• 40:02
  As it relates to continuing to be able to talk about yourself
• 40:06
  and what you do. How what are some just good like
• 40:10
  tips, tricks like how can people just like talk about themselves
• 40:13
  in real life or online, say LinkedIn articles, etcetera.
• 40:17
  How can we do that to continue to propel a positive personal
• 40:20
  brand? Yes, there's a lot.
• 40:23
  Oh, there's so much here and there's so many listicles online
• 40:25
  and they're honestly, a lot of them are really good.
• 40:28
  As far as rather than saying in a meeting or something, I think
• 40:32
  it just start your sentence after that, rather than I think
• 40:35
  we should start putting Gatorade in the drinking fountains, just
• 40:38
  we should start putting Gatorade in the drinking fountains.
• 40:41
  Take away anybody else's ability to doubt you when opening a door
• 40:45
  and you bump into somebody. Don't say sorry, say excuse me
• 40:49
  when you're late to something. Don't say sorry I'm late.
• 40:53
  Say thank you for your patience. It gives you a sense of
• 40:56
  authority and executive presence.
• 40:58
  So honestly, that's a great place to start.
• 41:01
  Search 10 ways to improve your executive presence and nine
• 41:04
  times out of 10, they're pretty stinking good.
• 41:07
  The other thing is, as women, we are told not to be too much.
• 41:12
  We are told not to stand out. We are told whatever.
• 41:15
  And then we're told later that we should have pulled our seat
• 41:18
  up to the table sooner. We're told that we shouldn't
• 41:23
  have worried about sounding bossy or bitchy or whatever,
• 41:27
  right. So we're told throughout our
• 41:29
  entire lives not to be too much. And I think there's a lot, a lot
• 41:33
  of unlearning that happens here. I think some of that comes from
• 41:37
  you can get an executive coach depending on what your company
• 41:42
  offers you. If you are an entrepreneur, you
• 41:46
  can hire a therapist. Therapy is great.
• 41:49
  There are there are entrepreneur specific therapists that exist
• 41:52
  out there. There's also business coaches,
• 41:55
  there's group programs. There is getting together with
• 41:57
  your besties and practicing things that you want to be
• 42:00
  better at. But how do you then self promote
• 42:03
  without feeling salty, without shying away from being too much?
• 42:07
  I think it comes down to knowing, knowing your value,
• 42:11
  knowing that you can do something better than the other
• 42:16
  person who's available to them. Again, this is corporate and for
• 42:20
  entrepreneurs as well. Is that sometimes people are
• 42:25
  going to choose the less expensive option.
• 42:27
  Oftentimes they are going to choose the option that feels
• 42:30
  most accessible to them and that doesn't always come down to
• 42:34
  price. So be expensive, be worth
• 42:38
  investing in, and that goes for your company and for you as an
• 42:43
  entrepreneur. It's such a good point, even
• 42:45
  just on that, like with regards to negotiation or how do you
• 42:49
  value yourself, like with a price, a price or dollar,
• 42:52
  whatever figure. And it's, it's so true.
• 42:55
  I think when I coach people through, I do career coaching
• 42:58
  and I, we often end up supporting them when they're
• 43:01
  negotiating and they're talking to companies, they've got the
• 43:03
  offer in hand and it's, you know, we're doing the back and
• 43:05
  forth and it's, it's so true. And I've been on the other end
• 43:08
  of the hiring where I'm the one hiring somebody.
• 43:10
  And I want the person to your point, who has the least, the
• 43:13
  path of least resistance, the person who can do the job well,
• 43:17
  the person that I can get along with, that I can train, that
• 43:21
  feels coachable. Like these are all things that
• 43:24
  people are willing to pay for when it comes down to what, at
• 43:26
  510-1520, even $1000 difference? I mean, there's pay bands often
• 43:33
  and like, if you can get the person who's going to spend way
• 43:35
  less of your time, like times money, it's a no brainer.
