The deeper (life-changing) reason for building a personal brand

Do you ever get so caught up in the business in the doing in the to do lists in the obligations in there? Oh, I have to be showing up here and I need to be doing this, that you really start to feel disconnected from that deeper, why? Why you're actually doing it in the first place. I mean, maybe it's not even disconnect. You don't even it doesn't even enter your mind because you get caught up in, in the rat race, like you're that little, little hamster on the wheel just going going and going. I have definitely experienced that. And I thought it was time to use this podcast as a bit of a reset for you, for me, we can all just get back to basics and get back on track. Because I think this is so important. Welcome to the Seen, Heard, Paid Podcast, where we believe that success isn't just about what you need to do. It's about who you need to be. I'm your host, Kat Elizabeth. And each week, I'll be bringing you practical advice, honest stories and occasional dose of tough love to help you go from industry's best kept secret to in demand brand. So you not only get paid to do what you love, but can build a platform that creates meaningful, positive change, and inspires the people around you to do the same. Let's get into it. Hello, and welcome back. Thank you so much for being here. And a special thank you to everyone I've heard from recently who has been reaching out and just saying that you know that the content, the content on the podcast is really resonating, that you're on board with the on brand and that you get it because trust me when I say I was very much in my head about this, and I was like, am I being silly? Should I even put it out there. But something just told me to do it. So I did. And so when you're having those wobbles when you're questioning your entire life's work, when imposter syndrome is kicking in, I'm sure you you know, this feeling when someone something externally kind of just sends you that little ping that little validation to say you're on the right track, holy hooley, that is priceless. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for everyone who I've had a conversation with lately. Thank you so much. And it kind of leads me to what I wanted to talk about here, which kind of is really about bringing everything back to basics. Because we can get very caught up not only in our head, but in our to do list where you wake up one day and you're like, oh, my goodness, I'm just on a hamster wheel, I'm doing the same thing day in day out. Maybe some resentment or exhaustion has kicked in some frustration, bitterness, you know, there's often at some signs that things are out of alignment. And I have definitely been guilty of this. And I'm going to be talking about, I guess, a piece of this journey in an upcoming episode that I don't want to spoil right now. So I won't give away that element of it. But I guess what I've been doing lately is really going back to what is it about personal branding, that has really sort of I mean, obviously got me hooked that I decided to build a whole career around it. But why is it actually so important? Because as soon as we become disconnected from why we're doing anything, I mean, we've got problems. Because that is when we start to just kind of phone it in. It's when we start questioning whether it's actually worth all the effort. And you know, suddenly it's I mean it's like a thread like you just stopped pulling at it and the whole thing just unravels. So this was my idea of doing a bit of a reset episode, because I've been doing behind the scenes a bit of a and I've hinted at this, but a bit of a, an overarching reset of my entire business layer by layer going like what is it that I do? What is it that I want to do? How am I showing up? How am I packaging my offers, and there are a lot of shifts that are connected to that which I'm very happy to share with you during this episode. Because you know, I love being transparent. And I wanted to tie into you listening right now. Because I never want you to get so caught up in the to do list or that that feeling of obligation or pressure to show up a certain way and do certain things. And completely forget about why you're actually wanting to do this in the first place. So let's start with the why of personal branding in particular. Now some of these is going to apply even if you don't consider yourself to be a personal brand, like you're trying to build a meaningful brand for your business that is memorable, magnetic, you know, game changing, disrupting, you know, disruptive, you know what I mean? And so I don't want you to kind of switch off if you feel like this, you know, this doesn't apply. The thing with personal branding though is it gives us a deeper level of I guess benefits. So I'm going to try and sum it up and this is going to be in my words. This is my only own Kenyon and I encourage you to really question this yourself. And question why you're doing any of this in the first place? Why does personal branding mean so much to you? What does it represent to you? So first my share, when it comes down to it, actually, you know what, we'll start with a story. So, as some of you would know, my kind of professional career like the intentional one, not the day jobs I had when I was a teenager, but the first like, meaningful job that I landed, was to be in a musical