Tonya Kubo (0:00 – 28:04)
People really want to get famous before they put in a lot of time, energy, and effort toward earning the fame. A lot of people actually want fame. They want to go viral.

They want to be known. They want celebrity status. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting that, so long as you’re willing to admit it.

We’re past the era of quantity. The best thing most of us can do is think long and hard about the things that only we can do and then just show up really well in those one to three places, ideally one to two. I don’t see true belonging or true community coming from being everywhere.

I see it coming from showing up somewhere, a specific place, with depth and consistency. Keep in mind that you can’t foster belonging for people if they don’t know you exist.

We’re wired for connection, but most of us are faking it to fit in. I’m Tonya Kubo, and this is Find Your Freaks, the podcast that flips the script and spotlights the quirks you thought you had to keep quiet. Subscribe now and head to findyourfreaks.com for show notes and extras. Because around here, what makes you weird makes you wonderful. Normal was never the point.

Visibility isn’t vanity, although I think it gets confused a lot, right? But visibility really is the best way to make sure that your freaks can find you. Now, that is what I want you to be thinking about as we sort of go through this reflection of episode 10, which was my interview with Mary Williams.

Now, if you have known me for a while, like if you did not first encounter me through Find Your Freaks, if you have known me from other aspects of business or have met me anytime pre-2020 or since, you will know that Mary Williams of Sensible Woo is like my best bestie. We talk almost daily. In fact, we talk so often, we’ve actually seen each other in real life.

I have to wear my Powell’s City of Books shirt today, so if you’re listening, I’m sorry you can’t see it, but if you’re watching on YouTube, you will see my Powell’s City of Books shirt that is ginormous. But Mary is the person who took me to Powell’s for the very first time ever, and I could live my whole life inside that bookstore. I love it so much, so much.

I cannot wait to go back. That being said though, you know, we talk all the time, and so episode 10 for you is very much a snapshot in time, right? So you heard a conversation between the two of us on this idea of visibility and people who want to be really visible, especially, you know, professionals who say they want one thing, but deep down, they really just want to be famous, right?

That’s what the interview with Mary was about. But you know, the conversation hasn’t stopped between the two of us. We keep talking.

In fact, on that episode, we talked about a full-service recording studio that she was in the process of building, and that’s now open. It’s called Sasquatch Media Grounds. She’s got clients going on in there.

She helps people with pre-production, post-production. So, you know, that is how much time has passed since we recorded the interview, and when I’m sitting here now with you to sort of reflect on some, what I will call some bigger lessons from that episode. And also, I want to acknowledge that because we know each other so well, that specific episode was a little bit sprawling.

Let’s call it sprawling, shall we? Like, let’s not call it unfocused or meandering. Let’s call it sprawling, overly comprehensive.

You know, and that’s what happens, I think, for a lot of us, right? When we get on the mic with people we’ve known for a really long time, right? You bring in all this stuff that happened off the mic into the conversation.

It doesn’t always do the greatest service to listeners. So, what I want to do today, specifically with this episode, is I want to distill down what Mary and I talked about into sort of three clear takeaways for you to be thinking about as you explore your role in finding your freaks, right? Finding your place to belong, but also your role in providing a place for your chosen people to belong, right?

Because I know some of you listen just because you just love a good story. You love to hear about all walks of life, and that’s why you tune into the show. Some of you are here just because I’m hosting it, and you like the sound of my voice, and I love that for you, and I love that for me.

And then others of you are here because you’re trying to find your place in the world professionally or personally, and you are interested in community, and you just don’t quite know how to find it for yourself or how to create it for others or which you want to do, right? Some of you might say, hey, if there’s a good one out there, I’ll join it, but if there’s not, then I want to build it, and that’s why you’re here. Ultimately, right, we’re all looking to find our perfect people and figure out, like, what is the best way for us to get our needs met and for those of us who feel called to create community or build it for others to meet the needs of others.

