April 21, 2025 • 29 mins
Helping Ordinary Women Build Extraordinary Businesses, Brands, and Lives They Love While Unpacking Their Inner SHEEO with Episodes Enriching Your Mindset, Wealth, and Faith Factor
VISIT: RachelMedina.com or SHEEOX.com
FOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA: @RachelMedina101
PLUS: Listen to founders and experts share their entrepreneurial journey on bonus episodes featuring awe inspiring guests
Rachel Medina is an Entrepreneur, TEDx Speaker, Christianpreneur, Mommypreneur and an ordinary woman who ditched the C-suite for the SHE-suite by tapping into the new and exciting laptop lifestyle in the SHEconemy, and who built multiple businesses from home, after divorce, as a single mother over 40!
The Rachel Unpacked Podcast is here to help you avoid common mistakes by learning the lessons she learned along the way! Whether you're a corporate baddie wanting to ditch the grind or a single momma ready to learn a new money making skillset from home, the Rachel Unpacked podcast is for you.
Access resources mentioned on this show here www.rachelmedina.com or at SHEEOX.com
As seen on: TEDx , Wharton School of Business, The Christian Channel, LATV's Get It Girl, Rompiendo El Silencio, David Meltzer's Playbook IG-LIVE, StartEmpire Wire Podcast, Jackie Hernandez Live, Canvas Rebel Magazine, SDvoyager Magazine, Keynote Women's Leadership Conference, to name a few
RACHEL UNPACKED, RACHEL MEDINA, SHEEO, SHEEOx, SHE,EOO,OOO
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to another episode of the Rachel Unpacked podcast.
I am your host Rachel Medina andin every episode we talk about
mindset, wealth, building and faith for every girlie who is
looking to change and level up her life.
If you want to follow me on social media, you can do so at
Rachel Medina 101 or visit my website rachelmedina.com.
But if you are ready to build a business in a life that you
(00:23):
love, head on over to our new She eox.com site again She EO
x.com where you are going to find a tribe of like minded
business building, dream aspiring girlies just like you.
Connecting, learning and growingtogether.
And a new CEO X Partnership program means we attract the
(00:43):
talented, experienced and successful women who are ready
to teach you how they did it so that you can succeed too.
Let's go is thought leadership dead Well, I'm here to sound the
alarm on this episode because ofsome of the things that I have
been seeing on the Internet, butmore than what I have been
seeing because I'm not a big doom scroller unless it's
(01:06):
something like TikTok or you know late at night or something
like that. I will post because that is we
got to show up you guys, we got to show up in the world for a
personal brand, our, our business brand.
But I really, really try my hardest to limit the doom
scrolling. However, I decided to do this
episode because of the, the number of people in my circles
(01:28):
that have forwarded me things atthis point and said, what is
this? Who is this?
How is it that they're doing this and questioning everything?
Plus this topic came up quite a bit because of individuals that
I interview are in fact the realdeal.
Like these women have accomplished some really
phenomenal things. And like I like to say since
(01:50):
season 1, you know, women that are going from ordinary to
extraordinary, right? That's what really we look for,
for someone who's going to be onthe Rachel Unpack podcast and
that includes women that might be going into thought
leadership. And I myself have been
interviewed by individuals who consider themselves thought
leaders. So you might be asking that, OK,
(02:11):
then what's a thought leader? So basically think in terms of
like Ed Milette, I'm going to use him as an example because
he's pretty well-rounded, although he has stepped away
from the limelight at this pointdue to health reasons and really
prioritizing his health and family and and Wellness at this
time. And so he's really just gone,
like he just hasn't been showingup and, and a lot of people miss
(02:34):
him very dearly. But I'm here to say this.
He is a perfect example of like a well-rounded thought leader
because he built a business. So he, you know, hustled his way
through entrepreneurship when hewas very young.
He aligned with, you know, Tony Robbins, who is a thought
leader. He's really sort of like the
(02:56):
kingpin of them all in a, in a, in a, in a, in a grand scale of
things. But there's different variations
of this. And the reason I'm using and my
light as an example is because Ithink he's the most relatable.
I think that Tony Robbins is like, let's just say like a Kim
Kardashian, like we all know whothe person is, but the, the
relatability shifts is, is different, right?
And, and my light if and if you haven't heard of him, please go
(03:17):
go check him out because he's, he's pretty wonderful on.
You can still see all of his content online and previous
things and books and things likethat.
But the reason I say he's a, he's a true thought leader and
well-rounded is because he was first and foremost an
entrepreneur. So he got into the space,
hustling his way, got into sales, I believe he got into
financial services or life insurance or something like that
(03:40):
and, and build his way up and built his team and everything.
But he built a business like he was living in an apartment in
Chino, CA, maybe Chino Hills, whatever, Chino, Chino, Chino,
right, California. And from there he did these
amazing things where he would like go to the coast of Laguna
Beach and and say one day I'm going to be living in one of
(04:03):
these houses. And so he is us.
That's why I wanted to use him as an example.
He is you. He is, he is me like he, he is
so many of us that did not, we're not born into wealth and
we're not handed a silver spoon.There was no like generational
wealth transfer, you know, inheriting houses and, and you
know, trust funds or, or stocks and bonds or anything like that,
(04:25):
right? He built it from the beginning,
middle and end. And he learned sales, he started
to sell whatever he was selling,got into life insurance, really
built himself up there, built his team, built his company and
just started making a lot of money and built up his quality
of life and his his lifestyle all along.
(04:45):
By the way, putting God first and, and maintaining his faith
factor and all of that. Then from there, leveraging for
his own personal brand. Because everything he did prior
was like his company, right? Like it wasn't like you knew
about him on social media or about his company.
It was just his company and whatever marketing his company
did. That's fine.
(05:05):
I don't know that he was necessarily like the face,
although he probably was internally to his, to the, the
employees and the peers. And then there comes this thing
of like your personal brand ID, the power of having your
personal brand. Tony Robbins has a strong
personal brand. So here comes Ed Mylet starting
to build his personal brand, showing up on social media,
sharing talking head videos. It's just where the camera is
(05:28):
vertical and and tight and just focused on the individual
talking. And he's starting to share, you
know, insights about sales and mindset and hustle and making
money and building a business. So he's able to sort of lend
this mindset perspective, whether you're at Ground Zero
and trying to go from zero to hero or you are the business
(05:49):
owner, you know, trying to buildand scale and hire and fail
forward and then get back up and, you know, work in your
business versus on your business.
