Soulful Badass - Straight Talk for Soul Aligned Entrepreneurs

Harnessing Authenticity for Brand Transformation

• Rachel Jackson • Season 5 • Episode 47

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Ever felt stifled by the corporate mask you wear every day? On this week’s episode of the Soulful Badass Podcast, I pull back the layers on my journey from hiding behind a work persona to embracing my true self as a coach. We’ll tackle the challenges and liberating experiences that come with shedding those corporate masks. By sharing my story, I want to inspire you to reflect on your own authenticity and how embracing your genuine self can deepen your professional and personal connections, leading to greater success and fulfillment.

Authenticity is more than just a buzzword—it’s a powerful tool for transforming your branding and social media strategies. I’ll share with you my transition from a rigid corporate mindset to celebrating my straight-talking, intuitive nature. Discover how infusing your personality and values into your brand can attract the right clients and create more genuine connections with your audience. This episode emphasizes the significance of owning your unique energy and creating your own rules, guiding you to show up in your business with your full, vibrant essence. Tune in and discover how being unapologetically you can transform not just your business, but your entire life.

But the journey doesn’t have to stop there. I'm extending a special invite for you to the powerful "Magnetic Woman community," a vibrant space designed for female entrepreneurs to grow, thrive and strive together. Imagine a community where realness and vulnerability are encouraged, allowing for open and supportive interactions. If you’re looking to connect with like-minded women, share your wins, seek support during tough times, whilst multiplying your business success this community is your sanctuary.

Thanks for listening! If you loved this episode, hit subscribe and leave a 5-star review—it makes a big difference.

Join the Soulful Badass Community on Facebook or Telegram and connect with others who are levelling up their lives.

Want more? Head to www.soulfulbadass.uk for my programs and meditations. Grab your free "Unleash the Highest Version of You" meditation as a thank you.

Stay inspired—follow me on Facebook and Instagram @rachel.soulfulbadass.

Until next time!

Love, Rachel x

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Soulful Badass Podcast. I'm your host, rachel Jackson, an intuitive success coach from the UK, and I'm here to help entrepreneurs, leaders and soul-aligned goddesses to create epic levels of success and impact in your life and your business. So if that sounds good to you, make sure you are tuning in every week for mindset, talk, manifestation, magic and incredible interviews with other soul aligned entrepreneurs. So hit the subscribe button and I'd love to invite you to come and join the Soulful Badass community. All the links are in the show notes. Please go and click them and I'll see you in there. Welcome to this week's podcast. This week I want to talk to you about how many masks you might be wearing and how authentic are you at showing up in your business.

Speaker 1:

Now, when we're in corporate roles, often I hear that people have a work persona and they go through life with this work persona and they think, yeah, I'm really different when I'm outside of work. And I used to have that. I will be honest with you. I very much used to have a work persona. I used to have an energy of how I thought I had to show up as a leader and, let's be honest, because it was a persona, because it was put on. It wasn't the nicest. It was whatever needed to conform to the business wishes was whatever needed to conform to the business wishes, and that energy went through with me throughout my career and actually, as I moved up, it made me not be as genuine and also see hierarchy as a thing. So I used to look at people above me and think, well, they're better than me because I had this work persona. And actually, when you take off that persona, who is better than anyone else? Who is a better human? Because, let's be honest, nobody is better than you. No one is a better human than you. There is absolutely no one who can be a better human than you. Yes, they'll have a different skill set or they'll have a different level of success and all of these things that we class as being better, but no one is better than anyone else. So, when it comes to hierarchy, when it comes to who you are being and how you are performing, often that then gets blurred into these work personas that we put on. Often that then gets blurred into these work personas that we put on, and these work personas carry on into our business without us realising. So I want to ask you what type of persona are you showing up with in your business? Are you being as authentic as you could be, or is there a bit of room for improvement?

