25: How to Capture and Hook Your Audience with Storytelling

Today we have on the talented holistic brand coach, Alicia Burke-Alguero with her company With Joy Brand Co. to talk about your content strategy and branding. So many times we get caught up in selling our content that we forget to sell the story, the transformation for real results with our audience. So today, we will be talking all things branding strategy and also how to balance and weave just the right amount of storytelling into your content.

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Transcript

 [00:00:00] Hi, Travel Creators! Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm so happy. You're here. Today we are chatting with the very brilliant Alicia on all things content creation, batching your content, AI branding niching down. Going slow to speed up. All of the juicy bits are coming out here. 

Okay. And I can't wait for you to get into it.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: So I am Alicia. I have a business called Withjoy Brand Co. And otherwise known as the Holistic Brand Coach. I help primarily service providers who have evolved in their business. They now have services that are beyond the fit in a box service.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: They're kind of hard to articulate their value in what they do. I come in and I help them create brilliant brands with their messaging primarily. Like [00:01:00] how they think about their content and their messaging, and their brand strategy. 

Laura Haley: That's amazing. You are also a brand expert and just every time I see your content I'm like, oh, I just know it's going to be good.

Laura Haley: Like I just know I'm going to click on this and it's going to be like, it's going to make me feel good. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: It's 

Laura Haley: So cool. I love 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: that. I feel the same about your stuff. Oh, please. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: thank 

Laura Haley: you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. You had mentioned to me that you created a Sales messaging or like copy and paste sales language.

Laura Haley: And I just want to know more about this. I want to know more tell me the deeds. How did you do it? What did you do? 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I'll give you the full details. so I have a full schedule right now with clients. I'm booked out. It's beautiful. I love it. I'm so thankful. But one thing I, one of my like non negotiables is selling, at least trying to post, trying to sell once a week, either on stories, in my email newsletter.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Not being afraid to sell [00:02:00] and something I was noticing and I think other people can probably relate to this is it would just feel like I had to have the stars in line. I'd probably need to be ovulating to like, okay, I can do this and I can bring it to completion. Like I don't just start it. I actually post it and do it.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And so,What I do for my clients is I create a brand core for them and the brand core has what I call a copy and paste messaging. But I was realizing with my own pain points, I need copy and paste, like sales messaging, little snippets that I have in a library that I can pull from. It's like a grab bag.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I can grab what feels good. I don't have to be feeling good that day in order to post it. And. it's not finalized, I do need to make some edits to it, but it's been so helpful to not overthink. 

Laura Haley: That is incredible. That is so genius, it reminds me, one of my favorite authors, Austin Keelan, he has, he talks about like a [00:03:00] swipe file.

Laura Haley: I have one too, where if I see someone who's doing something cool, or interesting, or amazing, I'm like, wow. That was cool. I've never seen that before. I'll like to take a screenshot of it or grab a link and just dump it into this folder in Drive or something. I'm like great, now I can come back to that.

Laura Haley: But yours takes it a step further like, I'm just creating a bank of information that I already feel good about and then I'm just already on a schedule. So I just set it out there and it goes out and People will respond to it, which is so genius, because you can just write it once when you're feeling good, and then you're like, okay, yeah, I feel good about this, now it just goes out.

Laura Haley: That's so amazing. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yes, exactly! 

Laura Haley: Yes, to have those swipe files, it is so powerful. 

Okay. A pause. This was incredible advice. Just let's just wrangle that in. Alicia has sat down. And written about how she helps people.. [00:04:00] In one go, she has put together a document. That she feels good about sharing. So when she knows it's time to go and schedule content, she just pulls from this bank of content and she already loves it and she already approves it and bam, it goes out and resonates with our audience. Incredible. Incredible. 

Laura Haley: What made you think, okay, this is something I should do, instead of like, trying to rewrite the same thing over and over again? 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I was finding myself ready to go sell and to okay, I really want to Find a book out till July or August or whatever.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And then I wouldn't complete it. Like me, I have two kids. I'm busy. So I would get halfway done. I would be like, Oh, I think I could write about this or tell this story, but I wouldn't bring it across the finish line because I would get stuck because I know sales psychology. I know I need to spend time on this.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I know it needs to hit, check these boxes. And. [00:05:00] So I would get stuck. and so then I, and here, this might be really helpful for your audience. I turned to chat GPT to help me with this, because this is what I do for other business owners, because when you're in it, it's foggy and confusing and you can't see the forest.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Like you can't see the trees before it's forced through the trees, whatever that is. and so I turned to chat GPT and

Laura Haley: That is so good. I feel the same way. I was just working on an email sequence, and I was like, I can't, no. I have no idea what I'm doing. I can't do this. And it's like, you literally write emails for other people all day long. What do you mean? And so, yeah, it's so easy to Not be able to do it for yourself because you're like, oh my god.

