Social Media Love Inc.

Angelique 0:00
Fact. And today actually, we have the queen of podcasts with us. So it’s telling Suzanne that I’m so honored to pick my podcast because you know, I’m a baby podcast and I’m, I’m learning how to walk with my podcast. And you’re the big pro here. So I’m so happy to thank you for for taking the time. And for having me.

Susan 0:24
Zero judgment. This is a judgment free zone. And I think it’s awesome that people are podcasting. And I would die on the Hill of podcasting. And anyone at any level is awesome.

Angelique 0:35
Yeah. And it’s so fun. Actually. I don’t know why it took me so long before I decided to give it a try. And because it’s, it’s really fun. And I listened to so many podcasts. Okay, let’s start with a question of truth to see if I am normal or not. Do you listen? I do, sometimes.

Susan 1:02
I do. Sometimes I listen, because I want to just make sure that everything is as I, you know, felt it in the moment. And sometimes I listen, because it’s truly sort of exciting. As far as I’m concerned. It’s like, you know, oh, that’s there’s a once removed sort of feeling about it, where you’re like, oh, that actually sounds pretty good if I take myself out of the equation. And then sometimes I listen, because I’m in a bad mood. And I want to just find more flowers about myself and look at your voice. It was terrible. Or look at your, you know, I mean, how could we produce it in that way? It’s not great sound. So sometimes it’s an exercise in self bashing.

Angelique 1:46
Wow. So for me, it happens. It’s most of the time. It’s not that I go and search for it. It’s just I am cooking. And this is when I listen to my podcast, to people’s podcasts, whoever I listen that day. And sometimes, you know, on Apple, it switched from one episode to another to the next podcaster. And sometimes it’s me. And I’m like, Who’s that? And like, oh, it’s me. And then. And I keep listening. I love it to see Yeah. And some days you’re very judgmental. And some days you’re like, Wow, that’s pretty cool. And I’m lucky to have amazing guests in my podcast. So today, Suzanne, we’re talking backstage is a day, where we share our stories in a way that feels physically. Because building a business is a lot of emotions. And it has a lot to do with how we feel through the different stages. So that’s why I love to go back to the very beginning. But before we go there, can you tell us who you serve and what you do to help people transform whatever transformation the trend for transformation they are seeking for?

Susan 3:00
Yes, who I serve is people looking to put their voices out in a in a medium that is different than potentially writing I think as as people, whether it’s brands marketers, whether it’s founders, we’ve all sort of learned that, putting ourselves out there and really getting people to understand who’s behind the business. What drives them, is pretty key. Right? And I think in the past, it was done hugely to writing like people had to show up and write whether it was as guests in other places or in your own publications. And I feel like about 10 years ago, there was a big podcasting rush where a lot of specialists went down the road podcasting. And then people said, Okay, podcasting is done, that the bubble is burst, etc. But that’s not true, I think we’re back to that same place where it’s become mainstream. So the people I serve are people looking to sort of increase their visibility really sort of put their put a little bit of a stake in the ground as far as infrastructure and marketing is concerned because I think just like everybody else, I as well have spent a lot of time on I spend a ridiculous amount of time on social media. And in the end of it, you’re like okay, all of those pieces are in various places. One day I’ll put it all on my website so that it’s all reflected there and that probably doesn’t happen as often as you want. And I feel like having a tool like a podcast or like like what you’re doing this is awesome, by the way. Anjali, I want to tell you that the fact that you’re doing it is alive and repurposing into your podcast and you’re doing it on multi channels This is very impressive. I’m that is the Met I couldn’t preach anything to you at this point because I think you’ve got the bases covered. Right. So So that’s who that’s kind of like our our targets set more specifically. My my little passion is to help people who probably haven’t had that thought or there’s a little bit of imposter syndrome involved in it or there’s, there’s plans but it’s never really become reality and if by maybe, you know, sort of candidate A lot of those people are women, because I think it’s a little bit easier to jump into it. For many people, you know, but women struggle a little bit, there’s an element of perfectionism that’s like, oh, I don’t know how I’m gonna sound or I don’t know how it’s going to be difficult. And I have to review all the processes, etc. So yeah, I’d say, people looking to put their voice out as a whole, and specifically women is my is the people I’m hoping to serve.

