064 Burn the Hustle, Be You
Bold moves, hard truths, and learning to stop caring about the opinions that don't pay your bills 😜💰 this one's all about building your personal brand with real purpose.
064 Burn the Hustle, Be You
Discover the powerful moment that changed everything for a teenage business starter turned visibility expert (who may or may not be me mio 😜). Unpack the pressure of hustle culture, Geelong’s old-school gatekeeping, and why it’s time to build your brand for yourself, not their approval 🏋️ Warning this episode says some swear words, so better not listen around non-adults 😉
It’s hard to admit that the approval we’re trained to seek in business might never come. Espically those of us who were raised female, that stuff is constant! I wanted to share what it felt like to hit a decade of almost constant local networking events and then realise I was still being treated like an outsider. Despite growing up and living locally. Your age, gender, and geography can always stack the deck, but knowing that helped me walk away from all my people-pleasing and towards building a brand that actually feels like me 😌
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The shift came when I stopped playing by their rules and started asking better questions, ones like; “What do I want from my work?” and “Who actually values what I offer?” I started taking risks with my business that felt honest, not performative. The ultimate result? A more grounded business model and the birth of the Video Confidence Coach (my third business).
If you’ve been stuck in hustle mode or nodding politely through spaces that don’t see you, maybe it’s time to stop giving so much weight to the wrong voices. Let’s focus on personal branding that doesn’t burn you out but builds you up. If you want to create a personal brand that's honest, bold, and yours here comes the pitch I can help you untangle that chaos. Reach out, and let's map it out together 😉
To get support building your bold personal brand, check out my Pick Zoë’s Brain sessions at vcc.training/services. It’s perfect for when you need clarity, confidence, and a permission slip to do things your way.
Quick Quiz Time 🥳
What’s one of the biggest lessons Zoë shares in Episode 64?
A) Always hustle hard
B) You must attend every networking event
C) Do business for yourself, not for others’ approval
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Correct Answer: C - Do business for yourself, not for others’ approval - That might be in the title but it’s a good lesson to learn early 😉
What Was Discussed This Episode + Timecodes:
00:00 - Why this episode is a bit spicier than usual
03:25 - Starting a business at 14 and what drove me to do it
06:47 - Early networking as a teen and why no one took me seriously
09:58 - Realising hustle culture was a fast-track to burnout
13:21 - The moment I stopped chasing approval and chose myself
17:02 - How protecting my peace became part of my branding
19:44 - Why I created Video Confidence Coach and what it really means
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Zoë Wood 00:00
How to not give a fuck with purpose. If you're tired of the old cookie cutter marketing advice and want to take your personal brand to the next level with bold, actionable strategies that truly reflect you, you're in the right place. Let's untangle your marketing mayhem with zo the video confidence coach on the unboring your brand podcast. Un boring your brand was recorded on what a rung land. As you can guess, today's podcast episode is going to be a little bit on the sweary side. So if that's not for you, feel free to catch me on the next one. See you on the next on boring your brand. But for the rest of us who are adults and are okay with a minimal amount of swearing, we are going to touch on a life, life journey. Lesson from me Zo Wood, the video confidence coach and my experience in running a business for the past 1516, years now. So I'm going to start with a story, and we are going to buckle up and start talking about how to build your personal brand, your backbone and building your business. So for those who may be unaware, I started my first business when I was 14. Yes, I started quite young. The reason I started my business initially was because I couldn't get a job, because no one would hire me, because I was either too young and inexperienced, because I was 14, and I was also at school because I didn't have enough time, because I was 14, and also I didn't have the connections because I was 14, but I also didn't grow up in a household that had those connections to secure me a job in any sort of job or field. And at that time, when I was in high school, I had a lot of downtime. I would get to school incredibly early and leave incredibly late every day, so I had a minimum of an hour or two every morning and evening to spend the time doing my homework, which, of course, I did rather quickly. And I spent the time hanging out in the library thinking about what exactly do I want to do? I did very a couple of projects here and there, and then I found my interest in media and utilising Photoshop and other tools like that, and I thought, and I saw some people starting businesses, not in my school, but I saw it out in the zocast on YouTube. So I decided, hey, I've got time. I got the energy, and I need to keep myself entertained. And also I need money for food. I need to feed myself. So the most productive way I thought about doing that was to start a business. And it worked. I had the drive to self educate, and I dove into everything about business. I very much took whole line and sinker, the whole hustle mentality. And for those who have been in