 Welcome to Tuesday Tea. If you've been with us through the month of November, we've been talking with really super smart people about personal branding and how they're embracing their authenticity. And we are wrapping up today's tea joined by someone I feel always shows up authentically. And so we're gonna talk about that today. Everyone, I want you to welcome Carly Cunningham. Hello, Carly. Hello, I'm so excited to be here and in the category of really smart people. Thank you for that honor. Oh, no problem. Well, and we were gonna have this conversation back in September. And in all honesty and authenticity, my stuff kind of got derailed and so now it's been bumped to this. So I've been waiting to talk to you for I feel like for like three months. So I appreciate you hanging in with me. So friends, folks, I wanna introduce Carly. I've known Carly for a while, mostly online. So let me introduce Carly to you. She is a brand strategist that takes businesses from overcrowded competitive spaces out into the blue ocean territory where can they can confidently step out and thrive. She has an international client base that benefits from accelerated growth, increase from profit and stability using Carly's tools and strategies. Having built three successful businesses herself, Carly knows what it takes to start, develop and lead a company that delivers results. She's a sought after mentor and speaker and host of the podcast, The Made Possible Podcast. And when not focusing on a business or expanding her network, she can be found challenging herself on the single track trails of the Pacific Northwest either on her bike or running. Carly, what a great bio. And I have so many questions about it but I'm gonna turn it over to you because I want you to just share a little bit about yourself and a little bit about your passions around branding to our audience. Ooh, good questions. Well, a little bit about self is my, how this is going to parallel today and one thing that I kind of hope to unpack is that the process that I built for businesses actually came of my own personal brand development journey and essentially pulling it apart. If you ask me what I sell, I kind of smirk and I say, I sell clarity. And so it's clarity of who a business is and how they operate and how they show up. And as much as we talk about brand and as much as people think that brand belongs in the marketing house, so to speak, if you think about the departments of a company and you've got leadership and strategy at the center is when I was doing my own work, I realized that it comes from the center and it comes from the heart. Well, the heart of any business is the strategy and the heart of the business is the people and the people leading the business. And what I started to discover as I started to play with it years ago is that if you take these, this thing we call brand and you move it into the leadership house and the owner, the leaders really connect with it on a heart, not only a thought-based, like this is, yes, this is who we want to be. We need to, we have business objectives. They need to be fulfilled. These are our clients. But most small and medium-sized businesses, the owners are involved and they just didn't want it to be a job. So I'm kind of coming around to say when we can get them clear on who they are, what they do, the value they deliver, then they can lead the business forward in a more authentic way. And so brand, in my opinion, doesn't belong in marketing to kind of wrap back where I was going with that. Brand belongs in the leadership house. Brand believes it should live in each of the leaders of each department. So if you're a sales leader in the context of this conversation, if you're a sales manager, brand lives with you. You need to lead by example. And then there's that new, I know we're getting into this later. There's the tension between what is the company or corporate brand and what is my brand? Yeah, and maybe we will dive into that because you're right. I think while a lot of the folks in the hospitality industry, yes, there are those solopreneurs where they are that leader that you're speaking about. But a lot of them work in departments where they have leaders that may not have any desire to create a personal brand, but we have this on the ground, boots on the ground people who are curious about personal branding. They also have this big corporate umbrella that they work and operate under and they wanna come off authentically, which is why you're the perfect person to speak to this because there's kind of a clash between do I even create a brand because there's this corporate umbrella? And now, as you mentioned, there might even be a clash with their leader if they haven't been taught from Carly to say that branding lives with the leadership of each individual department. So how was that for a massive giant tennis ball that I'm gonna lie with you? Because we do, we need to unpack this to create what you say, create clarity for people who are trying to create their brands. Yeah, can I jump on one thing? So it's interesting, you say it seems like there's a choice of do I develop a personal brand or do I not develop a personal brand? I'm gonna lobby it back this way and say the only choice is whether I choose to control my brand or the world. So we all have