(0:00 – 2:47)

My freaks are people who are unafraid to say the weird thing out loud. And the quiet thing that has to be said out loud is because I want to be famous. Craftsmanship is not necessarily always about the technicalities of what you’re doing. 

It is also the intention in which you go into something. If you can show up at eleventy billion percent with no one watching you, not only do you know that you’ve nailed your craft, but also you know that you really, really love it. We have too many of us in entrepreneurship just listening and regurgitating the same thought leadership principles over and over. 

But if you’re regurgitating Mel Robbins or Simon Sinek or whoever, they’re not going to know who you are. They’re just going to know who you read. And that is not the same thing. 

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. All right, we love to talk about community around here. 

We love to talk about how to build it, how to grow it, how to sustain it. But today, we’re taking a little different approach, and we are going to talk about what happens when you finally admit you want more. More visibility, more recognition, more impact, and what it takes to claim it without shame. 

So today’s guest is my very own biz bestie, Mary Williams. Yay, Mary! Mary is the founder of Sensible Woo, which I don’t know what we’re calling you these days. Are you the content architect and chaos whisperer for intuitive entrepreneurs who want to get seen and get their stuff together? Is that what we’re calling it, Mary? That’s what Chat GPT is calling me these days. 

Yeah. All right, I love it. Well, here’s what I can say is Mary brings over 25 years of intuitive advising and more than a decade of content strategy experience to helping solopreneurs stop winging it and start making media that matters. 

And I will say she’s really good at holding your proverbial hair back when you need it. That’s the role she provides for me in my life. So Mary, you and me, we go way back, especially in internet years. 

We actually met in the trenches of an online education company pre-pandemic, and we survived the pandemic in online business together. Therefore, we are blood sisters. Oh, totally.

(2:49 – 3:54)

So you’re the host of the School of Moxie podcast, and you are the mastermind behind some of the most creative in-person communities I have ever encountered. Today, what I want to do is pull back the curtain on the truth that most people won’t say out loud, even though it drives their every move. Let’s start off, Mary, by you telling us who are your freaks and why do you love them? Oh, I love this question. 

My freaks are people who are unafraid to say the weird thing out loud, or they’re willing to go there. And I usually find that they tend to be neurodivergent. They tend to be queer and allies, and they tend to frequently lately, I’m discovering, be online dinosaurs like us. 

We’ve been doing it for so long that you forget how long you’ve been doing it. And so you don’t jump on every fad. You do jump on trends when it’s appropriate.

(3:55 – 6:53)

I think we’re the OG freaks. And I find that the best people that I collaborate with, that I do the biggest projects with, we are like from the Paleolithic era of online internet marketing. And lately, though, we’ve been talking about it more and more because there’s been this cycle change in the online business world as it happens. 

And I’m just noticing that my freaks are definitely very much around me. And that is very comforting. I agree. 

I agree. It is comforting when your freaks are around you. We have guests fill out an intake form just so we can outline and make a really good episode. 

You said your freaks want to be famous, but they just haven’t found a safe space to admit it yet. Yeah. Talk to me about that. 

Well, if we’re going to talk about online dinosaurs, I think there are those of us who have been very successful making money, getting our message out there, working with the right clients, going through all the evolutions and changes that everyone is going to do. It’s inevitable. And we have watched these celebrity entrepreneurs come and go. 

They come and they go. They come and then they go. They burn their business down, then they rise from the ashes like a phoenix. 

Yes. And they were just like, oh, I’ve seen this before. And what I noticed is that there are those of us who basically do what is considered good business. 

We do good, solid business. It’s not flashy. It’s not performative. 

It is actual numbers, dollars and cents coming in and going out in appropriate ways. And we ride through the tough parts and we soar when things are doing really well. But because we live in such a visibility culture now with marketing and especially with celebrity culture infiltrating our online entrepreneur world, especially, I find that there are a lot of people who when we have quiet moments and I spot it and I just ask them, what’s the goal here? Why are we producing this thing? Why are we making the course? Why are we making the podcast? Why are we starting YouTube? Why are we doing whatever we’re doing? And the quiet thing that has to be said out loud is because I want to be famous and that there’s no shame in wanting fame. 

Now, I started in entertainment. I used to work in the moviemaking business. I have been around celebrities. 