business for long enough, or maybe you've heard about it in the past. The whole girl boss, I very much, was on just the CUSP before that, and that sort of mentality drove me, burned me out so heavily, but it got me started, and I want to stress now that hustle is not something that I would advocate for, for anyone, and also for my mentees. If you are listening, I do mentor, mentor a lot of younger kids who are under the age of 18, who are exploring entrepreneurship. Hustle culture is not real. It is not sustainable. Don't do it. Do as I say, not as I do. Thank you. I'm here all week. I started networking around about that same time, about 1415, and because I was younger, but I also looked quite a lot older. I was able to get away with just, you know, turning up to networking events, and I would start networking as a teenager, rocking up with my business cards in a room full of adults, and getting asked who's kidding you fairly consistently. Because I would get there, I would appreciate and I'd start talking to them, and then they would realise, oh, you're Oh, you're in university. No, you're in high school. And they would start looking around, going, whose child are you? And I found at those times, and of course, I would network, like, maybe once every couple of weeks, because, of course, I had to deal with school and running a business and a couple of other things, as well as, as I was networking at the same time, and people did not take me seriously because I was young, I was a woman, and I was focusing on wet business, video for online, people still had the mentality that, oh, so you work for television, oh you work for the movies. And I said, No, all of these platforms want video. They're going to need video over the next however long you need a video on your website. It is the easiest way to communicate information. Video is the way to go. And that took a lot of time of educating a lot of these people in this space. And as you can imagine, it was a very fun combo. And. And it required a lot of effort and time of me both educating, but also just keep turning up and going along. That's keep showing up, keep turning up. Mentality. I found myself networking, having to drop a couple of names here and there, just to get people to actually pay attention to what I had to say and to prove that I belonged there, even when they didn't think I did, I still had to keep proving myself every time I rocked up. And as I was reaching almost a decade of networking, so I was reaching around 2627 I had done a network. I had done a decade of networking, of hustling, of burning myself out again and again, like, to the point where I was doing three networking events a week. I know that this seems like a lot, and at the time, I don't, I didn't realise it, but it's, it's I had a realisation it kind of hit me like a brick wall, or I hit it like a brick wall, that no matter how hard I worked, no matter how hard I hustled, no matter how, no matter what rooms I was in, I was never going to be at the table. I was never going to be taken seriously. Why? Because I was young, because I was a woman and because some people suck, and especially in the Geelong area which I was born and bred, Geelong is very hard to change. We are a lot more accustomed to seeing someone from Melbourne coming down and giving them all the praises and revering them like gods. But if someone's from zo long, or from Ballarat, or from Melton, from, you know, a another country, city, we turn our nose at them. We don't look highly on them. What? Oh, you haven't made it at Melbourne. And again, I promise I'm not going to be grabbing this entire podcast episode, but what changed for me was talking to a wise business associate who laid it out for me, who ultimately said, it's not going to change you being young, you being a woman and people sucking is not going to change. Instead of fighting for their approval, start doing business for you. So I started taking risks that I was too scared to take. I started learning to stop caring about what others thought in my general vicinity. Now, of course, it was great to network with people and talk and not take on board what the trolls, doubters and naysayers would say to me, because they could kindly go fuck themselves. But also they weren't doing what I was doing. They weren't trying to see serve their community. They weren't trying to grow their clients. They weren't even running a business. They were just poo pooing because, of course they can. And when talking with other people in that zo log space, I found a lot of people were just happy to do the status quo because it's for Captain safe, sure, then I need to move to rooms where I will come across people who are ready to take those risks and protecting your peace Well, being yourself is incredibly important, especially here I am wrapping it around now, around growing your personal brand. And that's why I started the video confidence coach, because I spent most of my time in my first business just coaching people to be in front of the camera, to be authentic, to stand there looking at this little piece of plastic or a little piece of glass, and being able to treat that camera like a human being, like I am now, like like we are now. And I spent 80% of my time coaching people, getting them ready, getting the best performance I could out of them. But I wasn't being paid for that. I couldn't support myself with that, so I created the video confidence coach to focus on personal branding, to being yourself but also protecting yourself at the same time. And that is what I want to do when I work with my clients, when I work with my clients on anything that is, you know, marketing