I had 4 presentations this week and wow – each of them got better and better! I kicked off the week with a discussion with the Boys and Girls Club in LA, moderated by my friend and former Radio Disney host Daniel Dudley, followed by a presentation to Menlo University students, and then ended up on the campus of UT to present “virtually” to students at the Kendra Scott Institute! To wrap out the week, I was part of a discussion surrounding helicopter parenting and mentorship yesterday to a group of parents at Fusion Academy in Boston.

I have so many thoughts on finding mentors and back doors to getting your biggest inspirations to mentor you…but I want to focus on some of the topics that came up during the talk last night. I know I have many parents who follow me and I want to address some of the questions and concerns I was asked on the webinar yesterday.

I hate to break it to you but you’re probably less involved in your child’s lives than you should be. That’s not bad, just something to be aware of. Here’s the thing: being a parent is hard. I’m not a parent (OBVIOUSLY LOL) but the amount of parents I speak to, also taking into account my own experiences with my parents growing up, doing it “all” is a lot easier said than done. You CAN do it all: but that ALL quite often stops at the dinner table with the iPad, TV, or social media because by the time they’re logging on you’re ready to be done.

Unfortunately, that’s the time you need to be even more involved.

During the presentation yesterday, one mother asked a question about how she can control what her 15-year-old son is doing on Snapchat. While she was describing the situation (she said she constantly finds her son on FaceTime with tons of kids older that he doesn’t know) I started to question whether she knew if the platform he’s using is really FaceTime…because you can’t FaceTime 20 people at once and you certainly can’t FaceTime someone directly without having their contact info. That’s a problem right there: not being aware of the platforms out there and at least what they look like or are used for.

I’m still not entirely sure what she was referring to but my suspicion is Snapchat – she mentioned seeing a lot of “bubbles” of faces on the screen. Whatever the social media platform her son is using is, she totally has every right to be concerned. I wouldn’t want my kid talking to a bunch of older kids on any social media forum!

What can she do? Start the conversation.

You don’t need to approach your kid in an aggressive way, asking them a ton of questions about what’s going on or who is on the phone… because guess what, young adults are pretty impressive at getting their family to believe exactly what they want them to believe, even if it strays from the truth!

Conversation starters could be:

“Cool app, show me it!”

“I want to be the cool parent. Please tell me what apps all the kids in school are using so I at least know what’s going on!”

“Where’d you meet them?”

And if they completely disregard your questions, don’t back off. Don’t go wild and start obsessing – but ask them again tomorrow. You’re a parent: don’t be afraid to bug your kid. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

Overall, you need to start somewhere. Take 10 minutes this week and get comfortable knowing what the apps look like and what apps are safer than others. Make a Tik Tok with your kid (even if dancing makes you as uncomfortable as it makes me) and get a glimpse at who they’re following on their feed. What better way to know what they’re seeing than to see it too?

According to Pew, the most common responses on a survey they created about what people think about cancel culture by far centered around accountability. 49% of those familiar with the term cancel culture said

“it describes actions people take to hold others accountable.”

This week on my podcast, I interviewed Mentor Match mentor, lawyer and founder of Être Girls Illana Raia. I’m frequently asked if I get “scared” about being canceled and I kind of laugh when I get asked because I think of cancel culture like I think of possibly dying tomorrow. Can you control when you’re going to die?

No you can’t. But you can control what you post online and who you contact. Before you post anything anywhere think to yourself, do I have an answer to why I’m posting this?

MATCH WITH ILLANA & OTHER MENTORS HERE!

No, you can just control how much you feed into the conversation and enable that behavior.

So, cancel cancel culture, or keep canceling people?

Staying on the theme of understanding your personality type, wrapped a very fun interview with KXAN News in Austin this morning talking about how I combat my anxiety. Exercise and 20 minutes of morning meditation are two tricks that I talk often about because I definitely notice a difference in my overall mental health when I stay consistent with both. Most people don’t want to necessarily exercise 6 days a week like I do, but that’s totally OK- getting in a sweat 3 days a week is proven to improve your overall mood. I encourage you to try it and see how you feel!