a personal brand, right? Whether you do it intentionally or unintentionally or organically is another way to think about it, whether it just, some company brands are built from the leadership brand just because they're so steeped in their own mindset, methodology, beliefs and truths that it just permeates the company, which can go either way. But so it's a matter of, in my opinion, is there's a risk in choosing not to pay attention to how you show up in the world. It's so true. I like explaining it that personal brand is when we just take control of the messaging. The messaging is already there in our daily actions and how we show up both on and offline, but it's how we control that message that really dictates how people perceive our personal brand. So yes, you and I are very aligned in that respect. So okay, so let's rephrase the question. How does one create a brand that's true to themselves when they have to follow some of the marketing guidelines as set out by their corporation? Whoa, we just opened the can of worms. You ready? Okay, so let's divide that into two parts. Okay, so how does someone go about building their own personal brand? Okay. Because there is a risk of reward and happiness and return for everybody. If your brand and their brand, AKA the corporate brand in your brand, or is it doing this or are they both doing this, right? Right, okay, okay. And do they align, does it resonate with you? I mean, think about the last time you were in either could it be a sales conversation with someone you didn't jive with? Yeah. And it just, something feels off. Something feels wrong. It's just like that rub against the grain. The question you ask yourself is, do I even wanna work with this person? Now, fair, a lot of people here are striving to achieve sales goals, but beyond that piece of the conversations, is the company you're working for aligned with you and are you aligned with them? And so you and I were talking in the green room about values. So one of the keys to understanding your personal brand is understanding your personal values. Who am I? What is important to me? What are my deal breakers? Yes, oh, I love that one. What are my non-negotiables, right? Deal breakers, think about a relationship. You are in relationship with your manager. You are in relationship with your director. You are in relationship with the organization. What are your deal breakers? Yeah, yeah, I love that word. And values are tricky. There's lots of great exercises out there for how to figure them out. But if I recommend any work on your personal brand, understanding your values, because think about it in interviews all the time. Somebody says, well, what are your values? Or they'll say, so did you read our corporate values? Like, what do you think of them? Now, if the company's done that, I'm gonna pick on the companies for a minute here. I'm gonna get into, we always care that integrity, trust, and authenticity are our values. No, stop. I'm gonna be a bit of a jerk. That just tells me that the organization hasn't done deep enough work to understand who they are. Because who would work with someone who doesn't have integrity, who you don't trust, who doesn't show up authentically? Those three things are outputs of you or the organization living the values. One client, am I allowed to use four-letter words? Sure. I kid you not, one of our clients, one of their values, their top value, was get shit done. I mean, pretty cut and dry. That sets the tone for who this company is, right? And I was like, hey, are you sure you want it? And they were like, yes, get shit done. Okay, well, if they're not getting it done, they're not living in alignment with their values. And if you walked into a job interview and they said, our number one value is getting done, you're gonna either be like, yeah, I'm in. This is a motivated, or she'll be like, whoa. Yeah. Right? And that's what I'm talking about alignment. That's what I'm talking about rubbing against the grain. So when you have a deep understanding of your own personal values, then you can compare and contrast or see if they come together. Yeah, yes. Well, and that's a culture conversation too, right? Well, and one of the things that I've encouraged clients to do is to look at the values of the corporation that they work with. And if they're in alignment, fantastic. But then also compounding on that value as part of your personal brand can be super powerful, especially if you're in a sales role and you're trying to attract leads. And so now you are emulating that value as is your corporation. But when you're emulating something that the corporation is not aligned with, then you're right. Then there's a disconnect and your clients are wondering, who's really authentic here? And I've also heard this said about values. It's funny that we're talking about values because I was on a panel last night, just last night talking about values. And we were talking about the definition of values. And as you gave the example, if your client get done, does that mean everyone's expected to work 16 hour days? Or does that mean we have a project and we're very conscious of how long a project will take and we are very intentional with our time? So even the definition of get done and the definition of integrity and the definition of authenticity, those