So, you know, while the tangent-filled episode with Mary was a lot of fun for the both of us, I just want to give you some, you know, just a couple of threads to tie it all together. So I think the first thing that comes to mind now that I’ve re-listened to the episode a few times is the idea of belonging in spotlight. Because what I see a lot of times, and especially, you know, now that we have this creator culture, this creator economy, right, is people really want to get, like, they want to be famous before they put in a lot of time, energy, and effort toward earning the fame, right?

Because they’re like, well, you know, if this doesn’t make me famous, then I don’t want to do it. So I would like to just kind of do level two involvement out of level ten, you know, ten levels. I want to do level two involvement until I know this is going to take off, and then I’ll increase my level of involvement.

But the thing is, is it doesn’t work that way. Usually, right, you have got to work on getting yourself out there in whatever way that means to you in order for your perfect people, whether that’s the people to serve you or the people you want to serve, to see you, to know what you’re about, and to know whether there’s alignment between the two of you. And so when you’re thinking about visibility, when any of us is thinking about visibility, making ourselves known, especially our true selves, you know, I think it’s really important to recognize that it’s not about ego, right?

It’s not about, like, look at me, look at me, throw me a party, aren’t I so special? That’s not what it’s about. It is really about fostering that belonging.

Because if you’re not seeing, how can anybody include you? And how can anybody know whether they want you to include them? And, you know, what I love about Mary is she’s just not afraid to say quiet parts out loud, right?

Like, she is the person who you look at her and you go, that came out your mouth. That was not inside your head. And she’s like, yeah, I know that was intentional, right?

That wasn’t meant to be an inside my head conversation. That was meant to be an outside my mouth conversation. And so one of the things she talked about is that a lot of people want to be seen.

A lot of people actually want fame. They want to go viral. They want to be known.

They want celebrity status. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting that, so long as you’re willing to admit it. Just like there are other people who really want community.

They really want to build a place for others to belong, but they’d really rather not be like the face of that place. And that’s okay too. You just got to know where you stand.

And you’ve got to be able to present yourself in the way that makes the most sense for you and what you want and not be shy about it. Not be shy about it, right? Because back to, if you truly are somebody who’s looking to find your people, you’ve got to be visible in some way.

So if visibility is your goal in any way, right? If you want to be seen, just know that that’s not a selfish endeavor. That’s actually in service to finding the people you want to help or helping the people who are out there wanting to help you find you as well.

So, you know, what we really are meaning there is that whatever part of you that you’re trying to get connected, you can’t keep it a secret. That’s really what it’s about. All right.

So second, the second thread that came out in my interview with Mary was craft. Now, Mary is all about craftsmanship and, you know, she and I have both worked together long enough and, you know, individually before we ever knew each other. We know that sometimes you just have to stick a fork in it, call it done and move on.

Like we get that, right? And I am probably somebody who lives out the truth of done is better than perfect more so than others. And that’s just because I know my perfectionist nature.

And I know that in this day and age, I can always fix things later, right? There’s always editing that can be done. I can’t spend too long polishing things or they’ll never see the light of day.

Ask me about the books I’ve been writing and ask me how long I’ve been writing them. That’s the perfect example. So I am somebody who likes to move quickly and get stuff just out in the world.

I like to co-create in public for that reason, right? I just allow all those mistakes to be out in public and I just polish the rough edges as I go. Mary is somebody who is much more about craft and quality and staying power.

But here is where we see eye to eye because you would hear that and you would think like, oh, they are totally different people and we are totally different people, right? But you would think that we are on opposite ends. But the reality is, is we’re not.

Because where we agree is that craftsmanship isn’t about polish. It’s not the packaging. It’s not the expensive equipment.

It’s not the high-tech setups on whatever you may have. You know, in the case of in-person community, your craftsmanship isn’t your meeting location. It’s not the full service place with a wet bar.