Laura Haley: I just talk about this all the time everybody should know right? Like I'm so sick of saying it a million times Which is so funny, okay I have a question for you that I want I think I want to create a whole podcast episode on it But I had a conversation recently with [00:06:00] someone about Niches just so I know are you a person who's like I think people should have one niche Or are you, how do you, how do you feel about that at first?

Laura Haley: There's no right answer as you know. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I think there are many ways to think about it and every client I work with, I give different advice to based on where they're at.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: So I do think it's helpful to have focus. but there are so many ways to focus and to like the angle of how we're going to focus. Is it on value alignment and attracting this group of people who are on the same movement and mission as you? Is it a specific industry and P. S. 9 out of 10 times, it's not. Which in your case it is, right? Like that's, that's you and you've done a beautiful job, but a lot of people that's not necessarily, it depends. Right. So I think there's value in focus. There's so much value in focus. That would be my [00:07:00] short, concise answer. 

Laura Haley: Okay, fantastic. Let me say it again. If you are focusing on everything, you are focusing on nothing. And if you are trying to talk to everyone, you are talking to no one in your content. I have a whole episode dedicated to niching down where. I really step on my soapbox. In a helpful way. So that'll be realized why. I will die on this hill. 

Laura Haley: but anyway, what advice would you give to someone who is oh my gosh, I just feel like I could create a bunch of content or talk about all of these different topics and things, but I also, it feels stifling to put myself, one label on myself, or in one direction.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yeah, that's a great question. I would say, okay, great. And what filter can we add to this? Is it something about how you work? Let's look at you as the business owner. When I look at a brand, I think it's like typically [00:08:00] three things. It's you and your vision and your strengths and your passion and your gifts.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And then it's the target market you're working with and who they are. And then it's the actual service you provide, which needs to hit. Overlap the brand heart of between you and your target market. And so looking at you as the business owner, is there an approach you take? It's a unique approach or looking at your target market.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Are there common themes? What filter are we going to put on to give us more focus? Because. Whenever you would just mention the multi passionate entrepreneur, my question that I think is really good to sit with is at what cost are you a multi passionate entrepreneur? What is the cost of that? Because for me, that's been my life.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: That's been my story. But it created so much fragmented focusing here and there and this service and this service, and you can't systematize that. You can't scale [00:09:00] that. 

Laura Haley: No, you cannot. That's so good, Alisha. Okay, thank you so much. Wow.

Um, go ahead and hit that rewind button because that was incredibly valuable. Like, imagine if you're reading a book by an author. And let's say it took them like a decade to publish this book. And you start reading about one topic and then in the middle of the book, you're like literally talking about something else. And then later on a few chapters later, we're talking about something else. 

Like imagine if an author was having a fragmented focus while they're trying to create this piece of art, this piece of content. Um, I bet it wouldn't sell. I bet. Nobody there'll leave that review. So what can we learn from that for our content? 

Okay. Alicia is now going to spill the beans on this AI formula for your content. Buckle up.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: what I use is like start with your service list out [00:10:00] the features of that service You Whether it's the process, the timeline or a feature of it, and then paste in these copy, this prompt to chat GPT to spit out the benefit because we focus on ourselves as business owners.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Let's shift to the benefit. And so you can list that's how that's like the selling soundbites that I have are feature benefit, and then even tying in a sensational goal, like a, a felt. Goal. Like. Sensitory. Anyway, I digress. Oh, 

Laura Haley: That's so good. That makes me think of something. Well, we know what does well on social media is other humans.

Laura Haley: And I feel like it's such a fine line that is so incredibly blurry of like how much do I talk about myself and what I do to help other people. How do you feel, especially considering a brand. So let's pretend. Everyone who listens to this has a really great brand. This is obviously not true, but let's, yeah, let's [00:11:00] be delusional and say that.

