The Mistake You’re Making by NOT Creating that Video

Giselle Ugarte, Global Speaker and Executive Performance Coach

Giselle Ugarte is an Online Performance Coach and motivational speaker. She is known for her impactful keynotes and programs that teach entrepreneurs, executives, and individuals to have a healthy relationship with social media, build confidence on video, and achieve growth both online and offline. Giselle approaches marketing by focusing on personal development and humanizing how we do business, both online and offline. She shares time and energy management tactics, effective communication techniques, and practical boundary-setting tools.

SHOW NOTES

Welcome to Amplify with Jess, Today, we’re leading off with Giselle Ugarte, Global Speaker and Executive Performance Coach, and someone who’s become TikTok famous. Giselle wasn’t always comfortable being behind the camera, so I ask her what happened and why she appears so confident now.

(00:00) The confidence journey

(03:56) Admitting vulnerability

(07:47) Breaking barriers

(11:00) Competition or support system?

(17:58) Conquering your content creation fears

(21:10) “What if you just let it be messy and you just let it be real and you just let it be you.”

(27:14) Managing video expectations

(29:20) J-Lo: Longevity over virality

Amplify with Jess is produced by Earfluence and brought to you by Mic Drop Workshop.

TRANSCRIPT

Giselle Ugarte – 00:00:01:

One of the things that has absolutely helped me is finding community, truly, because I feel like one of the biggest misconceptions, I’ve heard it for a lot of my life and then I lived it, which is thinking that like, it is such a lonely place. Like you fill in the blank with whatever that thing is. Maybe it’s entrepreneurship. Maybe it’s having a business. Maybe it’s being an author. Maybe it’s being on the road. Maybe it’s being a speaker. Maybe it’s being a female. Like so many things we have been made to believe it’s a really lonely place.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:00:33:

Welcome to Amplify with Jess Ekstrom, a show designed to help women get out of their head and into their zone of influence. Today, I am so excited to have Giselle Ugarte, one of my good friends. And before we bring her on, she is like the master of all things video. She’s an amazing keynote speaker. TikTok has picked her as like top 100 women to follow, which is, I think there’s a lot of people on TikTok. So that’s a pretty big deal. But before I bring her on, I wanted to tell you all a story that relates to just self-promotion, which we’re going to be talking about with Giselle today. So when Chasing the Bright Side was coming out in 2019, I was feeling really shy about promoting this book. I’m like, this book is my story. This book is about me. I don’t want to be like, “oh, look at me, everyone. I wrote a book”. And it wasn’t until an author told me, “well, do you think that if people read your book, their life could be better from it?” I was like, “well, duh. That’s why I wrote this book”. They’re like, “well, if you think that the thing that you’re selling could better people’s lives, then you are doing them a disservice by not telling them about it”. Boom. That was such a game changer for me. And so from then on, if I believe the product, the speech, the talk, the book that I’m creating is going to help people who read it or listen to it, then you bet your bottom dollar that I’m going to promote it. And who better to talk about this? Then my dear friend, Giselle. Giselle, hello. Thank you for being here.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:02:03:

It is so, so, so good to be here. And I love exactly what you said. It is not about even buying a product. They’re buying your story. They’re supporting your message. They are allowing for your message to be seen by more people. And I think we take for granted how many people want to be able to support us, want to be able to put us physically in their pocket and share us with everyone who they know. And we are absolutely doing a disservice by not sharing that thing, that gift, that product, that class, whatever it is that could absolutely profoundly impact someone in their everyday, or perhaps completely change their life.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:02:40:

Absolutely.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:02:41:

I’m really excited for this conversation.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:02:42:

Now, I’ve been following you for a while. We first met, I think it was at Inman when we were both speaking there. And I will admit, from the outside, I’m like, this girl was born confident. She can show up on every channel. I mean, video is like a walk in the park for her. Prove me wrong. Please tell me that you were not born confident. Was this a journey for you or a skill that you had to learn?