I worked for an infomercial company that puts celebrities on paid TV time to hawk beauty products. It’s not weird to me to be famous or notable to be seen is not weird for me. And I don’t know that that is always the case in our online marketing world because everything gets wrapped in this. 

Well, I’m going to be super glam, but I have space for everybody. And it’s like, no, you want to be famous, girl. You want to be famous. 

Just say it. Just say it. And you like having the numbers.

(6:54 – 7:27)

They are vanity metrics at the end of the day, for the most part, unless your business model is based off making money off of those metrics. But for most people, numbers on, say, an Instagram account are just vanity metrics unless you’re converting them into actual sales, which doesn’t require someone to follow and like your stuff. So that’s the business part. 

But the fame part is, but I accumulated more followers. Look at me. I feel fancy. 

And I think it’s a natural human thing. I think it’s part of our modern society. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with it.

(7:28 – 7:33)

But there is a path to fame. I may be the right person to help you with some of that. I may not.

(7:34 – 9:24)

But I probably have a lot more contacts than the person who’s pretending like fame isn’t part of your desire map than someone like me. So I think we should start talking about it more. I really do. 

Yeah. So let’s do that. So what, people like different words. 

So you can choose myths or you can choose lies. Do you see around content creation and fame right now? I think there is a myth right now that more means more. I think we are hitting an era of quality over quantity. 

I think the pendulum swings back and forth. We definitely went through an era of quantity where it was like posts on everything 10 times a day, seven days a week, every single channel. We’ve seen it. 

I was like, be a hominy channel. You must be everywhere all at the same time. All the time. 

And the exhaustion from that era is still very much felt right now because you get the resistance from people. You and I talk about this all the time in the clients that we work with, in the communities that we’re in. And people are like, I’m so tired. 

I don’t want to do that. And the pendulum has been slowly swinging back where you’ve seen people take big breaks from social or they’re just not sending as many emails or they’re just showing up a little differently. The whole work harder, not smarter dialogue has been going on for a few years now. 

But I really feel like with the influx of celebrities into our online marketing space, especially podcasting and YouTubing, we’re seeing, and I’m seeing it now in newsletters too. I’ve seen a lot of celebrities infiltrate the kit creator network and that has been another symptom and sign. So I like to watch what they do because I used to work around them all the time and I just find them fascinating.

(9:25 – 9:54)

But I find that it’s also kind of a canary in the coal mine moment for the rest of us in business, which is they have dollars and ability to access certain quality markers that we used to bootstrap and just sort of throw on a bad pair of microphone headphones and a bad webcam. And they’re just going to kind of post whatever, whenever as an entrepreneur. And that era has long since passed.

(9:55 – 10:45)

So I really feel like we are hitting an era where you kind of need to think like you’re going to be famous. Your goal may not be to become, as my t-shirt would say, Pedro Pascal. It might not be to become that, but to have your mindset in a place where you ask yourself, is this the highest quality output that I can put out for this? Am I rushing it? Am I doing it right? Or am I just trying to ignore the fact that I want to be seen as quickly as possible? So I’m shoving this thing out the door and then people wonder why their marketing feels like a mess and they get really frustrated. 

And it’s just a domino effect from there into other parts of the business. Yeah, yeah. And that is such the big lie right now, right? Is you have to be everywhere all the time.

(10:45 – 11:31)

There’s the quantity over quality. But then there’s this other piece that I think keeps people absolutely paralyzed, which they think they’ve got everything they produce has to be Mr. Beast level quality or they can’t do anything. Yeah. 

One of the things I like to tell people is there is always space for you to get better. Yeah. There’s not space for you to act like you just rolled out of bed and woke up today and decided, I want to be internet famous. 

We’re past that place. But there is always space to get better. And you and Rachel Allen are probably the biggest proponents, advocates, I will say cheerleaders for craftsmanship that I know.

(11:32 – 12:19)

So I’m curious with your focus on craftsmanship, why do you think that’s the first step to getting seen for the right reasons? I firmly believe that when we say meet people where they’re at, that where people are at is they have been primed by big dollars and big creator economy, aka the entertainment industry and big marketing, TV, film, even Mr. Beast, he owns like a whole town in the Carolinas or something and like employs everybody. I mean, like he is not a solo creator. Right. 

So big, big money. He is big money. And because the people where we’re meeting them at, those people have been primed to expect things in a certain way.