coordination, which is a lot of different things, or just mentoring or just coaching in general, or specifically going into things like podcasting and live streams, keeping in mind that those are tools of a larger process. I spend my time working with them to grow their personal brand. But. Making sure not to delve the best way to your personal brand is how you want to present yourself out into the world, and this goes with both the bad and the good. But at the end of the day, you're there to serve your customers. Your customers are first. So even though it is a personal brand as it is, you, the advocacy, the messaging and the work that you can do to together with your clients and customers, because you're doing it for them. It's not just all about you and your ego. It's about supporting them with the power and the knowledge and the messaging and the wisdom that you have now you don't owe everyone your life story and your private details, which may seem a bit counterintuitive when talking about personal branding, but sharing what makes you comfortable on your own terms, because your personal Brand is you, but sharing what you want to ultimately get people on board, let them know, know, like and trust you, so that you can help them grow and be better humans at the end of the day, people outside of your sphere of influence. Now, for those who may not know what I when I say sphere of influence, I usually mean yes. The people that you communicate with and you talk with, and the people that you can influence to do things positively, hopefully not negatively, but outside of that sphere or that niche, people are not going to understand what you're going to do. People don't understand you know, why do you need to advocate for insert your messaging here. Why do you need to even do that? We have plenty of people who do that in the world. Well, it's clearly not making a difference. Brian, so we're going to make a change. And to do that, we need to, like, start thinking about things, start doing the work, staying smart, while also doing our best to put ourselves forward, because if we don't put ourselves forward, no one else is going to and that is why building a personal brand is really important, finding a balance in your business and in your personal brand. Because again, the reason that I work really heavily with business owners and personal brand builders is because they're ultimately, they're the same thing. There's just a slightly different focus, as opposed to purely, like it's all about the profit or it's all about the income. When it comes to your personal brand, there's the reputation side of the work that you do, and that is why I like working in that in this particular nation space for my own bring me back to my own story and journey. I realised I wasn't here just to hustle and burn myself out on a three day, three month time cycle. I wanted to entertain, to educate and to enjoy the process of both building my business, but also building other businesses. And these days, I run my business in a way that feels authentic to me and to the brand that I want to create and the community and clients that I wish to attract. It's still me. I still have to work at it, and it's still fairly flexible enough to be able to suit however I want to present myself out in the world, but I actually enjoy the work that I do. Can you say that the can you say that the same about your own business, and if you don't have a business, can you say that about your own brand, the way that you present yourself out into the world? And if you don't care about that, can I ask why? Maybe you feel like that's not in your control, and at the end of the day, that's okay if it doesn't feel like it's in your control, but if you want to start taking that control, that's what we're here for. Subtle plug there. This may be a poignant thing to say, but my business saved me. I started my business at first to make money to survive. You know, food is very nice to have. It helped helped me get through high school. It helped me make my way through life. It helped me get connections and it started to give me purpose. Now, of course, I went a little bit too far in the linking my business to myself. And when my business failed, I failed, and that took a little bit of while of dissecting that and pulling that apart for my own benefit, but I now have that experience to be able to help and coach other people to not do the same, but it gives me a reason to keep going, because I need something outside of myself to. Me the confidence to keep going, to believe in myself, and even when I felt overwhelmed, to know that I have a community, that I have clients, that I have even potential clients, people that I haven't even met yet who need my help give me that fire and that strut and that striving power to keep going, because it's not just for me. It is for them that it dictates everything that I do in my business and everything that you should do in yours, no matter what type of business you run, be it a small business, be it a personal business, be it a combination of the two, or even if you are a large, multi conglomerate business, you are not doing it for you. You are doing it for your customers, but at the same time, you are allowed to have the business serve you as well. And I'm not talking just profit or keeping a roof over your head or keeping you fed. A business is allowed to give you purpose, and that's a real win for me. I've built a life I love, and I'm this is starting to sound a little Emily, I want to stress that, but I'm surrounding myself with people who support, support and respect me because I have chosen them to be there. It is my choice at