UNSUBSCRIBING.

Hi, friend. So this is a video that I've been struggling to share for quite some time, I'd say years at this point. And it could change things, it couldn't change anything, I'm not sure, but it's in my heart, in my mind, and I don't know if it's because I just celebrated a birthday, but I feel like this is the right time to talk about it. this and share it with you. That sounded really dramatic. So I'm going to start from the beginning. I actually started this channel in 2015, before that it was blogs and random family videos and demo videos from when I was a journalist, and you can scroll down the scroll hole and find all those videos.

Many of them are still there. But in 2015 I sat in front of a window in my small apartment and I had a small webcam, I was basically in my pajamas and I made a tutorial for my clients at the time, because I had a social media agency for years, and I was working completely alone and doing everything, and I thought, how could I duplicate myself? And I realized, oh, if I make a YouTube video, put it on my channel and send it to my clients, then I'm answering all their questions at the same time without doing extra work.

Bright. So I do it, I don't really have anyone subscribed to my channel, I don't actively use the channel at all, and I didn't really know what I was doing, and I share it. And I share it with my clients and the next thing I know, thousands of people see it and I get all these requests in my inbox from people who want to work with me, and that was the beginning of the craziest chapter. of my life. And that version of me is very different from who I am today. I love her, I love that version of me, but I'm sure you can relate, people evolve, and the crazy thing about YouTube and having a channel is that you really see yourself evolve and grow and grow in front of you.

I've grown a lot since 2015. That person who started this channel had just gotten out of a very unhealthy relationship, she was desperately trying to prove herself and prove her worth without even really being aware of what she was doing. She was working herself to the ground, she was clutching at straws trying to figure out what she was supposed to do and she was very addicted to staying busy, showing up and seeking validation. And again, not consciously, but very unconsciously. And as I've gotten older, as I've been in front of you, I've gone through many different stages of my life, and from that stage I went into this crazy, explosive growth in this channel and in my business. , in the first year, and imagine this, in that first year I had three million people who had seen my videos.

So imagine going from someone who was working in trucking, had this little consultancy, and I was working with my clients, and I was doing marketing and social media for years and years and years behind the scenes and I never really thought about having a brand. , or anything like that, goes from zero to three million people watching my videos in the first year. It sounds dumb, it sounds really dumb, and it was a lot. And rapid growth is a really interesting thing, it's something unique and there's no guide to how to handle it. And so, as I got older, what made me successful was experimenting and trying things, and I saw this channel as a complete experiment.

I had no expectations, which I think is how everything should be done, because experimenting on expectations leads to so much more happiness and joy. And so I said, if I made a video a week for the next year, I wondered what would happen, and what happened was the demand for my work, what I did, and how I could serve companies in terms of being a social media expert. . , and this was a long time ago, so at that time there weren't many of us. So there was a huge demand to work with me, and that led me to say, okay, clearly this is something that people need and want, and then I did my first course, and then everything just snowballed from there.

And I had all these opportunities that came my way, I got to travel the world, I've been to so many places, I've spoken on so many stages, I've done all the things I've always wanted to do. . And I know it sounds weird because I'm still relatively young and there's a lot of life ahead of me and now it's like I'm in this phase where I'm trying to figure out what's next, and I think I've figured it out. and what I've realized is that what mattered to me in those early years doesn't matter to me anymore, and I think that comes with maturity, and I think that comes with really being a seasoned entrepreneur. in this point.

Technically I've been an entrepreneur for 14 years and I've seen a lot, I've experienced a lot, I've been through a lot of different ups and downs, I've overcome them all and I'm very proud of it. that I am still an entrepreneur and that I am far beyond what I ever thought was possible for me, for my business and for my amazing team of humans, unicorns, that's what we call them, I am surrounded by the best people, and I am very grateful. And I'm in this place where I've actively unsubscribed, over the last few years, from so many things, and it's a conversation I want to have with you because I think social media has a weird way of keeping us stuck. a place and pigeonholed into one thing, and I had to navigate that in a way where I really had to figure out how to separate my value from my work and from what might externally look like success, i.e. things like vanity metrics.

And the irony of this for me is that the more I've done that, the deeper I've gone, the more I understand exactly who I'm here to serve and what my zone of genius is, and where I want to go. The more I focus, the more successful I have felt internally, but also the more successful the business has become behind the scenes. And that's what a lot of people don't see, and I think it's important to share that because I think it's very easy to assume that because someone has this massive audience that they're happy and successful and they do all the things, and we're so much further than you could ever be. be, and the truth is that if I could go back in time, I would have been much more intentional from day one.