Angelique 5:29
Beautiful. And Suzanne, we’ve met, you know, a few years ago. And since then I follow you. And other story you share, actually, through your podcasts, but also in your social media content, which is so amazing. And so for you, I think it’s a, it’s something that you’re accustomed to do to share your stories and how it supports, you know, the mission of your organization. So today is really to help to inspire you, if you’re watching or listening to the replay to, to follow along, don’t worry, and see how you could use your own story to shape the promotion in a way that feels good for you, because you’re doing what you’re doing. And you’re here, Suzanne, she’s going to tell us why she’s doing she’s already started, why you should doing what she’s doing, for a reason and where it’s coming from. So this is the space behind it. So if you don’t know where to start, I always make want to make sure because sometimes I get too excited in our conversation, I forgot to tell you that I have a guide, with some tea, you know, prompt that kind of help you go back in your memory, go back to things that you thought were not important at the time, but really meant the difference of what of who you are today or who you want to become. So I put the link around this video or whenever we’re done. So it’s called the 10 storytelling idea that you can use as a woman entrepreneur. So now it’s said it’s going to be around the video. Let’s dive in. Are you ready, Susan?

Susan 7:04
I am so ready.

Angelique 7:07
So let’s go back to the little girl. Well, once you know the little Susan, when she was between five and 10 playing at or with or who like could you bring us back to your childhood. I think you know who you became.

Susan 7:24
I was a kid who moved around a lot. My parents were were travelers, they were quite adventurous. I was born in India. And when I was about seven years old, I climbed on the first airplane of my life and went to Tanzania with my parents because my dad had a job in Tanzania. He worked in Coca Cola at the time. And I lived with them there for a few years. And then began my sort of back and forth because sort of continuing with education and stuff was a little bit hard. And I went back to live with my grandparents in India. And I think I spent a lot of time being by myself Angelique. I mean, and books were my best friend like it was it was difficult for me to get enough books to keep reading back then I know we had a budget, I feel like we got a book every month or something like that kind of like Audible. Except for real world. And it was never enough. Like I needed more and more. And so I would borrow things from my friends. So I spent a lot of time and that’s one of the things that attracted me to your storytelling aspect. I spent a lot of time with other people’s stories. Other people’s stories was what took me out of my life. It took me out of you know, feeling down missing my parents, you know, or like feeling hard done by or all of those negative emotions that were sort of tempted to feel it I feel like it was other people’s stories that rescued me. So that’s a big part of, of life. So I have a great appreciation for a story well told. And I feel like that was a part of what shaped me I was like, You know what those beautiful words, I want to know how to do that. I want to learn how to do that. So my first intention for myself when I was very, very young, even when I didn’t know that this was possible is like I want to write I want to write in some way I want to bring words to life stories to life, you know, that kind of thing. So that was my that’s five to 10 a lot of loneliness and a lot of stories.

Angelique 9:21
Oh, I love this. Do you remember a book that you really like maybe one of those books that helps you the most?

Susan 9:31
I feel like you know and I’m 46 and at that time of my younger years, it was the Enid Blyton books that were probably the go to so we there was like, you know Mallory towers and St. Clair and these all these wonderful stories of schools and what people did in boarding school and you know, since then some of those books are perhaps you know, they’ve been taken out of the main stream for kids as much because there’s so much more right now things evolve. That said, those were pretty formative. You know, Enid Blyton as an author and those children’s books, and the magic that came from it was was what comes to mind? Cool. Okay.

Angelique 10:16
Wow, thank you for sharing this. So, Susan, did I? How far were you in your life? By the way, we have same age, let’s do a dance of the 46. Woman, years older woman

Susan 10:31
46 is a good day, folks.

