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Foreign welcome to Slay the Gatekeeper. I'm your host, Courtney Johnson and I am here to un gatekeep the gatekeep. Thank you so much for being here. Enjoy. Hey friends, you might notice I'm in a different setup right now. I'm in my bed. I was thinking the other day, like, why do I go to this bro y ass podcast studio? And don't get me wrong, I love the bros and I love the bro podcast studio, but I'm like in my dream. My podcast is in my bed. It's in my bed. Like I don't want to go anywhere else. So I am here in my bed forevermore to bring you Slay the Gatekeeper in coziness. Right? Because fudge the bro podcasts, I want to be cozy. And today I have a really exciting special episode because I asked you guys on Instagram so to give me all your questions, all of your deep burning crazy questions. And today I've selected a bunch of yalls questions to answer. Q and A episodes are actually like my favorite favorite favorite episodes ever. So question number one. How did you book your first paid speaking gig and for how much? Is there any newbie advice? So if you want to get speaking gigs, the first thing you need to do is put steps speaker in all of your bios. Even if you're not a speaker yet. It's the same thing as like being an actor or a musician or an author or a writer. Claim the identity and then people are going to come to you. So on your LinkedIn profile, put Speaker. On your Instagram, put speaker. Make sure everybody knows you're a speaker even if you haven't spoke anywhere before. My first speaking gigs were free. I just volunteered to go on other people's programs. It's like the best way to to get speaking gig. So the first thing you're going to do is you are going to find somebody with some sort of program or coaching or container, ideally a friend. Then you're going to tell them, hey, I want to volunteer to come guest speak virtually. And you're going to do that in exchange for a review. And you go guest speak about your topic and then you ask the host to give you a review and you slowly start to put together a portfolio. Eventually, after you've done enough free speaking events, you have enough, you have enough of a portfolio and enough reviews to start charging to where you can be really, really confident in what you're providing and what you're speaking about. Then move into in person speaking events. You can say, hey, I'VE spoke at this mastermind, at this virtual conference for this person, and now I'm wanting to speak in person, so it's a lot easier to pitch yourself. So you're going to start putting speaker in all of your bios. You are going to start speaking for free on virtual speaking events, and then you're going to get reviews from those people. Then you're going to take those reviews and take the topics and you're going to start pitching yourself for in person speaking events. In person speaking events. If you just Google speaker application, literally hundreds are going to come up and there's hundreds of things you can apply for. You also want to go the backdoor channel. So if you apply to speak somewhere, also find the conference organizer or the event organizer and reach out to them on LinkedIn. There is a podcast episode. I don't remember which one it is, but it's un gatekeeping. Speaking with Renee. Highly recommend to go back because she has some really good formulas around speaking. Now, to answer your question, how much money did I get paid in my first speaking event? I think probably like a hundred dollars, not that much. Next question. How do you balance work with play? It's really bringing play into work and like, getting out of this mindset that work has to be so serious because you're your most creative, you are your most magnetic, you are your most enticing when you are having fun. And this is all just like a big silly game. Like, life is just a big silly, goofy game. It's not that serious. Work gets to be fun. Work does not have to be serious. We are so brainwashed by corporate America that everything has to be so polished and professional and serious. And that just isn't true. We could have fun. So I don't really balance it as two separate things. I just make work really fun. How do you overcome fear of people talking behind your back? Ooh, this is a really, really juicy question. Honestly, people probably don't care about you enough to talk behind your back. Like, really? This is the trick of the ego. We think a lot of people are talking shit about us, but people care about themselves. They don't really care about you. And we think that people have drama or gossip or whatever, but truthfully, nobody really cares. And also, if you want to get big, if you want to be a prominent artist or creator, entrepreneur, people are going to talk shit, right? You cannot get to certain levels without people talking shit. It's part of the game. It's like why I throw troll parties for my clients. Like, if you get trolls. That is an incredible accomplishment. That's not something bad. That is an incredible, incredible accomplishment. So look at it as an incredible accomplishment. What is the best advice for posting on LinkedIn? My best advice for LinkedIn is to post once a week. If you post one time per week, you will rank in the top 2% of the entire platform. You are going to outpace 98% of people. And there's a billion people on the platform. So if you're in the top 2%, you're outpacing almost a billion people. And these are the billion people that are competing for your job, for your funding, for your clients. Just by posting one time per week. It doesn't even have to be good content. Just by posting, you're going to get opportunities. This next question is spicy. When did you realize you had to have audacity? And how did you overcome the hurdles that came with it? If you go listen to my podcast episode with Rashina, she actually has a really good course called Audacity Building, and her work has helped me a lot. But audacity is just something you kind of just fake until you finally feel audacious and surround yourself with audacious people. Like, surround yourself with people that are so delulu. And