Speaker 1:

So the one thing that I decided when I become a coach and this was when I become a coach in the corporate world first was that I was taking off all the masks. I was working with people at different levels of the business and I had to be genuine and authentic and build relationships quickly. So what I decided was some people will have an opinion of what grade I was in the business. Some people will have an opinion as whether that's good, bad or indifferent. So what I decided was I would show up as me and I would show up in my confidence, in my power as a coach, not as anything else. I would show up with my energy, with my personality, and my role was there to be coach. Whether you were an exec of that business or whether you were a operator in that business, it did not matter. I was there as a coach and my aim was to get you working better. That was the only thing. So I didn't have to show up and be something else. I didn't have to put on a persona that I was better than I was, and I didn't have to put on a persona that I was higher graded than I was. I just decided to be me and be fully me and basically, whether you liked it or not, that was your choice, because, ultimately, when you are working with a coach, you don't have to work with coaches that you don't click with. So there was absolutely no point in me trying to be something that I wasn't, because people are not going to click with someone who's not authentic. So that has been the best decision I have ever made.

Speaker 1:

In my whole entire life, all throughout my corporate career, I used to struggle. I used to struggle with trying to be something that I really wasn't and I was never genuinely authentic. Even though I was quite real, there was still an undercurrent of me not being fully myself and not showing the whole of me to who I was working with. Now what I decided when I decided to be fully authentic, I took off that mask. So I show my vulnerabilities, I show my true results, I show things that are happening for me, I allow people to connect with me at a deeper level and I show that I am not perfect, and that has been a breath of fresh air. It means that I don't have to pretend all of the time Now making that decision in my corporate world. I adopted that into my business, not first. At first, I did try and put the persona on of having all my shit together and having everything working out for me, but that isn't reality, especially when you start business and when you grow your business.

Speaker 1:

At every level of your business, you're going to come across something new. You're going to have a new threshold to break through. You're going to have a new income barrier to go through. There's going to be a level of not feeling as successful as you'd like at different points, whether somebody's looking at you and going, oh my God, you're so successful. There's going to be a part of you that's going. But I want that next thing, I want that next level, I want that next income call.

Speaker 1:

I'm not doing enough, and that's okay. But it's also okay to say that. It's okay to voice that. It's okay to let others know where you are in your business, and I think this is a thing that we miss sometimes, especially in the online space, when you are surrounded by people doing extremely well, or at least that's what it looks like. So when you look at all these people, it's like, yeah, I'll teach you how to be a millionaire. I'll give you my strategy that took me from this to this. I'll show you how to do this. That's took my business to like X amount every month, all of these things you are surrounded by.

Speaker 1:

So you are maybe thinking, oh, my God, am I not doing enough? Am I not showing up enough? Am I missing something? Am I doing something wrong? But what you're not always seeing is the authentic, true side to these people. There's going to be days where they're going to be not making that much money. There's going to be days where they're going to have to re-look at their business and go right, what do I need to change? What do I need to pivot? What people are selling you is the end product of what they've went through to get there, and they've been on a journey in order to get to that space. And if they've had the overnight success, then brilliant for them, but let's hear about it.

Speaker 1:

So what I try and do in my business and this is that approach that I've adopted is I will be super real with my clients. Msa clients get the whole of me. They get to hear the warts and alls, the bad days, the good days, the bad launches, the good launches. Because there is absolutely no point in me holding back on the bad times, because those bad times and those so-called failed launches, those so-called things that have set me back, have been the most pivotal changes in my business that I needed. So what I do as a coach and what you'll see from me online, I will be super honest with how I show up, what works, what doesn't, what I struggle with works, what doesn't what I struggle with, what's my archetypes that show up from my ego and kick my ass some days. If you're in Magnetic Woman, you will get access to this as well.

Speaker 1:

Like, I show my clients pretty much everything that I'm going through, because I need to be able to share with you what's happening for me so that you can see that you can still have a massive level of success and still have these times where you're working through stuff, where you're healing, where you're changing the game for yourself, where you're pivoting, where you're getting knockbacks and still showing up and showing up and showing up, because your why is so much bigger than you. So you've got to start to share this with your audience. And if you're not comfortable with this and you want to keep that mask up, then that is perfectly fine. People often see it as boundaries. People often see it as well my client's here and I'm here and we've got to have this distance and if you're like that, then that works for you, then that is perfectly fine. But who I'm talking to in this podcast episode is those people who really love that deep connection, who really love that connection with the clients where they can help them through the times, where it's not just 100% success, it's not just toxic positivity or it's not just, you know, keeping that momentum going at all costs and knowing that that's really not beneficial to people. If you're ready for something different, what I would say is start looking at how authentic you are being in your business. Are your clients and your potential clients and your followers are they seeing the real you? Are they seeing the whole of you, or are you trying to keep a professionalism? Are you trying to keep something inside that really wants to come out? Because once you start to be your authentic self, you start to bring the whole of you to the table. Your clients and prospective clients get to see what makes you tick, they get to see your energy. They get to see your heart and your soul.