Angelique 10:36
So, um, when did you start your journey as an entrepreneur, like one where like, what was the gist? What were you sorry, coming from a cold and it cuts my throat, what was the thing you were doing before the journey of entrepreneurship,

Susan 10:55
I worked, I worked in a, in a government and price I was head of marketing for a Dubai government enterprise, which was in logistics. So it was a, it was a proper corporate communications role. I was in Dubai at the time. And I,

Angelique 11:19
I will,

Susan 11:19
I don’t know if I hated it. I was very good at it. But, you know, I would sometimes talk about back then I didn’t have my daughter, you know, and I’d probably recently been married. And I didn’t hate my job. I didn’t love my job, either. But you know, it was kind of it was what it was it paid my bills, it paid my bills handsomely as well. So sometimes you you sort of like, you’re in that limbo, where you’re not going to make any decisions. And I would love to say that that is the reason that I actually decided to move to entrepreneurship, but it was not, it was my daughter. So during that time, I made a decision that you know, what, the benefits look good. We’re planning to move to Canada, there’s a lot of stuff. That’s that’s sort of underway, and this would be a really great time to complicate that and add a child to it. Right.

Angelique 12:11
So that was, so everything happened first

Susan 12:13
from Dubai. Right? Yes. Yes.

Angelique 12:16
So you met, you mentioned that you had a burning desire of you know, before starting your business, and what was that,

Susan 12:27
um, I think it was sort of, like freedom. Freedom is that burning desire, it was that the, you know, I never really subscribed to these ideas that work has to be done in certain hours, or, you know, you have to be in a specific location. I mean, our business has always been virtual. And that’s not because we didn’t have a choice, but it’s just because I truly believe that’s a better way to, to operate for at least for for me, and the teams that I choose to build. So I think that freedom, I didn’t love those restrictions of being in a finite place at finite times. marketing jobs at a, at a corporate communications level is, is high stress. And, you know, like, if you take away some of the flexibility, it’s not a great formula, like you cannot be expected to perform at like a level nine, for 10 hours a day, it’s just not possible. We know that. However, we sort of expect either ourselves or our teams to perform like that. So I think just freedom and saying there must be a better way, there’s got to be a better way. It’s just a matter of finding at that point, I still believed that I would find that in another organization. I believed that, you know, maybe the flexibility and that kind of thing is going to come from a different type of enterprise that I might choose to work with, but but then at in my ninth month of pregnancy, when I was huge, and just about waiting for my due date, was when some awful stuff happened at my job at the time, which was that, you know, people were starting to, shall I say, at that time and history in that particular part of the world. There was a lot of statements made about like, this is why this job shouldn’t be held by like a woman because they’re going to go off and have babies. And then once they go off and have babies, their commitment changes, and just the same narrative that we’ve heard so many times, but then you’re still surprised when it’s directed at you. So I actually lost my job in my ninth month of pregnancy where I was laid off, because they made excuses for it, but the fact remains that I was laid off because it was pregnant. You know, and at that point, I think I didn’t know what was next it but I knew it was not that I don’t want more of that. I want something where I get to decide the rules. If I fail, I fail because of me. If you know if I’m all out of luck, it’s because of me, not someone else. So deciding that I didn’t want a boss I think was was a big part of the equation.

Angelique 15:05
Yeah, so weird that that happens. And then and then. So how do you go from first? You know, it’s emotionally, there must be something right? And then second, you know, how do you go from this situation to the idea of a potential business? Um,

Susan 15:25
how did I go to the idea? That was a few years? That journey took a few years? I think, you know, it was try, I mean, as far as I was concerned, I was like, try something. So my first, my first thought was, obviously, do what I know best. So I focused a little bit on on, on the writing aspect. So the easiest thing to do was put myself out there as a freelance, you know, writer of sorts, and then check with publications and agencies and whoever else, you know, how they wanted, like, if they wanted to work, and I got a few gigs in that, in that form. And it was not nearly enough, you know, how hard it can get if you if you’re like, oh, here, I want to take this salary. And I want to make that work in an entrepreneurial form. That’s not always a one step sort of effort. So I did that. And then I think, no,

Angelique 16:22
you see it, not always like that.