Laura Haley: Okay, when should they talk about themselves versus how much should they talk about actually providing information to help other people? 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: there's a way to do both and nearly all of your content. I think you can always Lead with passion, lead with your like, what feels, what makes you excited?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Because that's magnetic and people can tell. So if you like writing, if you're involved in your content creation, allow it to feel selfish and self centered. and learn how to infuse little points that your clients and consumer can relate with. So maybe your story is about having a hard day. Okay, what about that story is going to land with your clients?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And so there's a way to start with something personal or something that makes sense to write about within your brand. And then to tie in the consumer benefit or the consumer aspect. but I would say that there needs to be like maybe a 70-30 split. If I had to give a percentage like 70 percent could [00:12:00] be the more personal lifestyle, maybe it's some education, but it's more content that you want to write about.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And then having that content spin to include the benefit to the consumer, but then 30 percent where it is strictly let's talk and relate to your target market. 

Laura Haley: Yeah, I totally think there's a way to do both. And I find that the people I love seeing on the internet. Are people who I feel like I know a lot about them.

Laura Haley: I think it's called a parasocial relationship or something. It's like one sided, like they have no idea I exist, but I'm like, oh my god, I'm obsessed with them. I love that there's a name for that. Yeah, I think it's parasocial. 

Um, hi editing Laura here. So according to Dr. Google parasocial relationships are one sided relationships where one person extends emotional energy interest in time. And the other party, the person is completely unaware of the other person's existence. 

Laura Haley: [00:13:00] Basically, the people that I see, who don't know any I exist, but I'm like, wow, I love them.

Laura Haley: I feel like I know so much about them, but it's like, oh, cool, I also know she's also in my head of like, she's a person I would go to if I needed help with this thing. I feel like I know what her freaking backyard looks like, but I also know, like, what her sales page looks like, too.

Laura Haley: Which is so hard to do, to balance both. But I think you're so right that you have to find a way to do it together, which I think can be incredibly hard for people who don't get it. Or they're just like, I know that I can blow up on the internet somehow.

Laura Haley: Or like, they know because other people have done it, but they don't understand how to be a good marketer. Or like, a good writer 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: It comes back to storytelling, right? Like storytelling is what, our brains are wired for stories. I think you've talked about this on the podcast before, and that's, it's really mastering the art of storytelling where you can [00:14:00] talk about yourself and the right stories that are relatable and then it's going to connect with your people and. You can also infuse it to be more about them too, like to do both, but that requires knowing some parts of storytelling and deeply knowing your audience. Like I think it all comes back to the root. Of your, knowing your people. 

Laura Haley: How would you, this is also an episode I want to do, this is so great, just getting to the brains of it.

Laura Haley: people, oh my god, I see so many people who are like, I just inspire people to travel. And I'm like, great. But, who are those people? Like, how do people figure out who they want to talk to? And I mentioned to somebody else that, most of the time, the people that we are talking to, a lot of them are ourselves.

Laura Haley: Because it's like the content we're creating is content we like to consume and who, yeah, we are our own audience we're creating content for. But [00:15:00] what would you say to someone if they came to you and they're like, I don't know how to find out specifically who I should be trying to talk to. Here is my goal or here is my service or what I'm selling.

Laura Haley: How do I figure out who wants to buy it? 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Ooh, what a great question. My brain goes two different directions.one is to just get out in the marketplace. I think a lot of times we spin our wheels and spend our time and our heads with that question without being in real conversations and without being in front of real people.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: and the easiest shortcut to do that is to start putting out beta offers at a price that is like. A duh, no brainer price and to an audience somewhere you're in front of, whether that's sending out an email to your network, posting on social media, getting into Facebook groups, getting out into the world and putting out offers.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: you're going to see what sticks and what doesn't stick. 

Laura Haley: Totally. And 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: once you see what sticks. Then go [00:16:00] and find that person, talk to them, ask them questions and get to know what's under the iceberg, what's under their pain points, to really get to the root of their pain point and, or their desires. Because what they say it is often requires digging a little deeper to what it actually is. 

Laura Haley: Okay. So my approach to market research was I already knew who I wanted to work with. And I went out to that target audience and asked them what problems they were facing. So I could create solutions for those problems. Now you might feel exactly the opposite, meaning, you know, what problem you want to solve. You just are looking for incredibly specifically who you want to solve.

it for. 

And it all just comes back to asking really good questions. 