in Australia called Jersie Boy's original cast. It was my ultimate dream. I was dreaming about being on Broadway someday. And then next thing, you know, I'm auditioning for this show that just happens to be getting put on by the Broadway team, like the original Broadway team. And like, fast forward, you know, seven months, five auditions, I got the role. That was my that was the ultimate that was the pinnacle. And here I am pinching myself in my early 20s. Going, I've made it where to from here. And if you have seen my video where I in on YouTube, and I'll include a link below, because I'm not going to go into all the nitty gritty details. But you've, you may have heard my story about how I had the full, full breakdown to rebuild. So obviously, that is what happened next. But with the dust having settled all these years later, let's not talk about how many years later, it's so much easier to look back in and see see what went wrong, see why I was so unhappy. And why the ultimate dream that I'd had achieved that should have provided all of this, you know, fulfillment, satisfaction, excitement and set me on a particular trajectory, like the trajectory I was on, while I was doing those those musicals back then was to keep going down the track of eventually being a leading lady in Australian musical theater. And that is what I visualized. But I was hit with a very harsh reality check when I got into this first show. And it didn't, it didn't go away, because I saw that this is just the industry. And essentially what I realized is as long as I was just little old's Kat, or I was going by Katherine at the time, doing the shows, and I was just another number like I had, I didn't have I wasn't a draw card like I was I was nobody I just did apparently that they thought I was the best fit for the role at the time. Okay. Once I was in the show actually was even before the show, it was from the very first point of negotiating the contract. Like before I was even made the offer, the producers made it very clear that I had no negotiating power. And that was heartbreaking. Because on what should have been the happiest moment of my life, up till that point, let's be honest, I was reminded that, yep, like this has been given to me but it can just as easily be taken away. And if I have a problem with any of the conditions of the contract, there is like a line of girls out the door around the block all the way down to the next town, that would happily take my place in a show, and probably do it for less money. So that was a wake up call for little I think I was 21 at the time, 21 year old Kat, who had this role this job on a pedestal and thought, Okay, this is going to change my entire life. And what I realized is it can, but it was putting too much weight on it. And I think everyone puts too much weight on it. Like that's the thing you realize, once you're in a show, I observed other people where they landed the big role, like the life changing role where they were going to star in something. And then next thing you know, they're unemployed, struggling to get into the next show. So you feel very replaceable, and you feel like everything is temporary. Now, I didn't understand the significance of that when I was in it, of course, because we really do. Fast forward years later. And what I can see is I I wasn't an asset, like they did not see me as being someone where they were irreplaceable. They were just like, yep, another number fits the, you know, does the role nicely right now, but if anything changes, if we're not happy with her performance, then we can just like kick her out and get someone else in. I had no personal brand, I was a nobody. And being in that position, and it kind of fast forward and the exact same thing happened while I was in Vancouver. And despite having done so much hard work, being you know, a professional actor in Australia when I landed in Vancouver and started auditioning again, I was auditioning from the ground up once again, I was in a room with you know, 20 a waiting room with you know, 19 other people because often they don't see like 20 people for the role. All looks completely different. And I knew that like we just don't churn in one after the other to fill this very small role and it was just whoever kind of made them feel Like, oh, yeah, this is the most believable in the moment. Like, I believe you're a cop, I believe you're a reporter. Yep, I believe you is waiter number two. So that was really upsetting as well, because I thought I'd come all this way. And then I felt like I was back to square where again, and I guess this is where the whole, like personal branding thing really drilled in is that I saw that outside of that audition room with what I was doing with my own business, having, you know, with the YouTube channel, having my podcast, you know, building my email list and you know, kind of making a name for myself in personal branding, I started to feel like I had leverage, I felt like I was somebody, people wanted to choose me over other people. Like, I was not just in a lineup of 20 personal branding coaches. And look, I'll be honest, sometimes that happens, I can tell people are reaching out. And they're just doing a whole bunch of research. And I'm just one, you know, one in a million. And I this sounds I don't know if this you don't judge me for this. But often I won't hop on a call with someone if