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AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey there, welcome back to another episode of The Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and this episode is going to be awkward. I mean really awkward.
Here’s the deal. If this is the first time you’ve ever listened to my podcast please don’t make this your first episode. I’d rather you go back a few episodes. Go back to Episode #200 where I dive into some specific online marketing strategies and techniques.
I get into the nitty gritty of all of the different moving parts of building an online business. That’s what I’m known for and what I’m most comfortable teaching. This podcast space has always, with a couple of exceptions, been a place where I share online marketing tips and strategies.
It’s 100% my comfort zone. And don’t worry, that’s still my plan moving forward with other episodes to come. But this year I’ve made an intentional decision to step out of my comfort zone, or actually maybe a lot with this episode today, and let you in on some more behind-the-curtain personal things.
If you listened to Episode #210, Five Lessons I Learned From Shonda Rhimes, just a few weeks ago you will see where some of the inspiration for this week’s episode actually came from.
Speaking my truth was something I was really inspired to do based on what I learned from Shonda Rhimes, one of my favorite mentors.
Today’s episode is titled, Ten Things I’m Embarrassed To Tell You. Several years ago a well-known podcaster that I love, Jess Lively, shared an episode with her audience with this type of format. I think she called it Ten Things I’m Afraid To Tell You.
The honest and raw truth from that post really hit a chord with her listeners. I believe that even back then it created a bit of an online honesty movement. I really do believe that’s where some of this began way back when.
She still does these episodes and they’re priceless. In my opinion there are far too many people in the online world that have created these “everything is awesome” online personas.
It really casts a false light on what’s actually going on behind the scenes. I, for one, don’t want to be looked at by those that follow me as this person that has it all figured out and doesn’t have bad days, doesn’t struggle both in my personal and business life.
That’s so far from the truth it’s laughable. So I titled this Ten Things I’m Embarrassed To Tell You and I shouldn’t be embarrassed by this stuff, I mean it’s just life stuff, it’s the real stuff, but I feel embarrassed because it’s not my highlight reel.
For the record, it’s really far from it. As entrepreneurs I believe that what’s personal is business and what’s business is personal. I know not everyone would agree with me on that but my business is my baby.
With that, even if you have other babies, your business can still be your baby. With that I think the personal and business blend together, especially if you are building a personal brand.
You can’t just be sharing the highlight reel on social media and videos and everything else you do. I bet you would be surprised as to how much in common we have, especially when it comes to things that make me embarrassed or ashamed or feel stupid.
I feel we’ve got to talk about that stuff. I’m not going to do this all the time but I am taking a little bit of a detour on some of my podcast episodes to let you in. We’ve had a relationship for many years, at least some of us have.
You’ve been listening to my podcast for many, many years or you’ve been in my programs or you were in my very first Facebook program back in the day. Many of you have known me for a long time.
It’s just recently that I’ve pulled back that curtain and said, “Hey, take a look at this mess over here,” or, “Take a look at what really is true in my world.”
It’s not all messy. I don’t feel like I’m a hot mess or anything like that but I feel like I’ve got really messy days sometimes. I just want you to see it all, not just the highlight reel. That’s what this episode is all about.
Before we dive in I wanted to let you know that this episode is brought to you by my free masterclass, The Ultimate List-Building Catch-Up Plan, my proven three-stack system for leveraging the most powerful what’s-working-now list-building strategies without the stress and tech confusion or crazy overwhelm that typically comes with list building.
If you are not yet building your email list or if you’re struggling to see new subscribers to your email list every single day then I want you to go to https://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/listbuilding.
Let’s get to it.
#1 – I’m just going to start out with one of the most difficult ones to talk about because it’s so personal. That is that sometimes I wonder if Hobie and I made the right decision about not having kids together.
I was married at 31 and we definitely thought we would have kids. Then I started my online business and I was all in. I mean I was incredibly focused. I was hustling like a hustler. I was really in it morning, noon, and night.