• 43:38
  And so I think you're right. It's like people like, oh, but
• 43:40
  what about the person is going to be what if the other person's
• 43:42
  $5000 cheaper? Really.
• 43:44
  Like are you buying a house that way?
• 43:45
  No. No, no.
• 43:46
  Are you hiring your babysitter that way?
• 43:49
  Are you hiring the timid kid who's like, I think I can change
• 43:53
  a diaper? Can you just show me one more
• 43:56
  time? Like can we do the show share,
• 43:58
  observe framework? Or.
• 44:00
  Are you going to pay twice as much for the person who walks
• 44:03
  in, looks you in the eye, shakes your hand and says absolutely?
• 44:08
  Do we also do it after bedtime or are they good for the
• 44:11
  evening? Yeah, that's asking those next
• 44:13
  level questions. So you're going to hire based on
• 44:16
  executive presence, even within your home.
• 44:18
  Of course other people are going to hire when somebody looks you
• 44:22
  in the eye and says absolutely, I can do this better than
• 44:25
  anybody else. I just love that.
• 44:28
  OK, so on that authority piece, true or false, do people need to
• 44:32
  be posting on LinkedIn or on some sort of social media
• 44:37
  subject, whatever? Like even if they're not job
• 44:40
  searching or hunting, is it like this additional thing that
• 44:43
  everybody should be doing to continue to like be top of mind
• 44:47
  in their field? Like what is?
• 44:48
  What are your thoughts on that? I feel like if you're sitting at
• 44:53
  your desk scrolling on any platform, then you should be
• 44:58
  replying on that platform as well so you can maintain a great
• 45:03
  presence on those without doing a lot of extra lifting.
• 45:07
  You don't need to sit down on the 1st of the month and plan
• 45:10
  what you're going to say on LinkedIn if you don't want to.
• 45:13
  If you haven't been in the past, sometimes it's weird when all of
• 45:17
  a sudden somebody shows up. It's like, well, I don't know,
• 45:21
  beige flag, green flag, red flag.
• 45:23
  Somebody's clearly looking for a job here.
• 45:25
  Too. Right, like you just showed up
• 45:26
  out of nowhere, but build your authority, bolster your boss,
• 45:31
  bolster the people around you by saying, Oh my gosh, I can't
• 45:34
  believe she's hosting this master class.
• 45:36
  I had to pay to listen to her at last year's conference and she's
• 45:41
  hosting this this year. Get on this.
• 45:43
  When you promote other people, a rising tide lifts all ships.
• 45:46
  So when you promote other people, you look good as well.
• 45:49
  So I would say yes and don't overthink it.
• 45:53
  Oh my gosh, I love that example too.
• 45:55
  About like, it doesn't always have to be about you.
• 45:58
  You don't need to be going on LinkedIn and being like, I wrote
• 46:00
  this like 2000 word article or like, here's an interesting
• 46:04
  thought piece from Harvard Business Review that I just read
• 46:06
  like boring. But yeah, that was the people
• 46:09
  who share or like, you know, this person I actually shared
• 46:12
  recently somebody I used to work with who I didn't even work on
• 46:15
  her team, but she was posting that she was hiring someone on
• 46:17
  her team and I reposted it. Don't even work anymore.
• 46:19
  But I was like, Hey, this is a great person to work for if
• 46:24
  you're looking and this sounds good, like you should work for
• 46:26
  her. There was 0 gain to that for me,
• 46:29
  but I was like, I, I just did it cause I was like, yeah, she's a
• 46:32
  great person. And if somebody I know had the
• 46:35
  opportunity to work for her, that's, that's amazing.
• 46:38
  And maybe it's more stuff like that, right?
• 46:39
  Like I and I just, I'm not saying I'm some sort of like
• 46:42
  Angel. I just did that the one time.
• 46:43
  But you know. But what are those?