they're like, Oh, can we hop on a call? And you can tell me why you know why I should work with you. I'm not going to tell you that because I want you to decide for yourself. And so usually I'll send them a link to my podcast and go have a listen, does this resonate? If it doesn't, I'm not the person for you. Because I don't I'm not here to be competing with other people. I'm just here being me, trusting that the work that I'm putting out into the world means the right people are going to find me and the wrong people will slip away. And this is the beauty of of personal branding, I'm taking a very long time to get to the point. But bear with me. We all love a good story, don't we these days, what I have realized what personal branding has allowed me to do, when I'm not getting caught up in the to do list and getting all stressed out and feeling like I've just created another day job for myself. Building this personal brand for myself, has given me freedom to choose. It has given me the ability to say yes to something or say no to something based on what I want to do. I don't feel like I'm owned by somebody else. I don't feel like powerless. So that you know, if I say no to this, my career is over. I know that saying no. Just make space for the next Yes. But until you have that brand until you have established yourself in some way, it's really difficult to do that. And that was reflected like my year, I refer to my year of yes, as a copywriter. And most of us go through this there is a period where you do need to just say yes, a lot of the time. And you know, there is a chance that if you say no to this thing, it could be a while before the next opportunity pops around. But that's just for a period as you're kind of earning your stripes. But as as you track along and start to really establish yourself. And when I say establish, I'm not talking about the size of your following. That's almost like a by product. I mean, it is a by product of you just showing up and being you what has really made the difference is where people know you for what you do for who you are. They understand your unique point of difference. They have become attached to you and the way you show up knowing that there's no one else like you. Because you know, when we're just shopping around, it can look like there is you know, here people are looking for personal branding coaches, I'm betting a lot of what you see on our website looks pretty similar. You know, if you have like, the top, you know, eight results of Google open, you're gonna see me and a whole bunch of other people talking about really similar things. Yes, there'll be a spin on it. But that's, it's not enough for you to necessarily know which one like sometimes you got will tell you but other times you're like, oh, wow, it's so much of a muchness I guess, I guess I'll go look at their pricing, I guess I'll look at their availability, and you're looking at all these other things. However, someone that finds me elsewhere first and connects with me on a podcast or sees my video or is looking following me on Instagram, and starts to build this connection with me. Then suddenly, my website is just almost like it seals the deal. Like they just gonna look at that and go okay, yep, great. That's what I was looking for. Instead of me being in that lineup. So, circling all the way back around to the why we're actually doing this day jobs, whether it's a day job, whether it's you being a freelancer having a small business, like it actually doesn't matter, because again, like, you wouldn't think it but you know, being in musical theater was a day job for me. But you know, for a lot of people, they're like, Oh my gosh, you are living the dream. The fact is, all of those things can lead to us feeling powerless, feeling like we have no actual choice in the matter. You know, I would get told Okay, we've got a media call at CHANNEL SEVEN at 7am. On Tuesday morning. You'd better be outside the theater at 645 with makeup on. Do you think I got to say oh, I'm actually really tired I need to sleep in. No, of course not. It was my job to just show up. It was in the darn contract. Now we are the have responsibilities to our clients. So what I'm not saying is like, Oh, we just get to sleep in and do whatever the hell we want every single day. But I am saying that, you know, if you are someone that knows, early mornings don't work with you, and you want to have a nice, leisurely morning and start your day at 10am. You know, building this personal brand and building your own business means you get to do that. Yes, you do. I know the excuses are but but but coming up, you actually do. And if we believe we, like we don't have that ability, and like, oh, if I, if I don't, if I change the rules, if I change my working hours, I'm going to lose all my clients. It's like, okay, you might might lose the ones who have certain expectations of you right now. But if if you have these expectations in place these boundaries in place today, and you attract new people in and say, This is how I work, trust me, if they want to work with you, they will work in with that, it will work. So choice, freedom, and just feeling like okay, like I can say no, and it's all good. I'm going to say yes to the things that light me up, I'm going to design my week, the way I want to do it. And another one, which I've talked about a very long time ago, but I'll say