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I was inspired to start a weekly series on being fearless in X scenario after a phone call with a friend/publicist yesterday. There’s ways you can practice being fearless in your life, like trying a new coffee shop or making business cards, but what about the situations that involve someone else?

I always say that being fearless comes down to understanding your identity. That’s a core focus for the Be Fearless Summit brand because over the years I’ve become aware of how easy it is to lose faith in your morals and values because you’re focusing on a range of other elements, like…

What does someone think about me?

Am I hot enough, smart enough, thin enough for this person to desire me?

If I do X, Y, Z this relationship or experience will work out for me…

And because of those questions running through your head, you’re more likely to lose sight of YOUR personal values. I see this a lot with dating and I’ve done it countless times. I won’t lie and say I go into every experience feeling fearless, because I don’t! I get scared, intimidated, or nervous. I have had times where I’m not as authentic because I’m focused on what someone else is thinking about me, so I’ll be less bubbly or avoid talking about myself because I’m feeling one way or the other. I tend to leave an experience or a date early on if I’m feeling like that because off the bat I don’t want to date you if I’m already uncomfortable.

I know a lot of people waste time doing things they know they do not like doing. You think it’ll get better and sometimes it does, but I have also experienced enough where I know what I want and what traits stand out to me more than others now.

During those moments I remind myself a few things:

I have absolutely nothing to hide.

You’re either going to a) like me b) hate me c) spend some time thinking about either option and if it’s b or c, I don’t care.

Why don’t I care?

Because there are SO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD! I know a lot of women go right to the guy (if we’re talking about men/women) and think he’s found someone better or doesn’t want to date if he’s not replying – which is probably true.

Girls do the same thing.

At this point in my life, I’m way more upfront. I get the games and I appreciate being left with questions, that’s hot! You don’t have to ignore someone for three days though – that’s rude. If you’re not interested, just say it. Or say you want to be friends, if you ACTUALLY want to be friends. You can easily start training yourself to be more direct and honest with every person you meet. Test this on yourself: if you meet someone you don’t like, instead of ghosting or lying and saying you’re too busy doing whatever you do: say you’d like to be friends.

The next time this happens, take out the little white lie at the beginning and go right to:

I don’t think I’m looking for anything right now but I know you’ll find someone who is able to give you what you’re looking for!

Being super honest can be uncomfortable, so you can start doing small steps that will train you to be fearless when dating.

What do you value?

If you want the games, you’re not ready for a relationship. If you’re happy to be a FWB and then find yourself with feelings, you should remove yourself from the situation or ask one simple question:

What are you looking for?

Any time I’ve ever asked a guy that upfront, even my ex-boyfriend, they were honest. I’ve waited for people to change who were honest upfront and they didn’t change.

I see these rare scenarios where people do evolve… BUT if you’re dating men in particular between 30-40 (which is usually my age range) I’ve never been lied to when I asked someone what they wanted. I’ve been dumb to stay in some relationships with people who were upfront, but you live and you learn! I look back and really respect the guys who were honest: it’s not their fault I expected them to change. They were honest!

People aren’t often out to get people, everyone just works in phases and sometimes those phases are different.

So you’ve gone on a date, or two, or maybe three! And you’ve been ghosted, or the person pulls back and you’re freaking out wondering why? There’s a few reasons. I honestly don’t ever ghost someone, even with friendships. I think it’s rude. But that’s me: I’m sensitive with interactions like that (for no good reason) but if someone wanted to reply to you, they would. I’m not talking about a few hours or a day when someone was busy working: I’m talking about the classic 5 day later text where you’ve been sitting by your phone waiting for their name to pop up only to see the text finally come…

It says so much about someone’s values and morals if they do ghost, or come in and out of your life, because guess what? They don’t know their own morals or values.

Find someone who does and in the meantime, focus on expanding your own values.

This post is part of a partnership with Zenni Optical.

Y’all probably know by know how much I LOVE Zenni. When FEARLESS came out on LOCALISH in January, working with the Zenni team was so exciting and really inspired me to want to do more with the brand. Being an entrepreneur and a young one makes you realize how important it is to save your money in every way you can. Sometimes that means going out less, cooking more at home and skipping that $5 latte when you’re focusing on a project that costs more money than expected.

A brand like Zenni is incredible because they offer so many styles for under $50, with many of them even under $10, that fits into every budget. If you’re young and hustling, save your money, I beg you! You won’t regret it.

