May 16, 2024 • 25 mins
Have we become captives to the siren song of automation and scaling in our businesses, sacrificing the very connections that make our work meaningful? In this solo episode, I will share my thoughts about what happens when we venture beyond the seductive allure of membership counts and follower metrics to a place where success is measured by the depth of client connections. In a world enamored with 'DM me' bots and impersonal marketing funnels, we propose a radical return to personal, authentic engagement. I’ll also peel back the curtain on my own discomfort with marketing practices that can feel manipulative, and how I navigate the delicate balance of maintaining a personal touch in my business communications.
Listen closely as we further consider the impact of presence and authenticity in social media. Together, we will dissect the struggles of scaling without losing the essence of human connection, and the invaluable role of personal connection in both learning environments and online spaces. Embrace this conversation as an invitation to redefine the intersection of technology and humanity in our entrepreneurial ventures, ensuring that at the heart of it all, we stay authentically connected.
Kat HoSoo Lee is an Emotional Alchemy Coach, Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Emotional Alchemy Podcast.
She loves playing in the space where science and spirituality converge because this is where we get to experience emotional alchemy. In her work, she educates space-holders about somatic physiology and environmental biology so they can deepen their practices of listening and presence which ultimately helps them expand their capacity to hold space for others.
As a Spiritual Business Mentor, she guides soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. The work bridges the emotional landscape with practical tools which allow them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, relational marketing and purposeful service.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi friends, I am Kat and I am your anti-skill
business coach.
Now I say that a little bittongue-in-cheek because I'm
seeing so many cookie-cutterbusiness coaches out there and
they're just all talking abouthow to automate your outreach,
build out a funnel and scaleyour business, and I really want
(00:23):
to like unpack what each ofthose things are and how that
actually distances us fromconnection from our clients.
So, first things, I want tojust say with like explicit
clarity that when I say that I'manti-scale, it doesn't mean
that I don't want you to succeed, and that's kind of what this
(00:44):
conversation is about.
Right, like scaling throughmemberships specifically seems
to be the new definition ofsuccess in the coaching world
right now, and I think we'relosing our humanity as an
industry in the pursuit ofautomation, scale and reach.
What I want us to do in thiscommunity is I want us to start
defining success on our ownterms.
(01:05):
So, even with what I share, ifyou make the empowered choice
that creating a membership orwatching your Instagram follower
account grow is what makes youfeel successful, I love that for
you.
I want to inspire you to sourcethat authority from within, not
to look to external markersincluding myself of what other
(01:29):
people think that your lifeshould look like External
validation is not a marker of asuccessful business, because we
are all each so individual, andthen, even within the scale of
your life, you're going to gothrough multiple rounds of
evolution and it is worthholding curiosity, both for
(01:49):
yourself and for each phase ofyour life, to decide what
success means in each of thesescenarios, and then not just
what it means, but what it feelslike and looks like for you
specifically.
Okay, so that's kind of a longintro.
So, like, this is gonna be alonger conversation, apparently.
First things, off the bat, Ireally believe that business is
(02:15):
a relational practice and I'mgonna sort of like run you
through a just hypotheticalsituation, right?
So imagine meeting someone thatyou find attractive and, let's
say, you comment on their tattoobecause you genuinely were
interested, and what that imagemeant to them, and if there's a
story behind it, right, sothere's an opening for
connection that you justinitiated.
(02:36):
Now imagine that this personlaunches into a canned response
that was clearly set up to tryto get you on a date.
So that feels kind of icky,right?
Well, that's like the real lifeversion of when people say DM
me healed for my 10 step somaticexercise program to heal trauma
(02:56):
and I didn't realize thisbecause I don't have a ton of
automation in my business.
But my friend Lindsay Lockettshe shared in her stories the
other day and, just as like asidebar, that story that I'm
going to reference right now isunder her highlights reel, under
ethics.
That entire little likehighlight reel is like a
(03:19):
masterclass in and of itself.
So go check that out, butanyways.
So she was talking about on herstories that when this happens,
the DM me, whatever word it is,and then they'll send you
whatever it is that they'repromising.
They'll send you whatever it isthat they're promising.