Susan 16:27
can be it can mean people, Silicon Valley will have you believe that it is like that all the time. But it’s not. So around that time is when I then my husband and I together, we moved here. And, you know, my questions became the baby was very little, you know, she’s 10 years old right now, but she was very little. And so I decided I needed some space, like, you know, take some time, figured out what I need next. And at that point, I was like, if I have to start from scratch, and this is a bit of the immigrant journey, you know, like a look into the immigrant journey. When you come here, as an adult immigrant, the integration into the workforce, is anybody anybody’s guess, like how it could go great. It could go poorly, you could start at Starbucks, there’s all kinds of like cliches about how that goes for immigrants. And I think when I came here, I was like, if I do have to start over, in some ways, I’m not sure that I want to start over with agency work or with like, you know, corporate communication, or any of that, like traditional marketing, that was not really what I was thinking about. So like, therefore, where does that leave me? And then I took a complete detour on a tangent and went off and started a chocolate business. Because when I, when I was in, when I was in university, my mom and I, we used to do this together. And we we did okay, we did well, it was a great side gig. And I would keep telling myself this story over and over in my head that, what if what if I had done that and could not have been a better future for me than this? And so it’s like, Well, now’s the time to find out Chop, chop, you know, how many people get a chance to go back and take the road less traveled. So I went down that path, I probably kept at it for about a year and a half, I got a job with the chocolate factory, so that I could learn I also did my gig on the side. But that was not for me, again, you know, people talk about how money cannot be your only motivator. But I think it’s important to say that money is a key motivator, at least it is for me. And the idea of working minimum wage labor intensive work, because yes, a chocolate person is an artist and but there’s a whole ton of labor work that goes with that trade. And I was like, I really don’t know. If in my mid 30s, I want to be going down that road working at minimum wage for four years just to recover the cost of the equipment that I would have to purchase. So then it came back to square one where it’s like, okay, it’s in marketing, like what am I going to do? I really didn’t I thought it was done with this. And at that point, I started to pull away the layers and then what do I hate about it? I hate team management. I hate difficult clients. I hate urgent deadlines. So where does that leave me? So it was a process of elimination. And then I came back to the writing avatar, and that’s kind of how I started I was like, but in the clarification of that what I think came through was I don’t want to be a lifestyle writer because I think people want that. Like there’s a lot of takers for the cool lifestyle b2c marketing gigs. There’s not nearly as many takers for what I call the unsexy backend, right? I mean, people don’t want to be writing about finance and legal and whatever. So I was like, Okay, that sounds I’ll take it, I’ll take that job. I’ll write about, you know, finance and legal and all of those things. And that’s, I think, how the momentum started to build is like, there’s not enough people who wanted to create material or create content in those areas. So I feel like some of my point of differentiation was, I’m the queen of boring content. If it’s boring, I can probably help you

Angelique 20:01
Oh, that’s interesting. So you get to uncover that. You know that those topics

Susan 20:09
were the ones How did I? How did I find the people who wanted it? Yeah,

Angelique 20:13
no, you How did you come to that kind of discovery. And only,

Susan 20:19
I think I can be a little bit cerebral when it comes to things like that, where I draw little Venn diagrams, and I’m like, this is out, and this is out. And then what’s left in the middle, you know, so I think a little bit of that sort of, like I said, elimination, where I did obviously, get into like, okay, maybe I’ll apply for this role. Or maybe I’ll reach out to that. And a couple of I started to look at the patterns. So there’s yeses, and there’s noes. And the yeses tended to come from the same category. So sometimes I think if we really sit down and observe patterns, we can we can uncover almost anything. Right? So that was, I think, my process now beginning to realize that, okay, I want to do that. And then actually finding that was was another step. So towards that end, again, as an immigrant, my, I came here knowing like, three people, you know, and like, you start from zero, literally. So I had to start thinking about how do you build that network? Right. So one of the ways I thought was great was education. So I signed up for a couple of certifications and courses, one of them was University of Toronto, there was a few other things. And so that’s how I chose I was like, I’m a lifelong learner, I deeply enjoy learning. And the process of showing up and regularly self improving. also gave some other people in those masterminds an opportunity to see a piece of my brain, it’s like, okay, this person, you know, is committed, they show up, they do their stuff. And so I got a fair few people who became my clients out of those classes and learning efforts, which to me was like, this is doubly awesome. A I get to learn, be I get to get clients out of the place where I learned that’s, that’s kind of decent.