Giselle Ugarte – 00:03:08:

No. And I feel like confidence is also something that you don’t, it’s not a destination. It is a journey. It is a muscle. It is a practice. And so many of my older videos are absolutely cringe, but I think it’s also even worth acknowledging the fact that I have been creating and studying online video content for more than 10 years at this point. That’s longer than most of you have probably had social media. And I also think it’s important to recognize that, what’s that book, 10,000 Hours or whatever it is for someone to become a master of whatever. For me, it’s also years even before that of doing theater and improv. And I was totally the creative kid in my classes who, if I had the choice between writing an essay or doing a monologue or doing a sketch or a play, I’d rather do the creative thing. And so part of that, but I wish that I had more of my early cringe videos online, but I was so insecure that I pulled them off and deleted them. But if you look like they’re out of focus and my voice is like 10 octaves higher and my skin is so orange and my makeup is too dark. And even in those moments throughout the journey where I did appear confident and polished, I was still wildly insecure within and telling my story. I felt so much more comfortable telling the stories of other people. My background is news and entertainment. So I would have much preferred telling the stories of other people versus then it was a whole other journey of learning how to tell my story. And also even today, even just today, I have the internal dialogue in my head. I call it my internal content in my head saying, “oh my gosh, you’re so boring. Oh my gosh. Are you really going to say it like that? Do people even really care? You already said that. Oh, this is dumb. This is stupid”. All of it. And so it’s a constant practice, but also we have to remind ourselves that when we’re getting into that place of either comparison or the voices in our head telling us that we don’t matter or that it’s stupid or arrogant or egotistical, whatever it’s saying, when we’re in those places, we have to remind ourselves that that actually is us being selfish. That is us making it about ourselves versus how we can allow for ourselves to serve. Because for example, if someone said, “hey, I really need your help right now”. And if it’s someone who you care about, if it is someone who you can profoundly impact, would you say, “but you know what? Not today because I feel fat”. Or “you know what? I would love to help you, but I can’t today because I feel ugly”. “You know what? I can’t today because helping you would actually make me feel really, really selfish and bad about myself and full of myself”.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:05:53:

That’s so true. And it’s so funny hearing you say it in that perspective, because I always tell speakers at Mic Drop Workshop, when you reach out to an event to pitch yourself as a speaker, you are not asking them for a favor. You are doing them a favor by letting them know that you exist. But of course, I can tell myself that all day long. And then of course, in the moment, that inner content or what you called it was like, well, maybe you’re not ready for this level yet. Maybe you’re not good enough. What do you say to yourself or how do you course correct in those moments? How do you get out of those loops?

Giselle Ugarte – 00:06:35:

One of the things that has absolutely helped me is finding community, truly. Because I feel like one of the biggest misconceptions, I’ve heard it for a lot of my life and then I lived it, which is thinking that it is such a lonely place. You can fill in the blank with whatever that thing is. Maybe it’s entrepreneurship. Maybe it’s having a business. Maybe it’s being an author. Maybe it’s being on the road. Maybe it’s being a speaker. Maybe it’s being a female. So many things we have been made to believe it’s a really lonely place. But I actually believe that if it’s a lonely place, because we are choosing that we don’t want to make friends in that moment. Either way, because we don’t think that we’re good enough or because we think that we would be a burden on someone else or because of the stories that we’re telling ourselves. And so it has taken me being really, really uncomfortable admitting when I’m not okay or I’m not fine or I do need help or I don’t have it figured out. Because that’s also part of it too. Sometimes it’s lonely because we don’t want to admit, “oh, I don’t know how to make the video or I don’t know how to promote my book or I don’t understand the finances of my business or I don’t know how to hire”. We’re having to be vulnerable and admit that we’re not good at something when perhaps we’ve, as an achiever, believed that we have to be great at everything and perfect from day one when that’s not how anything in life works.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:07:58:

Every expert was once a beginner.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:08:00:

Totally.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:08:01:

Totally.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:08:01:

You don’t have to be great to begin, but you have to begin to be great.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:08:05:

Yeah. And I would say with video specifically, because that’s a lot of what I want to talk to you about, I feel more confident in front of a room of a thousand people than I do in front of the green dot that’s staring at me right now on this call. Am I alone in that? Are you the opposite? What do you feel?