 Now Alicia is going to share with us what the fuck pizza soup is. It's so, or that.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Okay. So the pizza soup story. We have two kids. We are switching [00:17:00] schools. And so this spring we went and toured a Montessori school here in Columbia, Missouri.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And I started talking to the director and the director also happens to be an amazing chef. And what's really important to the school is connecting the kids to the food. And we got to talking about food because we both love, I love food. I could talk all day. I love to eat. Anyway, she started talking to me about the soup that she makes.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I don't know how we even started talking about this, but she started talking about this soup that's filled with veggies, filled with tomatoes, all from the garden. They grow till with herbs. They sprinkle cheese on it and she serves it with some sourdough. And in my head, I'm like, yeah, it's a vegetable soup.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: This sounds yummy. Where's the story going? And she's like that, but I know my kids. I know the kids that go here. I know what they want. This is pizza soup. And so she took [00:18:00] this vegetable soup and she likes it, and the kids love it because they love pizza. And it's amazing. In my head, I'm like, you are a brave strategist, Gabby.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Like this is beautiful. You just framed this pizza soup to your audience. Like, you know, your audience, you know, your kids, they don't care that it's packed with these. nourishing vegetables. They don't care about any of that. They care about pizza. So anyway, I just think that's like a beautiful story to show the power of framing and how often in our heads do we get stuck in the vegetables of our offerings?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: We're like, you need this. Look at these veggies and your audience is over here. Like, can you just give us freaking pizza? 

Laura Haley: Just show me the end result of what I can get from it. Totally. I think Yes, okay. Describe to me this little Mario, cartoon explanation of this analogy. Yes, [00:19:00] I am asking you to describe a visual experience auditorily, so good luck.

Laura Haley: Okay. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I'm so glad you brought this up because I saw this picture. Someone in town showed me this and I was like, No, my mind was blown. I was like, this is my work. This is what I do. This is branding. So there's this picture, there's this meme and we'll have, we'll have to share it. But, So it's a picture of Mario. I'm a nineties baby. I am freaking love and obsessed with Mario. And there's this picture of Mario. And then there's this picture of the mushroom, right? and then at the end, there's this picture of Mario transformed by the mushroom. So often in our business, we are focused on selling the fricking mushroom.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Again, the vegetable, but what the audience wants is what that mushroom can make them do. It transforms Mario into a fireball throwing machine, an ice ball throwing machine. That's what the audience wants. Your people want the transformation. And [00:20:00] they want to see themselves in that transformation. can I do that?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Can I see myself in that transformation? So we simply need to shift from selling the mushroom to selling the transformation. 

Laura Haley: In your content or in your freebie or in your offer, you need to make it incredibly clear to your target traveler target audience. The transformation, the emotions, what they will feel when they get that thing from you. They don't really care about the middle part. Okay. They don't really care about the in-between between what they feel now and how they'll feel at the end. They just want to know how, what you're able to give them. Is going to feel. After you've given it to them. That's all people care about.

And one of the ways you can make people care. Is by storytelling.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yes, precisely. this comes back to your previous question, tell stories about the transformation. And it can be your transformation, it can be your client's transformation. It can be a connection. It can be a [00:21:00] story about your weekends and how you felt peace and maybe feeling peace is the transformation you provide.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: You can exploit this idea to make it about you and make it about your people. 

Laura Haley: Yeah. Honestly, if you're not telling stories, I think it's just so much harder to do anything. Because like we know, stories have been around literally forever. They will never die. Everybody loves a story.

Laura Haley: And if you can't communicate something that you want someone to give you money for, in an entertaining way, and story ish way, then it's not gonna happen. It's so fascinating because it's so simple. Like, it's something that's been around forever, and then theoretically it's so simple, but sometimes I think for people it can be so hard to take their experience, or like,their offer, and transform it into this analogy that relates to their target audience.

Laura Haley: Because it requires so many things. you have to be good at writing. You have to know who you're talking to. You have to like, not I have such a horrible personality. it just [00:22:00] requires all these factors that a lot of people don't have. And you can get somebody else to help you do the things, but, if you suck, if you just, nobody wants to talk to you, or, like, work with you, then somebody helping you can only get you that far.

Laura Haley: Like, you have to, you have to be a little interesting, for sure. That's 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: where it's like, most people who suck probably just haven't embraced their quirkiness. you don't suck, you be you, you know, which, I could go on a tangent about that, but I'll hold back.

