I used to think the laptop lifestyle was so cool,
working from the beach, but what I now realize is that
is a lie. Laptop lifestyle means you are working
on the beach. And I strongly believe now that if I'm at
the beach, I ain't working. And so today in this episode, I want
to talk about how boundaries work in your marketing, in your
business, and how we can, yes, both care deeply about our clients
and customers and also not have our notifications turned on
or work really hard and also not respond to DMs
at midnight today. We're going to dive into
this conversation in this episode of the Mindful Marketing Podcast.
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membership. All right, I gotta start this episode
with a story time because if you're new to this podcast, I have to
provide some context. So I have been working in
this business for 11 years, y' all. I hit my 11th
business anniversary in March of this year, and it's just
wild to me. This is like the thing I've done the longest in my life.
But I followed Gary V in the beginning. And if y' all don't
know who Gary Vee Gary Vaynerchuk is, he is a marketer who
talks a lot about marketing. I love some of his concepts, but
the things I don't like are how much effort, time and energy he
puts into marketing. And honestly, it's because he likes it and I love that journey
for him. Me, on the other hand, I'm very introverted.
I need to protect my energy and so I cannot follow the Gary Vee
model of, like, wake up at 6am, spend three hours responding to comments
and messages, document your entire day, and spend every
Waking minute, responding to comments. I can't do that. I
will be so depleted just even saying it out loud, I'm
like, I'm exhausted. Okay, So a lot of my boundaries
came from deep reflection in a personal place because I
had to. I literally could not do my job without setting boundaries
in place. So rewind. The year's 2017. I've
been in my business for three years. At that point, I had 40
clients. I had my team bump in. We were doing great,
and I was miserable. I was miserable because I was starting to get
these, like, anxiety, ish panic attacks
over the notifications on my phone emails. I was
logged into all my clients accounts and on Facebook, y' all, you get all of
the notifications. Instagram, I could only log into five. I
think that's still the case. And even then, I
was inundated with requests from my team, from my
clients, from just social media. Nothing bad, but my brain went,
oh, my gosh, they hate you. You know, if you're anxious,
you'll know what I'm saying. Oh, my gosh, everything's terrible.
That was me. And so I put myself in
therapy, got coaching, and what I realized through my process
was one, I needed a break. So I took two weeks off, completely
disconnected for the first time ever in my business because prior
to that, I was working on the beach. I was answering stuff on. On
weekends. So I took a break. And when I came back, that's when I
started meditating. I meditated for something like
250 days in a row or something wild like that. Just five minutes a day
using the Headspace app, which I love.
And then I turned up all my notifications and I
set one notification in my asana for various things I need
to do. And then I do have things in my Google calendar that notify me.
And I turned off everything else. And I was very
happy in that space for a long time, y' all.
That boundary of turning off my notifications and. And really
recognizing when anxiety was happening. Cause that was my big problem is,
like, I would get anxious. Then I would, like, judge myself about being anxious and
like, the feelings would just pile up. Meditation helped me acknowledge the
anxiety without all the other emotions bogging me down.
And I was able to move forward with my life and with my business. Okay.
Boundaries made me feel safe enough to
build my business. And from there, y' all, like, my biggest
year in business, we had almost $900,000 in revenue. Okay,
that was 2022. And
that's possible in my mind, due to
the boundaries and creative energy I was able to put into my business.
All right, now, boundaries are not
walls. I think boundaries are more like social
agreements, if you will. There are some that we just
assume from other people, and those are the ones that once they're
pushed, we have to set the boundaries. So for me, it's how I respond to
my Instagram DMs and messages. People who know me know
not to expect an immediate response. I'm just not that type of
person. If I happen to be on Instagram and you message me, sure, maybe if
I feel like it, I'll message you back, maybe not. Okay. That
is a social agreement that I'm choosing to break. And
it's not just in social media. It's the same for my text messages. When people
text me, I may take my time texting back. It's just how I
am, unless I'm already available and then I will text back.
It's. It helps me remain calm throughout my day instead of,
like having to switch between all of these things all the time. I usually
batch respond to stuff, batch respond to messages and things. It
just works for my brain. I know I'm breaking a social agreement with that,
and I'm able to survive in this world because of it.
I set the tone with that. I don't let other people set the tone.