I am very grateful for this channel, I am very grateful for the audience that I have created and I am very grateful for being here and watching this, and I also recognize that I am a little scientist at heart and I think every entrepreneur is, so I never cared really grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. I went through periods of that and I went through periods of getting more subscribers, getting more viewers. I got more followers, and that took me to such a deep level of unhappiness. I lost joy in what I was doing, I lost my purpose and I lost my direction, because I got carried away by everything and felt like I had to do it. do what everyone else was doing.

And now I'm in a place, and like I said, maybe it's because I'm getting old, where no amount of views or subscribers makes any difference to who I am as a person and my level of joy. and I've had to actively cancel the need to seek validation in that way, the need to appeal to everyone, the need to appease everyone, the need to stay in a box, the need to keep my mouth shut about things that matter. I unsubscribed from external expectations because I go back to the person who started this channel, I started this channel with no expectations and I really had to go back to that and eliminate all the things that were causing a lot of chaos for Me, who was trying to be like others people in the industry, or look at what they're doing and get caught up and say, why don't I do that?

Or should I do that? Or the shiny object syndrome that we are all victims of, and what I have realized is that the less clarity you have about your north star and where you are going, the more chaos you create for yourself, because if you don't really know who you are. and you don't really know what you want, what your intention is and what impact you want to have, you will get carried away. And precisely the reason I started this channel was the impact, and that doesn't have a number. And the more I can focus on the human being that I want to serve and that I want to present, and that I know I can have the deepest impact on, the happier I will be and the more transformation I can create for you, and I can create for the people who They really need me, and I'm not trying to stay on a superficial level appealing to everyone.

So, will I continue experimenting, testing and having fun on this channel? Absolutely, but what I'm trying to say is that maybe you're subscribing to me for a completely different reason. Maybe you subscribe to a video that has nothing to do with what I'm talking about now, and the full circle part for me is that I started my career as a journalist, and the irony is that all of my work, and my business now, is I help people use their story to create these highly transformative and impactful online course businesses. And I still feel like that journalist, and I still have that deep level of curiosity, and that's really my approach on this channel, it's an approach of self-awareness, it's an approach of really owning who you are and owning your voice, because for a long time I had no idea how to do that, and now I know what my voice is, I know what I stand for, and I know who I am.

And I think it's important to do an intuitive analysis with yourself and say: this is who I am and it's okay if we're over each other. Because I'm

unsubscribing

from a lot of things, not just YouTube, I'm

unsubscribing

from everything I mentioned above and the need for any kind of external validation, which has really been a journey over the past few years, Since I reached burnout and realized that a lot of it was because I was trying to keep up with what I thought I wanted. It was this deep-seated belief that if you weren't busy you weren't worthy or successful.

The other day someone told me, "You have the most boring business, in the best way." And I said, "I know, it's stupidly predictable and very boring, and we don't do anything crazy." There is nothing new or exciting ahead, we just stick to the main thing, and that has created this very boring, very predictable, very successful business, and the version of me that started here in 2015 never thought that was a reality or a possibility . . So my purpose in doing this is to simply reach out to you and do an intuitive review with you and say: I am beyond grateful for what I have created on this channel, I am beyond grateful that you are here and I also recognize that you may They've outdone each other, and that's okay.

And if you need permission to opt out of beliefs, thoughts, mindsets, expectations, or competition from your life, do so. And if you need permission to unsubscribe from people who may no longer be aligned with how you want to appear or serve you the way you want for yourself, that's okay too. So it's not that you need my permission, but I just wanted to share it, because it's been in my heart and on my mind for a long time, and I think it's important to really know my intention, who I am, and my intention with this channel.

It's serving on a very impactful and deep level, and that requires me to really narrow my focus and be as honest and transparent as possible with you, something I've been committed to from the beginning. And I got lost along the way, and I made mistakes along the way, and I made really dumb videos along the way that aren't totally aligned with my values ​​or who I want to be, but hey, that's part of Growing up, it turns out I grew up opposite to a camera. So I'm not going anywhere, but I'm becoming more of who I am and I'm letting go of things that no longer serve me or don't align with me, and I just wanted to share that with you because maybe This is what I need to hear today.

So are you with me? It's okay if you're not. Thanks for watching.