That's an automated system setup on the other side and
(03:39):
Instagram and these automatedsystems are training us as
consumers to act like robots sothat a robot on the other end is
triggered to create a falsesense of connection, of
(04:00):
connection, so like okay, so Ihave to like pause here, because
I do value efficiency and I douse AI in certain situations.
So, for example, when I'mwriting show notes, I use AI as
kind of the framework and then Iadd my own sort of flavor to it
.
That's for the podcast, but forme, a boundary that I hold when
it comes to the tools that Ichoose for my business systems
(04:21):
is that connection cannot beautomated.
Connection cannot be automated,and so what that means to me is
that there are certain thingslike my writing, the content
that I share on my podcast, theoh my gosh, like beautifully
rich conversations that I havein my DMs, the workshops that I
teach, the coaching, thefollow-up after coaching and the
(04:44):
communications that I have withmy collaborators.
All of that requires mypersonal energy, because it is
my direct connection to myclients, my community and my
collaborators.
So if you feel strange aboutDMing somebody a magic word
(05:07):
that's going to trigger a bot torelease exclusive content in
someone's stories or it's goingto start a conversation in their
DMs like you're not wrong therethat's the part of you that
feels confused about thecoldness of something that
actually should feel warm, andit reduces your humanity to
nothing more than a robotic calland answer.
By the way, if you've engagedin any of these business and
(05:31):
marketing tools, this is not thetime to flagellate yourself.
I've used some of them as well,because this is the water that
we all swim in.
Daniel and Gabor Mate in theirbook the Myth of Normal say
we're all swimming in.
Sometimes it's really hard tosee and discern where it's
(05:56):
culture and what feels good tous and what we're being
manipulated into doing or whatwe are being told to do and
we're just taught to do allthese things.
And so this is for those of uswho have felt a bit off about
these practices even when wewere doing them, and we're
(06:18):
really just looking tounderstand why that exists and
how we can do better.
So when I talk about funnels, Ihave, I have had a complicated
relationship with funnels, um,because funnels was a thing that
(06:40):
felt really uncomfortable to me.
I never really got into thewhole funnel situation, but it
was so confusing because it likedoesn't seem manipulative or
kind of icky at the offset,right?
It took me a while to figureout why it felt uncomfortable.
So imagine a funnel like aliteral funnel, like a physical
(07:03):
funnel.
It's got solid sides, you poursome water in and the whole idea
is that the water cannot escape, right?
So funnels are set up to reducethe chances of a potential
client making an autonomousdecision to not work with you or
to not buy your product.
Oftentimes in these funnelsthere's an escalating level of
(07:27):
scarcity and pressure to get youto move that mouse over the buy
now button.
And, honestly, it's not evenhidden anymore Because, in this
age of dopamine induceddecisions, it just feels like a
regular thing to see and feelescalating pressure.
So why does this marketingtactic feel weird for
(07:48):
spaceholders?
It's because it's counter towhat a good spaceholder does.
A good spaceholder.
What we do is we open upoptions.
So when a client comes to mewith a struggle, oftentimes
they're already in a state ofeither sympathetic mobilization
or dorsal vagal shutdown, orthey're fluctuating between
(08:09):
those two states of mobilizationand immobilization.
So, in short, what they see areonly two options.
Now, when you study the nervoussystem, you know that when you
only see two options, when yourlife turns into a binary series
of this or that, that's anindication that your nervous
(08:30):
system is in a threatened state.
This is nothing wrong with yournervous system.
This is not anything to fixabout your nervous system.
There's nothing that your bodyis doing that needs to be
punished.
This is actually by design.
So, if you think about it, weevolved from humans who did need
(08:50):
this functionality in ournervous system.
Right, we needed to narrow downthis decision to two simple
choices to keep our bodies safe.
So if you, if you're runningaway from a bear, like you want
your body to be thinking fightor flight, right?
Like you don't want to bethinking about you know what did
(09:11):
the bear eat for lunch?
And I wonder if maybe the bearis protecting its cubs Like you,
just see threatening bear andyou have to decide what to do in
that space, right?
So I know that I've done my jobas a space holder.
When my client is able to see athird, a fourth or even a fifth
(09:33):
option for themselves, becauseto me that signals that their
nervous system is no longeroperating from that threatened
space, because they're able tosee nuance and they're able to
see choice.