again, the freedom to pivot and evolve. As long as you get hired to do a specific role that fits in a very rigid mold. You can be evolving as a human being, but have to keep kind of squishing yourself to fit into that old mold. But as you build a personal brand, people are so much less attached to the way you show up in what container. And it's actually about them just wanting your help in some way. You know, I had people that followed me when I was teaching the makeup you know, I had the makeup course, that ended up becoming clients of mine when I had the personal branding, because they decided that they loved learning from me full stop. And they saw value in everything that I was teaching, which is so crazy and so cool. So you can see that like when when we have those restrictions lifted of feeling like oh, no, everyone expects this of me, I have to just keep showing up and doing this. Well as humans, we are going to evolve, things are going to change about you and about your circumstances. Don't you want to feel like when that happens, you're just able to go with the flow, trust your instincts and make those shifts. You don't want to offer that anymore. But you want to do this instead, being able to do it and not feeling panicked about how am I going to explain this and people are going to hate me and they're going to they're going to unfollow me. And also that feeling of knowing, you know, when you when you are kind of established, I used to get so much anxiety, over unsubscribes. Anxiety is probably the wrong word, but it would hurt, it would cut me deep. And look, I still look, I'm not gonna lie to you, I still look at how many people are unsubscribing. And I'll look at the list and just kind of scan it for people I know. I'm so embarrassing this, but you know what it is what it is. And I feel like most of us do that eventually, you get to that point, probably there's enough numbers that you just stopped even caring. I'm just I find it kind of fascinating. But these days I celebrate, I actually celebrate the unsubscribes because they're great, that's one less person or that's 30 less people on my list who have no interest in my message. But this doesn't come until we have confidence in our message. In what we represent. When you're feeling insecure about how you're showing up, you haven't really not like you don't know how to present yourself, you know, then every single unsubscribe feels more like an attack, it feels more like a sign that you don't know what you're doing. But if you can kind of really dig your heels in and go, this is how I'm going to show up in the world. This is what I represent. These are the kinds of people that I want to work with. This is why I do what I do. And you get really clear on it and you start sharing that really clearly with your audience. The people that unfollow you go great, that means whatever I just shared did not resonate with them. And they have decided they're not the right fit for me. Fantastic. Because who wants to work with people that are the wrong fit for you? Like it doesn't even make any sense. So I guess what I want to put to you now is to really just encourage you to slow down for a moment. Whatever you're doing right now, if you can go grab a, you know, you can pause if you want or you can just finish listening, let's finish listening, you can go do this later, but I want you to pull out a journal and I want you to actually just do a little brain dump. And say why was I drawn to doing what I do in the first place? And so when I say that, I mean like why entrepreneurship if that's what you're doing, why the industry that you have chosen and and just kind of getting clear on that why but then now I also want you to connect to Okay, so what would building this impactful brand mean for me in the future? Okay, because what we forget and you know, I think sometimes we remember certain things and we just forget other things. This freedom of choice, this confidence in how you're showing up. But here is the byproduct of that which is so exciting, like you are going to increase how many people want to work with you. Okay, you are going to get those like, I had one yesterday that just I was like, Yes, this is so cool. I don't think I'll ever fully get over it where someone pops into your inbox and says, Hey, we have this thing that we're thinking about, would you be interested in being the person to work with us on this, and you just got, oh, my gosh, they chose me, out of all the other people that they could have chosen, they want me and that feels so good. The money, let's be honest, when you make good money, the world changes your world, the people around you, and also the people that you want to help. Again, I'm going to be speaking with someone amazing on the podcast in a few weeks. She is the CEO of an organization that I have officially partnered with, at the personal branding project. And we we talk a lot about this kind of impact and having a mission that's bigger than you are, you know, when I got off track, spoiling the episode I said that I wasn't going to do but it's only a tiny part of it. But you know, I, when when you're kind of caught up in all of the all of the busy-ness, a lot of the time we just get very focused on I just need to survive, I just need to make this much money. And and even if you're looking beyond that, it's usually just about what you could do for