(12:19 – 19:17)

You have to think about craftsmanship. So we have these professional podcast networks now like Wondery or Lemonada, they have a certain amount of quality that is required in order to be on that network. Sometimes they’re paying for the studio time, or they’re paying for extra behind the scenes, post production, or even pre production, and they’re making sure that the quality is as high as possible. 

And then you’ve got your celebrities and notable people entering the space. Like I’ve been listening to Michelle Obama’s podcast a lot lately. It is amazing. 

She has money. She has money. She has an agent. 

She has a whole team behind her just like any other celebrity would. And because they have that they can afford to do craftsmanship almost without thinking about it. It’s just simply a requirement. 

It’s just something that you do. And I think for our business people, we end up with thinking about craftsmanship almost like it’s something that happens three or four or five points down the list of to-dos. At that point, it starts to become more expensive. 

It takes you more time because you’ve got to triage things. And if it’s the thing that you do at the beginning of the process, you will elevate your end product better, even though it’s not the sexy thing to do at the beginning because nobody’s seeing you do it. So first of all, I think that craftsmanship doesn’t mean the same thing to everybody, right? Because I think when people hear craftsmanship, they’re thinking, let’s just say, video production quality. 

They’re thinking a book with a really fancy cover design and high quality printing. They’re thinking that super posh website. And what you’re actually saying is that that comes after the true craftsmanship, which is the quality and intentionality around the concept and the idea and the strength of the foundation that you build whatever it is on before you wrap it in the glossy packaging. 

Yeah, that is exactly what I am talking about. And craftsmanship is not necessarily always about the technicalities of what you’re doing. It is also the intention in which you go into something. 

It is the clarity of the long game that you’re playing with whatever it is you’re doing. Yes, we do figure things out along the way. Yes, we do evolve along the way. 

We get better the more we do things. All of it. Yes. 

Yes, yes, yes. And also, this is where I think entrepreneurs are so obsessed with Simon Sinek’s The Why because they’re searching for what is my long game? What’s my story arc? What am I trying to do? And I think if you don’t know what that is, it’s time to get hella curious and really start investigating in yourself what you want. And to get out of the thought leadership bubbles. 

I really believe that we have too many of us in entrepreneurship, just listening and regurgitating the same thought leadership principles over and over. And it becomes this echo chamber. And then you don’t sound unique. 

And that erodes your craftsmanship. Because the thing that makes you stand out is the thing that nobody else can tell you. Like you have launched Find Your Freaks. 

I mean, I’ve been cheering you so hard. I’m just gonna cheer you publicly. Like I am so stinking excited about this. 

And it has been an idea and something that you have essentially done craftsmanship on over quite a while. But it was not sexy. It was not glamorous. 

Nobody saw you doing it because it’s not something that other people can see you do. The stuff that they can see like the pretty cover choices on the book that you publish or the fancy microphone you buy so that you can look nice on a video recording, like all of that stuff does contribute to the end product of good craftsmanship. But the foundation layer of that has nothing to do with the mic. 

Technology is going to upgrade, you’re going to buy another mic. At some point you are. It has nothing to do with the set that you’re sitting in. 

That’s going to come and go. One of my favorite things to do to look at people’s craftsmanship is to kind of hyper focus on somebody for a minute and scroll all the way back to the beginning. I’ll do it on social platforms. 

And sometimes if they have not deleted or curated their material over years, it’s a very long scroll. But you can see how they’ve grown over time. On YouTube, I remember doing this with Marie Forleo years ago when she was at her height, and it went all the way back to the beginning of her YouTube. 

And she had older sets, and she had not as good lighting, and she had not as good microphones, and her makeup was kind of harsh, and her hair was just a little too much herring. Everyone talks about her hair. And it was just a little too much Jersey girl. 

But craftsmanship was in there. The quality of the delivery was there. She definitely got better at it over time. 

You’ll hear this on podcasters. I’ve done this with John Lee Dumas back in the day because he publishes so much. It’s a great example. 

If you go all the way back to the beginning at this point, it’d be a very long scroll in a podcast app. But his very, very first episode, his enunciation isn’t as good, but the ability to show up is there, and you can tell that he has practiced it. You can tell. 