Some of you don’t realize this. I think many of you do. Cade is my stepson. So Cade came into my life when Hobie did and Cade was four. It felt like we already had a kid. I very much look at Cade as my own and I have a very good relationship with his mom, as many of you know.
I’ve talked about that on the show. So it felt like I had an instant child and we had Cade all the time. Cade was a 50/50 partnership between Hobie and I and Cade's mom who lives five minutes away. He was in our life all the time.
It felt like we had a little one already. Then time flew by and we just never took the leap. We talked about it. We didn’t really have an overwhelming sense to do it. Another year went by. We talked about it again. Another year went by. Then we finally got to the point that we said, “I don’t think so.”
Hobie’s a little bit older than me so both of us are now in our 40s and we started to think we didn’t want to have a kid in our 40s. There’s nothing wrong with it. No judgment if you are.
However, that wasn’t right for us. So about three years ago, I’m 41 years old now, about three years ago Hobie had a vasectomy. Oh my gosh, we’re really getting personal now! I don’t know if he knows I’m even talking about this on the show.
Remember, he doesn’t listen. He’s never going to know. Sorry Babes. So anyway, I have to tell you that because on our way home from the doctor’s after he got the procedure I started crying in the car.
I was really crying and he looked over like, “Babe, I’m not reversing this. Please, what are you crying for?” He was freaking out because he thought this was what we both wanted.
Quite honestly, I probably wanted it a little bit more than him. I was a little bit more sure of not having kids than he was. He was so confused. I just said, “You know what? I need a moment because now it’s real. We’ve made the decision, we’ve actually taken a big step to say we’re really not having kids. Now it’s real.”
I had to let all of those emotions out on the drive home and then I was okay. I really was okay with the decision. So sometimes I just think, “Oh my gosh, I hope we made the right decision.”
But when I say that out loud there is a little voice inside me saying, “You did.” I’ve never been one of those girls who just couldn’t wait to have babies. I love babies. If you’ve got a baby give me that baby, I want to eat it up.
I love children. However, I just never really had this overwhelming sense that I wanted to have my own. I guess God knew what he was doing bringing Cade into my life because I feel like I do have a son.
I know it’s not the same but I feel like he’s a huge part of my life. We made the decision not to have a baby and I hope it was the right one. Heck, I might be 50 and adopting. You never know. I seriously doubt it but never say never.
I feel good with the decision but I always have those little thoughts that creep in. So there you have it.
#2 – Remember, we’ve got ten of these. We’ve got to hurry this along because I’m sweating of awkwardness right now. This is a work one. I mixed up the personal and the work stuff.
I work well under pressure so sometimes I let myself wait to the very last minute to finish something because that feels okay to me. I know I’ll get it done. I’m a champ in the last hour.
However, this causes tremendous stress for my team and I recently talked about having a bigger team so now when I have all of these full-time employees and they’re waiting on me until the last minute to finish something so they can do their job, it causes overwhelming stress for them. Getting even deeper into the truth, I am not so nice to Hobie in those moments and I hate myself for it.
For example, when I wait until the last minute to finish my webinar slides, something I teach all of you not to do…This is something once in a while I’ve done. I’m not proud of it – this is the truth episode, it’s not my norm but it happens. I’m working on these slides at the last minute during a launch, which is stressful in itself, I am so snappy at Hobie.
The guy can’t even look at me one way where I’m not on his case about something. That makes for a terrible experience. He’s a champ about it because he knows all the emotions of the last-minute work during a launch. But it’s not fair to him.
Me waiting until the last minute because I know I can work like a champ in those moments is really unfair to my team and I’m embarrassed by it because I teach getting things done in advance.
I would say 80% of the time I walk the talk but there is 20% of the time I let it slide and I think I’m going to be just fine. Then I look at the destruction I leave around me and realize, “You’re a jerk Amy. Get it together. Don’t do this.”