that's going to rub off on you. What is the riskiest career move you ever made that everybody thought was dumb or but actually leveled you up? The riskiest career move I've made is investing in myself. Like, investing a lot of money and time and resources in myself. Why is that risky? Because I could have put that money, that time, that energy into something stable. And investing in yourself is inherently not stable. Right. Like, you really gotta put in the work. You really gotta do your shit. But honestly, like, instead of investing in the fudgeing stock market, I do invest in the stock market. But, you know, instead of investing in just my stock market and for a 1k or whatever else the fog is going on, I'm investing in myself first. Like, I am being so delusional that I'm betting on myself that I will literally put all my eggs in one basket. That is me. Because I know I'm going to fudgeing, make it work. If you lost your entire personal brand today, what's the first move you'd make to rebuild it? If I lost my entire personal brand, the first thing that I would do is just start posting once a day. It sounds so simple. But 99% of people are not able to do that. Right. You don't have to be good. You don't have to be amazing. You don't have to be incredibly magnetic. You just have to show up and do it. Because most people are not going to show up and do it. Most people are going to let their limiting beliefs. Most people are going to let their external factors dictate what they're doing on a daily basis. All you need to do is commit to posting every single day and you will get everything you've ever wanted. Because after a year of posting, you have 365 at bats and somebody else has 10. So who's going to get more opportunities, you or them? Obviously it's you. Just because you're posting consistently. What's the single worst career advice you've ever got? And how did ignoring it change everything? The single worst career advice is to follow a safe path out of college. So many of my peers went to Big Four Consulting. They went and worked at Fortune 500 companies where you're babied. You go into the first day of work and it's like, here's what a computer is, here's what a hacker is. Hackers are bad. Spam is bad. Don't get spammed. Like, they literally treat you like an elementary school or where if you go to a startup, they throw you in the fucking fire and they're like, try to survive. If you live your life needing to be a toddler and like, guided in every single part of your work, you will never, never, never have a outlandish success. You might have mediocre success. You might be kind of okay, you might be content. But I don't want to be content. I want to be extraordinary. And the way to be extraordinary is to put yourself in microcosms of life that present the same chaos and tension of life. So a microcosm of life is a crazy startup where you make it work, where you figure it out. Yes, it's going to be really uncomfortable and unfair and unreasonable. But guess what? Life is unfair and uncomfortable and unreasonable. And everything you do, every group you're in, every project you're on, every client you have, everything you pitch, every organization you're a part of, is a microcosm of life. It's a training camp for life. So go where you're going to be stretched. And the mistake I see people make is they go too down the path of corporate America and corporate structure. They don't know how to succeed in ambiguity, and they don't know how to succeed in chaos. They can only succeed in structure. They can only succeed when there's a right answer. They can only succeed when there's a linear path. And that is just not how life works. Oh, my gosh. I absolutely love this question. What's your unfiltered take on burnout? Is it real or is it just bad boundaries? Burnout has nothing to do with boundaries. Burnout means you're not doing what you love. If you love, if you're obsessed with what you're doing, you will never be burned out. So there might be boundaries around exactly what you're doing. But obsession beats everything. Obsession beats talent. Obsession beats hard work. If you are the person that is absolutely obsessed, you are going to be doing that thing every single day because it's fun, because you enjoy it. So the reason why you're experiencing burnout is because you just don't like what you're doing. You get to do something that you enjoy doing. Of course, maybe you're not setting strong enough boundaries. Maybe you're not charging enough. And that might be something to look at. But in 90% of cases, burnout is just because you're in your zone of competence instead of your zone of genius. Your zone of competence is what you're good at. What you make a little bit of progress in what your boss thinks you're good at. Like, usually your full time job is your zone of competence. Then we have your zone of genius, which is your dream. This is where you really, really thrive. And that's what a lot of people miss, because it takes a lot of risk and trust to jump from your zone of competence to your zone of genius. Do you have a pregame ritual before speaking gigs or are you just winging it? So I had a mentor and a client who I love dearly. Her name's Angelina. I think she was the first episode of Slay the Gatekeeper. And I'm gonna send this clip to her because she'll probably think this is funny. Angelina was like Courtney. Before every speaking event I do, I get a little glass of champagne and I celebrate myself. So before a big, big speaking event last year at south by Southwest, I'm like, okay, I'm going to pull in Angelina. I'm going to do the same thing. So I get a little glass of champagne, I'm enjoying it. I'm getting ready for my talk. And then I go into my talk and I'm literally burping the whole time from this fucking carbonated champagne. And anyway, so I don't do that anymore. So no champagne, nothing bubbly, no sparkling water, nothing before a speaking event. So, yeah, I do just kind of wing it. How do you decide what to charge when people are either underpricing or inflating? Pricing is very tricky. What I typically do is I start out small and then I see the