Angelique 22:05
Yeah, that’s so smart. Yeah. Love that. That’s a good, good way of approaching networking through education. Yeah, I love this. Yeah. Okay. So, um, now, what’s the bridge with podcasts? So what? So I guess, when you study to come into that niche that nobody else wanted? You know, what was the thing you were trying to accomplish that you said, I need to go to podcasts? Or what was the thing that happened?

Susan 22:38
It was sort of like, I think it comes back to two results, right, like I’m in blogging is was the way in which people created content for the longest time. And Far, Far be it for me to say that blogging doesn’t work anymore. It’s just that it’s a lot more cluttered. Just to give you figures you’ve probably heard before, 100 times, there’s 500,000 blogs, and there’s only 30 500 million blogs, and there’s only 2 million podcasts. So the clutter is a whole lot less. And I think by virtue of its format itself, it just, it’s a little bit more accessible, it’s easy to do possibly, it’s easy to sort of like change up the speed. Yeah, sure that our skilled readers who can speed read, but like podcasting literally allows you to listen to it at a different speed and whatever. So I think that it came to that decision, because people’s results was stalling on some levels, like whether it was clients or US itself. It was like, Okay, we’re doing this regularly. And it’s not quite getting us to the results that you know, we’re hoping to, so something’s got to give. So what’s the something that’s got to give? The decision was easy, because I didn’t like video. Like I will still tell you that video is not my favorite. Look at me here sort of like multi videoing, you probably can’t tell from this moment, but I am deeply selfconscious about showing up on on video and doing that. So it’s like doing a video series is not my thing. Not Listen, I’m not keen. I did I did do them. But that was not my thing. So what is what does that leave us with? I’m not an artist. I don’t like video. So that left audio

Angelique 24:14
and then that was a big epiphany. What do you like about audio?

Susan 24:18
Ah, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve found my, my calling like my, my, my method of connecting with the world. It’s and it’s not enough. It wasn’t even my idea like will Lamont who is my partner in the business. And a member of the team. i It was his idea. He’s like, I think we should do a podcast Susan and I was like, we’re about 10 years too late as marketers for the podcasting game and he’s like, No, I don’t think so. I think we should do it anyway. Because, you know, it’s gonna it’s gonna become a thing. And so I said, Okay, let’s try. And as soon as we tried I want to say two or three episodes in at the point where even he was saying to him like saying like, look, we sound terrible, and it sounds tinny. and I can hear the echoes. And like I say these words terrible, it’s so easy to get micro focused on, on everything that’s wrong with it. But I something about that moment made me be able to like, take a little higher view of it and say, This is not bad at all. This is actually awesome. And I think we should stay with it. And the more I do it, it’s like it comes back to your, your, the premise of your show, which is, it’s storytelling. Like I love having conversations with people. I love understanding what’s behind. And the hook of our podcast is what keeps you up at night. We call it the forum report. And you know, we ask guests what keeps you up at night? And people rarely answer that dishonestly. Anyone will tell you if you’re like what keeps you up at night, and then they have an answer for you. And then behind that, then you get to discover who they are. And then the layers of awesomeness. So I think I love conversation. I love smaller circles of people like put me in a networking event and I will get lost with the wallpaper because I’m not going to be very good at inserting myself into groups and things like that. But but me in a one on one conversation. And that’s my jam. So why not?

Angelique 26:09
And you have a tool that is part of who you are humor, you use your humor all the time. And I love about you guys. Funny. Tell. Tell me more about that. Is that something you worked on? Or is it something that is you were burned with this?

