The Million Dollar Creator Mindset: What 7-Figure Influencers Do Differently #261

What actually sets 7-figure creators apart? (It’s not luck, and it’s definitely not just going viral)
In this episode, we’re breaking down the real mindset of successful influencers, and how you can start thinking like a million-dollar business right now.
If you’ve been stuck hustling with little growth to show for it, constantly asking “what am I missing?”... this episode is your answer.
We’re talking about:

• The thought patterns high-earning creators live by
• The underrated power of speed
• Why fear never goes away (and what to do about it) 
• How to handle rejection and public failure like a pro 
• Why investing in yourself isn’t optional... it’s essential 

Whether you’re just getting started or looking to finally hit that next level, knowing how to think and move like these top creators, is your secret sauce to success. Listen until the end for one of my favorite creator mindset metaphors of all time. It will stick with you.


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This episode can also been seen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mshknilSjrs

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
in this influencer industry and see behind the curtain? Well,
let's jump in. I've been giving a lot of thought

(00:23):
to what makes a creator successful and hit a certain
amount of money on brand deals and what doesn't. And
I think a lot of times we think strategies and
things to do, but I was more interested in finding
patterns of successful people, Like, truly, what are the patterns
or what are the things that all of the people
that I know that make over a million dollars a

(00:45):
year in brand deals? Are there similar traits? Are there
similar ways of thinking mindset? Because everyone wants to hack,
everyone wants a growth tip, but so much of it
is up here. I can't stress that enough. So what
I did I actually took note of like the most
successful creators I know again, creators making over a million

(01:05):
dollars a year in brand deals. These are the types
of creators I roll with because these are the people
in my industry and my friends and people who I've
built connections with, and I'm always asking myself like, how
did they get there? How did they get there? In
terms of patterns and personality? And there's also creators that
I'm going to reference in today. I'm not going to
mention their names that are on the path to hit

(01:27):
those figures. They haven't hit them yet, but I know
that they will. And the reason that I know that
they will is because of the traits and the things
that we're going to go over today. The first thing
that I think all successful creators have, especially when they
got started or even now, is that they are afraid,
but they do it anyways. Fear does not go away
with the amount of followers you get. You're just finding

(01:50):
a new fear that's going to be unlocked. Okay, Fear
doesn't go away with the more brand deals you get.
Trust me, you were scared of that two thousand dollars
brand deal. You're going to be scared of that fifty
thousand dollars brand deal or that one hundred thousand dollars
brand deal. The fear doesn't just wisp away the more
money you make. Actually it gets bigger. The stakes are higher.
There is always fear involved. But what I have found

(02:11):
is that the people that are growing, they're scared, but
they do it anyways. They do it while scared. I
just interviewed Sandy from Trying Something New. She is a
million dollar creator. She is someone that was in our
pitching program, she was in my inner circle. She's become
a close friend. I've done retreats with her. All of
the above, And one thing I really have taken from
Sandy and Jimmy from their company is this no Plan

(02:34):
B mentality. They told me very early on in their
creator journey. They got their knuckles tattooed because they never
wanted to go back to a corporate job. And I
remember talking to Jimmy about this concept and he was like,
there is no Plan B. Like it is it. There
is this mentality of like, I will do anything it
takes to get there. You know, there is no plan B.

(02:55):
There is no going back. This is the only way.
And I think unlocking or having that that sort of
mindset shift is very powerful for some creators because it
gives them that momentum and that steam to keep going.
One of the biggest elements I see in my rising
Star creators, the ones that are hitting those ten two
thirty thousand dollars months. Is speed? Speed? Speed? Speed? What

(03:18):
do I mean by speed? Writing back to the email
right away once it comes in, posting the draft same day,
moving fast, not sitting waiting, procrastinating, waiting for the perfect time.
You know, none of that. There is speed. There's this
creator in my program right now. We call her like
speeding Gonzales because she will literally work with a brand

(03:39):
on a three day turnaround, add an extra fee, charge
whatever she needs to, She'll get it done. And so
many of us, myself included, will like, oh my god,
in order to get a brand partnership done, like we
take so much time, so much longer than needed. And
her secret sauce is speed. She's like, no, I'll get
it done. Like if the client needs it ASoP, I'm
gonna figure it out. I'm going to buy the product