And those are just things that I really appreciate seeing other people do, and I think we can see examples of it. And when we see somebody who appears to have popped up seemingly overnight, it is rarely that case. And the ones who do seem like they pop up overnight, I think the bookish community online is a great example where you’ve got influencers seeming to pop up overnight because they’re really hot and young, and they’re talking about smutty fiction and all the right molecules combined for them to blow up in six posts, which happened on TikTok in the last week. 

And when I look at the person in front of the camera, I can always see that they have thought deeply about what it is that they are coming on for. They’re not just rambling. And so there’s really not as much luck, I don’t think, in somebody’s product turning out so amazingly well. 

Things are actually a lot more thought out than we believe. Yeah. Well, and you cannot avoid or sidestep putting in the reps.

(19:18 – 19:43)

Yeah. Yeah. I have this conversation all the time with people who want to try video, because I’m a big fan of live video. 

They want to try video, but they don’t want to put in the time and energy to outline a really meaningful, valuable live stream if they’re only going to have two people watching them. Yes. And that is so unfortunate because that’s where you build your craftsmanship.

(19:43 – 23:12)

Right. And I’m such a huge fan of speaking to no one, because if you can show up at 110 billion percent with no one watching you and no one listening to you, not only do you know that you’ve nailed your craft, but also you know that you really, really love it. It’s not performative because when the thing hits and now you’ve got to pump out content to feed the content beast, if you do not love what you are doing, it is going to show up so fast, so hard. 

And I’ve seen people just start to hate what they’re doing. And I can totally understand feeling a little bored with the content or needing to evolve the thing. But you hear this, like there’s been sort of an exodus of OG podcasters and YouTubers. 

They’ve been saying, oh, it’s dying. Podcasting is dying. YouTubing is dying. 

And maybe your evolution of that has died, but it is definitely not dying. It’s just beginning to hit mainstream, which is the perfect time to be adding that into your marketing portfolio of materials. And it tells me that even though they might have had some really nice product, that foundation level of craftsmanship, which is like, where is your heart in this, was missing, which means that maybe you didn’t have all the craftsmanship you thought. 

Right. And part of how you get the perspective that you get, I definitely value the ideas and the thoughts you bring to the table is because you’re not out there going to 37 billion free webinars and regurgitating what everybody says in the top of their funnel or their conversion event. You’re not consuming mass amounts of YouTube and podcast episodes and taking what somebody shares in 30 minutes and assuming that’s the full picture of who they are. 

For somebody who is in the thick of online business as you are, you’re a big fan of in-person gatherings and in-person community. And off the top of my head, I know of your part of Hustle Hard, Slide Faster. You’ve got Commonwealth. 

You’ve got my personal favorite, which is the Feral Book Club. All very different. Deeply human. 

I would argue unapologetic. What’s the thread that connects them? What is your appeal to each of those environments and why in-person versus let’s just all hang out on Zoom together? I want to preface that I have been online full-time since 2016. And I was creating content since 2010. 

So I love the online world. But I’m also very aware, and maybe it’s all those dinosaur years of it, that makes me very, very aware that there is a certain quality that is still required for you to meet in person in order to connect as deeply as we need to. There is something that gets a little lost online. 

I think those of us who’ve been doing it a long time, because we know how to connect more deeply, we find it faster than anything. A lot of people struggle to gain traction online with their online marketing and whatnot because they’re not doing enough in person. They’re not human-ing enough.

(23:13 – 23:28)

And if you don’t human enough in the real world, when you get online, it shows. It really, really shows. You start to look like every other girl boss. 

You sound like them. You sound like every other bro dude. It can even come down to just simply regurgitating the same quotes.

(23:28 – 24:33)

We were giggling over a critique of Mel Robbins’ book on a podcast this week. And it’s the same thing where if I hear one more person quote her from her plagiarized book, I’m going to poke my eyeballs out. And it always tells me who the person is. 

If I hear one more dude quote 10x is the new 2x in a mastermind or in a networking meeting, I’m going to know you don’t spend enough time in person. Because in person, everyone isn’t regurgitating the same rhetoric that’s being spoken online. There are other things going on, whether it’s mundane, like, oh, this salad is really good at lunch today. 

Or whether it’s a bit more personal, like, I’m so sorry I was running late. I had a late school drop off. And it’s like, oh, how are your kids? And you human, you connect with somebody in a different way. 