#3 – Let’s just stop this now because I don’t even want to talk about #3. I worry about aging because of my online presence. I hate to talk about this one because it’s embarrassing. I already told you I’m 41, which I didn’t even want to say that earlier. I just kind of slid it in there. Did you see how I did that?
I don’t love being in my 40s. I’ve always been younger than everybody in the work I was doing. When I was at Tony Robbins I was in my SC when people were at the same table with me on the executive team that were in their 40s. I found pride in that. Look at me. I’m young and in charge and doing big things.
Well now here I am in my 40s. There’s a lot of younger people doing amazing things right now and I just worry about the aging. Sometimes I look at pictures when I just started and I look like a baby compared to what I look like now.
The truth is it is hard to get older on video, especially when you’re showing up every single day and it’s a big part of your business. I would like to say I subscribe to the “I’m going to age gracefully and embrace every wrinkle I have.”
I’m not there yet. I’m going to fight this battle. So I pay close attention to my skin. I’m obsessed with things like LED light and multi-wave technology to help stimulate collagen in your skin.
Yeah, I really take that stuff seriously. Don’t laugh. It genuinely works. I pay close attention to skin care. A lot. I’ve never done this before. This feels very weird, but I’ve been asked about it enough.
For those that care, probably more so the ladies than men, but hey, I think you boys should pay attention to this as well, I’m going to list some skin care regimen type things that I swear by in the show notes. I’m just going to list them.
No laughing or thinking, “Amy, who do you think you are? You’re not an expert in skin care.” Oh, I am far from it. However, I study this stuff a lot and it works for me. There are some things that are literally working so well in terms of anti-aging and skin care.
I get a lot of compliments about my skin on video so it’s got to be working, right? I’m going to fight this aging battle. I am. One day I might just say, “Who cares anymore?” But it ain’t happening right now.
Anyway, I’ll let you look at the list if you want.
#4 – We’re back to a work one. I sometimes don’t like to tell you that I use a copywriter. You all know I do. I have talked about my amazing copywriters, Ry and Tarzan. I use two different ones. However, when I say it, in the back of my mind I think, “I don’t want to tell them this.”
The reason for that, I’m afraid that if you hear I use a copywriter you’re going to think everything you read (my emails my sales pages, my social media, all of it) is not really Amy talking.
Then if you think that you won’t feel a true connection with me. If you don’t feel a true connection with me you’re not going to want to be a part of my tribe and buy my programs and dive into my content and all that stuff that I do. My fear is that you will not feel connected to me.
What I do want to tell you, since we’re just talking about this topic, is that I have a really close relationship with my copywriters. This is maybe something you can take away from this as well.
I literally text Ry and Tarzan independently about funny things that happen in the day and stuff we like to talk about and we’re in contact a lot. I actually consider both of them my really good friends.
It didn’t start out that way. We were just coworkers, if you could call it that. But I made it my mission, and I think so did they, to get really close so they knew me. They know how I talk. They know how I think. They know my little quirks. That all comes out in the writing.
The truth is, when you read anything from Ry or Tarzan it really is coming from me. They have become an extension of me throughout all of their copywriting processes and what they have put into place in terms of knowing me before they write. That is the truth.
But I do worry about that when you hear that I have copywriters.
#5 – We’re mixing up the personal and business. We’re going back to personal. I don’t always love being the one in the relationship that makes the most money. It is way too much pressure sometimes.
It’s a weird shift in our relationship. Hobie doesn’t love it either. We talked about this in Episode #161. So, if you’ve already listened to the episode called “Love and Business: How to Make it Work” Hobie and I were very open about this.
He talked about the fact that it’s not his favorite thing ever. Here’s the deal. This is actually kind of a sexist conversation because I grew up in a household where the dad went to work and the mom stayed home.
The dad controlled all of the finances. He worked more. We had more. If he worked less we had less. He was the dictator of how we spent the money. I grew up thinking that was exactly how it is meant to be.