I set the tone. And there have been a few people who've been frustrated with
me and we are no longer friends. If you send me a
text and I don't respond right away, and then you send me 50 texts, I'm
going to call you out on it and be like, listen, I can't be available
all the time. Okay? This to me is defining what works for me
as a human in this world. And I think those of us who are people
pleasers, we have a really hard time with that now. The second
layer to this is the social media context of it
all. There's like a social understanding collectively,
society and community, that as a personal brand, it's your face
on social media. People see you posting, they feel like
they know you. And there's this assumption that because you're
putting yourself out there, that you are open and available
to receive whatever it is they want to give you. We see this happening a
lot in the Internet, especially
if we take it to the extreme, people being Internet
bullies essentially and saying whatever they want. I can't tell
you how Many times my YouTube channel is the worst for this,
where people will tell me that whatever they
comment about anything, usually it's my voice. People don't either love it or
hate it. And they'll comment or I should go unalive
myself. Okay? People will literally
say things like that on my YouTube channel. This
is called parasocial relationship because it's my face. Because
I have so much content out there, they feel like
they have an entitled access to
me. My response, I delete the comments. I block them. I move
on. Okay, this is me setting my boundary.
You, as a personal brand, have to think about where your boundaries
are and not be afraid of it feeling like you're not
being friendly. Okay? And this is where scripts come into play with me and
help me. This is where ChatGPT has like, saved my butt. Because sometimes
I'll be like, listen, I want to say no to this person. And I
need help saying no in a way that will let
them know that I'm serious. Because I tend to smile, y' all, even when I'm
talking to people. Like, my daughter does not take me
seriously. Because I'll be like, don't do that.
Like, it's just how I am. And then the flip side is when
I'm texting, it's like, no. No capitalization, no
punctuation. And people are like, are you mad? And I was like, no. I just
was going quick, right? And so I use tools to
help me communicate effectively and efficiently so that people
understand that. And I will say
because of this, I built the boundaries Bundle. It's a $9
template bundle. You can find it on my website online,
drag.com and it is the
scripts. It's the scripts for this. I have social media posts for this. If you
want to maintain boundaries, but how you answer dms, what your
hours of operation are, all of those things, how to say no, how to say
yes. And not just social media. I think there is a boundary
setting requirement for business owners in
both your public facing marketing and your private marketing. I like to call
this internal marketing and external marketing. So external marketing is everything
everyone else sees. Internal marketing is marketing to your current clients and
customers. And this is often the biggest missing piece. I talked about this a
couple months ago. Biggest missing piece in a lot of
marketing is internal marketing. You've got to remarket to your current people.
Part of that is setting clear boundaries without alienating them. And so I have the
templates for that too. Okay, that was like an unexpected little ad in the
middle of the episode. You're welcome. Okay, so let's talk about
parasocial pressure, because this
comes from people feeling like they know you, but then
Also, we put the pressure on ourselves because we
feel obligated because, well, we put ourselves out there. And
so it is important for you to set those boundaries so that you don't lose
yourself in this process, that you don't get burnt out on this process. Okay?
All right. Next thing I gotta talk about hard
work versus hustle. Hard work
versus hustle, okay? I am a believer that there
is space between the soft life,
laptop, lifestyle and hustle. Every day, wake
up at 4am, sleep for four hours lifestyle, okay?
This space in the middle is where I explore because
I believe that we do need to work hard. I'm not a fan of, like,
being unavailable, completely unavailable. Okay. I'm not a fan of,
like, you've heard of these, like, coaching programs where, you know, you
sign up and then you join the program and, like, the person's face who's on
the sales page is nowhere to be found. Like, I'm not a huge fan
of that, okay? For me, I like to be involved,
heavily involved. It's my face on the business. I'm gonna have my hands in everything.
Okay? So for me personally,
this has been an exploration of me. Like, how far do I go with the
boundaries? And you may have noticed over the years, those of you who've been tracking
with me for a couple years, you may have noticed where some years I am
less available, some years I'm more available. I really feel like I found the
sweet spot between Jemmy, my amazing assistant who
helps me keep me on track. But it's still my face, my voice
that you see in the inside of the program. I'm the one teaching the
majority of the classes. I'm responding to the comments and questions in the
community. I'm the one responding to my inbox on social media
and by comments. I've tried outsourcing it in the past. Doesn't work for
me. Okay. And so for me, I found that
space between hustle and hard work.