• 46:45
  Examples of like example that we can all do to and like the the
• 46:50
  side effects are like other women look good.
• 46:53
  We're all getting more publicity.
• 46:55
  We then kind of Mary our personal brand to that person
• 46:59
  and it can be it can be anyone right.
• 47:01
  It can be alone. Amar, the US Olympian for, for
• 47:05
  the rugby team, like she's posting on LinkedIn and it's
• 47:08
  like, oh, I could kind of Co brand myself with being a
• 47:12
  powerful woman who advocates for other women by posting about her
• 47:15
  stuff. It's it's not that it's not that
• 47:20
  complicated unless you want it to be.
• 47:22
  But absolutely give yourself the grace to not be writing the 2000
• 47:27
  word think pieces twice a week. You do not do that.
• 47:30
  The people who are doing that have teams behind them.
• 47:33
  Thank you for saying that. OK, good.
• 47:36
  Even I feel better because I'm like, there's so many platforms,
• 47:39
  too many platforms. And hey, if you want to support
• 47:42
  women in this show in in this episode right here, I'd
• 47:47
  encourage you to share this episode with friend.
• 47:49
  Put it on your LinkedIn, put it on your your twitters, your
• 47:53
  exes, your threads, your Instagram, whatever.
• 47:56
  I would we would appreciate it. That would be incredible.
• 48:00
  OK, now we have. I would be remiss, we are
• 48:04
  running out of time, but we need to talk about flexible working.
• 48:07
  Yeah, absolutely. How does one create this for
• 48:12
  themselves? And one of the reasons why I was
• 48:14
  so excited to have you on the show was because so many of the
• 48:18
  people that I work with are looking for flexible work.
• 48:21
  They're parents. And they're like, yes, I almost
• 48:24
  need flexible remote work as if I was in Tahiti, but I'm
• 48:28
  actually in North Vancouver, Canada and I just want to stay
• 48:31
  in North Vancouver, Canada, but I want to pretend like I could
• 48:35
  live and work anywhere. So how do you even, how do you
• 48:39
  go, how do you go about that? And OK, I'm going to stop there.
• 48:42
  So many questions, so many questions.
• 48:43
  So, um, for the business owner, I think that's an easier
• 48:48
  example. And from those who you've seen
• 48:50
  worked with, you know, chummed along with in the corporate
• 48:54
  side, how do you see that working?
• 48:58
  I have always admired the people who do not apologize for their
• 49:03
  kids. I'll start by saying that sorry
• 49:06
  I can't, I have school pick up, sorry I can't.
• 49:09
  The kids sick, whatever. I always admire when people can
• 49:15
  just say I don't take calls until after 8:00 AM period.
• 49:20
  It is OK to state your boundary and let that be your boundary
• 49:24
  without putting it on an invisible other, right?
• 49:26
  So and the invisible other in this situation tends to often be
• 49:30
  kids. You know, it's kind of the
• 49:34
  version of like my mom says, I can't even when you were like,
• 49:36
  mom say no. That's good wine.
• 49:40
  So just be be OK with your boundaries.
• 49:43
  If somebody needs you to come in before 8, ask them if there's a
• 49:48
  like flexible childcare option or if they should come in.
• 49:51
  If you should come in at your regular time.
• 49:54
  Your boss keeps setting meetings for four.
• 49:57
  Absolutely not. If you have pick up at 4:30 and
• 49:59
  you're leaving your kid to wait, no, no, we're all working on the
• 50:05
  same time zones here. You can assert those boundaries.
• 50:09
  I know it's difficult. It varies in difficulty based on
• 50:12
  your industry and where your colleagues are.
• 50:14
  So often we're working with colleagues everywhere from Dubai
• 50:18
  to Dallas, right? Like it's all over the place,
• 50:21
  but it's OK for your boundaries to be your own.