Your craftsmanship comes in the form of the foundation that you have built, right? It is showing that you care enough to have thoughtfully designed the space that you’re creating or the work that you’re putting out into the world. So, you know, whether it’s being really clear about the story you’re telling, you know, in the case of a writer, say a podcaster, speaker, if it’s about being intentional about the time that you’re taking, especially like if you’re leading an organization, maybe you’re a non-profit leader, maybe you lead a support group, or maybe you’re a member of support groups.

There’s a difference between being a member of one support group and saying, this is where I choose to give an hour of my time every week and saying, well, I’m going to casually dip in and out of five support groups. Even being thoughtful about how your message lands. I mean, look at this podcast as an example.

In many ways, this podcast is not like super high, like high production value, right? Like I record this remotely. I record it in my home.

I don’t have a big fancy setup. I don’t have a dedicated studio, but I spend more time. In fact, I spend three times the amount of time outlining episodes and really thinking through what makes the most sense to talk about on the mic and to build out to form an episode than I do actually recording the episode, because I think it’s important to honor your time.

And if I want you to give me 20 to 40 minutes of your time, then the least I can do is spend two to three hours to make the 20 to 40 minutes worth your while. And when you bring that level of care into what you put out in the world, and again, we’re talking like it could be a club, right? Just a club that you host.

It could be a small group you lead in your home. But when you put that level of care out into the world, people feel it. And when they feel cared for, they come back for more.

And this is a conversation I’ve been having a lot on LinkedIn recently. There’s a few people I know who have shifted their business models a bit and they’re focused more on member experience or membership retention, membership churn, which is something that I also work on in my business. But they’ve been talking kind of their take on what leads to churn, what causes people to join a membership and cancel, what causes people to join a membership but not renew when the renewal period is up, or what causes people to not keep up with a subscription.

And one of the things that comes up time and time again is people will leave subscription model offers, whether those are like getting a product once a month in your home or once a week, however often, or a traditional online or in-person membership, people will leave those. They will not renew. They will cancel when they don’t feel like they’re cared for, when they don’t feel like they matter.

It’s not even just that they don’t see that they fit into the hole. Maybe they don’t know where they fit into the hole, but they certainly don’t think they’ll be missed. And so it’s just easy for them to duck out the back door.

And so think of craft, when we talk about craft, especially in this specific context, this episode and the last episode, don’t think of it so much as, you know, am I using a $6,000 camera? But think about, am I putting as much thought and care into what I’m doing as if it was being recorded by a $6,000 camera, right? Because that level of care and that level of intention will shine and will automatically be much more valuable than anything else out there, regardless of the production value of how it’s presented.

So ultimately craft is how I think you show respect to your audience, you show respect to your community. And even if you don’t say it out loud, right, it’s one of those things that can be felt and it quietly promises to people that their time matters to you. Right?

So said another way, right? Craft is how you show respect to your audience. And it’s your quiet promise that says your time matters to me.

And because I believe like for most of us, the time that other people give us does matter to us. Like we value that. We understand there’s only 24 hours in a day.

So if somebody gives you an hour on Tuesday, that’s an hour they couldn’t do something else. Whether that’s an hour they couldn’t sleep in, an hour they couldn’t go to the gym, an hour they couldn’t clean their kitchen, if that’s their idea of a good time. It’s an hour they couldn’t read a book or listen to a podcast, right?

That’s an hour that could have been spent any one of a number of ways, but they chose to spend that hour with you. And you want them to know that that decision matters a lot to you. And you want to let them know that you recognize that by them spending that hour, you understand how much you mean to them.

All right. So finally, see, we’re going to like wrap this up. It’s going to be like partial, partial time that we spent with Mary, but I think it’s so, so important.

The third thread. So if you’re keeping up here, right? So the first thread that we kind of pulled from Mary’s interview is that visibility isn’t about ego, right?