Then I look at my marriage and it looks dramatically different. First of all, I don’t control the finances. Hobie doesn’t control the finances. We do that together. But I make a whole lot more money than my husband.
If I’m being really honest with you the embarrassing part is that sometimes I wish he made more money so I could take a break. We’ve built a lifestyle around our money. We’re very careful with it and we don’t overspend and we don’t live beyond our means.
But if I stopped making money we would definitely have to change our lifestyle because we’ve built our lifestyle around my income and his income. So sometimes I think I just want to take a break.
Here’s the crazy part, the part I’m most embarrassed about. I don’t want to take a break. If you said, “Okay, Amy. I’m going to wave a magic wand. Hobie makes more money than you.” I’d be like, wait, wait, wait. Maybe not.
Maybe I don’t want you to do that. I want to make my money. It’s just I want the choice to step back if I want to and I don’t necessarily have that. I sound like an idiot saying this. I feel weird saying all of this to you because it makes no sense.
I want to make the money but I don’t want to have to make the money. There it is. There is that weird dynamic. We worked through it. We talk about it a lot. It was a way bigger issue in the beginning when it happened.
It’s been going on for many years now so it’s not really a thing as much anymore. But I wanted to be open about that one.
#6 – I am somewhat embarrassed by the fact that I am a fierce competitor. I want to be at the top of the charts of iTunes. I want to be the #1 affiliate in launches that I do. I just want to win to the point that it’s more my ego than anything else.
I really push myself or my team because I just want to win the race. With that, that means I’m comparing myself to other people that are so called “in the race.” They might not even think they are my competitor but I’m comparing myself to where they’re at and where I’m at.
You know I’ve talked about this one before. Comparing yourself to other people is really the worst thing you can do. It slows you down. It messes up your mental game and it does not good for anybody.
I have to really check my ego at the door. I was trying to get up on the charts on iTunes for a while. I wanted to boost myself up even higher. I had to realize why I was doing this.
There are benefits of being up in the iTunes charts, definitely, but my downloads increase every single month. Whether the algorithm is sending me up those charts or not I look at my real numbers, just mine and nobody else’s, and I’m doing really well.
But my ego is just pulling me back to that dang chart. I feels like that just takes all the fun out of it. We’re trying to have fun here as well, right? My competitive spirit can just suck the fun out of everything.
I have to be very careful of it. That’s why, I told you guys about this in another episode, I listened to that podcast called Making Oprah and I fell in love with Oprah’s philosophy of putting blinders on and running your own race.
I have to be intentional about that and I tell myself and remind my team. But really it starts with me as the visionary of this business. Put those blinders on, Amy. Get off of that crazy cycle of trying to beat everyone and be competitive. It’s not going to get me anywhere.
I’m embarrassed to even admit that I’m that competitive. But it’s in my blood.
#7 – That last one was a little bit about business, right? Now we’re back to the personal stuff which is definitely more difficult. Here it is.
Growing up I was always afraid of my dad. He was strict and stern and he expected more out of me than I thought was fair. I love him dearly. To this day I could call him up right now and we’d have a great conversation.
He’s mellowed out a lot. Funny how that happens with age. But he was hard on me. For some reason I took it a lot harder than my sister. We’re only two years apart and she doesn’t seem to be as affected by it as I am.
I think I’m just more sensitive than her so my childhood experiences definitely put me at a distance with my dad as I was growing up. We haven’t always been incredibly close although I love him dearly.
I think I still have hard feelings about some of my childhood experiences and some of the things that happened with my dad. Last summer I actually went through an intensive therapy called EMDR. I won’t get into it.
For those of you who know it you probably realize how powerful it can be but I’m going to link to it in the show notes and I’m going to link to the doctor I went to, Dr. Mcayla. If you guys listen to Dr. James Wedmore’s podcast he actually had Dr. Mcayla on the show. He recommended this therapy to me and it was so good, so good.