And also I don't want to bemaking that decision for them.
I don't want to be the onewho's like, hey, like you should
do this thing right.
I want them to feel so safewithin their nervous systems
(09:56):
that that organically happens,that choice organically rises to
the surface.
And so for me that's the wholeconcept of a funnel meant that I
had to take this beautifulskill of space holding that I do
naturally and then lock it awayso that I could attract people
into working with me and thenbring it back out again once
(10:20):
they've paid, like that feelsreally inconsistent and
inauthentic.
So to me, that's why funnelsjust didn't make sense and I've
only been able to like,articulate that like fairly
recently.
So remember what I said aboutbusiness being relational.
As a practitioner, movingpeople through a funnel feels
(10:43):
like I'm setting up a series ofinsecure relationships and I
don't know that on this side, asa practitioner, as a marketer,
as a business person, I don'tknow that I'd be able to turn
off this question of are theychoosing like out of sovereignty
, like are they actuallychoosing to work with me or are
they choosing to work with mebecause I exacerbated their like
(11:06):
already threatened nervoussystem into making a decision to
work with me, because Inarrowed down their choices and
I actually pushed on theirnervous system with pressure to
a point that they had to thenlike come make it into like a
binary choice do I work with cator do I not work with cat?
And that's not where I want tolike be meeting people, like be
(11:34):
meeting people.
I want to model securerelationships and I want to
build that from the start and Iwant to finish that with each
client.
So why would I want to build arelationship that begins from a
place of insecurity and to me,like that's what a funnel is.
It's just what a funnel is.
It's just.
It's just about creatinginsecurity to get that sale.
(11:56):
So that brings me to reach andscale.
So, honestly, I don't care if areel of mine ever goes viral.
If what happens in thatvirality is people just watch it
once and then move on, becausethat's not connection, that's
reach.
Reach is rarely the problem.
(12:16):
If you've been feeling thispressure to post more and be
seen in your marketing, reach isnot your problem.
The problem is a lack ofconnection.
I've known plenty of people whohave had 10 times more
followers than I do, 100 timesmore followers than I do, and
they don't feel the warmth ofcommunity or the security in
(12:39):
their bank account that I feel,because what it all comes down
to is I trust my business, Itrust my community because it's
built on connection.
When we focus on reach ratherthan connection, the machine of
Instagram is the only winner inthat scenario.
And you know what I know?
(13:00):
I'll probably never have aviral reel because, on average,
most of the stories that I posthere like they're running 10 to
30 minutes long.
We're already 13 minutes intothis one, right, and the
algorithm really hates that.
And like the feeling is mutualalgorithm.
Like I don't really love youeither.
(13:20):
What I want is for people tofind me and then stick around
for a minute, get to know mywork, see if it resonates and if
it does, like, hang out.
We've got lots of differentways to hang out, right, and if
it doesn't, that's okay too.
Like I want the people who don'tresonate with my work to move
(13:41):
on and find the thing that worksfor them, because authentic
connection is not just somethingthat I crave, but it's what
keeps my business safe.
It's what I lean on when I havea slow month.
I know that my community is notfickle.
They don't just, like poof,magically disappear just because
I didn't post something for aweek or two.
(14:03):
Right.
And even though I feel connectedto my community on social media
, I am pretty inconsistent aboutposting on social media
sometimes, and I'm going toargue that the reason I am
inconsistent is because I am socommitted to connection, and I
realize that this is counter towhat every other business coach
(14:23):
is going to say about marketing.
But here's the thing right, theonly way to shorten the
timeline to connection isthrough vulnerability and
authenticity, and that comesfrom within me.
I cannot fake that, andvulnerability and authenticity
is not accessible to me 100% ofthe time, because I am human.
(14:45):
Guess who wins when you'reconsistent like a robot on
Instagram?
Instagram wins Not you, notyour clients, not your community
.
Instagram wins the tool, notthe human wins.
So this is why it's soimportant to be crystal clear on
(15:06):
what your values are and whyyou do what you do.
If my purpose of being on socialmedia is to connect, then I'm
going to do it the same way thatI do my real life relationships
.