Laura Haley: No, you can, because I talk about it a lot. I talk a lot about how, consistently, across any platform of social media, whatever you're sharing, the content that has done well, always will do well, no matter what type of niche you're in, this is another hill I'll die on, is content that talks about you and or is just about the human experience.

Laura Haley: Because again, when we have these parasocial relationships, you're like, there's no way this person I follow, actually takes showers. no. They just, [00:23:00] exist. They just exist and then they show up again on my feed. But then you feel like you get to know them when they actually talk about their whatever routine.

Laura Haley: It's just crazy. Just crazy. 

Laura Haley: People can tell so hard if you're trying to be something that you're not. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yeah. And I, yeah, where my tangent with being yourself is, I think I heard that in high school.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I don't know how often, I don't know if that was like in the early two thousands, but did you hear that? It was like all over. Be yourself. Be yourself. Don't be afraid of yourself. And as a hyper, who knew it? ADHD, super afraid of rejection. I have never known how to be myself safely. And so I think it's actually.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: A true art and growth and emotional intelligence to actually be yourself because they are layers of the onion on most females in this world where it's like, it doesn't feel safe until it starts to feel safe. And then it starts to feel fun and you get in your 30s or [00:24:00] 40s and you're like, heck yeah, this is amazing.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I'm finally myself. 

Laura Haley: That is wild. And it's like, how do you feel like that has changed your business? because the person you are when you started, this is, applies to anyone, but the person you are when you started is not going to be the person that you were when you were. Years later, we're like, okay, you've been doing it for a while, you just have so much different perspective now, but how do you feel like embracing yourself has changed how you can show up for your clients?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Wow. That's a big question. Okay. 

Laura Haley: You don't have to answer it. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: It's okay. no. I would love to if, yeah, I would say so. In my twenties I had panic attack disorder and general anxiety disorder, and starting a business in my late twenties, I was on the tail end of healing and coming to a place of love.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Okay, I think my executive functioning is turning on. I think I'm a capable adult who can go through a day. Anyway, my journey has been [00:25:00] surrounded by mental health and healing myself. So starting out, I shape shifted to every client that I worked with. And I think this is often the freelancer model and not necessarily, I'm not saying you have to have the layer of mental health, labels and conditions that I had.

Laura Haley: Well, it helps to be delusional to do these kinds 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: of things. It does. And truly I had to be delusional to get into this, to start my own business. And, but I shapeshifted and I had no boundaries and my pricing was low. And now like seven, eight years later. I, IDJF, I am myself. I have boundaries. I don't take things personally.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And, well, let me give the Caveat, if I do take things personally, I know to pause and to do my own work, to tap, to do my emotional healing, like to have support because if a client is upset at a boundary, if a [00:26:00] client's pissed off because of X, Y, and Z, it's not about me. It's not, it's about, I have clear communication, I have clear expectations with every client I work with, I have boundaries, I hold space for so much discomfort with the clients I work with, and it's because I'm safe with myself, and I'm learning to be safe with myself.

Laura Haley: That's so good. What would you say to someone who is at the beginning of turning their content into a business.

Laura Haley: They're like, okay, I did the leap thing. I'm here. I just started a business. It's terrifying. What do I like, what would you say to yourself going back in time when you experienced that? 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yeah, to someone who's started recently, and who's doing it, I would say a couple things, I think three things. Number one, self trust.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Is the number one thing to focus on. Watch and be aware of the stories that are looping in your brain. Pause. Whoa. When those are happening, pause and ask [00:27:00] yourself is this expensive? Is this empowering me forward or is this disempowering? And I would add there, as someone who's getting tapping certified to work through those things somatically like things are held and stored in our body, hardwired in our brain.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Work with someone somatically to release those blocks and to build the daily self trust that would be number one. Number two is Don't be afraid to invest in yourself. 

Laura Haley: Yeah. That's so good. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I've felt selfish. I felt like I'm too much for this.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I don't deserve this. I'm not worthy, but the biggest investments I've made, I have transformed almost overnight with every investment that has been about me or my business, it has always paid off. 

Laura Haley: Holy cow. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And number three, don't be afraid to slow down. For instance, there are times where you have big slowdowns. Like I took quarter one, super [00:28:00] slow and I think it's really important to build slow into your every day because if it's one thing to take big breaks, it's another thing to titrate and to find safety and going slow in my morning routine on Mondays.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I go slow. I don't book meetings.and so finding ways to slow down and ask yourself, what do you want? Finding safety, going slow and stepping into desire is going to overflow and make your business fun and make running it fun. 