corporations need to dive deep and figure out, well, how does that manifest in our corporate branding and then how would that manifest as a personal brand as well? So I love that we're talking about values. Well, in one of the levels of that, even for everyone on the call, when you're defining your values, define what that means to you. And that's why in our method, what I did was I moved away from one word values and we take buckets of values, like words they feel like they fit together. So if nothing else, you go and you go, okay, look at a values sheet, highlight the ones that mean something to you. Pick the top 15 to 20 and then put them all on a board and then start to group them and then say to yourself, what's the story this is telling? What is this telling me or what am I trying to convey here that's important to me that is something that I value that is something that I, the way that I show up, learning and growth and expansion is often when it comes up. And so how we do it is we write it, not as a value, but as a guiding principle that starts with a verb. So always be learning and sharing is one of ours. And then we define it underneath and get more specific about this is for the rest of our team, this is the behavior we expect you to live. And if there's a little story, a one-line story about it because it becomes so clear. And then I always say to our business owners, and that, okay, so for the context of this conversation, imagine if your director or the president came into your annual meeting and said, here's our refined set of values and there's three to four of them. I'm trying to think who's model is it? Patrick Lancioni says don't have more than three or four. I think he says three. Okay. Because people don't remember. So great. You don't have three very tightly described guiding principles and it tells you exactly how to make your decisions. You can go out into the world, assuming that everybody's living them and they're true, you can go out into the world and you can make decisions based on the company, on behalf of the company and trust that you're in alignment and that you can come back and say, well, I made this decision about not taking this client because these are our top three values. This is how we want to show up and we protect the environment and they're off digging wells and digging oil, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the more empowering they are and the clearer they are, the more they provide that direction. So on the personal side, get really clear about what that means for you. Don't just pick a word, integrity, whoa. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. How does that manifest into action? You know, it's funny. So when you do this with corporations and I know we're going off script here a little bit, but and then you perhaps do those interviews with employees, do the employees actually know what their values, their corporate corporations values are? Whereas a lot of the education piece with the leaders to go, okay, now that you've set your values, can you please tell other people about them? Because I couldn't tell you what my corporations values are. Number one, I haven't asked, but number two, maybe there needs to be a more intentional effort of sharing that. Absolutely, you're bang on. And that is the biggest place that I say brands fall down is how many tens of gazillions of thousands of dollars are spent every year in an annual, whether it be the strategic planning, whether it be the brand development exercise, whether it be HR, developing culture, do we go through values exercises? I'm right them all down, yay, we're clear, awesome. Go team, maybe, maybe stick them on the wall. Great, everybody just, you know, mourning. Oh yeah, oh yeah, the values are there, right? Right? But they don't, what we say, call integrate them and activate them. So integrating them is putting them on your website, putting them in your wiki, putting them in your employee manual. For the managers, for the directors on this call, if you believe, and you believe that they're clear or you wanna make them clear, maybe take them down from corporate and start talking about them with your team. How are we gonna integrate these into the work we do? How are we going to activate them? Easiest way to activate on my tele-leadership team is tell people they're gonna be held accountable to these behaviors, to these guiding principles. There's only three of them, shouldn't be too much, and you're gonna be evaluated in your quarterly annual, what it however often you get reviewed, we're gonna be evaluating, are you living them? Yes. Right, because when you live them, then your team members live them, and then your employees pick them up and go, wow, that's really authentic, they're really aligned with each other. Shocking, right? As opposed to, oh, look, they're there on the wall. What does that mean? Oh, look, integrity is written on the wall. Well, and there you just defined authenticity with that example, right? Like, that's what living authentically, you're living your brand authentically really means. And I know you do such an incredible job of that in your personal brand, and I'm sure in your corporate brand as well. So what are some tips for people who are trying to figure out, well, okay, now I've