I’m biased, but my favorite part of Zenni glasses is this pair from the Coco & Breezy x Zenni line.

The style is FEARLESS and called FEARLESS, too!

Every style at Zenni is affordable and stylish, but the Coco & Breezy line donates a percentage of proceeds to the Child Mind Institute, which helps give money to kids in underprivileged communities that don’t have access to many mental health resources. Shopping isn’t hard when you can give back at the same time.

4 summits in and the brand behind Be Fearless has taken on a life of its own. For the spring summit, we partnered with the Werth Institute at University of Connecticut to empower young adults to be fearless, unfiltered and most importantly: get out of their comfort zone.

Join the Be Fearless community (before an app launch) to get access to mentors like Allison Kaye (SB Projects) and Kelly Rutherford (Gossip Girl) and Molly Hanten (Shop Sovereign Collective) who are hosting talks on the platform starting next week. You may remember my interviews with Kelly and Allison on my past podcasts!

Where should we bring BFS to next?

Photographed at Kimpton Monaco Hotel in Philadelphia. 

The last time I was on a TV set was for my mentee Jeskya’s morning show segment in LA last year. She asked me to jump in as a model which I wasn’t super thrilled to do but when you’re fearless, you can’t say no! Prior to pursuing the summit program and Be Fearless community so heavily, I was on TV sets every week – working with different brands to compensate me to discuss their new lines so I could afford to continue to blog and do what I love: inspire!

I haven’t had to do TV segments as often as I used to because my career has taken off in the past year which is incredible: but I’ll never forget how much I loved the energy of being on set. Being on camera is one of my strengths so when Fox Philadelphia asked me to host a segment on workwear for women last week, I bought an Amtrak ticket from Connecticut to Philadelphia following the ECSU talk. One of my best friends Gabi (whom I met at the first BFS at Drexel) lives in Philadelphia, so I took the train down to meet her to prep for the segment. I grew up across the street from a JCPenney: it was a store that my mom always took me to for back to school shopping. Does anyone else have memories from when they were a kid asking for something that your family member would always say no to? For me, that was the Bobby Jack line at JCPenney! My mom couldn’t afford buying me their line when I was younger so I always used to window shop at JCPenney before back to school began.

Those memories of my childhood are the reason I am the way I am today, so I partnered with JCPenney to put together these stylish looks for women on a budget this season. Just like JCP, Philly will always hold a special place in my heart: it’s where the first Be Fearless Summit was. Just because you wear clothing that’s affordable doesn’t mean you have to slack on your style: if anything, you get way more bang for your buck dressing on a budget!

Last week, I wrote a post about pitching and the different variations of pitches I like to see. I’ve been mentoring a mentee named Jenny through a program I’m a part of in Austin at Soho House (launched by Jai, past The New Unfiltered guest) and she’s been reminding me of so many lessons I’ve trained myself to remember over the years. Specifically, about money and pitching.

I released a bonus episode today going into detail on many of my secret tips and tricks to pitching, WHO to contact (stop contacting a contact us form on any website, please please please)  and how to reply when you want money. The first step to overcoming many of these hurdles is to get comfortable asking for what you want. This is so important in every element of your life, personal and business, because until you’re confident enough in your identity to ask for what you want, getting someone to trust you doing a form of work is going to be hard.

In the episode, I forgot to mention that you shouldn’t contact a company and then post about them, then expect to go back and get paid to post. Here’s what I’ve realized, and this isn’t for every single company but for many of them: if you’re in talks to feature whatever product they have, and then you get free samples and post because free stuff is so fun! they’ve already gotten you for “free”.

If your goal was to post the free items and then get paid to post, the possibility of that happening now is very slim because you’ve already shown them you’ll post for free. I’d analyze what companies you want to be paid by and what companies you want free product to post about and from there, you can determine whether you should flesh out a partnership further or just go ahead and post, feature, etc.

Start small. Ask for $100. Make a media kit. Round up a few different clients after the first who will pay you $100 and then up your rate to $200. If you don’t view yourself as the brand that you are, how can you expect someone else to take you seriously?

IT’S HERE!

Following four summits over 4 years, the expansion of the Fearless mantra and formula has evolved!

While encouraging every single person to be fearless has become and will remain my life mission + purpose, the response from the community that these summits has led to goes deeper than my own personal ambition.

The Be Fearless community is launching in beta below, and by signing up you get early access to upcoming events, private rooms with mentors & myself, and so much more!

JOIN THE COMMUNITY HERE:

https://bit.ly/3ulT8RE