Speaker 1:

So for me, I battled with not doing tarot online One because I had my own stigma, whether it's witch wounds, whatever. I had some stigma about tarot and tarot readers and I'm sorry if you are a tarot reader, but I did have stigma because I had so many people around me and tarot reading at the time in my local town was you would go to somebody, you would pay 20 pounds, you would get a reading and you'd end up hearing about whether you're going to get married or not and I did not want to be seen as a tarot reader like that. That was not what I was about and I had this stigma about doing tarot for that reason. But what I was holding back was a huge part of me. I use tarot for myself all the time. I use my Oracle cards. That are a part of my daily life. They're always in my business. I use them as business decision tools. They are absolutely huge and it was like I was cutting off my arm or something.

Speaker 1:

Not doing tarot online. It was like I'm hiding a part of me, trying to be professional, trying to show up as something else when, actually, I am a coach. I'm a leadership coach. I'm very talented as that. I'm a business coach. I'm an entrepreneur coach, but I'm also a bloody good tarot reader. But I'm also a bloody good tarot reader, and what that allows me to do is it allows me to actually not only coach you through these mechanics and methods, but I actually allow you to connect with your soul, to connect with a part of you that knows more than your logical mind will ever know, that will come up with answers more than your mindset will ever bring to the table. So I use my tarot as a superpower.

Speaker 1:

But imagine when I was trying to be professional and be seen as this professional coach, I wasn't offering that as a service or I was keeping it in the background, whereas now, if we're on a VIP call with one of my clients and there's something we're just not getting to the depths of, I'll pull out my tarot cards. What's really going on? What's really happening here? We can see so much and I was hiding that, trying to be professional. So what is it that you're hiding about yourself with the thought of? You've got to be professional, you've got to be showing up with a certain persona, you've got to be acting as something that is kind of hiding parts of you that you really don't want to be hiding. Now, if that works for you, then absolutely fine. But is there a bit where you could be missing this deeper connection with clients and actually deeper connection with people who want to work with you but just can't read you. They can't get that connection. They can't get that. Oh my God, she so gets me. She's my person. That could be the thing that's missing.

Speaker 1:

So when you're doing your social media posts, when you are doing your content strategy, what are you thinking about? Are you showing any parts of you? Are you showing any parts of your heart and soul? Now, this doesn't mean that you need to open a gateway into your whole private life. If you want to keep your private life private, keep your private life private. But is there an element of you that's hiding, something about your personality, about the way that you show up, about your values? Is there things that you are hiding in order to keep a professional lens on your business? Because you might have been taught that from a corporate world. There is things about me. I am very straight talking.

Speaker 1:

So when I first started, one in my corporate world and two in my business. That was part of me that I wanted to hide, because at first I was talking a lot around intuition. I was softening it down, I was keeping it on the down low that I was actually this hard-ass badass that would tell you straight and cut straight to the energy and get to the point. I was holding that back because I was being all nice and love and light and keeping up this spiritual perception that people have and that's just not me. And once I allowed that to come through, once I allowed that authenticity to come through, what I can say is I don't want to be sat in a caftan reading your tarot and telling you how love and light's amazing. No, no, no. I want to be sat looking glamorous as hell, reading your tarot and telling you how to sort out your life and sort out your business. That's my job. If you want the kaftan and the love and light and the hippie vibe, go and find that person. But if I pretended and stayed in that vibe because I'm being spiritual, you would be missing the essence of me. You would be missing my authenticity.