I worked through some of these past issues I had with my dad. I had to learn to let go of them. He wasn’t going to change. That was big for me but here’s the reason I’m telling you this one.
If we go to current day, sometimes I see myself being really hard on Cade. I have to pull back. Like being strict. He gets straight As but I’m still pushing him to study more. Or he does not give us any problem whatsoever about missing curfews or being irresponsible but I’m still hard on him about those things.
I see that. I see my father coming through and I have to pull back because I never want distance between us. It’s funny how those things are really part of who you are because it’s what you know. You kind of have to shed them.
I have to be very careful with how I parent Cade in terms of being a strict parent. Hobie is way more lenient and he’s a really good father so I kind of want to follow in his footsteps and look at what he’s doing. It’s kind of cool.
#8 – You already know this truth if you are a fan of my podcast. I’m embarrassed about my weight and I don’t like to do video because of it. I’m bringing this one up again because I can’t do ten things I’m embarrassed of and not bring up the weight issue. It is very obvious.
You see me, you know what I look like, and it’s very personal to me. I did an episode all about this. If you want to hear it and haven’t yet it’s Episode #179 and it’s just nine minutes because that’s all I could do, just nine minutes of talking about my weight and I’d rather you just hit me over the head because it was so painful.
I wanted to bring it up because I know many of you struggle with how you look or how you feel on video or your online presence. I wanted to say, “Look, I’m going to do this. I’m going to keep showing up. I want you to keep showing up.”
I also wanted to give you a quick update. I’ve been making some great progress around learning to love myself more, moving my body more, and fueling my body in a way that works better for me.
I feel like things are really starting to move forward. I’m not making huge progress yet. It’s slow and steady. I’m going to keep sharing with you. I’ll share some details about what I’m doing to get healthier when I know for a fact I’m sticking with them.
I don’t like to report anything back to you until I know I’m doing it and it’s working for me. It’s a little bit too new to talk about. I’m not doing anything crazy. I’m not on a fad diet or anything I wouldn’t do until I’m 80 years old.
I’m just changing my lifestyle and it’s making me happier. I feel better so I just wanted to share that with you. We are seeing some progress over here but still the weight is here and I’m still embarrassed to do video.
I don’t like to get in front of stage and everyone look at me because of the weight. That holds me back and I hate that so that is something that I’m changing.
#9 – Oh my gosh, we’re almost done. I hope you’re liking this episode because I’m in a puddle of sweat right now. I like to share this stuff with you but I also don’t want you to judge me or think less of me or think, “Whoa, I thought this girl had it together and she is a little bit messy over there.”
I hope you are listening to this with a lot of love and compassion for me because I promise if you put out your ten things I’ll do the same for you.
This one’s a weird one. You’ve got to tell me if you’ve ever experienced this. DM me on Instagram because that’s where I’m usually seeing all of the conversations right now. I’d love to know if I’m alone in this one or if you can relate.
When I have a big success like my million-dollar launch or B-School, one of my most successful launches I’ve ever done, when I have something really great happen to me I feel a tinge of guilt and I struggle with it and fear the success is going to be taken from me. That’s deep, right?
Don’t be too worried for me. This is getting better. It used to be horrific years ago. I had a big success and there were five days of being in the dumps and feeling scared and guilty of my success, “I don’t deserve it.”
That used to be very big for me. I bring this one up now. It’s funny because it’s easier to bring things up when you see a light at the end of the tunnel. My commitment to you is not to always have the light at the end of the tunnel. I want to share some things with you while I’m in it if I have some value to add.
But with this one I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Recently we had that big B-School launch. It was hugely successful. I had that tinge of guilt happen, that kind of darkness that comes over me where I felt, “I don’t know if I really deserve this. What if it gets taken away from me?”
I don’t know how it would get taken away from me but if something good happens I think something bad’s going to happen. I had that feeling come over me. But I have tools now that I know, “Wait a second, I can shift this. I know what to do.”