Another item I’m loving this fall is Silk & Sonder notebooks. The brand reached out to me earlier this year to send me some of their self-care notebooks and I didn’t look twice at them (I get so many items I really only feature the products I instantly love) until I moved and found them under a pile of photos! After struggling with some personal stuff last month, I remembered that I had the November journal labeled “patience” and it’s been a blast writing in it. There are some simple exercises like going and looking at the leaves, tracking when you wake up and fall asleep, and writing down what you eat in a day that keep me focused when I’m feeling overwhelmed or anxious.

Anxiety is never fun to struggle with, but implementing some new routines and making some new rules for yourself will keep you on track. I promise!

 

I might not have gone to college, but I spend enough time at colleges presenting and working on summits with them that I feel like I basically got a college degree from 100 + colleges!

I’m constantly on the hunt to find new high schools and colleges that have a heavy focus on liberal arts and entrepreneurship because I not only scout a lot of talent and future speakers at these schools, but appreciate spending time on campuses with students who I present to and equally learn so much from.

Lately I’ve been working with Concordia University, a small liberal arts college in Austin (about 30 minutes away from downtown) on different panels and events. I presented to a group of students who were studying everything from communications to medicine last week and really enjoyed connecting with them. There are certain times when I’ll present a full talk with a powerpoint attached, and there are other times where I’ll present to students in a way more chill and intimate way. The latter is how last weeks talk went – I shared my journey with entrepreneurship and running a startup, and then encouraged them to ask questions and share their stories with me.

Some of the topics we covered are in the above photo, but two questions that were asked and stood out to me were how do you become comfortable speaking in front of others, and how important is social media when applying for jobs?

Here’s what I’ve realized about public speaking: it’s a muscle you have to continue to workout. There are times where it’s harder for me to present to people depending on what’s going on in my life -I was more distracted on this day, so I notice certain elements like my answers take longer for me to formulate than they do when I’m feeling 100% sharp – but you know who is noticing something like that? Me, and only me.

That’s how you become a successful public speaker: take yourself out of the equation and show up. No one cares about what you’re wearing or saying as long as it’s authentic to you and your journey. People seek and admire authenticity in every element of life, so show up, talk in your most authentic way, and let people like you without trying to set the stage before you even show up.

Trying to base future endeavors and job opportunities on social media isn’t something I suggest because most employers aren’t relying on you to have a huge social media presence or use it often to land the job. What I do say is having some experience, especially if you want to work in business/start a company, in social media is always valuable. You want to be the 1% – so anything you can do to differentiate yourself from your competitors is valuable. Make a profile on Upwork or Fiverr and get a few social media management gigs outside of your 9-5 job, or try some copywriting gigs. You might hate them and that’s fine, but you’ve got something new to add to your resume and that ROCKS!

Where I’m speaking next:

 

Menlo University: November 4th, 2021

Kendra Scott Institute at UT Austin: November 9th, 2021

Fusion Academy: November 10th, 2021

Concordia University: November 16th, 2021

Young Women’s Association Austin: January 19th, 2022

 

Last week, Isha and I hosted the second Mentor Match webinar on dressing for success. If you know me, you know that I literally thrive on being comfortable all of the time. Austin is the least pretentious city I’ve ever lived in (THANK GOSH) so I don’t spend most of my time dressing up super fancy. But I know that when I need to look good, I need to look good. Whether I’m presenting a talk, hosting a webinar, or going to a meeting in person, you can always find me in trousers, a blazer or a button-down top. How can you expect people to take you seriously if you don’t look serious?

During the webinar, there were some questions about how people in the healthcare field can accessorize their scrubs and more traditional work attire. Isha had some great advice, from simple accessories that don’t make much noise (no bangles, ladies) and belts/ scarves you can add on to a basic dress that will seriously take your outfit to the next level.

 Some more of Isha’s tips are below, and Yashoda Bhaskar will be the host of the next webinar!