Right, I'm going to show upfully present.
I'm going to have someboundaries.
(15:28):
I'm going to tell my truth.
I am going to listen.
I'm going to share when I needto take a break.
We're going to talk about somestories.
Like, essentially, I'm justgoing to be a human with you
Because, as a social creaturewho's had oh you know just a few
generations of time where I'vehad ancestors who have wired
(15:52):
like neural circuitry to seekand cultivate connection, like
I'm going to be so much betterat that than a computer or robot
or AI.
Now, something that we all havein common as space holders and
spiritual entrepreneurs is thatour product is connection, and I
(16:12):
think sometimes we lose touchwith that and you cannot connect
by manipulating the algorithmand holding your clients at an
arm's length for the sake ofscaling.
And if I'm being completelyhonest, that's like right at the
cusp of where my business isright now.
I had already started turningBAM into a membership, with
(16:32):
self-taught video curriculuminstead of teaching live, and
any other business coach wouldtell you that this is the thing
to do.
But I've been feeling a littlebit internally turmoil-y about
it because, yeah, I've got thecurriculum set and all I have to
do is start automating andscaling.
And you know the thing thatthey say is value your time
(16:56):
enough to put space between meand my clients, and that feels
really uncomfortable to mebecause all those things would
reduce the intimacy and theconnection that I feel with my
community and it.
It's already happening and Iwas talking about this with a
BAM alumni.
Her name is Mia and we werejust sort of going back and
(17:18):
forth in the DMs and she's aprocreate coach and she took BAM
.
I want to say it's been acouple years ago now.
You're going to have to like,tell me, because I can't
remember what is time right.
So she shared, and I'm going toread from her, from her, what
(17:39):
she wrote in the DMs Only a fewpeople find the energy and the
courage to engage regularly withmembership content, since one
important ingredient is missingconnection and energy
sensitivity.
Regularly with membershipcontent, since one important
ingredient is missing connectionand energy sensitivity.
And oh my god, this is so truebecause I know that I've bought
into memberships and then, like,quickly left because I just
(18:00):
don't utilize them, and back inthe day I used to make this
something wrong about me.
But looking back now, what isbecoming clear is that my
intuitive, spidey sense waspicking up on the fact that it
takes more effort to cultivate aconnection in those spaces.
And it's been years since I'vebought a membership, because I'm
just not into superficiality,like I want to get into the
(18:23):
bones of people, right.
So why then, when I'm lookingat BAM, why would I create
something that I wouldn't buymyself?
One thing that I think thatuniversities are doing right, in
my opinion, is thatuniversities will invest
billions of dollars.
I don't actually know what thenumber is, but like think about
(18:44):
all the universities that areopen right now and like the
faculty stuff.
Right, like billions of dollarsto keep a robust faculty team
alive, and many of theseprofessors are teaching the same
curriculum over and over again,year after year.
So I remember taking this isgoing to be random, but I took a
dinosaur class when I was in myundergrad at UC Santa Cruz and
(19:08):
to this day it was like one ofthe most engaging, delightful
classes that I've ever taken inmy life.
Up one of the like biggestlecture halls.
There were like hundreds ofstudents in it.
It would like there was like await list to get into this
(19:28):
dinosaur class.
It was like an intro todinosaurs class.
It was wild.
And the reason why I think thatthat class was so popular and so
like beloved by students yearafter year after year, like
people talked about it yearslater, right, is the good
professors keep the materialalive for themselves, and they
(19:49):
do that by honing their craft ofteaching and seeing how that
work can be added to, how itneeds to be pruned, how it needs
to be updated.
And they do this because theyknow that teaching is not just
an information dump, becausethey know that teaching is not
just an information dump, it'san experience between student
and mentor.
(20:09):
And I'm going to quote Miaagain here.
So the reason why teaching liveworks so well together is
because we all started togetheror we all suffered together, and
we get to know each other on amore personal level at the same
time in history, whileexperiencing a similar wave of
energy.
And so this like continues toreinforce this theory that I
(20:35):
have.
It's a theory like full-on.
It's a theory.
You cannot outsource andautomate connection to a robot
or, to a certain extent, even tolike another human and expect
to cultivate intimacy right,which would take out the like
why, behind everything that I do, I have a business, so that I
(20:57):
can hold space.