And he's talked about a lot of these maxing out and all these
different things. And so in that he gained a lot
of traction and he gained popularity.
And then he wrote a book and it did really well.
(06:09):
And then he wrote another book. And then here comes notoriety.
OK, so there's like first is like popularity because you
know, you show up enough on social media organically that
you've been cut. You start to build a following
and you become sort of you get popularity and then you do
things that get noticed, OK, that are notable, like a best
(06:31):
selling book or something like that.
And then you begin to be deemed with or given notoriety and
viewed as with notoriety. And then with notoriety comes
invitations to speak at reputable conferences and not
just for free, for example, likefor pay.
And it's like serious money. And it could be worldwide.
(06:53):
And then you might get invited by corporations to come in and
speak to teams inside of corporations.
You might be paid 6 figures and,you know, high 6 figures, low,
mid and high 6 figures to be a corporate trainer.
So there's all of these levels to this, right?
So nonetheless, that is a thought leader, people that are
(07:15):
leading the way in their way of thinking because there's not a
lot of original thought, but there's a lot of ways to
communicate those thoughts and he has done a phenomenal job at
that. In that regard.
We could also look at Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, right?
He has done a wonderful job. He's also, you know, really,
(07:38):
really he's like the kingpin of leveraging social media and
basically at giving away value on his social media, building a
popularity on social media because hey, this guy is a
wealth of information. What does that mean?
His thoughts have value to thosewho hear them and receive them.
(07:58):
So he becomes a thought leader because the thoughts make sense
in the way that he's communicating them.
And he's communicating thoughts around, you know, being young
and aspirational and what it means to feel like you're
wasting your time or you're running out of time in your 20s.
And he says stop being effing ridiculous.
Like, you know, most people don't even make it to their 40s
(08:20):
and like, and really, again, really communicating the these
thoughts that that resonate withmany people.
Making him popular on social media.
Great, gaining popularity and then writing a best selling book
and then being invited to speak on stages and sometimes not in
that order. Sometimes I think in the case of
(08:40):
Gary Vee, the popularity came and then he was invited to
speak. I know that I worked at a
conference in Las Vegas where weinvited him to come speak for a
hefty feed. And it was very inspirational
for me to see what that fee was and, and the process of his
writer and all that. And I've talked about it in in
the past. But all of that to say, why did
(09:01):
people care? Like why were his thoughts so
well crafted and so were so wellformulated and communicated?
Because he first and foremost was you and I and built a
business from the ground up personally.
His mother and father had a little wine store in New Jersey
or something like that. And then he was this, you know,
(09:24):
adult male. That was like aging out, you
know, I think living with his parents, working at the parents
wine shop. And he admittedly says he felt
somewhat like a loser because hewasn't doing his own thing.
He was working for his mom and dad at this little wine store
and he was approaching 30 or I think he was 30 doing it.
(09:44):
And he decided, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to do
something with this free marketing tool called YouTube.
OK. And he started making YouTube
videos where he's comparing the wine that they're carrying in
the wine shop. And he's sort of pitting the
wines against each other. And the parents were really
concerned about this because they were saying they didn't
(10:05):
want their vendors or wine vendors to, to, to drop them or
be upset by this whole thing. And, and anyways, it turned out
to be gold because if anybody was looking to gift a bottle of
wine to somebody, buy wine, invest in wine, whatever the
case may be, event planners and everybody started watching
Gary's reviews, right, of these wines and he was making them
(10:26):
very entertaining. And he's kind of yelling at the
camera in some aspects and the lighting's bad and the audio's
not great, but he's showing up and he's being and he's being
authentic. And my let showed up authentic.
Tony Robbins showed up authentic.
Talking about their struggles from zero to hero, like they've
been where we are, OK, They've been where you are and they've
(10:48):
been where I went. They didn't marry someone that's
been where you are and then observe it and then build a
whole brand around it. No, OK, that's not a dig on
people who have, But there's a lot of that going on on the
female side as well. What they did was go through it.
They got scraped up, they lost their money or had no money, had
(11:10):
to figure it out, stressed about, you know, maybe they had
a wife. Whatever the case may be, they
have been through the the worst of the worst of the worst of the
trenches and crack the code on how to get up and out.
OK. And then the way they
communicate their success, building within their own lives,
mindset development relationships, building skills
(11:33):
like financial, building skills,building blocks, you know, and
then building the business, the business frameworks like all of
these things, hiring and firing,scaling, marketing, sales,
packaging, distribution operations like these thought
leaders are essentially like tried and true proven.
(11:56):
OK, the proof is in the pudding.And then they come forward on
social media and share all that they know and they're not
necessarily selling. So when Adam Allette showed up
on social media, he wasn't selling anything.
He was giving value, value and and Tony was doing it
differently because Tony is the OG.
So he came in the form of like infomercials and stuff like
that, right? And then you'd watch him and be
(12:18):
like, wow, this is amazing. Or somebody would tell you about
a conference he was doing in town.
And then people were like, well,this is this is fantastic.
Never heard this before with social media is different.
Everybody's waking up and sayingI'm a thought leader and they
think that because they see the videos and they're like, oh, I
know how to film a video like that.
Oh, I can buy a podcast mic and I could sit there and I could do
(12:40):
that and do videos like that. And I've, I've read 30 books and
I can regurgitate some of these thought processes that, my dear,
is not the same. Oh, let me tell you that is not
the same. OK, So beware of these things.
(13:02):
There are individuals and and listen, I am the first one to
say decide. Visualize who you want to be in
the like. Visualize the life you want,
reverse engineering it. Decide what it's going to take
to get there. Decide what character you want
to play. Like, who do you want to be?
You want to be a realtor, You want to be an accountant.
Like, who do you want to be in this world stage that you're
(13:22):
creating in your mind about yourself, right?