got my values, and they look really pretty on the wall, how do I authentically live, authentically project my brand with your values? Yeah, so one of the things we tell our clients in our surefire method of what we call the surefire strategy is when we build a brand, we create the tools that effectively align everyone and everything in the organization. So if you're doing that for self, here's the key question in that whole equation is, when you're making a decision, now it could be a hiring decision for your department, it could be a personal decision, do I, if I have to juggle these two clients today, how am I going to go about doing that? Or which one do I meet with? Go to your guiding principles and help them use them as tools to help you make the decision. And ask yourself, if I make this decision, am I living in alignment with and demonstrating or living my guiding principles? Easy, easy, and it's just, you can make a habit of that. You know, that is, that's gold for me, cause one of the, wow, it's like you are literally looking at my business plan, Carly, cause one of my goals for 2022 is to ensure I only work with people that are in alignment with my values. So that when I have to make those decisions, I know who it is that I can work. My requests come in, that's perfect. That's, yay, I'm on the way to track. Action item, action item. Yes, I love it, I love it. So, so Carly, can we go a little bit back to how you and I kind of came together, again, this is a few months ago, you were posting some content on LinkedIn that was very real and very raw for you. Are you in a position to kind of share your story a little bit about your own brand and how you came into your own authenticity? Yeah, absolutely, I was just, it's funny, it is getting hot in here, but as you were answering the question, I was like, well, it's kind of appropriate, now you're putting me in the wrong place. But so, yeah, so where my work and deep learning started with effectively what has become my business and the core and heart of my business was my own authenticity crisis, my own early midlife crisis meltdown. And yeah, so we need to have one of those soon, but keep going. So imagine this, I have just hired a business coach who was actually more of a, he became much more of a well-rounded life coach and I'd hired him because things just weren't lining up in my life. And for all intensive purposes, I'm gonna set the stage. So for anybody who is in the lower mainland, I'm sure you may have heard of the Terminal City Club, high-end business club akin to a country club without the golf course, we're sitting in the middle of one of the dining rooms for my first session with my coach, his name was Ray. And he just simply said, how can I help you? And so I started to go, hmm, okay. And I said, well, I said, here's the deal. I said, I think I was 34 at the time. I said, I'm 34 years old. I said, if you look at my life from the outside, I own property and I moved out here by myself as solo, my family's on the other side of the country. I own property in Vancouver. I have very little debt. I have a company that's growing exponentially. I'm a dating a pilot. I can fly anywhere in the world at any time that I want. Life looked grand from the outside for me. And I looked at him and I said, I am absolutely miserable. And in like Q Waterworks, it was not only, am I realizing that's why I've hired him? Like I knew on the surface level, but like, and Ray just has this way of like, tell me you're most inner, like he just came wide open, right? So here's me, snotty, teary mess in the middle of the terminal city club in front of this gentleman who I have, you know, I've followed and mentored, respected for many years. So yeah, that happens. So what that triggered was, I think probably a year to 16 months worth of exploring and essentially unpacking myself. And I had up until that point been very good in my life events and who I am at the core had done very well to set me up for this because I had learned to live as a chameleon. So when I was young, I was a figure skater. I was skating for one of the top clubs in the world and I was being groomed to be one of the next top world pairs figure skaters. And so, you know, you step on the ice, it doesn't matter that you and your pairs partner got in a fight five minutes before stepping on the ice. You know, it doesn't matter that, you know grandma's in the hospital, it doesn't matter. None of them matters. You step on the ice and you're there, right? So teaching you that in a way, your emotions come second because you are a competitor. You are a representative of this club. You have goals and dreams like you step up, you know, the skate comes undone in the middle of the ice, treat like nothing happened, call the judge's time, you know, tie up your shoe, like don't get mad, don't get flucked, just be like, I'm good. I'm good, right? So that's so, so, you know, really good chameleon lessons number one. Two, I discovered when I was 18 that I was not straight and I lived in a smallish town and this would have been in the 90s where, you know, Ellen hadn't even come out yet. So yeah, like burying who I was, being not wanting people to find out who I was. So I learned how to put on all these masks and all this armor and show up. And then I did the same thing