I don't have, or rather, yeah,let me say that again so I have
a business so I can hold space,and it's not the other way
around, and I will never scaleat the expense of connection,
because it dilutes the sacredmedicine of connection.
We heal through co-regulation,being understood, being in
(21:21):
interdependent relationships,and when we prioritize these
relational dynamics, we areplugging ourselves back into our
natural ways of being withnature, with other beings, with
other humans, other bodies andlike I know that we're very
clever as a human species, rightlike we can manufacture a lot,
(21:42):
but you cannot manufacture,manufacture connection.
So yeah, my friends, that iswhy I am your anti-scale
business coach.
Hi friends, I am Kat and I am your anti-skill
business coach.
Now I say that a little bittongue-in-cheek because I'm
seeing so many cookie-cutterbusiness coaches out there and
they're just all talking abouthow to automate your outreach,
build out a funnel and scaleyour business, and I really want
(00:23):
to like unpack what each ofthose things are and how that
actually distances us fromconnection from our clients.
So, first things, I want tojust say with like explicit
clarity that when I say that I'manti-scale, it doesn't mean
that I don't want you to succeed, and that's kind of what this
(00:44):
conversation is about.
Right, like scaling throughmemberships specifically seems
to be the new definition ofsuccess in the coaching world
right now, and I think we'relosing our humanity as an
industry in the pursuit ofautomation, scale and reach.
What I want us to do in thiscommunity is I want us to start
defining success on our ownterms.
(01:05):
So, even with what I share, ifyou make the empowered choice
that creating a membership orwatching your Instagram follower
account grow is what makes youfeel successful, I love that for
you.
I want to inspire you to sourcethat authority from within, not
to look to external markersincluding myself of what other
(01:29):
people think that your lifeshould look like External
validation is not a marker of asuccessful business, because we
are all each so individual, andthen, even within the scale of
your life, you're going to gothrough multiple rounds of
evolution and it is worthholding curiosity, both for
(01:49):
yourself and for each phase ofyour life, to decide what
success means in each of thesescenarios, and then not just
what it means, but what it feelslike and looks like for you
specifically.
Okay, so that's kind of a longintro.
So, like, this is gonna be alonger conversation, apparently.
First things, off the bat, Ireally believe that business is
(02:15):
a relational practice and I'mgonna sort of like run you
through a just hypotheticalsituation, right?
So imagine meeting someone thatyou find attractive and, let's
say, you comment on their tattoobecause you genuinely were
interested, and what that imagemeant to them, and if there's a
story behind it, right, sothere's an opening for
connection that you justinitiated.
(02:36):
Now imagine that this personlaunches into a canned response
that was clearly set up to tryto get you on a date.
So that feels kind of icky,right?
Well, that's like the real lifeversion of when people say DM
me healed for my 10 step somaticexercise program to heal trauma
(02:56):
and I didn't realize thisbecause I don't have a ton of
automation in my business.
But my friend Lindsay Lockettshe shared in her stories the
other day and, just as like asidebar, that story that I'm
going to reference right now isunder her highlights reel, under
ethics.
That entire little likehighlight reel is like a
(03:19):
masterclass in and of itself.
So go check that out, butanyways.
So she was talking about on herstories that when this happens,
the DM me, whatever word it is,and then they'll send you
whatever it is that they'repromising.
They'll send you whatever it isthat they're promising.
That's an automated system setup on the other side and
(03:39):
Instagram and these automatedsystems are training us as
consumers to act like robots sothat a robot on the other end is
triggered to create a falsesense of connection, of
(04:00):
connection, so like okay, so Ihave to like pause here, because
I do value efficiency and I douse AI in certain situations.
So, for example, when I'mwriting show notes, I use AI as
kind of the framework and then Iadd my own sort of flavor to it
.
That's for the podcast, but forme, a boundary that I hold when
it comes to the tools that Ichoose for my business systems
(04:21):
is that connection cannot beautomated.
Connection cannot be automated,and so what that means to me is
that there are certain thingslike my writing, the content
that I share on my podcast, theoh my gosh, like beautifully
rich conversations that I havein my DMs, the workshops that I
teach, the coaching, thefollow-up after coaching and the
(04:44):
communications that I have withmy collaborators.