And it might very well be thought leader, but also go do
something meaningful. Go, go, go do the work to become
the thing that has earned the right to be respected.
OK. And I mean, I guess respect
(13:43):
isn't a right, but you know whatI mean.
It's like, go, go, do the work. But nowadays, people are
skipping the work. Think of what is happening today
by people who are just popping up, people who are paying to be
featured in magazines, people who are paying no name
publishers to be in a chapter ofa book that was sold on Amazon
(14:08):
at, you know, 3:00 PM, where allthe people who bought into that
book are told to buy the book atthis exact time.
You know, for a dollar or $5 in this category that nobody's
going to be paying attention to a book in that category.
And then go tell ten of your friends to do the same thing so
that the book will go to number one.
OK, This is what these some of these people do.
(14:29):
The book that no one has ever heard of it, no one's going to
hear about, goes to number one. And then there's like a
screenshot. Everybody take a screenshot
while it says #1 best selling book.
And then go put it on your social media and tell every the
the 500 people that follow you that you are an author or that
you are published in a best selling book.
(14:50):
It is absolute trickery. OK, It is tomfoolery.
It is cosplay. I'm dedicating this episode for
you to know the difference, to say the fakes are the fakes are
the fakes. Because if you're going to go to
a conference or an event or you're going to, you know, buy
something from someone, you know, you're going to want to at
(15:11):
least understand is the media featuring them legitimately for
the the media is an interesting thing because I know that a lot
of people are losing trust in the media.
But if somebody gets featured inan article because the media
reached out to them, then you know what?
Like, oh, that's so interesting,That's amazing.
(15:33):
Versus no one's reaching out to this person.
No one's reaching out. No one reached out to them.
They're buying it so that they can pretend like the media is
reaching out to them, so they can pretend like what they're
saying and who they are is of value to someone.
And there are people that I don't want to say names that
(15:56):
are, that are well known at thispoint that you can just look up
and realize that maybe they rented the car and maybe they,
you know, they, you know, borrowed the money to run the
ads and to to do the fake it to make it and it worked.
And they're still around to thisday.
To each their own. To each their own.
I understand. And if that's the route you want
(16:16):
to take, I just want you to knowthe difference.
So if you're a person who valuesauthenticity, if you're a person
who genuinely wants to learn frameworks, mindset, and you
want to learn from someone who'sbeen there, truly been there,
truly done that, truly failed forward, truly built the
(16:39):
business, hired the people, trained the people, scaled the
marketing, like truly did these things and had success, OK,
Whether they were able to maintain it or not, by the way,
that part of it is actually not as relative that that's not as
relevant. And the reason I'm saying that
is, for example, every millionaire I've ever met has
(17:02):
built it, lost it, rebuilt it, lost it and built it.
So when I meet millionaires, I ask them what round are they on?
And I have met several that are on their second round.
And I've met quite a few actually that are on their third
round. And then I'll say, tell me about
the time that you before you were wealthy, like when you made
(17:23):
your first million. That's usually the question I
ask. And then I'll say, OK, when you
lost it, what was it like? What was like, Like, why did you
lose it? Like, what it what mistakes did
you make? Like, what part was your part?
Right. And they're so humble in it.
Like, there's so much humility in that type of conversation.
And none of them hide it. They none of them sugarcoat it.
Oh my God, I was an absolute idiot.
(17:44):
It with the money like I went and bought this and I did that
and I was giving everybody and my family money and I was doing
whatever and I was blowing it onda da da and then next thing you
know, I didn't anticipate this dip in you know this dip in the
market or that this particular product we were creating was
going to go away and I lost it but see when you start over
again here's the one thing nobody's starting over from zero
(18:06):
because you have that experienceand you have that mindset and
you have that your brain chemistry is just totally
different. So it's not when you're starting
over from scratch, hypothetically, it's kind of
like not from scratch because you have that sort of MBA
experience, you know, winning and losing in that other, in
that other business. And, and, and, and that's
valuable. You guys, that is so valuable.
(18:28):
If you're going to hire a coach,a trainer, if you're going to
hire a mentor, if you're going to go to a conference and listen
to someone speak on stage, thosethings matter.
Do not convince yourself that they don't matter because the
person is just so nice or because they read a bunch of
books and they see and they makesense.
You know, don't don't do that because they're just going to be
selling you. They're just going to be
reselling you. Repurpose things.
(18:49):
That's like just go to the original person's book that they
read it and go follow that person.
And here's what's happening by way of conferences.
OK, I've described what you're going to see on social media by
way of the fakery, buying the fake articles, buying the fake,
you know, magazine features, buying, you know, the fake.
(19:12):
I'm published in a book. All of that being fake.
Some of these people even buyingads fake.
OK, I'm going to tell you what'shappening in the speaker realm,
in the speaker realm. OK, Again, you know that I've
been at this for quite a while personally.
I've spoken at quite a few conferences.
I've spoken at like women's prison, I've spoken at
universities, I've spoken at TedX, you know, and, and, and, and
(19:35):
like I said, conferences all in between all of that to say those
were invitations. So again, even those
individuals, they were given word of mouth, like, oh, there's
this woman and she started a business and you should really,
you know, you should really seekher out.
Oh, oh, now she has a podcast. It's it's pretty good.
You should, you should have her,you know, speak at your
conference. And I've been very blessed.
(19:57):
Listen, and I know that's not possible for everybody.
And I'm not saying don't go reach out to potential event
producers and say, Hey, I see you have a conference that you
did this year. I'd love to be considered next
year. Absolutely do those things like
absolutely, you know what I mean?
Like go like, go for it. Like absolutely.
You don't have to. Pretend you guys like you don't
have to fake it, just go do the work.
(20:17):
That's going to justify why people should listen to you.
So authenticity is you will spotit.
OK. Authenticity is the real flex
and you will spot it. What's happening in the
conference space is that there are MLM multi level
organizations who are using conference environments for
(20:42):
their sales teams. And this has been going on since
Amway, OK? So those of you who are a little
bit older know what Amway is. It's like the OG in multi level
marketing and pyramid structuresand stuff like that, right?