• 50:25
  I'll start there. Beyond that, I think in your
• 50:29
  personal brand, in what you're writing to other people and
• 50:34
  about yourself. Again, this comes back to not
• 50:37
  necessarily being unapologetic, but not feeling that you have to
• 50:43
  apologize or put yourself down and also giving really realistic
• 50:48
  deadlines for yourself. It is OK to say no, I cannot
• 50:53
  have this done by 3:00 PM. I can have it done by 3:00 PM
• 50:56
  tomorrow. Let me know if you'd like me to
• 50:59
  proceed. Putting the ball back in other
• 51:02
  people's courts also helps you create those time boundaries so
• 51:06
  that it's not necessarily that you could be in Tahiti, it's
• 51:11
  that you're not freaking out today when it comes to then all
• 51:16
  of the other, like how does that meetings my experiences as an
• 51:18
  entrepreneur since 2019. So I don't know everything that
• 51:22
  has changed since 2020, but what I do with my schedule and I am
• 51:26
  my own boss is I open my calendar from 6:00 to 8:00 AM
• 51:30
  Monday through Thursday Pacific Standard Time.
• 51:33
  So I am available during most people's meeting hours.
• 51:37
  I will then get on other people's calendars if they can't
• 51:40
  fit into mine, but I still then have that control and I can
• 51:44
  close down whenever I, I say whenever I want, you know, for
• 51:50
  going out of town or being on a flight 1 day.
• 51:52
  I know that not everybody in corporate has the sorry boss
• 51:56
  just not working Tuesday, but it also allows me to do deep work
• 52:01
  and my clients understand that really well that sorry, I'm not
• 52:05
  going to meet with you after a certain time because I need to
• 52:07
  just be in the project. And you would expect me to be in
• 52:10
  your project if I swore I was blocking that day to work.
• 52:13
  So, oh, so you can frame it in that way of saying, can we shift
• 52:18
  all of these meanings to between Mondays and Wednesday mornings
• 52:20
  so that I can focus on Thursday and Friday of just doing insert
• 52:24
  task here? Yes, I just did that with a
• 52:27
  client, but it was a huge unlock.
• 52:29
  We actually had a an intro session together and it was the
• 52:33
  first thing that we like uncovered before actually
• 52:36
  officially working together in a coaching container.
• 52:38
  And that was it was one thing. It was like it was 1.
• 52:42
  She was, I think I've told the story on the podcast before, but
• 52:44
  basically she was so stressed because she was constantly
• 52:47
  feeling so time time crunched based on the fact that she was
• 52:50
  constantly in meetings. Sound familiar to anybody?
• 52:53
  And she was like, oh, what I would give to just have more
• 52:57
  time. I was like, what have you
• 52:58
  created time? What have we created a time
• 53:00
  block where you, you and your dyad partner didn't take
• 53:03
  meetings. She tried it out.
• 53:05
  She worked with her partner because they had kind of worked
• 53:06
  together and it changed the game like this one simple thing and
• 53:10
  then it condensed the meetings to be so she wasn't having to
• 53:13
  task switch between a task and then a meeting.
• 53:15
  Like the days were a little bit more, you know, front loaded
• 53:17
  with the meetings, but then she had the deep work thinking time.
• 53:20
  And something you said earlier reminded me of the fact that
• 53:23
  it's also really important to, to create those, you know, to
• 53:27
  have the boundaries, which women have a really hard time being
• 53:29
  like boundaries. It sounds so firm.
• 53:31
  It sounds so like this that it's just a word, right?
• 53:33
  It's just, you're like just the just how you do things.
• 53:37
  You can even say just how you do things.
• 53:39
  And as long as you're holding those boundaries for the
• 53:42
  day-to-day stuff, for the, when the boss wants to have that
• 53:44
  recurring meeting or for when the person's like, oh, can you
• 53:47
  hop on a zoom and you're like, no, like, I'm, I'm going out the
• 53:50
  door. If you maintain those
• 53:52
  boundaries, then you are allowed to have the energy.