And so in all of those groups that you just mentioned, first and foremost, they are local. And last year, I was going through such a big pivot. And I realized, after romanticizing years of my Los Angeles life, I was like, why am I romanticizing this? Because that was a really hard time.

(24:33 – 26:45)

And the thing that I realized after digging and digging and digging through lots of journaling, so hopefully someone out there can get some benefit from my hours of journaling here. And I realized that it was the support. It was the in person support system. 

I had an in person network. And I used to go to film screenings, and I would go to do stand up, and I would go hang out with people. And up here, I had lost that I had lost it in my migration through the southern states when I had moved and work. 

And then it was post COVID up here. And I went, where is my in person support system? So what have I changed that I’ve got extra time on my hands, because I’ve retired my mastermind program. I’m servicing b2b clients. 

That’s great. But I’m honestly not as packed. And I’m a little burnt out. 

And what if I decide to go find my freaks locally? Who are they? And I just started talking with people who I know I had had this type of high craftsmanship level connection. And it just started with like a two hour cocktail party that I co hosted with Isaac, our friend Isaac that you introduced me to. And slowly, but surely, all of these connections started coming in. 

And then because we weren’t afraid to be freaky in our conversation, we were like, you like reading unhinged romance. So do I let’s get together and talk about it. And you know, we were all business owners. 

And one thing led to another. And then the latest is hustle hard, slide faster with Megan Ackman. And she was organizing the freelancers union. 

They changed their way they’re doing all their city satellite locations from the national level. And we were sitting around talking, she was processing what she was going through. And I was like, we need a Pecha Kucha group in Portland. 

And so we started a group because we realized that we noticed other people having a hard time connecting. And I think it’s important to do that. I think I figured it out. 

Because in 2023, when I was recording season one of School of Moxie podcast, I recorded everyone in person. And so I traveled, and I piggybacked a lot of those batched recordings on top of conferences. And so I went to all the conferences, I paid the money.

(26:46 – 28:07)

And I had a great time at the conferences. But the take home yield wasn’t there, I got home. And I was like, I still have the same problem. 

Where are my freaks? Where’s my network? And so last year, I was like, I am not traveling, I am staying put. And in 2024, I figured it out, like it came down to becoming very local again. And it doesn’t mean that my business has become local. 

It just means that I’ve anchored myself better. Okay, so before because I want to ask a question about in person connection. But before we do that, I need you to tell people what Pecha Kucha is, because I didn’t know for the longest time. 

So it’s a Japanese presentation, I call it a game, people sometimes call it a 20 by 20 presentation. So it is exactly 20 slides in each slide is exactly 20 seconds long. So we have it in Canva, it automatically times, and you can’t pretend and be like, oh, let me spend a little longer on this. 

No, the slide will turn over. And in about six and a half minutes, you’re done. It’s the presentation. 

And it had a really big heyday in the early aughts. And I keep hearing about a couple others around town here in the Portland area. And I think it’s starting to make a comeback because we all like a framework, it’s easy to wrap your brain around.

(28:08 – 28:59)

And the people who’ve started to do it regularly with us, you can see them like getting it and they’re like, this is so much fun. And what we’ve noticed is because we gear our event specifically for business owners and entrepreneurs, they are getting to know each other on that human level before launching into the here’s what I serve and what I offer. And as soon as we’re done with the presentation, our generous host, Graybox, big shout out to Ben Parrish, they have beautiful rooftop patios, and we watched their last event. 

And everybody just got immediately up out of their chairs, started talking together, started taking selfies, they were out on the patios, enjoying the last of the refreshments. And we did not see that behavior when I was hanging out in Megan’s chapter for Freelancers Union. And I think that is very fascinating, and very telling.

(29:00 – 30:56)

I would agree. And kind of following this thread, what do you wish more people understood about the mechanics of in-person connection? Because you have just talked extensively about what makes in-person connection different. But there’s a mechanics piece there you haven’t quite touched on, I think. 

Yeah, I think. Well, the number one mechanic is you are your own system. All my old systems training. 

I was waiting for when that was going to come out. You are your own system. It was the number one tagline in all of my systems coaching for the longest time. 

And when we talk about you being your number one system, your best system, I really believe it plays heavily into all of the human-ing part. When you know yourself, and you do the inner work on yourself, whether it’s spiritual work, therapeutic work, health is a really big part of it. Physical health and mental health, all of it. 