And yeah, it is hard work. It requires intense focus.
Especially, again, I'm introverted. So, like, to go in and respond to
comments and questions, I had to be in a mental space for it. But not
always available. Okay? I am available
consistently at a frequency that I set.
And I'm also giving myself grace if there are moments in time.
Again, recently I had to step away for a few days for
a funeral. I'm not available. Okay? There's someone who
messaged me. I'll get back to you in a few days. I have life lifing,
and that is the challenge of being a personal brand in business. And we just
have to acknowledge that. Okay, another, another point that I want to
make in this boundaries episode of the podcast is that
you have to know yourself. And I don't mean this in like a
woo woo way, like be in touch with your inner goddess.
Okay, do that if that's for you. But your
preferences are a strategy. And I think
oftentimes where we start feeling burnt out and like lines are
being crossed is that we're trying to do all of the
things and then we feel resentful with the feedback that
we're getting. O so I'll give an example. If you hate video,
you hate being on video, you don't want to do
lights, camera, action, put yourself in front of the camera, talk
to nobody in an empty room like I'm doing right now.
If you don't like it, then you're going to feel like
that's a boundary being crossed when you do it. So you have to understand
your preferences. Okay? So for me, for example,
I recently talked about this, my email newsletter. I felt like I was getting
a lot of back and forth emails about something in particular and it was making
me feel frustrated. And so I, after talking with Chat
GPT, I was like, help. Why am I not writing this email?
Realized that two boundaries being crossed.
One, I'm not a writer. Like, like that.
I like to write fun things, okay? Like when I write,
I don't like it to be serious with serious writing to me,
drags me down. I also, I have so many typos and
spelling errors, y' all, that for years I thought I wasn't a writer. And you've
heard me say it on this podcast. I almost said it again. I'm not a
writer. I am a writer. I just have to also be an
editor. And like editing something that I don't like writing in the first
place drags me down. I realized this recently when I wrote my first romance
novel. I actually like writing. I like
editing when it's something that is fun. Writing
and editing when it's for work drags me down. So instead I recorded
a video. Boom, done. And then I took the transcript of that, I put IT
in the ChatGPT and said, can you write an email to go with this? Boom,
done. I removed the resistance. And that's why
preferences are a strategy. I felt like a boundary is being crossed the back and
forth, when in reality it was just not my preference, my preferred way to
communicate. Okay, so find your preferences and that will make things
smoother. I also want to say with boundaries, that
this is where values come into play. Like they're so
important. Especially here, now, 2025, the year of Beyonce.
We need to have our boundaries and our
values very clear in our business. On my about page of my website, when I
talk on the podcast, when I talk in my social media videos,
I'm talking a lot about my boundaries and my values. One of my
values is that I like to be diverse and inclusive. Okay,
I have an instant diversity. Mark, if you didn't know I'm
black, a black woman, this. There's an intersectionality there
that I can't fight. People just look at me and they make assumptions, okay?
So I lead with my values because that is something I'm very
proud of. Whatever other people assume, there are lots of other
intersectionality moments in the way that I show up in my
diversity. And I'm a millennial,
too, so millennials and down, I would say Gen Z,
even more, are looking for businesses that
aren't just esthetic, that aren't just the most popular
one. They're looking for the ones that have the same values as them.
And this is why we see values led marketing happening a lot. This
video, for instance, is releasing during Pride Month. There are a lot
of companies, I'm looking at you, Target, where they
try to have some value marker that doesn't
feel sincere, and then they get canceled for
it or they get social backlash for it. Target's not canceled. We're
all still shopping at Target. But they got called out
publicly on social media for their misstep. It
is because consumers are not only more
values led, but they're more vocal about what
their values are. Because if they believe the same things you do,
there's an inherent trust in that. So, yes, I put my
pronouns everywhere. I put them in my email signature
because I want to signal out subtly. If you don't
believe that I should have my pronouns in my bio
and in my signature, you and I are not going to get along at all.
So we're going to just start there and then away we go.