ROI of what my clients are getting and then I slowly increase, for example, my level up on LinkedIn class. Well, I used to charge like 20 to 50 grand for that when I did it for corporate teams. But when I changed it from corporate teams to individuals, I started at like $300 because I wanted to see and test if it would work for individuals. Then I noticed people started making between 20 and $50,000 within the first year of taking level up on LinkedIn. So now I'm not just seeing it as a test ground, I'm seeing it as something with a tangible roi. How much money would you pay to make an extra 20 to 50,000 thousand dollars? Well, you'd probably pay up to like $19,000 to make an extra 20 to $50,000. Right. So I slowly increased the price of level up on LinkedIn as I started confirming and confirming and confirming that other people were seeing the results. Now it's at $1500. It's not at 19,000, don't worry. But 1500. I aim to get my clients like a 10 to 20 x ROI. And I would say $1500 in order to make 20 to 50,000 is much, much more than that 10 x ROI. So when I think about it that way, I really can set the price easier. But typically you get, you get to play around with a lot of pricing structures before you commit to one and you get to slowly increase the price as your clients are seeing roi. As you're gathering reviews to a place where it's kind of comfy and sustainable because you also want to make sure it's sustainable. Also look at the patterns. Like if you're not getting a single deal closed, it might be what you're charging. I get it. You want to create content, but you're stuck. You feel like you start creating content and then you stop, you push and then you pull back. You create this big strategy and you don't actually implement it. And, and I know you, I know that you have a million content ideas in your notes app that you just haven't actually started to create. This is exactly why I created Content Club. I created Content Club to be a place where you can come and bring all of those ideas and we guide you through the content creation. So what is Content Club? We meet every single morning at 8am Central Time. My team and I give you A prompt. We give you brainstorming, we give you coaching support. We all create the content together and we all post together and like and comment and engage on each other's posts. So if you are desiring a community and a container that can help support your content creation and bring you into being a extraordinary and results driven and consistent content creator, I will see you tomorrow morning, 8am Central on Zoom in Content Club. And also it depends on the business. Like right now a lot of things are shaking up because of AI where prices are actually going down. And if you're kind of stuck in this place where you're like, I have to do it this old way, you're going to have a much higher price than everyone else and that might lose you some business. But we want to make sure we're not competing on price. Naval Robicon says competing on price is just a race to the bottom. So, so we don't want to compete on price, we want to compete on value and we want to compete on having a strong ROI for our clients. What is your system for posting when life is falling apart? So I always have like an emergency post bank, right? I always have content to where if I don't feel like filming content, if I'm sick, if I'm traveling, I'm still going to get content out. I have a folder in my phone of top performing content, of old content they can always repurpose. I also have a ton of content in my draft where I'm like, that content's just not that good. I don't really care about that content. It's gonna stay in my drafts. And then a day where I don't feel like posting, I go and I grab that content and I post. What's your trick for silencing imposter syndrome? When you're sitting across from people with fancier resumes, it's all marketing. What I want you to do is I want you to go on ChatGPT right now and put in your resume and say, make this sound ten times as impressive without changing anything. I actually did. A lot of the reason why people's resumes sound really fancy is they just market themselves really well. For example, one of my friends went to like CNN headquarters to speak about something and so she has on her resume that she is a speaker for CNN and obviously CNN is a major, major brand. If she is a speaker for cnn, she can easily get speaking gigs for other things. Now she wasn't like really a speaker for cnn. She CNN was like hosting some sort of event where she organized her own, like round table within that event. It's not like CNN appointed her as a speaker, but it is true that she went to CNN and she talked to somebody, some people on their team, and she spoke to them in some way. It wasn't exaggerating, it's just how she positioned it that made her seem a lot fancier than she actually was. So even if you like worked on a project that was contracted out and the final client was Google, like say you worked with Google, right, You get to amplify the things that you've done in your career. And I talk a lot about about this in Career Cheat Codes, which comes out in April. So go pre order. Oh my gosh. This question literally irks me. What's the biggest lie people believe about personal branding that makes you want to scream? The biggest lie people believe about personal branding is that you need a niche. You don't need a niche. Niches are so dumb. If you choose one niche and you never talk about anything else, your content's going to be boring as hell. Do not choose a niche. You are the niche. Because if I just posted about marketing, I would be like every other marketing girl out there and nobody would care. But because I create content about all these things that I'm obsessed with and all these things that I love, that's why people come to me. That's why people come to my content because I have a unique perspective and unique point of view. The number one mistake I see is when people go in on just one topic, it just, it doesn't work. It's just not interesting. It adds no layers. There's no texture in the personal brand. It's just boring. Where