yourself. But when's the last time you stopped to think about what would be possible? If you doubled how much you earn? or tripled, or quadrupled? What else would change? So looking beyond being able to save for a house or for holidays? and treat yourself to those kinds of things? How could you help the people around you? What movements would you support? You know, the fact is money. And we've kind of got I don't want to say unfortunately, like we created money as a tool to, you know, make the world a better place essentially, I'm sure everyone had very different motivations behind it when we first created it. But the fact is, it is what it is money is here now, it is what makes the world go around. And people without money are very limited. And people with money have choice, which again, comes back to why we're actually building a personal brand to create choice to create opportunities. So really question that for yourself, what would bringing in this extra revenue actually mean for me, for me, my loved ones, you know, my family, for my business, for people in other countries that I want to help, you know, and that can really help bring us back to basics in the right way as well. Because suddenly, the money isn't just about you. You know, it's not just about your your ego, it's not just about survival, you start to see money as a way of making leaving a legacy and having a much bigger impact. And then think about the the people like having this brand could start to connect you with people that you never dreamed of connecting with, and having opportunities land on your lap that you didn't even think were possible. Believe it or not, we are often dreaming way smaller than we realize. Even our big dream often is tiny compared to what we are capable of. And I had a another shot like a little bit of a wake up call last week where I ended up chatting to my old coach because I was having a bit of a moment, I was having the wobbles. And I might actually have a full episode on this as well. But it's too much for today. But I realized that I got so caught up in the immediate goals that I've set for myself, the ones that are in my project management system, that I lost sight of the really the big, scary goals. And I've almost been hiding from them. And then when once I realized that something kind of shifted, and I just realized, oh, okay, like it's time to stop playing small. And it also made me think about you, yes, you listening to this, and how you're probably doing exactly the same. And that's why I want to talk more about this moving forward. Because this this strategy piece is getting seen heard paid is important. But I want to, I want it to be connected to something big and almost terrifying to you of what you think you could maybe be capable of and what you know, I want you to dare to actually write down on that piece of paper or that journal that I told you to get out not just why you first got into this, but now let's look deeper and go, Okay, what is the most exciting and yet terrifying thing that you will want to do with your life? And what is stopping you from doing it. There's something magical that happens once you realize what you are capable of and how you know some of these basic strategy things. They're not just leading to landing cool clients into you know, I don't know building a business, but it could potentially be connecting with you with that bigger picture dream. So anyways, this is this has been a big one but I hope I hope the message I guess is is clear enough in that I want you to connect back to your why and remember this personal branding thing is not just it's not just about followers, it's not about having a pretty website like, honestly, I couldn't care less, as much as I love pretty websites. If you're just doing it for the sake of it, then I don't, I don't want you even doing it. I want you to intentionally move forward now and know that every single time you post something, every time you hit live or publish, you know, every time you send that email, you are getting one step closer to not only becoming that go to expert, but really giving yourself the freedom to choose to do whatever the hell you like, with your life. As big as that sounds. Now, if you disagree, I'm open to discussion. Feel free to send me a DM and be like Kat, this is too much like, yeah, it's getting too big. But also encourage you to think if that scares you, if what I'm saying is, is almost triggering you, is it because there is some truth to it? Are you hiding from from something bigger that scares you? Now, one final thing of bringing it back to basics is I had another like one of my embarrassing moments where someone reaches out and it's like, you know, really happy to be connected with you. I don't, I don't exactly know what you do, I need to figure that out. And I just go, oh, gosh, I'm clearly overdue for talking about what I actually do, which I, you know, till I'm blue in the face will tell my clients like you need to talk about what you do make it easy for people to work with you. And clearly I am dropping the ball on this one. So if you are still listening, and you are wondering, I guess how I help people these days, because it has shifted recently, I'm going to give you a very like the the 6o second summary... My signature offerings at the moment is Seen Heard Paid Academy. So this is where I pull my entire brand strategy framework