Laura Haley: If you are in the process of transforming your current content into this business. Go rewind and write down those three things. Alicia just mentioned using that as a framework. To kick start this business or grow your current business. And, um, you're going to be a pretty well set up travel crater. 

Laura Haley: Do you have any advice on [00:29:00] sticking to your boundaries, especially if you're a people pleaser, or if you're like, I know that this isn't great for me, but I'm gonna do it anyway, because I, people please.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yeah. That's a great question, because that's, Where I started this work, it didn't feel safe to slow down and let me be fully transparent. This is my own medicine. This is work. I still need to work on the same, because my brain likes to be hypervigilant and that's for most of my life, all it's known.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And, but what happens when I don't take the daily pauses and the daily stuff, it's, I don't slow down on vacations. It doesn't feel good. It takes me like days to actually get into a slower mindset. And so for me, it's starting really slow. It's not, I would say even two years ago, that I would have this checklist.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Here's what going slow looks like today. I need to meditate for an hour. I need to go on a 30 minute walk. I need to do this and blah, blah, blah. That [00:30:00] is way too much to start to dive into the work of going slow. And so for me, it's been titrating and it's like, I get up, I go in the sauna for 15 minutes, or I do a guided meditation for five minutes.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Sometimes it's a breath. It's like taking a couple of breaths after a meeting or doing, tapping is a great energetic reset. If you can YouTube it and find it if you're not familiar with it. and the other thing I mentioned earlier, which is following your desire, like asking yourself, your inner child, you, what would feel good today and doing it.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Like just freaking do it. My coach, my mindset coach I worked with for over a year had me do this. And at first it was so uncomfortable. I'm like, what the, why am I doing this? But what it does is it allows going slow to feel good. Sometimes I'm laying on the couch taking a break and it doesn't feel good because I haven't given my mind [00:31:00] permission to let it feel good.

Laura Haley:  The guilt I feel for doing nothing is insane. And then it's like, oh, people think that I don't do anything, so it's like I traveled all these million places, and it's like, what you don't see is sleeping maybe a few hours and like doing all, yeah.

Laura Haley: That is crazy. The guilt. Productivity Guilt is what it's called. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Yeah. 

Laura Haley: I read a book on it. It was crazy. wow. Holy cow. I can't wait to listen to this again. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: I know. Yeah. Same. I'm still working through it. I still have to check myself. Like, am I actually enjoying this? Horizontal couch reset, or is my mind still fixated on work stuff?

Alicia Burke-Alguero: yeah, it's the same. This is my own medicine, but it is so good. 

It can be so hard as a travel creator to feel like you can rest because they are unrealistic. Expectations set on people who travel the world and post about it on the [00:32:00] internet. I mean, is it really okay to travel for 30 hours and then be expected to have an exceptional piece of content posted from that trip? 

You're just on. Um, No, it's kinda effed up actually. So my hot take is to challenge myself. The norms of content creation, because I believe you can still create an incredibly thriving travel creator business Without going the broey route.

Of completely burning yourself out and just working until you basically don't sleep.

Laura Haley: yeah, and it's hard to get your brain to be like, Alright, you need to rest. You need to rest. It's fine. Rest is not a reward. It's a requirement. I love that you were saying, Thank you. What would your inner child want to do? That is so funny to me because immediately I was like, I'm gonna go run outside.

Laura Haley: I'm just gonna run in this field. but it's just a good reminder of like, we can get so caught up in like, oh my god, can we get this thing out today? Did you hit publish on this post? Why [00:33:00] didn't it go out? Oh my god, there was a thing in this thing. And it's like, we work in marketing. It's okay. it's not that, not that deep.

Laura Haley: It's fine. Don't take it too seriously. it's so easy to get so caught up in all of this immediacy that everything is, that it's actually, you don't have to take it so seriously. That's why I love telling people, figure out your brand, go talk to Alicia, dear God, and make some evergreen pieces of content, and get out of town.