I start telling myself what is true, what is real, and I start reminding myself that I worked really hard for “this” and that I deserve it. Even if I didn’t work really hard for it I still deserve it because I am who I am.
There are so many emotions that come with that success that I have to really say, “Wait a second, Amy, this is yours. You did this and you can enjoy it and you really have fun with it.”
Now that I have a team it’s funny. When you become a parent, obviously I’ve never become an actual biological parent but I know when my friends have become a parent for the first time, they start to look at life differently. This is going to be so overly dramatic. I don’t mean it to be.
Now that I have a team I look at myself differently and I think, “How am I coming across to this team?” I don’t want them to not enjoy these huge successes. I don’t want them to feel my guilt or tinge of the feeling that if something good happens something bad will happen.
That’s crazy town so I really worked on it this last time and that feeling of guilt or whatever you call it went away quickly this last time. I thought, “Okay, I’m getting this under control. This is awesome. I’m seeing progress.”
Progress, not perfection. Anyway, that is a weird thing that happens to me and I just wanted to share it with you because I thought maybe some of you have felt that way before.
#10 – We’re in the home stretch. I’m so excited. This one is more of a work one. I’m embarrassed to talk about this one because it really shouldn’t be happening. I struggle with letting go even though I have an awesome team.
A perfect example of this is that I still see every single email that goes out. To take that one step further, I might have already reviewed the email once but right before it goes out I still see it again.
I justify this in my head because this email is coming from me. It’s in my own voice. It is my stories and things I’m teaching. It’s got to be perfect. Obviously, we know that is not true. It does not need to be perfect.
It really comes back to me just wanting to control everything. Now that I have this team, I talked about this in Episode #208 if you missed it, I want them to feel empowered.
I don’t want them to be afraid of making mistakes so I think as long as I hold on tight and have to see every email that goes out and I have to have my hands in everything they are never going to feel like they own it. They are also going to be really afraid to make a mistake because I’m hovering over them saying, “Don’t make a mistake.”
I’ve got to give them grace. So this is something I’m very aware of right now because the team just got bigger and I’m still holding on. I’ve got to let go. I’m embarrassed that I hold on so tight and that I still see everything that goes out and I don’t need to.
I’ve got this awesome team but I’m praying that with time I start to let that go just a little bit and then a lot. Baby steps, my friend.
So there you have it, a bit of me baring my sole. I hope it wasn’t as awkward for you as it was for me, I’m guessing it was not, but the point of this episode was for me to be honest about parts of my personal and business life that you might not know about me yet.
I really want you to know me. So when you see me out and about in real life or, better yet, when you come to one of my events in San Diego, you don’t just know the shiny social media approved side of me. I want you to know all of me and I want you to know that I am just like you in so many ways.
That’s when I think the true connections happen. I also really hope that maybe something I said today will help you feel not so alone in what you’re going through. Or maybe even encourage you to be more honest and real with your own online community.
Can I just say, “Thank you”? Thank you for allowing me to feel safe enough to even share an episode like this today. I can’t wait to get back to the tips, tricks, and nitty gritty social media strategies next week. Oh my gosh, that is my safe space.
I can’t wait. Plus, I think you all like it as well. You like those how-to step-by-step trainings and we’re getting right back there next week.
Speaking of training, remember this episode is brought to you by my free masterclass, The Ultimate List-Building Catch-Up Plan, my proven three-stack system for leveraging the most powerful what’s-working-now list-building strategies without the stress, tech confusion, and crazy overwhelm that usually comes with building your email list.
If you’re not adding to your subscriber list every single day or if you’re just struggling to get started with list building you’ve got to get on this masterclass. Don’t wait. List building was the one thing that I wish I had done so much sooner in my business because it would have been so much easier to get everything else going.
You’ve got to be building your list. Go to https://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/listbuilding to get that free masterclass.
Okay guys, thanks so much for being here. I’ll see you again next week. Bye for now.