(03:59):
myself if I need to, not wait and move. And
I think there's this element of getting things done fast
and swiftly that I'm seeing a lot of successful creators.
Carrie Forward, a big mindset we all need to get
around is everyone wants to be a successful influencer, but
not everyone wants to put in the work, and let's
just call a spade a spade. This is, you know,
for many, an extraordinary life. This is something that is

(04:22):
people's wildest dreams to be able to make money working
with brands, work for themselves, travel the world like not
have a traditional nine to five, build their personal brand.
That is a dream life and that requires dream amounts
of effort. And we've heard this through different podcasts, We've
heard different thought leaders talk about this, but it is true.
You're not going to make an amazing life for yourself

(04:45):
doing the bare minimum, you know. Again, I had Olga
on the podcast recently from the Mini Jetsetter. Olga's on
her way. She is crushing it. This girl comes in
every week with a new win. I mean I can't
even keep up with her wins. But she said something
on the podcast that I loved, and it was the
honesty and transparency about waking up early. I mean, she
is up at five, and not all of us have that.

(05:07):
We don't have what it takes to put in the effort.
She has two young kids, she has a husband, she
has work to do. She's also up at five. You know,
Holso is up at five or four thirty. Chris Jenner.
I joke about that, but it's true. It requires extra hours,
extra work. You're not going to be a millionaire waking
up at eight, working a few hours a day and
then going to bed, especially in the beginning. It's just

(05:29):
not true. It's a false narrative. Extraordinary lives require extraordinary
efforts in order to get to the life that you need.
Now that effort can doesn't have to be forever and
ever and ever, but it is definitely during a point
of your life you got to put in the blood,
sweat and tears. There is an element of sacrifice that
is needed. Sacrifice in so many ways, right, comfort like

(05:50):
waking up early, or maybe financial sacrifice, or potentially time
with family. I mean, these are things that we don't
want to do. That's why it hurts, like we don't
want to give up that special time, you know. I
remember one of the biggest tips that I got from
a creator who is a million dollar creator. She told me,
you know, at the beginning of her career, she shared
a hotel room with four other women. She's like, Nina,

(06:11):
I was a thirty year old woman sharing a hotel
room with four other women so I could go to
this travel conference and I could meet people. That same
lady two years later was making a million in brand deals,
and that just stays with me, Like that sacrifice, like
having to not be there, I think was like our
husband's anniversary because she wanted to be at this conference,
maybe being able to afford, but not wanting to spend

(06:31):
that type of money on her own room, but sacrificing
and staying in a room with others. You know, I
see this time and time again that sacrifice that is needed.
And look where it got her, right, she was putting
herself in the room. Creators don't wait to be invited.
You want to go to a conference and meet brands,
go alone. You cannot wait for others to push you.

(06:52):
You got to push yourself and you got to put
yourself in the room. You got to put yourselves in
these events. You got to do it, even if it's
by yourself, because again, the dream life that you were
waiting for requires this type of effort. In this type
of work, outside of putting themselves in their room, they
are constantly investing in themselves. The people that I brought
onto the podcasts that are not brand side are obviously
my students, My pitching students, my inner circle students. Many

(07:15):
of them like Olga book that thirty day investment with me.
I mean I was in the trenches with her for
thirty days. Did she make her money back? Yes, she
knew this was an investment. So you are constantly investing
in yourself, in knowledge, putting yourself in the right spaces
with the right people, you know, in equipment. Potentially, you
got to invest in yourself. I speak of Olga because

(07:37):
she is, you know, obviously killing it right now in
her space. She came to Creator Wave, you know, a
retreat I did last year. She came by herself. She's
like need I've never gone on a solo trip because
she put herself in the room. She invested in herself
and look at the relationship we've built since. Right. So
you don't know who you're going to meet along the way,
but you need to invest in yourself, especially as a creator.
It is important the same way you would invest in