Laura Haley: it's not that deep. That's it. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: That's it. And I think that hits us such a great point about the urgency we live in in our culture and how everything feels freaking urgent. We've lost any sense of patience with this instant gratification. And so of course our brains are going to feel uncomfortable with slowing the fuck down.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: And that's the work. I've had to reframe and rethink how I think about deadlines [00:34:00] and working with clients and that relationship to my inbox and to clients requests. and that's where it comes back to being okay with discomfort. Like you, you stepping into slowness is leading the way in our world. it's going to project out, and your clients might be uncomfortable with it, or your people you work with. But man, what a beautiful permission slip you're gonna give yourself and everyone around you. 

Laura Haley: So true. What always feels empowering to me is reminding myself that I'm in charge. And again, I think it's so hard, because it's like, who am I to be in charge of literally anything?

Laura Haley: But, it's just funny, and it's so empowering to be like, Yeah, 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Who let me be in charge? How am I a grown up? I'm a grown up? 

Laura Haley: Oh my gosh, that's so funny. My niece, the other day, called me, she's like, you're not a grown up, you're just a big kid.

Laura Haley: And I was like, yes, correct. That was so funny. Okay, I read something in a book that I wasn't going to mention to you, but I think that you would appreciate it. It's in this book that I actually have mentioned on this [00:35:00] podcast before. It's called Burnout, and I can leave it in the show notes, but it was written by two sisters, which is fun, and they were mentioning how our brains are not made to keep up with the pace at which we live life today.

Laura Haley: It's like we can't even be mad at ourselves for having productivity guilt or feeling like it's so immediate because our brains are made to eat, sleep, and that's it. we're just still cavemans up here, and our brains have not developed at the speed at which we work. Which is so insane, and that made me feel good, too.

Laura Haley: I was like, yeah. Okay, I will get back to you on a business day. Let me, like, go see my people. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Let me eat and sleep, and eat and sleep, and I'll get back to you. 

Laura Haley: Yeah, I'll get back to you when I've slept and I'm fed. I'm fed and watered. Okay, any other topics or thoughts that you just feel like, I have to say this. And I will feel good and it's okay if you 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: don't. I love what you said about that quote and it's wild [00:36:00] that we have animal brains and yet we're trying to keep up with this pace.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: So no wonder there's this normalization of just this high functioning anxiety and, and I think the work becomes undoing that and finding a way to, to heal and to lead a different way. but then to also like you're saying, give yourself radical compassion because our brains haven't caught up and because we can't, it's not like I can opt out of the culture.

Laura Haley: Yes. if you ever started a cult, I would join

Alicia Burke-Alguero: forever and ever with my husband about having a commune. it's 

Laura Haley: my dream. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: It's my dream. Maybe that's our next business. or non profit, or let's do it. 

Laura Haley: I have five people on board already. So serious. So serious. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Oh my gosh, that's 

Laura Haley: incredible. Yep. So funny. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: Sign me up. 

 [00:37:00] Okay, where can people find you? Where do you want them 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: to find you? So they can find me at WithJoyBrandCo.

Alicia Burke-Alguero: com or on Instagram. Probably follow me there, at WithJoyBrandCo. I would love, I'm being awkward, I don't know. 

Laura Haley: No, you should follow Alisha because you will see so many things that will make you feel, just validate your human experience, and it's so good.

Laura Haley: And I love, you're always at the top. You're always on the tab and I always click. I'm like, what does she got for me today? And sometimes I'm like, I need to prepare mentally for what,what I'm going to get in a good way. that's so great. Okay. So fun. Thank you. Thank you for dropping so much knowledge. I feel like there's so many good little nuggets that I'll come back to and share. Will really make a difference in people's lives. Holy cow. Holy cow. 

Alicia Burke-Alguero: thank you so much. It's been an honor to be here. I'm so excited and just feel so grateful. I feel the same about your content and you are so good at what you [00:38:00] do and are masterful at content and it's an art. So thank you. It's great. Wow. 

Laura Haley: You can't say those things to me.

Laura Haley: It goes right to my head, Alicia. That's so amazing. I see your head getting bigger and bigger. Yeah. God, I forgot a hat. Um, thank you. That's so fun. 

Thank you guys for tuning in to this week's episode of the travel crater. I just, there's just so many good bits of information in this episode. I cannot wait to pull it all out and share it with you in another format. Also if you're in Chicago right now, listening to this, you are my top city in the entire world of listeners. 

So. You're doing God's work out there. Also, if you're from Australia or if you're listening in Australia, you are my top country. What the heck let's go. I'm absolutely terrified of everything that exists outside in Australia.

But I appreciate your listenership. Okay. Happy curating friends. I'll see you next week.