into one place, and give you 12 months of coaching support as well with an amazing community of like minded sort of personal brands. So any sort of expert business, in that, you know, in the service space, some some product as well, but really there it's about people who have personal brands, the doors are not open right now. But I'm going to be doing a little pre launch event in a couple of weeks. So keep an eye out for that if you're on my email list, you'll hear about it and there'll be the option to enroll early at a special price. Otherwise, the doors officially will be opening to that in September. I've also been releasing these this new series of mini courses, experts status content, expert status emails, and I've got one coming out on storytelling and one on websites in the next month or so this is just to give you the chance to have sort of a self paced experience with one of a framework that I've developed for these particular areas to just really help you see immediate results, you know, get out of your own head, get unstuck, start creating better content that connects with your ideal client and and you know, just add one of those pieces to your toolkit that's going to establish you as that go to expert in your niche and include links to all of those. And again, in this pre launch event, I'm going to be doing a special bundle offer as well where you can get access to all of them. One on one. And the ways that I work with people are either in a coaching capacity. So that is where there's a there's a bit of strategy, there's the mindset, there's me sort of going through your business with a bit of a fine tooth comb, and just filling in any gaps. You know, you might be developing a new offering, I can help you with that you might be wanting to increase your visibility land, you know, podcast interviews, it's a four month intensive and you would be blown away at how much we can achieve in that time. I'm going to get some clients to come on the podcast soon and kind of talk about what we were able to do. But we're talking like raising prices, streamline your offers, you know, overhaul your website, so it's much clearer get clear on your content strategy, you know, land you some guest expert type opportunities, start tracking those numbers. So you can actually see that you are increasing your revenue, the list goes on. Again, I'll include links and then a final way, strategy intensives. So this is where if you just want me to come in with my own sort of like expert opinions and my background in branding, marketing copywriting, we can sit down and work on anything in sort of the either the brand marketing or sales space to really help you hone in your messaging, map out your content strategy, build a sales funnel, you know, the list goes on. It's kind of like a menu item style. And these are very intensive and you walk away with a strategy like we work face to face and then I build a strategy document and I hand it over to you. So you've got something tangible. There's no hand holding, there's no coaching. It's like, okay, off you go, go implement. So I'm trusting that you, you know, you have a team to implement or I can give you suggestions on contractors to work with. So these are the ways that I'm working right now. It's subject to change, but this is what it will probably be for the rest of 2021. So if you ever have any questions and also if you're not sure you're like, I know I need your help. I'm feeling called to work with you, but I don't know what To do, I would suggest like filling out an application form on either my coaching page or the strategy page to tell me more about where you're at, then we can hop on a call, and we can figure out the next steps like, we can actually kind of come up with a bit of a roadmap of what you need to be doing next, to hit, whatever your next level is, whatever that next goal is. So that'll do for now. Um, check the show notes for all of the links. But everything that I'm doing right now is also just list is on my website. So personal branding project.co. And you can find it, or you can find me on Instagram @iamkatelizabeth, and we can just talk it out. I'm all for a good little voice message session. I promise I don't bite. So I'm going to stop at that. But I hope this was helpful. And can you do me a favor? Like if this did resonate with you and you went away? And you did that journaling work and kind of got clear on your why can you share it with me, I would love it like whether you want to share it on, you know, Instagram stories and tag me send me a DM send me an email. It doesn't have to be public. But I would just love to know that this helped. And that it kind of nudged you in the right direction of, of really sitting down and doing this work and getting clear on on your WHY? and really understanding why you're putting all the effort into building your brand so that it's going to help you achieve that. That big picture of vision for your life and your business. So with no, I was gonna say with no further ado, well, we're actually done with normal rambling for me. Thanks as always for listening. And I'm excited next week we kick off the the impact series and I've got some amazing guest experts that are gonna come in and talk about the different kinds of impact we can be creating cannot wait. Look forward to being in your ears next week and have a wonderful week ahead. Bye for now.