in business when I started my business because I was young and I was in the corporate world. I was, I was in a member of the term, not the Termal Sleep Club, sorry. I can see the name. Anyways, a big business organization and they were all kind of like, oh, aren't you cute? So I had to step up. I had to, I mean, I'm edgy, you can probably tell from the way that I'm talking. I've already sworn on this conversation. I do, as much as I can be conservative, I do come with an edgy and a bit of flair and I've had to temper a lot of that my whole life. I've had to hide who I am. And so I would step into those environments the way they needed to see me for me to do business. So by the time I got to Ray, I didn't know who I was. I was just this person who could fit into anything. I could shape, I'm good at shapeshifting. But that put me so far off my center and so far off my access and so misaligned with my values. Oh, the other piece was the business I was running. My business partner and I were saying the same values words. So you wanna figure out where that started. We were both saying family first and integrity and something. Yet are what we weren't aligned. And there was so much time between us that I was like, do I just kick this business to the curb? So all the things. I can laugh about it now, but then it was messy. So he literally picked me apart piece by piece. And what do I stand for? What do I believe in? What's my purpose to doing this work that I love doing? Why do I do this work? Why do I love this work? What are my values? How do I show up as a person? Like they talked about now we're hearing a lot of it in HR is how do I bring my whole self to work? Yeah. I had to figure out how to bring my whole self to myself. Yes. Start there. Isn't that heartbreaking? Heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if I saw our niece or nephew going through that same thing, I would just be like, oh man. My, again, being a chameleon, I go to resilience. I'm like, okay, we're gonna beat this up. We're gonna get this, right? So I did see some things pop up in the chat. Is there any questions that anybody had or anything? No, not yet. Mostly just, they just love what you're saying. Thank you. Okay, so you and Ray are sitting there. You've gone through the boxes of Kleenex and now he's going to pick apart and whiteboard Carly. So what happens during that process? What happened? Well, the funny thing is Carly doesn't do anything in the light version of it. So I had Ray who is very well versed in all these tools, hypnotherapy and timeline regression and values and all the typical corporate, here, find your values, do the survey, figure out, am I an empath? Am I not an empath? All the things. And he's really well rounded, which is super cool because he comes across as a corporate guy but he's got some of the softer side emotional intelligence pieces. And then I also started doing a lot of work with a yoga coach. Okay. And so looking into sort of those aspects of my life and I mean, from simply reconnecting to my body and I was doing alignments of the chakra. And so it just cracked everything away. It was just like, I just took Carly pin yotted myself and just laid it all on the table and went, all right, let's just see what's working. Let's see what's not working. Oh, so I love that analogy. I'm told, I can see it. I can literally see Carly all over the table. Like that is a little messy, it's a little messy. But no, but what a great analogy that you stepped outside of yourself and looked at all of the bits and pieces. And then, okay, so now you've got this pinata and you've got all the Post-it notes. Now what do you do? Well, and that's ultimately as I was doing this work rebuilding my own personal brand, I was building, funny enough, the first iteration of the company of Big Bolt brand was working with people to build their own personal brands. And so the tools and that, the tools that I build in the Surefire toolkit, those 11 tools, and I can share those with you, is not different from a personal brand. Here's why. Companies are made up of people. Yeah, yeah. They are. They are. They are. And whether it's your departmental team and you need to come together around a shared and common set of values or guiding principles, whether you need to come together around a, your own brand promise to your clients, because sometimes we can do the Russian doll inside the bigger corporate doll because of the people. There's a certain way that we all are that's different from the sales team in Houston or different from the sales team in the UK, right? And that's okay, as long as they don't start to be the magnets that repel, okay? So you asked me, now what? Pignon on the floor. Tools, things to develop, things to get clear on. Yeah. What's my purpose? What is my purpose beyond making money for myself and this organization? Simon Sinek said it best, people don't care, don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it, right? Yes, interesting. Yes, love it. You will also pull that mission that works too. Purpose mission interchange will perfectly find whichever one resonates with you. Guiding principles, we've hammered that one, probably almost to death today, but that's the next one. On top of that, and I'm visual, so I'm going to the list in my head, then we