All of that requires mypersonal energy, because it is
my direct connection to myclients, my community and my
collaborators.
So if you feel strange aboutDMing somebody a magic word
(05:07):
that's going to trigger a bot torelease exclusive content in
someone's stories or it's goingto start a conversation in their
DMs like you're not wrong therethat's the part of you that
feels confused about thecoldness of something that
actually should feel warm, andit reduces your humanity to
nothing more than a robotic calland answer.
By the way, if you've engagedin any of these business and
(05:31):
marketing tools, this is not thetime to flagellate yourself.
I've used some of them as well,because this is the water that
we all swim in.
Daniel and Gabor Mate in theirbook the Myth of Normal say
we're all swimming in.
Sometimes it's really hard tosee and discern where it's
(05:56):
culture and what feels good tous and what we're being
manipulated into doing or whatwe are being told to do and
we're just taught to do allthese things.
And so this is for those of uswho have felt a bit off about
these practices even when wewere doing them, and we're
(06:18):
really just looking tounderstand why that exists and
how we can do better.
So when I talk about funnels, Ihave, I have had a complicated
relationship with funnels, um,because funnels was a thing that
(06:40):
felt really uncomfortable to me.
I never really got into thewhole funnel situation, but it
was so confusing because it likedoesn't seem manipulative or
kind of icky at the offset,right?
It took me a while to figureout why it felt uncomfortable.
So imagine a funnel like aliteral funnel, like a physical
(07:03):
funnel.
It's got solid sides, you poursome water in and the whole idea
is that the water cannot escape, right?
So funnels are set up to reducethe chances of a potential
client making an autonomousdecision to not work with you or
to not buy your product.
Oftentimes in these funnelsthere's an escalating level of
(07:27):
scarcity and pressure to get youto move that mouse over the buy
now button.
And, honestly, it's not evenhidden anymore Because, in this
age of dopamine induceddecisions, it just feels like a
regular thing to see and feelescalating pressure.
So why does this marketingtactic feel weird for
(07:48):
spaceholders?
It's because it's counter towhat a good spaceholder does.
A good spaceholder.
What we do is we open upoptions.
So when a client comes to mewith a struggle, oftentimes
they're already in a state ofeither sympathetic mobilization
or dorsal vagal shutdown, orthey're fluctuating between
(08:09):
those two states of mobilizationand immobilization.
So, in short, what they see areonly two options.
Now, when you study the nervoussystem, you know that when you
only see two options, when yourlife turns into a binary series
of this or that, that's anindication that your nervous
(08:30):
system is in a threatened state.
This is nothing wrong with yournervous system.
This is not anything to fixabout your nervous system.
There's nothing that your bodyis doing that needs to be
punished.
This is actually by design.
So, if you think about it, weevolved from humans who did need
(08:50):
this functionality in ournervous system.
Right, we needed to narrow downthis decision to two simple
choices to keep our bodies safe.
So if you, if you're runningaway from a bear, like you want
your body to be thinking fightor flight, right?
Like you don't want to bethinking about you know what did
(09:11):
the bear eat for lunch?
And I wonder if maybe the bearis protecting its cubs Like you,
just see threatening bear andyou have to decide what to do in
that space, right?
So I know that I've done my jobas a space holder.
When my client is able to see athird, a fourth or even a fifth
(09:33):
option for themselves, becauseto me that signals that their
nervous system is no longeroperating from that threatened
space, because they're able tosee nuance and they're able to
see choice.
And also I don't want to bemaking that decision for them.
I don't want to be the onewho's like, hey, like you should
do this thing right.
I want them to feel so safewithin their nervous systems
(09:56):
that that organically happens,that choice organically rises to
the surface.
And so for me that's the wholeconcept of a funnel meant that I
had to take this beautifulskill of space holding that I do
naturally and then lock it awayso that I could attract people
into working with me and thenbring it back out again once
(10:20):
they've paid, like that feelsreally inconsistent and
inauthentic.
So to me, that's why funnelsjust didn't make sense and I've
only been able to like,articulate that like fairly
recently.