• 53:57
  Like we always still have a bit of reserve energy, kind of like
• 53:59
  a little bit of room left for dessert.
• 54:01
  Then you're allowed to decide when it is that you can go above
• 54:04
  and beyond and really step up when it really matters.
• 54:07
  Because if you don't have the energy, because you were like
• 54:09
  took the call from Joe who just wanted to like ask you about an
• 54:12
  e-mail that you already sent him that was like, such a, it wasn't
• 54:16
  a good use of your time and your energy.
• 54:17
  But if you saved a little bit when your boss is like, Oh, my
• 54:20
  goodness, I'm so sorry to do this, but like, we've got to get
• 54:23
  this report out. I'm really frazzled.
• 54:25
  I don't have this. You can be like, Joe, I got
• 54:27
  this, or Sam, I got this. Yeah, I shouldn't be.
• 54:30
  I shouldn't be Using a male name as an example.
• 54:32
  Sure, it could be seeing your name.
• 54:35
  You got we're we're all Aaron. Aaron could go both ways.
• 54:39
  OK, Thank you for that. Thank you for that.
• 54:42
  Yeah. So it's like, like, save the
• 54:45
  little dessert for like when it really matters.
• 54:47
  It's not to say that you because then there's something about
• 54:49
  those people, too, who are like, I'm basically a government
• 54:52
  worker. This is my boundary.
• 54:54
  They're like too intense about it.
• 54:56
  That's also like, I've had people work for me like that who
• 54:59
  never, ever. I'm not asking, you know, for
• 55:02
  them to step up above and beyond every single day, but like they
• 55:05
  never wanted to show that like 1% extra and it's nice to hold a
• 55:10
  bit in reserve. I mean, and there's ways to put
• 55:12
  the ball in somebody else's court is to make it their
• 55:15
  decision and also make it very beneficial to them.
• 55:19
  So hey, boss, I'm feeling really stressed out recently.
• 55:24
  I've noticed that I've gone from 8:00 to 9:00 to 10 hours here
• 55:27
  every single day. I want to make sure that I can
• 55:31
  continue working here and not getting burned out.
• 55:34
  Do you think it's better for me to work 7:00 to 3:00 or 9:00 to
• 55:39
  4:00 or 9:00 to 5:00 and make it their decision in a way that
• 55:45
  benefits them? And then that way you can do
• 55:48
  either pick up or drop off or, you know, whatever, but you're
• 55:52
  still then they're still choosing for you to be there.
• 55:54
  Max of eight hours. I love that.
• 55:57
  And it's like, and if you want me to take on this next
• 56:00
  portfolio of work, what do you want me to release here?
• 56:04
  Are the other things in the hopper and the priorities, What
• 56:07
  of that? Do we need to shift elsewhere in
• 56:09
  order to make this happen if this is the priority?
• 56:11
  Yeah, that's a huge one. And then it's their decision and
• 56:15
  you didn't drop the ball. Yes, yes.
• 56:18
  Oh my goodness. I could talk to you forever.
• 56:20
  And this was so incredibly valuable.
• 56:22
  So many takeaways that are not even to do with copywriting or
• 56:26
  even personal right. Just like life and navigating
• 56:28
  work. You've definitely have those
• 56:30
  chops in the corporate world or in work in general.
• 56:34
  So thank you. I want to do a rapid fire with
• 56:36
  you. I didn't even tell you we're
• 56:37
  going to do this. OK, let's do it.
• 56:39
  Ready. Favor country you visited.
• 56:42
  Brazil. I want to go, OK, I have to stop
• 56:46
  one travel experience that profoundly impacted you.
• 56:50
  I booked a flight out of Beirut that didn't exist, so I was
• 56:54
  stranded in the Beirut airport. No.
• 56:59
  It actually turned out really well.