Organizations and it's called network marketing now, but it's
multi level marketing, whatever you want to call, it's a
(21:03):
pyramid, OK, And the majority ofthe individuals that are part of
those organizations make the bulk of their money by who they
bring in by by building teams, OK, versus selling the products,
be it shampoos, be it solar, be it, you know, life insurance,
whatever the case may be. So what they do is they create
(21:23):
these conferences, OK? And then they have sort of their
top performers go and speak on stage, OK?
Those people are not thought leaders and those people are not
keynote speakers. Those people are the leaders in
their organizations and they're having a meeting.
It's a rally. If you go to any corporate
(21:46):
environment, OK? If you go to a bigger company
that's that's a corporate structure, they're going to have
their big events every year. It's the big meeting, OK?
And then certain people are going to get recognized.
They're going to win, you know, winner's circle that they're
going to win awards. They get to go to Hawaii because
they were the top salesperson, whatever the case may be.
And this person's going to go upand make a speech and, and, and
(22:09):
share with everybody in the company like how they did it.
And it's, and it's very smart todo that because it's very
aspirational, right? It's in, it's, you can say
inspirational, but it's really aspirational.
And you go, Oh my gosh, you knowwhat?
I, I, I'm a new, I'm a newbie atthis company.
Maybe it's, you know, a copier. My, my ex-husband worked for a,
(22:29):
a top copier company, an organization that made and sold
copy machines and these people made a lot of money doing so.
And then, then he would get invited to these annual events
and in different states like Indianapolis and all these kind
of places and, and the top, top salespeople would go and speak
in front of everybody and share,you know, their top tips of how
(22:51):
they did it. And, and then everybody can
learn from them. So this isn't new.
This isn't a new concept. But when you are looking at
thought leadership by way of like conference speakers, they
are not that. If you go to a business
conference and you see Gary Vaynerchuk speaking on stage,
for example, or Steve Wozniak, who cofounded Apple, that is not
(23:14):
that that or even Tony Robbins, you know, and my let that's
thought leadership. These people have been invited
to be there. They have been paid very
handsomely to be there to share their thoughts.
Their thoughts have value to thethousands of people that are
there and they have value aroundthe world for conferences around
(23:35):
the world. OK, Like I described anybody
that's at a company, you joined a company and you made winner's
circle and you get to speak on stage.
You are not a thought leader. You are a star within your
organization and you are a leader within your organization
and who's on stage. And it may look and seem the
(23:56):
same, but it is not the same. OK, now.
But it is by, by the way, commendable though.
Like you make winner's circle, you get to be able to do that.
You build your team to like having, you know, 100 people
under you, 1000 people into you,whatever the case may be, like
kudos to you like that, that youbuilt something there.
OK, That's, that's a real measure of success.
OK. And you are a star within your
(24:17):
organization, but it is not easyif you are a star within your
organization to break out of your organization and be a star
outside of your organization. I have had individuals hire me
to begin to help them do that, to break out of the sphere that
they're in because they recognize, OK, they're a big
fish in their pond, but how can they that break out and and
(24:41):
become like the N my let's in the world, right.
And so and so then in between the organizational stars, OK,
the stars that are the, the individuals that are stars
within their organization and the, the, the keynote speakers
and the thought leaders out in the world on stages of the world
stage, so to speak. In between there are the
(25:03):
wannabes and the ones that I described that they haven't
formulated anything for themselves.
Or maybe they have, OK, maybe they started a business, but
they just aren't getting noticed.
They really, they want that so bad.
They want that notoriety so bad.And what do they get tempted to
do? Pay to be on stage.
(25:24):
The problem is, is there's a lotof problems.
There's just a lot of problems with it.
There's a lot of problems with it.
I get for an event producer or whatever, they go, hey, we're
going to have the real deals, OK, that are here on stage.
Sometimes the real deals are notpaid because they have a
relationship with the event producer and they see the value
of getting on that stage. Sometimes the real deals, often
(25:46):
times the real deals are paid and they're paid very well to be
there. And then they recognize, you
know what, I bet that there's like some people that are
really, really willing to pay tojust be mentioned in the same
event as these individuals. And then it's a revenue stream
and we make an extra 1020, thirty, 4050, a hundred, maybe a
(26:08):
$1,000,000 doing that. And that's where that is where
as a person attending an event, you got to be careful and just
be mindful that there's a difference, OK?
There is a difference. And it's the difference between
the person who is featured in a magazine article, for example,
(26:30):
and a person who bought an ad inthat magazine.
It's laid out like an article, but it's an ad, OK?
There is a difference when you are good at something or when
you believe that you're good at something, you're going to let
everybody know, OK? But when you're actually good at
something, everybody else will let you know and they'll pay you
(26:51):
for it, OK? So if you're paying to let
people know that you're good at something, you're not quite good
yet, OK? You'll know you're good because
people will pay you for that knowledge and people will come
to you and tell you you're good.This is great.
Like I want to hire you. Send me the invoice, OK.
And so they'll want a piece of what you have and, and and
(27:14):
that's flat out, that's your ownmeasure, OK?
Don't be tempted to fake it. Don't be tempted to fake it.
Don't go to the store and buy the Oscar award and then put it
on social media telling everybody that you have an Oscar
award. I've said this before, so
understand the difference. But if you are, you're an
individual who you built something and you have
(27:39):
accomplished something that is pretty remarkable.
It doesn't get a lot of notice. It doesn't get a lot of
attention because you just haven't taken that route.
You're not braggy. You're not really sure you know
how to go about it without seeming braggy.
But you recognize you're the real deal.
You're the real deal. You've been through some things,
you've overcome some major things, you've built some
(28:00):
success for yourself. Maybe you've lost it and maybe
you're on the journey to rebuilding it.
And there's a story there and there's valuable lessons there.
And you want to share those valuable lessons so that people
don't make the same mistakes youmade.
So the people can tap into the keys that you found to be able
to actually crack the code or whatever the mate or whatever it
(28:20):
may be at life, at mindset, at health, at fitness, at, you
know, at your faith, you know, at your business, whatever the
case may be, we all have value, including, by the way, the
people that are faking it, including the people that are
faking it have value. But what happens is they lose
their value by faking it. OK, It is the brownie mix.