Susan 26:28
I think it’s it’s a part of the you know, I love that you asked that five to 10 question because so much of our mindset, and the way in which we think and the way in which we perceive the world happens between the ages of five and 10. And part of that, being alone and having to sort of interact with a lot of grownups who are not my parents. I think it gave me it gave me a bit of a like I call it a defense mechanism. That was my defense mechanism. That was my way of being like, you know, what, if nobody will ask you questions too deeply. If you if you’re cheery, and sunshiny and you have lots of funny things to say and, and quite early, I’m like, Oh, look, the grownups are laughing at my jokes. And that must mean it’s a good thing. And you know, like, somebody would call me and say, Hey, repeat that thing you said right now. And I’d be like, Oh, I guess this is working. So I have an early connection with humor, I want to say I put a lid on it for a very long time. Because working in more serious organizations, like you know, whether it’s larger corporates or governmental whatever, I was still a little crazy in my internal interactions. But like, if I stood up to be like, representing a brand, you probably wouldn’t hear me being funny, or any of that. And then I discovered that I really do fall flat when I’m not funny. Because that’s my, that’s my natural. So over the years, and I want to say more recently, it’s probably only in the last five years or so that I have learned how to bring that back and make it work for me and learn to use it to defuse tension. I’ve learned to use it to to sort of like allow curiosity without being intrusive. I’ve learned how to use it just to cut clutter. It’s like, you can read marketing lessons from anybody. There’s so many people who can teach you beautiful things. In the end, it’s about do you connect with them? are you likely to do what they’re saying? are you likely to be inspired by them and apply something today, right. And so I find in today’s world, humor is a pretty good way to do that. So that’s why I’m actually writing a book it’s supposed to be published later. This year. It’s called the other EQ and EQ stands for entertainment quotient. Since over the last five years, I’ve realized that, yes, it’s easy for someone to look at me and be like, she was born funny. And you know, I can’t do it, because I’m not funny. Well, I wasn’t born funny either. And over the years, I’ve just discovered that it works for me. And there are formulas and ways in which you can you can you don’t have to be a stand up comic, you just don’t have to be dry either. Is my theory.

Angelique 29:05
So how did you? You know, because so last weekend, I was on a retreat with an entrepreneur, you were saying at the beginning of a woman, it’s harder to show up. And some of them were as like were hesitating to start cracking jokes, or am I going too far or so how did you learn to be comfortable? And don’t worry about how people react to jokes or to your way of being?

Susan 29:36
In the end? I think it comes back down to like, are you comfortable in your own skin? You know, and the closest parallel that I can think of to draw is what do you show up as with your friends, like if you’re in a group with your friends, drinking a nice bottle of wine. What are you like, Are you are you You’re the one that tells the stories. Are you the one that asks the questions? I you the one who laughs with somebody else? Or are you the ones? Why no tells the jokes? I don’t know. So you got to figure out who you are, I think a little bit as and what you feel comfortable in. And in that there will be clues. None of us is dead boring. We’ve all got relationships with people who think we’re awesome. Nobody’s boring. But somehow we tend to show up laughing.

Angelique 30:26
You laugh over your beautiful quote, I always take a quote from my guests. And I just can you repeat, please. Nobody is one dead boring.

Susan 30:36
Nobody’s dead boring. Nobody is dead boring. Like, if you see people interact with their family, their friends, the people they choose to hang out with often, you’re probably interesting in some way. And there’s probably aspects to your personality that that are refreshing and entertaining. And it’s just a matter of saying how do I translate that like, for what it’s worth right now, we’re all going to be showing up in two dimension for a good portion of our time, right? I mean, we’re all going to continue to be doing business online, we’re going to continue to sort of, like have people learn about us what we do, how we can save the world, through our personalities online, and I feel like just trying to translate that IRL. into, into some of this is is not as hard as we imagined.

Angelique 31:28
Love it. What was the R O L? Like return on laughing? Return on? Return on laughing is awesome. I’m gonna borrow that. Yeah. Okay. So, Suzanne, um, you do you remember the first time that the big payoff of that adventure deciding to go full on podcasting and becoming those experts that know you are in that market? What was the biggest payoff for you said, okay, oh, that’s it. This is it.