So remember what I said aboutbusiness being relational.
As a practitioner, movingpeople through a funnel feels
(10:43):
like I'm setting up a series ofinsecure relationships and I
don't know that on this side, asa practitioner, as a marketer,
as a business person, I don'tknow that I'd be able to turn
off this question of are theychoosing like out of sovereignty
, like are they actuallychoosing to work with me or are
they choosing to work with mebecause I exacerbated their like
(11:06):
already threatened nervoussystem into making a decision to
work with me, because Inarrowed down their choices and
I actually pushed on theirnervous system with pressure to
a point that they had to thenlike come make it into like a
binary choice do I work with cator do I not work with cat?
And that's not where I want tolike be meeting people, like be
(11:34):
meeting people.
I want to model securerelationships and I want to
build that from the start and Iwant to finish that with each
client.
So why would I want to build arelationship that begins from a
place of insecurity and to me,like that's what a funnel is.
It's just what a funnel is.
It's just.
It's just about creatinginsecurity to get that sale.
(11:56):
So that brings me to reach andscale.
So, honestly, I don't care if areel of mine ever goes viral.
If what happens in thatvirality is people just watch it
once and then move on, becausethat's not connection, that's
reach.
Reach is rarely the problem.
(12:16):
If you've been feeling thispressure to post more and be
seen in your marketing, reach isnot your problem.
The problem is a lack ofconnection.
I've known plenty of people whohave had 10 times more
followers than I do, 100 timesmore followers than I do, and
they don't feel the warmth ofcommunity or the security in
(12:39):
their bank account that I feel,because what it all comes down
to is I trust my business, Itrust my community because it's
built on connection.
When we focus on reach ratherthan connection, the machine of
Instagram is the only winner inthat scenario.
And you know what I know?
(13:00):
I'll probably never have aviral reel because, on average,
most of the stories that I posthere like they're running 10 to
30 minutes long.
We're already 13 minutes intothis one, right, and the
algorithm really hates that.
And like the feeling is mutualalgorithm.
Like I don't really love youeither.
(13:20):
What I want is for people tofind me and then stick around
for a minute, get to know mywork, see if it resonates and if
it does, like, hang out.
We've got lots of differentways to hang out, right, and if
it doesn't, that's okay too.
Like I want the people who don'tresonate with my work to move
(13:41):
on and find the thing that worksfor them, because authentic
connection is not just somethingthat I crave, but it's what
keeps my business safe.
It's what I lean on when I havea slow month.
I know that my community is notfickle.
They don't just, like poof,magically disappear just because
I didn't post something for aweek or two.
(14:03):
Right.
And even though I feel connectedto my community on social media
, I am pretty inconsistent aboutposting on social media
sometimes, and I'm going toargue that the reason I am
inconsistent is because I am socommitted to connection, and I
realize that this is counter towhat every other business coach
(14:23):
is going to say about marketing.
But here's the thing right, theonly way to shorten the
timeline to connection isthrough vulnerability and
authenticity, and that comesfrom within me.
I cannot fake that, andvulnerability and authenticity
is not accessible to me 100% ofthe time, because I am human.
(14:45):
Guess who wins when you'reconsistent like a robot on
Instagram?
Instagram wins Not you, notyour clients, not your community
.
Instagram wins the tool, notthe human wins.
So this is why it's soimportant to be crystal clear on
(15:06):
what your values are and whyyou do what you do.
If my purpose of being on socialmedia is to connect, then I'm
going to do it the same way thatI do my real life relationships
.
Right, I'm going to show upfully present.
I'm going to have someboundaries.
(15:28):
I'm going to tell my truth.
I am going to listen.
I'm going to share when I needto take a break.
We're going to talk about somestories.
Like, essentially, I'm justgoing to be a human with you
Because, as a social creaturewho's had oh you know just a few
generations of time where I'vehad ancestors who have wired
(15:52):
like neural circuitry to seekand cultivate connection, like
I'm going to be so much betterat that than a computer or robot
or AI.
Now, something that we all havein common as space holders and
spiritual entrepreneurs is thatour product is connection, and I
(16:12):
think sometimes we lose touchwith that and you cannot connect
by manipulating the algorithmand holding your clients at an
arm's length for the sake ofscaling.