(28:46):
OK, We all have the recipe. We all have the eggs and the
flour and the chocolate and the things that we need to make
brownies. It's the people that are being
tempted to go out and mix in cowmanure because it's brown,
because it's similar texture, and mixing it in there and
feeding it to the people that are looking at them on social
(29:07):
media and expecting us to go yummy.
It's this delicious brownie and it's OK that it's only 80%
chocolate and 20% bullshit. No, no and no.
Knock it off. Start following the people that
have been there and done that. Start following the people that
are attracting this notoriety that you desire.
(29:28):
Look and see how they're doing it.
And if by the way, you're looking at anything that I'm
doing and that I'm sharing on social media by way of like how
I've been featured and things that I like, opportunities that
I'm getting, I'm here to tell you and end this with how I'm
doing it. God, the end.
Welcome to another episode of the Rachel Unpacked podcast.
I am your host Rachel Medina andin every episode we talk about
mindset, wealth, building and faith for every girlie who is
looking to change and level up her life.
If you want to follow me on social media, you can do so at
Rachel Medina 101 or visit my website rachelmedina.com.
But if you are ready to build a business in a life that you
(00:23):
love, head on over to our new She eox.com site again She EO
x.com where you are going to find a tribe of like minded
business building, dream aspiring girlies just like you.
Connecting, learning and growingtogether.
And a new CEO X Partnership program means we attract the
(00:43):
talented, experienced and successful women who are ready
to teach you how they did it so that you can succeed too.
Let's go is thought leadership dead Well, I'm here to sound the
alarm on this episode because ofsome of the things that I have
been seeing on the Internet, butmore than what I have been
seeing because I'm not a big doom scroller unless it's
(01:06):
something like TikTok or you know late at night or something
like that. I will post because that is we
got to show up you guys, we got to show up in the world for a
personal brand, our, our business brand.
But I really, really try my hardest to limit the doom
scrolling. However, I decided to do this
episode because of the, the number of people in my circles
(01:28):
that have forwarded me things atthis point and said, what is
this? Who is this?
How is it that they're doing this and questioning everything?
Plus this topic came up quite a bit because of individuals that
I interview are in fact the realdeal.
Like these women have accomplished some really
phenomenal things. And like I like to say since
(01:50):
season 1, you know, women that are going from ordinary to
extraordinary, right? That's what really we look for,
for someone who's going to be onthe Rachel Unpack podcast and
that includes women that might be going into thought
leadership. And I myself have been
interviewed by individuals who consider themselves thought
leaders. So you might be asking that, OK,
(02:11):
then what's a thought leader? So basically think in terms of
like Ed Milette, I'm going to use him as an example because
he's pretty well-rounded, although he has stepped away
from the limelight at this pointdue to health reasons and really
prioritizing his health and family and and Wellness at this
time. And so he's really just gone,
like he just hasn't been showingup and, and a lot of people miss
(02:34):
him very dearly. But I'm here to say this.
He is a perfect example of like a well-rounded thought leader
because he built a business. So he, you know, hustled his way
through entrepreneurship when hewas very young.
He aligned with, you know, Tony Robbins, who is a thought
leader. He's really sort of like the
(02:56):
kingpin of them all in a, in a, in a, in a, in a grand scale of
things. But there's different variations
of this. And the reason I'm using and my
light as an example is because Ithink he's the most relatable.
I think that Tony Robbins is like, let's just say like a Kim
Kardashian, like we all know whothe person is, but the, the
relatability shifts is, is different, right?
And, and my light if and if you haven't heard of him, please go
(03:17):
go check him out because he's, he's pretty wonderful on.
You can still see all of his content online and previous
things and books and things likethat.
But the reason I say he's a, he's a true thought leader and
well-rounded is because he was first and foremost an
entrepreneur. So he got into the space,
hustling his way, got into sales, I believe he got into
financial services or life insurance or something like that
(03:40):
and, and build his way up and built his team and everything.
But he built a business like he was living in an apartment in
Chino, CA, maybe Chino Hills, whatever, Chino, Chino, Chino,
right, California. And from there he did these
amazing things where he would like go to the coast of Laguna
Beach and and say one day I'm going to be living in one of
(04:03):
these houses. And so he is us.
That's why I wanted to use him as an example.
He is you. He is, he is me like he, he is
so many of us that did not, we're not born into wealth and
we're not handed a silver spoon.There was no like generational
wealth transfer, you know, inheriting houses and, and you
know, trust funds or, or stocks and bonds or anything like that,
(04:25):
right? He built it from the beginning,
middle and end. And he learned sales, he started
to sell whatever he was selling,got into life insurance, really
built himself up there, built his team, built his company and
just started making a lot of money and built up his quality
of life and his his lifestyle all along.
(04:45):
By the way, putting God first and, and maintaining his faith
factor and all of that. Then from there, leveraging for
his own personal brand. Because everything he did prior
was like his company, right? Like it wasn't like you knew
about him on social media or about his company.
It was just his company and whatever marketing his company
did. That's fine.
(05:05):
I don't know that he was necessarily like the face,
although he probably was internally to his, to the, the
employees and the peers. And then there comes this thing
of like your personal brand ID, the power of having your
personal brand. Tony Robbins has a strong
personal brand. So here comes Ed Mylet starting
to build his personal brand, showing up on social media,
sharing talking head videos. It's just where the camera is
(05:28):
vertical and and tight and just focused on the individual
talking. And he's starting to share, you
know, insights about sales and mindset and hustle and making
money and building a business. So he's able to sort of lend
this mindset perspective, whether you're at Ground Zero
and trying to go from zero to hero or you are the business
(05:49):
owner, you know, trying to buildand scale and hire and fail
forward and then get back up and, you know, work in your
business versus on your business.
And he's talked about a lot of these maxing out and all these
different things. And so in that he gained a lot
of traction and he gained popularity.
And then he wrote a book and it did really well.
(06:09):
And then he wrote another book. And then here comes notoriety.
OK, so there's like first is like popularity because you
know, you show up enough on social media organically that
you've been cut. You start to build a following
and you become sort of you get popularity and then you do
things that get noticed, OK, that are notable, like a best
(06:31):
selling book or something like that.