All right, now let's get practical about this boundaries
conversation. There's a few things that I want you to think about right here,
now, today, as you're listening to this. I want you to make a decision about
this. I don't want you to get caught up in whatever social media
platforms or marketing tools automatically want you to do.
Okay, first step, do you want your email on your
phone? And do you want those notifications? Okay, I will say this,
too. At this Part your boundaries can change over time. Try it out and see
what works for you. At this season in my life, I turned my
notifications back on because I was missing things
I said. I mentioned. Recently I went to a funeral and I found
that when I was coming back the week after, I was missing some
things because I was grieving and stuck in my head and caught up in a
lot of things. And so right now I need my notifications to like
remind me of the things that I need to do. And even then, I
still missed my dog's groomer's appointment because I missed the calendar
notification even though the groomer texted me the day before.
So I'm just at a season of my life where I need reminders
constantly about what I'm supposed to be doing because mom
brain plus grief equals. I don't know, my head's
at the clouds. Okay, so you can change your boundaries at any time. Okay, let
me go back to this one. Email. Do you want this on your phone and
do you want notifications? Social media. Do you want this on your phone and do
you want notifications? These are important questions to ask you because their
assumption, the social construct, is that they're on your phone and you have
the notifications on. But you, my friend, can make that decision. Okay,
next thing, how frequently do you want those
notifications and how do you want to respond to them? Okay, so for
example, I know someone who has an email on their
phone. They like to look at the emails on their phone and they'll only respond
to those that are emergency based. Everything else, they respond on their
desktop at set times. That is a very
specific choice that person has made.
You can decide how you want to do this for you. Okay.
I know someone else who doesn't have any social media on
their phone, like on their mobile device. They only have it on their
computer and they respond to things on their computer. They actually came to me because
they were like, I can't post a stories on my computer. And I was like,
yeah, that's a tough one. It's going to be tough. And we found some
workarounds for them. But the main thing is you get to
decide. Okay, so your, your response time. Let's
decide on that now. Let's set clear boundaries. I want you to
think about how do you want your values
to show up and give signals to people about what
your boundaries are. For me, I have kids,
I have other responsib. I'm
starting a second business. So for me I have to be very clear.
If you Email me. Jemmy's going to respond, most likely.
Okay. My assistant is here. She helps me.
Second, Boundary value. I use AI in my work.
Very clear about that. Made a whole email lead magnet funnel about
AI. Okay. And if you need help with this again, I have
the boundaries bundle that will guide you through this. In fact, one of the.
One of my favorite things in this bundle is I built a business
GPT and I actually did a walkthrough on my YouTube channel. I'll link it in
the show notes of how you can build your business value.
So Business value custom built GPT using my
framework to help you get values for your business. So, you know,
you don't just come up with like, we're, you know, we're authentic, we have
integrity. Like, let's go a little bit deeper. And so that business
values GPT will help you with that. All right. I also
want you to go to your website and your email and
clearly think about. You can either put this on your website or just know
what are your business hours of operation? Okay. I think it's
unreasonable expectation for
solo small business owners to be available 24 7. Okay. There
are some exceptions. There are some exceptions, but I personally think it's
unreasonable. And you get to set what those
parameters are for you, what reasonable looks like for you. You get to
decide. I will say this. There are some industries that is harder,
uh, my husband works in real estate, for instance. And
it's harder to set boundaries in that industry because it is a lot of
evening and weekend work. But if, you know, if you go into it knowing it's
a lot of evening and weekend work, you can still set boundaries around
that and make that decision for you. Listen,
boundaries do not have to be something that's scary. They do not have to feel
like you're putting up walls. They do not have to feel like you're shutting people
out. I want you to think about boundaries as an invitation. You're inviting people
in. I want you to think of them as a value signal so that
you find the right clients and customers that align with you. And I don't want
you to think this is an excuse not to work hard or that you're lazy.
You're not lazy. You're just trying to be a human in
this very digital world and you're trying to survive.
Okay? So do what you need to do to survive and know that
you're still working hard, my friend. Thank you for listening to this episode of the
Mindful Marketing Podcast. I'll be back soon with another episode. In the
meantime, can you give us a five star rating on either Apple Podcasts
or Spotify? It helps keep us in the top 100 marketing podcasts. And
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thanks to your support. I'll see you next week. Bye for now.