do you draw the line between authenticity and oversharing? And have you ever crossed it? The line is between boundaries and fears. So you get to get clear on whether something is a boundary or whether it's a fear. Do you have strong boundaries around being seen online? Do you not want to share about your personal life or are you just afraid to be seen? Do you think social media is so cringe or are you just afraid to be seen? Now there are some strong boundaries that are coming from a place of boundaries. Maybe that's I don't want to show my kids face. I don't want to talk about this topic because that is against my contract for my job. I'm not going to post about my partner because they have established a clear boundary with me that they don't want to be part of my personal brand. Those are all boundaries. Right. Fears are often disguised as boundaries. Oh, well, I don't want to post about that part of my life because I have a boundary. But what if it's just a fear? So what you get to do is you get to get clear on what is a boundary versus what is a fear. And fears are really, really sneaky. Our ego convinces us that they are real. Our ego convinces us that fears are our intuition, that fears are our boundaries. And that's just not always true. So really, look in the mirror, get feedback from other people to see where your truth is and where you're bullshitting yourself. Who's the one mentor that completely flipped your career script? And what did they tell you? The biggest mentor of my life. Career. I don't even know. It's Naval Ravi Khan. I've never met him. I just read all of his stuff, listen to all of his podcasts, read his book. He's freaking incredible. And the thing that anchors me in his wisdom is he says, you can either code or you can create media. Those are the two ways to create massive wealth in this day and age. I have no desire to code, so I'm going to create media. And I don't know why that's so prominent, but something about that. Every time I get kind of sucked into other things, every time I lose my priorities, I just come back to that. I can either code or create media. Create media. Create media. Create media. That is what I anchor back into. How do you know when it's time to burn it down and pivot versus double down and push through again? This goes back to boundaries versus fears. Is it a fear? Is it rooted in fear that you're burning it down? Is this rooted in, like, a heightened emotional state that you want to burn everything down? Or are you feeling peace and a true peace about the situation? Typically, if it's coming from our intuition, if it's coming from our vision, and if it's coming from love, it will feel peaceful. If it's coming from fear, it will feel chaotic and emotional. Oh, my gosh, I love this next one. What is your secret formula for repurposing content without sounding like a broken record? Repurpose, repurpose, Repurpose. It is not about figuring out a hundred things to say. It's figuring out how to say the same. One, two, three, five things a hundred different ways each. You are supposed to sound like a broken record. Okay. Once you dial in on your messages, the goal is to inspire behavior change in your audience. For example, let's say your message is about eating healthier for brain fog. And maybe you're really passionate about, like, certain foods you can eat. That will clear up brain fog. Okay. Your core message is eat these healthy foods. Eat these healthy foods. Eat these healthy foods. How many times in our life have we been told to eat healthy foods? I don't know, hundreds of thousands. And how many of us actually do it? I literally ate a croissant for breakfast. That was not a healthy food. The amount of times I've been served this information, and I still don't create the behavior change all the time. And the purpose of content creation is to inspire behavior change in others. So in order to inspire behavior change, what do you need to do? What do our brains need for behavior change? It needs repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. So it is okay that you are sounding like a broken record and saying the same thing over and over and over and over, because that is literally how our brains make behavior change. And if you desire for your audience to make behavior change, you get to share the same thing over and over and over and over. One of two things are going to happen. Either one, people are haven't even seen your first video or your first post, so they're not even going to know this is repurposed. Or two, they know it's repurposed and they're like, yeah, thank you. I needed that reminder today. How do you think about growing wealth as a creator beyond just chasing brand deals like scraps? This is a good one. So Josh Bector says you can either sell your audience or sell to your audience. So there's two major ways to monetize being a creator. You can sell your audience. Meaning you can go to brands and say, hey, I've got this audience of half a million Gen Z career folks, and do you want to get in front of them? You can for X amount of money. That's selling your audience. Then you can sell to your audience. So that's me saying, all right, guys, I have this content club. Buy the content club, come join, become a member, whatever. And a lot of people do one or the other, or they create a combination of both. I really recommend creating a combination of both and creating multiple income streams around selling to your audience. What I like about selling to your audience rather than just selling your audience is it can be hard to find brand deals with companies that I am fully in integrity with, where I know I'm in full integrity with my content club, with my level up on LinkedIn and with my offerings. Okay, guys, that is all of our questions. If you guys have questions for the next Q A episode, message me on LinkedIn on Instagram. I would love to answer them. Love you guys. Bye. Okay, y', all, if you like this episode, you would love, love my Patreon. Okay? You get exclusive access to me, exclusive content, tons of other resources, sources, and a lot of juicy. Okay? So I hope to see you on my Patreon.