Speaker 1:

So just because you might have a title in your business does not mean that defines your persona. That does not mean that defines how you show up. You are here to make your own rules. You are here to show up in your own essence, your own vibration, because there is no one else who can do that. So make sure you are bringing all of that to your business. You are bringing all of that to your brand. You are becoming that energy in everything that you do so that you're not having to think of, right, am I in business mode? Am I in business mode? Am I in work mode? Am I in personal life mode? Like, oh my God, that is so exhausting. Who is it you are? What is it you value? What is it that makes you authentic and how can you bring that into your branding? How can you bring that into your business? How can you talk to your clients about what makes you you and why that means that you are the one that needs to help them. Why does it mean that you are the one that is going to get them from A to Z?

Speaker 1:

When I think about what I do, that allows me to pitch to a certain person. I am very intuitive and my energetic ability allows me to cut through the bullshit. So I'm here for the people who have tried everything, the people who have tried the courses, tried the programs, tried to get the business going, but they're missing something and what they're missing is the connection to them, their own inner power, their own intuition. That's what I get to cut through. I get to see where they've got energy leaks in the business and I get to see where they're not showing up as authentically them, they're not stepping into their main character energy. That is what I bring to the table. But that's because I have this energetic ability to cut through the bits where I can hear what you're saying but your energy is saying different, and also I can see those energy leaks, I can feel those energy leaks. So that is why I get to cut through and go. Well, this is why it's not been happening before, because you're not showing up authentically or you're not owning your power or you're not being your true self.

Speaker 1:

There is these little details that I can pick out, but if I was saying to you, you know, oh, I'm really professional and I'm a business coach and I'm here to help you make loads of money online, you might be thinking, oh well, that's great, she's gonna teach me how to create a context strategy for social media. She's gonna teach me how to build a website. She's gonna teach me how to do a funnel system. No, I can teach you all of that stuff, but that is not my zone of genius. What I will teach you is how to get the energetics through your funnel system. What I will teach you is are you showing up with your energetics on social media so that you can then show your brand to the world, so that you can elevate your brand? I'm not going to teach you the strategy of it. That's for you. You've got that inside of you. So that's a very different way of showing up and just from the things that I do, as in, I'm a business coach.

Speaker 1:

If I just held that business coach title and showed up as a business coach in that professional element, I would not be showing my clients what I'm about. I would be misleading people. I would be attracting corporate clients. I would be on LinkedIn doing all that stuff. That is not my platform. I'm on LinkedIn, but I'm not showing up on there regular because I know my platforms, I know my vibration and I'm being authentic in that. I'm not trying to fit into some box to fit the business coach mold.

Speaker 1:

So you've got to think of what is your title and what have you made that mean for you? Have you made that stop you being as authentic as you really want to be? Because, ultimately, you're in charge of your business. You get to make the title, you get to make the branding, you get to make your strategy and tagline, you get to decide it all. You get to decide it all, and it is your business. It is all about you. You are the brand, you are the product, you are the service you offer. Whether you've got a team or not, it does not matter. It is your brainchild, it is your energy, it is your excitement that poured into this business. But are you trying to make it a corporate machine rather than a soul-led empire? A soul-led empire has a branding that is you. A soul-led empire has your authentic lens on it. It doesn't mean you have to be in front of the camera all the time, but your energy, your essence, your authenticity needs to flow through it.

Speaker 1:

So make sure that you are showing up fully as yourself. In business. There is no airs and graces, there is no hiding behind this persona, there is no hiding behind a title, because, ultimately, if you're not energetically connected because there's a mask in place, you're not going to be getting the success that you're asking for. So if you are fully showing up as yourself, you're attracting the right people. You're attracting your people. You're attracting the people who just get you and want to work with you and don't question what the offer people. You're attracting the people who just get you and want to work with you and don't question what the offer is. They're just like oh my God, yeah, the next thing. That's what I want to be part of, because I can see the results you get, because you're showing me the results you get. You're also showing me how authentic you're being. You're also showing me that you have dips and you make me feel normal, because you're not telling me that everything's you know rainbows and sunshine. You're telling me some days are going to be hard, but if you have a big enough why you're going to get up and you're going to show up and you're going to work through it and you're going to learn through it and you're also going to be better on the other side of it. So that is why you start to attract your people, because they get you, they get the whole of you. They get to see it all and they're 100% behind what you're doing because you're being authentic. So really start to plan.