And that is the basis of being able to now human with other humans. And we have been through a really, really difficult stretch of time here where I would argue we were largely on autopilot pre-COVID. And then COVID happened. 

And when everything shut down, there was a lot of awareness on mental health, especially for many, many individuals. And just the need for socialization and community and what community looks like in a new hybrid era and all the things. And I think if you’re going to go out and human today, that if you’re like, why do I feel like I don’t make friends easily? Or why do I feel like I don’t connect with people? Or just always that frustration.

(30:56 – 31:19)

Before you look outside yourself, you’ve got to look inside yourself and ask yourself what is going on there. So somebody could come into your Facebook group, which is super robust, has been going since forever. It’s amazing. 

And they can still come in there and be like, how come nobody’s interacting with me? And like, why am I not making friends on Facebook even? And that’s not the platform’s fault. It’s not Metta’s fault. It’s not Facebook’s fault.

(31:19 – 31:25)

It’s not the group’s fault. Start with yourself. The common denominator is always you.

(31:25 – 32:42)

And the same thing’s true in the other systems in your business too. You get unhappy with your social media marketing and it’s like, well, you are the common root denominator of that entire equation. Unless you’re a massive company like Disney and you are no longer the central reason that that company exists. 

That is not the case for any of us, even for quite a few businesses that are quite large. Your CEO is still very much a central part of that branding. Apple’s a great example of this with Steve Jobs. 

And even after his death for many years, it’s very hard for people to talk about Apple without talking about Steve Jobs. In the online space, as online business owners, we can fake a lot, right? I only have to be known, and we’ve talked about this before, I have to be known from about like collarbones up. I don’t have to even be wearing pants as we’re having this conversation. 

I am wearing pants for the record, but I don’t have to. I don’t have to even wear makeup, right? Because I can have all these filters in place. But when I show up in person, it’s like me and my awkwardness and good, bad or indifferent.

(32:42 – 33:36)

And I either get really comfortable with that or I don’t. But that’s part of the mechanics. There’s only so much you can fake in an in-person environment. 

Yes. And if you want to bring out a full circle back to the whole idea of people needing to come to terms with, am I doing this because I want to be famous? It comes down to what we’re talking about here, which is at home, when you’re in your sweatpants, and you’re not wearing makeup, and you’re using 20 filters to show up when you do turn on the camera, you can very quickly figure out what the real motivations are behind that desire around being seen and notoriety. And that it’s usually frequently wrapped in something that is somewhere in the center of a Venn diagram between a business problem and a therapy problem.

(33:36 – 34:26)

And yes, you need to be visible in your business. Yes, you might have a desire to be seen more and acknowledged more as a human. And in order to figure that out, as they say, business is the best self-development course you’ll ever take. 

And it will unearth all these things for you. And so there are people who have learned over time working with me, and they’re like, if I ask Mary, I know I’m going to start going deep on something. It’s like, yeah, we’re going to go dig around in those spaces. 

And I will tell you if it’s something where it’s like, this would be a great thing to go take to your therapy appointment this week. But until you solve it, the business part is not going to unravel for you. And when it comes to our content online, I am all for making it more equitable and easier for people to be seen and to be heard.

(34:26 – 40:36)

That is a technical thing to solve. That is a marketing thing to solve. It is an accessibility thing. 

But then beyond that, it’s a you thing. And so somebody can book me and come into the studio that I’m building up here. And if they are filled with head trash, there is a certain amount that I can help you with. 

And then there’s a certain amount where it’s like, the product is a product, and you’re going to grow from here. And if you want me to help you with the coaching part, I will show you all the places, because sometimes you need somebody outside yourself to show you. And it’s like, here are the great things for you to go figure out. 

But I think the number one thing is starting to human again. And if you can walk into a networking group, it doesn’t mean that you have to be the ultimate schmoozer. But if you can at least tell yourself you’re going to put it on the calendar, get yourself there on time, stay the whole time, and don’t bounce early, which is what a lot of people do. 

They’re like, but I went. I’m like, yeah, you went for five minutes, and you freaked out, and you left. Not the same. 

But to stay. And not just to collect business cards, but to say, can I find one person in this room and have a really human conversation with them? And recognize that my weird is completely acceptable. It’s OK. 