And then you begin to be deemed with or given notoriety and
viewed as with notoriety. And then with notoriety comes
invitations to speak at reputable conferences and not
just for free, for example, likefor pay.
And it's like serious money. And it could be worldwide.
(06:53):
And then you might get invited by corporations to come in and
speak to teams inside of corporations.
You might be paid 6 figures and,you know, high 6 figures, low,
mid and high 6 figures to be a corporate trainer.
So there's all of these levels to this, right?
So nonetheless, that is a thought leader, people that are
(07:15):
leading the way in their way of thinking because there's not a
lot of original thought, but there's a lot of ways to
communicate those thoughts and he has done a phenomenal job at
that. In that regard.
We could also look at Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary Vee, right?
He has done a wonderful job. He's also, you know, really,
(07:38):
really he's like the kingpin of leveraging social media and
basically at giving away value on his social media, building a
popularity on social media because hey, this guy is a
wealth of information. What does that mean?
His thoughts have value to thosewho hear them and receive them.
(07:58):
So he becomes a thought leader because the thoughts make sense
in the way that he's communicating them.
And he's communicating thoughts around, you know, being young
and aspirational and what it means to feel like you're
wasting your time or you're running out of time in your 20s.
And he says stop being effing ridiculous.
Like, you know, most people don't even make it to their 40s
(08:20):
and like, and really, again, really communicating the these
thoughts that that resonate withmany people.
Making him popular on social media.
Great, gaining popularity and then writing a best selling book
and then being invited to speak on stages and sometimes not in
that order. Sometimes I think in the case of
(08:40):
Gary Vee, the popularity came and then he was invited to
speak. I know that I worked at a
conference in Las Vegas where weinvited him to come speak for a
hefty feed. And it was very inspirational
for me to see what that fee was and, and the process of his
writer and all that. And I've talked about it in in
the past. But all of that to say, why did
(09:01):
people care? Like why were his thoughts so
well crafted and so were so wellformulated and communicated?
Because he first and foremost was you and I and built a
business from the ground up personally.
His mother and father had a little wine store in New Jersey
or something like that. And then he was this, you know,
(09:24):
adult male. That was like aging out, you
know, I think living with his parents, working at the parents
wine shop. And he admittedly says he felt
somewhat like a loser because hewasn't doing his own thing.
He was working for his mom and dad at this little wine store
and he was approaching 30 or I think he was 30 doing it.
(09:44):
And he decided, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to do
something with this free marketing tool called YouTube.
OK. And he started making YouTube
videos where he's comparing the wine that they're carrying in
the wine shop. And he's sort of pitting the
wines against each other. And the parents were really
concerned about this because they were saying they didn't
(10:05):
want their vendors or wine vendors to, to, to drop them or
be upset by this whole thing. And, and anyways, it turned out
to be gold because if anybody was looking to gift a bottle of
wine to somebody, buy wine, invest in wine, whatever the
case may be, event planners and everybody started watching
Gary's reviews, right, of these wines and he was making them
(10:26):
very entertaining. And he's kind of yelling at the
camera in some aspects and the lighting's bad and the audio's
not great, but he's showing up and he's being and he's being
authentic. And my let showed up authentic.
Tony Robbins showed up authentic.
Talking about their struggles from zero to hero, like they've
been where we are, OK, They've been where you are and they've
(10:48):
been where I went. They didn't marry someone that's
been where you are and then observe it and then build a
whole brand around it. No, OK, that's not a dig on
people who have, But there's a lot of that going on on the
female side as well. What they did was go through it.
They got scraped up, they lost their money or had no money, had
(11:10):
to figure it out, stressed about, you know, maybe they had
a wife. Whatever the case may be, they
have been through the the worst of the worst of the worst of the
trenches and crack the code on how to get up and out.
OK. And then the way they
communicate their success, building within their own lives,
mindset development relationships, building skills
(11:33):
like financial, building skills,building blocks, you know, and
then building the business, the business frameworks like all of
these things, hiring and firing,scaling, marketing, sales,
packaging, distribution operations like these thought
leaders are essentially like tried and true proven.
(11:56):
OK, the proof is in the pudding.And then they come forward on
social media and share all that they know and they're not
necessarily selling. So when Adam Allette showed up
on social media, he wasn't selling anything.
He was giving value, value and and Tony was doing it
differently because Tony is the OG.
So he came in the form of like infomercials and stuff like
that, right? And then you'd watch him and be
(12:18):
like, wow, this is amazing. Or somebody would tell you about
a conference he was doing in town.
And then people were like, well,this is this is fantastic.
Never heard this before with social media is different.
Everybody's waking up and sayingI'm a thought leader and they
think that because they see the videos and they're like, oh, I
know how to film a video like that.
Oh, I can buy a podcast mic and I could sit there and I could do
(12:40):
that and do videos like that. And I've, I've read 30 books and
I can regurgitate some of these thought processes that, my dear,
is not the same. Oh, let me tell you that is not
the same. OK, So beware of these things.
(13:02):
There are individuals and and listen, I am the first one to
say decide. Visualize who you want to be in
the like. Visualize the life you want,
reverse engineering it. Decide what it's going to take
to get there. Decide what character you want
to play. Like, who do you want to be?
You want to be a realtor, You want to be an accountant.
Like, who do you want to be in this world stage that you're
(13:22):
creating in your mind about yourself, right?
And it might very well be thought leader, but also go do
something meaningful. Go, go, go do the work to become
the thing that has earned the right to be respected.
OK. And I mean, I guess respect
(13:43):
isn't a right, but you know whatI mean.
It's like, go, go, do the work. But nowadays, people are
skipping the work. Think of what is happening today
by people who are just popping up, people who are paying to be
featured in magazines, people who are paying no name
publishers to be in a chapter ofa book that was sold on Amazon
(14:08):
at, you know, 3:00 PM, where allthe people who bought into that
book are told to buy the book atthis exact time.
You know, for a dollar or $5 in this category that nobody's
going to be paying attention to a book in that category.
And then go tell ten of your friends to do the same thing so
that the book will go to number one.
OK, This is what these some of these people do.