Visibility is really how you identify where you belong and help other people recognize that they belong with you. The second thread was craft, right? And really think of it as craft as community care.

The third is focus. So the third thread is focus. And you’re going to hear me talk a lot about focus, I think in the next year, especially because, you know, we’re just seeing some shifts all around us and these shifts all around us distract us, right?

They’re like getting us ping-ponging in several different directions. And that’s exhausting. So you’re going to hear me talk a lot about focus in a variety of ways.

But in this case, one of the things that we’ve emerged since the pandemic is that, you know, especially those of us who work online is that you have to be everywhere all the time, right? You have to be on every single channel. You have to like post 10 times a day.

The term omni-channel, right? Omni-channel was not even a word 10 years ago, but now everybody’s like, oh, well, you have to be omni-channel. And, you know, there’s this pressure to exhaust yourself into relevance and the idea that your perfect people are in 22 different places.

And so if you’re not on TikTok and Instagram and Blue Sky and the platform formerly known as Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn, that you’re somehow missing the boat, that there’s this big population of people that you are ignoring because you’re on two platforms instead of six, or you’re on, you know, six platforms instead of 10, or maybe you’re on one. And the reality is it’s just not true. You know, you only need to be in as many places as you need to be to reach the people that you’re meant to reach.

So, you know, I, having a background as a social media manager, I have experience on every single platform. I have an account on every single platform. But at the end of the day, when I crunch my numbers, my people are on Facebook, my people are on LinkedIn, and my people are on Instagram.

And as much as I don’t personally love Instagram, since I’ve launched this podcast, I have discovered that I get the most traction to the podcast from Instagram. So when it comes to posting about an episode and actually having an uptick in downloads for the episode, that comes, number one, from when I post on Instagram, number two, posting on LinkedIn, and number three, posting on Facebook. And I find that really, really funny because when it comes to getting clients and getting referrals, I get the most from Facebook.

I get the most business from Facebook. Second is LinkedIn, but like it’s a distant, distant second, and almost nothing from Instagram, right? But I don’t have to worry about TikTok.

I don’t have to worry about Blue Sky, although I have to tell you I do really love Blue Sky. I don’t have to worry about threads or any other platform that may be emerging because I have strong data that says I’m reaching enough of my people on three platforms. And that’s social media.

Let’s not discount the fact that we have people who are hungry for us, who are exhausted by social media, and that’s not why they’re present. So, you know, don’t let the latest technology distract you from what we’ve always known to be true, which is that if you can have a direct relationship with somebody via email, that’s golden, right? So if all you can manage to do at any given time is write an email once a week or read an email newsletter once a week, that’s not nothing.

And maybe you’re gifted with writing and so you want a blog or maybe, you know, you want a podcast. I mean, right now I am hosting this podcast. I co-host another podcast.

My voice is out in the world a lot and I love it. And because there’s a lot of planning and organization that goes with that, my writing isn’t as, or new writing isn’t coming out with quite the same level of frequency that it did a year ago. But that’s okay, right?

Because I’m focusing my time, I’m focusing my attention because the last thing I want to do is put out a half-hearted podcast episode, right? Back to I value your time and your time is too precious for me to hand you throwaway garbage or to hand you non-important drivel. And so as much as there’s no shortage of platforms out there that help you be everywhere all at once, I think of tools like repurpose.io and there are other content repurposing tech tools. OpusClip is another one that will let you repurpose content and that way you can produce like 100 pieces of content from one video and just broadcast it out to the world. You use Restream and it just like can flood like 10 posts on 10 platforms at a time, 10 times a day if you wanted to. As much as that is possible and you’ll have a bunch of gurus telling you that that’s what you have to do to be seen, to be heard because there’s just so much going on, I actually think we’re past the era of quantity.

I think now that AI is so prevalent, like AI is infused into everything we do, that the best thing most of us can do is think long and hard about the things that only we can do and then just show up really well in those one to three places, ideally one to two, right? Because I don’t see belonging, like true belonging or true community coming from being everywhere. I see it coming from showing up somewhere, a specific place with depth and consistency.