And also, not everyone’s going to like it. And the more you human with other humans, you start to realize that it’s OK that not everybody loves everything about you. There’s a reason why we do attract and repel marketing. 

We need to. Just like there’s an app for that, well, there’s a service provider for that. And you need them to know who you are. 

But if you’re regurgitating Mel Robbins, or Simon Sinek, or whoever, they’re not going to know who you are. They’re just going to know who you read. And that is not the same thing. 

Oh, that was so funny. All right. I think that’ll end up being full quote for the episode. 

So let’s bring it to our listeners. And so for the listener today who’s curious, who’s like, oh, this sounds really good, but I don’t know. What’s one small, but maybe meaningful step they can take today to own their desire for visibility without shame? I think it is figuring out where your baseline is today, because it’s going to be different per person. 

So let’s say you’ve been, I think this is probably the most common thing. This might not be your thing, but this is the most common thing I see, which is consistency is a real problem. So I would argue, I know you also feel the same in today’s day and age, if you are still not able to send a weekly email to your list, that that is where you start. 

And there are a lot of spokes on that wheel that come off of that. People knowing that you have a list might be because you share it on Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or something like that. But being able to send that email every week and do it for you, no matter who’s coming or going off that list, no matter how many people are clicking on things in that email, but to make something that you feel proud about, that feels like you. 

And if you don’t know what that is, it’s time to get curious and to look at who your sources of inspiration might be so that you can get some foothold or nugget and go from there. And you can’t push all the boulders up the hill. So if you’re like, I’m going to do email and podcasting and YouTubing, and I’m going to go on five social networks, you’re going to burn out so fast because the one thing you need is just simply the thing that you can own, which is your email list. 

And I’m watching the evolution of our social networks again. And I’m so nervous for some of these young entrepreneurs, especially Gen Z who came into the space, the Mr. Beast generation, dare I say it? And I watch them on YouTube and I always am curious and I go look at all their materials and the number of them that do not have a website, their own domain, their own email list. It’s all in one platform and maybe TikTok. 

And it makes me so nervous for them because we have seen things change on a dime in the past and that is not a good place. Yeah. So what would you say to the person who secretly wants to be seen? They’re listening to you. 

They’re like, yeah, that’s what I want. But they’re scared that they’re going to look fake, arrogant or unworthy. Yeah. 

Yeah. I think now is the perfect time when nobody’s paying attention to practice finding your presence, whether it’s on a microphone or in front of the camera or both. And it’s the perfect time. 

You have a chance to get comfortable talking you and I in the spaces and places that we formed our own apocalypse team during the apocalypse. We logged so many hours in front of people on camera, on a microphone, on recording. And that is something that you just have to log the time and the experience and being a natural in front of the camera. 

The microphone is yes, there are people who have an X factor for sure. I’ve been around enough celebrities to tell you there is an X factor in some people and it’s like the sun shines out of them. And I don’t know why I don’t know how it just does. 

I’m sure everybody has met somebody in their life where they’re not even famous and they’re just like that person just shines. And that is a thing. But for the rest of us mere mortals, it is a learned skill and you can have sun shining out of your face all day long. 

But if you don’t know how to sit in front of a microphone without being fidgety, if you don’t know how to look at the camera and project into the camera, it doesn’t matter how sun shiny you are. And so I think sometimes we bank on this idea that there’s just sort of like a natural talent, you know, and you can feel a certain way, but to project that out into a recorded device is a whole other skill set. And so if you don’t really know and you start getting curious, like I always send people to acting classes.

(40:37 – 41:37)

I mean, go take a theater class, go take a scene study class. It can be community theater. It does not have to be fancy. 

Bonus points if you go full on standup because you will never pee your pants harder than that. And everything is easy after standup, but learning how to access your emotions and to share them with other people is actually a skill. And you’ll see some of our like internet famous celebrity entrepreneur type people later talk about how they have acting coaches after they reach a certain point, partly so that their voices don’t wear out when they’re doing like a lot of these keynote speaking and lots of speaking, but also because there’s a certain amount of presence that you need to have and helps you figure out who you are. 

Like, who are you? One, I think that’s the most important thing, right? Is if you don’t figure out who you are, it’s really hard for your freaks to find you. So hard. So, okay, we’re getting ready to wrap up.