• 57:00
  I ended up surfing in the Mediterranean and met friends
• 57:06
  because then I like had to stay for an extra couple days and buy
• 57:09
  a flight. Made some friends that I'm still
• 57:11
  friends with today. So it was a girl wash your face
• 57:14
  moment. Like, was I absolutely crying in
• 57:16
  the airport trying to figure out if I could speak French to
• 57:19
  somebody? Yeah, but then also it worked
• 57:22
  out. Oh, what a good news story.
• 57:25
  I love that top book. We've talked about a few books,
• 57:28
  but top books That's book that has influenced your career or
• 57:32
  mindset. The four hour workweek.
• 57:36
  Ooh. Changed the game for me when I
• 57:38
  was in college and changed the way that I saw work.
• 57:41
  So I think I went into the corporate world knowing that
• 57:44
  there was a way out. Tim Ferris 4 hour work week.
• 57:48
  Love it. What is 1 non negotiable in your
• 57:51
  daily routine regardless of your location?
• 57:54
  Going for walks. And why would you say sales can
• 57:59
  actually be sexy? Because there is nothing hotter
• 58:04
  than a woman who knows what she's worth and goes and gets
• 58:07
  it. Hey, what a way to end it.
• 58:10
  OK, Sam, what are you still trying to figure out?
• 58:14
  I'm trying to figure out where I want to be a year from now,
• 58:19
  yeah. Like country wise or like a
• 58:21
  life? Yeah, I we're going through a
• 58:27
  personal life change here soon and it's like, where are we
• 58:30
  going to experience that from? So it's exciting.
• 58:33
  Love that for you and where can everybody learn more from you,
• 58:37
  find you online, all the things Where can they see your personal
• 58:40
  brand on the Internet? Yes, that right now is most
• 58:44
  present socially. On Instagram, at Nomad dot copy
• 58:47
  and on LinkedIn. I'm Samantha Burmeister.
• 58:50
  My name's hard. It'll be in the show notes.
• 58:53
  You can find mywebsite@nomadcopyagency.com.
• 58:56
  Amazing and you have a wonderful gift for the audience I.
• 58:59
  Do ahmadkapiagency.com/all figured out it'll be on the show
• 59:04
  notes. I created a custom GPT to help
• 59:07
  you create your opt in Page or landing page.
• 59:10
  So if you have something that you offer for free or very low
• 59:13
  dollar, this is the perfect place to write copywriter
• 59:16
  approved copy to make sure that thing is converting.
• 59:20
  Could they use that for like a LinkedIn bio?
• 59:24
  I would be super curious if somebody does that and tries it,
• 59:27
  message me because I would love to hear about that.
• 59:29
  Because that would be cool. Because it's like it's the same
• 59:31
  thing kind. Well, no, it's not the same
• 59:33
  thing, not at all. But it would be interesting to
• 59:35
  just see what if you were like a corporate girlie and you wanna
• 59:38
  like throw yourself in the cheap GT and see if you can like use
• 59:42
  something from it for your LinkedIn.
• 59:43
  That might be. If you can, do it, but also if
• 59:45
  you're the one hosting meetings at work, if you are the one
• 59:49
  organizing the luncheon learns like that would be a great use
• 59:52
  case for that too. OK, love that.
• 59:55
  Thank you for that. That's so generous and it's so
• 59:57
  excited to use it myself. I signed up before this.
• 59:59
  Yes. OK, Sam, I will let you go.
• 1:00:02
  I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much for man
• 1:00:05
  everything. My mind is blown.
• 1:00:07
  I'm really excited to share this with everybody.
• 1:00:09
  Awesome, stay in touch. Thank you so much for listening
• 1:00:14
  and since you made it this far, please share this episode with a
• 1:00:17
  fellow parent who you love, respect, and want to support.
• 1:00:21
  And while you're at it, hit me up on Instagram at All Figured
• 1:00:24
  Out. Andrea, I would love to meet you
• 1:00:26
  and hear what you are trying to figure out these days.