So maybe that’s your membership community. Maybe that’s a Facebook group. Maybe that’s your Bible.

Maybe all that is for you is church on Sundays. Church on Sundays and the PTA meeting at your kid’s school once a month. Maybe that’s it.

But I think that when you show up somewhere, wherever that is, with depth and consistency, even the people who aren’t there, right, if they’re going around talking to their perfect people, right, or they’re looking for you, somebody will tell you. Somebody will tell you. I had this conversation the other day with somebody.

We’re working on the landscape project and I was saying that I couldn’t find resources for what we wanted to do with our front yard. And they said, oh, you know, well, there’s a regional Reddit. Okay.

The last time I was in Reddit, I was working at a university in 2016. And I was just like, what, Reddit? Like people still use Reddit?

And she’s like, yeah. And actually when it comes to the type of landscaping you want to do, there’s very active subreddits on that topic. So what did I do?

I changed my password on Reddit because I had forgotten it, got logged back into Reddit and started going down subreddits and seeing how much Reddit had changed. And I went down a bit of a rabbit hole, but I got the information I needed. And now I know who in my actual community is doing the same stuff I want to do to my yard.

And I know who to ask for advice. Right. So even though Reddit is not on my radar, I went there because when I was looking for something specific, somebody I know was like, that’s the place to go.

Okay. So when you choose one or two places to be wherever that is, you know, to find your people or to at least make it known that you’re looking for whoever it is, and you commit to those places with intention, you will make it easier for your freaks to find you, even if your freaks don’t normally hang out there. And when you couple that being someplace specific with being there as authentically as possible and as consistently as possible, you will build trust, right?

Because when they do come to find you over there and they see a depth, they say, Oh, she has been, or he has been showing up here consistently for this period of time. They instantly feel like, Oh, this person knows what they’re talking about. Oh, this person has staying power.

So if you’re still with me, right. Main takeaway here from my conversation with Mary, like really when we’re talking right now about showing up, like you mean it, right. The primary takeaway here is that if you want to be visible, okay, you can’t, you’re not going to succeed at being visible if you come from a place of vanity.

And if you are worried that your hunger for visibility makes you vain, then vanity is not your problem because vain people don’t worry about whether they’re too vain. It’s just not on their radar, right? Cause they’re vain.

They don’t worry about that. So if you are someone who is like, I want to find my people. I need to be out there.

I need to be seen, but I’m worried about it making me vain or making me look vain or making me look like it, you know, like I want to be the center of attention. Keep in mind that you can’t foster belonging for people. If they don’t know you exist, you can’t have other people connect you if they don’t know how to go about doing that.

So visibility isn’t vanity. Craft is not about how expensive or how glitzy your presentation is or your tech is or your production value. Craft is care and focus more than anything.

If you remember nothing else, focus will beat frenzy. Okay. Seriously, you don’t have to be all the places all the time.

You just have to be somewhere as authentically as possible and as consistently as possible. So if you want to start small, just think, just think about like, where’s that one place I could show up consistently that shows the level of care and consideration I want to provide for the people that I’m trying to build community with or I’m trying to build community around. Okay.

So if you are a community builder in this case, if you are a creator who’s trying to build up an audience or community, I think what you need to know is that your freaks aren’t looking for perfection. They’re just looking for you. And if you are somebody in search of community, right, you, you want a place to join, don’t get distracted by high production value.

Pay attention to the quality and the care that is showing up, right? Even if it’s raw, even if it’s not fancy, pay attention to the quality of the content that’s being presented to you. All right.

I will see you next time. That’s it for this episode of Find Your Freaks.

To help more weirdos find their way here, subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re craving connection, join the Freak Show at findyourfreaks.com. What makes you weird makes you wonderful.

Normal was never the point.