go to three to five year vision. So for me, personal, where do I want to be in three to five years? We talk about the moonshine, we talk about the Big Harry Audacious goal. Those are great for big showy like, hey, I'm on stage, but ultimately where do I need to go? And here's an interesting thing about the vision. Neuroscience tells us the brain can't attach meaning and knowing an emotion to something that's further than three to five years out. So that 10 year vision, it's inspiring, but it'll get here. Oh, damn, it's year seven. I haven't done anything, right? So short in the timeline. And then persona, how do I want to show up? And persona can be like, hey, what do I like wearing? It's funny. So I was prepping for this. I was looking at my closet going, one, what do I feel like to like, what's my jam today? And how am I gonna show up authentically? Right? And so, but it's also finding that thing that's comfortable for you, but also maybe inspires you to stretch a little bit. So how do I want to show up? You know, mine is definitely rigorous, conservative, yet edgy as I'll get out. Like I'm punchy, right? So that's kind of what I'm- I'm unapologetic about that. And that's what I love about you is, you call it edginess, but you're unapologetic about it, which a lot of people I think would try and dial down their edginess to fit into that mold. And I know we're going back in time on this conversation, but you did that at one point in your life. I dialed it down. And that's why it was so miserable. Cause I was like, I can't be myself. Like I'm, you know, on top of the layer of being queer, I was like, I'm still to this day, I will scan a room and go, is it safe for me to say I have a wife before it comes out of my mouth? Wow. Right? So, oh yeah, dialing things down, I had mastered to an art, but it was just progressively like, again, pushing me down and making me miserable. So from there, where do we go? Then we go into target audiences. Who are my ideal? And I know that's hard in this context because not everybody has a choice of who they work with, but here's a cool thing. If you haven't noticed or go back and look at your past clients who've referred to other good clients, like attracts like. Yes. And the better you get at choosing like, the more likes gonna get sent your way. So getting really clear on who are our, as the organization, ideal clients, looking at their mindset, like how do they show up? What do they want from us? What do they need from us? What are they willing to spend on? Are they flexible at the end of like, how do those people show up? And then from there, what's next? I don't know if it's in differentiators. So in the context of the individual, if you were thinking of your resume or being in an interview or even with a client says, well, why should I choose you over the competition? Like what's different and special about you? That's a nuanced start, but think about, well, in my body of work, nobody else brings veterinary experience to this or nobody else brings X experience. Like what are those things that really make you unique and start to bring those together? There's never just one thing, right? And it's not like I'm gonna save you time making more money or do it easier. Everybody else is gonna catch up on that event, right? They're saying the same thing, yeah. But if you're really good at technology, how are you bringing that and offering that to your clients and the organization? We take that from the benefits and differentiators, we find the top of the cream of the crop on that and then we build a value proposition statement. I am the only person in this organization, I am the only person in this field who can bring these three valuable things together. And they need to be valuable to not only you, but to your organization and or to the people you sell to. Then we get into the layer of brand promise. What is the promise of experience? So no matter how, no matter how Carly shows up, she's gonna be unapologetic, right? If I promise that and I do that, that's the experience you're gonna get with me. That could be one of unapologetic advice, sure. And then I'll also come back and help guide you through because one of the essences of our values is caring. And then brand story, what's my story? That in the context of the brand story is not something we use personally often, but you can use it to create an emotional connection with your audience. That's really what it takes that push pull of, well, how much do you all connect with my story of melting down in the middle of the terminal city club? I can laugh at it now, but you felt that, right? So what are the stories about ourselves that we can share that, yeah, they might be a little vulnerable, but don't you like people who are vulnerable? Don't they seem more authentic? Well, what you do with those stories, Carly, and this is, I guess, where I really leaned into you a few months ago is you created a safe space for others who may be in that position, right? And so when you shared, and I'll be honest, I can't even remember what it was that you shared, but I remember feeling like, okay, Carly's now given me permission to feel the same way. And I think when people are authentically showing up and they share those vulnerable stories, they're doing the exact same thing. They are