Susan 32:14
Okay, I think that that was actually we didn’t intend to go down this line. So when we became podcasters, our goal was the podcast will be an engine for us, it will be an engine for us to show up, and, and like market ourselves in a consistent disciplined, you know, brand comes forward kind of way. Right. And I didn’t, I didn’t at that point. And this was about two, maybe two and a half, close to three years ago. At that point, the goal was not a podcasting agency, this, this level of niching down into this wasn’t on my plans for that year. What was the sort of shift was when an existing client who was doing work with us for they already created like reports and a bunch of content with us. And they got in touch and they said, do you do podcasts for other people? And my answer was, we do now we do now, would you like us? Would you like us to do a podcast for you? And they said, Yes. And that project obviously came through because there was some, there was already a connection with our client. And there was only the format that was changing. So nothing major in the shift, but I think it created a big shift in my head, because that went well. And it was a fairly, like big name in the workplace industry. And they ended up having the head of global real estate for Twitter, asked to be on their podcast, and then it really served all the goals. So I was like, This is awesome. Not only are we able to do it as a content, execution play, we’re also able to deliver for them, map it against their revenue goals, and like really ensure that it can work for somebody other than us, right. And so I think that became a case in my head, which was like, I passed that test. So this looks possible. So after that, that allowed me to make it like, outbound like, I started to reach out to folks and say, you know, I see that you’re doing a podcast and you’re DIY in your podcast. Are you interested in having a conversation about how you can have someone help you with it? And then more and more people said, Yes. And so I just went with the flow. And here we are.

Angelique 34:32
You just went with the flow. I love it. So the power of opportunities, right, someone told you do you do this? Sure. No, we

Susan 34:40
did. Yes. No, we do. I mean, people say that to you. And you’re like, you know, like stay Yes. And figure out how later but I can’t tell you how true it is for for my life where I don’t necessarily say yes to everything. I won’t do that for everything. You know, but there are some things where I’m like, Yeah, I I really do I do I know how to do that too. And I think it’s very important to stay in tune with those parts and jump into it. What is that? What is that cliche, like? jump off the cliff and then build your wings on the way down. That’s very, very much my approach to most things. jump off the cliff, we’ll see how it goes.

Angelique 35:23
Thank you for sharing this. I have two more question for you. And what are your biggest fears as a woman entrepreneur, now they’re fully in? And it’s been? How many years? Have you been in business now?

Susan 35:37
Um, in this current form, we’ve been in business for about five years before that I did some of my so I think about seven or eight years that I’ve been like in the, in the marketing, entrepreneurship sort of space. What is my fear? Like I’d say, various degrees, depending on which day are speaking to me, various degrees of visibility, fears is still my thing. You know, I still get anxious, like a half hour before we were due to do this, I will get out and I will actually be like, What is wrong with me? Why would I agreed to do this, this, this sounds hard. And, you know, all my internal monologue, and you know, that stuff comes out. So visibility is definitely my problem. I think I’ve spent a few years working on getting past that, like, what, what I’ve worked on trying to, like, sort of like, get my confidence higher, because that is definitely like a problem for me. So yeah, I continue to be afraid. But you know what, sometimes, like when I was little, my way of dealing with darkness and sounds in the darkness and imagined monsters was to turn around and look straight at it, and then let myself know, there’s no monster there. It’s just the darkness in the shadows. So I think I take the same approach to it to that fear. It’s like, Yes, I am afraid of it. But it’s just a monster in the dark unless I stare it in the eye. And I’m like, oh, there’s no monster. And then I keep doing it.

Angelique 37:05
That’s awesome. I love it. And so what’s your relationship with social media talking about disability? How would you describe your, your, your relationship?