(41:37 – 42:19)

We’re going to get to the rapid fire segment, which is like my absolute favorite. We’re going to put all the information on how to get ahold of you, Mary. But for those who are listening, oftentimes in the car or on a treadmill, they cannot write things down or read. 

It is sensiblewoo.com. You’ve got the School of Moxie podcast. I happen to know that while you are on just about every platform under the sun, your favorite playground is Instagram and you are at sensiblewoo over there. So are we ready to let your freak flag fly? Let’s do it. 

Okay, so it’s a quick round. It’s five fast questions, no wrong answers, just whatever comes to mind. We start off with completing this sentence.

(42:20 – 42:36)

You’re my kind of freak if you like to read five chili pepper spicy books. I think they need a chili pepper rating at some point. Maybe we’ll put that in the show notes because I have to say five chili peppers is not five chili peppers for everybody.

(42:37 – 42:48)

No, it is not. I read a book once and somebody was like, it’s three chili peppers. I’m like, I’d give that half a chili pepper, but okay, I guess I have a different barometer.

(42:48 – 43:19)

What’s something you love that your friends just don’t get? Asian snacks. Oh, but I get it. You do. 

But you know, I’ve been humaning so much more in the more people I meet. Well, I mean, speaking of like a freak flag moment, it’s sort of like, ding, ding, ding. This is my person because they know what white rabbit candy is. 

They know what rice snacks are. They know what all the snacks are. And I have been finding my snackaholics lately and I love it.

(43:20 – 47:27)

Yes, yes, the snacks are good. Okay, what community would you infiltrate just to understand it better? Oh, oh God, so many. Can I split myself into like 20 places? I want to infiltrate like the Gary Vee crowd, the Tim Ferriss crowd. 

What’s weird is I’m kind of like second degree connection to these people. And I just want to infiltrate them just to see like, what are you guys really talking about in your masterminds? Like, is this just like bro dude city? Or are you sitting around having like crying therapy together? Like, I don’t know. I can’t tell. 

I want to know. But because the dialogue that comes out of them is, the vibe is so similar in so many ways. Like the material is different. 

I just, I have to know. I want to know. Yeah. 

Okay. Last one. Who is someone doing freakishly good work that deserves a bigger spotlight? Oh my goodness. 

I have been following these cosplayers on Instagram. And I’m just going to give like the cosplay community sort of a big shout out. Because I started back in the olden days as a blogger. 

I sewed my own clothes. I lived in LA. I did the whole like handmade fashion blog, style blog kind of thing. 

And I showed everybody how I made everything. I did sew along. Like it was great. 

And because I understand clothing construction, maybe that’s where a lot of my craftsmanship comes from is like, I really love that. And so I’ve been watching these younger, new generation sewists online. And they are doing things that just blow my socks off. 

Like it is incredible. Some of them do period corsetry. And like when I was sewing, I really got into corsetry and it was so hard to source materials and find information. 

They’ve created pattern companies. Like they do the most incredible things. There’s a couple of them online. 

They’re pretty young. They are like engineers. One of them made the Katniss Everdeen dress from Hunger Games. 

The one that lights on fire. And she actually sourced flammable material and like did the spinning thing and the dress went on fire and then had the new dress underneath. The engineering that goes into that is incredible. 

And I’m so blown away by it. And I find it incredibly inspiring. And it always makes me realize that there are people doing really cool things out there. 

And there’s room to really attempt things. And it took her a long time. And she showed you every step along the way and everything had a disclaimer. 

She’s like, please don’t do this at home. Like here’s my dad with the fire extinguisher. But she didn’t just like make a dress. 

Like she figured she sourced her materials. She talked to experts. She figured out what to do. 

She gets paid frequently by like film premieres to make a dress and walk the red carpet. And like it’s really, really cool. The things she’s doing. 

She’s so young. And I just think it’s the neatest thing out there. Okay. 

That’s a good one. That is a good one. So Mary, thank you. 

Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for your courage, your clarity, but really it’s like honesty and absolutely contagious moxie. So for everybody listening, if you’ve ever been taught that wanting to be seen makes you selfish or fake, I hope this episode reminds you that visibility isn’t vanity. 

It’s your invitation to lead. But before you can lead, you’ve really got to take a long, hard look at your craft and be willing to invest in the quality of it. 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.