And if I'm being completelyhonest, that's like right at the
cusp of where my business isright now.
I had already started turningBAM into a membership, with
(16:32):
self-taught video curriculuminstead of teaching live, and
any other business coach wouldtell you that this is the thing
to do.
But I've been feeling a littlebit internally turmoil-y about
it because, yeah, I've got thecurriculum set and all I have to
do is start automating andscaling.
And you know the thing thatthey say is value your time
(16:56):
enough to put space between meand my clients, and that feels
really uncomfortable to mebecause all those things would
reduce the intimacy and theconnection that I feel with my
community and it.
It's already happening and Iwas talking about this with a
BAM alumni.
Her name is Mia and we werejust sort of going back and
(17:18):
forth in the DMs and she's aprocreate coach and she took BAM
.
I want to say it's been acouple years ago now.
You're going to have to like,tell me, because I can't
remember what is time right.
So she shared, and I'm going toread from her, from her, what
(17:39):
she wrote in the DMs Only a fewpeople find the energy and the
courage to engage regularly withmembership content, since one
important ingredient is missingconnection and energy
sensitivity.
Regularly with membershipcontent, since one important
ingredient is missing connectionand energy sensitivity.
And oh my god, this is so truebecause I know that I've bought
into memberships and then, like,quickly left because I just
(18:00):
don't utilize them, and back inthe day I used to make this
something wrong about me.
But looking back now, what isbecoming clear is that my
intuitive, spidey sense waspicking up on the fact that it
takes more effort to cultivate aconnection in those spaces.
And it's been years since I'vebought a membership, because I'm
just not into superficiality,like I want to get into the
(18:23):
bones of people, right.
So why then, when I'm lookingat BAM, why would I create
something that I wouldn't buymyself?
One thing that I think thatuniversities are doing right, in
my opinion, is thatuniversities will invest
billions of dollars.
I don't actually know what thenumber is, but like think about
(18:44):
all the universities that areopen right now and like the
faculty stuff.
Right, like billions of dollarsto keep a robust faculty team
alive, and many of theseprofessors are teaching the same
curriculum over and over again,year after year.
So I remember taking this isgoing to be random, but I took a
dinosaur class when I was in myundergrad at UC Santa Cruz and
(19:08):
to this day it was like one ofthe most engaging, delightful
classes that I've ever taken inmy life.
Up one of the like biggestlecture halls.
There were like hundreds ofstudents in it.
It would like there was like await list to get into this
(19:28):
dinosaur class.
It was like an intro todinosaurs class.
It was wild.
And the reason why I think thatthat class was so popular and so
like beloved by students yearafter year after year, like
people talked about it yearslater, right, is the good
professors keep the materialalive for themselves, and they
(19:49):
do that by honing their craft ofteaching and seeing how that
work can be added to, how itneeds to be pruned, how it needs
to be updated.
And they do this because theyknow that teaching is not just
an information dump, becausethey know that teaching is not
just an information dump, it'san experience between student
and mentor.
(20:09):
And I'm going to quote Miaagain here.
So the reason why teaching liveworks so well together is
because we all started togetheror we all suffered together, and
we get to know each other on amore personal level at the same
time in history, whileexperiencing a similar wave of
energy.
And so this like continues toreinforce this theory that I
(20:35):
have.
It's a theory like full-on.
It's a theory.
You cannot outsource andautomate connection to a robot
or, to a certain extent, even tolike another human and expect
to cultivate intimacy right,which would take out the like
why, behind everything that I do, I have a business, so that I
(20:57):
can hold space.
I don't have, or rather, yeah,let me say that again so I have
a business so I can hold space,and it's not the other way
around, and I will never scaleat the expense of connection,
because it dilutes the sacredmedicine of connection.
We heal through co-regulation,being understood, being in
(21:21):
interdependent relationships,and when we prioritize these
relational dynamics, we areplugging ourselves back into our
natural ways of being withnature, with other beings, with
other humans, other bodies andlike I know that we're very
clever as a human species, rightlike we can manufacture a lot,
(21:42):
but you cannot manufacture,manufacture connection.
So yeah, my friends, that iswhy I am your anti-scale
business coach.
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