(14:29):
The book that no one has ever heard of it, no one's going to
hear about, goes to number one. And then there's like a
screenshot. Everybody take a screenshot
while it says #1 best selling book.
And then go put it on your social media and tell every the
the 500 people that follow you that you are an author or that
you are published in a best selling book.
(14:50):
It is absolute trickery. OK, It is tomfoolery.
It is cosplay. I'm dedicating this episode for
you to know the difference, to say the fakes are the fakes are
the fakes. Because if you're going to go to
a conference or an event or you're going to, you know, buy
something from someone, you know, you're going to want to at
(15:11):
least understand is the media featuring them legitimately for
the the media is an interesting thing because I know that a lot
of people are losing trust in the media.
But if somebody gets featured inan article because the media
reached out to them, then you know what?
Like, oh, that's so interesting,That's amazing.
(15:33):
Versus no one's reaching out to this person.
No one's reaching out. No one reached out to them.
They're buying it so that they can pretend like the media is
reaching out to them, so they can pretend like what they're
saying and who they are is of value to someone.
And there are people that I don't want to say names that
(15:56):
are, that are well known at thispoint that you can just look up
and realize that maybe they rented the car and maybe they,
you know, they, you know, borrowed the money to run the
ads and to to do the fake it to make it and it worked.
And they're still around to thisday.
To each their own. To each their own.
I understand. And if that's the route you want
(16:16):
to take, I just want you to knowthe difference.
So if you're a person who valuesauthenticity, if you're a person
who genuinely wants to learn frameworks, mindset, and you
want to learn from someone who'sbeen there, truly been there,
truly done that, truly failed forward, truly built the
(16:39):
business, hired the people, trained the people, scaled the
marketing, like truly did these things and had success, OK,
Whether they were able to maintain it or not, by the way,
that part of it is actually not as relative that that's not as
relevant. And the reason I'm saying that
is, for example, every millionaire I've ever met has
(17:02):
built it, lost it, rebuilt it, lost it and built it.
So when I meet millionaires, I ask them what round are they on?
And I have met several that are on their second round.
And I've met quite a few actually that are on their third
round. And then I'll say, tell me about
the time that you before you were wealthy, like when you made
(17:23):
your first million. That's usually the question I
ask. And then I'll say, OK, when you
lost it, what was it like? What was like, Like, why did you
lose it? Like, what it what mistakes did
you make? Like, what part was your part?
Right. And they're so humble in it.
Like, there's so much humility in that type of conversation.
And none of them hide it. They none of them sugarcoat it.
Oh my God, I was an absolute idiot.
(17:44):
It with the money like I went and bought this and I did that
and I was giving everybody and my family money and I was doing
whatever and I was blowing it onda da da and then next thing you
know, I didn't anticipate this dip in you know this dip in the
market or that this particular product we were creating was
going to go away and I lost it but see when you start over
again here's the one thing nobody's starting over from zero
(18:06):
because you have that experienceand you have that mindset and
you have that your brain chemistry is just totally
different. So it's not when you're starting
over from scratch, hypothetically, it's kind of
like not from scratch because you have that sort of MBA
experience, you know, winning and losing in that other, in
that other business. And, and, and, and that's
valuable. You guys, that is so valuable.
(18:28):
If you're going to hire a coach,a trainer, if you're going to
hire a mentor, if you're going to go to a conference and listen
to someone speak on stage, thosethings matter.
Do not convince yourself that they don't matter because the
person is just so nice or because they read a bunch of
books and they see and they makesense.
You know, don't don't do that because they're just going to be
selling you. They're just going to be
reselling you. Repurpose things.
(18:49):
That's like just go to the original person's book that they
read it and go follow that person.
And here's what's happening by way of conferences.
OK, I've described what you're going to see on social media by
way of the fakery, buying the fake articles, buying the fake,
you know, magazine features, buying, you know, the fake.
(19:12):
I'm published in a book. All of that being fake.
Some of these people even buyingads fake.
OK, I'm going to tell you what'shappening in the speaker realm,
in the speaker realm. OK, Again, you know that I've
been at this for quite a while personally.
I've spoken at quite a few conferences.
I've spoken at like women's prison, I've spoken at
universities, I've spoken at TedX, you know, and, and, and, and
(19:35):
like I said, conferences all in between all of that to say those
were invitations. So again, even those
individuals, they were given word of mouth, like, oh, there's
this woman and she started a business and you should really,
you know, you should really seekher out.
Oh, oh, now she has a podcast. It's it's pretty good.
You should, you should have her,you know, speak at your
conference. And I've been very blessed.
(19:57):
Listen, and I know that's not possible for everybody.
And I'm not saying don't go reach out to potential event
producers and say, Hey, I see you have a conference that you
did this year. I'd love to be considered next
year. Absolutely do those things like
absolutely, you know what I mean?
Like go like, go for it. Like absolutely.
You don't have to. Pretend you guys like you don't
have to fake it, just go do the work.
(20:17):
That's going to justify why people should listen to you.
So authenticity is you will spotit.
OK. Authenticity is the real flex
and you will spot it. What's happening in the
conference space is that there are MLM multi level
organizations who are using conference environments for
(20:42):
their sales teams. And this has been going on since
Amway, OK? So those of you who are a little
bit older know what Amway is. It's like the OG in multi level
marketing and pyramid structuresand stuff like that, right?
Organizations and it's called network marketing now, but it's
multi level marketing, whatever you want to call, it's a
(21:03):
pyramid, OK, And the majority ofthe individuals that are part of
those organizations make the bulk of their money by who they
bring in by by building teams, OK, versus selling the products,
be it shampoos, be it solar, be it, you know, life insurance,
whatever the case may be. So what they do is they create
(21:23):
these conferences, OK? And then they have sort of their
top performers go and speak on stage, OK?
Those people are not thought leaders and those people are not
keynote speakers. Those people are the leaders in
their organizations and they're having a meeting.
It's a rally. If you go to any corporate
(21:46):
environment, OK? If you go to a bigger company
that's that's a corporate structure, they're going to have
their big events every year. It's the big meeting, OK?
And then certain people are going to get recognized.
They're going to win, you know, winner's circle that they're
going to win awards. They get to go to Hawaii because
they were the top salesperson, whatever the case may be.