the end of the day. I can push people out, keep people in, and I've done that because of the power of my business. I haven't had to work with people that I don't like. I've had to fire a few people. Why? Because it's my own business, and I have the choice at the end of the day, I am not just representing myself when I represent a personal brand, I'm representing everyone that I have worked with in the past and everyone I plan to work with in the future. Because my personal brand is not just an embodiment of me and my values and mission. It is the values and mission and the work that I do that transpires onto my clients work into the stuff that I put my time into. And if that doesn't come across, then I'm not doing my job right. And in the event that you want to do that too, we can always work together. You can always reach out to me, just have a little bit of a chin wag. I like to call them my I've even gotten the name of your product, a one off session where we have a chance to talk a bit more about what even the possibilities are and what options are there for you in whatever situation you're in right now. Because at the end of the day, if you want to start pivoting from maybe working at a nine to five moving into a business, there is a very different mindset that you have to work with, but having that those details ahead of time will give you at least some confidence in your own self and your own abilities. Let's be real. But in saying that building a business is never easy, but it's one of the most empowering things that you can do for yourself, and it was one of the most empowering things, things I could do for myself, having a project, having a scope that is bigger than you, like building a community, supporting friends, family, your clients, it is bigger than You, and it gives you something to strive for, which I wholeheartedly enjoy, whether you're trying to prove something to yourself when you're trying to build a life you want to live, or simply needing something to focus on when life gets messy, business gives you that purpose and power, But only if you let it. A business can be a form of transaction at the end of the day, like anything else we are in the world of capitalism at the end of the day. But if you want to give yourself that purpose and using your business to do that, using your personal brand to do that, the only thing that's stopping you is you, and in closing thoughts today, I want to stress that you don't need to burn yourself out for the approval of others. People don't matter if you do not give them matter. Surround yourself with a supportive community of mentors, of friends, of even mentees, your clients, your supporters, your referrals, your suppliers, people who love you and you the work that you do are the people that you want to keep around, and even people that may be a Little bit hostile to what you do if they still come from a place with a good heart, that's okay. You just might get into fights every now and again and have you. But most importantly, don't be afraid to tell the doubters to fuck it, because at the end of the day. Okay, your brand is you, and if I don't treat my haters nicely, well, too bad, because they certainly don't treat me nicely. So why should I have to treat them nicely? It's not like we have a school principal over us trying to correct our behaviour. Bring it. So thank you everyone for joining me on this little bit of a referential podcast. But I wanted to give you guys a little bit more of a nebulous idea of what, well, business and personal branding means to me, but also what it can mean to you and your journey and your growth on the way of personal branding and branding yourself. You're doing this for yourself as much as you are for anyone else. Stay unapologetically you. Thank you for listening or watching. Unbloring your brand. You can find detailed show notes with tools, offers and episode transcriptions. Just click the first link in the description or go to Vcc dot training slash podcast, get involved and ask me anything about personal branding video strategy, or just a friendly Small Business chat via my email. G'day at Vcc dot training. That is G, D, A, y at V cc, dot training, the video confidence coach would like to acknowledge and pay my respects to the wadawurrung people of the Kulin nation, the traditional custodians of the land on which I record my podcast. I pay my respects to their elders, past and present. I stand with the traditional custodians of these lands and working towards a more equal future. Always was, always will be, Aboriginal land. Look forward to me chatting at you next week, superstars you
The above livestream episode description and transcript were generated together human knowledge + ai.
Who is your host?
Feeling stuck trying to build a personal brand that actually turns heads? Women and non-binary super-stars deserve more than just a cookie-cutter approach to their worries. Zoë Wood the Video Confidence Coach untangles your marketing mayhem, helping you own the camera, craft killer video strategies, and connect with your audience like never before. You’ll leave with the tools to show up, stand out, and smash your goals.
Find out more about how to grow your personal brand with the power of video right here on vcc.training
Smashing Your Marketing Mayhem With Killer Video Strategies 🧡
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*Please note that this podcast was previously called THE "Video Confidence Coachcast" and the "Do Video Podcast" previous to 2025. THANK-YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AS I TRANSITION THE BRAND TO BE MORE CONSISTANT FOR YOUR LISTENING AND WATCHING PLEASURE.