Giselle Ugarte – 00:08:26:Well, okay. A little bit of both, but I want to just really quick go back to that community piece because that’s the, okay, Giselle, sounds easier said than done. Like I don’t know anyone or like every, like no one understands it. No one gets it. So even in the ways that I found my community, it was when we were in the middle of lockdown and I physically could not leave my house. Like some of the most incredible people, yourself included, I found when I couldn’t go out and find my people. So how did I find it? Believe it or not, when I was getting in that place of comparison or even thinking of people as competition, I challenged myself. To figure out how could those potentially be my community instead of competition? How could I create camaraderie instead of competition? Because where maybe perhaps we’ve been made to believe that there’s only room for one of us, one of us can make room for all of us. So even like I think about a great friend of mine, her name is Jera Bean. She’s a content creator. She’s awesome. And I remember I would see her content on my feed and it was really similar to mine, but I thought, oh, but she’s taller and skinnier. And I love her voice and all of her content is prettier because her love language is creative and like aesthetic and her videos are so beautiful. And in that place where I would catch myself in a place of lack, I would force myself to type something nice and comment on her feed and introduce myself into her messages saying, “I love your content. Your videos are so good. Is there anything I can do to bring value into your world?” Like it was a practice where it viscerally hurt me sometimes.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:10:04:

Yes.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:10:05:

Her content, because I would feel so bad about myself, but I had to train my brain to find a mindset of abundance and find companionship in the places where my brain had been tricked into believing that she was my “competition”. And now she’s one of my best friends. We’re in this thread of girl, of women. You know, four of us who we all met on TikTok and on Clubhouse at any time that we have an issue or we need a pep talk, we reach out, “Hey, I need a pep talk. Can you remind me that I’m not dumb?” “Can you remind me why my people need me to show up?” “Can you give me permission to take a break, because I’m stuck in it right now?” And so, those are some of the ways that I’ve been able to find my people in a place where previously I would have been repelled to run and keep to myself and put my tunnel vision on. And so sometimes like you do need to put your tunnel vision on. Sometimes you need to break your walls down. But then hitting that place, I know it is that deep. It is. That’s why internal content is so important.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:11:18:

It really is. And it’s literally like bringing to the forefront something that I like literally talked about in therapy last week where I… Years ago, there was a similar person that I followed on social media who I also kind of knew. And I really started to see her business take off in these ways that I haven’t done that yet. We haven’t done that. And instead of supporting her and cheering her on, I unfollowed her. And because I was like, I just can’t see this right now because it makes me feel less than. And she saw somehow that I had unfollowed her and reached out to me and was like, “did I say, did I do something? Why’d you unfollow me?” And I literally had to come. It was just like this inner dialogue that was now had to become an outer dialogue. Like I had to claim the fact that I unfollowed you because I felt threatened by your success. And it made me feel like there wasn’t room for me. And I’m so like, it’s one of the cringiest moments for myself talking about cringe videos. Like that moment is so cringe for me because I operate, of course, I still feel threatened and like comparison, it’s just normal. But I try to operate from such a different place now. And that’s literally what I built Mic Drop Workshop on is that there are, we can achieve more as women with speaking together. I mean, you and I are both very heavy in the real estate speaking market, which I want to talk to you about. And that’s how we became friends is like, hey, I just spoke at this event. They’re looking for other speakers. You know, let me put your name in there. And there is so much more opportunity that can come from collaboration than opportunity that can come from competition. And we’ve had Natalie Franke, one of our previous guests who wrote this book called Built to Belong and Gutsy. And she talks about that a lot. And it’s such a reframe, but I will tell you Giselle, one of the things that makes this hard is watching other people’s videos. And like, that’s the thing that we are also told to create is also the thing that makes me feel the most threatened. Does that make sense? Am I like, yeah.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:13:48:

Totally, totally, totally makes sense. And with that, I always want to figure out where’s our power? Where’s our control? Like, what are you going to do about it? Because I feel like a lot of what we see on our feed and on screens right now is believing that we are the victims of everything and society is out to get us and that we have no control. We have no control. Social media is this toxic place. Videos are so toxic, blah, blah, blah. But the actuality is you do have control of what you consume and for how long. And yes, we have things that are recommended to us, but the things that are recommended to us are based on our own habits and where we are spending our time. So if your feed is a toxic place, that is on us. But if we’re the problem, we’re also the solution. We can reprogram our feed. We can reprogram our minds. And so if you’re in that place of, “oh my gosh, these videos are making me feel really, really bad about ourselves”. You know, you did unfollow that person and you had to have that admission. But the reality is, is that sometimes you do have to put people on mute. Sometimes you do have to unfollow. Sometimes you do have to block because maybe that isn’t helping you in a way that your brain needs to perhaps rebuild itself or rewire itself. You need to hit pause. Or in some cases, you need to hit stop altogether and delete, delete, delete. Bye-bye. But also, what I love so much about social media and video in 2023 is like when you and I were young, we pretty much had one standard of beauty. Like when I think about, seeing commercials and videos and magazines and TV shows, like before social media, there was really only one standard of beauty or it came in the form of like three different faces. And I always think of this cover girl lipstick commercial or just cover girl in general. It was always like a blonde or redhead and Tyra Banks or maybe Campbell, Campbell, like you all had that. And for me, like I’m an olive skinned Latina with like thick, right now my hair is straight, but normally it’s wavy hair. And there were so few people that I could identify with in whatever that standard of beauty was like, yes, we had JLo. She went blonde really quick. Yes, we had Shakira. She lost like a million pounds and also went blonde really quick. So like there was one type and usually she was tall with really long legs and tiny. And now how wonderful it is that with social media, you are in full control of sharing your story, your face, and we have beauty and success in all ages and colors and sizes and shapes and abilities and ranges. We didn’t have that before. And so, I would encourage you that if you’re in the place like, okay we need to have, we need to reprogram the feed, we need to reprogram our mind. Go find more people who perhaps looked exactly like you are. Who are in your season of life, who are in your season of motherhood or success for work. And then as you’re ready also follow people who look nothing like you who are either aspirational or who are finding joy and beauty in other beautiful, magical ways. But you have those choices available to you in a way that we never have before. And if you look at your feed, or if you look at your Discover page, and it is only one kind of way and one kind of beauty, yeah, that’ll totally mess with your head. And also, you can reprogram what that looks like. And so how awesome it is that even you and I in this weird, wild journey of course creation and speaking and content and all that, we can see other people who are as wild and crazy as we are. And also some people who remind us, it’s not that big of a deal. It’s not that deep.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:17:41:

Yeah, it’s really not.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:17:43:

We’re starting children in this world, Courtney. And all of that. And that’s what I really, really appreciate about the opportunities that are presented and today in a way that we’ve never had before.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:17:57:

I want to switch from, I love that we talk about consumption of videos and social media because I think auditing like who you’re following, how they are making you feel, but also auditing the diversity. I’ve done that like a lot recently where I’m like, am I hearing from people who are just like me because I need to broaden my horizons? And that’s one of the gifts that social media gives us. Let’s talk about creation. So one of the things that I really love for my speakers to do is just start creating, like take the thing that you want to be known for in your speeches and just go live. Like you said, it’s just not like the world isn’t watching. We are not in the fishbowl that we might believe that we are. And I have to tell myself that all the time. I’m like, “what will people think if I change my brand color from this to that?” I’m like, “people won’t notice”.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:18:51:

Right.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:18:52:

No one cares. And so going back to creation, what are some tips that you can give someone who’s new to video feeling a little hesitant to hit that record button?

Giselle Ugarte – 00:19:06:

Well, you have to remind yourself that video is not this crazy foreign concept. It’s just getting you to scale your image in a way that, again, we didn’t have previously. Like it’s just getting you in person faster.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:19:20:

Yeah.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:19:20:

And yes, I understand that sometimes you see that green light or that red light and all of a sudden your soul leaves your body and you feel like what in the world is going on and what am I doing and what is my name and what do I have to say?

Jess Ekstrom – 00:19:32:

Yeah.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:19:23:

Take a deep breath. Like really what it is, it’s allowing for people who didn’t know who you were, who you perhaps never would meet in real life to get to know you and meet you. Like even for you and me, technically, I don’t think we ever have met in real life person before now that I’m thinking about it.

Jess Ekstrom- 00:19:53:

It’s crazy. Yeah.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:19:54:

And yet we’ve shared extremely deep, dark secrets with each other. And we’ve totally helped to snap each other out of some of our weird mind tangles. And so it’s first of all, you have to retrain your brain of like video. It’s getting you in person. It’s putting a face to your name and faster. It’s giving you an opportunity to connect with you in a way that they perhaps never would have. And in some cases, it might even be while you’re sleeping. Like how cool if they’re binging your videos and you’re sleeping, like you’re making money while you sleep. Who doesn’t want to make money while they sleep? Like that’s a piece. Also the mindset of I suck at social media. You don’t suck at social media. You don’t at all. Like you just don’t quite understand it yet. Like if you’re going to a venue or a restaurant that you’ve never been to before, I don’t automatically assume that when you walk in, you’re going to know where the bathrooms are or the kitchen or the tables. So yeah, you’re a little lost. Cool. Let’s get to know your way around. Let’s figure out the table that you want to sit at with the people who you want to be surrounded yourself with. Just go back to in-person, in-person. What would I do? In real life? What would I do in-person? How would this look like in-person? Because you don’t suck at being a person.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:21:12:

Yes.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:21:13:

Physically cannot. You get out of bed every day or you show up in some way, shape or form. And even if you are the most awkward, introverted human on the planet, great. That’s why someone might love you and might find somebody else like me totally annoying. Although little secret, I’m actually way more introverted than you think. I love the fact that I’m not wearing real pants right now. I can do this from my parents’ home in Minnesota. I didn’t have to get on a plane to have this interview. It’s just me in this room. My dog is somewhere and I didn’t have to. How fun is that? I can just do this from the sanctity of my own home and I can serve however many people without having to make you dinner or go grocery shopping. That’s really, really cool. So now that we have that, how do you incorporate video? I want to make it as easy for you as possible to be reminded that on the other side of that green light is a person. So the best place that I believe to get started is figuring out how can you start using video and interactions that you’re already doing? So for example, you could send someone a text message, happy birthday, or you could send someone a text message saying, “I was thinking of you”, but what if you sent them a video instead and left them kind of like a little video voicemail. And you just said something like, “Hey, Jess, I just wanted to let you know how freaking proud I am of you”. Like, “I’m so grateful that I have you as a friend. I see you online. I see what you’re doing. Keep doing what you’re doing. I love you. If there’s ever anything I can do to support you right now, I got you”. Like, that so much more meaningful and you can record this, Jess. You can watch it later.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:22:50:

I was going to say, I’m going to save this for later.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:22:52:

You know, you can, you can like, how much more meaningful is that versus just a text message? Is there still value in a text message letting someone know that you were thinking of them versus nothing at all? Of course. But when you can see someone’s eyes, when you can see someone’s smile, when you can feel it in their heart, like that is so much more meaningful. So great places to start. Happy birthday messages. Thank you messages. I appreciate you. I’m so proud of you messages. Or I saw this thing and I thought of you. Like I, my friend Chelsea Peitz has this obsession with little lobsters or like stuffed animals with turtlenecks on them. Like, yeah, I can send her a picture of the lobster with the turtleneck, or I can send her a video and target being like, Oh my God, I’m in target. And you’re not going to believe what I just found. Like hearing that versus just the message. It just, it makes it that much more meaningful. Or maybe it’s someone who you haven’t met yet. Maybe it’s a new client. Maybe it’s a potential publisher. Maybe it’s a potential event coordinator sending them a video message that says, “Hey, I just wanted to put a face to my name first. I know you’ve seen my videos. I know you’ve been emailing back and forth and you see my cute little picture in the signature, but I wanted you to hear from me how excited I am to meet you or how excited I am for this call or how excited I am for this event. And that is something that I typically will do for a lot of my events”. I’ll send them a video to their whole group. Oh my gosh, Remax. I’m so excited to see you in two weeks. We are going to, we’re going to rock it, get ready to get uncomfortable. Like it’s just a preview and it’s showing you that there’s a human on the other end versus like an avatar or a ChatGPT, or just some of the ways that we’ve gotten so impersonal and we’ve dehumanized the things that need human connection more than anything. And what will also happen is that when you create these videos that they’re called one-to-one videos. So it’s one person to one other person. When you do that, it starts to train your brain subconsciously that, oh wait, when I see that green light, when I hit that red button, there’s a human on the other side of that screen. So then when you get to that place of maybe creating a story or a reel where there’s more than one person on the other side, your brain has hopefully left escape mode slightly or that slight freeze mode because you’re thinking, oh, I’ve been here before. This is a comfortable place. And I’ll just pretend like it’s just on the other end. I’ll just pretend, like it’s my mom on the other end. And it’s easier because you’ve done it and you’ve practiced it on a regular basis versus just going out into starting from scratch. So that I believe is a great starting place, intimate place. And then from there, what I like to say is when you’re following people who are just like you and nothing like you, figure out what’s the type of content that you enjoy seeing. Because what I hate is when someone gets on a social media platform, and they do what they think they’re supposed to be doing. All right, well, I’m going to get on TikTok. That means I’m supposed to dance. Or okay, I’m going to get on Instagram. That means I’m supposed to fill in the blank, whatever you believe it to be. Well, I see Susie always making those videos where she’s pointing at the text bubbles or, well, I don’t want to share it. Okay, what makes sense for you? What gives you joy? What do you like? What are the styles that you enjoy? But what I do want to encourage you to do is create content that has your face in it, that has your voice in it. Because that’s where we establish familiarity. That’s where we create connection. That’s where we establish trust. And so then when you have that service or that product or that book or that business that can provide value to me, I feel more inclined to trust you because I know you as a person rather than a product. And I have developed that relationship that makes me want to support you because I already have that established trust with you.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:26:46:

I want to put a bumper sticker above the green dot on my computer that says, video brings you in real life quicker or whatever you said, because that is so true. But it is so easy to think like, well, I got to be perfect. What would people think of me? One thing that I found to be really helpful that I followed this acting coach or something on TikTok, and he said, a lot of times we hit record and then we start. Boom. Hi, my name is Jess. And you’re already in this breathy on spot, especially if you have the luxury to pre-record something, hit record and just take a beat and then be like, so this happened to me the other day. And I’ve started doing that with my videos and it has become a game changer to just take a beat before. And I think that that like, how can you bring you instead of video Giselle or video Jess to the person on the other side. But I do want to close with some tips around managing your expectations and relationships with social media, because I feel like my relationship with video changed during the pandemic. When you said like lock, like community started with you in lockdown, I realized, you know, so much of my income was from being on stage at events. And then now I’m doing remote events where I’m staring into like a dark screen and I’m like, are people laughing at my jokes? I don’t know. And so I really had to change my relationship with video, but I think it got like, I over compensated a little bit where it was like, how many views did this get? How many likes, what was my engagement? And then anything that didn’t like pop off, I was like, I should just delete it. Or, you know, and you just really start getting in your head and looking at the metrics. How do you approach that when video is a part of building your own brand, but you also, it’s like, you don’t want it to consume your life.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:28:56:

Yeah. Well, okay. A couple of things really quick too. So tips as well. I love what you mentioned about how like when you hit record, you can take a breath. You could take a beat. I also would suggest saying someone’s name out loud. So imagine who you’re talking to, say their name out loud. So for example, Jess, you’re never going to believe what happened to me today. Well, once you record that video, you can just edit the part where you said Jess.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:29:20:

Oh my gosh, I love that. I’m going to dedicate all my videos to you from now on.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:29:25:

I totally am someone who I always take like a massive breath as if I’m about to go deep sea diving. I can set out and start the video as soon as you hear the first syllable sound out of the first word that I say-

Jess Ekstrom – 00:29:37:

I love that.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:29:38:

-The ending where you just, that just gives your brain a place of, okay, I’m talking to a person, I’m talking to a person. I also suggest having, if you have like an Alexa or even Siri, have them tell you a dad joke before you start. Have someone tell you a joke because sometimes too, we turn the back here in headlights and just walk up your face a little bit. Like let’s, like smiling. You can just like on a phone, you can hear someone when they’re smiling. You can definitely feel and create warmth through a video. So challenge yourself to like, okay, let me just soften up my face. And then that also just goes back to that piece of like the results that you’re getting from video and all of that. So I think it’s important to always recognize our own habits, right? So if you’re putting yourself out into the world, think about for you, when you are first getting to know someone or meeting someone in person or online, you’re going to go to their profile. You might not follow them the first time around. In fact, you might go creep around their profile and watch videos and actively make sure that you’re not leaving any evidence behind at all. And so you want to think about it in that way where we get really caught up in the likes and in the views and in the comments. But a lot of times we’re also in those decision-making processes, or we’re also in that place where we’re just kind of scrolling through and we sometimes forget to leave behind the impact that they created on us. But that doesn’t mean that we didn’t share it with everyone and their mom. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t enjoy it. Also, I think it’s important to recognize that nowadays your feed is no longer chronological. What does that mean? It doesn’t pop up. And that’s why I think it’s important to recognize that nowadays your feed is no longer in the order that it was received. You’ll see videos that are five hours old, five minutes old, five weeks old, five months old being suggested to you. And so where we can get really caught up in the refresh, refresh, refresh, let me see who’s liking it. The person who is most critical and seeing that piece of content, they might not even see it until months from now, but how awesome that they could go creep on your profile or someone could hit copy and paste long after you’ve posted that video. And that video can keep working for you. Long after, which actually allows for your energy to be multiplied without any additional effort to you. So it’s also just thinking about like results are not just those likes and are not just those views, but how cool, for example, that if you get three views or 10 views, you’re still not making three phone calls or taking 10 meetings. And it didn’t take any additional energy out of your bucket to be able to serve those types of people. And I think it’s important to establish what are metrics for you that can’t be measured by a platform. On the platform, we can see how many people viewed it or where they’re from, or if they engaged or if they went to your profile, but what are some metrics that the platform can’t see? So for you, it might be sales. It might be people who sent you a DM. It might be people who said, I saw your video. It might be for you, the fact that you were able to film a video and in one take and without sweating. Because we forget that, we go straight into, I want to see the results. I want to see the views. Hold on. How do you view yourself? How do you feel? How are you liking it? Because I can think of a lot of seasons in my life where I was chasing after the views, but I hated myself.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:33:04:

Yes.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:33:04:

And putting out into the world. And what’s more important than virality is longevity. Like, let me say that again. What’s more important than the virality is the longevity. Like, if you even look at Jennifer Lopez, like one of the greatest performers, most notable humans of all time. Girlfriend has for sure more flops at the theater and on her playlist than she does hits. Has never won a Grammy, has never won an Oscar, has never won any of those things. And yet, like girl just keeps going. Like she keeps doing whatever she wants and does not like she doesn’t care about anyone. And yet she is also one of the most successful investors and like business owners. And people don’t give her the credit of that. And we’re not saying, “oh, yeah, but all the flops or all the misses. She just keeps on getting up and she keeps on going”. And so I think it’s just so important that like rather than looking after like all of the hits or all of flops. Just seeing your progress, being able to look back six weeks from now, six months from now, six years from now and going, wow, look how far I’ve come. Like how cool that you can look back and watch your cringe videos. But it took a cringe video to get you to the point to where you are excited about what you’re putting out into the world. And I still look at you and I still cringe and I still don’t like my hair or oh my gosh, I can’t like even this sounds so silly, but like I rocked the side part for a really long time. Like that’s a signature for me. And now I’m kind of trying this middle part thing. And so now like when I see videos of myself with the side part, for some reason, like it doesn’t feel like me.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:34:45:

Yeah.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:34:45:

Not even like a not cool thing. Like it just doesn’t feel like me. And I’m also going through like my weight fluctuates a lot. And like now I’m kind of going through like a smaller version. So I see videos where my face is a different shape and I’m like, oh, I don’t want to put that like that up. It doesn’t look like me anymore. But like, it’s not that deep. And like we go through. And we change and we fluctuate. And like all of that is fine. All of that is human. It would be really weird if you still-

Jess Ekstrom – 00:35:12:

Stay the same. My hair for my TED Talk was like platinum blonde. And I swear that’s the reason why I haven’t shared my TED Talk on like a wider thing. I’m like, what am I doing? But okay, my like bumper sticker takeaways from this is video brings you in person quicker. I love that longevity over virality. And then you just said one more thing. And I’m like blanking on it. But then I was like, oh, what’s a metric that can’t be measured by a platform? I love that. Those are like my like putting them on the wall of my office. Giselle , where can people find you? How can they work with you?

Giselle Ugarte – 00:35:55:

I am on all the socials.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:35:58:

I was going to say this girl has over half a million followers, has been recognized by TikTok as one of the top 100 women to watch. So y’all better get on this train.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:36:08:

Yeah. My favorite, my favorite places to play right now are Instagram and I’m getting introduced to LinkedIn. I’m following your lead. So if you want to connect, those are for sure the places where I feel the most intimate and the most hands on. I don’t automate anything. And so definitely find me on Instagram, find me on LinkedIn and lots of good content that will keep this conversation going.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:36:29:

And Giselle is one of my favorite speakers as well. So meeting planners, if you’re listening, especially in the real estate. Giselle is a no brainer for your event. Giselle , thank you so much. I can’t wait to see you in just a couple of months. Make this official.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:36:42:

Yay.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:36:44:

Thanks so much. I’ll see you soon.

Giselle Ugarte – 00:36:46:

Ew.

Jess Ekstrom – 00:36:52:

Thanks for listening to Amplify. If you are a fan of the show, show us some podcast love by giving us a rating and review. And give us a follow @MicDropWorkshop and @JessEkstrom. This episode was edited and produced by Earfluence and I’m Jess Ekstrom, your host. Remember that you deserve the biggest stage. So let’s find out how to get you there. I’ll see you again soon.