And this person's going to go upand make a speech and, and, and
(22:09):
share with everybody in the company like how they did it.
And it's, and it's very smart todo that because it's very
aspirational, right? It's in, it's, you can say
inspirational, but it's really aspirational.
And you go, Oh my gosh, you knowwhat?
I, I, I'm a new, I'm a newbie atthis company.
Maybe it's, you know, a copier. My, my ex-husband worked for a,
(22:29):
a top copier company, an organization that made and sold
copy machines and these people made a lot of money doing so.
And then, then he would get invited to these annual events
and in different states like Indianapolis and all these kind
of places and, and the top, top salespeople would go and speak
in front of everybody and share,you know, their top tips of how
(22:51):
they did it. And, and then everybody can
learn from them. So this isn't new.
This isn't a new concept. But when you are looking at
thought leadership by way of like conference speakers, they
are not that. If you go to a business
conference and you see Gary Vaynerchuk speaking on stage,
for example, or Steve Wozniak, who cofounded Apple, that is not
(23:14):
that that or even Tony Robbins, you know, and my let that's
thought leadership. These people have been invited
to be there. They have been paid very
handsomely to be there to share their thoughts.
Their thoughts have value to thethousands of people that are
there and they have value aroundthe world for conferences around
(23:35):
the world. OK, Like I described anybody
that's at a company, you joined a company and you made winner's
circle and you get to speak on stage.
You are not a thought leader. You are a star within your
organization and you are a leader within your organization
and who's on stage. And it may look and seem the
(23:56):
same, but it is not the same. OK, now.
But it is by, by the way, commendable though.
Like you make winner's circle, you get to be able to do that.
You build your team to like having, you know, 100 people
under you, 1000 people into you,whatever the case may be, like
kudos to you like that, that youbuilt something there.
OK, That's, that's a real measure of success.
OK. And you are a star within your
(24:17):
organization, but it is not easyif you are a star within your
organization to break out of your organization and be a star
outside of your organization. I have had individuals hire me
to begin to help them do that, to break out of the sphere that
they're in because they recognize, OK, they're a big
fish in their pond, but how can they that break out and and
(24:41):
become like the N my let's in the world, right.
And so and so then in between the organizational stars, OK,
the stars that are the, the individuals that are stars
within their organization and the, the, the keynote speakers
and the thought leaders out in the world on stages of the world
stage, so to speak. In between there are the
(25:03):
wannabes and the ones that I described that they haven't
formulated anything for themselves.
Or maybe they have, OK, maybe they started a business, but
they just aren't getting noticed.
They really, they want that so bad.
They want that notoriety so bad.And what do they get tempted to
do? Pay to be on stage.
(25:24):
The problem is, is there's a lotof problems.
There's just a lot of problems with it.
There's a lot of problems with it.
I get for an event producer or whatever, they go, hey, we're
going to have the real deals, OK, that are here on stage.
Sometimes the real deals are notpaid because they have a
relationship with the event producer and they see the value
of getting on that stage. Sometimes the real deals, often
(25:46):
times the real deals are paid and they're paid very well to be
there. And then they recognize, you
know what, I bet that there's like some people that are
really, really willing to pay tojust be mentioned in the same
event as these individuals. And then it's a revenue stream
and we make an extra 1020, thirty, 4050, a hundred, maybe a
(26:08):
$1,000,000 doing that. And that's where that is where
as a person attending an event, you got to be careful and just
be mindful that there's a difference, OK?
There is a difference. And it's the difference between
the person who is featured in a magazine article, for example,
(26:30):
and a person who bought an ad inthat magazine.
It's laid out like an article, but it's an ad, OK?
There is a difference when you are good at something or when
you believe that you're good at something, you're going to let
everybody know, OK? But when you're actually good at
something, everybody else will let you know and they'll pay you
(26:51):
for it, OK? So if you're paying to let
people know that you're good at something, you're not quite good
yet, OK? You'll know you're good because
people will pay you for that knowledge and people will come
to you and tell you you're good.This is great.
Like I want to hire you. Send me the invoice, OK.
And so they'll want a piece of what you have and, and and
(27:14):
that's flat out, that's your ownmeasure, OK?
Don't be tempted to fake it. Don't be tempted to fake it.
Don't go to the store and buy the Oscar award and then put it
on social media telling everybody that you have an Oscar
award. I've said this before, so
understand the difference. But if you are, you're an
individual who you built something and you have
(27:39):
accomplished something that is pretty remarkable.
It doesn't get a lot of notice. It doesn't get a lot of
attention because you just haven't taken that route.
You're not braggy. You're not really sure you know
how to go about it without seeming braggy.
But you recognize you're the real deal.
You're the real deal. You've been through some things,
you've overcome some major things, you've built some
(28:00):
success for yourself. Maybe you've lost it and maybe
you're on the journey to rebuilding it.
And there's a story there and there's valuable lessons there.
And you want to share those valuable lessons so that people
don't make the same mistakes youmade.
So the people can tap into the keys that you found to be able
to actually crack the code or whatever the mate or whatever it
(28:20):
may be at life, at mindset, at health, at fitness, at, you
know, at your faith, you know, at your business, whatever the
case may be, we all have value, including, by the way, the
people that are faking it, including the people that are
faking it have value. But what happens is they lose
their value by faking it. OK, It is the brownie mix.
(28:46):
OK, We all have the recipe. We all have the eggs and the
flour and the chocolate and the things that we need to make
brownies. It's the people that are being
tempted to go out and mix in cowmanure because it's brown,
because it's similar texture, and mixing it in there and
feeding it to the people that are looking at them on social
(29:07):
media and expecting us to go yummy.
It's this delicious brownie and it's OK that it's only 80%
chocolate and 20% bullshit. No, no and no.
Knock it off. Start following the people that
have been there and done that. Start following the people that
are attracting this notoriety that you desire.
(29:28):
Look and see how they're doing it.
And if by the way, you're looking at anything that I'm
doing and that I'm sharing on social media by way of like how
I've been featured and things that I like, opportunities that
I'm getting, I'm here to tell you and end this with how I'm
doing it. God, the end.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.