Speaker 1:

How authentic are you being and can you bring more of you to your business? Can you bring more of you to your social media? Can you bring more of you to your branding, your messaging, your offers? Can you start to showcase what makes you you? What is your unique selling point in this? What is it about you that makes you different? And get that in everything. And it doesn't need to be this corporate spiel. Nobody wants that anymore. Nobody wants to hear oh, I'm here to transform your life and get you on your soul path and all of that. That's 100% what I do. But if I said that to you, you'd be like all right, that's amazing, how are you going to do that? But instead, if I said to you, I'm going to help you step up as the main character in your life and your business and actually triple your income, triple your exposure and triple your impact, that's a very different message and that is what I do.

Speaker 1:

So you've got to start to see. Are you even speaking real in what you're offering? Are you being direct? Or are you using all these fancy words because you're thinking that's what coaches do or that's what business owners do and that's what you need to do in marketing. People don't see it anymore. They don't hear those words and go oh yeah, I need that, because there's hundreds of people doing that, thousands of people doing that online, and half of them are getting it generated through AI. So it sounds amazing, but there's no real backing behind it. So this is why you need to figure out what is your authentic message, what is it authentically that you do, and then start to showcase that, start to let your customers feel that energy.

Speaker 1:

What is it about you that really draws people in and what's your no bullshit approach, because that is what's going to make a big difference in your business. It's not going to be. Oh my God, I'm going to transform your life. People will be sat in their ego going well, I don't want to transform my life, I want to stay in my comfort zone. Thanks, but if you're telling me you're going to help me make a lot more money, but not just a lot more money like triple my income, now I'm listening. It's a different tagline, but as well, you get to say it in your language, you get to say it in your language. You get to say your message in your words, what you would want to hear if somebody was being absolutely straight with you, what would you want to hear? I love it when you go through a whole sales page and it's all you know nice and jargony and all that stuff, but what transformation am I getting? What is working with you going to give me in the most authentic way? What is that message? What is it about you that draws me in? What is about you and your personality that I'm like I need her or I need him. I need to be working with that person. I need to be buying that thing from them. I don't care if it's more expensive. They're the person that I want. That is the people that you connect with, the genuine people that bring you that connection that you can feel their brand, you can feel their energy, you can feel what they do, and that passion comes through without that corporate lens.

Speaker 1:

We didn't go into business to have a corporate life. We left the corporate life to go into business for that reason. So start to think about what is it you're doing. Are you showing up how you did when you had a job, because you think you need to be professional and that's how you're doing. Are you showing up how you did when you had a job, because you think you need to be professional and that's how you're going to attract clients? Now, if you are looking to attract corporate clients and you want to attract that professional client, then yeah, that's great, show up that way if that's what you feel is going to get you there.

Speaker 1:

But if you're not being authentic, if you're not being fully you, there's parts of you that needs to think. One, am I working with the right type of clients because I have to put on a mask? Or two, is there a way that I can bring my authenticity to that type of client which enables them to see in a different way? They might want someone who isn't as corporate. They might want someone who isn't that corporate. They might want someone who isn't that professional lens, because they want that connection, they want to step outside that box. So if you're not being fully authentic, how can they see what they're getting and how can you keep it up all the time? So, please, just start to think. How much authenticity can you start to bring to your business, your messaging, your branding, your offers? It can change everything. Start to be yourself and watch. The right people absolutely love you Now.

Speaker 1:

If you want to be part of my magnetic woman, that is, my community for absolutely kick-ass entrepreneurs who are building and growing together, then make sure you go to the link in the bio that is open now and there's so many amazing women in there all growing, all thriving together and sharing their successes, but also the times when they just need help, support and just to be vulnerable and say this didn't work. I need a bit of help. How would you manage this? How would you tackle that? It's an open space. So, if that's for you, go and join it and have the most amazing week and I'll catch you next week. But remember, be real, be authentic and be you. That's what the world needs. Bye you.