giving permission and providing a safe space for other people who might be where you were back when you met Ray, where you were hiding who you truly were and you were chameleoning in to your environment instead of being authentic and showing up as Carly. So that's what I love about authentic brands, be it yours or others, is authenticity opens a door for other people to be real and honest and wrong. And human, I'm a surviving and recovering perfectionist. I was trying so hard to hold that up, like what else doing, what other duct tape do I need to put on to hold that up? Yeah. I forget things, I drop things, I break things, I screw things up. I'm human. If you don't want me to be human, don't hire me for this job. That's such a powerful statement, right? And such a powerful word, human. We all need to remember that that's actually what we are first and foremost, aside from being a wife and a mother and an employee and then this and that is that we're just human. I love, love this. So Carly, you also do video, I believe. I think that was one of the content formats where I was really drawn into your story. Do you do video? Do you still do video? Video is the video and interview, like this for me is so real and so comfortable. I want to do more of it. What gets in my way is my perfectionism. That's so funny. But video, if nothing else, can I write? Yes, am I good at writing? Yes, but it takes me forever and it blows my head up. It is so much easier for me to stand in front of a camera, which for some people is terrifying, but think about it, I was a figure skater when I was five. It's my natural zone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, and I do have a question about video because I run with things. Well, the thing with video, I find, and I think again, that's where I was kind of pulled into your authenticity is with video, you can convey things more authentically faster. You can build a connection with people. Next to in-person interactions, it is the next closest thing. And you're right. I think you invite community because you are natural on camera and you're right. Maybe not everyone is natural, but you've been practicing for a lot of years and we can all start practicing now and start to get used to being on video because I think video is just so powerful as compared to, like you said, the written word, but you also have a podcast. So tell me a little bit about the podcast. Can I touch on something for video for the group here that I think is great? So yes, I will come back to podcast video. I wish I totally did not save my first ever. I did a course, like a three-day course of how to get more comfortable in front of the camera on this side of the camera, not that side, this side. Because I've been on that side directing photo shoots and things since the start of my career. I was so awkward and uncomfortable. It would be funny for me to watch now and it would be, you know, be one of those, oh, those kind of painful moments, but it just takes time. It's about practice. It's about, you know, whatever sport, whether you do sport, whether you do knitting, whether you do drawing, we all practice. And practice, you know what? Just makes more practice. Let's just get rid of perfection. Practice is mixed, and we get better at it. I wasn't this comfortable in a, you know, essentially riffing interview when I first started doing them, but here's a little bit of bait for you. Imagine how much quicker it would be to be able to use Loom, which is a great platform or some short snippet video platform where you could go, hey, John, it was a great sales conversation today. I felt a great fit and affinity with you. I'm excited to take the next steps. And here's the three steps that we agreed upon. I'm gonna get busy working on the next one and I'll follow up within two days. That is so much quicker than trying to word type, massage memorally it, make sure there's no errors. It's so much quicker. And I will often dialogue or when I'm providing feedback to clients or it's on my team now, I use video. So even starting by using video even within your internal team, that gets you comfortable with, but it's so much faster. And it's, again, that human connection who else in the sales team of who are the other companies that are pitching this client? Who's gonna show up and be like, hey, John, I recorded this video just for you. Well, and that goes back to that unique selling proposition or that differentiator, if you're able to confidently and authentically create a video for that that could set you apart from your competition right there, right? That eliminates everybody else from your comp set. So I love it. I love it. It certainly just means being, having the guts to stand in front of that camera. It doesn't mean you're gonna be completely comfortable. I mean, we have friends who are just awkwardly themselves and they celebrate their awkwardness or their differentness or their quirkiness or their, and if you can be that in front of that camera and that client goes, yeah, I gotta have Jennifer or whomever, right? Exactly. Well, it's that connection that's that in the absence of face to face, it's the next best thing. Okay. Okay, well, that's a good one. That's a great one. It's a good podcast. Thank you. So Made Possible is a collaboration between myself, my