Susan 37:17
I think I I’ve learned how to have a healthy relationship with social media, I, I’ve owned the fact that showing up in two dimension, with well written words and images and, you know, videos that are a little bit more casual. That’s, that’s, you know, I like it, I enjoy it. That said, I am not a fan of Facebook. I left Facebook a couple years ago. And I never went back. I asked myself as a marketer, is that the wisest decision because it’s ignoring a huge pool of people. But I stuck with it, because I’m like, you know, what I, I, what is the what is the there’s got to be some integrity of thoughts. And I repeatedly find myself, whether it’s in our marketing, news stories, or anything else, we repeatedly cover things in the news, which have to do with the way in which Facebook operates, and just sort of sticking around and saying, I’m going to be here, despite that wasn’t a choice for me. So I did leave Facebook. I haven’t fully left Instagram, the company shows up and does things I’m here right now. But yeah, so that that is a, I’d say that’s where I’m at, I have a very good relationship. A lot of people in my business universe come in through LinkedIn, like they’ve either seen something or somebody sent them a profile, you know, our or, you know, something along those lines. So I tried to focus so I have a healthy relationship with that I don’t spend ridiculous amounts of time on it. It’s so easy to just sit there and scroll and think everybody has a perfect life. But no, I don’t I don’t do that anymore. It’s a great tool. I’ve learned how to wield it. I’ve left the ones that don’t work for me. And right now I feel balanced.

Angelique 39:02
Awesome. That’s beautiful. I want to say that a Brittany here in the comments says when you were talking about your the beginning of your story when you lost your job because you were pregnant, and she says I was never pregnant, but I was let go by latency the day after I came back from my honeymoon. No idea. We had this similar experience. That no just look at us.

Susan 39:28
I know it’s so true. Thanks for that Brittany. It’s true sometimes. Like maybe maybe it’s just that in that moment, we would not have taken that step perhaps of moving away to something that that we wanted and and then at the risk of sounding woowoo maybe this is the universe’s way of providing that little push like Go Baby Burn go fly.

Angelique 39:51
They say everything is happening or everything is happening for your highest good. So yes, we go So is there anything I should have asked? That you’d like me to ask or share with us?

Susan 40:10
Um, I think you’ve done a really good job of I there’s some parts of the story that I haven’t really spoken about in a while. But no, I think that the only thing that I would would sort of like to encourage people to think about is, is that part about becoming your actual in real life self, right? I mean, try to find ways in which you can bring it to life. And obviously, I’m super biased. I think a podcast is a really great way to do that. Because you get to show up and do it with a bit more space. But I think trying to tap into put your voice out there, no matter what it is, tell your story. Like you say, like, you know, people can replicate all kinds of formulas, they can’t actually replicate your story. Even if people had to have the exact same experiences, like Brittany was talking about how that particular thing happened to her, it happened to me, but I can bet you, if we each write our story, the stories will still be different, right. And so I think it’s really important to, to just figure out what it is that you want to say to the world and then show up and say it and if you can add humor to it, you want a friend.

Angelique 41:21
So Suzanne, I put the link to your company in the comments, and I’ll put it if you’re listening to the podcasts or wherever you’re watching, I will go back and circle back and put it there. And we’ll be publishing anyway, a lot of promotion about our discussion because it’s awesome. It’s inspiring, always, always says thank you so much. And then if you’re watching the replay or listening to the podcast, let us know which part really resonated with you. I love that. Brittany, you share that part of the story that I really bring back you know, the what happened to you? Kind of similar to me, I was not pregnant, but my business started when I got fired, not my not fired per se but they could my position which is kind of the same

Susan 42:03
that redundant. I keep saying that. I use the F word.

Angelique 42:14
Yeah, so it’s uh, yeah, it’s kind of pushed me as well. So okay, so you want to get it off me. I’m gonna do my own thing now. Watch me have like four days a week working as an employee, and I always tell my boss, you know, I have a business because next time it says the same employer and next time you guys put me out. I am okay. I got this. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much for what you put in there. And thank you for you watching here on Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube, Facebook and the podcast. So Ciao, ciao.

Susan 43:00
Thank you.

Angelique 43:02
Thank you, Suzanne

Transcribed by https://otter.ai