(07:58):
yourself in any other industry. You gotta have skin in
the game. It needs to hurt. You need to put
yourself in there now. If you're a creator that's ever
wanted to work with us here at Sidewalker Daily, you're
ready to invest in yourself. You want to see how
I can support you in becoming that next million dollar creator.
Go ahead and click the link below to get on
a call with our success manager. She will walk you

(08:19):
through the different ways that you can work with me.
I am very selective. I want to work with people
who are hungry, who are going to be my next testimonial.
And if that sounds like you and you're interested in
building out your creator biz, go ahead and click that
link below so you can talk with her and learn
about ways that I can support you. Another big thing
that I have to say with it comes to successful

(08:40):
creators is that they are learning, right, They are learning,
but they're doing. You got to get out of the
learning trap, my friend. You can't keep buying courses and
watching YouTube videos and going on chat and not do.
There has to be a balance between learning and execution.
Learning and execution. You can't get stuck just learning. Can't
just be in the learning trap. You gotta execute, You
gotta do. The most successful people I know just do.

(09:03):
They just execute, even if it's a flop, even if
it's whack, even if it doesn't do well, because you
know what, they don't validate themselves by their numbers. They
know they're in this. There's no plan B. They got
to keep going. They got to keep trekking. They don't
give up if something does bad, right, they don't just Okay, well,
I guess this isn't for me. No, you try and
you figure it out. I think that obviously as an educator,

(09:24):
as an academic myself, we got to learn, but we
got to do. I can't just sit and learn about
how to do a YouTube video. I gotta get up
here and do it right. So you constantly have to
be needling the thread of you know, learning doing, learning, doing,
and so important to reflect because you want to also
reflect on your learnings and on your actions, what worked,
what didn't, and implement your reflections into your new strategies.

(09:47):
I got a text this morning in my WhatsApp group.
Someone was like, one of the best things I learned
about Nina's negotiations she got a free trip. She was
able to make it twenty five hundred bucks. The point
is if you don't ask, you don't get. That's it.
You don't ask, you don't get. So there's this idea
of also understanding that you will miss the shots you
don't take. If you don't ask, you're not going to receive.
Who cares. Worst case they say is no. We talk

(10:10):
so much about the importance of negotiating, advocating for yourself.
Do you think a brand is going to be like, oh, yeah, no,
actually your rate's too low, we should charge more. No,
they're going to be like, yes, they didn't charge enough.
You think anyone is going to tell you to raise
your rates, you have to do that for yourself or
obviously hire me to make you raise your rates. But
the idea here is, you know, no one's going to

(10:30):
tell you to raise your rates. No company is going
to be like, oh yeah, that's way too cheap. It's
not going to happen. So you have to constantly advocate, negotiate.
It is uncomfortable. A big million dollar pattern is accepting
rejection and failing publicly. This is a space where we
will fail publicly. We will postuff and get no views,
we will postuff and get no comments. It's part of
the beast. You will fail publicly, and rejection is also

(10:54):
a really big part. I almost feel like everyone needs
to go through a really in depth sales training or
be like a wait tres or do cold calls and
learn how to get nos. Learn how to get nos
from people so that you don't take them so personally,
you know, because no is part of it. There was
a creator the other day telling me for every no
you get, you are one step closer to a yes.
There is math. You need to get a certain number

(11:16):
of nos before you get that yes. And it's just
part of it. So if you could accept this early on,
that rejection is a part of it, and again not
take things so personal, to remove yourself a little bit
from your work to understand this is a business. There
is a long game involved, and no is not going
to break you down. Imagine if we all just accepted
the nose in our lives. Right, The most successful people

(11:37):
accept the nose, but they don't see them as a failure.
They see them as a lesson. What did I learn
from this? Okay, we're going to keep moving. And again,
it's hard to do that alone. You may need to
support network, you may need a team around you, you
may need help. Get that help then, but at the
end of the day, rejection is a natural part of
the beast. Especially building your influencer career. You need resistance

(11:58):
to build that strength to build that fortitude. Okay, so
don't let the wind knock you down. You need push,
you need struggle to build resilience to be able to
actually hit those revenue goals that you're looking to do
as a creator. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If
you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe to

(12:18):
our show and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com for more resources
on all things influencer, marketing and social media. Until next time,