company, Big Bull brand and small business, BC, who supports all the small businesses across the province. And it was just, it was kind of timing. It showed up at the right time. Again, I seated, you know, I kind of sold my way into it. I was talking to my now producer partner, Darren Dunne and he was saying, hey, we're thinking of starting a podcast. I'm like, oh really, that's interesting because it was on my bucket list of things to do. And I said, so who's host in the podcast, Darren? He goes, well, we don't know yet. I'm like, I'll do it for you. He's like, really? I'm like, hell yeah. And so we got gifted the space in the chaos of the pandemic. Small Business BC was so amazing at stepping up to do and run so many programs for the small business community that it provided this interesting little pocket for Darren and I to kind of incubate and build what we thought the community needed. And the reason I stepped so again in the talk about authenticity is my purpose because I believe that small businesses are going to be the ones that create the change we need in the world today. My purpose is to fuel their entrepreneurial fire and support their success and hopefully accelerate their success. So the podcast was just a way for me to continue to do that through small business and access that audience. So again, alignment. I was asking myself, does this align with my purpose? Did Darren and I align on a value to small business BC and big bold brands value the line? Do we share a common purpose? And so where can they find the podcast for those that want to find it? It is on all the majors. So Spotify, iClouds, Google Play. So if you just type in the made possible podcast, you can type in big bold brand or small business BC and it'll ping you and take you right there. Okay, I'm gonna update that banner so that, yeah, so the made possible podcast. Carly, I have loved every minute of this. You are a delight. I absolutely adore. I adore your unapologetic self. I think I'm thrilled that we finally got the opportunity to do this and I hope that maybe you'll come back and we can do it some more. Because I feel I have a lot to learn from you. I feel our audience has a lot to learn from you. Friends, if you are watching this on replay and you still have questions for Carly, can you please just keep dropping them into the comments? We do understand that a lot of our viewers do this on replay. So please continue to drop your questions into the comments. Carly and I will make sure that they're addressed and we get you the answers or the resources that you need so that you can step out confidently and authentically into your own brands as well. And if you are a corporation looking for some direction, please go over to bigboldbrand.com. You can find Carly and her team there. They are there to help you get clarity on your vision and your values so that you can make a bigger impact with your employees and your clients. Carly, thank you so much. Is there anything you'd like to share as a wrap-up and any parting words for people? Okay, having come from that place of the messy meltdown, bringing your whole self is hard. And so many layers of the layers of DEI, for marginalized folks, for BIPOC folks, I recognize that that is not easy. I can pass as system straight, but I understand those layers of feeling like we need to bury ourselves. And I think the most important thing that you can do for your own health, if you are in a place where you're able to do it, is to look at, am I working for an organization that I am aligned with who lights me up, who allows me and honors me fulfilling my purpose? Because folks, we're only here once. And I recognize not everybody has a big box to do that within, but if you can begin to ask yourselves those questions and start to move to a more authentic place for yourself, you're gonna be happier. Ultimately, your employer will be happier if they're aligned with you. Your family's gonna be happier. Because the other thing I didn't talk about when I was misaligned in those two places and trying to be all this in business, but really showing up this way, my partner at the time was like, wow, who are you? Like, who are you? And that takes a lot of energy. That takes a lot of energy. So even if you do little bits of the sweet work to honor yourself and show up authentically, I highly encourage you to do that. Okay, you've heard it guys. We gotta show up and honor ourselves authentically. So for those of you looking to build your brands into 2022, take to heart Carly's advice and Carly's secrets that she shared here on the podcast. And come back and visit us. We're going to be doing more tips and tricks and resources for you to help build your personal brands through December and into 2022. Carly, thank you so much. I feel like this is not the end, this is the beginning. You and I are gonna connect on so many levels moving forward. I'm just thrilled that you were able to share a piece of yourself today here on Tuesday Tea. Thank you for making it a safe space. Thank, oh, absolutely, anytime. Everyone have a great week. Tuesday Tea is now on hiatus until February, so come back and check out the show then. But don't forget to circle around with me on Monday mornings for Monday motivation through December. Have a great day everyone, see you soon.